16

Meet Me Under the Clock

I went back to bed not believing her, or pretending not to, because some fights are like that: you’re just not quite ready to forgive.

But then the next day we made up. Everything is always better in the morning, and I found that I couldn’t stay mad at her for long. She was my older sister—my Valentine—and I still loved her.

Meanwhile, it had been a while since I’d heard from Aunt Theo, so I wrote her a letter, thanking her for my new clothes from Bergdorf’s and telling her a bit about my meeting with Leander. I thought it was a terrific letter and full of interesting details, but she never replied.

The days were getting shorter, and even during the daytime the sun was a little more gentle, and my dresses had started to wilt at this point in the summer; the cream-colored sharkskin didn’t hang quite so crisply anymore. When I got back to San Francisco, I’d have Mom take it to the drycleaner. And then the fogs would roll in, and I’d put that dress away, not to be worn until next year.

During the last couple of weeks in New York, I had become a regular at beautiful, bright green Caffe Reggio on MacDougal Street, dining on the sidewalk alone, which made me feel very sophisticated. (Even though the café wasn’t actually that far away from Aunt Theo’s apartment! Still, I liked to pretend that it was and that nobody could find me.) I had moved on from cappuccino to espresso, which tasted thrilling and almost sinister. I picked up a pair of sunglasses at that vintage store in the Village Clover took us to when we first got to New York. They were white with black cat-eye tips, and I loved the way they made me feel when I sat at Caffe Reggio alone. Between the sunglasses and my new haircut and the espresso, I felt like I could do anything, and nothing would ever stop me.

I also noticed that boys were starting to look at me. It wasn’t every man like the way it was with Valentine, but still, there were beginning to be some. No one ever looked at me when we first got to New York, when my hair was mousy and long. I guess I must be growing. I guess I must look older now.

One afternoon when I was at the apartment getting ready to leave, I smelled all these delicious scents drifting down the staircase from the private bath upstairs. And you know something? Suddenly I got a little annoyed, because I figured Val must be up there primping for a date with Julian, and it all came back to me—I mean the way she abandoned me that night after the dinner, standing there on Riverside Drive, her violet eyes going all velvety dark purple in the moonlight. (I forgave her, as you know. But some things you just can’t help but remember.)

Not that I could place the exact scent that was perfuming the whole apartment today. But I just knew it was something soft, and incredibly feminine …

“Oh, hi, Franny! I didn’t know you were home.”

I looked up and saw that it was Clover, walking down the stairs. And I knew at once that it couldn’t have been Val prepping for a date up there—it was Clover herself.

“Oh, Clover,” I exclaimed, “you look absolutely beautiful!”

And she really, really did. You know what had never occurred to me before this summer in New York? That the world isn’t divided into the divinely beautiful women (Valentine, Mom when she was young and looked like Liz Taylor, Aunt Theo) and the rest of us, after all—that all women can be beautiful, as Clover once said to me, after their own fashion.

Today, Clover was standing in a pool of bright sunshine wearing a white cotton dress. Like the dress Val wore to the dinner at the American Academy, it was very simple. But where Val’s dress had left her arms and shoulders bare, Clover’s dress was actually kind of proper and covered up. It had sleeves that hit just above her little gold charm bracelet, showing the pink-golden skin of her wrist. I thought that was just so ladylike. The dress went in at the waist and then out again at the skirt with all of these swishy pleats. It was funny. Even though the dress had sleeves, it looked incredibly cool and summery. The cotton gave the feeling of being almost, but not quite, see-through. Just enough to make you wonder …

A couple of things were different about Clover’s appearance today. For one thing, she had on high heels, which I’d never seen her wear before, except for that time we all got dressed up to go to the Carlyle. And I just had this feeling that women who don’t wear heels regularly don’t bother with them unless something really important is up. I’ve never worn heels yet, but I always think they must just kill your feet!

The other thing I noticed about Clover was her hair. Clover’s hair tends to be—I don’t want to be unkind—untidy. The thing is, her hair isn’t thick like Val’s, it’s fine like a baby’s, so the pieces fly in all these different directions. It’s all right, though; I mean, she’s a sculptress. But today she wore it in a half twist pulled back from her face, and with the crown all fluffed out on top. It had all this volume.

