Gilded Age Read online

  Eleanor relaxed and laughed. “It seems like no time has passed since last I saw you.”

  “That’s how Cleveland is,” I said, smiling, glad the situation was defused.

  “It’s good to be back. These last six months have been pretty hard.” She sipped her coffee.

  It was then that Jim seemed to materialize at my arm with Randall Leforte in tow and introduced him to Ellie. Something in Jim’s posture made him seem pleased that he could introduce them. Whether he was proud of knowing Ellie or glad to be seen with one of the sharpest litigators in town, I didn’t know.

  Leforte smiled wide and moved in close as he took Ellie’s hand. It was fascinating to watch—and I’d been watching since we were children—the pull she had over men. I thought he might bend over her hand and kiss it. He smelled like patchouli, a hippie-ish, slightly dirty smell that didn’t mesh at all with his polished exterior. He clasped her hand and released it, his eyes wandering up and down her body, as if he’d like to do so much more than shake her hand.

  Ellie was, of course, aware of the effect she had on Leforte. But it didn’t seem to please her. It seemed to bore her. She was looking for Selden, who was across the room talking to a group of men, each of them old enough to be his father. I felt sure they were discussing the financial state of the orchestra, the need for younger patrons.

  “Mahler’s my favorite,” Leforte said, moving in close to Ellie. “Though I prefer Titan.”

  Ellie rocked back and forth on her feet, looking like she was ready to spring for an exit, and I couldn’t figure out why. Leforte was attractive and certainly some chitchat with him wouldn’t hurt.

  “You mean his First Symphony?” she asked.

  “Yes, I guess I do,” he said in a hearty tone as he shifted closer to her, almost turning his back to me, trying to ease me out of the conversation and gain some privacy until Betsy Dorset interrupted us all.

  Betsy Dorset wore trim black pants, a black long-sleeved T-shirt, and a neon green fleece vest—the type bought at sporting goods stores. Pinned to the fleece was the immense Dorset diamond brooch from the turn of the century, valued—so I’d heard—at half a million dollars. With her kind smile, cropped silver hair, and sensible shoes, she was the very model of a new-millennium Cleveland dowager. Her son, Dan, and I were the same age and had been at school together.

  She hugged Jim and me and then made a great fuss over Eleanor, whom she’d known as a baby. Clevelanders of a certain age love few things more than one of their own returning home, and Ellie had the satisfying air of the prodigal about her.

  Just as Randall was quietly trying to slip away unnoticed, Betsy demanded an introduction, and Jim obliged.

  “Oh, but I know you from your billboard,” Betsy said, shaking his hand.

  “Billboard?” Eleanor blurted before she could censor herself.

  “Mr. Leforte has a billboard just as you come into downtown on the Innerbelt,” Betsy said to Eleanor. “I must admit it doesn’t do you justice,” she said to Randall. She said it in a flirty, confidential tone, but I knew she’d meant it not at all nicely. She sat on the board of the Cleveland Clinic; I’m sure she’d been forced to deal with Leforte, his clients, and their demands for legal settlements. She knew exactly who he was. “It has your eight-hundred number on it,” she added brightly. “Doesn’t it, Mr. Leforte?”

  The chimes rang, calling us back to our seats for the second half of the music. Leforte made a quick exit.

  “That man,” Betsy said in a hushed voice as she hugged me goodbye. “Getting rich off hospitals and others’ misfortunes. It’s the height of poor taste.” And she wafted off in a cloud of Joy perfume.

  “I’ll come see you next week,” Eleanor said as Selden took her arm to lead her back to the box.

  “Come on Wednesday,” I said. “Stay for dinner if you like.” Jim clasped my hand and steered me back to the box with my family’s name painted in swirling gold script over the door. The box my family has occupied since the hall opened in 1931.

  • 2 •

  The Bungalow

  Ellie accepted Selden’s invitation back to his house for a drink after the concert. He escorted her to her car, taking her the long way around the reflecting pond in front of the art museum, which was blindingly white under spotlights, marking it as a beacon of culture.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” she said.

