"I don't know why I never did it before," John said, his face gleaming. "I feel younger tonight than I have in a decade."
"How wonderful, John," Stella said, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "What does Milly think of it?"
"Not much." He looked bemused. "She couldn't figure out why I wanted to have a party in the first place.
She couldn't understand why I wanted to have Miss Moore here at all."
Milly herself came into view at that moment, holding a tray of canapes before Barnes and Venuti, the two bankers, and from the determined look on Milly's plump face, Ricky saw that she had opposed the idea from the first. "Why did you want to?"
"Excuse me, John, I'm going to mill," said Stella. "Don't worry about getting me a drink, Ricky, I'll take one from someone who isn't using his." She went through the doorway in the direction of Ned Rowles. Lou Price, gangsterish in a double-breasted pinstriped suit, took her hand and pecked her on the cheek.
"She's a wonderful gal," John Jaffrey said, and the two men watched Stella deflect Lou Price with a phrase and continue toward Ned Rowles. "I wish there were a million like her." Rowles was turning around to watch Stella approach him, his face lighting up with pleasure. In his corduroy jacket, with his sandy hair and earnest face, Ned Rowles resembled a journalism student more than an editor. He too kissed Stella, but on the mouth, and held both her hands as he did so. "Why did I want to?" John cocked his head, and four deep wrinkles divided the side of his neck. "I don't know, exactly. Edward's so entranced with this girl that I wanted to meet her."
"Is he? Entranced?"
"Oh, absolutely. You wait. You'll see. And then, you know, I only ever see my patients and Milly and the Chowder Society. I thought it was time to bust out a little. Have a little fun before I dropped dead."
This was very giddy for John Jaffrey, and Ricky glanced at his friend, taking his eyes from his wife, who was still holding hands with Ned Rowles.
"And do you know what I can't get over? One of the most famous actresses in America is upstairs in my house, right this minute."
"Is Edward with her?"
"He said she had to take a few minutes before she joined us. I guess he's helping her with her coat or something." Jaffrey's ravaged face simply gleamed with pride.
"I don't think she's quite yet one of the most famous actresses in America, John." Stella had moved on, and Ned Rowles was saying something vehement to Ed Venuti.
"Well, she will be. Edward thinks so, and he's always right about things like that Ricky!" Jaffrey gripped his upper arms. "Did you see the kids dancing downstairs? Isn't that fantastic? Kids having a good time in my house? I thought they'd enjoy meeting her. It's a fantastic honor, you know. She can only be here a few more days. Edward's got the taping nearly done, and she has to get back to New York to rejoin the play. And here she is, in my house! By God, Ricky."
Ricky felt almost as though he should press a cold cloth to Jaffrey's forehead.
"Did you know that she just came out of nowhere? That she was the most promising student in her drama class, and the next week she got her part in Everybody Saw the Sun Shine?"
"No, John."
"Just now I had a wonderful idea. It was about having her here in the house. I was standing here, listening to the kids' disco music from downstairs, and hearing bits and pieces of the George Shearing record from in there, and I thought-downstairs is the raw, animal life, kids jumping around to that beat, on this floor we've got the mental life, doctors and lawyers, all middle-class respectability, and upstairs is grace, talent, beauty-the spirit. You see? It's like evolution. She's the most ethereal thing you've ever seen. And she's only eighteen."
Never in his life had Ricky heard John Jaffrey express such a fanciful concept. He was beginning to worry about the doctor's blood pressure. Then both men heard a door close up on the next landing, followed by Edward's deep voice saying something that had the sly intonation of a joke.
"I thought Stella said she was nineteen," Ricky said.
"Shhh."
A beautiful little girl was coming toward them down the stairs. Her dress was simple and green, her hair was a cloud. After a second Ricky saw that her eyes matched the dress. Moving with a kind of rhythmic idle precision, she gave them the tiniest of smiles- still it was brilliant-and went by, patting Dr. Jaffrey's chest with her fingertips as she passed them. Ricky watched her go, amused and touched. He had seen nothing like it since Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box.
Then he looked at Edward Wanderley and saw at once that John Jaffrey was right. Edward's feathers were shining. He had obviously been stirred up by the girl, and it was equally obvious that it was difficult for him to leave her alone long enough to greet his friends. All three men began to move into the crowded living room. "Ricky, you look great," Edward told him, putting an arm easily around Ricky's shoulders. Edward was half a foot taller, and when Edward began to propel him into the room, Ricky could smell an expensive cologne. "Just great. But isn't it time you stopped wearing bow ties? The Arthur Schlesinger era is dead and gone."
"That was the era right after mine," Ricky said.
"No, listen, nobody's older than he feels. I stopped wearing neckties altogether. In ten years, eighty per cent of the men in this country will wear ties only to weddings and funerals. Barnes and Venuti over there will be wearing that getup to the bank." He scanned the room. "Where the hell did she go?" Ricky, in whom new ties evoked a desire to wear them even to bed, looked at Edward's unfettered neck as his friend surveyed the crowded room, saw that it was even more corded than John Jaffrey's, and decided not to change his habits. "I've spent three weeks with that girl, and she's the most fantastic subject I ever had. Even if she makes the stuff up, and maybe she does, it'll be the best book I'll ever do. She's had a horrible life, horrible. It makes you weep just to hear it-I sit there and cry. I tell you, she's wasted in that piece of Broadway fluff, wasted. She'll be a great tragic actress. Once she's out of her teens." Red-faced, Edward guffawed at his own preposterousness. Like John, he too was in flight. "You two seem to have caught that girl like a virus," Ricky said.
John giggled, and Edward said, "The whole world will, Ricky. She's really got that gift."
"Oh," Ricky said, remembering something. "Your nephew Donald seems to be having a great success with his new book. Congratulations."
"It's nice to know I'm not the only talented bastard in the family. And it should help him get over his brother's death. That was an odd story, a very odd story-they both seem to have been engaged to the same woman. But we don't want to think about anything macabre tonight. We're going to have fun."
John Jaffrey nodded in happy agreement.
4