When I came in from rehearsal Nina was sitting at the kitchen table with a letter in her hand. “Out of the blue my mother wants to come visit very soon,” she said.
“Is that good or bad?” I said, pulling up a chair.
“It’s good. Only a bit perplexing. I wasn’t expecting her right now. Where am I going to put her?”
“Wasn’t Freddy going to bunk with Theo?” I said.
“You’re right. He can sleep in Theo’s room. They are actually good pals. Freddy was here for his Christmas vacation this winter and was carrying Theo about all the time he was here. It’s just so curious that she should want to visit now. I wonder if they are planning something. My mother and Freddy are thicker than thieves.”
“Where does Freddy live most of the year?” I asked, getting up to fix myself a tea.
“He lives in New York with his father. He’s in private school there, so he probably spends as much of his vacation time with Graham and me as he does with his father. And my mother is in New York also. He stays with her on the weekends a lot. They’re both baseball nuts, so they go to the games together. My ex-husband is French and couldn’t care less about baseball. I can’t say that I’m exactly fascinated myself.”
Graham came in from the garden. He had been sunbathing. That splendid physique was bearing a black bikini. I have never seen any of his porn movies, but they must be something.
“How do you feel about baseball?” I said to him. “Can I get you a tea?”
“I played baseball in high school. And ‘yes,’” he said. “I played shortstop. I was pretty good. Nothing that would have suggested a professional career. But I liked it. No body contact. Or very little.”
“We all know about you and body contact,” Nina said. “My mother wants to come visit immediately.”
I put his tea down in front of Graham. “You should be in movies,” I said. Why did I say that? I guess I had just been thinking about the porn movies. It’s curious about good-looking men. It’s hard to decide if they’re good-looking to everybody or just good-looking to you. And then, beyond that, are they good-looking to the camera? I’m not experienced enough to know all these things. To be good-looking on stage requires charisma and presence. I would liked to have seen Robert Redford on stage. I wonder if he had presence or was just pretty? And that kind of presence doesn’t really count for much in front of a movie camera probably, which is just looking for bone structure. The little acting I’ve seen Graham do this summer he seemed very calm and at ease in front of the audience. And his features are big enough that for a theater audience he certainly is very handsome. Am I developing a crush on him? That’s all I need.
“I’ve been in movies,” Graham said.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be in them again,” Nina said.
Graham looked at her in a surprised way. “We don’t need money, do we?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nina said.
“Should I excuse myself?” I said.
“Of course not,” Nina said. “Everyone knows Graham was once in the adult entertainment industry. That’s how I met him. I saw him in a video and was determined to have him.”
“It’s not exactly like that. But she did kind of track me down in her own ladylike way. And who could resist her?” he said, leaning across the table and kissing her. It was really nice to see. Two beautiful people who really liked each other better than they liked other people. Or liked themselves. It gave me hope.
“Porn means nothing nowadays,” I said. I guess I had to mean it, having just done those photographs with Steve to put the finger on Cass.
“It doesn’t really pay enough,” Graham said. “Not enough to raise a family on. And your public gets tired of you before your looks go. There’s something about showing your baubles. They’ll wait forever to see them, but once they’ve seen them, the thrill is gone.”
“The promise isn’t what the baubles look like or even feel like, I guess. It’s more that the promise is the final revelation. Hoping to be loved. We confuse that with sexual paraphernalia,” I said. Where did that come from? Both Nina and Graham looked at me.
Then I noticed another letter on the table. It was for me. I picked it up and turned it over. It was from my mother.
“Do you think the stars are in some kind of weird confluence?” I said. “Here’s a letter from my mother. What do you want to bet she’s planning a visit?” Which was exactly the case.
In the letter, my mom said she had been thinking about my stage career and wanted to see me in something serious. Since I was doing Tea and Sympathy, that seemed sufficiently serious. She and my stepfather were planning to come to France at the end of August to see me. I had just seen them in New York in June so it isn’t as though we are estranged or anything. My mother was my only parent until I was sixteen. She and my birth father were divorced when I was very little. So we are very close.
I was brought up in Miami Beach. She works in real estate and is quite successful at it. She was a model and is originally from Italy. She has almost no trace of accent, and I always tell her she is more American than I am. She was born to be a modern woman. She’s been waiting all her life for the twenty-first century to get here.