I think she could tell I was staring at her, so she said with a little laugh, “Oh, my hair. What do you think, Franny? It’s called the Soufflé.”

“Like lemon soufflé?” I asked, remembering.

“Apparently that’s what they call this style,” said Clover, touching her hair. Then: “Oh, no! I’m not supposed to touch it. They told me not to dare touch it or brush it out. To keep the volume, see.”

I decided to be kind of sassy and ask her: “What perfume did you end up getting, Clover?”

I thought I was being so sly, and I couldn’t help but be proud of myself.

“Perfume?”

“Weren’t you looking for a new perfume, didn’t you say?”

“Oh, what a good memory you have, Franny! Why—yes. Do you like it?” She put her wrist out to me, and I sniffed it. “It’s vanilla. Or vaniglia, I should say. Isn’t that a gorgeous word?” She shrugged. “It’s Italian.”

“The word or the perfume?”

“Both.” She laughed. “It’s by Santa Maria Novella. They’re this old apothecary from Florence. A favorite of Theo’s.”

“Did she—Theo—used to wear vaniglia?”

“Why, yes, Franny, she did.”

And then Clover sighed and fished an enormous pair of emerald green sunglasses out of her purse. She put on the sunglasses and said: “Well, Franny, I must be going, see you later.”

As she got into the elevator, I came up with a plan in my head. What if I followed her? I couldn’t help it, I was so curious about this meeting of hers. Besides, I had nothing else to do today, and maybe I could do what Aunt Theo told me and “take notes.”

So. Here’s what happened!

Clover got a taxi in front of the building, and I waited until they drove off and got the next one. Then I actually got to say “Follow that cab,” which was very exciting, just like in the movies. I wanted the taxi driver to be all impressed with me, but you know something? I don’t think he was. He just stepped on the pedal and followed Clover’s taxi. I guess New York City taxi drivers are used to seeing just about everything.

Inside the cab, I put on my sunglasses, and they made me feel perfectly invisible. Just the thing for spying on someone!

We passed Fourteenth Street. Was Clover going all the way uptown? But then eventually the taxi pulled over and I got out in front of the entrance to Grand Central.

Meanwhile, I watched Clover sail through some very grand-looking doors.

“Here,” I said, handing the taxi driver money for the fare and getting out of the car. “Keep the change.”

Grand Central! Of course. So this was the famous Grand Central Terminal, which Val and I had seen in so many movies, pretty much whenever a character gets off a train and they want you to know: Here is New York. Dad’s big on trains and he put Grand Central on the list of architectural monuments we should see while we were here, but somehow we’d never gotten around to it, and this was the first time I’d ever been inside it.

Well, here is New York is exactly what you feel when you stand inside Grand Central. It makes you feel like taking a deep breath and standing up straight. It’s just ravishing. The ceilings are high and this wonderful soft, curved shape and the prettiest blue, kind of like a robin’s egg. And there are even stars painted on the ceiling. Stars.

I was glad that Clover had on a white dress, because between that and her bouncy golden hair she was easy to spot in a crowd. She went and walked toward this enormous old gold clock they have. There were a bunch of people waiting there, but I swear I could tell instantly which one of them was waiting for Clover. It just had to be the tall, distinguished older man—no, gentleman—in the blue seersucker suit.

And it was, it was! She walked up to him, looking marvelous, I have to say, in her tippy-tippy heels and green sunglasses. And then guess what? She took the sunglasses off before she kissed him, just lightly, not a kiss-kiss but kind of a sad, lingering kiss, like the whisper—the memory?—of a kiss. Now I have to admit I don’t know much about kissing, not having ever been kissed yet, myself. But I could tell that there must be so many different kinds of kisses in this world. Like for instance, the minute I saw Clover kiss the man in the blue seersucker suit, I knew that the way Valentine and Julian kissed must have been completely different. It was like it had all of these feelings running underneath it, not on top of it, not happy young people in love emotions, like the way Valentine must kiss Julian …

Clover and Digby talked for a bit, standing there underneath the clock. I made out Digby laughing a couple of times. So that told me something, without even having been introduced to him. He was one of those happy, careless, laughing types of men. He had—a phrase popped into my mind, and I liked it—easy charm. But was easy charm to be trusted?