  “This isn’t the greatest area at night.”

  “You forget I’ve been living in New York.” Though now that Selden mentioned it, she remembered the park nearby had been dicey when she was a girl—rumored to be littered with needles and pipes and other unmentionable trash from furtive liaisons. But earlier this evening, as she’d arrived at Severance Hall, Ellie had seen a bride and groom having their wedding portraits taken right in this very spot. The clean Greek columns of the museum set off the bridal gown perfectly.

  As Ellie and Selden rounded on the glowing front of the art museum, passing one of Rodin’s thinkers pondering them from his gleaming spotlight, a young couple emerged from under a low-hanging willow tree: he in a slim suit, thin tie, and black Converse sneakers, she in cat-eye glasses and a red taffeta dress. The boy was leaning down, intent to hear what the girl was saying, then he whispered in her ear. Lights from the water reflected on his teeth when he smiled, lit up her plump arm as she covered her mouth to laugh.

  The gravel paths here were pristinely maintained. The young couple added youthful energy, and what was that feeling Ellie had when she saw them—hope, envy, anticipation? It’d been so long since she’d felt anything; she could hardly remember.

  She watched as the boy lifted the girl’s hand and kissed it. Was I ever that young? Ellie wondered as Selden handed her into her car.

  She drove slowly over to Selden’s house, giving him time to get there before her. The Heights were alive with evening strollers, dog walkers, fathers hauling garbage cans to the curb. As she drove past one driveway, a woman unloaded pumpkins, probably from the West Side Market, from her car. A kid in a number 23 jersey rode his bike down the sidewalk. A young guy in scrubs with disheveled hair walked with a cell phone lodged between ear and shoulder, a computer bag slung across his body. The sidewalks were busy and bright under the streetlamps. The Heights’ streets didn’t have energy like Manhattan. But a cozy warmth emanated from the neighborhood, as if neighbors might still drop in on one another and leave their calling cards during “at-homes” like people did a hundred years ago.

  She parked in front of Selden’s small prairie-style bungalow. Though she could have had her guard up at his suggestive invitation, she didn’t. She’d known Selden from childhood. She knew all the pretty boys. Though she’d spent a few nights comfortably flirting with him in bars or sitting next to him at concerts like the one they’d just attended, she’d never taken him seriously. He was younger and an academic, which only slightly intimidated her and completely deterred her. The academic life was a tough one, almost worse than the military; you never knew where you might have to live. No, Selden had been a pleasant distraction in the pursuit of serious game.

  The lawns on Selden’s street set the houses back a good way, making everything feel private. The deep porch wrapped around his one-story house like a secluded embrace. Walking up the steps, she felt confident she had made the better choice over staying in New York.

  He swung the door wide for her, ushering her inside. Selden’s living room had a broad-beamed ceiling and a fireplace tiled in celadon green. He walked here and there, clicking on lamps. He’d furnished the room in what she guessed were thrift store finds—the ratty couch in nubby orange, the white space-age floor lamp arcing over a chrome and glass coffee table—the home of a bohemian and threadbare member of the Rat Pack. A frumpy Queen Anne desk, likely a cast-off from his parents, was littered with a laptop, an iPod, crumpled papers, and a few thick card-stock invitations stuck at random angles under a plastic Magic 8 Ball. Every nice young bachelor had a little untidy stack like
that—nice bachelors always being in demand for weddings, birthdays that end in 0, cocktails to meet the new museum curator, and fancy dinner parties.

  Selden opened the windows to the crisp night air and the faint scent of burning leaves. Academic books and journals covered the floor near the couch. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, the dim light catching the fine auburn hair on his arm. On a low table next to a reading lamp was a small bouquet of burnt-orange roses in a dented brass urn. He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Ellie appraised it all and then nestled herself into a low chair.

  “What a lovely thing to have a place like this,” Ellie called to him.

  After some banging and clanging, Selden came in the room with a squat glass of tequila with a lime, a pot of tea, and a plate of pears with honey for dipping.

