The Arriviste. James Wallenstein
grandma’s old too. Does she impress me?”
“Washington was here too,” Izzy interjected. “He came to secure the harbor.”
“George Washington, now there was a Harry Horseshit, first class. Couldn’t even keep his wig on his head. He was tall, was what he had going for him. That’s why they gave him his command.”
“What’s that, melba toast? Grab me a piece, will you?”
“How did they keep their wigs on their heads? I mean, if the wind came up while they were in battle?”
The group behind Hector disbanded, and Garson slipped into our midst. “Well, something must’ve worked out for him,” he said.
“I’d say so. You don’t become the father of the country—”
“For Bud, he means,” said Izzy.
“I’m always telling him to develop property. You know what they say about land,” Hector said. “But he just shrugs. A sure thing is beneath him. It has to be some new twist or he isn’t interested.”
“I heard that he made out so well selling lawn furniture on commission that he took home more than his boss. When they tried to give him a haircut, he quit.”
“It wasn’t lawn furniture, it was lawn sprinklers.”
“Sprinklers?” Garson twirled, adding sound effects in imitation of a revolving sprinkler. “You’d have to sell a lot of them to—”
“It was pie in the sky.”
“Then where does he get it?”
“My guess,” said Hector, “is, it comes from her side.”
“The old story. He marries his way onto third base and acts like he hit a triple.”
“Now let’s not get carried away—I wouldn’t exactly call this third base. I’d still rather be where I am. Did I tell you we’re—” As if on its own, Hector’s hand grabbed a miniature quiche from a passing tray and stuffed it into his mouth before he’d finished his sentence. He chewed frantically, eyes bulging. “I’m always burning my goddamned tongue,” he gasped.
We waited dumbly, Garson, Izzy, and I, watching him ingest his quiche, till a laugh, really a series of laughs knocking in bursts like a motor that refuses to turn over, made us turn around. Bud’s back was to us, and the heaving of his shoulders hazed the sheen of his gabardine jacket. When his laughter had subsided to the point that the pauses between laughs were longer than the laughs themselves, he must have sensed a vacuum behind him.
“You’ve been introduced?” he asked, turning from me to Hector and Garson and brushing back a Lionel-Barrymoreish curl.
“The way he was glowering at me,” Hector said, “I wasn’t sure about giving him my name. I drip a little sauce on his tweed, and he’s ready to twist my nuts off.” He brandished a plastic-cutlass toothpick. “Good thing I’m armed.”
“Don’t take it personally. I used to think he was glowering at me too, till I realized it’s his regular look!” Bud thumped me on the back.
“We haven’t met,” Garson said.
Bud hesitated, then said, “Neil Fox, Garson uh . . . Garson . . . ?”
“When your first name’s Garson, you don’t need a last name,” Hector said.
I started to sidle away but Bud grabbed me. “Enjoying yourself, Neil? I did tell you that this was a party, didn’t I?”
“I have been enjoying myself, but, you know, it’s time for me to be on my way. I told you I had work to do.”
“Now? Who’re you kidding? A friend with some real chops is about to sit down at the piano.”
A woman with Cleopatra eyeliner and a Peter Pan haircut darted between us and put her arms around Bud. “All this talk is hunky-dory,” she cried, “but after a while a girl needs to dance.” She swung him around.
I saw that it was past midnight and left to get my coat. Back downstairs, I waited for a chance to meet and thank Bud’s wife, Irene. It was the first time I’d been near enough to see the wave of her thick dark hair, the green of her eyes, or the cometary beauty mark splashed high on her cheekbone. This was as near as I’d get. She was in demand. A woman who’d struck a mock silent-movie pose, with one hand on her hip and the other behind her head, was saying, “You would not believe her, you really wouldn’t, an absolute diva”; the caterer was apologizing for cracking a lamp; her daughter tugged at her sleeve. I waved, mouthed a thank-you, and headed for the door.
Guests were still trickling in. They looked happy to be inside, and once I was out I saw why. The night had turned frigid, the kind of breathtaking chill that quickly detaches you from your own sensations. I could hardly feel myself walking. I heard the ground crunching underfoot and couldn’t be sure that my own steps were the cause. The burning in my fingertips and earlobes seemed far away.
A car’s hazard lights flashed against the hydrant at the bottom of the driveway. Someone shouted, “Can you give me a hand?” I fastened the top button of my coat and, going over to him, saw that it was Garson. There was no escaping him. “Oh, it’s you,” he muttered.
The car was running; his wife had slid behind the wheel. “Listen, we just need a quick shove—I got stuck in the ditch somehow. It doesn’t make any sense. If I’d turned the other way, I’d have creased my fender against that tree.”
“I left my gloves inside,” I told him. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“One good push should do it.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Hey man, thanks a lot. Remember, what goes around comes around. One day you’ll be in a fix like this.”
I told him again that I’d be right back, but he’d already given up on me and started up the driveway to look for help from someone else.
I really had left my hat and gloves behind, though I might have gone back the next day for them. But if only to keep to my story, I went back in.
It was like going to another party, and not only in that the drinks had been switched from pink to more familiar colors. I’d been pretty well anonymous before: now people I’d met twenty minutes earlier called out to me like old pals. “How’s tricks?” they cried, and “Take off your coat and stay awhile, chief.” It was the liquor talking in them, of course. But there was some of the same stuff in me, and it listened. I caught myself smiling my social smile in a genuine way, as tickled to see them as they apparently were to see me.
Bud’s pianist friend turned out to be Stan. His stubby fingers galloped over the keyboard and his eyes shone with a pixilated gleam. When he played “Everyone Says I Love You” and “Why Am I So Romantic?” and “Alone,” my new comrades puffed up their chests, lifted their chins, and sang; I was swept up in the general benevolence and between cascading arpeggios even chimed in myself. The fellow feeling ran so high that you could hardly distinguish your own voice, or anyone else’s. Only Bud’s, a baritone with plenty of carry, stood out. It was his recital if it was anyone’s. And he could sing, though to judge from his exuberance, maybe not quite so well as he thought.
The woman who’d caught Bud’s eye and Hector’s came out of the bathroom as I was going in. “I don’t know this music everyone is singing,” she said, presumably to cover her embarrassment.
“It’s from before your time,” I answered, and went in.
She was in the hallway, more or less where I’d left her, when I came out. Now the embarrassment was mine. “Did you ever catch up with Lee?”
“Lee? Oh, yes, he was here. But then he left.” If there was any sign of distress in her smile, I missed it. But I probably missed a good deal. The dangle of her earrings suggested imperceptible