Almost Perfect Read online

  Would he ever go to Venice with Stella? No. No. Well, possibly; under certain circumstances he could.

  Stella of course has been to Venice and to all those other places already, been everywhere. Venice and Paris and Cairo and Amsterdam and Mexico. He’s not sure about Canada, but probably. She went everywhere with that Liam, that low-class John Huston type, as Richard thinks of him. That child-molester. No wonder Stella doesn’t want to talk about him: she was the molested child. On the other hand, eighteen years old, old enough to know a little better. But she was just this poor spick kid, a relative innocent. He hates to think of Stella with that Liam: he thinks of them all the time. In detail. Stella, the unblemished little girl, dragged all over the world by that old prick. No wonder Stella never talks about those travels, does not talk about Liam. Has certainly never specifically mentioned Venice with Liam.

  Richard straightens his back and works his shoulders up and down a few times, feeling their strength, his own muscular power. Working off all those bad thoughts. He tells himself that none of that is important, not even Eva-in-Venice. And God knows not the child Stella with old man ugly, Liam O’Gara.

  Today, along with the great surprise for Stella, Richard is thinking about a certain project, or the rumor of a project, for which he has been approached. A project that is so great, so cut to the shape of Richard Fallon, that if he gets it, gets what was totally made for him, it will be like claiming an inheritance. He, little Richard from Nowhere, New Jersey, will be rich and famous for life, forever, everywhere. Or at least he will be very famous in the ad world, and maybe a little in the art world too; those guys are not unknown to take certain talents seriously, so maybe a show sometime, maybe. Some drawings in the Achenbach?

  Because the project is California itself. Richard’s place, his beautiful discovery, his golden state. The project is for a hotel chain, the Fillmore, hotels all over northern California, plans for expansion down south, and it looks like they may very well want him to do it. Him, Richard Fallon himself. There will be no photos, nowhere photos; it’s against their policy. Drawings. Watercolors. Pure sheer design. He can already see them: white rooms hung with rows of bright mounted white-on-white, white-framed watercolors. His, of everything. Freeways (he’ll show Wayne Thiebaud a thing or two) and beaches and lakes and poppies and state parks on the coast, and Victorian gingerbreads, and contemporary offices, rows of houses, ski scenes (he’ll get to ski again; maybe take Claudia—meet her somewhere?). And everything, everything by Richard Fallon.

  As he thinks of these pictures, this plan, the project, the money—as he thinks of actually doing it, Richard feels the strain of wild blood flooding his heart, his veins, his lungs, flooding his very soul with excitement.

  He got on well with the account executive, who he more or less expects will call today. Al Bolling. They really did get on. Bolling liked him, he could tell. Al Bolling, from Mamaroneck, New York, a town that Richard remembers driving by, seeing boats, yacht clubs, mansion-type houses. Many rich Jews, but Bolling is not a Jew. A preppy WASP, Yale, but nice, a very nice guy. A little stiff, a little heavy, looks like he doesn’t sleep too well, maybe hits the sauce sometimes. Maybe when they know each other better, after Richard has the job, they could do some drinking together, and talk.

  “ ‘Al’ doesn’t seem quite right for you,” Richard imagines himself saying, with his laugh. “Maybe … how about Marbles?”

  “Marbles? Why on earth?”

  “I don’t know.” More laughing; they both are laughing. “It just came to me. Marbles.”

  And then, in this imagined time of drinks together, dinner, more drinks, they would really get down to it, talk, the way men are supposed to do these days.

  “It’s my kids,” Bolling might say. “They really get to me. Brought up with everything, you know, and they hardly give me the time of day. The boys are bad enough, but the girl, my daughter, she’s thirty next month and gorgeous, built like Monroe, and she does not like men. My daughter the dyke. I hate to say it, but it’s true, she digs women. I mean, what can they …? Ever think about it, Richard?”

  “Well, of course I have,” Richard would tell him, in a comforting, knowing way, even though Al must be a good fifteen years older than he is. “But it’s not the worst thing in the world, the gay thing. Several guys I know, queers, I guess you’d call them, but they’re really nice. You can talk to them.”