Then Clover and Digby turned and walked down a kind of tunnel, where the floor started to slope. It looked like they were going someplace very intimate and mysterious.

I waited so they wouldn’t see me, and then I walked down the tunnel too. The tiles on the floor were this elegant chocolate brown and everything felt all cozy and old-fashioned. Then they walked into a restaurant—“The Oyster Bar at Grand Central,” the sign said.

I thought that when I grew up, I’d like to have a romantic lunch at the Oyster Bar myself. It seemed just about perfect. There was this cool ceiling with red bricks, and it had those red-and-white-check tablecloths. And I loved the way it was just tucked inside the train station like this.

Inside the restaurant, Digby pulled out Clover’s chair for her, so that was nice, though I still didn’t quite trust him! They read the menu and ordered drinks. White wine, it looked like, when it came. Well, I guess that made sense, with oysters.

Oh, I wished I knew what they were ordering. I looked at the menu posted on the wall outside the door. Oysters had such interesting names: Blue Point, French Kiss, Sister Point, Wellfleet.

Looking at the menu made me realize that I was actually pretty hungry. Then I saw that the restaurant had a bar, kind of like a lunch counter, where people were eating all by themselves. Some of them looked like they were businessmen, with briefcases. Imagine growing up and working in Manhattan and taking your lunch break at the Oyster Bar, just like it was any old thing.

Clover was sitting with her back to the counter and Digby didn’t know who I was. So why not treat myself to lunch at the counter? And if Clover did see me—well, I’d just pretend it was a coincidence. I’d whip off my sunglasses and say, Fancy meeting you here.

I’m not bragging, but the man at the counter seemed to be kind of fascinated with me. Maybe he’s just not used to seeing young girls dine in restaurants alone, but I was getting to be a pro at it this summer. Once you get the hang of something, it’s amazing how much fun it can be.

I couldn’t get alcohol obviously, so I just got seltzer with lime. I like seltzer because it’s so sparkly you can almost pretend it’s champagne if you want.

The man behind the counter said: “Some sunglasses you’ve got on. I take it you’re not a tourist?”

I hesitated before saying: “No.”

I mean, if Val can lie about being a ballerina, I think I can lie about a little thing like not being a tourist. Anyway, what was it Aunt Theo had said? The idea when you traveled was to find a café and pretend that you lived there?

As if the man was reading my mind, he asked, “Are you a French movie star?”

I thought it was better to ignore this comment. Val, for one, would have made a big deal about it. Instead I asked him: “Even though I’m not a tourist, I still want to know—what do you think is the best thing on the menu? I mean”—I thought of the word Clover often used—“what is the most classic thing on the menu?”

“Easy,” he said. “The oyster pan roast.”

“Okay, I’d like one of those, please.”

“You got it.”

I sat back and drank my seltzer and spied on Clover and Digby, who were sitting at a romantic corner table. It was so frustrating, because I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I did notice this: they didn’t order the pan roast. They were eating just plain raw oysters. After a time, their table was heaped with shells. And I saw them polish off a whole bottle of white wine. To think, I didn’t know that anyone even drank at lunch anymore! Mom and Dad never do. They have one glass of wine each, at dinner.

Then—blame it on the wine?—Digby folded his hand over Clover’s. Very close, I noticed. And I imagined the warmth of it flooding over hers.

My oyster pan roast arrived, and oh my God did it smell delicious. It came in this big soup bowl with a piece of toast and on top of the toast there were all of these creamy oysters. I was so happy while I was eating it I almost forgot about spying on Clover and Digby, and that’s how it happened. I mean, that’s how they saw me, when they were finally leaving the restaurant.

“Franny!” I heard Clover exclaim. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Now that was annoying, because I’d been planning on using that phrase in case I got caught, so I just said: “Oh, hello…”

“Franny,” said Clover, “this is an old friend of mine, Digby Mansfield. In town from Rome. Digby, this is Franny Lord. I told you about Franny, remember. She and her sister, Valentine, are here from San Francisco.”

“San Francisco,” said Digby in a wondering, actually kind of hopeless tone, “San Francisco.” And I wondered if he was like Aunt Theo and didn’t “do” the West Coast. He didn’t look like any man on the West Coast I’d ever seen. “But to see you sitting at the Oyster Bar, anyone would take you for a native.”

