Her room was significantly bigger than mine, and this was just the lounge part of her suite. We were sitting facing each other on matching white sofas, and between us was a low coffee table made of smoked glass, through which I could see the hunk of driftwood it rested on. Its surface was covered with shiny magazines and a fruit basket still in cellophane. Like me, she had the air-conditioning up high-it gets warm in bandages-and the blinds low over the windows against the evening sun. A maid had just brought me a glass of water and a coffee, both with straws bobbing in them-which is how everything has to be served here-then had left the room.
In answer to her question, I told her the toughest part for me was not being able to play my sax.
“But you can see why Boris won’t let you,” she said. “Just imagine. You blow on that horn a day before you’re ready, pieces of your face will fly out all over the room!”
She seemed to find this pretty funny, waving her hand at me, as though it was me that had made the wisecrack and she was saying: “Stop it, you’re too much!” I laughed with her, and sipped some coffee through the straw. Then she began talking about various friends who’d recently gone through cosmetic surgery, what they’d reported, funny things that had happened to them. Every person she mentioned was a celebrity or else married to one.
“So you’re a sax player,” she said, suddenly changing the subject. “You made a good choice. It’s a wonderful instrument. You know what I say to all young saxophone players? I tell them to listen to the old pros. I knew this sax player, up-and-coming like you, only ever listened to these far-out guys. Wayne Shorter and people like that. I said to him, you’ll learn more from the old pros. Might not have been so ground-breaking, I said to him, but those old pros knew how to do it. Steve, do you mind if I play you something? To show you exactly what I’m talking about?”
“No, I don’t mind. But Mrs. Gardner…”
“Please. Call me Lindy. We’re equals here.”
“Okay. Lindy. I just wanted to say, I’m not so young. In fact, I’ll be thirty-nine next birthday.”
“Oh really? Well, that’s still young. But you’re right, I thought you were much younger. With these exclusive masks Boris has given us, it’s hard to tell, right? From what Gracie said, I thought you were this up-and-coming kid, and maybe your parents had paid for this surgery to get you off to a flying start. Sorry, my mistake.”
“Gracie said I was ‘up-and-coming’?”
“Don’t be hard on her. She said you were a musician so I asked her your name. And when I said I wasn’t familiar with it, she said, ‘That’s because he’s up-and-coming.’ That’s all it was. Hey, but listen, what does it matter how old you are? You can always learn from the old pros. I want you to listen to this. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
She went over to a cabinet and a moment later held up a CD. “You’ll appreciate this. The sax on this is so perfect.”
Her room had a Bang & Olufsen system just like mine, and soon the place filled with lush strings. A few measures in, a sleepy, Ben Webster-ish tenor broke through and proceeded to lead the orchestra. If you didn’t know too much about these things, you could even have mistaken it for one of those Nelson Riddle intros for Sinatra. But the voice that eventually came on belonged to Tony Gardner. The song-I just about remembered it-was something called “Back at Culver City,” a ballad that never quite made it and which no one plays much any more. All the time Tony Gardner sang, the sax kept up with him, replying to him line by line. The whole thing was utterly predictable, and way too sugary.
After a while, though, I’d stopped paying much attention to the music because there was Lindy in front of me, gone into a kind of dream, dancing slowly to the song. Her movements were easy and graceful-clearly the surgery hadn’t extended to her body-and she had a shapely, slim figure. She was wearing something that was part night-gown, part cocktail dress; that’s to say, it was at the same time vaguely medical yet glamorous. Also, I was trying to work something out. I’d had the distinct impression Lindy had recently divorced Tony Gardner, but given I’m the nation’s worst when it comes to showbiz gossip, I began to think maybe I’d got it wrong. Otherwise why was she dancing this way, lost in the music, evidently enjoying herself?
Tony Gardner stopped singing a moment, the strings swelled into the bridge, and the piano player started a solo. At this point, Lindy seemed to come back to the planet. She stopped swaying around, turned the music off with the remote, then came and sat down in front of me.
“Isn’t that marvelous? You see what I mean?”
“Yeah, that was beautiful,” I said, not sure whether we were still only talking about the sax.
“Your ears weren’t deceiving you, by the way.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The singer. That was who you thought it was. Just because he’s no longer my husband, that doesn’t mean I can’t play his records, right?”
“No, of course not.”
“And that’s a lovely saxophone. You see now why I wanted you to hear it.”
“Yeah, it was beautiful.”
“Steve, are there recordings of you somewhere? I mean, of your own playing?”
“Sure. In fact I have a few CDs with me next door.”
“The next time you come, sweetie, I want you to bring them. I want to hear how you sound. Will you do that?”
“Okay, if it’s not going to bore you.”
“Oh no, it won’t bore me. But I hope you don’t think I’m nosy. Tony always used to say I was nosy, I should just let people be, but you know, I think he was just being snobby. A lot of famous people, they think they should be interested only in other famous people. I’ve never been that way. I see everybody as a potential friend. Take Gracie. She’s my friend. All my staff at home, they’re also my friends. You should see me at parties. Everyone else, they’re talking to each other about their latest movie or whatever, I’m the one having a conversation with the catering girl or the bartender. I don’t think that’s being nosy, do you?”
“No, I don’t think that’s nosy at all. But look, Mrs. Gardner…”
“Lindy, please.”
“Lindy. Look, it’s been fabulous being with you. But these drugs, they really tire me out. I think I’m going to have to go lie down for a while.”
“Oh, you’re not feeling well?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just these drugs.”
“Too bad! You definitely have to come back when you’re feeling better. And bring those recordings, the ones with you playing. Is that a deal?”
I had to reassure her some more that I’d had a good time and that I’d come back. Then as I was going out the door, she said:
“Steve, do you play chess? I’m the world’s worst chess player, but I’ve got the cutest chess set. Meg Ryan brought it in for me last week.”
BACK IN MY OWN ROOM, I took a Coke from the minibar, sat down at the writing desk and looked out my window. There was a big pink sunset now, we were a long way up, and I could see the cars moving along the freeway in the distance. After a few minutes I phoned Bradley, and though his secretary kept me on hold a long time, he eventually came on the line.
“How’s the face?” he asked worriedly, like he was inquiring after a well-loved pet he’d left in my care.
“How should I know? I’m still the Invisible Man.”
“Are you all right? You sound… dispirited.”
“I am dispirited. This whole thing was a mistake. I can see that now. It’s not going to work.”
There was a moment’s silence, then he asked: “The operation’s a failure?”
“I’m sure the operation’s fine. I mean all the rest of it, what it’s going to lead to. This scheme… It’s never going to play out the way you said. I should never have let you talk me into it.”