“I had such a happy childhood,” I said. “We always rented a beach house during the summer, and my mother and father had one of each of our baby shoes bronzed — my sister’s and mine — and my parents danced in the living room a lot. My father said the only way he’d have a TV was if he could think of it as a giant radio, so when they finally bought one he’d be watching and my mother would come into the room and he’d get up and take her in his arms and start humming and dancing. They’d dance while Kate Smith talked or whatever, or. while Gale Storm made her My Little Margie noise.”
Atley squinted and leaned against the table. “Come on, come on, come on — what do two people who have money do all day?” he whispered. That was when Billy kissed me, which made it look as if what we did was make love all day, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth. In the back of my mind I thought that maybe it was part of some act Billy was putting on because he’d already figured out what to do about the birthday. The waiter was opening a bottle of champagne, which I guess Billy had ordered. I knew very few facts about Billy’s ex. One was that she really liked champagne. Another was that she had been in Alateen. Her father had been a big drunk. He’d thrown her mother out a window once. She’d gone back to him but not until she’d taken him to court.
“I’ll tell you something,” Atley said. “I shocked the hell out of one of our summer interns. I took him aside in the office and I told him, ‘You know what lawyers are? Barnacles on a log. The legal system is like one big, heavy log floating downstream, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember every time one of those judges lifts a gavel that it’s just a log with a handle.’ ”
The cork took off right across the restaurant. We all looked. It landed near the pastry cart. The waiter said, “It flew through my fingers,” and looked at his hand, as surprised as if he’d been casually counting his fingers and found that he had seven of them. We were all sorry for the waiter because he was so shocked. He stared at his hand so long that we looked away. Billy kissed me again. I thought it might be a gesture to break the silence.
The waiter poured champagne into Atley’s glass first; he did it quickly and his hand was shaking so much that the foam started to rise fast. Atley held up his hand to indicate that he should stop pouring. Billy punched Atley’s hand again.
“You son of a gun,” Billy said. “Do you think we don’t know it’s your birthday? Did you think we didn’t know that?”
Atley turned a little red. “How did you know that?” he said.
Billy raised his glass and we all raised ours and clinked them, above the pepper mill.
Atley was quite red.
“Son of a gun,” Billy said. I smiled, too. The waiter looked and saw that we had drained our glasses, and looked surprised again. He quickly came back to pour champagne, but Billy had beaten him to it. In a few minutes, the waiter came back and put three brandy snifters with a little ripple of brandy in them on the table. We must have looked perplexed, and the waiter certainly did. “From the gentleman across the room,” the waiter said. We turned around. Billy and I didn’t recognize anybody, but some man was grinning like mad. He lifted his lobster off his plate and pointed it at Atley. Atley smiled and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“One of the best cytologists in the world,” Atley said. “A client.”
When I looked away, the man was still holding his lobster and moving it so that it looked as if it were swimming through air.
“The gentleman told me to bring the brandy now,” the waiter said, and went away.
“Do you think it would be crude to tell him we’re going to leave him a big tip?” Billy said.
“Are we?” I said.
“Oh, I’ll leave the tip. I’ll leave the tip,” Atley said.
The waiter, who seemed always to be around our table, heard the word “tip” and looked surprised again. Billy picked up on this and smiled at him. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said.
It was surprising how fast we ate, though, and in a little while, since none of us wanted coffee, the waiter was back with the bill. It was in one of those folders — a leather book, with the restaurant’s initials embossed on the front. It reminded me of my Aunt Jean’s trivet collection, and I said so. Aunt Jean knew somebody who would cast trivets for her, to her specifications. She had an initialed trivet. She had a Rolls-Royce trivet — those classy intertwined Rs. This had us laughing. I was the only one who hadn’t touched the brandy. When Billy put his credit card in a slot in the book, Atley said, “Thank you.” I did too, and Billy put his hand over mine and kissed me again. He’d kissed me so many times that by now I was a little embarrassed, so to cover up for that I touched my forehead to his after the kiss so that it would seem like a routine of ours to Atley. It was either that or say, “What are you doing?”
Atley wanted to have his chauffeur drop us, but out on the street Billy took my hand and said that we wanted to walk. “This nice weather’s not going to hold up,” he said. Atley and I realized at the same moment that two young girls were in the back of the limousine.
“Who are they?” Atley said to the chauffeur.
The chauffeur was holding the door open and we could see that the girls were sitting as far back in the seat as they could, like people backed up against a wall who are hoping not to be hurt.
“What could I do?” the chauffeur said. “They were lit. They hopped in. I was just trying to chase them out.”
“Lit?” Atley said.
“Tipsy,” the chauffeur said.
“Why don’t you proceed to get them out?” Atley said.
“Come on, girls,” the chauffeur said. “You get out, now. You heard what he said.”
One got out and the other one, who didn’t have on as many clothes, took longer and made eye contact with the chauffeur.
“There you go,” the chauffeur said, extending his elbow, but she ignored it and climbed out by herself. Both of them looked back over their shoulders as they walked away.
“Why do I put up with this?” Atley said to the chauffeur. His face was red again. I didn’t want Atley to be upset and his birthday lunch to be spoiled, so I pecked him on the cheek and smiled. It is certainly true that if women ran the country they would never send their sons to war. Atley hesitated a minute, kissed me back, then smiled. Billy kissed me, and for a second I was confused, thinking he might have intended to send me off with Atley. Then he and Atley shook hands and we both said, “Happy birthday,” and Atley bent over and got into the back of the limousine. When the chauffeur closed the door, you couldn’t see that it was Atley in there, because the glass was tinted. As the chauffeur was getting into the front seat, the back door opened and Atley leaned forward.
“I can tell you one thing. I was surprised that somebody remembered my birthday,” he said. “You know what I was just thinking apropos of your story about your mother and father dancing to the television? I was thinking that sometimes you go along in the same way so long that you forget how one little interlude of something different can change everything.” He was grinning at Billy. “She’s too young to remember those radio shows,” he said. “Life of Riley and things like that.” He looked at me. “When they wanted to let you know that time was passing, there’d be a few bars of music, and then they’d be talking about something else.” Atley’s foot, in a black sock and a shiny black oxford, was dangling out the door. The chauffeur pulled his door shut. Then Atley closed his door too, and the limo drove away. Before we had turned to leave, though, the car stopped and backed up to us again. Atley rolled down his window. He stuck his head out. “ ‘Oh, Mr. Atley,’ ” he said in falsetto, “ ‘wherever are you going?’ ” He whistled a few notes. Then, in a booming, gruff voice, he said, “ ‘Why, Atley, back at work after your surprise birthday lunch?’ ” He rolled up the window. The chauffeur drove away.