  “Women have been known to have their own houses,” he said, handing her a cup of mint tea. She noted that he’d not even offered her a real drink. Apparently her stay in Arizona was already public news in Cleveland.

  “Everyone says don’t buy a house if you want to get married. You’ll look too set in your ways, too grounded …”

  “A lot of bullshit.”

  “Mmm,” Ellie hummed. Selden was typical, she thought, professing not to care if a woman had a life, had a place of her own. But her mother seemed to think that men really did care about that. That a young woman in possession of her own house, her own space in the world, intimidated a man, left him emasculated. Perhaps a man felt he had nothing to offer if he couldn’t offer shelter? Absurd. Or did a man want someone with no past of her own?

  She sighed and dipped a slice of pear into the honey. “How did you think of this?”

  “Enjoying the last of the season.”

  She held her palm under her hand as she guided the dripping fruit to her mouth, the sweet ooze of honey on the grainy pear. “You’d think it’d be gilding the lily, but it’s delicious.”

  He smiled, and she noticed that he was watching her mouth.

  Ellie leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea, sweet and sharpish on her tongue. “Working hard?” she said, gesturing to his desk.

  He turned toward the desk as if seeing it for the first time and rumpled a hand through his hair, ending with it resting on the back of his neck. “I’m prepping for a new class I’m teaching next term.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “‘Decline, Decay, and Death,’” he said with a slow smile.

  “Light.” She nodded. “That will have them preregistering for sure.”

  He laughed. “They do. I have wait lists.”

  “Yes, but it’s not because those undergrads want to depress themselves.”

  “There are some serious students.”

  “It’s the chance to look at you for fifty minutes twice a week, you sweet ding-dong.”

  “They can find better views than that,” Selden said, suddenly turning toward the windows.

  Ellie looked out the heavy leaded windows too. “Maybe.” So here was William Selden’s passion—a lot of old books, descriptions of love, death, and loss. She wondered if he actually had experienced true love or passion in his life, or if he was content to merely read about it. Looking at him now, she couldn’t decide.

  As she sat there watching him, wondering if he’d ever loved someone more than himself, she wished, not for the first time, that she’d pursued something in her life. She’d gone to a mediocre college and received mediocre grades, and afterward she counted herself lucky to land an internship at a fashion magazine in New York. She remembered those days fondly now, though at the time she’d felt panicked. She’d fetched coffee and copies for mercurial men who wore bronzer and opined about sequins. It had seemed exciting for about six months, and then she’d started to wonder what was next. She was living in a tiny apartment with four other girls. In her life of late nights drinking and exhaustion, of being constantly surrounded by gay men or other women, there were no straight male prospects inhabiting her fashion orbit.

  She didn’t have the grades or the interest for graduate school. At the time she’d rather have died than return to Cleveland and her mother’s house. She started to think about marriage, preferably to a Wall Street type in a bespoke suit with a classic six on the Upper East Side.

  “What about you?” Selden asked her.

  “What about me?” Ellie started. She’d lost track of what they were talking about.

  “Any proposals forthcoming? Any news you’d like to share with me?” His eyes were glinting, back to joking.

  She rolled her eyes. “You act like marriage is the only thing on my mind.”

  “Isn’t it?” He smiled.

  “No,” she said petulantly, though she forgave Selden for saying this. It was what everyone thought of her, wasn’t it? Her marriage to her first husband was deemed brilliant by those around her. Alex was the son of an old New York family. Their engagement announcement was written up in the Times with ample mention of her husband’s background and little mention of her provenance. Their large town house on the Upper East side, all five floors, was a gift from his family. They spent weekends at his family’s farm upstate.

  All the togetherness, the demands of his family name, used to grate on him. He complained about the expectations. So it seemed natural he would blow off steam. Yes, Alex had enjoyed a good time. What she hadn’t understood was that she was not supposed to enjoy herself equally as much. If he dabbled in a few controlled substances here and there, well, so did she.

