"Doctor, this is absurd."
He leaned across the desk. "I know this is difficult for you to hear. But you must do everything you can to minimize all stress in your life. Stress is a key factor in whether the virus expresses itself. Here." He placed a business card down on the desk. "I'm sure you're familiar with Dr. Tachyon's work at the Blythe Van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic in Jokertown. There's no one in the world with greater expertise in the wild card virus. I advise you to make an appointment to see him as soon as you can. Today, if possible."
I was familiar with Tachyon, all right. That odious alien had seduced Brand's mother, Blythe, away from her husband and children, had destroyed first her reputation and then her life — had brought Brandon such pain he still couldn't bear to speak it, after all these years. I didn't pick up the card.
"Surely you jest."
"I'm quite serious. He's the best."
I said nothing for a moment, looking down at my handbag and the kerchief wadded up in my trembling fist. Then I looked up at the doctor again.
"I can assure you there's been some mistake."
But he was giving me that look again, that unbearable pitying look. I stood.
"I'll want a second opinion, then, by a doctor I can trust."
Douglas, Mannerly knew how to throw a party.
Of course, the senior partners were up to something more than just presenting Brand to New York society as their boy wonder after the big court case he'd just won. '68 was a national election year. The papers and TV newscasts were cluttered with stories about the presidential and other candidates making their junkets around the country, and the city's power brokers were plotting for all they were worth.
I didn't know what their other motives were, and didn't care. The party was a major event and Brandon was at the center of it, which meant I was only a little right of center, myself. The glow it gave me blotted out any lingering unhappiness from the doctor's appointment.
Remember that dress you saw in the photo, with the big blue sequins? Those sequins shivered and glittered like shiny coins when I walked. The dress had spaghetti straps and was sinfully short, with cobalt blue silk stockings, square-toed, sequined platform heels, and a garter that one caught glimpses of when I danced, or lifted my arms or bent over just the slightest bit. And I loved the cobalt blue feather boa. My mother would have had to get out her smelling salts if she had seen me.
I'd done up my eyes in beatnik fashion. I had that sort of sultry, honey-blonde, green-eyed beauty that captivates certain men. So I got a few admiring looks, I don't mind telling you.
Douglas, Mannerly had rented the two uppermost floors of St.-Moritz-on-the-Park, which has a spectacular view of Central Park, and had hired a top-notch caterer and a jazz band. Enormous arrangements of rare tropical flowers rimmed the tables and walls. Lace-covered tables displayed caviars and pates, finger sandwiches, crisp vegetables on ice with dip, shrimp and smoked salmon. The bar served hard liquor and mixed drinks, as well as wine and champagne. The musicians were colored, but I didn't care as long as they didn't mingle.
Brandon was supposed to have come straight from work, but I didn't locate him right away. Plenty of introductions kept me busy, though.
Mayor and Mrs. Lindsay came. Several rumor-mongers had been whispering it around that Mrs. Lindsay had a joker deformity, which she may have been hiding under that full gown of hers, but I scrutinized her closely and saw nothing except a tendency to obesity. Needless to say, I avoided her anyhow.
Gregg Hartmann gave me a dance. He was a city councilman then, not yet mayor, or senator. I can tell you, the man knew how to foxtrot. I also chatted with Asaf Messerer, the balletmaster and main choreographer for the Bolshoi Dancers, who were performing at the Met.
I tipped the photographer covering the party to get several shots of me and Brand during the evening — which is where the photos you're looking at came from. He promised to mail them to me within the week.
***
Eventually I found Brand seated at a table in a side room, an interior balcony lit only by votive candles, with a great view of the west side of the park. Brand introduced me to his companion, Dr. Pan Rudo, a noted psychiatrist. That's him right there, with Brand and me.
They definitely made an odd pair. Brandon cut an exquisite figure in his formal tails and black tie, his gold cufflinks and silk shirt and kerchief. That night he looked his best: intense, excited, his dark auburn hair slicked back, his ruddy complexion aglow, hands moving in sudden, enthusiastic gestures. His black eyes were all fiery with glory and dreams.
The doctor's appearance also commanded attention, but in a cooler, more exotic way. His hair was a blond so pale it looked white, his eyes a violet-blue that stared right past one's surfaces into the soul. I remember shivering deliciously when he looked me over.
He stirred his drink with a paper umbrella swizzle stick and stroked his lower lip thoughtfully: pale ice to Brand's dark burning; serene age to Brand's youthful, barely suppressed impatience. He had the hypnotic patience of a cat.
That suit of his was a Nehru suit; do you remember those? The intelligentsia and other trendy types favored them back then. It was made of an expensive, cream-colored Irish moygashel linen. About his neck was a thick silver chain with an ankh hanging from it. Very odd.
Despite his bizarre appearance, he emanated power and money; from Brand's demeanor I could tell the man was Someone Important. We chatted a bit, and the doctor seemed quite congenial.
Brandon's older brother Henry walked up shortly.
Of all the people who made me wild with fury, Henry van Renssaeler, II, headed the list. He had accepted a scholarship to Juilliard, thwarting his fathers wishes for him to pursue a political career, and had become a brilliant classical pianist instead. This had been all to the good, as far as I was concerned. But once he had completed his degree he'd grown long hair and a beard and taken up the acoustic guitar, of all things. He now spent all his time in little cafes or bars in the Village, playing folk rock, when he wasn't marching in antiwar protests. I considered it a hideous waste of talent.
Worse, he had spent this spring loudly supporting Bobby Kennedy for president, who was not only a little carbon copy of his older brother John, which was the last thing we needed in the White House again, but a Catholic to boot. In fact, Henry had a "Kennedy for President" button on the lapel of his dinner jacket. A thoroughly tasteless gesture.
Henry kissed me on the cheek and slid into the chair opposite Brand, folding his lanky legs under the table.
"Where's Fleur?" Brand asked.
"Here somewhere. Have you caught up on your sleep yet? The papers are still talking about the coup you pulled off."
Brandon flushed and shrugged. I could tell he was pleased that Henry had noticed, despite their mutual animosity. A weirder love-hate relationship I'd never seen, unless it was their relationship with their father.
Brand introduced him to Dr. Rudo, who raised his eyebrows at Henry's campaign button and smiled. "Can you really back a man with Bobby Kennedy's platform? His position on joker's rights and war only promise to divide the country further."
"Oh, I don't know. He beats Clean Gene hands down, don't you think?"
Brand flushed again, and not from pleasure. Brandon wanted Eugene McCarthy to win. For myself, I couldn't understand how anyone could vote Democrat after what they'd done to the country.
"Kennedy is a power-grabbing poseur who's simply trying to cash in on his brother's name," Brand said in a flat tone.