A Student of History, page 10
“You weren’t at the Performing Arts Center dinner last night,” he said accusatorily, as if she’d stood him up for a date.
“I had another event,” Fiona replied, still smiling. “For John Thomas Dye. Fanny Halstead was the committee chair, so I really wanted to support her. Otherwise I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“Your husband was there,” Bryson thrust at her, and this struck home. She blushed—was she surprised?—but regained her composure quickly. When she looked up at him this time, though, her smile was different, tighter.
“Aaron’s very invested in the center’s success, you know. Especially since his company did the initial design.”
“That’s why I was surprised you weren’t there.”
“Well,” she rejoined, and now her smile was radiant again, “now that I know that you were, I’m glad I stayed away!”
A red flush crept up Bryson’s face, and once again, I got the sense of violence barely contained. “Have a nice lunch with your friend, Fiona. Maybe we’ll see you at the Country Club.”
When he was gone, Fiona downed the rest of her glass in a single gulp.
“Who is that guy?” I asked. “What an asshole!”
“Keep your voice down,” Fiona said, but she was giggling, and she covered my hand with her own. “And pour me more wine.” When I complied, she took another sip and then told me about Bryson Rutherford. He was the heir to a major insurance magnate from the early twentieth century. He had a beautiful but quiet wife, whom I’d met at the museum, and two large but meek sons.
“What does he do?” I asked.
“He plays golf.”
“No, I mean for work.”
“So do I.”
I paused, letting this sink in. I understood she didn’t mean professionally. “He’s rather aggressive with you,” I remarked.
“Yes. He wants to sleep with me.”
“Really? He has a funny way of showing it.”
“That’s how it is with so many of these men,” she said. “They’re used to steamrolling everyone to get what they want, and they’re befuddled when someone resists.”
“Is your husband like that too?” I ventured. The wine had given me courage.
“No,” she said wistfully. “My husband is a gem. A good father. Commanding and assertive at work, of course, but kind with his family. It’s a pity I don’t appreciate him more.” She was quiet for a moment, then looked up brightly, clearly finished with the subject. “Mrs. W— knows Bryson’s family well. Her grandmother was a cousin of Bryson’s uncle on his father’s side.”
I tried to untangle this in my mind but quickly gave up. “She’s never mentioned him,” I said.
“She wouldn’t. He’s a tool. And she has too much of a sense of decorum to talk about anything unpleasant.”
I wasn’t sure this was actually true—she talked plenty about unpleasant things, and people she didn’t approve of. But I didn’t push it. I was learning that Fiona spoke often with absolute certainty regarding things she knew nothing about.
“How do you like working for her?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s interesting.”
“What are you doing, exactly?”
I was hesitant to answer, but decided it wasn’t giving too much away. “I’m typing up some papers for her—old documents that were written in longhand.”
“Really!” Fiona exclaimed, with a bit too much interest. “Family documents?” She cocked her head slightly. “She must really trust you.”
“I guess so.”
“She hasn’t always had it easy, you know,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “I mean, she’s always been rich. But she lost her husband young—in her thirties—and never remarried. And her brother died when she was a teenager. It’s strange—people call them overdoses or accidents now. Back then you knew what it really was—a suicide.”
“That must have been tough on her.”
“I imagine, but you’d never know—she’s always carried herself like nothing touches her. Probably something she learned from that father of hers, who was apparently a real bastard.”
“Was he? She always speaks so fondly of him.”
“Yes, I know. But from what my parents say, he was terrible to do business with, and drove his wife to drinking. He’d leave Marion all alone in that big mansion of theirs while he went off on trips, and was mean to her when he was around. He was nothing like his father, and maybe he knew it. Everyone thought the world of Langley. Everyone.”
I didn’t know how to react to this. Nothing was as simple as it seemed. Mrs. W— had all of life’s advantages, and yet they hadn’t shielded her from heartbreak.
