3

At number 3 Sutton Square, Edwee Myerson opens the front door of his house using four different sets of keys—one for the main lock, one for the deadbolt, one for the chain, and one for the heavy Fox lock that braces the big door from within (New York is no longer the safe place it once was)—and lets the three of them in: himself, his wife, and his sister, Nonie. His servants have all retired for the night, and the house is very still. He leads the two women down the dimly lit entrance gallery with its Oriental rugs and its dark walnut-paneled walls from which his famous collection of Greek amphorae are suspended from wrought-iron brackets, turning on lamps as he goes, toward his office in the southeast corner of the house.

Edwee’s office, like the other rooms in the house, is arranged more like a private museum than a workspace. The office overlooks the East River and the city skyline and bridges to the south, as well as a more intimate view of Edwee’s small city garden, with its fruit trees and boxwood hedges as well as its raised centerpiece, which is Edwee’s herb garden, where he grows the fresh herbs for his second career as a gourmet cook. Within the office itself are displayed more of Edwee’s collections. Bookcases along one wall contain his collection of over two thousand cookbooks, some of them quite old and rare. More cases contain his even larger collection of art books, and against the wall between the two French doors that lead out into the garden are displayed his collections of antique dolls and miniature doll-house furniture, including complete living room and dining room sets signed by the Master Thomas Chippendale himself—the only such sets the Master is known to have executed, and which the Smithsonian has been after for years. Illuminated cases display his collections of coin-silver spoons and early American pewter serving pieces. There is much, much more. One table displays his collection of silver and crystal inkwells; another, a collection of millefleur paperweights; still another, a collection of old snuffboxes. Tucked between the books on the bookshelves are specimen pieces of Chinese Export porcelain, and an almost-complete edition of Dorothy Doughty birds, risen incomparably in value since the artist’s death. A bronze umbrella stand holds a valuable assortment of antique gold- and silver-handled walking sticks. Another stand, fashioned from an elephant’s foot and lined with rosewood, holds swords, sabers, and fencing foils with variously carved and jeweled hafts, and above the door through which one enters the room hangs a collection of antique pistols. Flanking Edwee’s big partners’ desk, which is made of cherry and burled walnut, are six-foot-high floor lamps whose bases are an identical pair of twisted ivory narwhal tusks. One could go on and on describing the contents of this extraordinary room. Next door, for instance, is a fully-equipped kitchen, Edwee’s personal domain where he tests his recipes, which has nothing to do with the main kitchen of the house.

Edwee hardly ever sets foot in this other kitchen, which he calls “the service kitchen.” And, conversely, no servant is permitted in Edwee’s personal kitchen except, of course, for cleanup. Every imaginable cooking vessel and utensil is stored here: the zinc-lined copper roasting pans, the silver chafing dishes, the crockery serving dishes, the pots and pans of glass and stainless steel, the wooden spoons. Because, as any fool would know (and as Edwee will explain), certain foods demand certain materials for proper preparation. Who would dream of preparing a bouillabaisse in anything but copper, for example, or of stirring it with anything but a wooden spoon? What sort of idiot would plank a turbot on anything but a board of bleached ash? (Pine or maple “rapes” the flavor, Edwee points out.) Is there another way to serve wild asparagus than on bone china so thin that you could see a finch’s foot through it, and with ivory tongs? (Yes, you could use ivory chopsticks.) Also, with the exception of the twelve-burner range and the four ovens, nothing in this kitchen is electric. Edwee makes his butter in a wooden churn, the only way. Edwee even has a candling device for candling his eggs, which come from upstate, where they are laid by free-range chickens. His servants complain about his refusal to buy a dishwasher, but that is their problem.

One could go on and on, and then add that all the other rooms in Edwee’s house are furnished in a similar artfully eccentric fashion. From time to time, if the cause is sufficiently worthy, which is to say sufficiently fashionable, Edwee Myerson will allow his house to be toured for charity, but this is a nuisance since a brace of security guards must be positioned in each room to keep an eye on their costly contents.

At the door to his office now, Edwee says to his wife, “Don’t you need to powder your nose or something, pussyface? My sister and I have important family m-m-m-matters to discuss.”

