In the weeks following his semi-official debut, Eric and his grandmother drew closer and closer to each other. Although she kept a tight rein on his activities, his “illness” being the excuse to keep him at her side, it wasn’t long before the patient began rehabilitating the nurse. Like encouraging a baby to crawl before teaching it to walk, Eric at first took an interest in the garden and slowly got Mrs. Lindenhurst to accompany him to the backyard to oversee John’s work. This led to lunch in the delightful oasis on more than one occasion.
“Do you know, Eric, my garden was once photographed by a well-known gardening magazine and used to be included on a city garden tour sponsored by the mayor’s office.”
“And it will again, Nana,” he told her.
The old lady laughed. “I’ll not live to see it. It takes many years to cultivate an award-winning garden and we’ve let this one go far too long.”
“I think John’s done a pretty good job,” Eric answered looking about the area.
“But he’s not a gardener, dear. He’s not even a very good butler. But I’ve never known you to take such an interest in our backyard.”
Eric looked a little uneasy and began picking the tiny leaves off a hedge that had just begun to fill in. “Could I ask you not to think of me in terms of the old Eric?”
“Beg pardon?”
“What I mean, Nana, is I’m not the person you used to know. A lot has happened to me and it’s made a great deal of difference in the way I think and feel. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Of course, Eric. Have I been upsetting you?”
“No, you’ve been more than kind. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to become the person I used to be when I would be more comfortable being the person I’ve become. I don’t think the new me is too bad, do you?” Eric gave her his most winning smile.
“That is so well put, Eric, and how much you remind me of your mother. Erica was a very strong-willed girl, like her father I always thought. So…” she patted his hand, “no more chatter of the past. From now on we look to the future. And I think the new you is the best of all possible worlds.”
From the backyard they ventured the few blocks into Central Park. The intense heat of summer had not as yet settled in and the days were perfect for strolling and people-watching. They made a pretty picture, the petite old lady on the arm of the very handsome young man. An enterprising photographer, recognizing the pair, snapped them unawares on one of these walks and sold the photo to a wire service. It received a big play in the national press and even made it onto the television screen. It was to become something of an American classic, a modern symbol of hope and, as one of the tabloids captioned it, “The Power of Prayer.”
One astute commentator compared the photo to one of the late Queen Mary and her son David, then Prince of Wales. “Has anyone besides myself noticed the striking resemblance between Eric Hall and the young Duke of Windsor?”
Aside from this incident they were relatively untroubled by the media. There were the usual number of requests for interviews, feature stories, appearances on TV talk shows, an offer of a Hollywood contract for Eric to portray himself in a mini-series based on his life story and every publisher in town wanted his name on the dotted line for an autobiography. None of these requests got past a junior clerk in the offices of Goodwinn, Barr and Goodwinn. The society and gossip columnists, tired of waiting for the heir to go about socially, contented themselves with speculating as to where and with whom he would go once he had begun to resume his old lifestyle.
For their first big night out Eric decided on dinner at the Casa Maria and included Tom in their party. It was a very sentimental event for the new Eric Hall and a slightly embarrassing one for his former employer and co-workers. Mr. Carluccio, the owner of the Casa Maria, almost fell over himself greeting his distinguished guests. Tony, the bartender, and Terry, the waiter, tried to treat Eric as if he had just returned from a brief vacation but instead came off like two disobedient subjects facing a displeased monarch. “I used to pat his ass,” the bartender whispered to Terry as he passed a drink order over the bar. “A hundred million bucks worth of ass.”
Eric sensed their unease and felt miserably isolated from his old friends. But some of the Casa Maria’s regular customers who were in the room smiled and waved; a few even stopped at Eric’s table to shake his hand and, being true Villagers, said things like, “When are you coming back to work?” Eric immediately felt better and ordered a far larger dinner than he or his guests could possibly consume.
“Waitering,” Mrs. Lindenhurst observed, “is a very honorable profession. Certainly it’s more thought of in Europe, where they have raised it to the status of an art, than here. I get the impression that you were very good at it, Eric, and your customers obviously miss you.”
“Their loss is our gain,” Tom quipped.
“I was good,” the usually modest Eric admitted, “and if things had turned out differently I was going to open my own place.” He looked directly at Tom as he spoke.