“So now we have your mother and my mother both coming,” I said. “She’s coming with my stepfather. I’ll go over to the hotel and book them rooms. When your family comes, I can move over to the Abbey and stay with Steve.”
“That won’t be necessary, I’m sure,” Nina said. “We’re not using the blue bedroom. Theo is in his baby bed in the pink bedroom. Mother can go in the blue, Fluffy into the pink with Theo, and you’re up in the tower bedroom.”
“We’ll see. I think there’s going to be quite a welter of relatives here,” I said.
Before we go any further I have to tell you something about my family background. I guess to put it boldly, my mother is presently married to my first lover. She doesn’t know, and I think she should never know. And perhaps I make it sound more extreme than it really is . . . was . . . whatever. My stepfather’s name is Glenn Elliott Paul. My mother and I met him at approximately the same time in Miami Beach. This is the part you won’t like. I was sixteen at the time. My personal theory is that if you’re big enough you’re old enough. Historically, many people were married and having children in their teens. If the average lifespan was 35, my God. You had to get going before your life was three quarters over.
So Glenn Elliott was boinking both of us there for a while. Sounds seedy, doesn’t it? But Mom never knew, and finally, Glenn wasn’t going to do anything about me. How could he? What were we supposed to do? So I went off to college in New York, and my mother and he got married. It really only works because my mother is such a great person. She’s got the picture on Glenn, who is very handsome, very intelligent, and also sexually a wild man. Or was. I have to believe that he’s faithful to Mom, and if he isn’t, nobody knows anything.
Only my friend Masha knew about Glenn Elliott and me getting it on, and she’s not going to spill the beans to anyone. In many ways, Glenn is just one of those beautiful people who are up for grabs. If someone really loves him over a long period of time, I believe it finally sinks in that the relationship is worth hanging onto. If anyone can manage him it’s my mom. I certainly couldn’t have as a teenager. I’m not sure I can handle that kind of thing even now with Steve. And I’m not sure I love Steve as much as I loved Glenn. That was heavy. At sixteen it would be, of course.
So, I’ve seen a lot of my mother and Glenn Elliott since then but only for short periods of time. They have come to New York. I’ve gone to Miami. So it’s worked out. They are having a high old time with real estate in Miami. I have been doing okay with my acting career. I’ve had boyfriends but haven’t been in love with anyone, truly, since then. Maybe that’s why I’d like something to happen with Steve so that I could feel I was really out of circulation. Anyway, they’re coming. All the time I’m with them I keep my fingers crossed that nothing will explode in my face and mess up everybody’s lives.
Do you follow me here? I’m not for complete truth and reality. Reality, for me, is what you think is happening. Additional information might ruin your view of your own life, and to what end? When I heard that Tallulah Bankhead was caught in bed with someone and she threw back her hair and said, “It’s all a lie!” I understood the story perfectly.
When I came in from rehearsal at the end of the evening, Graham and Nina were sitting in the lavender living room as though they were waiting for me. They were.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Nina said. “Fluffy got a phone call tonight after you left. His new girlfriend is arriving. They will be sharing a bed. Her name is Mitzi.”
“I don’t think you can hold that against her,” I said. “Lucky heterosexuals. Sonny has a girlfriend, and you pop them right into bed together. Sonny has a boyfriend, and you throw the two of them out of the house and tell them never to darken your door again.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” Nina protested.
“No. But the world in principle would,” Graham said. “Think how much the world has changed. Fifty years ago, men shared beds and no one thought a thing about it. Lincoln shared a bed with his law partner for years.”
“Now everyone thinks he was gay,” I said.
Graham ignored me. “And if an unmarried man and woman shared a bed, she was a whore. Now she’s merely modern. And two men in a bed is looked upon as deeply sinful. Or illegal. Or something.”
“And Mitzi is black,” Nina said.
“I love it,” I said. “I’ll bet she’s gorgeous. Some great, strapping princess who is going to make the rest of us look sick. I can’t wait until she gets here. This town needs an African princess. How tall is Freddy?”
“About six feet,” Nina said. “She probably is some great raging beauty. He wants to bring her over here and show her off. I only tell you this because I think it would be a bad idea to put them in the pink room with Theo. If they’re going to be cavorting about in bed I don’t want Theo to be standing in his crib being traumatized. Freud was always writing about that. So I thought you could go in the pink room. Theo is a heavy sleeper. You wouldn’t wake him up if you came in late.”
