Hoping to avoid Monsignor Dubery’s further attentions, Daniel strayed among the public rooms of the archepiscopal residence. He watched a high-power game of snooker until he was given, politely, to understand that he was in the way. He studied the titles of books locked within their glass bookshelves. He had a second glass of orange juice but prevented the well-meaning bartender from slipping in any vodka, for he didn’t dare tamper with what was so far, knock on wood, a completely level head.
Which he needed. For tonight he was making his debut. After fully a year of study with Rey, Daniel was going to sing in public. He would have preferred a debut uncomplicated by social maneuverings with those who were shortly to provide his audience, but Mrs. Schiff had explained what it had been too self-evident to Rey for him to attempt to discuss — the importance of starting at the top.
In all New York there could not have been a more select audience than that which attended Cardinal Rockefeller’s musicales. The Cardinal himself was a devotee of bel canto and was regularly to be seen in his box at the Metastasio. In return for his very visible patronage and the sparing use of his name in fund-raising brochures, the Metastasio supplied St. Patrick’s with a roster of soloists that no church in Christendom could have hoped to rival. It also supplied talent for more secular occasions, such as the present fellowship breakfast. Rey, though scarcely subject himself to such impressments, was a devout Catholic and quite content to grace the Cardinal’s salon with his art so long as a certain reciprocity was maintained; so long, that is, as he was received as a guest and given access to the latest ecclesiastic scuttlebutt, which he followed with much the same fascination that the Cardinal gave to opera.
Daniel found an empty room, the merest closet with two chairs and a television, and sat down to nurse his drink and his anxiety. He thought, in principle, that he should have been at least nervous and possibly upset, but before he could begin to generate even a tremor in this direction, his introspections were derailed by a stranger in the uniform of the Puritan Renewal League (Cardinal Rockefeller was notoriously ecumenical). “Howdy,” said the stranger, tipping his Stetson back to reveal a small freckled cross in the middle of his black forehead. “Mind if I just collapse in that other chair?”
“Be my guest,” said Daniel.
“The name’s Shelly,” he said, collapsing. “Shelly Gaines. Isn’t it awful the way, even when you’re a phoney yourself, it’s the first thing you notice in someone else? Other people, I could care less, but when I see one of my own, boom!” He tossed his Stetson on top of the tv. “Paranoia time. Do you suppose Hester Prynne ever came up against another lady with a scarlet letter embroidered on her blouse? And if so, was she friendly? Not likely, I think.”
“Who was Hester Prynne?” Daniel asked.
“Foiled again,” said Shelly Gaines. He found, on the floor beside his chair, a beer mug with a third of the beer left in it and emptied it in one chug-a-lug. “Cheers,” he said, wiping his lips on the cuff of his denim jacket.
“Cheers,” Daniel agreed, and finished his orange juice. He smiled at Shelly, for whom he’d felt an instant, patronizing friendliness. He was one of those people who should leave fashion well enough alone. A nondescript, round-faced, soft-bodied sort who would have been typecast as Everyman. Not the right kind of material for a phoney, or (Daniel would have supposed) for the P.R.L… And yet he tried so hard. Whose heart wouldn’t have gone out to him?
“You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” Shelly asked, following his own dark trains of thought.
“Mm.”
“I can always tell. Of course, people in our scrape don’t have much choice in the matter. Are you here with someone? If I may be so bold.”
Daniel nodded.
“R.C.?”
“Beg pardon?”
“You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve—” He rolled his eyes, pressed his hand to his stomach, and brought forth a miniscule burp, “—been drinking since four o’clock, and I’ve spent the last half-hour trying to talk with a missionary from somewhere in Africa who is quite insane. Understand, I have the greatest admiration for our brothers and sisters out there among the heathens, but good Lord, shouldn’t we have our own folkways? Another rhetorical question. R.C. means Roman Catholic. Did you really not know?”
“No.”
“And Hester Prynne is the heroine of The Scarlet Letter.”
“I did know that.”
“Guess who’s with us tonight?” said Shelly, veering in a new direction.
“Who?”
“The mysterious Mr. X. The guy who wrote Tales of Terror. Have you read it?”
“Bits.”
“He was pointed out to me by dear old Dubery, who can be relied on, usually, to know about people’s sins. But I must say the fellow seemed inoffensive to me. Now if he’d pointed you out as Mr. X, I’d have believed him implicitly.”
“Because I do seem offensive?”
“Oh no. Because you’re so good-looking.”
“Even in blackface?” Poor Daniel. He could never keep from flirting. He dug for compliments as instinctively as a bird for worms.
“Even? Especially!” Then, after a pause meant to be pregnant with eye-contact, “Do you know, I could swear I know you from somewhere. Do you ever go to Marble Collegiate?”
“Van Dyke’s church on Fifth Avenue?”
“And mine. I’m one of the great man’s curates.”
“No, I’ve never been there. Though I’ve thought of going lots of times. His book made a big impression on me when I was a teenager.”
“On all of us. Are you in holy orders?”
Daniel shook his head.
“That was a stupid question. But I thought, because you’re wearing that thing…” He nodded at Daniel’s crotch. “I was celibate myself once. Three and one-half years. But finally it was just too much for my weak flesh. I do admire those who have the strength. Are you staying for the singspiel?”
He nodded.
“And do you know what it’s to be?”
“Ernesto Rey is here, and he’s brought someone else. His protégé.”
“Really! Then I suppose I’ll have to linger on. Do you want another of whatever you’re having?”
“Just orange juice, and no thank you, I don’t.”
“You don’t drink? Pelion on Ossa!” Shelly Gaines levered himself up from his chair and turned to leave, then turned again to whisper to Danieclass="underline" “There he is. Just coming into the next room. Now who would suppose that that was Mr. X?”
“The guy with the tie with the raindrops on it?”
“Raindrops? Good grief, what eyesight! It seems a plain blurry green to me, but yes, that’s the man.”
“No,” said Daniel, “I certainly wouldn’t have believed it.”