  Richard suddenly laughs, exploding the fantasy, the imagined conversation. And in a firm, realistic way he tells himself that first he has to get the job—before getting into these intimate talks with Al Bolling. Marbles. Thinking the nickname, though, Richard laughs again, seated there at his studio desk. He has to admit, he is good with these names for people.

  But first he has to get the job.

  When the phone rings he first thinks, of course, that it must be Bolling. But it isn’t. Claudia.

  Sure that she wants to get together, since that is the usual reason for her calls, Richard chats inconsequentially with her for a while: friends, parties, the nice summer camp where both her boys are (those boys whom Richard still misses so badly). As they talk he is planning to turn her down; the very idea of saying no to Claudia fills him with virtuous pleasure, as though he were being faithful both to Stella and, obscurely, to Al Bolling. And actually he does not want any time with Claudia right now; he is in fact too busy, and he really is in love with Stella. Today. He has a somewhat unclear idea that fidelity to Stella would certify him as a good person, a man of rectitude (Bolling’s kind of man).

  Claudia goes on and on. Richard is almost afraid that she will not get to the point, but at last, of course, she does. “I’d love to see you,” she says, with her particular sexy emphasis. “Do you think we could, some afternoon soon?”

  And so he does get to say it, to say what he has, in a way, always wanted to say to Claudia: “I’m sorry, babes, but these days I just can’t. I’m busy, and I’m in love. I think.”

  A pause, and then a somewhat tremulous “Well, okay, darling handsome Rich. Whatever you say.”

  Can she possibly be about to cry? He could hear tears in her voice, he would swear to tears, and so Richard has to say, “Only half kidding, sweetheart. But right now I am busy as hell. Let me call you very soon, okay?” He says all that very gently.

  “Well, sure,” says Claudia. She is feeling better, he can tell. No more tears.

  But at least he gave it a try. Tried it on, so to speak. And he did, for today, turn her down.

  The next call is from Marina, who sounds as crazy as usual. Maybe more so. Manic. “The greatest guy,” she says. “His ex-wife is a policeman. Policewoman. And he’s an ex-cop himself. Is that not a kick? Is that not funny? You know, Rickie, sometimes I think I’ll write a book. About us, the things we went through. Still are going through, wouldn’t you say? Sometimes I pretend that you’re still here. But this new guy is remarkable. A cop. His former wife, or did I tell you that? Rickie, are you listening?”

  God. Women. Sometimes he envies gay men, he really does. And if he were ever off on a ship somewhere, isolated with just men, well, there’s no doubt in Richard’s mind what would happen. Which is not a thing he would admit to Andrew Bacci. On the other hand, maybe he would admit it to Andrew. He sort of loves Andrew, in a way. He can talk to Andrew.

  “Marina, I’ve got to get to work,” he tells his former wife. “I’ll call you, okay?” Women like promises. Sometimes he thinks that’s what they live on, like fish with those tiny wafers.

  “Okay,” says Marina.

  But what if he doesn’t get the Fillmore job, with Bolling? At this thought Richard’s spirits plunge downward, like a huge stone into water—a splash, and then gone, down to the bottom. Cold. He shivers, imagining himself a street person. Dirty and cold and friendless. Hopeless. Dying of something. Where in a way he has always known he would be. He will end up on the street. He knows that, sometimes.

  “Hello?” He answers the phone again, knowing that h
is voice is odd: he is still a beggar, out on the street.

  “Richard? Richard Fallon? You don’t sound quite like yourself. Al Bolling here. I wondered, I know it’s late, but could you make lunch today? There’re some things I’d like to go over.”

  Could he!

  All energized now, and thinking that he must have known this would happen—he dressed this morning in his best new gray flannel blazer—Richard calculates his time. Exactly an hour and a half before he should leave to meet Al. Marbles. He smiles and gets to work.

  He makes some calls, first off. One to Standish Wong. (No nicknames for Standish somehow, although they’re getting along really well, as he knew they would.) “Standish? Fallon here. I’ll be a little late, got a business lunch, but I’ll be along, okay? That’s great, Standish, just great.”