“I’m going to stay with Steve. Our relationship probably needs this little intimacy test anyway. We can wake up in the night and run lines from The Red Mill.”
“How’s that going anyway?” Graham said.
“It is the dumbest show. You are so lucky you’re not in it. How are you doing with your lines for Tea and Sympathy? I haven’t had a minute to even look at them.”
The phone rang. Graham picked it up. He said in English, “Yes, this is Ralph.” That was a name I never heard before. “Oh, Darla. It’s you. Where are you?” Then, “It’s eleven o’clock at night here. Yes, there’s a six-hour difference in time. Yes, the sun is coming from over here.”
There was a squawking sound that Nina and I could quite clearly hear. Graham said, “Darla, you are always welcome here. I’m not sure that we can put you up, but we can certainly find you some inexpensive lodgings. Lodgings. A room. Would you be coming alone? When?” More squawking. “Call me back when you know. I’d love to see you. How did you get this number?” More squawking. “I can’t imagine how they had this number. For that matter, I can’t imagine how you got their number. We’ll have a lot to talk about when you get here.” He hung up. Without sitting down he turned to us and said, “My cousin. Darla. She looks just like me. Calling from Vermont. She wants to come for a visit. What’s going on?” He looked a little stunned. I’d never seen that expression on the face of the calm, cool, and collected Graham. Do you know that word “discomfited”? He looked discomfited. The prospect of seeing his cousin didn’t seem to suit him entirely.
“What’s going on may partially be some strange confluence of the stars,” Nina said. “Or it may just be that Loire Valley hoodoo. We are living in the most beautiful part of France. It is summer. Everyone wants to come visit. The lure of the châteaux country. I think it’s probably more than fabulous us. I think this calls for a drink. Let’s open a bottle of wine.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“You said you were Ralph,” I said.
“Yes. That’s my real, real name. Graham is my movie name. I like it better,” he said.
Graham sat back down. “This is more than unusual. Darla could be my twin. She’s a lesbian. She lives in Vermont and is a riding instructor in some big commercial stable there. She wanted to be me and was always a little pissed off that I got the penis. Nina knows all about her.” Nina reentered from the kitchen with a tray holding a bottle and three glasses. There was a bottle opener, too. She put the tray down on the table beside Graham and handed him a bottle opener.
“I don’t want to start any premature contractions by opening a bottle locked between my knees,” she said.
“I love my wife,” Graham said, twisting the opener into the cork of the bottle. “What other hostess would present a bottle of wine with that statement?”
“It’s true!” Nina protested, sitting down on the settee. “You can feel the muscles in your groin tightening when you pull.”
“Stop. You’re making us all nervous that we’ll have to be assisting at a birth before dawn. Like that scene in Gone With the Wind,” Graham said.
“I think the lights have to go out and there has to be an enemy attack before that can realistically happen,” I said.
Nina said, “What was that about her finding your number here?”
Graham handed us our glasses. “She got it from Eagle Productions in Hollywood.”
Nina sat up. “That’s bizarre.”
“What is Eagle Productions?” I asked.
“For a gay guy you don’t really mingle all that much in the gay world, do you, Hugo?” Graham said. “Eagle is the biggest porn film production company. I used to work for them. I guess we can be open about it, can’t we?” He looked at Nina.
“Fine by me,” she said. “This wine is good. Who’s it from?”
“Monsieur Bonnet. Over in Thenay. It’s a Gamay. They don’t ship that out very much.”
“Very good. So your cousin called Eagle Productions, and they had this number. They must be keeping tabs on you. Hoping you’ll make a comeback.”
“Fat chance. All the same, it’s curious. It makes me uneasy that someone is keeping track of us from that period in our lives,” Graham said.
“There are probably many people in the world who idolize you, Graham, and you don’t even know they exist,” I said.
“I can never imagine anyone thinking of me or speaking of me in my absence,” he said.
Nina said, “I’m looking forward to meeting your cousin, particularly if she looks like you. She’ll be quite a hit at certain bars I know of in Paris.”
“Even in Blois,” I said.
“You’re kidding. There’s a gay bar in Blois?” Nina said.
“There’s probably one here in Cornichons,” Graham said. “We just haven’t run across it.”
I felt guilty when I thought of meeting Cass Brewster in the café that night with Steve. “Toca found it. He would. I don’t think it’s a full-time gay bar. It’s just where gay men go on a weekend to make rendezvous. Although if ten percent of the population is gay, Blois is certainly big enough to support a gay bar. If they would all just fess up and step out,” I said.
