Gilded Age Read online

  “Leave it to old-school Cinco Van Alstyne to basically marry himself,” Julia said, as if reading my thoughts, but perhaps she was referring to his appetites.

  “I thought they might be trying to get pregnant.” We all looked at Ellie when she said it. She passed the plate of sweets over to Diana. “Doesn’t it require timing and stuff?”

  “Not that precisely. They could have waited ’til the end of the party,” Diana said, chuckling as she took the plate and passed it on to her husband without a glance. “I mean it was a small party. It’s not like they slipped off and no one noticed.”

  “It was the opposite, and I think that was on purpose,” Dan said, receiving the platter of sweets and settling back on the couch to make his choice. “He all but announced, ‘I’m going upstairs to screw my wife now.’”

  “Don’t say ‘screw,’ ” Diana said.

  “Well what word would you use in these circumstances?” he asked, then shoved a large chocolate in his mouth.

  Diana pursed her lips.

  “Jules, what do you say?” Gus said, nodding toward the stairs with a wink.

  Everyone laughed then, dissolving any tension between the Dorsets. Julia rolled her eyes before getting up to come around with the coffee again.

  • 5 •

  The Foraging

  The next morning, after having slept later than I felt was polite, and with Jim already up, I crept downstairs feeling rattled. The pregnancy had brought on the most explicit dreams, hormonal nocturnal liaisons starring everyone from Jim, to an old boss, to last night’s Cinco Van Alstyne. I hadn’t thought of him that way in years. Julia and the cook were in close conversation in the kitchen when I entered.

  “What kind of man won’t even eat butter?” she complained to the cook. “Is it too much of a bother to make him something special tonight? Hippie gourmet, I guess?” The cook made a face. “You’re the best,” Julia said to the cook, and noticing me, she turned. “There you are, sleepyhead. They’ve all gone hiking again. They didn’t think you’d want to go.” When I started to protest she said, “Enjoy it while you can. They’ll be back for lunch. Come have some breakfast.”

  She seated me at a table laden with crumb cakes and berries. The cook brought me herbal tea.

  I’d made decent progress on the berries when Julia finally sat down next to me, having finished dispensing instructions to the cook.

  “Things are going along with Ellie and P. G.,” I said.

  “Don’t they look well together? He seems smitten, though I’m not sure she’s in for such an easy time of it.” Julia reached out and began rearranging the pitcher of field phlox and asters in the center of the table.

  I nodded over my cup.

  Julia continued. “She’s led this glamorous life in New York, her photograph in W magazine every month at parties, bloggers following what she wears. That’s so not his scene.”

  “Which might be good for her,” I said.

  “It might. And of course there’s all that money. Ellie always did like that.” I raised an eyebrow at this coming from Gus Trenor’s wife. “I mean, who doesn’t like money?” she said quickly. “But I just wonder how long she can last. No parties, no drinking, no smoking, no butter for God’s sake.”

  “Perhaps it’s a new leaf.”

  “Mmmmm,” Julia said. “I’ve known Ellie as long as you have and we both know how she is.”

  “People should be allowed to change, Jules,” I said. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to stick up for Ellie. Maybe I also recognized the radical change her character would have to undergo to be with Gryce—becoming a vegan, a teetotaler, and adopting his ways of understatement and discretion. Not that Ellie wasn’t proper, but I knew sometimes her enthusiasms could verge on the vulgar. She always had the refreshing air about her of not giving a shit—that would have to go or be toned down if she was with Gryce. Maybe I thought she deserved some credit for that. “None of us are who we were in high school, or even college. People should be allowed to evolve past high school views of them.”

  “Of course you’re absolutely right,” Julia said. “I’m just saying that it’s not often that the leopard changes its spots. Now, have another piece of this cake, would you? You’re the only one who can.”

  I agreed, which brought out the cook’s nodding approval. I spent a cozy morning with Julia and her many home decorating magazines in her chintz-covered sunroom asking her advice about decorating the baby’s nursery.

