She’d planned cocktails for seven-thirty in the library by the fireside. Reggie Chang arrived ten minutes early and shot a roll of Maggie in the kitchen with a white chef’s tunic on over her black, long-sleeved, waterwashed crepe de chine dress (off-the-rack, Bendel) and in the conservatory with the table set for eight among the tree ferns, orchids, and blazing votives. The photos were intended for Maggie’s planned volume Easy Feasts. It was a bit of a sham since there would be no hint in the book of Nina and an assistant who were really preparing the meal or of the Yale anthropology major (female, in a tux) who was engaged to serve for the evening. Maggie understood that her readers expected a degree of fantasy in her books, though—if anyone could be Maggie Darling, then there would be no need for Maggie.
Christy Chauvin turned up at 7:35, virtually on time, a fact that rather impressed Maggie, who was prepared to dislike the brainy model despite her own rationale for inviting her. Reggie, too, was pleasantly surprised that Christy allowed him to shoot half a roll of her, since she was customarily paid $5,000 an hour for regular work. But in a Southern voice only slightly evocative of magnolia and perspiration, Christy said, “Why don’t we just keep the agency out of this.”
The Wises arrived at quarter to eight with excuses about trouble on the Merritt Parkway and Lawrence Hayward minutes behind them with no explanation for his tardiness and the whole world of Wall Street seemingly on his shoulders. Hayward looked fleshier than he had at Christmastime, and as the Yalie began passing little tidbits of smoked trout mousse in puff pastry on a silver tray around the room he perked up noticeably—at the tidbits, not the Yalie, though she was a fine-boned example of her type. Swann, to Maggie’s mounting panic and embarrassment, did not show up until ten after eight—more rumors of trouble on the Merritt Parkway; some kind of shooting incident, police cars all over, more he couldn’t say—but the force of his physical radiance and effortless charm sent the other personalities into vectors of interaction. He soon had the library abuzz as though twice the number of people were in the room, and at quarter to nine the company removed to the conservatory for supper.
They began with lobster and blue corn tamales on pools of chilpotle cream. More champagne went around (a Bollinger Grand Annee, no great shakes, but decent). The table was round, like a clock. Maggie sat at six o’clock with Swann to her left at seven and Lawrence Hayward to her right at five. Christy Chauvin was deployed at noon, that is, directly opposite Maggie so that Maggie could observe her body language vis-à-vis Swann. Lindy occupied the place at Hayward’s right, say three o’clock, next to Earl Wise at one, with Cynthia Wise and Reggie Chang at about nine and ten respectively. Maggie always made the point in her books that male and female dinner guests ought to be seated alternately.
“I’ve been following your column on Slate.com,” Lindy declared to the whole table as much as to Christy Chauvin. (In fact, she had only read one piece on the Web that afternoon.) “I hear you write the damn thing yourself?”
“Well, of course I do,” Christy said.
“What are these black flecks in the sauce?” Hayward asked Maggie.
“Shiitake mushrooms, dear,” Maggie said, instantly regretting the dear. She’d meant it to be reassuring, but it struck her as being either patronizing or overly affectionate, she wasn’t sure which. Hayward seemed not to notice. He was momentarily lost in a transport of new flavors.
“I don’t think we’re moving in the direction of one sex,” Lindy said.
“Gee, that wasn’t my point at all in the column,” Christy said. “In fact, just the opposite.”
“There is a fish which inhabits the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra that is said to change its sex from male to female and back again as the population demands,” Swann said.
“The population of fish, you mean?” Cynthia Wise put in.
“It couldn’t be the people,” Maggie said.
“The headwaters are in Tibet,” Swann said. “The human population is insignificant.”
“What about the ones in the middle?” Reggie Chang asked.
“The people or the fish?” Maggie asked.
“The fish,” Reggie said. “The ones changing from sex to sex.”
“They must be very confused,” Lawrence Hayward said.
“’Tis a rapid transformation,” Swann said.
“Do fish have penises and vaginas?” asked Cynthia, always the amateur clinician.
“They have ovaries,” Maggie said brightly. “That’s how they make caviar.”
“It’s an awful lot of equipment to be growing and getting rid of and growing again,” Earl said. “Seems biologically profligate.”
“’Tis not gotten rid of,” Swann said. “The organism is born with both sets. One or the other shrinks to vestigial form, while the set of organs in demand swells to dominance.”
Maggie noted that Christy Chauvin wore a look of refined skepticism, as though Swann might possibly be making all this up.
“I thought your point in the article was that we’d all be gay in a hundred years,” Lindy said.
“God, no,” Christy said. “In a hundred years we’d more likely be cyborgs.”
“Is that anything like a troglodyte?” Cynthia asked.
“It’s a machine. A man-machine,” Hayward said as though his dreams were haunted by them.
“Anyway, I don’t think we’ll all be gay,” Lindy said. “It’s like a disease, this gay thing, infecting our culture, infecting families.”
Cynthia Wise coughed conspicuously behind her hand.
“Great champagne, Maggie,” Earl said. “Such tiny bubbles.”
“Well, nobody here’s gay, are we?” Lindy asked.
There was a conspicuous effort by some not to glance around the table.
“Count me out,” Hayward said with an arid chuckle. “I mean, since you asked.”
