“You have another pair, right?” Tony asked, his tone implying that he suspected the answer was no.
David didn’t speak. He knelt down, picking up the shattered lenses tenderly, his face made grief-stricken by the bewildered expression of his denuded and abandoned eyes. The others stood by motionless: sympathetic sentinels at this funeral.
“David,” Patty asked gently. “Do you have another pair?”
He didn’t look up. “No,” he said. “These are my spares. I didn’t get the others fixed.” Now he peered at Patty like she was a ghostly figure. “Thought about it this week. Was going to. But I didn’t.”
For a moment they silently contemplated the tragic nature of this oversight. “How blind are you?” Tony said at last.
David stood. He put the glasses down on a counter. “I’ll be able to find the food on my plate,” he said bravely. “Come,” he said, “let me introduce you.” And he walked toward the living area ahead of them, his feet moving tentatively, an expert on a tightrope, his eyes desperately focused on finding each safe step, while his body pretended grace and ease.
Rounder and his wife were at the other end of the loft, standing side by side looking at the complex of elegant shelving David’s brother had built around the industrial elevator shaft. Rounder’s wife, Cathy, was tall, almost six feet, and blond, with the same big-boned, ruddy-cheeked heartiness as Rounder. Indeed, she was a beautiful female version of him. She had recently given birth to their second child, but she had also, making her seem even more awesome to Betty and Patty, gotten her doctorate in economics. Columbia University, as well as NYU, had offered her positions of some kind (details were unknown) when her husband was made editor in chief and they had had to move from Atlanta, forcing her to give up her teaching job. But, in a remarkably unchic gesture, she declined the offers, saying that she wanted to devote her time to her children, especially while her husband would be absorbed in getting a feel for Newstime.
Chico was slumped on one of David’s huge couches, staring at the enormous abstract painting (it was six feet long and four feet high) of a sharply defined bright yellow semicircle. He regarded it suspiciously, as if he suspected it of picking his pocket, or, at least, of impertinence. His wife, Louise, looked half his size, though she was really only a foot smaller, with a shock of short black frizzy hair and a thin eager body, always alert, back straight, eyes forward, like a hungry little bird. She, too, had a successful career in journalism, holding the number-two features-editor job at Town magazine. Louise sat on the edge of the couch, also regarding the abstract painting, but with a lively look, almost as if it were talking to her wittily.
While David introduced Chico and Louise, Rounder and Cathy moved from the shelving toward the living area. The moment greetings were done with, Cathy said to David, “Your brother designed all this?”
“And built it,” David said. He squinted at her briefly. “He got this place while he was trying to make it as a designer. He’d get some money together and then finish a section. Go back to work. And so on.”
“It’s beautiful,” Cathy said. She looked at Rounder. “We should talk to him about our new place.”
“If we stay,” Rounder said.
This led to a tedious discussion of New York real estate. David mostly listened. He felt silenced by his blindness. A headache came on rather quickly because of the strain of squinting at each speaker. Realizing this, David stopped looking and merely absorbed the voices: Rounder, self-absorbed, wading in with attitudes toward New York neighborhoods that he obviously only dimly understood; his wife, nervously joshing about “dangerous” areas like a smalltown girl; Chico, pretending he didn’t care at all about the status, elegance, or comfort of his apartment (David knew that, in fact, Chico had crippled himself with a huge mortgage in order to live on Central Park West just a few years ago); Betty, dogmatically saying that only Beekman Place and Sutton Place were truly acceptable, safe, and civilized areas, an attitude that only a rich girl like Betty could afford, but which she expressed rather as if it were a matter of taste, not money; Tony, elaborately explaining to Rounder the history of various reclaimed neighborhoods, such as SoHo, Chelsea, the Upper West Side, the Village (Tony’s observations were obvious, the stuff of Town magazine pieces and yet Tony said them as if they were brilliant, and Rounder actually listened as if he thought so too); meanwhile, Louise, the features editor of Town, smiled cheerfully at everyone but said nothing. And Patty? She told a horribly embarrassing story about being thrown out of her apartment because of all the crazy men she had been dating, and kidding that what made her relationship with David terribly important was that it rescued her from the New York roach-go-round of closet-size apartments at exorbitant rents.
Listening, hearing only the tones, David loathed them. Their self-satisfaction, their absorption in trivialities, disguised by an ironic self-satire which sounded hollow and insincere, was revealed by the sounds of their voices, abstracted from leavening smiles and gestures. And he loathed himself, because he knew he was so much like them. The loft, with its classy hypermodern design, had impressed Rounder and Chico, adding a layer of sophistication to their image of David. And he had said nothing to contradict their reaction, didn’t admit that he would never have volunteered to live that way. That if it weren’t his brother’s handiwork, he would have ripped it all out.
Patty served dinner, forgiving David for the carrying to and fro, the clearing, and so on, because of his blinded state. Tony dominated the dinner conversation. They asked endless questions when he dropped the fact that his mother was Maureen Winters. The hopelessly star-struck fascination of the Marx Brothers with show business never ceased to amaze and disgust David. Here were people who had dined with presidents and kings, oohing and aahing over stories of foolishly extravagant Hollywood: listening to Tony describe meetings with Bill Garth as though he were allowing them a peek at the lighter side of God.
And then, pathetically, Rounder tried to match Tony’s stories, telling of his encounters with stars. Rounder’s tales were of formal dinners, charity banquets, secondhand information from stories his reporters had filed. In short, they were boring. At least Tony’s stories were alive with absurd details, from the point of view of someone who knew these people when they were relaxed and off-guard.
David was sipping his coffee and squinting through his pounding headache while Rounder fumbled through a pointless anecdote about a charity banquet with Norman Lear as master of ceremonies when he put his coffee cup down and Patty did a double take and then burst out laughing.
Rounder stopped talking.
David stared at Patty, wondering if she’d lost her mind.
One by one the others looked at David. And laughed.
David quickly looked down at his shirt, expecting to find that he had spilled coffee all over it. But there was nothing there.
“Want a little sugar in your coffee. David?” Rounder said, and triggered another round of amusement.
David followed their eyes to his plate. He had shoved his chair back a foot and had to lean forward to see what they saw.
He had placed his coffee cup squarely on top of his German chocolate cake. The white china cup was sinking into the cake, a gentle coffee-fall washing over the tilted rim and making his dessert into a muddy mess.
He watched them laugh while Patty explained that David had broken his glasses. She described the scene in the kitchen vividly and the sight gag of the coffee cup was a perfect illustrated page. Their laughter increased.