  He hangs up happily, with thoughts of pleasure for Stella. He feels both virtuous and effective, generous and efficient and kind. Himself at his best. Superenergetic. Charged.

  He makes two more calls, these having to do with business of his own. Work projects, boring and overdue, that now seem dwarfed. Insignificant and annoying, beside the Fillmore thing. But he needs the bread. As always.

  When the phone rings again he is on his feet and moving toward the door, but he answers anyway. Knowing it will be Stella.

  But her sound is unexpected, unfamiliar: she is so excited over something that at first Richard does not quite understand. Something about an agent in New York and a piece she’s been working on.

  He breaks in as gently as he can. “Baby, that’s terrific, but honestly, I was halfway out the door. Oh, that’s great! And do I have a surprise for you! Maybe two surprises. Maybe really great news. Okay, tonight. I’ll get up there as early as I possibly can.”

  He still hasn’t entirely understood what Stella was talking about, but it’s nice to hear her so cheerful; staying up there on the coast by herself has been getting her down. It’s not easy to keep women happy.

  Outside, walking fast along the sunny, dirty street, Richard can hardly contain himself. He wants to run, or to skip along, like a kid. Feeling marvelous!

  He is stopped almost dead in his tracks, though, by the eyes of a street man, a homeless person, dark and filthy-haired, in rags, with great dark haunted eyes and ugly skin. The eyes stop Richard cold. They seem planted there in front of him, to stop him.

  Reaching into his pocket, Richard pulls out the first bill that comes to his hand. A twenty. Good. Payoff money. He hands it to the dirty hand. To the eyes.

  And walks along, more slowly now, less securely. To meet Al Bolling.

  15

  Celebrations

  “I can’t believe it!” Stella cries out, aware of banality but helpless.

  For what she says is the literal truth: she cannot believe the transformation of her apartment. As she enters what were her rooms, the space in which she stands (quite tentatively, clutching at Richard’s arm) is no space that she ever saw before. It is large and fairly bare, with huge wide windows, giving onto the deep-green, ferny Presidio woods. Where there were walls, now only a few supporting pillars remain, all painted a rich high-gloss dark brown. The floors have been stripped down to beautiful plain wide planks. In a far corner Stella sees her old bed, now discreetly covered in something thick and brown, and here and there about the room she recognizes objects that are hers: some wooden chairs, a small marble-topped table. But the long broad gray soft leather sofa—she never saw that before, nor the rich scatter of small Oriental rugs. Even, on the walls, new pictures, strange sepia photographs of what looks to be Venice, late nineteenth century (she thinks).

  It is a beautiful room; Stella can hardly connect it with herself, can hardly believe that she lives here, that she is intended to live here.

  Also, in a sinking, inadmissible way, she is thinking: What must all this have cost? Shouldn’t she offer to pay? But that would be impossible: she is as always very broke, and also she and Richard have no language in which money could be discussed. Nevertheless, she does say to him, “But all this new stuff …”

  Which of course he understands. “Just stuff I had lying around.” He stares at her, smiling impatiently. “What’s the matter, don’t you like it?”

  “Oh, Richard, I love it, I can’t tell you. It’s fantastic.” But even as she speaks the truth—she does love what he has done, it is fantastic—Stella is aware of a deep and squirming discomfort, an unease to which she can give no name and that, as best she can, she rejects.

  “… and listen,” Richard is saying, staring into her face, gripping both her arms (a new gesture with him: it would make more sense if she were a very tall woman). “This new job, baby, wait till you hear.” He laughs. “It’s only the best job any hack in advertising ever had.”

  “Oh, that’s marvelous.” And she listens, as Richard tells her about the Fillmore job, Al Bolling, the projected watercolors. California poppies, skiing at Tahoe, the north coast, redwoods, rivers, streams, city parks. The trips the two of them will take, to everywhere.

  “It’s marvelous!” she tells him, again.

  But Richard, with his uncannily attuned intuition, must sense her unease. Her problem is that she would like to tell him about her good news: Gloria Bergstein, her new agent (and impossible to explain to non-literary Richard the particular power and prestige of Gloria), has said that The Gotham, a very new, high-paying, high-visibility magazine (whose editor, it is rumored, is Gloria’s lover), is very interested in a piece that Stella wrote about the San Francisco homeless. Very interested. But this moment seems inappropriate for such news; this moment is Richard’s.

