The White Rose (4 page)

Snatching it from its hook set in the marble backsplash, Marian cries, “Yes? Hector?”

“Marian?” The voice, not Hector's, chirps. “Oh, super! Are you ready to go? I'm bringing up your mail.”

From the living room there is a sudden burst of laughter, and she stands, paralyzed for the moment by her two developing scenarios, numbed by the notion that they are about to collide.

Ready to go?
She thinks, blankly.
Ready to go where?

In her hand, the house phone begins to emit its distinct, I-have-been-disconnected rumble, and she replaces the receiver. She is wasting precious seconds. She can practically hear the elevator whir, the rolling clatter of the door opening on her landing, the muffled chime of the doorbell. She needs to move,
now.

Laughter. What are they laughing about? What common ground can possibly exist between her conceited, no-longer-quite-certainly-homosexual cousin and her lover in his—or, rather,
her
—stockings and wig? Another precious second passes. It is nearly dark. In ten minutes, the lights will be on in the city. In two minutes, Valerie Annis—who has just elevated herself from tiresome acquaintance to object of utter loathing—will be in her apartment, braying in that barely tolerable voice of hers. How has she come to know such disagreeable people?

“Oliver?” she says faintly.

No one comes. The living room noises continue.

Marian steadies herself. “Olivia?” she calls. “Can I see you, please?”

The elevator whirs. Only a few more flights to go before the door clatter, the ring.

“Olivia?”

“I'm here,” Oliver says. He pushes open the kitchen door, lets it swing shut beside him. “He's just asked me to meet him later. Can you believe it? He wants me to come to the Regency, for a drink, at eleven.” Oliver grins. “What kind of girl does he think I am?”

“Oliver,” she says frantically.

“Don't worry. I said I was busy.”

Then, incomprehensively, he is kissing her. She flails at him. The elevator door clatters open on the landing.

“Oliver! I'm…” She shoves him away, “I'm trying to tell you! That's Valerie Annis, she's coming up.”

Oliver looks blank. He is a clueless brunette. “Valerie?”

“I told you! That woman with the column!”

“Ah,” he nods. “The one my mom refers to as
that cunt.
”

Marian stops. “Really?” Caroline is not given to profanity.

“She outed some nice old lady on the board of the ballet. Absolutely no reason, just malicious.”

That would be Valerie, Marian thinks.

The doorbell rings.

“Why's she here?” Oliver says.

“God, I have no idea. I haven't seen her since…”

Marian stares at him.

“What?”

“Oh no. I saw her last week at a dinner party. There's a benefit tonight, at the Guggenheim, but I never intended to actually go. I just made a donation.”

“Marian,” he says, hurt.

“No, honestly, I couldn't tell her
why
I wasn't going, not right in front of Marshall. Maybe she said something about going together. I wasn't listening, I guess. I should have paid attention.”

“You were daydreaming about our weekend,” he says, floating the notion.

Quite possibly, Marian thinks. Though it's just as likely she'd been tuning out Valerie's drone.

The bell rings again. If a bell can be made to sound testy, this one does.

“Look,” she says, pushing him, “just get back in the office, and this time stay there. I'll get rid of her as soon as I can, but this woman is no fool. She'll take one look at you in that wig and we'll be the lead item in a certain salmon-colored weekly.” He opens his mouth. “No. Just get in there. Oliver, for once, just do it.”

He puts up his hands and goes.

From the living room, she hears an aggrieved “Marian? Where've you gone?”

From the foyer, three short rings.

Oliver closes the door.

“Coming!” she cries, to everyone, and rushes out of the kitchen.

How has it happened? How has she moved from the serene privacy of her lover's arms on a weekend that was meant to have been theirs alone to this wild invasion of people she despises? How has she become someone people feel free to just drop in on? Don't they know she has a book to write?
Aren't they aware that she is trying to get something accomplished?

Marian reaches the front door and flings it back. She refuses to be effusive in her welcome, but good manners compel a gracious expression to the woman her open door reveals, a brittle blonde with suspicious cheekbones and a black Italian coat so conscientiously understated it reeks of money. She is carrying a wide cardboard box topped by a stack of catalogues. “Valerie,” Marian allows.

