Anne Siddons - Fault Lines

“Oh, Met,” she said, and smiled an exasperated smile. “Don’t start trying to fix things up for Stuart, for God’s sake. He doesn’t need anything you could give him. You happen to have a cure for AIDS on you?”

“I just thought…his apartment is so bare. There’s almost nothing in it. I thought maybe we could find some pretty pottery dishes, or a print or something—”

“He doesn’t buy things that will last anymore,” she said. “It depresses him to shop for things that will outlast him. He had some really nice things, or at least Bobby did, his lover who died a few months ago. They lived very well indeed. But Bobby’s family from Iowa or some awful place came and took all his things away while Stuart was out of town, even the paintings and china and silver and crystal. There was some gorgeous Waterford. The only thing they left was the bed. Left it sitting there like a slap in Stuart’s face when he got back. He hasn’t seemed to want to make much of an effort about anything since then.”

“Does he have, you know, enough money? He said he didn’t handle clients anymore, except you. Does he have enough for food and medicine and all?”

“He has enough. I give him some every month. I know he’s okay that way.”

I looked at her. In the brassy sunlight she looked bleached and a little shrunken, even though she was still so beautiful that it was hard to look away from her. My careening, wind-scattered little sister caring for someone else?

“He doesn’t seem the type to take it, somehow,” I said.

“He doesn’t know it comes from me. I deposit it to his account every month on the condition that it stays anonymous. He thinks Bobby did it just before he died. It gives him a lot of comfort to think that, that Bobby died thinking about his welfare. If the truth be known, Bobby was a little shit who never once thought about any welfare but his own. His only gift to Stu was HIV.”

“It’s a wonderful thing to do, Pie,” I said, meaning it.

“It was part of the settlement with old No-Nose,” she said, stretching lazily. “He thinks the extra was for massages for me. Fought it tooth and nail. But we got it. He’d shit sunflowers if he knew it went to Stu. He always hated him. Listen, gang, we’ve got time to do some serious shopping. Y’all game? I want something drop-dead-fuck-you to wear to this interview. This guy’s got prettier clothes than I do.”

The Sunset Marquis Hotel lay halfway down North Alta Loma, on a hill so steep that you practically had to cling to walls to walk down it. I thought that climbing it to Sunset must be sheer torture for leg muscles. Stuart Feinstein’s cowboy boots were wobbling on my feet after two hours of shopping, and Glynn tottered in new high wedgies. Laura, in stiletto-heeled sandals and a new black mini so tight that she had to take tiny, Chinese-empress steps, could navigate scarcely any better than we two. The three of us clung together, arm in arm, wavering and laughing and looking, I imagined, like those old cartoon posters with the characters leaning far back, front foot far forward, that read, “Keep on Truckin’.” We were out of breath and dripping sweat when we reached the little hotel.

Inside it was cool and shadowy, with a tiny lounge on the left, full of people looking as if they were closing enormous deals, and a little restaurant on the right full of very young men and women who all looked like Glynn. Rock stars, I thought; Laura had said this place was a hangout for traveling rock bands. Glynn gave them all long, devouring looks. They all looked back at her. One half-raised a hand as if to greet her, then dropped it. He leaned over and said something to the others at his table, and they all turned and studied Glynn. Even in the artificial dusk, I saw her neck and cheeks redden, and she turned away. We went into the chic little ladies’ lounge and combed our hair and washed our hands and put on fresh lipstick, and then headed for the dazzle of light at the back, where the hotel opened into a tree-and-flower shaded patio around a brilliant blue pool. Laura stopped beside the maître d’s desk, and I took a deep breath, and heard Glynn take a similar one. Then we were following a young waiter in white shorts and shirt around the pool to a round table in a corner, shaded with wisteria and some other red-flowered vine I could not identify. Every other table was crowded with people, most of them men in jackets and no ties, and there was a constant low chiming of telephones. Almost every table seemed to harbor someone talking on a phone. The drink of choice, I noticed, was mineral water with lime. So much for the legends of Babylonian excess I had cherished since girlhood.

“Mr. Poythress is running a little late, and says please order drinks or anything else you want and he’ll be right along,” the young waiter said.

“What a pity,” Laura drawled, giving him a slantwise smile from under the brim of a huge, new, black straw hat. In it she looked enchanting, mysterious, completely feminine, something out of the forties, out of the time of Gene Tierney and Veronica Lake. The young man smiled back, dazzled. He looked over at Glynn and smiled even wider. She, too, had a hat, a slouchy canvas affair with a flower the blue of her eyes tucked under its brim. With the sunglasses and the tight blue jeans and wedgies she looked somehow androgynous, like a pretty medieval boy. I felt rather than saw eyes all over the patio swing toward our table and stop. Glynn and Laura made a riveting pair. I settled my sunglasses more firmly over my eyes, hoping I did not look too much like their duenna.

“Enjoy,” said the waiter, and hustled off to get our Calistoga water.

“You might know the bastard would be late,” Laura said. “He’s probably watching from the men’s room window, going to let us sit here just long enough to be insulted but not long enough to be righteously indignant about it.”

From another table a voice called, “Laura!” and we turned. A thin, brown young man in the inevitable sunglasses and baseball cap got up from a table full of similarly dressed young men and women and came toward us, smiling and holding out his arms. He bent over Laura and kissed the air on either side of her face, and then stepped back and studied her, head to one side. He seemed not much older than Glynn.

“You look absolutely fabulous, lovey,” he said. “Are you in town for the screening? I heard you were in Palm—”

“Corky, love,” Laura said. “How good to see you. No, I’m really just up for an interview. I’m meeting Billy Poythress, if he ever gets here. Corky, this is my big sister, Merritt Fowler, and my niece, Glynn. This, you two, is Corky Tucker, who wrote The Right Time and is going to make us all rich and famous.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you both. I can see now where Laura gets it.”

His smile slid with equal approval over Glynn and me, and I smiled back. “Hello,” I said. Glynn said nothing, but smiled, a small, three-cornered smile with her mouth closed. I had never seen that smile before. Mona Lisa now…

“Will you sit for a minute?” Laura said. “Catch me up on the buzz about the film. I’ve been out of town, and I’m dying to hear—”

“Just for a second,” he said, slipping into the fourth chair. “Billy Poythress scares the shit out of me. I doubt that I know anything you don’t, though. Tomorrow night’s going to be a complete surprise to all of us. Caleb isn’t talking about it, but I hear some big changes have been made. Margolies insisted after he saw the rough cut. Nobody knows what they are. I wouldn’t even speculate, knowing Margolies. A chorus line and a collie dog, probably. Maybe a black tap dancer. But you know all that, of course. Caleb’s undoubtedly told you. You’re the one who should be spilling the buzz—”