Gilded Age Read online

  “Treats?” Diana asked, animated for the first time since Ellie had come downstairs.

  Selden opened the dugout to reveal a stash of very green, very fragrant marijuana and a narrow pipe—a one-hitter used for medicinal purposes—the instruments of an adept and tidy pothead. Was it me or had he directly looked at Gryce after he’d opened it?

  “Who’ll smoke?” he asked.

  I saw Viola and Gryce stiffen. The Dorsets were enthusiastic yeas. Gus Trenor eyed the pipe resignedly and Julia laughed. “I haven’t been stoned since college. You’ve got to be out of your mind.”

  Ellie shook her head no.

  “Come on, El,” Diana Dorset said loudly to all. “Selden’s bound to have better stuff than that ditch weed we smoked at Cinco’s the other night.”

  Gryce’s head snapped toward Ellie. She didn’t respond.

  “After a good roll in the hay,” Dan said, “old Cinco likes a little puff as dried out and nasty as hay.”

  We laughed, and Ellie was off the hook. But I noticed that Gryce was appraising her from the other side of the room. Diana’s comment had hit its mark, and I couldn’t help but feel a little angry with her for so uncharitably blowing Ellie’s cover.

  Selden expertly packed a tight little pipe. Though I had smoked a bit here and there, it had been a good decade ago, and now in my pregnant state there was no way I was getting a contact high. I wanted to get out of the room as unobtrusively as possible. As quietly as I could, I got up and headed for the stairs. Jim caught my eye and nodded slightly.

  Julia was on her feet at once. “Don’t go. We’ll make Selden go outside.”

  “Oh no, I’m exhausted,” I said, embarrassed and not wanting to end the party. “Good night.” Before she could further protest, I was upstairs and in my room.

  I closed the door, glad of the silence, happy to be away from Diana’s meanness and from witnessing Selden’s corrupting influence on Ellie. Seconds later there was a knock on my door.

  “It’s me,” Ellie said, peeking around the door looking as wary as a child. “I’ve been sent to tell you it’s okay. Jules sent them all downstairs into Gus’s man cave.”

  “I really am tired.” The pregnancy had me in bed most nights before Jim. I didn’t want to talk. I knew she’d want bolstering, and I wasn’t sure I was the person to do it. Ellie could convince herself of most anything, and I didn’t want to help convince her she was in love with P. G. Gryce and his prim starchiness after witnessing him and Viola at dinner.

  “Come back down,” she said. “Julia will fret all night if you don’t.”

  “Tell her I already had my nightgown on,” I said, though I was still dressed. I went in the bathroom and started brushing my teeth.

  Ellie sat on the edge of the bed, champagne glass in her hand. “What did I tell you about Gryce?”

  “A regular Ranger Rick,” I said after I’d rinsed out my mouth. “You weren’t kidding.” Here it comes, I thought. I was used to hashing over men with Ellie. We’d done it regularly when we’d both been living in New York. Truth be told I got a little thrill out of it. My dating life had never been as exciting as hers. And it was touching to me that she seemed to value my opinion, though I’d never understood why. I was less experienced with men than she, and certainly less glamorous.

  “But nice,” she said. “I’d never have to worry about cheating or other women or anything.” It was certainly true that a man like P. G. would never stray sexually.

  “Not with him, no,” I said. “Definitely a one-woman type if you ask me.”

  “And smart. Interesting I guess.”

  I nodded. Though P. G. seemed to have the farthest thing from an original and exploratory mind, I suppose he’d been to the proper schools.

  “And rich of course.”

  And there it was. “Of course,” I said, smiling.

  She smirked. “Don’t think that about me.”

  “Ellie …” I was going to protest, but then again Ellie and I had known each other too long to be coy. But P. G. Gryce, I thought. He was such a prig, such a bore. After seeing him tonight I’d come around to Julia’s way of thinking. Could she really do it?

  “I know what you think,” she said as she finished her glass. Perhaps she was tipsy. “You’ve never had to worry about these things.”

  “You don’t know what I think.”

  She paused, waiting for me to tell her.

