The Romance Reader's Guide to Life Page 14

  “I want to be back the way I was,” I said. “Everything just light and funny. Not clammy.”

  “It’s a loss.” Boppit nodded.

  “Oh, look, Boppit, it’s Ruga Potts. Ruga!”

  “She can’t see you, Lilly. Not the dead you.”

  “I know. Good lord, I didn’t see what these pictures looked like then. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “One of your strengths when it isn’t one of your weaknesses. Look over to your left: Neave steering that six-year-old away from the picture of the just-about naked woman wrestling the just-about naked man?”

  “What the hell is she hitting him with? And what’s that thing behind them?”

  “A space pod. And she’s not hitting him; she’s paralyzing him, and then she’s going to roboticize him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m familiar with the issue.”

  You know, Charles is better looking than I thought he was when I was alive. That night I’d found him standing in front of a Frank Frazetta illustration of the woman with snakes wrapped around her and an enormous, muscular rope of a creature swinging its fanged head toward her. The woman and her snakes were arranged to draw the eye to her cantaloupe-sized breasts and rounded rear. I thought she looked great, standing there facing the monster with real moxy.

  “Charles Helbrun III bought that print,” Boppit said. “His advisers told him to buy Frazetta because they expected it to get more valuable. Helbrun had no feel for that image at all. He only thought of it as an investment.”

  “If Helbrun didn’t care about the art, why is he here?”

  “To meet Neave. He’d read an interview with her in the business pages, and all of a sudden he was seeing the little blue Be Your Best bags everywhere. He was curious. He was impressed. Look,” Boppit said to me, pointing across the room. “There’s Helbrun writing the check for that print. Now he’s asking her for her phone number.”

  I turned and followed the direction of his stare. “Yes,” I said. “It’s clearer from here. Is everything I thought I saw back then wrong?”

  “Of course not,” Bop said. “What you saw from where you stood then was true, just like what you see now is true. It’s all true.”

  “Helbrun had a good walk. People turned their heads to watch him go by. Nothing’s as attractive as a beautiful man who couldn’t care less about looks. He cared about business, and winning, and getting what he wanted. You know I love Neavie to death, but I was surprised that a guy like Charles Helbrun was interested in her.”

  “You shouldn’t have been. He saw her as the businessman’s perfect partner.”

  “Well, just goes to show you how little I saw back then. That event was the jumping-off place for Snyder. All those years we thought he was incompetent, but really he just wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing.”

  Boppit said, “That huge studio that Neave found him after the show gave him storage room, a place to mount art, his own telephone line…”

  “The answer to the Snyder problem was right there all along but we didn’t see it.”

  “You weren’t really looking at him, Lilly.”

  “Maybe. We were careless about lots of stuff, weren’t we?”

  “You were careless. Neave wasn’t. Jane wasn’t.”

  “It was great, being alive. I mean, look at me in that aqua number! I looked fabulous. But I was stupid.”

  “That’s why I’m here, doll.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, partly,” Boppit said.

  So we were able to take our considerable proceeds and help move our brother into a studio with enough square footage to store his prints and books, a workstation where he could mount posters and cut glass, and most important of all, a telephone so he could stay in touch with the first wave of customers he’d found at the gallery opening.

  He was launched.

  NEAVE

  My Romance

  It took forever for Charles Helbrun III to move from asking for my telephone number to asking for anything that could be called a date, but eventually it did happen. He had stayed in touch after Snyder’s gallery opening. Typically he had a practical reason for the call. He wanted to ask advice about hostess gifts for the wives at a client conference; a friend in a different business had asked him a question about packaging and he thought I might have valuable insights to pass along. Then, finally, at last, I returned from lunch to find two dozen roses and a card asking me to dinner. To thank me for all my help, the card said.

  “Is this a date?” I asked my sister.