  At noon, Ellie and P. G. weren’t with the group that returned for lunch.

  “They’re foraging,” Gus announced, disgusted.

  “You’re kidding.” It was out before I could stop it.

  Diana laughed. “They’re searching for berries and there’s some sort of mushroom that’s in season right now,” Diana said, brushing her hands together. “God help her, I hope they’re hallucinogenic.”

  We all laughed. I followed Jim up to our room, where he was changing out of his sweaty clothes before lunch.

  “She’s eating berries and grubs in the forest?” I asked.

  “Not grubs. She was so enthusiastic about it.” He smiled, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen her in action. I’ve only heard about it from you, but it was impressive. She’s memorized all these facts about the Native Americans up here. She even mentioned some nut they used to eat, and she and Gryce are looking for it. She certainly did her homework.” He shook his head. “One more day of this and I swear Gryce is going to propose.”

  “Already! Up here?”

  “He’s the type. The outdoor extremism and the dietary convictions, he’s a big-R Romantic and a real headfirster. I can just hear the story he’ll tell his children about meeting their mother and knowing she was the one so he didn’t wait even a week before proposing.”

  “Forever skewing their expectations of a proper romance.”

  “That’s hardly romance,” Jim said with a grin. “That’s more like filling a job opening with the best candidate.”

  I smiled at him, wondering at his arch tone. Though he was never sentimental, this was particularly sharp.

  He went on. “It seems a waste.” I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Ellie or to Gryce or what. “He’s actually a pretty nice guy. His interest in the plants and everything—it rubs off on you. I can see why Gus likes him. It’s like hiking with your own personal naturalist.”

  “Do you think she’d marry him?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “She could do worse than Gryce—rich, outdoorsy, a little dull and puritanical, but she might loosen him up. She’d be good for him.” I can forget how clearly my husband sees things sometimes. “How she’ll do married to him …” He trailed off.

  I later learned from Ellie how the foraging went. P. G. suggested it to the group and when Ellie volunteered, everyone else begged off, again in silent solidarity with Ellie. So she’d spent the afternoon following Gryce through the damp forest. It wasn’t actually that bad, she’d thought. Gryce was handsome, and he kept up an interesting patter about the plants and their origin. He was certainly passionate about it all. Here might be a new wholesome way of life, Ellie thought—organic essential oils, starting a lavender farm somewhere, an organic skin care line. So chic. She could see her future with him as she followed his trail in the forest, his way of life, his beliefs and prejudices, all with access to the Gryce millions.

  Yet when he’d pulled an orange mushroom out from the base of a tree, brushed it on his jeans, and with dirt still clinging to it, popped it in his mouth, the dream of the lavender farm faded just a little. He offered the next one to her and with an inward cringe she ate it, hoping he was correct that it was indeed a chanterelle and not poisonous. It tasted exactly like dirt with a fleshy, squeaky texture. She forced herself to swallow it. She ate one more and then suggested they take some back to the house for the others. They searched for berries but only found a bush with shriveled fruit that looked like birds had already eaten most of it. He ate these heartily. S
he ate few.

  Gryce, on the other hand, had a wonderful time. He’d finally found the woman he’d been waiting for. Smart—she knew a lot about Native Americans from the area. Easygoing—she’d been willing to forage with him. Healthy—she was a nonsmoker, nondrinker, like himself. Attractive—certainly; in fact she was damn sexy. As they descended a hill he grabbed her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her.

  She closed her eyes. He tasted like mud, and his beard tickled annoyingly rather than scratched satisfyingly. He started out hesitant but became confident, until she was wrangling with more tongue than she liked. Not a promising first kiss, but not a disqualifying one either.

  He had an enormous erection almost immediately and walked quickly down the hill in front of her, talking loudly about invasive trees in the area.

  The group who lunched at home went out for a drive in the afternoon to a nearby lake for a walk among the fall foliage. When we came back Viola was scrubbing Gryce’s mushrooms in the sink asking about their botany, afraid, I think, that he’d poison us all. The cook hovered with a skeptical look on her face. I was told Ellie was in her bath.

