Joan Didion - A Book of Common Prayer

“But I am.” Charlotte looked at Leonard for the first time. “I am definitely coming with you. I always was.”

“No,” Leonard said. “You were not ‘always’ coming with me. You see, Warren? Bad hand. You didn’t pace your play.”

“But I always wanted to go with you,” Charlotte said.

“Definitely you always wanted to go with him,” Warren said. “You haven’t met enough Arabs.”

“He’s going to Los Angeles and Miami,” Charlotte said.

“Or enough Jews,” Warren said.

Because Charlotte had gotten on the plane with no bag and because Leonard’s presence was required at the party where the photographs were taken, a $250-a-ticket benefit in a tent behind someone’s house in Beverly Hills, Charlotte was wearing, at the time she was photographed, a dress borrowed from the wife of the record executive who had organized the evening, a dress made entirely of colored ribbons.

“You shouldn’t have told Warren to keep the car,” she had said as she put on the dress. “He’ll keep it all night. I look absurd.”

“You wouldn’t if you had a tambourine,” Leonard said. “He’ll keep it all week.”

Charlotte sat down. She was very tired. She did not think she had ever been so tired. She did not see how she could finish tying the ribbons on the dress.

“Sometimes I wish,” Leonard said after a while. He began tying the ribbons Charlotte had abandoned. “I don’t know.”

“Sometimes you wish what.”

“Sometimes I wish you could just fuck him and get it over with.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Charlotte. Shit. I know you don’t want to.”

A stage had been constructed over the swimming pool of the house in Beverly Hills and several entertainers auctioned their services, singing and dancing and placing surprise telephone calls to friends and relatives of high bidders. Leonard raised five hundred dollars by dancing the limbo under a pole held by the record executive’s wife, a young woman with pale blond hair like Marin’s and a Brahmin caste mark painted on her forehead, and, at Charlotte’s table, an actress who had visited Hanoi spoke of the superior health and beauty of the children there.

“It’s because they aren’t raised by their mothers,” the actress said. “They don’t have any of that bourgeois personal crap laid on them.”

Charlotte studied her wine glass and tried to think of something neutral to say to the actress. She wanted to get up but her chair was blocked by three men who seemed to be discussing the financing of a motion picture, or a war.

“No mama-papa-baby-nuclear-family bullshit,” the actress said. “It’s beautiful.”

Charlotte concentrated on the details of the financing, the part to be played by the Canadians, the controls exerted by the Crédit Suisse.

“I know why you’re crying,” the actress said after a while.

Morocco would lend its army. Spain would not. Two-eight above the line.

“And I’m sorry, but that’s exactly the kind of personal crap I never saw in Hanoi.”

The flash bulb blazed.

Charlotte smiled.

The flash bulb dropped on the table.

“Did you know I spent a night once with Pete Wright,” Charlotte said to Leonard as he led her from the table. “Did you know I did that and forgot it.”

“You didn’t forget it at all, Leonard said. “You told me the first night I met you.”

“I am so tired. I am so tired of remembering things. Leonard. Tell me it’s because I’m pregnant.”

“I wish I could,” Leonard said.

Leonard took Charlotte back to the Beverly Wilshire but she continued crying so Leonard, because he was due in Miami the next day to assist in the sale of four French Mirages from one Caribbean independency to another, called the record executive and borrowed a company Lear to fly Charlotte home. $216,000 was raised that night to benefit some one of Leonard’s clients, Charlotte was unsure which until she saw the pictures in Vogue . She left the dress made entirely of colored ribbons on the floor of the suite at the Beverly Wilshire. I look at those pictures now and I see only Charlotte’s smile.

“IT’S CHARLOTTE,” SHE SAID TO HER BROTHER’S WIFE from a pay phone on the highway outside Hollister. “I wondered if you and Dickie were going to be home.”

“Richard and I play tennis every Saturday.” There was a pause. “You want to use the pool, come on by, of course the heater’s off.”

“I thought I might see the children.”

“They’re at the gym.”

There was a silence.

“Why exactly would I drive to Hollister to use your pool, Linda? I mean I get off a plane from Los Angeles and I sit in the airport all night and I rent a car and I’m out here on the highway and it’s raining?”

Linda said nothing.

“Listen,” Charlotte said finally. “Linda. Please ask me to dinner.”

Before and during dinner Charlotte’s brother drank steadily and did not mention Marin or Leonard or Warren. Linda sat at the table but refused to eat. She said that she had eaten macaroni and cheese with the children, who seemed to have come home from and returned to the gym before Charlotte’s arrival.

“They’re just wonderful normal kids,” Linda said after dinner. “Aren’t they, Richard. No matter what Warren says.”

“What’s Warren got to do with it,” Charlotte said.

“How would I know whether they’re wonderful normal kids.” Dickie opened another bottle of bourbon. “Maybe Warren’s right, maybe they’re boring, how would I know. They’re always at the goddamn gym.”

“Most people would consider that a definite plus. I believe your sister needs an ashtray.”

“What’s Warren got to do with it,” Charlotte repeated.

“Or eating goddamn Kraft Dinners with you at four o’clock.”

“Richard and I don’t smoke,” Linda said.

“We don’t fuck either,” Dickie said.

Charlotte put out her cigarette in an empty nut dish.

“Warren paid us a little visit,” Linda said. “Lasting eleven hours and a quart and a half of gin.”

“Charlotte’s not interested in that, Linda.”

“Tanqueray gin.”

“Linda. We enjoyed seeing him, Char.”

“He had this very interesting friend with him. He’d just run into this friend, they hadn’t seen each other since the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. Where—”

“I’m warning you, Linda.”

“Where this friend of Warren’s tended bar. Which is what this friend still does, except at the Pacific Union Club.”

“I warned you, Linda. If Charlotte’s husband wants to bring a Negro to this house, this house is open. With bells on. All systems go.”

“Charlotte’s not married to Warren any more, Richard, you don’t have to pretend you like him.”

“ Goddamnit Linda , he’s better than the Jew, isn’t he?”

Linda began plumping pillows.

Dickie avoided Charlotte’s eyes.

“Actually Leonard’s not a Jew,” Charlotte said. “Actually it just amuses Warren to say that Leonard’s a Jew. A private joke. If you follow.”

“Warren’s sense of humor is just a little bit twisted,” Linda said. “If you ask me.”

“I didn’t mean that about Leonard, Char. Hey. Char. I think Leonard is—”

“Not that anybody ever does ask me,” Linda said.

“—A very fine lawyer,” Dickie said.

“Listen,” Charlotte said finally. Linda was still plumping pillows with pointed energy. “Dickie. I’ve been remembering some things since Marin left.”

“That’s no good for you, Char, remembering. Remembering is shit. Forget her.”

“I’m not talking about Marin, I’m talking about—”