  “Of course it’s a date. I think it’s a date. I mean, does the man ask an accountant who he hires for occasional advice out for dinner and send him roses? No. He sends him a check. It’s a date.”

  I called his office and his secretary said she’d be happy to take him a message. I said tell him yes. She called back to ask if Saturday at eight was acceptable. I said yes. He arrived in a six-year-old solid black Ford, which surprised me since I knew what he’d spent on that print he’d bought at Snyder’s gallery and it was an astonishing figure. He didn’t expect the downstairs door to Be Your Best to be the first-floor entrance to my home, and he stood there knocking for a full five or six minutes until I heard him and ran down the stairs.

  “This is the right address, isn’t it?” he asked. He was carrying another two-dozen roses and held them toward me when I swung the door open. “I didn’t realize you lived directly above the business.”

  You wouldn’t expect that a few flowers bought by a man with enough money to buy the store where he found them would flatter me, but they did. I was new to flowers. “This is where we lived when we started out,” I explained, leading him into the warehouse’s living area. “We’ve put in a kitchen. Bathrooms. Sectioned off a couple bedrooms. I kept adding things instead of leaving.”

  “‘We’? I thought your sister was married.”

  “Just recently married. Lilly and I were here together at first.”

  He followed me silently. This wasn’t someone who felt awkward with conversational lapses. Generally I wasn’t bothered by them either, and it was surprisingly easy to watch him look around. “Lots of light. Who decorated it?”

  Decorated? “Me,” I said. “I guess.”

  “Rather bohemian.” He walked through the front sitting area and into the wider spaces of the kitchen. “You didn’t strike me as a nesting kind of woman.”

  “I’m not in this particular nest a lot. I work long hours.”

  “I’m the same. If you want to get things done, it’s what you do.”

  “What’s your house like?”

  “People describe it as formal. I hired an interior designer. I need the house to be presentable for business entertaining. It has to look purposeful. Tasteful.”

  “Controlled?” I suggested. He nodded. “How much entertaining do you do?”

  “I host a Christmas party. Two or three dinners a year for specific client cultivation.”

  “You had your house professionally laid out for one party and a couple dinners a year?”

  “Entertaining is not what I love best about my job, but it’s necessary. It builds trust among the people I do business with, and at my own dining-room table I can control who’s sitting next to whom. It’s easier to manage a lot of variables.”

  “You sound like your dinners need a stage director more than a good cook.”

  “You of all people should know that some things in business are theatre. I’ve read about your conferences.”

  “Lilly does the theatre in our business. Not me.”

  “Well. Theatre.” His head made a dismissive little twist and dip. “Not the real point of any business that matters, really.”

  “Don’t underestimate theatre, Mr. Helbrun. The stuff Lilly pulls off is the beating heart of our business.” I started to pull on a coat and he took it gently from my hands, stepped behind me, and eased me expertly into it.

  “Charles. Please. You look
very lovely tonight, Miss Terhune.”

  “Neave. Please.”

  “Neave and Charles it is, then.” He smiled and dipped into a tiny and very endearing bow. I bowed back. The tone of the evening softened.

  Even though my early training for Be Your Best parties had given me some competence with makeup, I’d still let Lilly give advice on wardrobe. She’d been disgusted that I hadn’t asked him where we were going. “The ladies’ room at Locke Ober needs an entirely different look than the benches at Durgin Park. I don’t think this is a clam-shack kind of guy, but he could surprise you and nobody wants to walk into a high-heel kind of place wearing flats.” She’d compromised and put me in a pair of pleated wool slacks with a white broadcloth silk blouse and low heels. She’d stuck diamonds in my ears. “There you go—very Marlene Dietrich.”

  “Not Rosie the Riveter?”

  “Absolutely not. The diamonds make the tailored slacks look tongue-in-cheek: smart. The blouse is expensive and, more important, it looks expensive. A classy combination. Put those pearls down. Too conservative.”

  “But the outfit’s conservative,” I pointed out. “Diamonds jump out at you.”