  “You don’t look absolutely happy,” Richard accuses, as she almost knew that he would. “Jesus Christ, what would it take?”

  “Oh, darling—” Tears, from whatever useful source, flood her eyes. Her hands reach to cover her face, as her shoulders convulse, and Richard takes her in his arms.

  “Baby, baby, I’m sorry,” he whispers in her ear. “I didn’t mean—Christ, you’re so sensitive! You’re lovely.”

  “It’s just so beautiful, what you’ve done,” Stella (falsely) explains. “I’m not very good at receiving things,” she (truthfully) adds.

  “I guess you’re not.” He laughs. “But it didn’t come out too bad, really, did it. I brought Al Bolling around to see it yesterday, and I have to admit, he was pretty fucking impressed.”

  “But—” But I’ve never met Al Bolling, and he saw my house before I did? Stella does not say this.

  “He can’t wait to meet you. In fact we’ve got to have a party, don’t you think? A real blast. Pull out all the stops. To celebrate everything.”

  “Great—”

  “Now, about this job I’ve almost got.”

  “Richard, I love my house, it’s beautiful—”

  “Sketching trips, all over the state—”

  “Richard, that’s so great—”

  “Skiing trips—”

  “I don’t ski—”

  “You’ll learn!”

  Looking down just then, Richard observes, “Legs looks even prettier here now, don’t you think? She loves it. More sun.” As though flattered, the small cat stretches, and rubs against Richard’s feet. And then yawns.

  “This house reminds me of some book I read when I was a child,” Stella tells him, musingly. “One of my father’s childhood books. Called Sara Crewe, I think. It was about a poor Victorian orphan girl who’s out in the rain one night, all cold and unloved, and she goes back up to her room and someone has filled it all with flowers and presents. An Indian prince, I think.”

  “Sounds like you have total recall.” He laughs. “You read too much.”

  Briefly, then, they kiss, and Richard tells her, “I have to go now. Later.”

  Alone in her (their) old-new apartment, with Richard’s (her) cat, Stella tries to orient herself. Familiarity may come later on; now she simply has to find out where things are.

  She starts by just standing w
here she was when Richard left—more or less in the middle of the room—and staring about. Then she begins slowly to walk around, to open a door here and there. She finds that things are more as they were than at first they looked to be: her clothes in their closets and chests of drawers; linens and towels and paper supplies in their closet. Wine and booze, cans and boxes of food on new-painted kitchen shelves. Her desk and typewriter in their place, in their corner.

  But where is the little chest in which she always kept certain letters and notes—her most important things? Where is that chest?

  She hurries all over the still-strange space, as she thinks, terribly: Of course, the chest was ugly and awkward. Richard just threw it out. He saw some old papers, maybe he shoved them into a drawer somewhere. How like him, so intolerant of anything not beautiful. He’s so selfish. This whole performance was some ego trip. His ego. Where is my chest, and my papers?

  Trembling, quite frantic now, she dials Richard’s number, but gets his recorded voice. “You have reached—” Not wanting even to hear him, she hangs up.

  That little chest, now presumably lost to her, becomes in Stella’s lively mind a metaphor for everything wrong between them. A small and ugly paradigm. But this startles her; she had not often before articulated to herself the notion that anything was wrong between them.

  Next to her bed (their bed), with its new deep-brown coarse wool cover, onto which Stella has just flung herself, there is a tall new bright brass reading lamp, elegantly resting on a brilliant-blue small lacquered chest. Almost idly, expecting nothing, Stella tries the top drawer of the chest—which opens easily, revealing a packet of letters, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. Her letters. And the same is true of the next two small drawers, an easy opening to her things, all meticulously wrapped. And Stella, straining through bewilderment, recognizes in this bright-blue lacquered stranger her ugly old chest, miraculously transformed. And the tissue paper suggests an almost reverent regard for her possessions—precisely the reverse of her enraged suspicions, her suppositions.