Gloria pouts. “Well, don’t be too long,” she says. “Your little baby’s toesies get cold in bed if she doesn’t have her daddy to snuggle up to.”

“I won’t,” he says, and kisses her on the forehead. She leaves, and he closes the door behind her and stands for a moment with a dreamy smile on his face. He sighs softly and says, “Isn’t she simply … wonderful?”

“You seem so domesticated, Edwee, dear. Given up your old ways?”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” He moves to his chair behind the partners’ desk, and his sister arranges herself in the Queen Anne armchair opposite him. “You see, she introduced me to oral sex. She sits on my face, and I sit on hers. All those years of impotence are suddenly over! No more problems with getting an erection, no more p.e.—premature ejaculation—no more miserable masturbation, no more using the vacuum cleaner—”

“The vacuum cleaner!” Nonie cries. “What are you talking about, Edwee?”

“I used to use the rubber end of the vacuum cleaner hose to try to arouse myself. All at once, with Gloria, those days are gone forever.”

“Really, Edwee,” Nonie says. “Really. It must be that female Jungian you’ve been going to.”

“I’ll say this, Nonie: forty-two years of analysis have finally begun to pay off. You see, I’ve finally learned to be honest with myself, and to act out my fantasies. Thanks to Dr. Ida Katz—and Gloria.”

“Well,” she says, tapping the tips of her fingernails on his desktop, “I’m sure you didn’t drag me back here to talk about your sex life, which I’m really not interested in—”

“And we videotape each other,” he says. “That was Dr. Katz’s idea. We videotape each other while we’re having sex, and then, while we’re having sex the next time, we play the videotapes back. We even have videotapes of ourselves making videotapes. Oh, it’s quite wild and, as you say, quite wonderful.”

Nonie says nothing, looking up at the ceiling, once more as though balancing something small and invisible on the tip of her nose.

“But, back to less pleasant matters,” he says. “We really have a pretty kettle of fish on our hands, don’t we?”

“You mean Brad and his alleged lady friend? I thought he and Mimi seemed perfectly relaxed and normal tonight. I don’t think we should get involved in it, Edwee. If they’re having any problems, that’s their business. After all, all she is to us is our niece.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about that,” he says. “I agree that’s a very minor matter. Interesting, but m-m-m-minor.” He fumbles in the pocket of his dinner jacket for his pipe, finds it, extracts it, and lights it carefully. “I’m talking about our mother, Nonie. I’m talking about Maman. It’s perfectly clear to me that she’s finally gone around the bend. She’s going to have to be put away, and it’s going to have to be our unhappy task—yours and mine—to do it.”

“You mean her outburst at Alice tonight? I agree that was … unfortunate. But it was Alice’s fault. Alice shouldn’t have contradicted her. Mother doesn’t like to be contradicted. She’s always been like that.”

“No, no, no,” Edwee says, gesturing in the air with his pipe. “I’m not even talking about that, though that was more of her craziness—saying that Alice had killed a man, for God’s sake, when we all know that poor Henry’s death was a tragic accident, and Alice was hundreds of miles away in Saratoga when it happened. And saying that our father kept some sort of diary, which we know he didn’t, and getting that young reporter all excited. I’m not talking about any of that. Besides, poor tragic Alicia was drunk as a lord.”

“I don’t think she was, Edwee. I saw her refuse wine at the dinner table, and I heard her ask Felix for ginger ale during cocktails.”

“Anyway, I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about Maman. You may call it Alzheimer’s disease, but I call it senility—senility in its most advanced, irreversible stage.”

“I only mentioned Alzheimer’s because I didn’t want that reporter to take that outburst of hers too seriously. She’s not—”

He rises slowly from his chair, carrying his pipe, and moves toward the French doors. “A poor old woman, nearly ninety,” he says, “now completely incompetent to handle her own affairs. Probably incontinent, too. Did you notice the many trips to the bathroom?”

“I only noticed one.”

“Living alone, totally blind—”

“I’m not even sure about that, Edwee. I think she sees better than she lets on. She noticed yellow tulips. She said she could smell they were yellow. Did you ever hear of such a thing? I never have!”