  “Exactly. That’s what they’re supposed to do. You’ve got to get the knack of being two contradictory things at once and selling both, honey. Makes people look twice. Wear this necklace of mine. Small stone, but it’s a good one. He’ll know the difference. There you go. That’s an outfit that can straddle different worlds.” She sighed. “Better on a first date to under-dress than overdress. Keeps you from looking eager.”

  “You mean I’m trying to sidestep stupid or trampy.”

  “That’s what I was trying to say. And you’re borrowing my fox coat. You’ll walk outta here looking sexy and when you whip it off in the restaurant: the most confident outfit in the room. You’ll see.”

  It turned out he was more a men’s club than a clam shack kind of first-date man—a white tablecloth, heavy cutlery, and cut crystal kind of room that specialized in steak. I was in a sea of black dresses that threw my pearl-gray slacks and ivory blouse into sharp relief. But I could feel Charles Helbrun III’s satisfaction in the contrast when he slipped off my coat to hand to the maître d’. He made a point of stopping to introduce me to several tables on the way to our seats. Lilly’s judgment had been dead-on accurate: he was perfectly pleased with the unfrilly look of me. He ordered our drinks with only a quick glance at me for contradiction. And when I didn’t contradict, he went on to order for us during the rest of the evening. Instead of feeling irritated, I felt flattered. I felt taken care of. I was in his world, and I was happy to sit back and watch while he navigated it gracefully. I settled back in my seat and looked around. It had begun to rain and the city streets reflected the lights from passing cars as if they were skimming along on black mirrors. From where I sat the outside world seemed far away, and we were in a fire-lit room full of tinkling crystal and glittering silver.

  “This is lovely,” I said, and I meant it, entirely.

  “Tell me about your company. Please. I’m really interested.”

  He was. Unlike most listeners, Charles Helbrun didn’t fidget or interrupt with observations and leading questions. He was patient. I told him about Lilly’s early days at the corner spa and her faithful following. I told him about the first salesgirl conference—a half dozen young women eating pie in a warehouse on folding tables and chairs we snagged from our mother’s church by forging her name. But I left out what had distinguished us from competitors and doubled our sales: the “bad girl” lines—the Vixen lipsticks and Fast Girl eyeliners.

  The effect of concentrated interest is very powerful. I forgot myself, talked on and on to this handsome man in the expensive suit who gave me his complete attention. When the evening ended he walked me to my door and held out his hand. I took it. No kiss. And I realized when I closed the door behind me that I’d been thinking hopefully about that kiss for the last half of the evening.

  “So how was it?” Lilly hadn’t waited for the next day—the telephone had rung about ten minutes after I got in.

  “What do you have? Date radar? How did you know I’d be back yet?”

  “Just guessed. I figured a nice place, slow service, eight o’clock reservation, fairly reserved good-night scene…”

  I told her where we’d gone, and she declared the restaurant choice a victory for me. “You can tell how serious a man is by where he takes you on the first date. If he’s pretty sure he’s going to want to see more of you, he tries to impress you.”

  “Wouldn’t that just depend on how much money the man has or whether or not he thinks you’d like a clam shack?”

  “Could. Usually doesn’t. So how was the kiss?”

  “No kiss.”

  “Really?” She considered. “So he’s taking things very slow. Being a gentleman. That could also be a good sign. Or a bad sign. Sweetie pie, you just may have gotten yourself a serious boyfriend.”

  And so it seemed, for that was the beginning of Charles Helbrun III and me. He’d call on Wednesdays and ask for Friday or Saturday—the serious nights. Before Charles, I thought of wine as the drink that came in two colors. After Charles, I entered a whole new universe, a place where I put clothes out on a bed and thought about their effect on a man whom I very much wanted to interest. My whole center of gravity leaned over and tipped onto a nipped-waist skirt with fifteen yards of fabric in it. It was new, and heady.

