It would have been easy to settle the matter. The camera was sitting right here. I knew I’d see the same scarf, the same dark curls framing a light olive face, the same almond brown eyes under long lashes. But my role here was not to make Jenny’s guests feel uncomfortable.
She shrugged out of a linen jacket and came with me into the living room. As I opened the bedroom door, a meow came from inside. Jenny’s cat Maggie poked her head through the crack.
“Oh!” Sheila said. “Please don’t put my coat in there. I’m terribly allergic to cats.”
“Sorry. I guess that’s why closets were invented. Have a seat. I’ll tell Jenny you’re here.”
Instead of sitting down, Sheila scanned Jenny’s bookshelf. She clasped her hands behind her back, as if to resist some temptation. I turned for another look before I left the living room. In trim black pants and a subtle lapis blouse, she had an elegance to her. But she undermined it in small ways — her averted eyes, her nervous fingers. Maybe she was just tense around strangers.
Wes was in the kitchen with Jenny and Fay. I announced Sheila’s arrival. Jenny sidled over and whispered conspiratori-ally, “Go talk to her, Wes.”
Wes looked to me for a first impression. I hesitated. We’d known each other since college, but I’d gotten out of the business of setting him up with dates, at least not with women I wanted to remain friends with. Jenny had been glad to take over the job. He was quite the commodity: six foot one, dark hair sweeping across his forehead, sharp handsome features. He’d already cashed in his first set of options and had plenty still accumulating. Jenny was full of ideas for his social life.
I gave him a thumbs up, then tilted my thumb a bit. There was something unsettled about Sheila. Actually, she was probably more my type than Wes’s.
“Who else is coming?” he asked.
I elbowed him. “Don’t be greedy.”
“Marion,” Jenny said. “But you can’t go out with both of them. They work together.”
I poured Sheila a glass of wine. Wes grabbed it. “Allow me.”
Wes always surprised me when he went into operator mode. In college, he’d been a stringy-haired physics major who’d had a hard time making eye contact with anyone, including me. And although his confidence had grown with success, he still would end a conversation abruptly if he started to feel nervous. He was a geek at heart, but some chemical kicked in around women.
I drifted into the dining room for a look. Sheila was telling Wes she got her doctorate in molecular biology. Wes gulped his wine.
The doorbell rang again. This time Fay got it. More people poured in. I put my facial muscles where they belonged, shook hands, and let names slip through my ears. Most of the guests were friends of Jenny and Fay, clients and potential clients. They were generally younger than me and sported the hip-nerd look: the correct era of retro haircut, the correct length sideburns, the occasional piercing. The more slickly dressed ones were probably lawyers or MBAs. A couple in shorts and sandals were likely engineers.
As I finished putting coats in the closet, Wes caught my eye. He held out his glass for a refill. I took it to the dining room, where Jenny was holding court. She was in her element here, keeping everyone entertained, dispensing drinks, and adding last minute touches to the table, all without skipping a beat. As I poured wine, she introduced me to a guy wearing a shirt in that blue that had swept the business world. He had a tie and an important busy look to match.
“I didn’t catch what you do,” he said.
What did I do? The number one question around here. The real questions behind it were, one, what can you do for me? And two, did you have the wherewithal to survive the deflation of the bubble?
“Film,” I said.
“You must travel to LA a lot.”
“I don’t do features so much. Documentaries, and, if I’m forced to, industrials.”
He nodded. His attention wandered to a tray of cheese. I didn’t try to retrieve it. Jenny’s friends did not inspire me to share confidences. Young and bright and good looking, they were all running in the same race. What brought them together was a sense of being career accelerators for one another. My friends had their quirks, but I knew I could count on them. Rita in particular — anywhere, anytime. Wes, usually, unless he was busy chasing some new capital or new romance.
I took Wes his wine. Sheila’s back was to me. As I handed Wes the glass, she turned. Her elbow knocked the glass into my chest.
“Oh no,” she apologized. “All over your white shirt. I’ll get you some soda water.”
Wes waved her off. “Bill’s got a closet full of them. He wears the same thing whenever he goes out. White shirt and jeans.”
I looked at the spot above my left breast. “Bad enough I have to drink the stuff,” I murmured. “Now I’ve got to wear it.”
“I’m jealous. You can’t get away with wardrobe tricks like that when you’re female,” Sheila said.
“Nice meeting you,” Wes said abruptly to her. He headed for a tall woman with large dangling earrings across the room.
I caught a was it something I said? glance from Sheila. I could only shrug and dab a napkin on the stain. “He’s bad at good-byes,” I told her. I didn’t add that although I always told Wes he ought to go for a scientist, he insisted on being drawn to women who were fast-track lawyers, agents, marketing directors. He must have thought they had something he didn’t.
Sheila was anything but fast. In spite of how nicely the black ringlets of hair framed her head, and the elegance of the single bracelet on her wrist, a sadness shadowed her face. She made a valiant effort to keep it tucked away, but it seeped from the corners of her eyes and the sides of her mouth. I wondered where it came from. Maybe she just worked too hard. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how she ducked away from the camera in the parking lot, then refused to admit it. I was getting more and more curious about why.
3
Jenny called us to dinner. Sheila and I wound up together down at the end of the table. Across from us and over a seat, Wes was absorbed with the tall woman with the earrings. Marion, I heard someone call her, and remembered she was the other date Jenny had in mind for Wes. She had a strong jaw, pale skin, and long, flat blonde hair. Her height, mild European accent, and stylish glasses made her an imposing figure. She was regaling Wes with a story about mold colonies.
The talk at the rest of the table was of real estate, bandwidth, and the venture capital market. Sheila remained quiet. She ate methodically, using a fork and knife to neatly divide the appetizer of mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes. I noticed she was sniffling and her eyes were rimmed red. She kept rubbing them.
“Is the cat bothering you?” I asked.
“Cats. Trees. Grass. I’m pretty much allergic to life.”
“This area is bad for pollen.”
“It’s getting worse. Cities and companies don’t plant female trees anymore if the species is dioecious. Just the males. The females drop seeds, fruit, husks — litter people don’t want to clean up. So we get the male trees, spewing pollen.”
“It’s always the males causing problems.”
She flicked me a mischievous glance. “So I’ve heard.”
“But let’s face it, women are messy. Dropping eggs all over the place.”
“It’s tragic.” She shook her head, deadpan. “Chemically driven to make the globe more crowded than it already is. Losing their minds when their biological clocks go off.”
I laughed. “To be fair, it happens to men, too. Only with them I think it’s more about ego than eggs.”
“Or genes, the new superego. They demand to be propagated.”
“So why is it that they make boys want one thing and girls another?”