“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s right,” Monica said, nodding. “You had surgery, didn’t you, Pete? What’d you have, a bypass?”
The man nodded.
“Dr. Voorhees. Dr. Henk Voorhees,” I said.
The man nodded and settled back in his chair. “Sure, I’ve heard of him. He didn’t do mine, but I believe he consulted. He’s got a great reputation.” He looked all around the room, making eye contact with all the other board members. One by one, I ticked them off by the expressions that crossed their faces.
The official tally remained to be taken, but I knew already: I would be accepted into the co-op by the silent intervention of my brother-in-law. They sent me into the tidy bedroom where healthy plants in macramé holders hung from hooks in the pressed-tin ceiling and bits of Americana (cast-iron trivets, a brass eagle, a crewel sampler, two color photographs of two different lighthouses at sunset) hung on the walls. The apartment had such a grownup, sedate air to it. I hadn’t known that people of my generation still decorated like that. My friends’ places were comfortably, handsomely furnished, but they were hodgepodge, unfinished. The pairing of an art deco étagère with an empty wire spool from the phone company, of industrial black metal shelving with an antique curly maple dining table, seemed arbitrary and aimless.
This
was a home.
Here
I felt safe. I could imagine raising children here. It made me want to take the first taxi to Sloane’s and purchase matching living room, dining room, and bedroom sets.
“
Les jeux sont fait
,” Monica called when the vote was over, and I rejoined them.
“You’re in, Una,” Joe Finnegan said. “Welcome to our madhouse.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, beaming. I walked around the room, shaking hands.
“We’re anything but a madhouse,” Monica said. “That Joe—
he’s
crazy.”
Joe crossed the room and put his big arm around my shoulders. “We’ve got our own little TV star now,” he said. He had sad, liquid brown eyes, just like the eyes of every uncle and parish priest I had ever known. “I’m divorced, you know,” he said.
“How very sad.” I smiled at him. I knew that he was trying to pick me up, and I didn’t care. I had grown up surrounded by Joe Finnegan types, men who alternated insults with flattery and probably had them confused in their own minds, men who had been told too often by their own mothers, “You have that Irish charm.” The trouble was that they believed it.
Before I moved in, Chance and Billy Schutz asked if they could come over to see my new place. I finished filming my scenes for the day. The Schutzes picked me up at the studio in their black stretch limousine. I sat between them in the back seat, an alpaca lap robe across our legs.
“I think this is very exciting,” Billy said in her deep, smoky voice. Her voice reminded me of Jane Valera’s, but Billy is wonderful. She is a talented, devoted potter who spends most of her days on Duane Street, in a dark studio where every surface is caked with clay. She sells her pieces at galleries and shops in New York and around New England. She has upswept auburn hair streaked with gray, the color I hope mine will be when I’m fifteen years older. She wears no makeup on her freckly skin, and she cares nothing about the latest styles.
Chance is the fashion plate, not Billy. He is a true fop. Whenever he enters a room, heads turn; his expensive citrus scent precedes him, but his appearance is worth the wait. Every article of clothing is custom-made. Billy once told me his underwear is silk, hand-stitched by schoolchildren in Mongolia. He loves gold, good leather, cashmere, and silk. It is a challenge to find the tiny monogram you know exists on each shirt, each jacket, each scarf: like the “Ninas” in a Hirschfeld drawing. His gray wolf eyes look as though they could devour you, but he is capable of true tenderness.
We stopped in front of my new
“Oh, that’s right,” Monica said, nodding. “You had surgery, didn’t you, Pete? What’d you have, a bypass?”
The man nodded.
“Dr. Voorhees. Dr. Henk Voorhees,” I said.
The man nodded and settled back in his chair. “Sure, I’ve heard of him. He didn’t do mine, but I believe he consulted. He’s got a great reputation.” He looked all around the room, making eye contact with all the other board members. One by one, I ticked them off by the expressions that crossed their faces.
The official tally remained to be taken, but I knew already: I would be accepted into the co-op by the silent intervention of my brother-in-law. They sent me into the tidy bedroom where healthy plants in macramé holders hung from hooks in the pressed-tin ceiling and bits of Americana (cast-iron trivets, a brass eagle, a crewel sampler, two color photographs of two different lighthouses at sunset) hung on the walls. The apartment had such a grownup, sedate air to it. I hadn’t known that people of my generation still decorated like that. My friends’ places were comfortably, handsomely furnished, but they were hodgepodge, unfinished. The pairing of an art deco étagère with an empty wire spool from the phone company, of industrial black metal shelving with an antique curly maple dining table, seemed arbitrary and aimless.
This
was a home.
Here
I felt safe. I could imagine raising children here. It made me want to take the first taxi to Sloane’s and purchase matching living room, dining room, and bedroom sets.
“
Les jeux sont fait
,” Monica called when the vote was over, and I rejoined them.
“You’re in, Una,” Joe Finnegan said. “Welcome to our madhouse.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, beaming. I walked around the room, shaking hands.
“We’re anything but a madhouse,” Monica said. “That Joe—
he’s
crazy.”
Joe crossed the room and put his big arm around my shoulders. “We’ve got our own little TV star now,” he said. He had sad, liquid brown eyes, just like the eyes of every uncle and parish priest I had ever known. “I’m divorced, you know,” he said.
“How very sad.” I smiled at him. I knew that he was trying to pick me up, and I didn’t care. I had grown up surrounded by Joe Finnegan types, men who alternated insults with flattery and probably had them confused in their own minds, men who had been told too often by their own mothers, “You have that Irish charm.” The trouble was that they believed it.
Before I moved in, Chance and Billy Schutz asked if they could come over to see my new place. I finished filming my scenes for the day. The Schutzes picked me up at the studio in their black stretch limousine. I sat between them in the back seat, an alpaca lap robe across our legs.
“I think this is very exciting,” Billy said in her deep, smoky voice. Her voice reminded me of Jane Valera’s, but Billy is wonderful. She is a talented, devoted potter who spends most of her days on Duane Street, in a dark studio where every surface is caked with clay. She sells her pieces at galleries and shops in New York and around New England. She has upswept auburn hair streaked with gray, the color I hope mine will be when I’m fifteen years older. She wears no makeup on her freckly skin, and she cares nothing about the latest styles.
Chance is the fashion plate, not Billy. He is a true fop. Whenever he enters a room, heads turn; his expensive citrus scent precedes him, but his appearance is worth the wait. Every article of clothing is custom-made. Billy once told me his underwear is silk, hand-stitched by schoolchildren in Mongolia. He loves gold, good leather, cashmere, and silk. It is a challenge to find the tiny monogram you know exists on each shirt, each jacket, each scarf: like the “Ninas” in a Hirschfeld drawing. His gray wolf eyes look as though they could devour you, but he is capable of true tenderness.
We stopped in front of my new
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