  “You’re a realist,” I said. “You know what you want.” I tried to phrase it as gently as I could.

  She nodded deeply. “I do. It’s true.”

  “I think you have perspective on it too, having been married once before.”

  “Money wasn’t the problem there.”

  “But you know it’s important to you.”

  “To me?” She sounded a little angry. “Like it’s not important to every single one of them down there?”

  “Except Selden,” I said, wanting to know exactly what had been going on between them since I’d seen them at the orchestra. I suspected she was the reason he’d come up here. I didn’t know why, but I liked the idea of Ellie and Selden. Perhaps if she found love it would ground her. Ellie, my friend, had always been searching. Didn’t true love take care of yearning like that?

  When she didn’t answer I asked, “Ellie, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  I went in the bathroom and put on my nightgown. Then I crawled into bed, Ellie seated at the foot. “Selden just makes me a little crazy,” she said.

  “What brand of crazy?” I asked with my eyes closed. “There’s the crazy-in-love crazy, the angry crazy, the actually nuts crazy …”

  “When I’m around him, he makes everything I want seem tawdry. He lives just fine off his salary. He worries about dusty old books, and he’s fine. He judges me, I know.”

  “Well, you work too.”

  She snorted. “I’ll never make any real money. All my jobs are just time fillers. Do you know what I’d have to do to make the kind of money Gryce has? It’d be impossible.”

  True, but Gryce had everything handed to him. When you got right down to it, how different was having everything handed to you by your ancestors from having everything handed to you by a husband?

  “Gryce didn’t make the kind of money he has,” I said. “There’s a lot of room in between Gryce’s money and supporting yourself well. You could do it.” Ellie always did have the most ambitious, expensive taste. If she just came down and lived like the rest of us, I was sure she could find happiness.

  “But there’s no freedom in that. That’s the only thing money’s really good for anyway. Freedom. It’s not meant for cars and diamonds.”

  “Oh, you might enjoy opening a wing of a hospital or something,” I said, yawning.

  “Yeah, but Gryce wouldn’t,” she said in a deadly serious voice.

  Of course, she’d noticed at dinner. “He lacks a certain …”

  “Compassion,” she finished for me.

  “Ability to take another’s perspective,” I said.

  “Think I could teach him?” she asked. Again, it always flattered me when she asked for my opinion.

  “Pull a Mother Teresa and show him by example? Sure.”

  “I’m not the Dalai Lama.”

  “No, but he strikes me as pretty malleable,” I said, wanting to sound encouraging. If anyone could change a man, it was probably Ellie.

  She shook her head then, and I thought I saw a tear, which made me immediately anxious. “Seriously, I don’t even have a design degree. I’ve had all these dead-end jobs in fashion adding up to a résumé filled with nada. Plus, I haven’t worked in four years. The economy’s shit. I’m lucky to get this gig with my friend as a favor.”

  I sat up and put an arm around her. “You don’t know what’s in the future. You don’t know where this job could lead.” I meant it. Ellie, I felt sure, could conquer the world if she’d just figure out what she wanted to do.

  She stood up then. “
Which is why I’m going down and sitting with P. G.”

  There was a knock on the door then and Jim came in. “You better go down,” he said to Ellie. “Julia’s missing you.”

  Ellie leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sleep tight.”

  Jim came in and lay down on top of the covers next to me. “You coming to bed already?” I asked.

  He kissed me long and lingering. “I could, sugar.” His hand snaked under the covers, bunching up my nightgown as he reached for skin.

  I kissed him back but then froze.

  “Get downstairs,” I said, pushing him off me. “They’ll all think we’re up here …”

  Jim smirked and rolled toward me. “Up here what? Fucking?”

  “That’s the word Dan was searching for last night, I think.” I smiled.

  He kissed me again, quite convincingly.

  “God, we can’t do this,” I said, shoving him aside. “Diana will run all over town talking about us just like the Van Alstynes. Get down there.”

  “You care what she thinks?” he asked, propping himself up on an elbow. “We’re married and you’re pregnant; won’t they just think it’s sweet?”