  The cook put another cup of chamomile tea in my hand, and I walked into the living room to await the others for the start of cocktail hour. William Selden was leaning against the fireplace, looking splendid in frayed cords that hung off his hips, a faded gray T, and a tweed jacket. He had a gleam in his eye that typically signals a man means business.

  I suppose it wasn’t all that unusual that Julia should invite him. Cleveland hostesses loved him—a handsome, single poetry professor. I’d spent a few enjoyable evenings seated next to him at dinner parties listening to him quote famous Irishmen.

  He hugged me, and we settled in to await the others. Gus came in next and poured drinks for us with a heavy hand. He even brought me some complicated juice mixture in a martini glass.

  Diana Dorset came down and sat proprietarily close to Selden. And Viola came and sat by my feet. Though Selden paid polite attention to Viola, it became clear to me that she was not the reason he’d been invited up.

  I excused myself to head for the powder room. “Are you stirring the pot?” I whispered to Julia as I passed her, and nodded at Selden and Diana on the other side of the room.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Actually he called me up and fished around for an invite.”

  “I thought everything was over between him and Diana.”

  “Over on his side, yes. Not hers. Look at her. It’s a wonder Dan stands it.”

  Though looking across the room at Dan and Gus happily opening up a bottle of Gus’s Caol Ila, each with an unlit contraband Cohiba hanging out of the side of the mouth, it seemed like Dan stood things just fine.

  Gryce had come in and was recounting the foraging, complete with the Latin names of the berries they’d eaten, when Ellie came down dressed in a wheat-colored floor-length cashmere sweater dress that clung just enough to reveal the perfection of her figure, but not enough to be vulgar. She wore no shoes and behind her ear she’d stuck a red maple leaf that matched her lacquered toes.

  I watched Gryce’s mouth drop in wonder, but Ellie wasn’t watching her triumphant effect on him. She was staring quizzically at Selden. She flopped down next to him on the couch in my old place and playfully kissed his cheek.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked conspiratorially.

  I gave Julia a wondering look, and she shrugged.

  He picked up her hand and quickly kissed the wrist where the white tattered ribbon was tied. Selden somehow made it seem a friendly throwaway, but I saw something fierce cross Ellie’s face. “Peeping leaves,” he said.

  Everyone laughed but Diana.

  That night at the table, Julia seated her guests with place cards. She put Selden and Diana together, while just this one night separating Gryce and Ellie. Such placement gave Ellie a view of Gryce at one end of the table and Selden at the other. And that, I believe, was the beginning of her undoing. I mean, how else do you explain what happened next?

  Gryce was distractedly listening to Viola describe the need for urban gardens for the inner-city youth of Cleveland as Ellie watched. Even from across the table I could read Gryce’s face. He frowned into his soup, likely worried that he was unwittingly eating some errant butter or chicken stock. He ever-so-slightly leaned away from Viola on his left, worrying no doubt that she would hit him up for a check any minute now. His wineglass was conspicuously empty.

  I had a flash of Ellie’s future stretching out before me. I’m sure she did too—the dinners of healthy, flavorless food, the passion for things and plants but not people. What of passion, I thought, or intoxication for that matter—intoxication with life, love, sex, with her?

  Gryce turned away from his close conversation with Viola toward the table in general and announced to all in a loud voice, “It’s like I was telling Ells today about foraging …”

  I thought I saw Selden flinch at Gryce’s use of a nickname.

  “People have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” Gryce said. “Be self-sufficient. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves. Addicts and things—they’re hopeless.”

  The cook was at Ellie’s arm then with a bottle of champagne.

  “Just water,” she said a little too loudly.

  “But the gardens are for children,” Viola countered quietly. “In poverty. The plants inspire them so much. The teenagers work for minimum wage. They’re dying to, actually. We have five times the number of applicants to spaces for the jobs.”

