IT HAD BEEN raining on and off for hours when Ian showed up and then the skies cleared, if only for a little while. Alix had unpacked and tried on her new dress for the wedding and taken it off. She’d put her jeans and sweater back on and looked out the window. It was a gigantic window and you could see the suddenly visible sunlight being thrown down in big fistfuls between the clouds, spilling out onto the extensive and still-wet grounds. She took in the view as if she were draining a glass and then stepped out of the room.
Again, her thoughts turned to Ian. Ian had been Alix’s best friend since their first week at college nearly twenty years ago. Ian had helped her home from their first party, the one with the nitrous tanks in the apartment at the Roosevelt. Ian had stayed with her until all hours at the Castle Bar, the ripped leatherette seat of the banquette wet with sweat on her miniskirted thighs. Ian now lives across the lobby from her in the Village in the building her father owns, her family having given Ian a rent-stabilized one-bedroom that had made it possible for him to stick it out in the theater world until he had had a hit. Ian brings her stories and confidences at the end of a hard day, handing them to her like the detritus from a little boy’s pocket. She knows Ian keeps secrets from her, but the ones he shares are worth more to her than anything. She knows she is in love with Ian, but she knows that part of why she loves him is that he will never love her back in the same way.
The long hall in the grand house led to a wide staircase, and Alix followed a band of dusty light along the banister toward the portrait-lined gallery. Just then Ian rounded the corner below, entering from the marble-checkerboard-floored foyer into the gallery, and headed up the staircase. They met halfway on the wide, shallow, green-carpeted steps. Ian stood before Alix and swayed slightly. His wet hair dripped onto his shirt collar. His gray eyes were gentle and clear. He held a piece of luggage in one hand. Are you going to give me a hug or should I just get the hell out of your way?
Do I look that bad? said Alix.
Not bad, just distressed. But I’m here now. Ian smiled. You don’t believe it yet, do you?
He put down his bag.
Alix looked at his smile. Very familiar, very comforting, an embrace. She tilted her head at him. Really? Do I look okay?
Ian eyed her up and down. Refined. Aware. Authentic in a cool way. No one else would guess you were having a terrible time.
Thank you, I think.
Can you show me to my room?
Where’s the guy? The headset?
I told him I’d find it myself.
Which means I will find it for you. Follow me, she said.
As they walked, she said, I’m sorry I asked you to come to this.
Why? I love it! I feel like I’m in a movie.
Miranda is thinking of calling it off.
I don’t care. I’m not here for the nuptials. Just to be here for you.
You are a true friend. Really.
They crossed a threshold. Ian looked around the grand bedroom. This’ll do, he said.
They sat side by side on the brocade bedspread and gazed though the room’s original wavy-paned-glass window together, across undulating gardens and lawns.
Ian remembers sitting so many years ago in college on the lawn outside the library with Alix, the green grass stretching out around them, carpeting their world. The force of that memory sweeps through him for an instant. He feels an ache, a longing to be eighteen. But if I were eighteen I wouldn’t be here, he reasons. And for now that is enough.
Patrizia here? asked Ian.
Not yet. Coming soon with the twins and a new nanny.
Steve?
Later. No one knows exactly when.
And where’s Poppy?
Not yet materialized, said Alix.
You talk about her as if she were a spirit.
She is, sort of. She seems to float through life. You know what I mean. Anyway, she has a boyfriend whom she was reluctant to leave, so she’s taking the last possible plane.
Ian turned to face Alix.
A boyfriend?
She’s seventeen. It’s still called a boyfriend isn’t it?
I thought they just “hooked up.”
We’re old. We wouldn’t know.
Ian took off his jacket.
The ache of a moment ago is gone, his inchoate feelings for Poppy replacing the ache with a drift of desire. He thinks, he wishes, he knows: he is young.
She just finished her junior year, right? He said, Where’s she going to apply to college?
College. He remembers: meeting Alix, their instant closeness, her introducing him to new worlds, to her aunt Diana, the surprisingly glamorous grad student who would become his mentor. He can’t imagine anything more idyllic than his time at college.
She doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to leave the boyfriend. Isn’t very into school these days. Steve is annoyed.
So what will happen?
She’ll go.
You’re sure?
We’ll see. How are you? How’s the show?
A curl formed on Ian’s mouth. His eyes shut and opened a little too slowly.
It’s going well. A lot of late nights. Thank God I love the music. The story’s good but it needs work.
You’re reliving the eighties! Our youth. How fun.
Ian closed and opened his eyes again.
That’s why I’m doing it, right?
No. You’re doing it to make a lot of money. Your shows always do.
You’re wrong. My shows make money, but I don’t. And anyway, that’s not why I do it.
Oh really? You do it for art?
Don’t be an idiot. I mean, yes, for art, but that’s not the only reason.
He had gotten up and hung his jacket in the closet. He went to the bathroom and took a plush towel and was rubbing his head with it to dry his hair.
He smiled and they looked at each other for a long time.
I do it so I won’t buy a gun and blow my brains out in a gorgeous red mess all over the wall.
Ah, she said. Got it. Would you like to greet the bride and groom?
This family, he thinks. It is amazing how people can be so lucky and so miserable. Alix, with her inability to feel pleasure, how can she go on? But she does and he loves her for it, in spite of it, because of it. Along with her money, she has an unseemly almost-buffoonish sense of gloom. He accepts her, her unhappiness, not only accepts it, likes it.