“No,” he says, “the real point is that she can no longer manage her own affairs. She needs special care. I hate to say this, Nonie, but she must be placed in a nursing home. And not a moment too soon. We should probably start making arrangements the first thing in the morning.”

“A nursing home! But she’s perfectly happy at the Carlyle. She has room service, maid service, her linens changed every day. They love her there, and treat her like a—”

“I’ve already located a place in Great Barrington that sounds quite ideal for her. She’d have her own little room. People her own age for company—”

“But she has plenty of company, Edwee. People drop in on her all the time, she spends half her day on the telephone talking to people like Mrs. Perlman. The hotel staff is in and out—”

“And Great Barrington’s far enough away so that she’ll understand why you and I won’t be able to come and see her as often as we might like. No pets, of course.”

“You’d make her give up Itty-Bitty? That would kill her, Edwee!”

“Well, it’s got to be done,” he says. “I know it’s sad, but it’s got to be done.”

“But why, Edwee? Mother is … Mother. She’s always been the way she is. After all, I’m a few—well, a couple of years older than you, and Mother has been the way she is for as long as I can remember. What we saw tonight was just … Mother!”

He hesitates. “I’ll tell you something, Nonie,” he says. “Something you may not know. Before our Papa died, he said to me, ‘Edwee, I want you to take care of your mother. And if ever the time comes, I want you to see that she is given the proper care. I want you to promise me that, if the time should come when you feel that she needs to be institutionalized, you will see that it’s done. P-p-p-promise me that.’ I promised him. It was a deathbed promise, Nonie.”

“But Edwee, Papa died in his sleep in a San Francisco hotel. You were in Paris, remember?”

“Nevertheless, that was my promise, and it’s my sad duty to honor that promise now. I’ll call my lawyers at Dewey, Ballantine tomorrow, have the legal paperwork done. Have her declared incompetent, incapable of handling her own affairs. You and I can do it, because we’re her only remaining living issue. We’ll just sign whatever papers are necessary to declare her—”

“Oh, Edwee, no!”

“What do you mean, no?” His voice is angry now.

“Because she’s not incompetent! No more than she ever was, I mean, which was never very—”

“Damn it, she is. Do I have to draw pictures for you? Didn’t you hear what she said in the car? About giving away the art collection—just giving it away! Do you call that competent? That collection is p-priceless! The Goya, the Bentons—the Goya alone! She’s already seen Philippe de Montebello, Nonie! God knows what de Montebello may have gotten her to sign! Well, if she’s signed anything, we’ll have it declared null and void, based on her incompetence. That collection is part of our inheritance, Nonie. It’s ours.”

“Well, it really isn’t, Edwee. It’s hers, and hers to do with as she wishes, it seems to me.”

“Do you mean to say you approve of this insanity—just giving away this priceless collection of paintings?”

“I’ve never cared all that much about art,” she says.

“Well, I do,” he says. “I care.”

“Just because she wants to give away her collection doesn’t seem to me reason enough to have her shipped off to a nursing home,” she says. “It just doesn’t.”

“One of us will have to be appointed her conservator,” he says. “I think that should be you. You’ve always gotten along with her better than I have. Besides, you don’t have anything else to do.”

“What do you mean, I don’t have anything else to do?”

“It’s just a legal technicality,” he says. “How much work could be involved in taking care of somebody who’s a vegetable?”

“Edwee, this is our mother you’re talking about!”

“Well, can you think of a single reason why we’d want to keep that old hag around any longer, that old hag that does nothing but cause us trouble? Unless …” He hesitates, and his eyes narrow slightly. “Unless … unless—”

“Unless what, Edwee?”

“Unless,” he says, “you have some personal agenda that involves keeping her around. Is that it, Nonie? Have you got some new scheme up your sleeve that involves Mother?”

“Well,” she begins guardedly, “I do have a life to live, and …” She falls silent. She knows from experience that it is unwise to divulge too much of her plans to her brother. He cannot be trusted.

“That’s it, isn’t it? And it probably involves that young thug you brought to Mimi’s tonight, doesn’t it?”

