Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  “Yeah, I think so,” said Will.

  “I saw her just last week at the party and she told me she was going to be spending a few days in Patagonia next month, to recharge her batteries,” confided Olivier. Dressed in a royal-blue blazer over a bright green crewneck sweater, with a boldly patterned pocket square, he looked older than Will had thought he was. Had he ever been this close to Olivier’s face, ever had a chance to look at it for this many consecutive seconds? The mouth was so beautifully formed, the teeth so perfect, and there were very fine laugh lines at the corners of the eyes.

  “The malaria party—I know,” said Will. “I was there, too.”

  “Oh, splendid,” laughed Olivier. “Well, I am here to help, if you need.” If the editor was surprised or perturbed by the fact that Will was now operating on his turf, he didn’t let on.

  “Thank you,” said Will, whereupon Olivier slipped away with a ladyish “Ciao-ciao!”

  I bet it’ll be kiss-kiss now, when we run into each other at a party, thought Will.

  “Do I hear the sound of power shifting?” asked Luz, as she poured them each another cup of tea.

  “I guess,” said Will.

  “So this means you’re not gonna take that job that your friend offered you—the guy who has cancer.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so.”

  “I was gonna say.”

  “I mean, it’s sweet of him to try to take care of me like that, but can you imagine? They’re trying to see if I can fly down to Argentina and meet up with Xiomara, to go trekking on a glacier. That—versus sitting in an office.”

  A fifth plate they’d ordered impulsively arrived: special crab Rangoon. To make room for it the server placed one remaining shrimp dumpling on the half-empty scallion pancake plate, took the empty dish, and nudged the remaining dishes into a tighter formation—a move noticed by Luz’s large neighbor with another glance.

  As they tore into the crab, Will told Luz how much his respect for the editor had shot up during the morning’s meeting and how happily surprised he was by this development. It was the first time he’d ever been able to talk with Colin at length, one-on-one, and he could see now why the guy was such a superstar. Colin was not only smart and intuitive; he also had backbone. He worked from conviction, and that was inspiring. Herman, on the other hand, though smart and probably good at keeping the magazine’s monthly schedule on track, was spineless—clearly unused to thinking for himself or standing up for ideas except for those of his superiors. Olivier was hardly better: the remains of an intellectual enshrined in the urn of a glamorous career. Why did editorial talent not necessarily entail, or derive from, qualities like journalistic valor? That it didn’t was one of the biggest shocks that the big city held for a Santa Barbara boy—along with the fact that beautiful people, rich people, and famous people sometimes expect their advantages to dissolve the other criteria by which they might be judged.

  “How is the gentleman doing, anyway—the one with cancer?” asked Luz later, after lunch. They were on the sidewalk, in front of Excellent Dumpling, saying good-bye before running off to their respective afternoons.

  “Ugh—not so good,” said Will, shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” said Luz.

  “He’s selling his place—the beautiful apartment. I don’t think he’s been there even a year. He’s moving upstate.”

  “Really?”

  “He has a place there—a town called Hudson—which is beautiful, too, so . . .”

  “OK.”

  “He plans to spend . . . I guess the rest of his time there.”

  “Do they know how long?”

  “Can’t be long.”

  “Jesus.”

  “That’s why Peter and I are going up next week.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. And Peter’s much more upset about the whole thing than he lets on.”

  “He’s a little uptight emotionally, isn’t he?”

  “Locked-up, is the way I think about it. And, you know, I’m more upset about it than I can let on.”

  “You are?”

  “I knew Jonathan before I knew Peter.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “Remember?”

  “One of your cli-ents.” Luz pronounced the words in her best Locust Valley Lockjaw.

  Will smiled wanly. Far above them, his expression was echoed by the wise-ass smirk of the teenage star of a new cable comedy, her face almost filling an entire billboard mounted on the roof of the dumpling restaurant.

  “He was the last, before I turned away from my life of sin,” he said. “And it’s nice that we’ve been able to stay friends, and that his friend is now my friend, blah-blah-blah. It’s just that . . .”

  “You still haven’t told Peter.”

  “Nope.”

  “But you’re gonna.”

  “I guess.”

  “When the time is right.”

  “Sure.” Not ready to discuss the subject, he was humoring her.

  “And when will that be?”

  “Oh, my little roomie, I don’t know, I don’t know,” whined Will, gathering her in his arms.

  “There’s no shame, sweetie,” she said.

  “I know. And knowing Peter, he may think better of me for it.” Will paused. “May think.”

  They gave each other a kiss and then Will released her. Both were wearing shades they had donned upon stepping out of the restaurant.

  “Need a cab?” said Will.

  “Thanks, sweetie—subway,” she said.

  The day’s slight chill had given way to something almost balmy. All around them, the world looked bright and cheerful—even the piles of recyclables sitting at the curb, bottles and cans bagged in blue plastic, boxes flattened and bundled with packing tape.

  “Spring never gets tired, does it?” said Will. “After all these years.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Luz.

