At first David had been put off by the prospect of including Tony and Betty at his dinner. Although David thought Tony was an impressive figure, he knew that Rounder and Chico were so neglectful of culture they wouldn’t care about Tony until he had six Broadway hits. However, when David learned Tony would have to leave early, he worried whether it would seem like a slight to Rounder and Chico, as if David couldn’t hold the attention of even minor playwrights. Who the fuck cares? David told himself as he laid down the last spoon. I hope to become Nation senior editor, not edit the culture pages.
Tony and Betty arrived first, half an hour early, bringing an expensive bottle of wine and expressing disarming apologies. “God, I’m sorry about this!” Tony exclaimed while shaking David’s hand. “I know it must seem strange. But I haven’t seen my father in almost two years. Last two times I was in LA, I didn’t give him proper notice and ended up missing him entirely.”
Betty meanwhile studied Patty. Patty had on a demure long dress, covering alluring parts of her body that were usually exposed. Her hair, which only three months ago had been permed, was now straight and gathered up in a bun, suggesting the fifties-movies cliché of a blond bombshell hiding in librarian’s clothes. “You look cute,” Betty said to Patty, her voice lacking conviction because her mind was absorbed by the shock that Patty had not merely unbaited her hook, but had thrown out the rod and reel as well.
Patty wheeled around, her dress billowing at the knees. “This is my taken look,” she said.
Tony and Betty laughed, pleased by her admission. David looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“This says: I have a boyfriend.”
David didn’t join the others in their smiles. “You’re not doing that for my benefit, are you?”
“Of course I am!” Patty said, a little sharply, as if hurt.
“You don’t have to.”
“Come on, David, you hated my single-girl wardrobe. Said I looked like a trollop.”
David flushed, his cheeks flooding with blood. “You did,” he said in a cruel tone, to cover his embarrassment at being exposed as a prude.
“Well,” Tony said breezily, “that’s just like Betty. After I picked her up on Forty-second Street, it took weeks to get her to throw out her hot pants.”
David and Patty laughed, glad to have an exit from their tense exchange. Betty didn’t. She said, “Ha, ha.”
An alarm bell rang in the kitchen and Patty almost jumped. “My roast!” she said, hurrying into the kitchen.
Betty followed her, saying, “Can I help?”
“What would you like to drink?” David asked Tony.
“Nothing. I’m meeting my father later, so … On the other hand, he’s so self-absorbed he wouldn’t notice I was drunk unless I threw up on his lap.”
David laughed. “Is that a yes?”
“Yeah. Give me a Scotch.”
Tony followed David over to an exposed bar on a built-in shelf unit. “How’s Hollywood?” David asked.
“Hot, I guess.”
“I meant your script.”
“Almost finished with, uh, a rough draft for Bill Garth to look at.”
“And if he likes it, they make your movie?”
“Who the fuck knows?” Tony said. “I can’t get a straight answer out of anybody as to how a movie gets made.”
“Doesn’t your mother know? Or your father?”
“Maybe I’ll ask my father tonight. Mom? She’s in TV land. When she worked in movies, it was the tail end of the old studio system. Everything was different then.”
In the kitchen, Patty fussed over her roast, her high cheeks flushing from the oven’s heat. “Where are you meeting Tony’s Dad for dinner?”
“Elaine’s.”
“Whoa!” Patty said, standing up. A strand of hair had fallen across her face and she blew it back.
“I can’t get over this picture of you,” Betty said. “You look like Doris Day in Pillow Talk.”
“Don’t you love me this way?” Patty said. Her tone, slightly arch, but insistent, left Betty in doubt whether it was sarcasm or self-satisfaction.
“Are you happy?”
“Oh yeah.” Patty said. “And you?”
“I’m going to be thirty-three in a month,” Betty said.
Patty ignored Betty’s mournful tone. She often complained about age. “You look twenty-two,” she answered, glancing in her direction, noting Betty’s bobbed red curls and pert (surgical, Patty assumed) nose.
“I’m talking biological clock, not vanity,” Betty answered.
This got Patty’s attention off the roast. “Are you trying?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
Betty looked disgusted. “What do you think? ‘I’m not ready, dear.’ ”
“Men,” Patty agreed. “For machos, they’re awfully chicken.”
Betty laughed. “Yeah. So, if you’re happy, how come I never see you?”
“It’s not my fault! You and Tony are always busy. Having dinner with Robert Redford—”
“Oh, come on—”
“It’s true! You’ve become too fancy to see me! Look where you’re going to dinner tonight — Elaine’s!”
Patty’s accusation was burlesqued, so Betty couldn’t answer it solemnly. Betty felt the charge was unfair. Patty herself, as was typical of her behavior in the past, had withdrawn from Betty as soon as her relationship with David had become serious, and then, once Patty felt the fish was landed and her life had become dull. Betty started getting phone calls, invitations to lunch, requests for dinner. It was true, however, that a tendency of Tony’s, a desire to socialize only with successful show-business people, had become more pronounced since his deal to write a movie for Bill Garth.
“And you, meanwhile,” Betty said, deciding to return Patty’s passing shot with a similar stroke, “entertain only editors in chief.”
Tony appeared, a drink in his hand. “Break it up, girls. The big cheeses are coming.”
Patty imitated a pouting child. “She started it.”
“Oh, she always does,” Tony said. “She’s famous for brawling.”
Patty laughed. Betty looked at her husband. He stepped back. Betty’s pale eyes, usually placid and reserved, seemed dark with anger. “I don’t think these endless jokes about my losing control are funny. If you think the idea that I could ever make a scene is so hilarious, maybe I’ll start making them, and then we’ll see how happy you are.”
“Hello!” David called out. “Where is everybody?”
There were other, lower voices, accompanying his.
“Oh God, they’re here,” Patty said with open despair and nervousness.
“I’m sorry,” Tony said to his wife in an abject tone. “I guess I’m on edge about seeing my father.”
“Well, don’t take it out on me.” Betty said, and walked past him, out toward David and his guests.
At the same moment, having left his company behind in the living area, David was heading in and he and Betty collided, bumping heads. David’s glasses fell off with a loud clatter.
“Oh Jesus!” Patty exclaimed.
“Careful!” David said, looking owlish, squinting pathetically at the floor. “Don’t step on them!” he cried desperately to the others while his own foot moved forward and made a sickening crunching sound as it landed on his spectacles.
“Oh my God,” Betty said, staring down. David removed his foot as if it had landed on a hot coal.