The house is silent now, except for the oddly soothing rumble of the traffic that passes, unceasingly, along the FDR Drive and through the Sutton Place Tunnel beneath the foundation of the house. All the houses on Edwee’s little mews experience this steady rumble, and it is Edwee’s opinion that this small, steady vibration has a salubrious effect on the growth of plants. His herb garden, he claims, benefits from this effect, and he has even expounded on this theory in an article for House & Garden, which an unfortunate change in editorial direction caused an inexperienced new editor to reject. The vibrations from the FDR Drive as it passes through the tunnel, he wrote, has the effect of “massaging” the roots of his specimen herbs, an effect that he likened to “subterranean petting—petting to climax.”

“Of course,” he says finally, “I should have known all along. You have some new scheme up your sleeve. That’s why you oppose having Mother put away. What is it this time, Nonie?”

“I really don’t see that it’s any of your—”

“How many others have there been, Nonie? How many other money-losing schemes? Let’s see: there was the dress shop on M-M-Madison Avenue. There was the little restaurant. There was the jewelry boutique. There was the p-p-p-pathetic attempt to start a new fashion magazine. All of these required the financial backing of M-M-Maman, of course. Who else would back such obvious losing schemes?”

“Certainly not you!” Nonie cries. “I’ve learned long ago that it’s useless for anyone to turn to you and ask for help.”

“You’ve always been so money-grubbing, Nonie. Why is that? Why are you so money-grubbing? Money bores me.”

“Money bores you because you’re rich! I’m not. I’m the poor relation. I was shorted out of Papa’s will, remember?”

“You were shorted out of Papa’s will because he didn’t consider you responsible. He considered Henry and me responsible.”

She reaches for her bag and gloves to go. “You’re not telling me anything I haven’t known for years,” she says. “I was shorted out of Papa’s will because I was a girl, and Papa had no use for girls. He only wanted sons. I was a disappointment to him from the moment I was born.”

“No, I think it was later, as you grew older, that he began to actively dislike you.”

She stands up, facing him, and slowly his eyes withdraw from hers. “But what ambitions he had for his two sons,” she says. “Do you remember? Henry was to run the company, and look what happened to him. You were to become the first Jewish President of the United States, remember that? ‘Edwin will be the first Jew in the White House,’ he used to say. Well, now you’ve become Nancy Reagan’s little pet, and I suppose that’s close enough—being Nancy Reagan’s walker.”

His right hand, holding the pipe, jerks visibly upward, as though about to strike her, but he manages to restrain himself, and the hand falls downward.

“Good night, Edwee,” she says. “Have fun sitting on your wife’s face.” Then she is gone.

Alone in his office, among his crowded collection, Edwee Myerson returns to the chair behind his big desk and relights his pipe. The pipe is ordinarily just a prop. He uses it mainly just for effect, pointing its stem at a conversational partner to emphasize an argument or to drive home one of his well-thought-out opinions. But now he puffs on it fiercely, inhaling deeply, as though the pipe and its tobacco were an uncontrollable addiction.

His eyes travel upward to one section of walnut-paneled wall that, miraculously, considering the well-planned clutter of the room, is unaccountably bare of ornamentation or garniture. This space has been reserved, always, for his mother’s Goya.

There are two possessions of his mother’s that he has always been determined one day to own. One is her large square-cut emerald solitaire with its girdle of diamonds. The other is the Goya. He would not want to wear his mother’s emerald ring, of course. But he would like to hold it, fondle it, rub the emerald’s facets with his fingertips, to possess the ring as one would possess a lover. His passion for the Goya is just as powerful, just as sensual, just as erotic. Someday, he has always known, he must possess just those two things. The absence of those two things has created a hole in his life that nothing else can fill, a well of longing, a black hollow of desire, as achingly empty as that waiting square of walnut wall.