“She’s got this hard shell,” Fiona continued. “But then she surprises you. You’ve heard her talk about undocumented immigrants, right? Or as she calls them, illegals.”
“I have, yes.”
“She pretends to be so hard-line, but you know her housekeeper Maria?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Maria used to work for Donovan and Carly Ford.”
“Donovan Ford . . . the guy who ran for the state assembly maybe five, six years ago?”
“Yes, he’s a son of Beverly Hills who’s on a bunch of boards and was also a city councilman. Well, it came out that he and Carly had some undocumented immigrants on their household staff, and he’s a Republican, you know, and it wouldn’t stand.”
“So . . .”
“So they made a big fuss of being surprised, and of publicly saying they would report their staff to immigration officials—including Maria, it turned out. Then Marion W— stepped in and hired Maria away, and she must have pulled some other strings too, because—as you see—Maria was never deported.”
“But how did Mrs. W— do that, and why?”
Fiona shrugged. “Who knows? The Fords entertained a lot, and maybe Marion came across Maria and was impressed with her. Or maybe she just wanted to stick it to the Fords—she never liked Donovan.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know how else to reply.
“You work out of her house?”
“Yes, and what a place! It’s like an oasis up there. I can’t believe it’s part of the city.”
“I know,” Fiona said. “I’ve been there. Marion used to host the most spectacular parties—beautiful black-tie affairs, with live music and dancing, waiters balancing trays of drinks through the crowd. They were magnificent, like how you’d imagine parties in the 1920s. It was tradition mixed with modern style. Like Mrs. W— herself, I suppose.”
“It’s hard to imagine a party up there. The house is totally empty except for her and her servants.”
“How often do you go?”
“Three times a week.”
“And she never has visitors?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Not even her children?”
I snorted. “Especially not her children. Her assistant said they never come to visit. Except for the oldest one, sometimes. Bart.”
“Bart,” Fiona said, making a sound between a scoff and a sigh. “Nice guy, but a bit of a bumpkin. He lives somewhere in the Central Valley.”
“So I heard.”
“He runs a cattle operation. And he’s really into it. He’s not just a gentleman rancher. He does a cattle run every spring and fall, takes his herd up into the mountains for summer grazing, and then back down again. It’s rather quaint. I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Actually, it sounded pretty cool to me, but I didn’t say so to Fiona.
“Does she talk about them?” she asked now, pointedly.
“What? Who?”
“Her children. Does she talk about them much?”
“No, she’s hardly mentioned them.”
This seemed to satisfy Fiona somehow. “It’s strange, no one sees them anymore,” she said, looking away. “Especially since Steven’s accident.”
“What happened with that anyway?” I asked cautiously. “No one will tell me anything. Not just about that—about any of Mrs. W—’s kids.”
Fiona drew back, her face taking on a serious expression I couldn’t quite read. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why she’d had so many questions. I had too many questions myself. “It was terrible,” she said, leaning forward again. “Really tragic.” She paused, and in the silence I heard the din of voices, a hundred of Los Angeles’s wealthiest people enjoying their lunches, far above the streets of the city. “Have you heard of Cliffhaven?”
“Cliffhaven . . . I’m not sure.”
“It’s a big estate up along the Central Coast. About twenty thousand acres. It’s the property of the Larson family down here in LA. Ben Larson founded Larson Oil around the same time that Langley W— got started. Their family is richer than God.”
I nodded. If someone of Fiona’s set referred to a family as richer than God, then their wealth must have been unimaginable.
“Anyway, the original mansion’s mostly closed now, just used for special events, but there’s still a large house on the property, and an airstrip. This generation’s Larson, Charles, spent a lot of time there with his family and friends. He didn’t have to work—he just managed the family money—and he would go up there with his friends and their families to drink. Well, two years ago they were there for Steven’s fortieth birthday party, and someone got it into their head that they wanted to see how fast Charles’s Porsche would go. So all these men—these grown, drunk men—got into Charles’s car—with his twelve-year-old son!—and drove it high speed down the landing strip. No one knows quite what happened, but the car went over a cliff past the end of the runway. Later they said that the skid marks suggested it was going well over a hundred. At any rate, Charles was thrown and killed, and so was his little boy. Another man was terribly hurt. And Steven—he survived, but he broke his collarbone, his leg, and several ribs. Somehow he made it out of the wreckage and crawled back to the house. I hear he’ll limp the rest of his life.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. What a waste. Charles’s poor wife and daughter are still a mess to this day. And I have no idea how the other man is doing.”
