Zinnie, taking stock, decided to let it drop. “Lock the door,” she hissed. “Shall I take my car?”
“Oh, let’s walk,” Carmela said. “Then we can all drink.”
Claire stood still. The Mayor watched her with those heartbreaking liquid eyes. Her parents had taken Michaelaen to McDonald’s and then on to Crossbay Playland for a treat, so there was no one around to see.
“Oops,” Claire said. “He just slipped out.”
“Claire!” Carmela crowed. “He’ll get another ticket!”
“No, he won’t,” Zinnie said. “Who are they gonna give it to? Him?”
“And who’s going to pay if they follow him home?”
“Shut up. I’d like to see one of them follow him home. They’d be worn out.”
“Wait till Mom finds out—”
“Who’s gonna tell her, miss goody two tits, you?”
The three of them watched as the Mayor headed off in the direction of Lefferts Boulevard. He looked once over his shoulder, furtively, then skedaddled fast as he could away from them. There was no stopping him now.
They climbed the hill with the same suspicious optimism with which all women over twenty-five start out for parties. Zinnie was in a good mood. Carmela too, for once. She’d always wanted to get in with the diplomatic set. This was as good a chance as any, even if the opportunity had presented itself through Claire. As for Claire, she was thinking about those pictures she’d left down in the cellar. Something about them … like a word on the tip of your tongue …
It was pleasant along Park Lane South. The houses changed to villas and the sun was pink above the woods. That meant good weather for tomorrow as well.
“Why didn’t you wear my sundress, Claire?” Carmela asked, looking her up and down with disapproving eyes. “Aren’t you hot? You know you could have borrowed it.”
“I’m fine,” Claire smiled, hot. She was glad she hadn’t worn the lavender sundress. She almost had. She’d stared at it on its hanger and held its skirt up to her cheek. It had had the same feel to it as a shawl she’d had once, and as she’d stood there in Carmela’s closet she’d remembered that shawl whipping around her in the breeze and how she’d walked happily, innocently through the forest outside Rishikesh and how it was so fine that she’d kept right on walking, past the sunlit temple and the perfect mossy fields. She’d relived the shock of seeing the back of her lover’s neck as she’d turned from the shelter of the trees, recognizing that neck first, his back to her, his face to the lovely young Indian girl. He’d put out his arm to capture a strand of the girl’s windy hair that covered her eyes and he’d anchored it kindly to her small, seashell ear. Claire had walked up to them, smiling brightly, consciously oblivious to their sudden discomfort, pretending (for whom?) that nothing had happened.
And she’d walked away from the lavender dress. She believed in the vibrations of clothes. She had things, beautiful things that suited her, that she would never wear because of something that had happened to her while she’d had it on. Such as a woman in the store not approving of her while she’d tried something on and she, thinking nothing, buying the item anyway. Those feelings were recorded forever in the fiber of the fabric, and Claire would relive that dislike every time she put it on. No. She was glad she hadn’t worn that beautiful dress.
They walked and walked.
“Where is this place?” Carmela demanded finally. “My feet are killing me.”
“Serves you right for wearing my shoes,” said Zinnie.
“Your feet were always bigger than mine! When did your feet get smaller?”
“Probably when you put on all that weight.”
“What weight?”
“Let’s not talk about weight tonight,” pleaded Claire, who had camouflaged her figure very nicely beneath a powder blue Afghani sheath. “Let’s have a good time, all right? This is it.”
“This?!” Carmela dropped her purse.
“Who is this guy, Claire?” Zinnie gave a low whistle, “—a king?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s a diplomat. It’s not his.”
“It wasn’t Marcos’s either,” Carmela checked her nose inside her compact. “What’s the matter, Zin? You’d rather have the acreage in the back of the house? You don’t like money? You think if money could buy happiness Franco Bolla would have his teeth fixed?”
“I wish I’d worn something else.”
“You just miss your gun.”
“I’ve got my gun.”
“You look adorable,” Claire said.
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
They tripped up the cobblestone path that led to the side of the villa. There were yellow-and-white-striped tents set up along the yard, well hidden from the street by tall privet hedging. Lanterns twinkled, as early as it was, and groups of people stood chatting here and there, sipping what appeared to be champagne.
“I thought Poland was communist,” said Zinnie.
“Don’t we pay for diplomatic housing?” Carmela ruminated on a thoroughly new sort of column. A political column.