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“How . . . interesting,” I say.
Lil’Bit sees the cards and gasps. She looks up at me. My eyes bore into hers. I can feel her squirming under my power, but she can’t do anything about it.
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“You know what this means, don’t you?” I ask. “It means,” I say, looking around the table at Hubert, who is standing there with a disturbed yet uncomprehending look on his face; at Princess Ursula, who is readjusting her sagging cleavage; and at Uncle Ernie, who is using a knife to clean under his fingernails when he thinks no one is looking, “That Lil’Bit is a complete . . . fraud.”
In fact, I want to scream, you’re ALL complete frauds.
But I don’t.
I smile and gather up the cards, “Game over” I say.
X
I light a cigarette.
I’m dressed in a baby-blue Bentley gown, and I’m crunching across the gravel driveway with Hubert following behind me in black tie and we get into the Mercedes SL500 convertible to go to the wedding of Juliette Morganz, the “little girl from Vermont” and I think, Why can’t we be normal? Maybe we can be normal.
Do I really care?
I can tell Hubert is in a good mood, driving the car expertly along Appogoque Lane, blaring Dire Straits, glancing over at me, and it suddenly hits me: Who is this man, really? Who is he? I’ve been married to this person for two years and with him for two years before that, and I don’t really know him at all.
And he doesn’t know me.
At all.
This realization is so depressing that I sit back and fold my arms, and I can feel the good vibes suddenly expire like air leaving a balloon. He looks over again, and I can feel his mood shifting downward, and it’s all my fault as he says, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Something is wrong,” he says, in a bored and kind of disgusted voice, “again.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, contemplating the futility of it all, how we don’t really get along that well and probably never will, as I stare out the window at a big, dried-up potato field.
“Why do we have to fight all the time?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” I say, fingering my dress, which is made of finely wrought mesh, artfully constructed so that it appears see-through but really isn’t. “Does it matter?”
“I’m tired,” he says.
“So am I,” and I look away and see that we are passing the duck pond where the “incident” occurred, the incident that brought us together in mutual horror and terror. Another thing that we simply don’t talk about.
We ride the rest of the way in silence.
I feel like crying out of self-pity but I can’t, because we’re at the church now, and there are streams of cars and people, and a valet opens my door and I slip out of the car elegantly. Hubert walks around the front of the car and our eyes meet. And then, as we have been doing for the past couple of months whenever we go out or are seen in public, we pretend that everything is perfectly . . . all right.
And as we walk toward the church, he has one hand in his pocket and one arm around my waist, and I can’t help but notice how well we fit together, how we have this perfectly easy physicality, which means pretty much nothing now, and the photographers suddenly spot us and one of them shouts, “Here comes the happy couple.” The flashbulbs go off like crazy as we stop on the landing and smile, our arms around each other, and then one of the photographers says, “Hubert! Mind if we get a photo of your wife alone? No offense,” and everyone is laughing and snapping away as Hubert moves gallantly to the side.
I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, my head high, smiling, one leg in front of the other. When I glance toward the entrance of the church, I see Hubert standing with his hands in his pockets, looking on proudly.
D.W. is right. It is all about appearances.
And later, at the reception, walking carefully across the marble floor strewn with rose petals, I am all over Hubert and he is all over me, just like we were in the old days when it first came out that we were seeing each other but as far as the world was concerned, I might just have been another girlfriend. He is holding my hand behind my back, and my hand caresses his neck, while people look at us enviously and I wonder how long I’ll be able to keep this up. Luckily, I run into Dianna almost immediately, which is a good excuse for Hubert and me to go our separate ways without arousing suspicion.
Dianna is talking to Raymond Ally, the head of Ally cosmetics. Raymond, who is at least ninety, is in a wheelchair, and Dianna is smoking a Marlboro red, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she’s not really in the right kind of shape to wear the dress she’s wearing, which is: pink Bentley, gossamer thin, a dress that works if you’re flat-chested, which Dianna isn’t because she’s had breast implants. Dianna is one of those girls who looks good in photographs, but in person, there’s no hiding the fact that she’s a dirty girl, a fact that Raymond seems to appreciate.
“Look at our girl,” Raymond says to me, talking about Dianna, who has put both arms around my neck. “She’s turned out to be quite a lady.” I look at him and wonder if he’s being stupid or sarcastic, but realize, with a certain degree of HORROR, that he is being completely sincere.
