like you were enjoying yourself! If you’d had a therapist back then, which you should have, she would have told you that you ‘modulated yourself around him.’ ”
“I was twenty. What girl doesn’t do that at that age?”
“Plenty. There were those bossy girls that made their boyfriends buy them Monistat. Remember Gertie? Her boyfriend used to vacuum our place. She used to yell at him, ‘Mark! Mark!’ ”
“Gertie was a hysteric. She made us take her to the emergency room for menstrual cramps.”
She waved this away. “Ever since that dinner party, the old man’s been coming up in conversation. Select cameos. As if you’re thinking about him a lot more than you’re saying. You’re not going to see him, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, nonchalantly. “Maybe. I don’t have to make that decision yet. He’s not even in the country.”
She looked at me again, in that annoying, deliberately penetrating way. “You know that ‘separated’ is different from ‘divorced.’ ”
“I’m not looking to move in on him.”
“So you say now. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t go to that party. I hate couples who fight in public. It’s not good energy for me to be around. Already I’m aware that Adán and I used to have a hell of a lot more fun when we were dating.”
“I don’t know how you could have sustained that momentum.” The two of them had been crazy about each other and just wild in general—at a corporate party at the Gansevoort they’d been caught having sex in the rooftop pool. And then they tried it again, two weeks later. Adán made a lot of money, so their partying hit a level of extremism that I, and even Hallie, were unfamiliar with. He was from Madrid, and slightly older than us, with thick black hair and hooded eyes that when he got drunk made him look a little wicked,like a satyr. What I found attractive about him was his vitality, not just sexual, which Hallie loved to boast about, but life vitality—the loud, warm laugh, a love of sharing, and a real interest in people and their ideas, even if, at times, his intensity had brought out the worst in Hallie, who hated to be shown up.
Hallie had moved on to a subject she liked. Adultery. She had a wealth of examples. “Did I tell you about my friend Dawn? The one whose husband was cheating on her and she got—hey, you remember her, you met her at a cocktail party at my house. Her husband’s from Guyana.”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, she gets it into her head that he could disappear. Disappear! Like a fucking elf. Because every time she thought she saw him out with another woman, she’d look again, and he’d be gone. He was probably ducking behind a car.”
My house phone rang. It was Adán. “Guapa, I am sorry to disrupt you, but my wife is missing. I have tried calling her phone three times. Before I make a missing persons poster I thought I should check at your house?”
I laughed and passed the phone to Hallie, who took it lazily, and I suspected that she knew Adán had been calling her and had chosen not to answer so that he’d have to track her down.
Even though it was freezing outside, she wore a silk dress with wide sleeves, an intoxicating pattern of black orchids that set off her white skin, the big green eyes and black hair. She resembled a burlesque dancer off-hours. Curled up on the couch, she murmured into the receiver. This was one of her mother’s gestures; Constance had had a range of movements and expressions that infused a sexy mystery into anything she did—it was part of her professional allure. In the 1960s, she had been considered a very promising film star and was often compared to Sharon Tate.
This was what I had heard, at any rate. By the time I knew her, Constance was spending the majority of her day in her bed, always made up as if going somewhere for the evening, her hair waved,her valentine mouth painted a bright red, her deep-set eyes, which were seductively half-closed from the
“I was twenty. What girl doesn’t do that at that age?”
“Plenty. There were those bossy girls that made their boyfriends buy them Monistat. Remember Gertie? Her boyfriend used to vacuum our place. She used to yell at him, ‘Mark! Mark!’ ”
“Gertie was a hysteric. She made us take her to the emergency room for menstrual cramps.”
She waved this away. “Ever since that dinner party, the old man’s been coming up in conversation. Select cameos. As if you’re thinking about him a lot more than you’re saying. You’re not going to see him, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, nonchalantly. “Maybe. I don’t have to make that decision yet. He’s not even in the country.”
She looked at me again, in that annoying, deliberately penetrating way. “You know that ‘separated’ is different from ‘divorced.’ ”
“I’m not looking to move in on him.”
“So you say now. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t go to that party. I hate couples who fight in public. It’s not good energy for me to be around. Already I’m aware that Adán and I used to have a hell of a lot more fun when we were dating.”
“I don’t know how you could have sustained that momentum.” The two of them had been crazy about each other and just wild in general—at a corporate party at the Gansevoort they’d been caught having sex in the rooftop pool. And then they tried it again, two weeks later. Adán made a lot of money, so their partying hit a level of extremism that I, and even Hallie, were unfamiliar with. He was from Madrid, and slightly older than us, with thick black hair and hooded eyes that when he got drunk made him look a little wicked,like a satyr. What I found attractive about him was his vitality, not just sexual, which Hallie loved to boast about, but life vitality—the loud, warm laugh, a love of sharing, and a real interest in people and their ideas, even if, at times, his intensity had brought out the worst in Hallie, who hated to be shown up.
Hallie had moved on to a subject she liked. Adultery. She had a wealth of examples. “Did I tell you about my friend Dawn? The one whose husband was cheating on her and she got—hey, you remember her, you met her at a cocktail party at my house. Her husband’s from Guyana.”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, she gets it into her head that he could disappear. Disappear! Like a fucking elf. Because every time she thought she saw him out with another woman, she’d look again, and he’d be gone. He was probably ducking behind a car.”
My house phone rang. It was Adán. “Guapa, I am sorry to disrupt you, but my wife is missing. I have tried calling her phone three times. Before I make a missing persons poster I thought I should check at your house?”
I laughed and passed the phone to Hallie, who took it lazily, and I suspected that she knew Adán had been calling her and had chosen not to answer so that he’d have to track her down.
Even though it was freezing outside, she wore a silk dress with wide sleeves, an intoxicating pattern of black orchids that set off her white skin, the big green eyes and black hair. She resembled a burlesque dancer off-hours. Curled up on the couch, she murmured into the receiver. This was one of her mother’s gestures; Constance had had a range of movements and expressions that infused a sexy mystery into anything she did—it was part of her professional allure. In the 1960s, she had been considered a very promising film star and was often compared to Sharon Tate.
This was what I had heard, at any rate. By the time I knew her, Constance was spending the majority of her day in her bed, always made up as if going somewhere for the evening, her hair waved,her valentine mouth painted a bright red, her deep-set eyes, which were seductively half-closed from the
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