Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  “Are you using product?” said Peter.

  “I figured I could use all the help I can get.”

  “It’s just dinner.”

  “You sure it’s black tie?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “OK,” sighed Will.

  “Don’t sound so miserable,” said Peter. “It’ll be fun. Money! Power! Hors d’oeuvres!”

  “Not used to such stuff.”

  “I thought your parents were rich,” said Peter, happy with the opportunity to raggle Will’s bugaboo about money and privilege. “Your dad must have rocked a tuxedo.”

  “He did.”

  “There ya go. Mine never did.”

  Peter liked the idea of donning a standard tuxedo again, after so many years of “creative black tie.” When he arrived in New York, there were plenty of so-called “formal” events to attend—openings, galas, private dinner parties hosted by gentlefolk who took the old ways seriously—and he alternated between two tuxedos, back then: the cheap one he’d picked up in college and the expensive one he knew he needed the minute he arrived in New York. He was attending so many black tie events at the time, in fact, that he kept a diary of them. The name and date of each one was lovingly inscribed on a fresh page of a little Japanese book made of handmade paper, that he entitled Formal Evenings. He knew it was a little precious to keep such a book, but nowadays he was grateful he had done so, for the thing afforded a lovely way to look back on the best-planned birthday and anniversary parties of those long-gone days, as well as events like the Metropolitan Opera’s centennial gala, the Broadway opening of As Is; a reception for the Cullberg Ballet in the presence of the King and Queen of Sweden....

  A butler answered the door, an older man whose proprietary manner made it clear he was family staff, not hired help. He greeted Peter and Will with routine warmth, while off to the side two men whom Peter took to be security stood by with earpieces. The butler showed Peter and Will to the bottom of a sweeping grand stairway, at the top of which, on the house’s museum-scale main floor, Jenna McCaw was greeting guests.

  She was an overprocessed-looking woman in her late thirties, in a violet cocktail dress and photo-ready hairdo—a former lobbyist for the health insurance industry, Peter knew, who’d given up her career when she married McCaw. Her carriage was a little businesswoman, a little beauty queen. She smiled robotically when she spotted Peter and Will and invited them into the conversation she was having with a white-haired man and woman.

  “You must be Peter,” said Jenna. “Welcome.” Enveloping her was the spicy-floral scent of an exclusive department store. Peter introduced Will, and Jenna introduced the Brinns—Maddy and Don. After a little exchange about the traffic, Jenna continued talking with the Brinns about trekking in Tibet, and Peter and Will did their best to join in, though neither had ever been to Tibet, and none of the tiny observations either tried to add about regional culture or politics seemed particularly welcome. Instead, the conversation was essentially a comparison of high-end tourist experiences, Jenna and McCaw having done the same luxury trek in Tibet that the Brinns had done the year before, with the same “responsible tourism” agency.

  “Isn’t Raj the best?” said Jenna. She was wearing a tennis bracelet of pretty blue sapphires.

  “We were terribly lucky to get him,” said Maddy. “He had a cancellation, or we wouldn’t have.”

  “The guide,” said Don, for the benefit of Peter and Will. “Highly sought after. Cambridge degree.”

  “And he cooks!” said Jenna.

  “Right there on the trail!” said Maddy. “Though, of course, he’s got all that help.”

  “Bearers,” said Don.

  “Did he make you that Malaysian thing, with the basil . . . ?”

  If Jenna or the Brinns were flummoxed by Peter’s choice of date, they didn’t show it. Jenna’s hostess skills were generic, but the small talk she generated was welcome, nonetheless. Scanning the room and seeing nothing but boy-girl couples of formally attired strangers, Peter knew the evening was going to require some effort.

  As the Brinns moved off, Jenna brightly introduced the Sandersons, who had just arrived—Sunny and Bill. The ladies exchanged a few words about Sunny’s spectacular pearl-and-diamond earrings—her mother’s Bulgari—then Jenna excused herself.