“You're not wearing that.” Valerie Annis frowns.

“What? Oh, Valerie, I am so, so sorry. I completely forgot, and now I just can't walk over with you.”

The “walk over” is meant to be a terse reminder. Marian had not, after all, agreed to be Valerie's date for the evening—but merely to “go with her.” Besides, she is under no illusions that Valerie wants actual companionship for the evening. Valerie wants, merely, to arrive with Marian, then promptly ditch her to speak with everyone, anyone else.

“You're not skipping out,” Valerie says sourly.

“I'm afraid so. Not that they'll miss me. I made a donation,” she adds, somewhat defensively.

“Well,” Valerie pouts, “I think you might have called.”

“I was just about to!” Marian cries. “But then my cousin turned up. Unexpectedly. I apologize. I wouldn't blame you for never speaking to me again!”

I should be so lucky,
she thinks.

Valerie scowls, shifting the weight of her burden.

“Oh, let me take that!” Marian says, grabbing it. The catalogues teeter and spread. “I'm going to have such a boring weekend,” she tells Valerie, reassuringly. “Marshall's out of town and I'm not doing a thing but working.”

“Oh working…don't tell me about it. I'm constantly working! I said to Richard, I said, ‘You keep me running around this way, I'll get overexposed, and nobody will tell me anything anymore.' Really, I ought to just put my foot down, Marian. He knows perfectly well I'm the only reason anybody reads his silly paper.”

“Hmm,” Marian says. Richard is her boss, a venture capitalist who fueled the first online matchmaking service, and whose favorite plaything is the
New York Ascendant.
The two women are still standing in the doorway, though this is rather optimistic on Marian's part.

“Even so, three parties a night! Sometimes more! What does he think I am?”

A Class-A gossip, quite accurately,
she thinks. “That is a lot,” she agrees.

“What
is
that?” Valerie groans theatrically, and nods at the box in Marian's arms, as if someone had asked her to assume the burden in the first place.

Marian, noting the familiar logo on the return-address label, says, “More Lady Charlotte letters, I suppose. They forward them to me.”

“
What, still?
You've got people writing to you
still?
After all this
time?
”

“It's only been a year,” she says, offended. “A year since the paperback.”

“Oh!” Valerie sweeps past her into the foyer, her green lizard Jimmy Choos clicking smartly on the parquet, probably doing some damage. “Did I tell you I had dinner with Yusuf last week? Just the two of us and some woman he was with. And the bodyguards, of course, but they were at another table. Before his reading at the Y. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the reading. He said he had read your book.”

Marian has just begun wondering at the apparent non sequitur when this last nugget is tossed off.

“Really?” Despite herself, this impresses her. Yusuf Hanif has taken time out from being the subject of international militant hostilities to read her book?

“Poor man.” Valerie shrugs off her coat. “So lonely. Imagine what his life must be like, with those bodyguards. I tell you, they looked like longshoremen.”

Marian clucks sympathetically. She watches, with resignation, as Valerie slings her coat over one of the foyer chairs.

“Marian,” says Barton, who has appeared in the doorway of the living room, pointedly holding his empty glass. “I didn't know you were expecting company.”

“I wasn't!” she says brightly. “This is an unexpected…”

“I always try to be unexpected!” Valerie says, clicking across to him with her immaculate hand outstretched. “You must be Marian's cousin! There's certainly a family resemblance.”

He takes the hand. “The Warburg chin,” he says, seriously. “It's quite distinct.”

“Warburg?” she chirps. “As in Warburg?”

Barton looks sharply at Marian. The notion that she has not informed each and every one of her acquaintances of her Our Crowdliness is nothing short of astounding to him. “Certainly,” he says fiercely, as if his very manhood has been challenged.

Valerie pivots on the spike of her heel, without letting go of Barton's hand. “Marian,” she scolds.

“On my father's side,” Marian says, with reluctance. “My father and Barton's mother were brother and sister.”

“Well, of course!” Valerie says soothingly. “And where have you been hiding yourself, Mr. Warburg?”