  “No,” I said. “Diana thinks nothing’s sweet.”

  He looked at me for a moment, as if weighing his options. “Okay,” he said, heaving himself up and out of bed and then leaning back down to give me a quick kiss. “Except Selden,” he said to my astonishment.

  “You’re sharp tonight,” I said as he walked toward the door. I regretted then that he’d taken my cue, and I’d managed to turn him off. But really, I thought he should have tried harder. I mean, what good is flouting conventions and scandalizing friends if it’s not because your husband has swept you off your feet? It’s backward, I know, and unfair to expect Jim to ignore what I say I want. I’m sure somewhere Gloria Steinem’s hair is going to spontaneously combust, but since being married I’ve learned that sometimes, when it comes to sex, what I want and what I say I want can be two very different things.

  He paused at the door. “You were right about her being a spectacle,” he said, referring now to Ellie. “Can’t wait to see what happens.” He winked at me and was gone.

  I tossed in bed, trying to sleep, thinking about Jim, about Gryce and Ellie, and as I drifted off images of Cinco Van Alstyne came to me again, pushing me with old expectations and assumptions—expectations of how a wife behaved and where she lived and how she acted. Expectations I was intensely familiar with since I’d grown up with them, as had he. Expectations I’d assumed he’d want a wife to fulfill. But the story Diana had told us, the dream I’d had last night …

  • 6 •

  The Man Cave

  I woke the next morning to Jim snoring beside me, gruff with stubble and warm. I snuggled in the crook of his arm, ready to sleep more, only to be met by the undeniable smell of pot.

  I leaned back and sniffed—definitely pot.

  He woke then, opening one blurry eye and scrubbing his face with his hand. He smiled, didn’t say anything, and went in the bathroom and closed the door.

  His pillow definitely had the oily, carbon smell of smoke on it. Obviously he’d smoked with Selden and the others last night. I heard the sink turn on, could hear him scrubbing his teeth.

  I’d never known him to smoke; we’d never gotten high together. And I was suddenly upset that he’d done this with them, without me, and while I was pregnant too. It seemed oddly selfish.

  I heard the shower turn on. Jim never showered first thing. Clearly he wanted to scrub the smell off him too.

  I hated using the bathroom when he was in there, but pregnancy being what it was, I went in out of necessity.

  I flushed, hoping the water would either freeze him or scald him and he’d get out of the shower and talk to me.

  It had the effect I wanted, or maybe he was just done, because he got out and wrapped a towel around his waist. He smiled, shaking water out of his hair, picked up his toothbrush and toothpaste, and started brushing his teeth.

  Again.

  “So?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow, standing in his white towel, looking clean and scruffy. He spat and rinsed.

  “It was a pretty ugly night,” he said.

  I kissed him, but he kept his mouth firmly closed when I brushed my tongue against his lips.

  “What happened?” I asked, wary.

  He led me back to the bed and crawled under the blankets smelling warm and damp and like the Ivory soap that Julia stocked all the bathrooms with—the eighty-cent bar.

  “Like I said, ugly.” He started his tale.

  The lowest level of the Trenors’ chateau had been renovated into Gus’s private domain. Julia called it his man cave. He called it his den of iniquity. The two flat-screens mounted on the wall were permanently tuned to sports. A computer hooked into some satellite gave instant betting access to Vegas and Atlantic City. The green felt poker table usually hosted Gus and his “boys.” There was a bar, huge couches for lounging, and a hot tub on the deck outside of it all. I’d heard rumors that during Gus’s boys’ weekends hookers were present, though it seemed unlikely Julia would tolerate that. News from the haters, I thought.

  The party retired downstairs for cards, Jim told me. Selden, the Dorsets, and the Trenors passed the pipe a little.

  I raised an eyebrow when he said this.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t smoke?”

  He groaned and leaned back. “A few hits.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re mad?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to seem prim, but I was upset. “No,” I said. Somehow I was sure that Ellie had something to do with Jim’s smoking pot. As I’ve said, Ellie had a way of getting you to do things you usually didn’t. I just never thought she’d work on him.