I shook my head, immediately understanding why Mrs. W— didn’t speak of this. “Did Steven come home to recuperate?” I asked.
Fiona shook her head. “No. He was in a hospital in Santa Barbara for several months, but Mrs. W— wouldn’t see him. People said she was furious—she couldn’t believe he’d been a part of something so tragic and stupid. She’d had to get him out of jams before, and she was probably tired of his misbehavior.”
“That seems kind of harsh.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Steven. He’s caused more than his fair share of damage.”
We were both quiet for a moment as I tried to digest the story. “So who was the fourth person?” I asked. “The other survivor?”
“I’m not sure. He wasn’t part of our circle.” She paused. “It’s strange, you know, that no one knows who he is.” And now she leaned closer and put her hand on my wrist. The warmth of it, the slight caress she gave me with one finger, made it hard to focus on what she said next: “Like maybe there’s more to the story.”
“You could be right,” I responded, trying to gather myself. “Was there ever anything in the paper?”
“The paper?”
“The Los Angeles Times. Or the San Francisco Chronicle. Or whatever paper they get up on the Central Coast.”
Now Fiona sat up straight again and gave me an indulgent smile. “Oh, Richard. Nothing important ever gets into the paper.”
After a strong cup of coffee, which I needed to counteract the wine, I left Fiona, who stayed behind to speak with a group of delighted older men who were bent over a game of backgammon. I made my way back down to the garage and tried to pay the head valet, but he shook his head and said, “Mrs. Morgan has paid. And our drivers do not accept tips.”
I put my money away, embarrassed, and stood in the waiting area with several men in business suits and an elegantly dressed older couple. The woman wore a jacket and skirt that seemed too heavy for the season, dark glasses, and expensive-looking jewelry. I was so caught up in staring at them that I didn’t notice that my Honda had already arrived and had apparently been sitting there for some time.
“Ma’am? Is this your car?” one of the valets asked the older woman.
Her eyebrows furrowed in displeasure. “Certainly not!”
CHAPTER SIX
In the top drawer of my desk, in a cheap manila folder, I keep a collection of invitations and programs—from the openings, parties, luncheons, and dinners I attended in the months I worked for Mrs. W—. There is a rectangular menu, printed on thick card stock, from a luncheon in a private home, detailing in blue, engraved ink the progression of courses: charred kumquat salad, roasted Hancock Farms quail with black garlic miso, triple-chocolate miniature cake with bourbon-raspberry garnish. There are square, embossed invitations—works of art themselves—to charity functions or galas at the Beverly Wilshire, the Ludlow, and the Beverly Hills Hotel, which never include a printed address because, of course, such information wasn’t needed. There were printed price sheets for pieces at art exhibits—no item less than $50,000—as well as glossy programs for high-end fashion shows, at which the world’s top designers revealed their designs for the new season.
I remember with a touch of disbelief some of the more extravagant moments of these events—the dinner where Omar Santiago, the famous designer, auctioned off a week on his private island in the Caribbean, complete with a concert by Placido Domingo; the time that François DeLorme, the French celebrity chef whose restaurants dot the Westside, arranged to cook for a wealthy bidder and his twenty closest friends in the winner’s private home. And the evening at Tiffany’s on Rodeo Drive, where tall, sinewy models slithered around the store showcasing pieces of jewelry, each of which cost more than the current model of my car.