  Neither Sunny nor Bill, who was a banker, had heard of Peter’s agency or any of the big campaigns he’d created. The name of the energy drink for which he’d done the global campaign drew a blank.

  “We stick to water,” said Bill.

  “Ah,” said Peter.

  “Huge business, energy drinks,” said Bill.

  “Well, yes . . . ,” said Peter, sorting through a hundred ways to respond to such a statement. Before he could choose one, Will piped up.

  “Amazing house, isn’t it?” said Will. Beyond an archway flanked by stately pairs of Ionic columns, at the front of the house, lay the main salon, which was decorated with family antiques in a Federal style that looked splendid enough for a public room of the White House. Some of the ladies were sitting, but most guests stood as waiters circulated with trays of hors d’oeuvres and champagne. Like the rest of the house, the salon featured pilasters and moldings whose details were picked out delicately in gold leaf. A pair of ancestor portraits dominated the fireplace wall. Opposite the salon, at the back of the house, through another double-columned archway, was the dining room, where skirted round tables had been set up with china, crystal, silver, and flowers.

  “Tremendous asset,” said Bill. “It’s good they’ve been able to hang on to it.”

  “Carrère and Hastings, I gather,” said Peter.

  “Really,” said Sunny, abstractly.

  “Henderson told me,” said Peter. “And as we’re standing here, I’m wondering if that’s Apollo and Diana.” He directed their attention to the sculptural frieze above the arch.

  The Sandersons peered for a moment, but were relieved—Bill was, clearly—when a waiter appeared with a tray of champagne.

  “ ‘Apollo and Diana’?” said Will, after they and the Sandersons excused each other politely.

  “What are we supposed to talk about?” said Peter. “Interest rates?”

  Will made a face. “I suppose she doesn’t have to talk at all,” he said, “as the designated earring-wearer.”

  It was unusual for Peter to feel so alienated at a party. Even at the toniest gatherings he found plenty of people of accomplishment or achievement to talk with, regardless of how much money they happened to have. But with a chuckle, he recognized something chilling at McCaw’s that he’d first encountered long ago, a social phenomenon that can happen en masse only in a financial capital like New York: The party was one of those gatherings where the guests were only rich, with no particular distinctions or strengths beyond the talent to hold on to their own wealth. By and large, it was a crowd that gave no real service to humanity or contribution to culture—though sometimes one of the ladies in such a crowd would have a pretension around “personal expression,” which she felt she could share with a fellow creative like Peter. Now, when someone at a party like this started talking about fulfillment in her avocation of sculpture, painting, or dance, Peter winced internally. Too often, in earlier days, he would follow up such a conversation with attendance at an exhibition or concert whose success, he discovered, could be glimpsed only through the lens of vanity. A question would invariably thus arise in his mind, which was, of course, never to be put to the lady involved: “Wouldn’t the first task of someone who wants to be an artist be to get into some kind of critical stance with her own comfortable means?”

  Simple experience was what made Peter so sure of this view of McCaw’s guests. Sadly, after years of socializing, he knew what to look for: chiefly, a lack of curiosity about ideas that mattered, which seemed to impede the intake of new information and probably expressed the interlocutor’s subconscious belief that he or she already possessed all the important information there was. I
n a sense, these were the people whose lifestyle McCaw meant to preserve, even as that task was bolstered by the sale of a larger myth about “the American community” to anyone who’d buy it—which was, of course, Peter’s assignment.

  “Is she a real countess?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘real.’ ”

  “They’re all so . . . common.”

  “Can I tell you? I watch that show all the time—secretly, in the den, with the door closed, so Milton doesn’t hear.”

  Peter and Will were chatting about reality TV with the Gladstones, a lawyer and his wife, when McCaw finally found them.

  “Honey, Milton, I see you’ve met our resident genius,” boomed McCaw. “Glad you could come, buddy.” McCaw shook Peter’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hendy, this is Will,” said Peter.

  “Will, welcome,” said McCaw, shaking Will’s hand.

  “Terrific party,” said Will.

  “It’s all Jenna,” said McCaw, beaming.

