The only thing I’m looking forward to about this evening is seeing Armand,” Madam said as our limousine came to a stop in front of the Museum of Modern Art. “You can throw the rest of it right out the window.”
“What about Ryder?”
“Don’t you think he’s gotten the message by now, Nigel? I mean, I haven’t talked to him for six weeks.” She ground her cigarette out in the tiny door ashtray.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Maybe someone will push him off a cliff. God, I hate these parties.”
Bright lights extended their welcome through the institution’s soaring glass facade into the frigid evening, illuminating the excited, glittering crowd that proceeded up the escalators to the second floor gallery. How incredible it was that I, Nigel Weatherby-Smythe, convicted felon, butler, and child of post-war England, where the concept of having “enough” of anything was completely foreign— would even dare to cross the line and join these people as an invited guest. But here I was in my proper evening jacket, cummerbund and tie, tucked white shirt, and ribbon-striped pants.
Madam was nervous. Not only because she was an artist, and as we all know, artists are notoriously shy, social foot-draggers so totally egocentric they think they have a monopoly on insecurity. Madam is no exception. But tonight, her bad humor and nerves came from sources other than standard, everyday, humdrum neuroses. She was the de facto star of the show and would be required to speak positively and act graciously about her mother and her mother’s works, a challenge under any circumstances. Also, it would be the first time she would be seeing Armand since the incident on the Kiss-Kiss and, perhaps most significant of all, it would be the first time she’d have contact with Ryder since we’d left Middleburg six weeks ago.
She might have been nervous. I was fine. The confrontation with Ryder in Paris had been very out of character, not only for our relationship, which was limited to sexual bossing around, but for me. I’d spent my life dodging the hard questions; it was so much easier simply to do as I was told. But over the last forty-eight hours, through three calls from him to Madam, who had instructed me simply to say she was unavailable until the party, and “whatever you do, don’t tell him I’m going to California for dinner with Junior,” my new resolve had been tested and held. Ryder accepted these rebuffs without comment, wisecrack, or threat, which made me suspicious. Over the phone, he and I respected our assigned roles. I kept a proper demeanor, and he treated me as he would any servant who answered the phone. Each time I heard his voice, my gut tightened and I had trouble getting my breath and, I’ll admit, I did have a sip of sherry after we’d hung up. But I never weakened. I wondered if, at this late date in my life, I was actually beginning to build “character.”
Several times, I reviewed the section in Lady Atchley’s manual about self-control:
No matter how extreme the situation, unless it is life-threatening, never allow your own opinions or feelings to interfere with those of your master. Remember, you are there to serve at his leisure, and strict discipline over yourself must be maintained at all times.
Madam invites me to escort her to galas because I am the perfect companion: I stay nearby, silent and smiling, never participating in the conversation, am never expected to participate, I mean, who’s kidding whom? I know who and what I am, and if anyone who doesn’t know strikes up a conversation with me, I set them straight as graciously and expeditiously as possible. No one pays a thousand dollars to come to a party and talk to the help, although occasionally, the help go astray and mistakenly think it’s only money that makes the difference between them and their employer. To wit: Mrs. Duke’s man, who ended up a bloated laughingstock in smeared makeup and diamond stud earrings, stripped of her goods, his dignity, and finally his life.
Me? I’m the backdrop, the wife of the famous CEO, the husband of the movie star. Or vice-versa. However, I’m sure those individuals mind being completely ignored or worse yet, humored, and rightfully so. But I consider it one of the perks of my job, although as you’ve probably gathered by now, I wish Madam were more attached to the world of classical arts than the modern. I mean, Andy Warhol is as far as I can go. All the rest, to me, is sheer dementia. I’d much prefer to attend an opening of, say, Cartier jewelry at the Metropolitan Museum than one for Constanza di Fidelio at the Museum of Modern Art. But, as my mum used to say, “When you get a lemon, make lemonade,” and that attitude is such an ingrained part of my nature, it’s simply not in me to be unhappy for very long. And tonight? On an occasion as brilliant and long-awaited as this, with a crowd so incredibly chic and mainstream, I blended right in. What if she were to get married, or take a permanent, public lover? What would happen to me?
Please don’t misunderstand. I want Madam’s happiness as much as she does, but what if she were to make a true love match, not a demon like Ryder or a buffoon like Junior? What if a relationship developed with Armand Weil or someone equally winning. I wouldn’t try to undermine it, but the possibility scared me to death. What if she let me go? She might as well put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, because if she sent me away, I would be floating down the Nile in a leaky, little reed basket like the baby Moses, my fate left to the gods and the tides.
These were my thoughts as Madam, looking like a goddess in a black Prada sheath and a single rope of pearls, stood in the receiving line with Bianca and Charles Roosevelt. I stayed right behind her, ready to refill her champagne or run quick errands. She greeted Mary Anne and Ryder as smoothly as if she were spreading soft butter on bread, kissed Armand’s cheeks cooly, without implication or innuendo, and hugged Junior Hammond as enthusiastically as if he were a long-lost brother.
We were all on our best behavior.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Ryder drift from circle to circle making small talk because Mary Anne, who was on the board of Chase Manhattan, was deep in highbrow conversation with David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger.
As he circled, never too far from his wife, he kept a constant eye on Madam, waiting for an opening, like a shark on a leash. There was a string around his tail tied to the handle of Mary Anne’s pocketbook.
After an hour, the line broke up and all three Hammonds—Bianca, Patty, and Junior—who had underwritten the occasion, invited Madam to join them beneath Constanza’s whopping Galileo for a photograph. From across the room, she looked like a black swan surrounded by ostriches.
“Have you ever seen a bigger bunch of assholes in your life?” Ryder muttered over my shoulder. He was so close I could smell his aftershave.
“Pardon?” I asked. My heart started to pound.
But he didn’t repeat the remark because Madam was headed toward us. I could tell he was a little unsure, a little rattled by my brittle attitude, the skeptical, aggressive, just-try-it look on my face, and the white knuckles on my scotch glass. I turned the knife before disappearing behind my mask of servitude.
“Claude told me about the Italian child.”