The people who attended these gatherings were people I had only read about in magazines. There was Betty Baker, whose family owned all the Baker department stores. There were descendants of the founders of Beverly Hills. There were several Delaneys, of Delaney Steel, a couple of Hearsts, and members of the Price and Jameson families. Carly Ransom, the granddaughter of the founder of Perennial Pictures, was part of this set, as was Hattie Clark, whose father had founded Clark Pacific Railways. Being around them was like rubbing shoulders with history. There were a few families of more recent vintage too—Mr. and Mrs. Hal Westbrook, of Westbrook Aviation; Ben Laughlin, the head of Bluestone Wealth Management, now in jail for securities fraud. The Mr. Ernest Bestharts, of Best Heart Builders, would sometimes attend, and Mr. Jay Calchinek, the head of Starlight Finance’s California operations.
The one thing all these people had in common, of course, was wealth—wealth of the unimaginable variety; wealth that could only be whispered at; wealth that made them feel, to me, like members of a different species. And yet, as I learned, wealth alone did not earn membership in this exclusive group. The old historical families—those with roots in the late 1800s or early 1900s, or those whose families hailed from the East—were of the innermost circle. The next level out were the venture capitalists and their wives, who were tolerated but not embraced, privy only to the less exclusive events—because of the suspicions regarding how their fortunes had been obtained, or simply because they were, as Mrs. W— once sniffed, “new money.” None of the tech millionaires ever attended these events—which were formal and square—and the dot-com kids were too young, anyway. And only on occasion would we see movie and television stars, because “street people,” as Mrs. W— explained, “do not mix with show people.” Strangely, the second- and third-generation heirs seemed to look down on people whose wealth was self-created. And it goes without saying that all of these recipients of inherited wealth were white.
Mrs. W— always drew attention at these events. People would come over to pay their respects, and she’d smile at them ironically and entertain their effusive greetings and then, often with a mildly cutting remark, send them on their way. I saw the fear in people’s eyes as she approached; I saw them trip over themselves to be polite.
“What did you think of that speech?” one woman asked, about a powerful testimony at a charity function.
“Who cares?” countered Mrs. W—, yawning loudly. “I’m just here for the inedible lunch.”
Or: “Here comes the insufferable Waverly Stone. Richard, do you have my antacid?”
Or, at a table that also included Cardinal McCloud from the archdiocese: “I’d consider attending church, you know. If the priests would stop buggering little boys.”
Or, at a table of ladies so proper that they barely seemed to speak: “My grandfather was one of the first men to climb Mt. Whitney, you know. But if he did it now he’d have to carry out his own poo.”
And yet people circled her, came to her, watched her from afar. She did not want them, and so they couldn’t get enough of her. Or at least it seemed she didn’t want them—I didn’t think to ask why, if she found these people so tiresome, she continued to grace their events. But I understood why she needed accompaniment, for I served as her escort, her confidant, her bouncer. Me, the kid from Westchester, the son of an electrician. Me, the dapper mixed-race man, dressed in Canali suits that had been picked and purchased for me; by now I’d made several more trips to Rafael’s store, and had a personal shopper at Neiman’s. Mrs. W— would hold onto my arm, using me like a shield. And when she was ready, usually well before the event had come to a close, I would lead her through the crowd so she could leave.
At all of these events, always, was Fiona—giving air kisses to everyone she saw; throwing her head back in exuberant laughter; touching people lightly and complimenting their clothes; floating through the room like a perpetual hostess, or a politician trying to win votes. I thought of what she must have looked like in her dancing days, gliding gracefully across the stage. She was always dressed—as were all of the women—in spectacular clothes, form-fitted dresses and suits; the women would hold their heads up perfectly, profiles always visible, as if they knew they were going to be photographed. Which—thanks to the step-and-repeats, the photographers from society magazines—they almost always were. Fiona would pay her respects to Mrs. W—, and after their strange, almost wry exchange, she would throw her hands up happily and greet me. I wanted to believe that there was something there beyond her usual ebullience, some response that was reserved for me alone.
