Will she give him lunch here, in the kitchen? She made a quiche, has the ingredients for a salad with avocados. Morty never tired of avocados; he ate them nearly every day. As he told Tommy years ago, any man who spins his success from thin air should have a favorite daily indulgence with which to pat himself on the back. But now, she wonders if it would be better to suggest they go out, to the village center, the one decent restaurant that’s open for lunch. It’s quiet then. The waitresses are efficient matrons who aren’t likely to recognize Nicholas Greene—or are they?
No, that’s a stupid idea. And rude. Never mind whether he’d draw attention. (Would Tommy secretly like that? Had Morty not gone out on the roof, he would be here to tease her about their visit from a man deemed one of the past year’s most eligible or sexy or talented, depending on which magazine was concocting the list.) If they go out, the actor will insist on treating her, and she will owe him something. Better to be the one extending favors. That’s what Morty would say—at least, the Morty of ten and more years ago, who endorsed so many young writers’ first efforts, who made Tommy deliver bags of apples and plums from their little orchard to all their neighbors, even the ones who refused to honor civilized hours for construction or mechanized lawn work.
And just like that, here it is: the crunch of tires on gravel, earlier than expected. Unless it’s Franklin—but Franklin always telephones first. It’s been eerily quiet since the day they spent together making the most important calls: the funeral home, the credit card hotlines, the banks, and the broker. “Call this the eye of the storm,” Franklin told her, standing in the driveway before he left. “I’ll give you a week off before we tackle the work ahead.” Next month, in the city, there will be an obscenely large memorial gathering for “colleagues and friends” in the American Wing at the Met. To keep Morty’s agent distracted, Tommy asked her to take on that affair, not just the logistics but the politics. Let Angelica juggle the fragile egos, take the heat for leaving anyone off the list. Apparently, there will also be a public gathering at the Central Park Alice. City booksellers planned that one, and Tommy is hoping for a graceful out.
She should meet Nicholas Greene at his car, but she remains seated at the kitchen table, stilled by the sudden certainty that she should have said no. I’m so sorry, but everything’s changed, and it’s simply not a good time. Oh, and I do admire your work, Mr. Greene. We both did. Morty, you vain old fool, she thinks.
Too quickly, there’s a single strident rap of the front-door knocker. Through the dining room, the living room…She pauses after catching a glimpse of blue shoulder through one of the sidelights. Followed by a face, shadowed by two hands cupped against the pane.
She rushes to open the door. He mustn’t see her hesitating, peering out.
“Ms. Daulair?” His hand, his blue sleeve. He wears a velour jacket with crisp narrow jeans and a white button-down shirt. Draped around his long neck is an orange scarf, bright as a burst of song.
“Yes,” she says. “Me.”
Me, she thinks, meet Him.
Because it is Him, the man from the magazines and movies, yet it isn’t. Nothing could prepare you for this: how…indelible he is. Not sexy or dishy or hunky or any of those insufficiently two-dimensional teenybopper adjectives. And he’s too thin to be “handsome,” strictly speaking. But what he is—like a rose in a color you’ve never laid eyes on before or a dress in a store window that suddenly you dream of wearing on a wedding day you haven’t even planned—is impossible to stop looking at, demanding memorization. Both his hair and his eyes are a blondish brown, his nose long and slightly skewed, his pale skin vivaciously freckled—all these features reminiscent of Morty’s looks around the time Tommy met him.
“May I trespass?” His laugh sounds genuinely nervous or shy. (But he’s an actor! Who can tell what’s “genuine”?) He leans over and picks up a box from the brickwork at his feet (blue Converse sneakers, toes unscuffed). He hands it to her. “A bribe. Please tell me entry does not require a password. I’m hopeless at passwords. Shakespeare monologues, a cinch. Logging in to my e-mail account, a perpetual trial.”
Hugging the box to her chest, Tommy stands planted just inside the front door: what is the matter with her? “Yes,” she manages. “Please.”
He thanks her. “Old,” he says, stepping inside. “I love old houses. Houses that have really been lived in. Lived in again and again. I have a flat in a crumbling old row house. In London. Where I rarely ever am these days. I miss it!” And this room makes him miss it more acutely still. In the wide, warped floorboards, the faded Oriental rugs and dependably aging sofas, he sees immediate similarities between their outer lives, their tastes. The similarities between their inner lives, those he’s seen already.
Realizing how rude he must seem, looking greedily about as if he’s an estate agent calculating a value, he turns quickly back to his hostess. She seems every bit as off-balance as he is. Is she shy? Her reticence might be distrust.
“I feel fortunate to be here,” he says.
The more the actor speaks, the less Tommy feels capable of responding. There is something suffocating about being in the presence of celebrity, as if the man is literally taking in all the available air.
Christ, should she offer to take his jacket? His expensive scarf?
He winds the scarf deftly around a hand, like a skein of yarn, and pushes it into a pocket. “I really am grateful,” he tells her. “I’m eager to see everything you’ll show me, but I don’t want to intrude. All right, well, that’s not entirely true.”
Still speechless, she leads him into the kitchen. She sets the box on the table.
They stand on opposite sides, and simultaneously they speak.
She: “May I offer you tea, coffee—a beer? I could make you a lemonade.” He: “How boorish of me. I wanted to say, first thing, how sorry I am. I’ve read all the tributes and the obituaries and…it’s still so hard to believe. So awful.”
In the lull that follows their jumbled words, his outpacing hers, they laugh.
“Well,” says Tommy. “Thank you. It has been awful. And I’m sorry for you…that you missed meeting him. He was looking forward to…that.” To you.
She repeats her offer, determined to hold the upper hand. She mustn’t turn to sand just because the man is famous. Not so long ago, she reminds herself, he wasn’t, so maybe he’s not yet accustomed to being a Face. And it’s not as if hanging out with famous men is something new to her—though famous for looks is different from famous for brains. Not that one precludes the other….
“Tea would be great,” says Nick. “And you’ll join me?” He longs for the beer she offered, but if he can win her over, he’ll have that beer in good time. And tea—tea will make him feel more grounded. A beer would make him giddy. Even dead sober, he’s jabbering.
“I have lunch for us. A quiche and salad.”
“Thank you. That sounds brilliant. And too good of you.”
“Please sit,” she says. “And I’ll open this.”