“Really?” His grandmother seemed very interested. “Our ancestors, Eric, were in commerce.”
“Shipbuilding in New England two hundred years ago is a little different than the restaurant business,” Tom reflected.
“I agree, Thomas,” Mrs. Lindenhurst quickly answered. “With the restaurant business one is always assured of eating a good meal every night.”
Eric grinned at his friend. “More pasta, Tommy?”
And so the long, hot days of a New York summer began and for Eric Hall and his grandmother they were spent in idle tranquility, doing what they wanted, when they wanted to do it and paying scant attention to the world about them. It reminded Eric of life with Uncle Alexis and Aunt Marie except that now he was free to come and go at his leisure — but with Tom working all day, he had no place to go and nothing to do when he got there. Eric was learning that obscurity and great celebrity have a great deal in common.
Many of Eric’s old friends called, some out of genuine concern but most out of curiosity, and a few of them even came to the house on Ninety-second Street to visit with him Eric handled them exactly as he had handled his peculiar situation to date: “I am not the person you used to know, but I am very happy to make your acquaintance.”
They respected this not only because it made sense but even more because the rich have a great deal of respect for the super-rich.
The new Eric had no interest in cultivating these people. Indeed, he had no interest, as he had told his grandmother, in becoming “the Eric they used to know.” Because fate, over which he had never had a firm grasp, had endowed him with Eric Hall’s face he had become Eric in body, but he would be damned if he would become Eric in spirit. “As the Bard said,” he told Tom, “what’s in a name?”
“A hundred million bucks, that’s what.”
“You’re full of crap, Bradshaw. You care as much about the money as I do. What do you do with the money I’ve been giving you?”
“Adding it to Aunt Marie’s nest egg. You want an accounting?”
“Spend it, dammit.”
“On what?”
“What about those Gucci loafers you were always mooning over?”
“I bought a pair and they hurt my feet. I have very peasant feet, Nicky.”
“Eric, blockhead. Eric.”
“I liked you better when you were a waiter,” Tom lamented.
“And I liked you better when you were a swimming instructor at the West Side Y.”
Gradually, Tom became a more and more familiar sight at the Lindenhurst mansion. Mrs. Lindenhurst liked him and, exercising her own particular charm, soon had Tom relating to her the story of his life. “You’re a very courageous young man, Thomas, and I think the Ambassador would have liked you.” She looked at his portrait as she uttered his title. “I also think your grandmother should be proud of you.”
Tom shook his head. “I was an embarrassment to her.”
Mrs. Lindenhurst nodded sympathetically. “I know the type. My lord, I’ve known all the types there are to know. I remember a very royal lady was so upset by her son’s homosexuality that she pretended not to know what the word meant, let alone that such romances have existed since Eve did in Adam…and the whole human race, come to think of it.” Tom and Eric sat enraptured, like two little boys at the knee of a great teacher.
“Well,” she continued, “one evening at a dinner party in Buckingham Palace the talk turned to gossip and someone mentioned that a certain general and his aide-de-camp were extremely close, so to speak. ‘But,’ another stated, ‘we all know the general is homosexual.’
“Well, this great lady raised her head and said, ‘Is that so? The King of Spain has the same thing but the doctors are now able to control the bleeding.”
Her audience roared their appreciation. Tom, clapping his hands, cried, “It’s not true. I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, but it is true, Thomas. It is indeed true.”
Tom and Eric went to the films or the theater at least three times a week and Tom was soon spending his weekends at Eric’s home. A gossip columnist finally picked this up and mentioned that “Eric Hall was in the constant company of his discoverer.”
“How does she know you found me?” Eric questioned. “It was never mentioned publicly.”
Tom rubbed the palms of his hands together. “The lady is a great friend of Amy Culver. Can you add two and two? And please note that my name was not mentioned which makes me certain Amy the Sweet got a call from the scribe who, in twenty-five words or less, told Amy that she had seen us about and asked Ms. Culver if she might know who I was.”
“And Amy,” Eric continued, “said she would tell her if she promised not to mention your name, only mine.”
“Give the man a cigar. Good old Amy, with her for a press agent I wouldn’t get an obit if I paid for it.”
“Stupid,” Eric said, tossing the paper aside.
“Stupid, yes, but not funny. You can expect a call from Southampton.”
“What?”