For a minute he looks abashed, but he recovers. “My mother was a Warburg. My father's name was Ochstein. Which is also my name.” He has always resented that, Marian thinks. That Marian, a mere female, got the Warburg surname for her very own (and then was so poor a guardian that she traded it for her husband's!) while he, though obsessively attentive to family history, is one name removed from their illustrious mutual ancestor. Marian has sometimes known Barton to refer to himself as Barton Warburg Ochstein, though she knows perfectly well that his middle name is Samuel.

“Well, Mr. Ochstein,” Valerie says. “Don't tell me we've met before! I've met many, many people, but I would certainly have remembered you.” She has left him and his hand in her wake, now, and moved into the living room. Marian and Barton meekly follow her. “Do you live abroad? Are you in town for this party at the Guggenheim?”

It takes Marian a moment to understand this question. To Valerie and her ilk, charitable events are entirely divorced from the actual causes they benefit. They are parties. With themes. Valerie, more likely than not, has no idea that tonight's very elaborate shindig is meant to fund art programs for inner-city children.

“Not abroad,” he responds, sinking again into the soft cushions of the couch. “Only as far as Rhinebeck. My home is The Retreat. It once belonged to Henry Wharton Danvers.”

Henry Wharton Danvers? Valerie frowns.

“Surely…” he begins, but she interrupts with gaiety.

“Oh, I'm an utter
moron!
You must understand! That's why my column is so successful. Because people are forever having to explain things to me! They sit me down, and they say, ‘Valerie, you're clearly ignorant, my dear, so I'm going to tell you everything.' And they do!”

“Column,” Barton says, puzzled.

“In the
New York Ascendant.
I am the Celebrant,” she says, solemnly.

“Ah.” He is blank. Marian is not surprised: Barton's snobbery is rooted in the past. He has, and this is perhaps to his credit, never been very interested in new money. Except, perhaps, in the rather newsworthy new money of his prospective in-laws.

“You read me,” she says smugly.

“I have,” says Barton. And now he remembers his glass. “Marian? I've just time for another.”

Marian rises.

“Are you off somewhere?” Valerie asks.

“My fiancée's family home. Her father is giving a little dinner tonight.”

“You're getting married!” Valerie exclaims. “And to whom?”

“Valerie?” interrupts Marian. “A quick drink?”

“No, darling.” She doesn't take her eyes off Barton. She does not want her concentration disturbed.

“Sophie Klein,” says Barton, with crudely attempted indifference. “She is the daughter of Mort Klein.”

There is silence. The silence is impressive. Even Marian, crouched at the liquor cabinet, can feel it, like pricks along her spine. Finally, the contents of Valerie's lungs are expelled in a rush. “Well, this is…I offer you my congratulations, Mr. Ochstein.”

“Barton,” he reassures her. “
Please.
”

“Barton,” replies Valerie. “Well, this is just
lovely.
”

“Thank you,” says Barton, but it's directed to Marian, as he accepts his drink. “I'm delighted, myself.”

“Miss Klein is in the family business?” Valerie asks.

“Oh no. A student. Sophie is at Columbia.”

Marian looks at him. The fact that Barton, barely cognizant of her massive best-seller, is also, apparently, unaware that she holds a chair at Columbia should not surprise her, but it does.

“Columbia?” Marian asks, nearly wounded. “Your fiancée is at Columbia?”

“Undergraduate?” Valerie leans in. “That's adorable.”

“No, no,” he chuckles, enjoying their attention. “Sophie's writing a thesis in the history department.”

“That's
my
department,” Marian says, and she is shocked to hear it come out a whine.

The others look at her for a perplexed moment, then turn back to each other.

“How fascinating. What about?” Valerie has leaned back against the cushion.

“Oh,” he says and waves his hand, “Germany in the forties. She gave me the rundown, but it's very complicated.”

Marian sinks onto the opposite couch and sets down her load of mail on the rug. How many people, she reflects, could wield the phrase “Germany in the forties” with the apparent abandon her cousin has just used? The Holocaust, the Shoah, the Third Reich…even the war, yes, but “Germany in the forties”? Does he even know, she wonders, what
happened
in “Germany in the forties”?