  He went on with his story. Ellie abstained from the pot but drank more champagne, he said. So maybe I was wrong in my assumptions. Viola went to bed, and Gryce sat in the corner with a glass of soda water. Soon the cards came out and everyone played except Gryce and Ellie, who sat on the couch, their backs to the poker players.

  Jim played poker regularly through college and had a weekly game in Cleveland. But he thought it bad form to take all his host’s money and so he didn’t focus too intently on the play, but watched Ellie out of the corner of his eye as she inched closer to Gryce. Selden was watching her too, he noticed. Jim threw a few hands, and then he saw Gryce reach his arm around Ellie and kiss her.

  “She must have been drunker than I thought,” Jim told me, laughing. “I haven’t seen macking like that since junior high school.” This comment annoyed me. He seemed to take delight in Ellie’s predicament, or maybe just delight in watching her kiss another man.

  “What did you all do?”

  They continued playing is what they did, and ignored the make-out scene just a few feet away.

  And then Diana called out, “Get a room, you two.”

  Though Gryce laughed, he turned red and put a good two feet between him and Ellie. Pretty quickly after that he left to go upstairs, saying good night to everyone.

  Ellie sat on the couch for a few minutes, straightening her dress, fixing her hair. She sighed, rejected, and then pulled a chair up next to Selden. “Now, where’s a tiny puff for me?” she asked.

  “Did he give it to her?”

  “He’d gone upstairs for the rest of his stash, and he packed the pipe and passed it to her. She was taking a haul off that thing when Gryce came back downstairs. I think he was looking for Ellie. Perhaps he’d been hoping she’d follow him upstairs or maybe he realized that he wanted to continue privately what she’d started publicly. He saw her smoking, turned on his heel, and was gone.”

  “Poor Ellie.”

  “She packed that one-hitter like a pro and passed it to me. That’s when I started smoking,” he said, laughing.

  I laughed too, but it jarred me, confirming that Ellie had been
the corrupting influence on him.

  They played cards for a few more hours. Ellie was dealt in too. She started losing almost right away. Gus’s buy-in is a thousand, and she lost it all, maybe even more. Ellie didn’t have money to lose, but Gus Trenor didn’t play for pennies. He did take IOUs though, which Ellie wrote out to him on cocktail napkins.

  I could see it: the play becoming stupider and stupider as the pipe made the rounds and the evening wore on.

  Jim continued with his story. By the end of the night Ellie was practically sitting in Selden’s lap. His lucky charm, he called her. Diana Dorset was pale with rage.

  “So I came up and crawled in next to you. You didn’t even notice, you were so out.”

  I smiled.

  But an hour later Jim was woken up by laughing and someone bumping into that fragile satinwood table in the hall. Jim cracked the door and saw Selden and Ellie kiss and then go into Selden’s bedroom.

  I was scandalized. “Do you think she slept with him?”

  “It looked like it was going that way to me.”

  “Really? She told me they were friends.”

  “Looked like more than friends to me.”

  “That’s so surprising.”

  “Why should it be?” Jim kissed me good and long, and I swear I could taste the faint hint of smoke on his breath. “Come here, you,” he said, smiling.

  I smiled, kissed him back without fervor, but he didn’t seem to notice. My mind was on Ellie, her new influence over Jim, her stealing upstairs with Selden. It was all so distracting.

  “We’ll have to keep it down,” he said, hand on my expanding waist, pulling me toward him. “News travels fast in this house.”

  I rolled toward him feeling awkward, though I was just barely showing and not in a position to put him off if sex was what he wanted from me.

  “You okay?” he asked, sensing the disconnect between my thoughts and my actions.

  I smiled and nodded and kissed his neck right under his ear. “Never better,” I whispered.

  After, I left Jim in bed, showered, and went downstairs, embarrassed again at my late rising. Remembering the conversation from the other night, I hoped no one would be able to guess what I’d been up to. I found Julia and Ellie in the sunroom. Julia glanced over at me when I came in and didn’t even stop her tirade at Ellie.