In attempting to look away from Hayward, the Wises found themselves both glancing inadvertently at Reggie Chang.
“Hey, I like girls!” he said, defensively. “Always have.”
“We didn’t mean—” Earl and Cynthia both said at once.
“Because, you see, my husband is among the infected,” Lindy interrupted, a strange reddish inner glow emanating from her face, as though the accumulated rage inside her was fissioning into heat and light, and then tears literally squirted from her eyes. “The sonofabitch turned faggot on me and wrecked my life, and I’m sick of reading about how great homos are and how normal it is, because it’s a fucking sickness.”
The rest of the company seemed as breathless as Lindy, except Christy Chauvin, who said, “Life is often tragic. Under the best circumstances life is difficult for everybody.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lindy said.
“That misfortune visits all of us at one time or another.”
“How would you know?” Lindy practically shrieked.
“I have an older brother who was born without arms or legs,” Christy said, as evenly as if she were a Sotheby’s executive describing an antique chair. “There was a certain sleeping pill in the 1960s that caused the most severe birth defects. Today Richard is a vice president of Angelus Electronics in the artificial intelligence division. He has a wife and a healthy normal child of his own. Anytime my own thoughts turn to the futility of existence, I think of him.”
The table was, of course, silenced. The dozens of burning votives deployed around the conservatory audibly hissed.
“I’m so ashamed of myself,” Lindy cried. “I’m such an asshole!” Racked by sobs, she kicked back her seat and seemed to stagger from the room.
“Almost bought Angelus a year ago,” Hayward remarked. “Greatly undervalued.”
As Lindy reeled out of the conservatory, the Yalie materialized with three bottles of 1989 Pomerol (L’Evangile) and cleared the first-course dishes. Swann got up and went about the table quickly filling wineglasses.
“There is a custom in the Gironde that when any member of a supper party receives a bad mussel, and eats it, everyone at the table must take a full glass of the vin d’hôte in sympathy. Cheers everybody!”
Swann threw back his leonine head and drained his glass. The others followed his instructions like common sailors quaffing their rations of grog, without a word, except Earl Wise, who said, “Ahhhhh,” when he was done.
The meal itself, of course, had a momentum of its own. The Yalie returned with plates of venison scallops slow-braised in port with sage accompanied by truffled orzo and pencil-size asparagus, the first of the year from down south.
“Mortification is a great clarifier,” Christy observed, and the warm humid room (like her native Savannah) rang with relieved laughter. The Yalie refilled their glasses. Swann toasted Maggie with extravagant praise that, in a most subtle and yet unmistakable way, conveyed his erotic admiration for her as well, and conversation resumed as though nothing more than a naughty child had disturbed its brilliance.
Maggie concluded, between the mesclun, pear, and walnut salad and the dessert of homemade petits fours and jam tarts (a nod to Swann), that Christy Chauvin had conducted herself more than admirably, downright impeccably, especially vis-à-vis Swann. The Englishman, for his part, and notwithstanding his skillful patter, seemed entirely consumed with Maggie (his hand having worked its way under her skirts to caress her sleekly waxed thighs and the furry mound between them) and regarded the stunning supermodel with no more attention than he showed the others. Lindy’s horrifying breakdown was all but forgotten until the company made for the door and their various waiting limousines at eleven o’clock and Christy whispered in Maggie’s ear, “Please tell your friend to call me sometime if she wants to talk. And thanks so much for a lovely home-cooked meal.”
“You ate like a champ.”
“Anorexia ain’t us,” Christy quipped. “I think we’ll be fast friends, Maggie.” And then she was gone into the night, with Earl, Cynthia, and Reggie fast behind. Hayward lingered awhile, and Maggie was not clear why. It was obvious that she was with Swann. The two of them were draped over each other like Siamese twins. Hayward asked to see the kitchen, so they went in there where the colossus of Wall Street goggled at the hanging pots and cooking implements like a boy in a hobby shop. Nina and the staff were long gone.
“You actually know how to use all this stuff?” he asked.
“I do.”
Hayward threw open the massive stainless-steel door of the Sub-Zero refrigerator. “Mind if I, uh … for the road?”
“Of course not.”
He seized a handful of petits fours and jammed them into the pocket of his silver-gray suit jacket.
“Oh, let me give you a napkin, at least—”
“Don’t bother. I throw these suits out,” he said, beeping his chauffeur.
At the door moments later Hayward hesitated a moment, saying, “Let me buy you a meal sometime in the city, Maggie. I’m getting to know some good places.” He seemed oblivious to the fact of Swann. Swann looked amused.
“Thanks. You’re very kind,” Maggie said and watched Hayward duck into the back of an enormous limo the same color as his suit. When at last the two-hundred-year-old front door latch clicked shut, Swann was upon her hungrily, as if there had been no lobster tamales or venison. She had no opportunity to even look in on the forlorn Lindy. Swann gathered Maggie into his arms and carried her upstairs to the bedroom, where he went to work upon her with the determination of a Consolidated Edison jackhammer operator cleaving relentlessly through an obdurate layer of New York bedrock. His ability to recover from a completed act and recommence service astounded Maggie, though she understood her own experience to be extremely limited, having been a college bride.