“Dicky now knows that you and I are an item, as they say in gossip-land, and the little weasel must be adjusting and readjusting his eyeglasses, pulling what few hairs he has left out of the top of his head and driving his wife up a fucking wall. I repeat, you’re going to get a call from Southampton.”
Eric got a call from Southampton. Dicky pleaded with him to come out for a few weeks. One week? A lousy weekend? Well, then Dicky would come into the city. He had some business to attend to anyway. “Lunch and squash, Eric, I don’t want you getting rusty on me.”
Eric was not in the least bit rusty. In fact he had improved a great deal since his first match with Dicky and rather enjoyed his afternoon with Tom’s nemesis. The new Eric felt at ease with Dicky. He had heard so much about the man from Tom that he now felt as if he had indeed known Dicky all his life. And Dicky, always solicitous of his beloved friend, was now even more so. Like the first time they had been alone together Dicky was once again nervous, at a loss for a topic of conversation, and appeared to be relieved when Eric took the initiative along these lines.
It was all perfectly understandable but Eric still wondered what the true relationship had been between Dicky and the former Eric Hall. Was it an intimate one and was Dicky now wondering if his friend remembered, would rather forget, wanted to resume…?
“Have you seen anything of Tom?” Dicky finally asked.
“Now and then. A movie, things like that.”
“You never cared much for him,” Dicky suddenly exploded. It was obviously what he wanted to tell Eric since their first reunion. “He’s not one of us, Eric.”
“Who are us?”
“You know what I mean.”
Eric shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Do you remember that Tom Bradshaw is a bastard. I mean a real one. He used to brag about it.”
Eric smiled. “No, I didn’t remember but Tom told Nana and me all about it.”
Dicky was shocked. “Your grandmother?”
“Yes.” Eric leaned across the table as if betraying a confidence to his lunch partner. “It seems I have a few ancestors who were born on the wrong side of the bed, as she so quaintly put it.”
It was just possible that Dicky Culver would close the season in Southampton without a hair left on his head.
Tom had scheduled his vacation for the last two weeks in August and that time was rapidly approaching. “You could take the rest of your life off,” Eric told him.
“I intend to do just that, but not right now. How the hell would it look? You return from the dead and I grow rich. We’ve been very lucky so far, but let’s not push it.”
“I think you’re developing a guilt complex about being a kept man.”
“Wait, and I’ll prove how wrong you are. Can you get away for a couple of weeks?”
“Not to the Hamptons, I can’t. According to Dicky if I sat on the beach or in any pub I would see my life pass before me.”
“I know,” Tom said, “and I have no intention of sharing you on my vacation. I was thinking about the Jersey shore. I once went to one of those small towns on the ocean where the only celebrities they know are the local volunteer firemen. Can you swing it?”
Eric discussed it with his grandmother. She was a little hurt, hid the fact and said he certainly deserved a vacation and should go wherever he wanted. “I also wanted to talk to you about the future,” Eric continued the conversation.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Well, I’m very happy here, you know that but I would like to get a place of my own.”
She nodded slowly. “I can understand that. You’re not a little boy any more and if our lives had taken a more normal course you would have left home a long time ago.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke but she held herself rigidly erect and smiled her pleasant smile.
“Not far, Nana,” he quickly added. “I would never want to be too far from you. Someplace in the Seventies or Eighties…only a few blocks from here, but my own place. Do you understand?”
Her face brightened. “Of course I understand, my dear. A man, especially a single one, needs room to breathe and can’t be expected to spend his days and nights with an old lady.”
“You are not an old lady and I’m happiest when I’m with you.”
She waved away the compliment. “Nonsense. I’ll tell Russell to —”
“No, Nana, please…no. I want to find my own place and rent it and furnish it. This means a great deal to me.”
Now the tears which again appeared in her eyes expressed joy and not sorrow. “I’m so proud of you, Eric. You could so easily fall back on all our money but you insist on doing for yourself. You know the joy that comes from personal achievement. Just like your grandfather, Eric, you are just like your namesake.”
“Now don’t start pushing me out. I intend to be right here for Christmas and then, after the first of the year, I’ll start looking around.”
“I want to have a real old-fashion Christmas, Eric…and we’ll have a party. The grandest party New York has seen since your mother’s debut.”