  Ellie had spent so much of her life being attractive, leading up to the ultimate test—catching a husband. Landing Alex had practically been a military campaign complete with complex strategy, precision, and subterfuge. One night, nine months into her marriage, she’d come to bed and found him passed out, his breathing shaky after a forty-eight-hour bender, a wad of blood-streaked tissues on the bed stand next to an orange prescription bottle. She watched him, making sure his breathing steadied, that he was all right. She wondered, for the first time since she’d started dating at fifteen, the first time in her life, really—did she even like this guy? The answer that night was, she wasn’t sure.

  Over the next weeks as she observed his red eyes, his greasy hair, his complaints about the lazy housekeeper, his constant texts to his source, his bitching about his parents, his manic chattering about politics, she decided she didn’t. It wasn’t exactly fair; she’d admit that. She’d known what she was getting into. She’d changed, not him.

  Anyway, he didn’t stop, and she spent nights with either a maniac or a zombie. Could she really be blamed for taking up with a more attentive and lucid young man only tangentially in their New York circle?

  Apparently she could.

  “You should get a place like mine,” Selden was saying.

  “If you ever think of selling, call me.” She leaned forward and took another piece of pear off the low tray. “What about you?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be settling down by now?”

  He tilted his head, looking at her quizzically.

  “You’re very civilized, William Selden,” she said, teasing him. “Very domesticated. You need a wife to complete the picture.”

  To her surprise he blushed and drained the last of his tequila. “Cigarette?” He opened a wooden inlaid box on the table, and she took one and then took a few more for her purse.

  “Ladies buy their own nowadays, yeah?” he said, arching an eyebrow.

  “But I like the brand you buy.” He lit her cigarette. “They taste better having been with you.” She stood up to peruse his bookshelves. “Besides, I shouldn’t really be smoking. If I buy a pack, I’ll just smoke them all.” She felt him observing her, detached and yet interested. Men were always interested. What had it brought her? she wondered. Her wasted ex-husband and other men who wanted to posses her beauty for varying lengths of time. Not that she’d have it any other way, of course. It was much easier to be pretty than not; she knew that.

  “Have you a
ctually read all these books?” she asked.

  “Course,” he answered distractedly.

  What did he see in those poems? Did he write any of his own? She didn’t want to ask. It’d be rude if he’d been published and she didn’t know. Perhaps he’d be embarrassed if he hadn’t written anything at all. “Important for being a professor?”

  “Important for having a life.”

  “Life of the mind,” she said, nodding.

  He shrugged in assent.

  She knelt down to look at a book on the low shelf. “What’s life for anyway, Selden? That’s what I keep wondering.”

  “Life is for enjoying.” He laughed and reached to refresh her tea. But she didn’t laugh. “Right?”

  She straightened up, eyes still on the bookcases. “Yes, but how?”

  “Now, that is a serious question,” he replied, moving toward her. “In need of serious consideration.” He smiled, his tone light.

  “I’ve already made so many mistakes,” she said, cutting him off.

  He said nothing but reached for her waist. His hands fumbling there brought a rush of heat to her middle. He tugged at the ribbon, unclasping the pin and worrying the knot like a puzzle until he’d untied her sash. She remembered that as a boy he’d stolen the pink gingham ribbon out of her hair and teased her that her ponytail was as thick as a real pony’s. This upset her at the time; now she’d take it as a compliment. He was aware of her past; she knew that. He was aware of the things being said about her. He probably thought her a frivolous gold digger. He took her wrist and wrapped the ribbon around it several times, securing the whole thing with a tight knot, placing the pin in her hand.

  “What’s that for?” She smiled, but she knew. Men had been marking her since grade school—from the boy who insisted she wear the stickers he gave her, to the college boyfriend who wrote his name in Sharpie on her thigh after each time they’d had sex, to her ex-husband, who’d wanted her wedding band tattooed on her finger, meshing his prep school background with his penchant for the seedy. Fortunately, she’d successfully resisted that last one.