See, that’s what I meant by Digby having easy charm. I couldn’t tell if he meant it, but he sure made it sound like he did.

Then, as if something had caught his attention, he asked me in this kind of sharp tone of voice, “Are you the one who was born in Paris?”

Why did everyone mistake me for French today? It must have been a really good haircut.

“No,” I said, blushing, for Digby’s eye contact was very intense. “Oh, no, that was my sister, Valentine. I was born in San Francisco.”

“San Francisco again!” exclaimed Digby. “You mustn’t be proud of it, you people. To me it’s a very dull town.”

“I wasn’t—”

I don’t think that Digby was being mean or anything, but I had noticed that the friends I’ve met of Aunt Theo’s all have one thing in common, and that is that they’re very, very opinionated. Oh, well. I guessed this was good training for when I finally met her in person, since obviously she was going to be opinionated too.

“Digby,” said Clover firmly, “leave Franny alone. Franny is a dear. Franny is my favorite,” she added, leaving no doubt that she preferred me over Valentine. There was an awkward silence among the three of us, and then Clover took care of it, turning to Digby and saying, “Well, I guess I should be walking you out. Franny, you stay here, why don’t you?”

Now that I’d been caught, there was just no way I could spy, so I had no idea what was going on when Clover walked him out of the restaurant. It seemed to me like she was gone forever.

When she came back, she had her green sunglasses back on. But when she sat down next to me at the counter, she took them off, and there were tears sparkling on her lashes.

“Oh, Franny!” she said, and laughed, a laugh that was wistful and wild all at once. “Oh, Franny, fancy running into you here, indeed. You know—I think you just saved me from a grave misfortune.” She rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not.

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, I think so actually. Before we ran into you, I’d actually told Digby I would go back to his club with him. Too much wine, and all that!”

“And oysters,” I added.

“Quite right, Franny. Too much wine and far too many oysters. A dangerous combination. Such a silly little lunch, when you think about it! You know that before we met I actually told him, ‘Meet me under the clock!’ Like in the movies. I did kiss him goodbye just now, this really passionate, tragic-feeling kiss. Digby is a good kisser. But, me and this ridiculous hairdo! The Soufflé!” She laughed rather wildly, and I got worried about her. I didn’t quite see, the way Clover could, how things could apparently be both so funny and so sad. “And then there’s—” Clover paused.

“And then there’s what?”

“And there’s the past. That too. You know. The way it just sits there yawning between people.”

I didn’t know, and I think Clover could tell, because she said, “Oh, I forget, in some ways you really are still fourteen. That’s not a bad thing—it’s a very lovely thing. I’ll tell you what! You know what I’d like to do right now? Go to Bemelmans and have some of those nice cheesy bar snacks and erase this whole afternoon.”

Bemelmans was just about my favorite place I’d been in New York, and I couldn’t wait to go back.

“Oh, Clover, can we?” I said.

“Of course I should be going to my studio, but let’s forget about that. Let’s celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“My solitude, of course. Or put it another way: freedom. What I mean is—” Clover paused. “When you’ve earned your solitude and figured out how to enjoy it, as I do, it’s really quite foolish to undo it for nothing. You know, Franny, I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before—not even Theo. He wanted to marry me, once.”

“Digby?”

She nodded. “Yes, when I was twenty. It would have meant dropping out of college and moving to Rome. It was just ridiculous.”

“Is he British?” I asked. I thought I had detected a slight accent.

“Oh, his accent, you mean. Why it’s a fake accent, you know! Not that he hasn’t lived there for years, but still. Theo always used to make fun of it, in fact.”

It was then I decided for good that Digby was not worthy of Clover’s attentions and that she was better off without him, free to go wherever she wanted with her orange suitcase.

We took a cab ride to Bemelmans. On the way uptown, I asked her: “What is Digby’s connection to Aunt Theo, anyway?”

“Oh, they go way, way back. To her college days, I suppose.”

“Was he her boyfriend?”

“No, no, I don’t think so, actually. He was just a—what do you call it?—a kindred spirit?”

“Oh.”

Lucky for us, once we got to Bemelmans Theo’s old beau Warren was there, and Clover and I just talked and talked and ate cheesy bar snacks for the rest of the afternoon. I felt very close to her, as if, through Clover, I had gotten back what I had lost from my sister.