This plan did not sound all that realistic to me, but no way was I going to point that out right now. But what did I know? I’d never been in love. And for that matter, should love be “realistic”? Shouldn’t love be all about transcending the “realistic”? Oh, I was full of all these fascinating thoughts and questions tonight …
Trying to make my voice sound extra gentle, I asked: “Where was the girlfriend—Beatrice—all this time?”
“Oh, she was on tour in Shanghai. She got back a few days ago.”
“Also annoying.”
“Oh, Franny, you get it! I hate her. What am I going to do?”
“We’ll—we’ll ask Clover. She’ll know.”
“Clover? But Clover is almost thirty and she’s not married, remember.”
But I knew Clover’s secret: I knew that she could have gotten married, once. It occurred to me, all of a sudden, that maybe I wouldn’t get married either. Maybe I’d grow up and live in New York, and sit in old-world Italian cafés wearing dark glasses, and be a writer. Yes: I’d be a writer. But now was not the time to share it with Valentine. All I said was: “So?”
“So. She doesn’t have some magical formula for how to be happy in love.”
The city lights were very splendid from the secret roof-deck, and I suddenly found myself in an expansive mood.
“Is that the point of love?” I asked. “To have a magic formula?”
Valentine survived the night by eating a bagful of Mint Milano cookies she refused to share with me (I didn’t really mind), and listening to the Swan movement of Carnival of the Animals over and over again.
“God!” she said, splitting another Mint Milano in half. “You’re going to have to go get me another bag of these, Franny, I swear, they’re the only thing that’s keeping me alive.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I said.
“It’s New York City,” said Valentine. “Something will be open.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Won’t you be getting all hopped up on sugar? Don’t you want to be able to fall asleep?”
“What are you, dumb, Franny? My heart is broken, my life is over! I wish I could go to bed and fall asleep absolutely forever.”
I couldn’t help but notice how Valentine, when she was happy with Julian, didn’t want the Belgian chocolates I brought her from the Sherry Netherland. But now, without him, Mint Milanos were supposedly “keeping her alive.” And so among other things this summer, I discovered that sugar seemed to have something to do with sex in the lives of grownup women. I would have to start paying more attention to my cravings, myself.
The next morning, when Clover heard that Julian had dumped Valentine, her “magic solution” was to take us straight to the Frick. She was “appalled” we hadn’t already been, and assured us, “You’ll leave there and feel better, I know it.”
But first, we had to get Valentine out of bed.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, moaning. “I just want to stay in bed and die. Pull the shades, Franny, will you? The light, the light!”
Clover’s solution to that was to serve her a café au lait with more milk than coffee and buttered toast shredded into bits, as if it were for a baby. When Valentine finally and with great effort got out of bed, Clover had already picked what she was going to wear, generously offering her a dress from her own closet. I had never seen a dress quite like it before. Clover called it a “patio gown.” It was sleeveless but very long and in a silky knit material of different zigzagging blue and green stripes, like the ocean. Valentine, being bratty, was not convinced that she liked it.
“It’s weird,” she said. “All those zigzags.”
“It’s a Missoni,” Clover said, adding: “Aunt Theo got it for me from Italy one summer. And if you can’t see the inherent chic of a Missoni, Valentine, well, I don’t know what this summer in New York has done for your cultural and aesthetic education.”
At this, Valentine burst into tears again, reminding Clover: her heart was broken. It would be broken forever.
“Oh dear,” said Clover, obviously feeling bad. “Come on, put on the dress and you’ll feel better. You’re going to look gorgeous in it. You can keep it, in fact. Bring it back to San Francisco and your mother will die of jealousy, her seventeen-year-old daughter with a real Missoni. I love it, but the fact is I’m not quite tall enough to get away with that length.”