He has always known that it would be futile, sheer folly, to ask his mother for those two objects. He knows her too well to do a thing like that. She is an accomplished player, a pro, at turning down requests, at deflecting solicitations, at ignoring panhandlers, and at being both blind and deaf to beggars. At denying the needs of others, his mother should be given a Lifetime Achievement Award. Except, of course, for her soft spot, which is Nonie. He has, however, tried to suggest to her obliquely that there are a couple of things of hers that he rather fancies. He has said, for instance, of the emerald, “If I owned that ring, I’d display it, in a lighted jar, suspended on the thinnest platinum chain.” And as for the Goya, when in her presence—when she still had her eyesight, that is—he would try to send signals to her subconscious by simply standing for long periods in front of the painting, gazing at it worshipfully. Now, it is clear, these mental messages never reached whatever remains of her cerebrum, for she is thinking of giving his Goya away.

His eyes wander to the collection of firearms and flintlocks displayed above the door, and to the collection of lethal blades in the elephant’s foot. Is there a way to murder his mother? Is there a way to snuff out the life of the conniving Philippe de Montebello?

Dimly, the vague shape of a plan begins to float into his mind, and he lets its scattered pieces fall into place. At first, the pieces do not fit. He shuffles them, re-sorts them, rearranges the elements of the plan, first this way, then that. The first thing he must do, he decides, is to make sure that he is on the best of terms with Mimi. A letter is required.

From the center drawer of his desk, he removes a sheet of his heavily crested ivory letter paper, with the serifs of his monogram—E.R.M.—twisted and curled around and within each other like royal blue liana vines. He takes his antique quill pen, the one he uses when setting down his essays, dips it in a silver inkwell, and begins to write. “My dearest Mimi,” he begins.

Thank you for your truly quite splendid dinner, and you were a jewel to include me. Your food, flowers, and decor were, as always, perfection, and I thought to myself as I watched you from my end of the table: “Has Mimi ever looked lovelier? No! Never! Jamais dans sa vie!

Second only to your beauty, I decided, was your new fragrance, which you named so aptly—nay, brilliantly!—Mireille. I have just now dabbed a bit of the men’s cologne on myself, and the scent is positively thrilling—luxurious, thrilling, utterly captivating, and quite different from anything else I have ever sampled in men’s toiletries. I know you are going to have a brilliant success with this, Mimi, and that Mireille will provide just another bright feather in your already well-feathered cap.

May I also say this, dear Mimi? Your dear father would be so very proud of you!

A very clever touch, Edwee thinks. He envisions Mimi dabbing at her eyes over this evocation of her dead father.

Of course I must also apologize for the unspeakable behaviour of poor, dear Maman. I know it must have upset you, but brave

He gropes for the right noun. Brave girl? No, girls don’t like to be called girls anymore. Brave woman? Brave little soldier? Brave little trouper?

creature that you are, you did not let the upset show. I must say that after Maman’s behaviour

He always spells it “behaviour,” the English way.

tonight, I am convinced, sadly, that she is now completely ga-ga, no longer responsible for either her words or actions. Indeed, tonight, your aunt Nonie and I had a long meeting to discuss the advisability and possibility of a

The words nursing home have an unpleasant connotation. What else can one call it? He writes:

an alternative care facility.

Thank you, dear Mimi, and I don’t need to wish you success with Mireille because I can “smell” success in the sample you gave me. Congratulations in advance!

Fondly, your

Uncle Edwee

He puts down his pen, and there is a buzz on the house intercom. He picks up the telephone and says, “Yes, Pussy-face?”

“Aren’t you ever coming to bed, Daddy? It’s almost one o’clock!”

“Just finishing up,” he says. “I’ve an Art & Antiques deadline. You know deadlines! You know the creative process!”

“I’ve got the poppers out and everything.”

“Five more minutes, Pussy.”

He now adds a hasty postscript.

P.S. Incidentally, that

Now he rummages in his mind for the proper adjective. Charming? Delightful? Pleasant? Attractive? Interesting? Sexy hunk? He settles on something bland and noncommittal.

nice young chap who’s to be your model for your advertising mentioned that he had some recipes that I might like to try. When she has a moment—no hurry—ask your secretary if she’d drop his name and address and home phone number in the mail for me. Thanks much!

E.

He folds the letter (it ran to three pages), places it in an envelope, addresses it, licks the tip of the envelope, and seals it.

