Carla and Jesse, two of the newest, came in next. They had found parking in a little row called Pig’s Alley and we laughed about the eccentric name. They stood and chatted with me until they realized that I was on Special Projects and not on a particular team, and they went off to merge with Sam, Aaron, and Mark.
The three members of my former team — Candace Cooper, Mark Vasquez, and Dinesh Karthik — were the next to arrive. I greeted them with as much effusiveness as I could muster and then let them be. They huddled in their coats and mittens near the door, leaving poodle-shaped puddles at their feet. I was a little surprised that they had come, particularly after Mark had gotten Dinesh to push me out. It hadn’t been very pleasant working with them, but I did miss Candace, whom I had hired and then watched as she leapfrogged me. I could tell she wasn’t certain if she should come over and chat. In the end she stayed with her team. I could hear her complaining about the effects of the moisture on her hair. She wished she had gotten her mother’s hair instead of her father’s.
The idling guests rolled their heads around the apartment and made approving comments. They pointed to the Venetian crystal swans, to a Greek vase, and to the Chagall hanging over the fireplace.
“The painting is a knock-off,” I said out loud so no one would impute to us wealth of the sort that people like Marie-Anne’s parents in South Carolina possessed, the kind of wealth that wouldn’t be passed to us because Marie-Anne had married me against their wishes. Dr. Quinn would have been willing to get over his daughter’s decision, but Marie-Anne’s mother still maintained a healthy distance from us. We expected that she would maintain it all the way to her death. “Mother grew up Catholic,” Marie-Anne liked to explain. “She is unable to forgive betrayal.”
My eyes went to the Blanc. Our lack of real affluence, the entrenched wealth people called old money, was what made the Blanc even more important. Its presence said that despite our apparent mediocrity we were a couple who aspired higher, expected more from the world. It allowed me to imply to the people of Plutus that we would be better than them, even if I didn’t always have confidence that we would be.
The bottle served its function well. Draped in its white robe, with the chateau’s two seals in baroque gold, and the 1998 written within filigreed vine, it seemed to command enough attention that even though it wasn’t open yet I could go and stand next to it and hold a discussion about it. I told everyone the story of how the owner of the legendary chateau once released his attack dogs upon a critic who had given his wine a bad review.
That wasn’t all the hype. Translating “Cheval Blanc” as “White Horse,” I brought up the tavern of the same name in New York City where the poet Dylan Thomas had taken his last drink. I didn’t know a single verse from the guy, but he was among those artists who tended to be feted more for the myth of their persona than for their output, which made it unnecessary to have any familiarity with his work.
The conversation about White Horse Tavern created greater interest in the Cheval Blanc. My approach had been effective. Americans only truly understood the world when it was defined for us in reference to things we already knew. For example, referring to Osama bin Laden with the epithet of Geronimo, or using the sports names Celtics, Mavericks, and Red Wings to refer to military operations in Afghanistan.
We socialized and drank while waiting for the final guest, the new boss, George Gabriel. Soft candles warmed the room. Those that wicked out, Marie-Anne replaced with new flames. I didn’t have George’s cell phone number so had no way of checking if and when he might come. I also couldn’t ask anyone for it in case they turned out to have it. That would confirm to them that they were closer to George than I was.
Marie-Anne went to the stereo and replaced Erik Satie’s soft pianistic sprinkles with Enrico Caruso’s soaring tenor. The music filled the empty time-space between the guests, producing a sense of greater familiarity. I approached Candace Cooper because she had drifted away from the others. Clinking my drink with hers, I asked her how her acting classes were going.
“You remember?”
“I pay attention.”
“It’s not Shakespeare or anything.”
“The opera we are listening to? It’s Macbeth. Adapted by Verdi.”
Candace’s brown eyes flickered. She wiped her hand on her forehead and played with her curls. My eyes turned to the window. An occasional snowflake flitted down the glass and left a web.
I was just about to find someone else to speak to when clutching the seam of her skirt, walking bowlegged, Marie-Anne came over with great concern on her face. She grabbed me by the wrist and waddled with me toward the bathroom. “The flood is here,” she said, looking around to make sure no one heard us, “and Noah doesn’t have an ark.”
“What?”
She raised her eyebrows and gestured between her legs with her chin. “Out of tampons. I can’t find the second box. The bleeding.”
I pulled her into the bathroom and shut the door. One of the effects of her hormonal imbalance was that her menstruation was extremely heavy. On a good day she went through five tampons. I looked at the toilet paper; it was all gone. I rushed to the cupboard. The second box of tampons was empty. I had forgotten to pick up a replacement.
Marie-Anne sat down on the toilet and sobbed. “It will get on my skirt.”
I clenched my fists and knelt down on the cold tile in front of her. I stroked her arms and spoke with resolve, putting a second toilet paper roll in her hand. “I’m going to run to the pharmacy.”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” I replied. “Just sit tight.”
I locked Marie-Anne in, composed myself, and tried to sneak out the front door of the apartment. I had only made it to the kitchen when Candace came to me with her head tilted to the side, trying to whisper into my ear.
“Something’s wrong with Marie-Anne.”
“You noticed?”
“Just the way she ran out. Is it a woman issue?”
“It is,” I said. “But her issues are my issues too.”
She opened her purse and walked me back to the bathroom. She had two tampons in her hand. “Don’t leave your party.”
I blushed. “Thank you so much.”
“Consider this good karma for when you got me hired.”
With a deep breath I entered the humid bathroom. Marie-Anne was dabbing her eyes with toilet paper and had taken off her shoes. She saw the tampons in my hand.
“My savior.”
“Just your average Southern gentleman.”
“Southerners aren’t average,” she said.
She propped her right foot up on her toes and with a bent arm applied the tampon. I observed the rise of the bones in her feet, like piano keys popping. Long lines with gaps of skin in between. The indentations reminded me of a time Marie-Anne had gotten cornrows, back in college, during volleyball season. She hadn’t been unwell then. The memory of her healthy and spry, resolute like a tree, without sap leaking out of her, brought tears to my eyes. I took the square she had been using and dabbed my eyes with it.
Marie-Anne got up and smoothed her skirt, joyous that there was no stain. I washed my face. One after another we resumed entertaining our guests. They remained oblivious to the effort we put into their seduction.
* * *
The doorbell rang. Once, twice. I turned on the first toll and nodded at Marie-Anne. I wanted her to be the one George Gabriel saw upon entry.
He was a surprisingly tall man, much taller than Marie-Anne, with big wide shoulders, wearing a bespoke gray suit that no longer fit well on account of his expanding gut. He was bald, head full of treasure-map freckles, bushy blond eyebrows, and clean-shaven, though the shadow on the cheeks suggested he had come straight from work. I noticed his eyes, which looked like insects that had been stamped on his face. His overall appearance made me miss my last boss, Tony Blanchard, who, as the first person of color to run a regional Plutus office, wasn’t just the life of the party, but also knew how to dress. Tony had been a legend in every way and had deservedly been promoted to work with the lobbyists in DC where he would never have to worry about turning a profit because in the American capital everyone got paid, especially those like him who helped people get contracts.