I rambled on. It must have been the wine. “I don’t know anything about your family, Graham. Where are you from?”
“What would you say about my family background, Nina?” he said. “Not exactly redneck. Maybe pinkneck. An army family. My parents weren’t uneducated. Brought up all over the world. Wound up on a farm in Iowa. It was my idea to go to college. They were unwilling to contribute any money so I worked my way. Didn’t finish. Studied acting. Went to Hollywood. Did some porn. Really as kind of a protest against Hollywood. The big commercial films were a lot more pornographic than those little sex films in my opinion. I think suggestiveness is a lot dirtier than the sex act. I think doing it is a lot healthier than making smutty remarks about it.”
“When did you see your parents last?” I said.
“Not since I left for college. I’ve never seen them since. We really had nothing more to say to each other. I helped Darla through college, and we’ve kept in touch, kind of. But I haven’t seen her for ten years. God knows what she looks like. Perhaps she’s all run to fat.”
“Now you’ve got my appetite up for seeing her,” Nina said. “When is she going to show up?”
“She’s calling me back. In about ten days, I guess.”
“This is going to be a busy end of season for you,” I said. “I’m going to my little trundle bed in the attic while I still can.”
Cornichons is really a tiny town. So when you run into people you tend to run into them in the same places all the time. Which is to say as I was leaping up from a table at the café to make a dash for my first class at the Abbey, I bumped right into Nina and an older woman wearing extremely chic navy blue linen and beautiful jewelry. She was blond and tall and looked something like a very elegant afghan hound. I mean that in the most complimentary way.
They came out of the narrow side street that led down to the Hôtel de L’Abbaye just as I was leaving my table so I had to say hello, even though I was going to be late for my first class.
“Edwina, this is Hugo Bianchi, my friend, the occupant of my guest room and my adored one. He’s a very talented young actor.”
Edwina held out her long, elegant fingers to me. Her handshake was not limp but strong and bony. “Edwina Grey. You must be special. Nina never raves about anyone.”
“Hugo, Edwina is all part of the great turning tide of life that is swirling and whirling toward us,” Nina said. “The phone rang this morning, and it was Edwina at the hotel. I worked for her in New York, and she was very instrumental in bringing Graham and I together. Once you know Edwina, your opinion of me will skid entirely as I am nothing more than a pale copy of her.”
Edwina did not seem to mind all this fulsome praise of her. She stood with her lids somewhat lowered against the morning sun. She was expertly made up but was certainly ten years older than Nina. Fifty-three or four? Great legs. Strange hazel-yellow eyes. She seemed used to being adored without it meaning very much to her.
“Is it your first visit here?” I said.
“I was born in Blois,” she said. She did not have a hint of an accent, French or English. She spoke with that mid-Atlantic accent of people who are of international backgrounds. No accent and no slang. You hear it often in New York.
She obviously wasn’t planning to explain further.
“So you must know Cornichons?” I said.
“Never in so animated a state,” Edwina said. “My memory of passing through here was that it was extremely sleepy. The Abbey was closed. Everyone was moving to Paris at the time. I was a teenager. We were still recovering from the war. My parents had a black Peugeot.” She spotted Nina and Graham’s car standing by the Abbey gates. “Very much like that car. It could almost be the same one.”
“That’s my car. Mine and Graham’s,” Nina said. “We bought it from a farmer near here who had never left it outdoors overnight in all its life with him. After we bought it, he used to come by in the evening and look at it. You could see it broke his heart that we left it in the street overnight. I felt guilty, but there’s a limit to how much you can care for a car, with all the other things one has to care about.”
“I must run. I have a class to teach,” I said. And shaking Nina’s friend’s hand and kissing Nina on both cheeks, I left them. I could hear Edwina say as I walked away, “So beautiful. It’s a pleasure to look at him.” I hoped I could develop that lady’s casual disregard of other people’s compliments. I don’t want to become a vain asshole.
Nina called after me, “Hugo, if you’re free on Sunday perhaps you’ll do some château visiting with Edwina and us?”
“Château visiting?” I said. “But your friend is French.”
Edwina said, “I’ve never seen one. Not even the Château of Blois. French people don’t visit châteaux. I’m one of those rare ones that wants to.”
“Then it should be Chenonceaux,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful. You will fit right in there.” And I made a dash for the Abbey gates.