Outside, the private security guard that the residents of Sutton Square employ is making his hourly rounds, quietly testing doorknobs, and Edwee makes his way upstairs and to Gloria, turning out lights as he goes.

Alone in her bedroom, Mimi sits at her dressing table removing her makeup, using many tissues, and then creams her face. Appraising her reflection in the glass, she says: Not bad. No, not bad at all for forty-nine. I’ll give this face at least five more years before I begin to worry about it. In this business, your face is part of your overhead. Look at her face, people say. It must be her cleansing creams and toners and moisturizers that do it, and they remember this as they browse the cosmetics counters at Bergdorf’s and Saks and Bloomingdale’s, picking up the little jars and bottles, trying the samples, and see the name Mireille, and remind themselves that there is a woman, and a face, behind that name. A name behind the face. A face. The face that launched a thousand little jars of night cream by Mireille, for a thousand women who dream of looking only a little better, a little younger, when their husbands or their lovers turn to them at night and say, you look so young, you feel so young.

“I love your face,” someone had once said to her. “Your fahnee, fah-nee face.” He had also said he loved the color of her eyes. She had always thought of her eyes as her worst feature. Too grey, too pale. She studies her eyes in the mirror now. Nowadays, with cosmetics, with tinted contact lenses, one can even change the color of one’s eyes, but she had never changed hers. “Her wide, snapping black eyes,” she had read of the heroine in some novel long ago, and she had used to wish that her eyes were snapping black. Eyes that snapped. Noisy eyes. Eyes that yipped and snarled like one of Granny’s little dogs. Try as she might, her eyes would never snap. But he had said he liked her eyes. “Silver,” he said. “Like George the First antique silver that’s been polished every day. They go just right with your fah-nee, fah-nee face.” Who had said that in the movie? Oh, yes, Fred Astaire, in Funny Face.

Facts to face. Fact one. He is, I know he is, of course he is, there’s nothing to be gained by denying it, by gainsaying it, so say it: he is. Who is she? I don’t want to know. There’s nothing to be gained by knowing her name, she doesn’t need to have a name, she doesn’t even need to have a face. Does he turn to her in sleep and call her by my name? That would be nice. Oh, yes, old Brad, old boy, old pal, old friend, you can’t keep that from me, no sir, no siree. We used to say we were like one soul, we knew each other’s thoughts. The words of a song would be going through my brain, and you’d start whistling it. About time for him to call, I’d think, and the telephone would ring. Must clean out the garage in that summer place we rented at the Cape in ’74, I’d think, and I’d go out and find you doing it. I need to wash my tennis shorts, you’d say, and I’d say, they’re already in the dryer, and feel holy. On the beach at St.-Jean-de-Luz, you buried my feet in the sand because you knew that was what I wanted you to do. That’s how close we were, that’s how young we were.

You won’t find Bradford to be a very demonstrative young man, your mother said. None of us Moores or Bradfords are. It’s the New England in us. Why should I want him to be demonstrative? I asked her. She looked so uncomfortable, poor dear. She said, I mean … I mean … I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Jewish people I’ve known, my Jewish friends, seem to be such demonstrative people. Hugging. Kissing. Things like that. We’re just not quite that way. Poor thing. That’s how little she knew you, that’s how little she knew the Jews, the so-called passionate people. Oh, she’d have much preferred it if you’d married someone else named Moore or Bradford, she made that quite clear, but she didn’t disapprove of me, she didn’t try to stop us. An ancestor of ours compiled the first Hebrew-to-English dictionary, she told me proudly, as though that proved the family’s long history of religious tolerance. She touched my elbow when she said that, to show she liked me. Demonstrative.

Oh, it wasn’t really passion, was it? No, because passion comes from the Latin word for suffering. I looked it up once. No, because passion comes to an end and so, in the end, does suffering. It was more like affection, friendship, caring, pleasing one another, delighting in each other’s pleasure and the pleasure of each other’s company, collecting things together, the things that endure, that don’t come to an end. These are the things that last, that can make a marriage last for twenty-nine years. Or so I thought.

