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“You know I did, okay?” he says.
“It must have been so cozy,” I say. “Everyone getting along. Everyone best friends.”
“It wasn’t bad,” he says.
“It’s not my fault that Ursula hates me.”
“Ursula doesn’t hate you. But she thinks you don’t treat me well.” This is an astonishing bit of information which I decide not to pursue. Instead, I yawn loudly and say, “Lil’Bit Parsons has had the easiest life of anybody I’ve ever known.”
“She hasn’t had an easy life,” Hubert says. “Her boyfriend beat her up.”
“Oh, big fucking deal. Her boyfriend beat her up. She had a few bruises. If he was so horrible, why didn’t she leave him?”
“She’s not that kind of person, okay?”
“Her daddy was rich, and when she was seventeen, she started modeling and then she got her first part at nineteen. Tough life.”
“Just because she didn’t grow up in a commune doesn’t mean she hasn’t had a hard time.”
“Yes it does,” I say. “Okay? Do you get that?”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. And I don’t get you.”
We ride the rest of the way in silence.
At the villa, Princess Ursula greets us by the pool, wearing her bathing suit with a sarong wrapped around her waist (she’s fifty-five but still thinks she has an excellent figure and shows it off on every possible occasion), and in a casual voice which is tinged with both French and English accents, mentions “nonchalantly” that dear Lil’Bit is indeed in Porto Ercole, having taking her own villa for two weeks, and is, “ha ha,” coming for lunch, and isn’t this a “wonderful surprise.”
Hubert looks at me, but somehow, miraculously, I don’t react (much as a prisoner brought into an enemy camp knows not to react), and Hubert reaches out and takes my hand and says, “That’s so funny. Cecelia and I were just talking about whether or not Lil’Bit might be here. Cecelia said she would.”
Aunt Ursula looks at me as if seeing me for the first time, then says, “Well, Cecelia may be psychic. She may have hidden talents none of us could ever imagine.”
This remark is soooo unbelievably cutting, but in a way that Hubert would never notice, that I decide to say absolutely nothing. I give Aunt Ursula a supercilious yet bored smile, and she says, “I hope you don’t mind about Lil’Bit. You two are friends?”
“I’ve never met her,” I say casually. “In fact, Hubert never even mentions her.”
“You’ll love her,” Aunt Ursula says. And just at that moment, Sir Ernie Munchnot walks up in his swimming trunks, showing off his chest which, I have to admit, does look pretty good for a guy who must be sixty, and he hugs Hubert and then me. I giggle loudly when it’s my turn and look over at Aunt Ursula, who is definitely watching this exchange and is not particularly pleased, and I say, “Oh Uncle Ernie. It’s soooo great to see you. Gosh, you’re in awfully good shape.” And he says, “How’s my favorite niece-in-law? I always told Hubert if he didn’t marry you, I would.” He puts his arm around me and we begin walking toward the patio, where lunch will be served by three small Italian women in white uniforms. “Hey,” Uncle Ernie says, “I still swim five miles a day. Exercise. That’s the key to life. I keep telling my kids, but they don’t listen.”
Princess Ursula makes a face and shakes her head. And then, she just can’t help rubbing it in, “Lil’Bit’s coming for lunch.”
“Lil’Bit? Well . . . good,” he says. “Now there’s a gal who needs to get some sense in her head. I keep telling her to stop running around and get her life together, but I think she’s been all mixed up ever since Hubert here broke up with her.” Princess Ursula gives him a disapproving look and says, “Lil’Bit is absolutely fine. She’s just not like the rest of us.” She directs this at me: “I always say she’s one of God’s heavenly creatures.”
At that moment, a car pulls into the driveway, and we all look over to where the “heavenly creature” is extracting herself, her two illegitimate children, a nanny, a stroller, and various nappies from the car. Lil’Bit is wearing—get this—an Indian sari. She picks up one of the children and takes the other by the hand. Amid this picture of motherly bliss, she looks up and waves girlishly.
“Just look at her,” Aunt Ursula exclaims. “I always say Lil’Bit is the most elegant woman I know.”
“Come and see Kirby,” Lil’Bit says to everyone in general, but mostly, I think, to Hubert. Her voice is soft, sweet, almost a whisper. She’s all shy, with her long blond hair in front of her face. Jesus. I used to look like that. I used to do that with him. That’s what he likes. That’s what works on him. It makes me sick.
In fact, I’d actually like to jump on her and rip her eyes out, but I remind myself that I won. I got him and she didn’t. I got him because I was smarter than she was. I played a completely different game. I was unavailable. Mysterious. While she played the victim. He got bored. But was that really the reason? Or was it because she had two illegitimate children, and Hubert couldn’t, in the end, “handle it”?
“Hi,” she says to me, holding out a long, bony hand. “You must be Cecelia.”
For a moment, our eyes meet, and then she hands the “baby”—a two-year old girl—to Princess Ursula, who coos disgustingly all over it, while pushing Kirby, a sullen-faced six-year-old boy, toward Hubert.
“Hey Kirby,” Hubert says, lifting the boy and shaking him slightly. “Remember me?”
“No,” Kirby says (sensibly, I think), but Hubert won’t have it; he laughs loudly and says, “Don’t you remember playing baseball? Batter up!” He swings the boy around, which makes him start screaming, and then, as is always the case in these situations, the children are whisked away, probably to be fed some sort of gruel in the kitchen.
“Still no children of your own?” Lil’Bit says, looking up at Hubert from underneath that sheaf of hair, as if this is some private joke.