  “Every spring, my mother used to bring tons of wisteria into the house, from this grove we have on the ranch. She would open up the windows, and there would be this amazing breeze between the hills and the ocean, and you took a breath and had this feeling that anything could happen—the future would be amazing. Doesn’t it feel like that today, Luzzy—I mean, except for the wisteria?”

  “So you’re coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’re preparing the big guest room.”

  “We’re in the same room?”

  “You are and you will deal with it.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “I want you guys to become better acquainted.”

  “I didn’t know you cared so much.”

  “I care about all my friends.”

  Jonathan was sitting in a wheelchair in the dining room of the Chelsea apartment, speaking on the phone with Peter. Next to him, on a little Shaker table, with his laptop, a legal pad and pen, and a small plastic bottle of diet peach iced tea, with a straw. Aldebar had positioned him and the table near the room’s great window, where the light would be pleasant for half an hour or so. Except for Jonathan and his little stand of things, the room was empty. The baronial dining table and its ten chairs were gone; the Hepplewhite sideboard, and mirror, and custom-made rug, gone. There and in the living room, everything was gone—the important antiques carted away to the auction house, along with most of the art, and the upholstered pieces and rugs having been given away. Some of the smaller pieces had been sent up to the house in Hudson, along with the Eliott manuscript, some early-twentieth-century first editions, and most of the other books. As Jonathan spoke, the echo of voices floated across the empty floor from the library, where Aldebar was overseeing a team from Christie’s that had arrived to pack up the Asian pots and take them away.

  “And how are you?” said Peter.

  “Ucch,” said Jonathan. His voice was weaker now, and he spoke in shorter sentences, separated by silences that Peter noticed were le
ngthening—the result of fatigue, perhaps, or heightening discretion as to what merited saying, or some new drift of the mind.

  “Working?”

  “Oh, yes. Taking apart the house is a kind of work.”

  “I can imagine. But I meant the film.”

  “That, too.”

  Breaking up the home whose creation had taken him and his designers several months to accomplish made an interesting counterpoint for the film he was trying to finish, he told Peter. And it was hard these days to avoid thinking in terms of failure and success, in these and other tasks. Impending death seemed to insist on assessment, he said, but he had never thought about life in those terms before, and he was tired of both thinking that way and trying to avoid it. Suddenly, he couldn’t help comparing his accomplishments thus far to what he had always hoped he might do. Without the balance of his lifetime, what could remain? Would his name now wind up in history books? The Oscar nomination that might have come in two years, the Oscar itself in five, the party would have taken place in the very room where he was now sitting—all those hopes were gone. And of course the richest accomplishments to come would have been more personal. Every stick of furniture for the apartment had been selected for the setting of great parties with great friends, and perhaps the appearance of a second great love, and a stage of life when unremitting self-acceptance might have outshone even a golden statuette.

  “You’ve done a ton of important work, Jonathan,” said Peter. “It’ll certainly stand the test of time.”

  “Maybe,” said Jonathan. “And I do feel proud that I am getting so much into this film, even if it isn’t everything else I have to say. I mean, I think it’s good and honest. . . .” There was a pause, during which neither of them said anything, then Jonathan continued. “At least I am getting to do this house stuff myself. It’s giving me a chance to go through everything thoughtfully, reverently, advisedly—how does that go . . . ?”

  “Mmm,” said Peter.

  “The Anglican wedding ceremony,” continued Jonathan, rallying a bit more energy. “Anyway, it’s odd, because I find myself doing it as carefully as Connor and I are doing the film. Suddenly, everything needs to be done right. God, how many times in the eighties, Petey, did we come across some dead queen’s belongings being tossed out into the street by the family? Stuff they didn’t even know was valuable: books, clothes, records, invitations to the great parties—historical stuff, remember? Once—I think it was on Bank Street—we literally saw treasure being thrown out the window: this pile of glittery headdresses, like from the Peking Opera. Roberto shouted up, ‘Stop! We’ll come up and take it away!’ A collection some queen had been accumulating for years. . . .”

  Peter said nothing.

  “I dunno. I’ve had a good life. I’ve had some love. I can’t complain. I certainly don’t feel like a failure, only . . . I think I shall fail to stick around for the holidays this year. . . .”

  Silence. Then, from the other end of the line, a sound that Jonathan realized was sobbing.

  “Peter, are you crying? I’m sorry.”

  “No, no . . .”

  “Poor thing! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you upset.”

  “It’s OK, Jon, really. Anything you wanna talk about or not talk about is fine with me.”

  “Well, thank you, darling, but please.”

  “And here I am, in the office,” said Peter, blowing his nose.

  “Look, maybe we can cry our brains out some other time, OK? I just don’t know if I’m up to it today.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Maybe this weekend,” said Jonathan slyly, as if he were talking about a jaunt to the bakery in Hudson that sold Peter’s favorite cheese sticks.

  Peter laughed.

  “Won’t that be fun,” he said.