I suppose he finds her sexually exciting, whoever she is, this nameless, faceless woman. That’s all right. Or is it? It is a new thought for me, something I never thought about before, something I never had to think about, because this is the first time it has happened to me, though I am hardly the first woman in the world who has had this happen to her. It has happened to googooflex women—googooflex: in school we used to say this was the highest number in the world. I am not alone, so join the club, old girl, and here’s your membership card.

But I’ll tell you one thing, old Brad, old chum, old pal, she isn’t making you happy, this whoever she is. I can see it in your eyes. I see new worry lines around your eyes, I saw them tonight. I suppose she’s the type who’ll say no, not until you divorce your wife. The ultimatum type. But men don’t like those types, the ultimatum types, those old-tomato types. Particularly you don’t like those types. And particularly you aren’t the type who would divorce his wife, not you, not now, not after all these—or are you? Why am I suddenly not so sure? Why am I suddenly not so sure I know you as well as I thought I did? Do I know you at all? I just don’t know.

Is it because you’ve finally grown tired of the jokes? We used to joke about it, you and I. The introductions at the business parties: And this is Mimi Myerson’s husband, Bradford Moore. We made a joke of it, of you being Mr. Mimi Myerson with my business people. We were just another two-career couple, you used to say, with two different names for business purposes, with separate listings in Who’s Who. But has the joke worn thin after all these years? Has it become stale and overworked, and when you hear that sort of thing now, does it stick in the craw, sourly, like a poorly digested meal? Is that what she offers you, this person whom I do not know—a male identity at last, an opportunity to be something more than someone else’s husband? “Now I know what Prince Philip must feel like,” you said once at some Miray function. “Always having to walk that required one pace behind the queen.” A joke? Haven’t I let you enjoy your sovereign malehood, your princely individuality? Haven’t I offered that to you, too? Haven’t I tried? Come back, Brad, come back to Mama, and I’ll try harder. Come back, and you’ll see how hard I’ll try.

I will not say the word forgive. I am in no position to offer you such a flashy gift as forgiveness. Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, they say, and I am not without sin. I did it, too, to you, and what’s more I did it first. It was long ago, but that makes no difference because time does not create an alibi for disloyalty, for cheating. If I could sit here and look into my mirror and say I never cheated on our marriage, without lowering my eyes, remembering everything, that would be one thing, but I can’t. Even though you never knew about it, never suspected, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, because it happened. I knew what I was doing, as they say, and I did it. Only with one person, perhaps, but one was enough to draw the line between a woman who cheated and a woman who can say she never cheated. Or perhaps you did know, perhaps you did suspect. Is that it? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Tit for tat. Serves you right, old girl. Try a taste of your own medicine. See how you like it.

That time there was passion—passionare, to suffer.

And there’ve been other times I could have done it. Your law partner, Harry Walters—he wanted to. Your very own law partner, the man whom you play tennis with on Thursday nights, your dear friend, he asked me to. Are you getting it good enough from Brad in the sack? he asked me. I’ve seen him in the shower, and he looks kind of small in that department. I laughed in his face, and never told you. And there was the buyer at Bendel’s who suggested that he’d buy our products if I’d check into the St. Regis with him, and for two years no one could understand why Bendel’s wouldn’t buy us. I could go on. I could compile quite a little list of men who wanted to—even a woman who wanted to—but the list of people I’ve said no to doesn’t turn me into a woman who’s never cheated on her husband, does it? No way, old girl. No way, José.

Dear Brad, she writes to him in her mind, dictating to herself the way she dictates those long and chatty office memos she likes to write. Dear Brad. Brad darling. Darling Brad, dearest one, dear heart, dearest husband, dear Brad. Has the trouble always been that you don’t really approve of the business I’m in, is that it? I mean, I know at the time you supported me when I wanted to do it, you were the only one who thought I had a chance, but perhaps, way back then, you had no idea that I would be so successful, that this little business of mine would become so big, that it would consume so much of my time and my life. Perhaps you thought it would be like the painter Ingres and his violin, a pastime, a hobby, an avocation, like our Saturday strolls around antique shops, looking for unusual plates. But now I’ve become a Cosmetics Queen—they call me that—and I’ve made all this money, richer, probably, than Grandpa ever was, and perhaps, years ago, you never really expected that. Do I earn more money than you? Yes, probably, but we’ve never discussed that, thank God; we’ve never had to, thank God.