  “You got it, girl.” Lilly nodded when I tried on the new skirt for her to inspect. “That’s the spirit.”

  “He says these disparaging things about women he thinks fuss about their looks,” I told my sister.

  “Yeah, well, that just means he’s lying, or he’s not paying attention. All women fuss with their looks. The smart ones just look like they didn’t fuss. Men like to think they pick and choose what they notice, but that’s hooey. We do the picking and choosing. Don’t listen to him. Listen to me.” It was true that seeing myself in the mirror in heels, snug waists, and costume jewelry was startling, but startling in an exhilarating way.

  And I could feel Charles reacting to the heels, the Shalimar, the tinkling accessories, no matter his stated distaste for “fussiness.” The first time I swung the door open to greet him after Lilly and I had put me together for a purposefully provocative effect, I could feel the immediate spike in interest as well as a little surprise. I think I actually stood back a bit and tilted my head, ready to be admired. I was in the hands of something I could only call desire, though at the time I didn’t know that I wanted to be desired more than I desired the man himself.

  “That’s a beautiful woman,” I said to him one day as we waited in a movie line. I was watching a tall, composed brunette across the street slip her arm around a man and pull him closer until he declined his head. She kissed him—a serious kiss.

  “She’s well dressed, elegant. But she’s vulgar.” He shrugged. “The woman’s on a public sidewalk! Forward women think they’re attracting men because of how bold they are.”

  “Well … they do attract men.”

  “Men who use women. The wrong men.”

  The kiss at the end of that evening, like the few kisses that had preceded it, was brief and direct. I brought the question of kissing to my sister.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” She was sincerely amazed. “He’s never so much as gotten his hand on your ass? Do you think he has an idea of gentlemanly behavior that says you should make the first move?”

  No. I didn’t think so.

  “Are you sending some kind of ‘Go slow’ signal?”

  I didn’t know. Had I? I entered every evening with Charles in a slow burn of anticipation for … something. But what? When I tried to imagine the something I wanted, it was tangled up in the idea of a kiss but it wasn’t exactly a kiss. I wasn’t a child, but my knowledge of adult sexual love came from places like Electra Gates’s life rather than my own. I didn’t have any of my own. Somewhere deep in reflected imag
inary thirdhand experience, Electra was ripping her skirt away so she could force herself through the narrow break in the wall that separated her from Basil Le Cherche. Such ferocity! And then the two lovers left silenced and stilled. I had never been silenced and stilled; nevertheless, I believed in it. All of it.

  I set The Pirate Lover aside and picked up my battered Walt Whitman, scanning the strange words about leaves of grass for the hundredth time. If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it. Translucent mould of me it shall be you! Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!… You my rich blood! Your milky stream pale strippings of my life! Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!

  The first time I met these words, they summoned up the dress from the Marais. Now I spread a beautiful skirt out and considered its effect myself, but there was still a mystery here that Electra Gates had figured out, and I hadn’t. I felt fairly sure that whatever I felt about Charles, it wasn’t the feeling that Electra knew.

  That Saturday, Charles invited me to a party at his firm that he described as a key business event. Lilly approved. “It means he’s really confident about you. Ready to have you looked over by his most important audience.”

  I was pleased and then surprised that I’d felt a little spark of relief when he’d invited me. Why wouldn’t I be able to be looked over? I was the co-owner of a successful business, an independent and, with some help from Lilly, a very well-dressed woman. So what if I was also a boiler-room worker’s kid from Lynn whose claim to fame before lipstick was M&M’s pie? I wasn’t hard to look at. A big law firm party was not over my head. But still, there was that spark of relief to be admitted into the deeper recesses of Charles Helbrun III’s world.

  I dressed myself and just checked in with Lilly to see what she thought. She changed the shoes, the purse, the skirt; she kept the hat and gloves; she added a necklace. “Now you’re fine,” she said. “Go forth.”