“Who does it work out for?” said Valentine, lazing around and, at this moment, absolutely gorgeous.
Sometimes I wished Valentine wasn’t quite so comfortable in her underwear. Back in San Francisco, we both went to bed in old T-shirts and pajama bottoms, and when we were getting undressed we’d be pretty modest. We’d make a point of turning around when we had our tops off, or we’d hold our T-shirts up to our boobs so no one could see. I still did that. It was only polite. But Val, well, it’s like this summer she gets in and she can’t get undressed fast enough. I know that it’s hotter here, but still. The way Valentine peels off her clothing, it’s like she’s all damp and bursting. And then when she has to get dressed again to go outside, she acts annoyed about it, like putting on clothes is this big personal inconvenience.
“Maybe it’s because she’s not married.”
“Who?”
“Clover, silly.”
“Oh.”
“Wouldn’t you want to be married if you were that old?”
“You were the one who said twenty-eight’s not that old.”
“Not to be married it is.”
“But Mom didn’t get married until she was thirty-one, right? And then she had me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But when you were born, she was—what? Twenty-eight? And—”
“Oh, Franny, stop it!” burst out Val.
“Stop what? What am I doing?”
“You’re always doing this. You’re always trying to make us talk about him.”
I knew that she meant her father. But the way she said the word him this time was kind of funny—it sounded dismissive and impatient. She sounds like a real teenager now, I thought, forgetting that I was a teenager myself.
“We’ve always talked about him,” I said.
“When we were little,” said Valentine, as if she were reading my mind. “When we were little, Franny, and we’re not that little anymore.”
It’s true, what Valentine says. She’s starting to look like the portraits.
I mean, like the nudes. She’s filled out that way and I guess that’s why it’s like she’s bursting.
You know, there’s only one nude in the apartment who doesn’t look like that. Aunt Theo herself. Aunt Theo in her portrait is all long lines and bones.
I’m five foot seven now and still growing. I don’t really have any boobs or hips yet to speak of. So the funny thing is, out of all the bodies in the portraits, the one mine most looks like is Aunt Theodora’s.
Sometimes, sometimes when Clover’s out on an errand I tiptoe upstairs and gaze at Aunt Theodora’s portrait looming over the bed. She stares at me out of the thin blue light of that Parisian morning. I can’t wait to ask her who painted it, when I finally meet her in person.
Yesterday a letter came from Aunt Theo, addressed to me. This was out of the ordinary because most of her letters are addressed to Clover, and then Clover reads them aloud to us, skipping certain parts. I had a feeling that those were probably the most interesting parts, but anyway it was nice of her to read aloud from the letters at all.
The letter was addressed to “Miss Frances Lord,” in Aunt Theo’s unmistakable handwriting on a cinnamon-colored envelope, so I opened it. I didn’t even wait until Val got home.
Here is what the letter said.
Dear Frances,
But I think you go by Franny. One of these days you’ll have to grow into Frances, which in my view is a name of substance, so why not start growing into it now?
From what Clover tells me about you two girls, you, not Valentine, are the proper one to confide things in.
I’m writing about Clover. I know it was I who told you she needed her alone time, but now I am worried she is growing slack in her capacities as chaperone.
Not that I want you bustling around the city like tourists. I do want you to treat your time in New York like you live there. But: You ought to have some nights to remember. And so, ask Clover to take you someplace swanky, but for Lord’s sake don’t make it too trendy. And do, do, do dress up! No trousers.
Report back to me on your progress. I’ll be interested to see if a girl of your generation can write a decent letter, but, Frances my dear, I have a feeling you can.
XXX
Theo
Someplace swanky but not too trendy … the Plaza, obviously. We could go there for cocktails! Well, Clover could get a cocktail, and we could get Shirley Temples or something. I suggested this to Clover. She groaned and said: “Oh, Franny! You’re sweet to think of it, but the Plaza’s not like it was when Eloise lived there, you know. It’s just not like that anymore. Why, Donald Trump owns it.” She shuddered delicately at the name.
I suddenly felt very young and foolish and not like a New Yorker at all.
But then Clover smiled at me and said, “Oh, don’t worry, I know just the place. Let me just make sure we go on a night when Warren’s working.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Who’s Warren?” asked Valentine.
“Warren is an old flame of Theo’s.”
“Oh,” we both said. It figured.
“And the destination?” I asked.
The destination,” said Clover, “is Bemelmans Bar.”
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