“Francis?”
He turned and stared down at a diminutive redhead. Her hair was auburn, cut short and close to the nape and covered with a sequined cloche. Her green eyes were saucer-round and ebullient. Energy radiated from her. Her white, sequined dress barely contained a spectacular figure, the small stones glittering in the light, twinkling as she walked and turning every step into a shimmy. A true sprite, Keegan thought. A dazzling imp.
“Marilyn, “ he said. “It g good to see you.
“You remembered!” she cried, obviously pleased. He was surprised himself He had not seen her for years. Her brother was one of his gang at college and the last time he saw her was just before graduation—before the caterpillar had turned into a butterfly.
“Have you seen Vannie since you got back?’ she asked abruptly. The question caught him totally off balance. Before he could answer, she said, “Oh, that was catty of me. I know you haven’t seen her, she’s my best friend.”
“Vanessa Bromley?”
She nodded.
“How about that,” he said for lack of anything better.
They started strolling toward the front of the big room to get a better look at the Goodman Trio.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“She will be. She’s at the th-e-ah-tah.” She closed her eyes and elongated the word with mock sophistication, then she stared up at him and quickly added, “But she’d walk out in a second if she knew you were here.”
“Stop that,” he said irritably.
The tall, bespectacled bandleader was like the calm in the center of a hurricane. Only his fingers seemed excited, fleeing across his clarinet as though the keys were on fire while the baby-faced Krupa was his antithesis, an entranced whirlwind, turning every drumbeat into a pistol shot.
“Please don’t leave until she gets here, “Marilyn blurted out. “She’s very unhappy.”
“Marilyn. .
“Anyway, this is fun. I haven’t seen you for. . . ten years? Ten years! My dad loved you. Said you were the only crazy one in the whole gang.”
“I’ve never met Freddie Armistead?”
“Freddie wasn‘t crazy, he was hopelessly insane,”
Keegan smiled at the memory, despite himself ‘Remember when he dug that hole in the Quad and put the horse in it? Took them all day to dig it out. They never did figure out who did it.”
‘Wonder what ever happened to old Armistead?” she said. “He vanished into thin air after graduation. And remember Lyle Thornton?”
“Old Turkey Thornton?”
“Oh God, how he hated that nickname. Were you responsible for that?”
‘Nah,” Keegan said unconvincingly. “But he did look like a turkey.”
She hunched up her shoulders and giggled. “Looked exactly like a turkey, “she said. She squinched up her nose. “That little scrawny neck.”
“How about that beak of his?”
“That’s cruel, Francis.”
“C ‘mon, he had a nose the size of a baseball bat.”
“Did you hear about his father? Got cleaned out in the crash, went out to Chicago and jumped out a window of the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Old Turkey floundered around for a couple of years, then he married rich and his father-in-law bought him a seat on the stock exchange for a wedding present, probably so he wouldn‘t have to support him.”
“Lyle Llewellyn Thornton, the Third, “Keegan reflected. “You have to be rich with a name like that. Who’d he get to marry him?”
“Vannie,” Marilyn answered bluntly.
“Vannie!” he said. “Vannie married Turkey Thornton! ?“
“Doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it?” Marilyn said. “One of the true mysteries of the twentieth century.
“Maybe he has some hidden talent we don‘t know about, “ Keegan suggested.
“I really don ‘t think so, “Marilyn answered. “He got involved in the theater. Turkey got a couple of uptowners involved with a Broadway show. Lo and behold it turned out to be The Gay Divorce. Now everybody thinks he can smell a hit a mile off He’s been dabbling in it ever since. They have a townhouse on East 83rd, half a block off the Park, and a summer house on Cape Cod. “She stopped for a moment and flicked a speck of confetti off her shoulder. “She’s absolutely miserable.
“Miserable?”
“Thornton turned into an absolute ogre. He knocks her around, stays out for days at a time. Once the little SOB got his hands on the money ...“ She let the sentence die, then added, “She talks about you all the time, has ever since that summer in Germany.”
“It was two days, Marilyn.
“And she never forgot it, “she said, finishing the sentence. “What are you, the Upper East Side matchmaker?”
“No. I just hate to see my friends unhappy. I have no complaints,
I’m very lucky. Happily married, have two girls who ‘Ii knock your eyes out, a big house in Westport, and a husband who dotes on me. “She stared up at him with the big green saucers. “Whyn‘t you just stay long enough to say hello to her, “ she pleaded.
“We’ll see, “he said and quickly changed the subject. “Where is your husband? Do I know him?”
“I don’t think so. He s from Pittsburgh. A surgeon. He’s got an emergency operation at Governor‘s Hospital. I’m hoping he‘ll get here before the party’s over.”
“From the look of things, this brawl will still be going on next Tuesday.”
“Look, we’re all going to the French Casino on 50th and catch the midnight show of the Folies-Bergêre,” she said. “Why don’t you come with us? It’s supposed to be very risqué.”
“Not when you’ve seen the real thing.”
“That’s very snobbish.”
“I didn’t mean it to be, “he said casually. “I just meant the French version is a lot bawdier.”
“Well, come with us anyhow.”
“Marilyn.
“Or how about Sunday brunch? We’re all going out to the Merry Go Round. It’s on the Island, Atlantic Beach. Has a revolving bar, hobby horses, these fluffy, crazy-looking jungle animals. It’s right on the ocean with an outside dance floor She did a little shimmy.
“Marilyn.
“Or how about coming up to the Westport theater to see Ruth Gordon in The Country Wife? She’s supposed to be quite the screwball in it, you know. We ‘re planning. .
“Marilyn!”
She stopped suddenly. “Yes?” she said innocently.
“The lady’s married.”
“She dying inside, Francis,” she answered seriously.
“I can ‘t do he started to say and caught himself I can’t do anything about it. It’s not my problem. Familiar phrases from the past. Embarrassing phrases he had sworn never to use again.
‘It’s obviously a bad time for both of us,” is all he said.
“Will you think about it?”
The ultimate out—think about it. One could take forever thinking about it.
“Sure. I’ll think about it.”
“Good. C ‘mon, dance with me.”
“I don’t know how to do that newfangled stuff”
“It’s called jitterbugging and it c easy.” She led him out on the enormous dance floor, shimmering in her spangled dress.
Later he had stood near the bridge of the big ship, looking down at the party. He saw Vanessa come aboard, watched her move majestically through the crowd. She was in a short, black cocktail dress, startling in its simplicity, with a clutch of diamonds at her throat. He realized as he watched her how much time had changed her—from a lively sprite to royalty. She moved with sublime grace, an exquisite creature who exuded stately nonchalance as f she were in some superior caste created for her alone. Confident, imperious, sublime, there was also about her a hint of wanton naïveté. Easily the most interesting and imposing person at the party, Keegan thought. And probably the most dangerous. What a pair she and Marilyn must make. He didn’t even notice old Turkey Thorn-