  “See, they’re helping themselves,” Gryce said. He seemed very young to me then, a boy dressed in his mountain-man suit playing Indian with his precious collection of artifacts.

  Viola fiddled with her knife on the table. “But they wouldn’t have the opportunity if our program didn’t exist. They wouldn’t be exposed to nature like this.”

  “A lot of nonsense. No offense, Viola, but you have the cream of the crop there. They’d find something else to do that was worthwhile even if it wasn’t your urban gardens. You shouldn’t underestimate them.”

  “Perhaps,” Viola said, defeated. I thought then that Gryce should give her gardens some money. He loved plants. What better cause than helping poor children love them too? I made a mental note to send Viola a small check when we got home.

  “There aren’t that many jobs downtown, P. G.,” Selden piped in. “It’s decimated right now—especially for teenagers, yeah? And not everyone has a family who can expose them to history, anthropology, conservation, and market auctions like yours has you.”

  On the one hand this was a rather flattering portrayal of Gryce’s family’s hoarding artifacts; on the other it implied Gryce had been handed his life on a silver platter. You’re a privileged bastard, Selden was saying. Shut it.

  But Gryce didn’t get it.

  “True, not everyone has a family like mine,” Gryce said with obvious pride and a complete lack of guile.

  I thought I heard Selden groan. Jim rolled his eyes at me across the table.

  “Or yours,” Gryce said, turning to me.

  I was mortified to be implicated in his snobbery. My family may be old and decently well-off, but I detested talking about it. My three options whenever put in this situation depended on how much I liked the speaker. If I really liked the speaker I could 1) make a joke, preferably self-effacing, if I could think of something witty fast enough; if I didn’t know the speaker I often 2) changed the subject, which alerted everyone to my discomfort and usually put the topic aside permanently; or if I didn’t like the speaker I could 3) say absolutely nothing and let everyone marinate in the weird discomfort of the silence.

  I chose option three.

  The table was silent for two full beats before Gryce swallowed a bite of vegetable and then turned to Ellie.

  “Ells knows what I’m talking about,” he said, and smiled adoringly at her. “How foraging makes one feel self-sufficient. Gives you pride in yourself. More peop
le should do it.”

  Ellie smiled a tight, close-lipped smile at him and nodded.

  “These mushrooms are heaven,” Julia interrupted then in a forced cheery voice, spearing a mushroom on her fork. “Now, tell me again where you found them, P. G.” Excellent hostess that she was, she easily steered us back to calmer waters. “I’ve found blueberries, but never very many as the birds get them all.”

  And Gryce was off recommending books and discussing bird nutrition. Dan mentioned his new binoculars, and the table was then on to a safe subject.

  Selden got up from his seat and walked to Ellie with the third bottle of Perrier-Jouët to go around the table. He gestured toward her glass, and she shook her head. He frowned and leaned in close to whisper something in her ear.

  “Just water,” Ellie said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Come on. Share a glass with me,” I thought I heard him murmur. The voice of Bacchus could not have been more seductive with its promise of pleasure and abandon. For an instant Ellie had a look in her eye that I hadn’t seen since we’d been living in New York.

  “A taste,” I heard her say. Selden, I noticed, poured her glass to the rim. And then he set the bottle down next to her place with a jaunty wink behind his glasses.

  I wondered at his forcing champagne on her. Surely he’d heard she’d had struggles. Perhaps it was Gryce’s priggishness that brought out the rebel in Selden.

  Diana Dorset smiled a bright hateful smile at Ellie.

  At first Gryce didn’t notice Ellie sipping. But midway through his polenta with special mushrooms, it became clear to everyone at the table that he kept a continual eye on Ellie’s diminishing glass.

  When dinner was over, we sat in the living room for dessert. Ellie refilled her glass herself. I started to worry. The whole room was tense watching her.

  I think Selden wanted to diffuse the tension. Because after Julia had served the apple pie, he left and came back with a polished ebony box.