And then there are the kinds of people I have to deal with, the retailers and merchandise managers and buyers, the tough-talking Charlie Revson types, the spike-heeled fashion editors in their turbans, the New York types, the media salesmen and the ad agency reps; they’re really not your types, are they? They probably bore you, and you probably even find them a little vulgar. They don’t have names like Wickersham and Hollister and Cadwallader and Stettinius and Lord, the names you lunch with at the Downtown Club. They have names like Bernstein and Lifschitz and Goldbogen and Livingston that used to be Lowenstein and Robbins that used to be Rubin. I’m not saying you’re a snob, but these aren’t the people you’re used to, that you really feel comfortable with, at ease with. I picture you in your office sometimes, all tweedy carpet and chocolate-colored leather chairs, good cracked leather, old leather, lamps with parchment shades, and a view of Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange and Alexander Hamilton’s statue guarding the U.S. Treasury Building, Old New York, so different from mine. In Old New York, the lawyers come and go, talking of Paine vs. Bigelow. I know what your secret ambition is, or used to be. It was to be appointed a United States Supreme Court Justice. But has there ever been a United States Supreme Court Justice whose wife was a Cosmetics Queen? Will there ever be? Is that the trouble? Has my success collided with your ambition? I wanted you to be proud of me, I guess, but instead of pride I’ve brought you disappointment.

Perhaps if we’d had another child. But then …

Your goal was prestige. Mine is … perfume.

I can’t sit here all night thinking thoughts like these. We have an advertising meeting in the morning. He’ll come home, eventually. At least he always has before.

In her bedroom, Mimi’s maid has turned down the covers, drawn the curtains closed, and placed a small plate of fruit on her bedside table: an apple, a banana, and a plum, red, white, and blue. With the fruit knife, she slices a wedge from the apple and places it in her mouth. Then she slides between the sheets and arranges many small lace-edged Porthault pillows around her head and neck and shoulders. Then she turns off the bedside lamp. Close your eyes and think happy thoughts, her mother used to say, and you’ll be sure to have a good night’s sleep.

But, instead of happy thoughts, omens and portents swirl around her in the darkness. Tonight was supposed to have been the special family preview of her new Mireille fragrance, and that little preview did not go well. Does that bode ill for the future of the fragrance? Mimi tries to remind herself that she does not believe in omens and portents. Hers is a business, after all, that is based on superstitions, hunches, guesswork, instinct, gut reactions. Elizabeth Arden would not make a business decision without first consulting her horoscope. Charlie Revson consulted regularly with a palmist and would not do business with a man whose license plate had the number thirteen in it. Even Mimi’s building believes in witchcraft. There is no thirteenth floor. If you go looking for evil omens, you can find them everywhere. From beneath a pillow, Mimi reaches for her sleep mask. The sleep mask has the effect of pressing her wakeful eyelids closed.

Much later, she has the dream. It is a dream she has had before, though not lately, and it is a dream that, even as she dreams it, she knows is only a dream, and she knows that she will awaken from it, and always at the same point. In it, she is a little girl again, and in a car somewhere, and suddenly there is a terrible screeching of brakes, and a loud crash, and a large dark object flying up across the sky, and people screaming everywhere, and then there are only her mother’s screams and sobs. This is where she invariably awakens, with her mother’s screams, never finding out what the screams mean, or what has happened.

Awake, she realizes that the sound that awoke her was the sound of her husband’s bedroom door closing across the hall. From the digital clock at her bedside, she sees that it is ten minutes of three, and she realizes that he has not come into her room to kiss her good night, the way he usually does.

On the beach at St.-Jean-de-Luz, you covered my feet with sand, and then my legs, and then my belly, and then my arms, and then my breasts, until I was covered with sand all the way up to my neck, and all that was sticking out of me was the head. And you said that now I had a figure just like Mae West’s, and then you kissed me on the lips and said that even if I got to be as old and fat and bloated-looking as Mae West, you’d still love me.

Mimi told me all of this, much later.