  “She’s taking good care of us,” said Peter.

  “Great,” said McCaw. “We’ll talk later?”

  The next forty minutes were a froth of summer plans and redecoration projects, laced with champagne and Pellegrino. Unlike a lot of the other parties that both Peter and Will attended, there wasn’t a lot of aggressive circulating, let alone working the room. This was a more ceremonious gathering. The only other folks who didn’t seem to fit the mold—despite his black-on-black, foliate-patterned dinner jacket and her sleek aubergine cocktail dress and glamorous heels—were a young, good-looking man with long, wavy hair and a ready smile, and a striking black woman who might easily have been a model. They giggled a lot and touched each other easily, though not necessarily in a romantic way. People seemed to like talking with them. Were they a couple? Upper East Siders? Peter thought he might have seen the man before—maybe on the New York VIP-scape—but he wasn’t sure, that type being all too common: young, attractive, rich, straight. Then Jenna announced dinner.

  As large and graciously proportioned as the main salon, the dining room was set with four tables of eight. The windows were hung with striped damask, and the walls featured nineteenth-century landscapes in gilt frames. The butler helped everyone find their places, which were marked with cards clipped to holders in the shape of tiny golden hands. Waiters stood by with the first wine.

  Peter and Will had hoped to be at the same table as Jenna—“I’m dying to know what she’s all about,” whispered Will conspiratorially, as they walked into the dining room—but instead they got McCaw, which Peter immediately grasped as an honor. Also at their table were Mary, a middle-aged, little-girlish retail heiress, and Nancy, her best friend and, apparently, sidekick; Reynold, a well-known real estate developer, and Peyton, his much-younger second wife; and Fiona, the black woman in the aubergine dress, who turned out to be a London-born and -based attorney working for an American firm.

  Peter asked Fiona, who was on his left, whether she had an apartment in New York.

  “Oh, I stay right here,” said Fiona.

  “On Fifth?” said Peter.

  “No, no—in this house,” she laughed, without further explanation, since everyone at the table was burbling with the small talk of sitting down. Nor was it clear why Fiona wasn’t seated at the same table as her long-haired friend—yet there was an art to seating arrangements, Peter knew, and Jenna and/or McCaw would have their reasons for populating each table as indicated by the golden hands.

  On Peter’s right was Mary, who seemed meek enough at first, in her plain white dress and modest little haircut, and then she spoke, at which point she displayed the gumption of a five-star general.

  “What happened to the senator?” she said.

  “Last-minute trip,” said McCaw.

  “Bullshit,” said Mary. “Excuse my French. He’s afraid of getting too close.”

  “He sent his apologies,” said McCaw, “and promised to come to the next one.”

  “This is the thing,” said Mary, tapping the table forcefully with a beautifully manicured forefinger. “We need to get them to come out in the open.”

  “Agreed,” said McCaw.

  “He’ll come around,” said Reynold, after double-checking whom they were talking about.

  “That’s why we’re so lucky to have Peter with us,” continued Mary, suddenly purring and favoring Peter with a big smile. “Helping us direct the conversation. . . .”

  “Hear, hear,” said Reynold.

  Peter was surprised. He had met neither Mary nor Reynold before, and wouldn’t have imagined either knowing of him. McCaw had obviously been talking about their work. All Peter could think of to say was “Thanks.”

  They talked of governors and senators, as the appetizer and main course were served and cleared, and of policies and constituencies—with McCaw or Mary generally taking the lead during the moments when the table was conversing as a group. Peter was asked to say something about the way he thought the “national conversation evolved,” and he rattled off a few observations that McCaw had already heard, but that worked well over dinner. Predictably, most of the thoughts expressed at the table were conservative, and though McCaw’s and Mary’s thoughts were anything but unintelligent, those of the others sometimes lapsed into sketchiness. Peyton didn’t feel immigration was such a good idea—immigration of any sort, legal or illegal. Nancy wanted the Internet to be more strictly policed, because it could serve as a breeding ground for terrorism. Reynold was tired of being taxed unfairly. Peter thought he might have noticed Fiona reacting with private amusement to a particularly fatuous remark Peyton made about the Islamization of British society. Fiona, in fact, seemed to be keeping a lot of thoughts to herself, much as Peter and Will were doing, as dinner rolled on.