  “And poor Aldebar!” said Jonathan, sounding a bit more like his old self. “He never knows what to expect. No matter what I do, he’s such a saint. Let’s carry on like normal! Let’s break down and go to pieces! You know, Peter, he has experience with the dying.” Jonathan whispered the last bit, as if it were a secret revelation.

  “Oh?”

  “I didn’t know this before,” said Jonathan. “There are blessings and there are blessings.”

  Peter wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but reassured his friend again that he’d be there for him, no matter what.

  “Oh, wait, hold on . . . ,” said Jonathan.

  Aldebar was showing out the team from Christie’s, the head of which stopped to exchange a few words with Jonathan. She was dressed in a gray suit, her white hair in an elegant chignon. “Highly important . . . the market is strong . . . especially the smaller of the black raku bowls. . . .” In the fading light, the woman stood in front of Jonathan’s chair, holding his hand gently as they spoke, their handshake turning into something like the clasp between a guru and a devotee in a darshan line.

  “I’m back,” he said, after the team had left.

  “Everything OK?” said Peter.

  “You should see this place—it’s totally empty. The paint job still looks fresh.”

  Peter was uptown, sitting at his desk on Madison Avenue, looking absently through his office’s window into the atrium, as they spoke. A twenty-foot-tall inflatable sculpture of a rat with a crown commanded the space—the latest in the series of art projects installed there, this one by a well-known street artist from the U.K. On Peter’s desk were a mug of tea and some deli napkins from the stash Peter kept in the drawer, several of which had been crumpled in his attempt to contain the bawling.

  “That persimmon color is so pretty,” he said.

  “So you guys are driving?”

  “Yup.”

  “Renting a car?”

  “Yeah—and you wanna hear something funny? I had reserved a car—a nice one, like I always do—and then he says how much fun it would be to have a van. ‘In case we find some antiques.’ ”

  “I think that’s a very smart idea.”

  “A van, Jonathan! Vans aren’t very comfortable.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “They’re noisy and rattle-y.”

  “Today’s new vans are much nicer.”

  “Ugh.”

  “But you agreed?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll be fine. You sit higher on the road, you know—much better visibility.”

  “Like you know about driving a van.”

  “I drove one in college. I delivered pizza.”

  Peter snorted. “I’ll see ya Friday, Jon-o,” he said. “We’re leaving at eight, so expect us before lunch.”

  “Drive safely.”

  As he got off the call, Peter noticed that a text had arrived from McCaw. Call me.

  Christ. The man had been requiring more and more face time with Peter, even as their teams continued to work together.

  I need ten minutes of your time, good friend.

  Fuck you, good friend, thought Peter. He had so much on his mind, besides work! And now McCaw, who deserved the certain amount of stroking due any important client, was beginning to make Peter feel captive, with constant consultations about image and messaging. How did the man even have time for this? The conversations were always engaging, but Peter chafed at the evangelical ardor that ran through McCaw like a current, which had begun to feel personal between them—as if McCaw expected the two of them to become best buddies as a result of their work together. And now that McCaw had begun spending more time in New York, with his wife at her family home on the East Side, there had been social invitations—opportunities to get closer that Peter, reluctant to get too chummy with a man his friends still thought dangerous, had so far managed to avoid.

  Does 3 work? McCaw wrote. It was a command, and Peter saw that the hour had nearly arrived. Resignedly, he cleared the crumpled napkins from his desk, opened his laptop, and scrolled down his Skype contact list to the M’s.

  CHAPTER 16

  Happily for Peter, the chat only lasted a few
minutes. McCaw was always prepared with a precise question and quite disciplined about staying focused on it. This time, it was about his upcoming interview with Katie Couric: What should he wear? They settled on a blue blazer and white shirt, with no tie or little American flag pin, but McCaw had been thinking about a cardigan, for a “relaxed” look. Peter advised against.

  “What do you mean, ‘It won’t play’?” said McCaw.

  “I mean it’ll baffle people.”

  “People know what a cardigan is.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. You don’t really wear cardigans, do you?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “So you’re trying to make some kind of Father Knows Best statement. But the very attempt would function as a solvent to your credibility. . . .”

  “A plain cardigan?”

  “Look at the reality. You’re strategizing about wearing one; you’re consulting me about wearing it. You’re probably going to send somebody out to pull a bunch of them for you.”

  McCaw snorted.

  “Hendy, I know you want to sit there with Couric, all cozy and dad-like,” said Peter, “but I guarantee you, the formulation is what will come across.”

  “Despite my words?”

  “It’s a costume. People will see that. TV’s funny that way.”

  “Huh.”

  “It would create one of those subtle disconnects that people aren’t even really aware of. But put two or three of ’em in a row, all acting subliminally, and bang: The words don’t matter.”

  “OK, then.”

  “Tell people what you want them to know, absolutely. But play the subliminals, too. Just as much happens on that level. Ignore it at your peril.”

  McCaw paused to process the information. Then he said: “Once more, I see why you get the big bucks.”