Eileen had wanted rehearsal this Sunday. The benefit for Mark Castle was next day, Monday being "dark night," and they'd had one single run-through. Derek had vetoed it. Every one knew what they needed to do for the benefit. And the "Gatsby" cast needed to breathe for a day. He hadn't needed Ivy to tell him so – but when she had, it had been rather sweet, her soliciting what he was already determined on.
How stardom became her. Motherhood, too. He had seen her, now, turn everything to account – failure and success, bad luck and good. She'd vanquished her demons. And still she was Ivy, the girl whose opening up in callback had wrung his core, had opened a door he could never close afterward.
Two polar bears swam a vertical ring, round and round, over and under, the plexiglass a fishbowl. "Bearbowl!" Miranda giggled. She loved the polar bears, their whiteness, their watery, icy world. "Ghosty bears," she insisted on calling them. "Ghosty bears," Ivy cooed back at her. His golden girls.
Ivy had been singing softly as she'd dressed Miranda; Derek had caught "biffalo buffalo bisons, and a great big bear with wings," A.A. Milne's poem and a baby-tune. "But I give buns to the elephants when I go down to the zoo." Lovely, her soft singing. Dancing their daughter to him. Derek's heart turned over, for the – how-many-thousandth? – time. "Daddy Daddy Daddy," Miranda patting all over his face with her tiny hands. Ivy as unabashedly delighted as the little one.
A family day.
Karen wasn't happy. She was working steadily, her days filled with demos and catalogue shoots. She didn't complain. She didn't say much of anything, in fact – and since Jimmy didn't want to rub her nose in "Gatsby," and Karen was impatient with talk of acting classes, they barely spoke at all, outside the daily stuff. Can you pick up milk on your way home. It broke Jimmy's heart.
Ana had reached out to Karen, he knew, and been rebuffed. It annoyed Karen that Ana had rented Ivy's old Hell's Kitchen flat. Everyone was where the lights were, except her.
Tom had spoken to Jimmy about the exhibit, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A history of musical theatre, with a great number of hand-written scores. Notes on staff paper, placed there by hands named Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Kern, Rogers. Jimmy had found himself wanting to see them, those notes.
It had taken half the morning to convince Karen. She never wanted to go anywhere now, wouldn't go to see friends' shows, Jimmy could barely get her to go out for burgers. But he'd persisted, cajoled, pleaded – he'd never been to the Museum. They could take a little blanket, or something, pick up some sandwiches, have a picnic in the park after. "Please, can't we just get out of our heads for one day? Do something different, go somewhere? It'll be fun . . ." Maybe she'd agreed just to shut him up, but at least she had agreed.
They'd jounced and rattled the long subway ride.
Julia, Michael and Tom sipped mimosas as Porter Mallory whisked drops of Crystal hot sauce into hollandaise. Bach's Third Brandenberg played very softly, an elegant background.
"Won't be another minute, darlings," as he tossed sauteed crabmeat with diced avocado, heaped it over thick slices of tomato on warmed plates, set on the table a basket of napkin-wrapped cornflour biscuits. Removed poached eggs from their bath, laid them gently atop the mounds, spooned sauce. "Tom, will you give me a hand here, please? Thank you very kindly."
Julia thought perhaps Porter was moving, slowly, easily (everything he did breathed ease, an ease that testified to mastery through past effort), toward courtship of Tom. Little things – asking Tom's help in serving was one. Smiles a hint deeper, tones a shade warmer. It would be interesting, if she was right, to see how Tom reacted. For all his near-trademarked boyishness, Tom had played lead in his past relationships, had been the one with power. Porter Mallory was no subordinate.
"Oh. Mygod." Tom spoke around a mouthful. Delicious. Porter laughed. "If we understand two things in New Orleans, they are music and food. Oh, and sex, of course. Three things, then."
Julia chimed, "No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
"Darling Julia, you just watch yourself now, or I will give you the comfy chair."
Comfy. Elegant. Porter's small Central Park West apartment was both. Antique chairs and sofa, neither ornate nor fragile, easy alike on eyes and buttocks. The glow of good wood, well cared for. Library bookshelves, filled with well-worn volumes and record albums. Porter had no CD player, preferring, he said, an actual aural capture to a digitized translation.
Ambiance, food, wine, music. The company. It was a hot-tub for the soul.