  At one point, Fiona mentioned to Peter that she was married to Jenna’s brother Miller, and pointed across the room to the young long-haired man, who was seated at Jenna’s table. Peter thought, Oh, OK.

  “I’ll introduce you guys later,” said Fiona. “I think you’ll like each other.”

  Peter wanted instantly to tell Will what he’d discovered, but Will, on the other side of the table, was engrossed in a conversation with Nancy about growing up in Santa Barbara. As for the person McCaw supposedly wanted Peter to meet, there was no one around who seemed possible, so Peter put the matter out of his mind.

  Island Creek oysters, Wagyu beef, Stone Barn asparagus, fleur du sel, Lampong pepper. It was the kind of evening where the specific name of every food eventually got mentioned—not necessarily by the host, who was too preoccupied to do so, but by the guests and, when asked, the well-informed servers.

  As the table was being set for dessert, one of the servers, when asked, said she was a native of Colombia. After she’d gone, Peyton said something about the number of “Hispanics” working in food service in New York. Then she admitted, with the comic inflection of a sitcom punch line, that “Latina” might be the right term. Some at the table found this amusing.

  “Political correctness! Where did it ever come from?” said McCaw. “Why has it become such a vernacular?”

  “Good question,” said Nancy.

  “Well, think about it,” said Will, with another sip of the Pomerol that had been served with the beef, his second glass, though the dessert wine, a nice Riesling, had also been poured. “Think about how people felt in the sixties, when they passed civil rights. They must have felt like they woke up from a dream. You know—‘We have television and satellites, but how is it until now that we’ve lived with the social norms of ancient Rome?’ They must have felt like, ‘Wow, if we’ve been this stupid, what else are we doing wrong?’ ”

  “Interesting,” said Reynold.

  “Huh,” said Peyton, pondering.

  “We have indeed come to respect each other much more, over the years,” said McCaw. “Well said, Will.”

  Mary patted McCaw’s hand.

  “I wish more people would open their
minds when they listen to you,” she said. “I wish they understood that you get that certain things are simple and certain things are not. Of course, it sounds so boring, if you say it like that. . . .”

  “Not boring,” said McCaw. “Just hard to remember.” He said he didn’t like being misunderstood, himself—it hurt, personally—but that the larger point was the decline of American intelligence. People were no longer being taught how to think. Mary nodded vigorously, and added that this might be an opportunity.

  “What about acknowledging this decline frankly, perhaps framing it as a public health issue?” she said. “Peter?”

  Peter was now on the spot, or on duty.

  “Well, there’s always new intelligence, new kinds of thinking,” he began. “I mean, in a certain way, Lady Gaga means that music is over, right? But, in another way, our whole idea of entertainment and even the arts is shifting.”

  There was a titter at the mention of Lady Gaga, but Peter saw that Mary and the others were trying to parse what he’d said—which made him wish instantly that he’d said something smarter and not so dinner-partyish. Each of the other tables, too, he noticed, was in the midst of animated conversation; the room was swimming in chatter and laughter. Was anyone else talking about Lady Gaga? And why was there no music? Had Jenna or McCaw specifically opted for no music?

  Suddenly, Will, who had been listening quietly to the conversation, perked up.

  “Why not just give people the context with the message?” he said. “What about saying something like, ‘Simplify when possible, complicate when necessary’?” That kinda says it, right? ”

  The line, as it hung in the air, seemed to command attention. It happened to be a line that Will had written for the Assetou article, months before, to describe the singer’s approach to composition in her music and artwork.

  “Simplify when possible, complicate when necessary,” said Mary.

  McCaw, after considering the line for a second, repeated it, too.

  “I love it,” squawked Mary.

  “It’s pretty good,” said McCaw.

  “Very deep,” said Peyton.