2

“You don’t stand a chance, you know.”

I turned and met the eyes of the woman beside me. I had that near-thrill of knowing someone well, and yet, at the same time, being surprised at her appearance.

The woman continued, “With your friend, the psychiatrist. Nona Lyle. I saw her on television. So much energy. And what you’d have to call a passion for her work. She’ll never have time for you.”

The room was crowded. The artist stood against the wall, his art so much more colorful than he seemed to be that he looked miscast, a fugitive from his own career. I loved attending openings, and actually tried to look at the art on such an occasion, although it was the opportunity to celebrate that I enjoyed most, the chance to show that something new was still possible, that talent had a place. I knew most of the people here, good people, lively and full of curiosity.

I had not seen my ex-wife in nearly ten years. She had been described as “perfect for Stratton Fields” by every important society commentator. The daughter of a senator, Margaret herself had understood our marriage to be foreordained. It had lasted two months, not counting a long period during which she lived with an ambassador in London near Holland Park and I had designed a private school in Humboldt County, building much of it by hand when salmon season took away some of the men. Now she was married to a former national security adviser, a man of old money and Cold War politics.

She had tried playing at marriage, and I had walked through it as though involved in an amusing dress rehearsal. Our marriage was a style that did not last, although I had gathered from the occasional magazine article that her current life as a hostess to former presidents and the occasional royalty was nearly tolerable.

I had never felt about her the way I felt about Nona. Still, it was good to see her. “I thought you were in Washington.”

Margaret did not speak for a moment, giving me an extra moment or two to gauge her mood. “I am.”

She had lost weight and was deeply tanned, a combination that made her look at once healthily attractive and gaunt. She had always been slow to stir in the morning, more interested in champagne than sunshine. She was dressed in something you couldn’t find in the City, unless you knew a designer like DeVere personally, a confection of coffee-black crepe de chine.

When I simply smiled, she added, “Here or there. What’s the difference?”

At one time I had found her dead-core irony, her boredom with all of it, attractive. “You’re suffering a little lingering jealousy,” I said.

“Probably.”

“Nona and I are close.”

“When you’re together.”

Despite a certain hard feeling in me, I smiled. “Politics seems to be good for you.”

She closed her eyes slowly, and slowly opened them. “I love politics.” Her look, combined with her tone, meant that she felt nothing but boredom.

“But you manage.”

“I do all right.” A cigarette appeared from her handbag, and I was relieved to see at least this trace of the old, more youthful Margaret.

“She’s not your type,” she said. She blew smoke, and it took its place around us.

“Describe my ‘type,’” I said.

“How’s your brother?” she asked.

“He had some sort of accident awhile ago. Nothing serious. It was up on Devil’s Slide, on the Peninsula. Tore the bottom out of one of his vintage roadsters, I can’t recall which.”

“But he survived intact?”

“As far as I know.”

She let her eyes linger on mine. “Anna Wick wants to talk to you.”

I could see Anna through the tangle of people, in conversation. She did not glance my way.

Anna was DeVere’s personal assistant. I felt a tickle of hope. Good news, I let myself think.

I could taste it: success.

Margaret’s hand was on my arm. “You still want a career, don’t you?”

I wanted to say something self-mocking, ironic. Instead I said, “Of course I do.”

She drew on her cigarette. “Let the others care. The people who still believe in things. Let them try to make some kind of sense out of the world. They can’t. You know it. I know it.”

“You think Nona and I are mismatched.”

“I think you’re a decent man,” she said. She said this as though uttering a complaint. “I think your psychiatrist friend is a woman with a mission.” She glanced across the room, in Anna Wick’s direction. “Take care of yourself, Stratton.”

“You’re giving me some sort of warning.” I kept my tone light, but I had enough respect for Margaret to take her seriously. “As though I were in danger.”

“You’re looking better than ever.”

“I swim.”

She closed her eyes, a kind of quiet laugh. “I remember your midnight swims. It’s a miracle you haven’t drowned.”

“Nona says I’ll die of hypothermia. Apparently the hypothalamus controls body temperature. She tells me I’m overworking mine.”

She gave me a weary smile. “I saw your designs. The ones for the new Golden Gate Park. Everyone admires them.”

My pulse quickened. “What did you think?”

She flicked ash from her cigarette. “You have talent. A lot of talent. And you still want to remake the world.”

I thanked her, and she used the cigarette again, flicking ash, showing her impatience with even heartfelt courtesy.

“You won’t get the award,” she said.

I could not ask: Did she know something?

“DeVere’s the one who really decides, and you know how he feels.”

My words sounded lame in my own ears. “Blake has some influence. He’s chairing the jury.”

She parted her lips, another silent laugh. “The gentleman’s gentleman. San Francisco’s chief of protocol. The kindest man in Northern California.”

Blake Howard was all of those things, and a friend of my family. I could not understand her tone.

She read my eyes and drew on her cigarette. “I’m sorry, Stratton. I forgot how strong your feelings are. Most people I know stopped having serious conversations years ago.”

Then she took my arm and led me over to a painting that reminded me of Cezanne, if Cezanne had painted huge, oversize canvases. The gold, the citrus-bronze, was pleasing to the eye. I was not in a position to buy art, or I would have chosen this piece.

“You don’t understand, do you?” she said.

“These things have a way of working out.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re up against. Stop caring. Just live.”

“All right,” I said, in mock agreement, and we both laughed.

“But it amounts to a weird sort of superstition, Stratton, this faith that things will work out. Sometimes they don’t.”

I had forgotten how a lick of cigarette smoke burns when it gets into your eye. “Sometimes a person gets lucky.”

She looked at me in her bored, intelligent way, considering what I had intended as a fairly idle statement. “You believe in luck,” she said, not asking a question.

“It’s just a word, really.”

She watched smoke rise around her. “If there’s good luck, then there’s bad luck, too.”

A glass or two of bubbly later, I worked my way through the crowd, shaking hands. I complimented the artist. He looked more calm now, and said that he was pleased to meet “one of the famous Fieldses.”

Just as I turned from the artist I met the eyes of Anna Wick.

Anna ran a finger along the sleeve of my jacket. “You were avoiding me,” she said.

She wore one of DeVere’s latest, a dress that matched the Cezanne golds of the painting I had admired. She gave me a glance that could only be described as seductive. I did meet women on occasions like this, attracted by my name, or the reputed scope of the estate. But Anna Wick could hardly be hungry for male companionship. She was blond, full-figured, brilliant, and looked equally good in photographs in both Vogue and the financial section.

“I was dazzled from afar,” I said.

She let my own thoughts capture me for a moment. Then she smiled. “We want to see you tomorrow.”

“It sounds interesting,” I said, trying to keep the thrill from my voice.

“I think you’ll find it fascinating,” she said.

Nona called that night.

“No,” I told her, in response to her question. “No further sign of the cat.”

“Thanks for the frog,” she said. “I’ll keep him here on my nightstand. I think he looks a little like you.”

“That’s terrific. I can make a big one. Call it Self-Portrait as a Frog.”

“I didn’t say exactly like you. Just the look in its eyes.” Someone in the hotel had suffered “severe disorientation after getting robbed on Bourbon Street.”

“You make it sound like good news.”

“It turns out he’s a vice president of Rorer, one of the big drug companies. I think he’ll give a donation to the hospice.”

“You amaze me.” I told her about the opening, about Margaret and her tan and her outlook on life, and about Anna Wick.

They want to see me tomorrow.

“It sounds wonderful, Strater,” she said.

She sounded close. It made her seem, paradoxically, so much farther away. “I’m not completely sure the news is going to be good.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure something wonderful is going to happen.”