“IF YOU LEAN IN CLOSE, I’ll tell you about the couple right next to us,” says Matthew. She leans not merely close to, but against him. Certainly it can’t have occurred to him, before he asked her to lean closer, that if she leaned this close, with their heads bowed and nearly touching, he would be looking right down the front of her dress.
She wants me. The way she leaned against me like that. She’s trying to show me that she wants me.
That may be so, it may really be so. The only other explanation for all of this — her coming out with you in her mother’s place, the dress, this leaning against you — is that she’s a heartless tease, who will make you ridiculous.
“Maybe another sip of champagne,” says Matthew, “just to keep up the illusion that our little tête-à-tête is not an excuse to talk about them.” They sip, and after they replace their glasses on the table she leans right back up against him again.
“He’s wearing a gray suit,” says Matthew. Matthew’s wearing a gray suit, too, but the young man’s is better tailored. It drapes in a relaxed way that Matthew has always admired but never achieved, though he fusses over the fit of his jackets for months after he begins wearing them, and again and again he trots them over to a seamstress — a Swiss woman, as it happens — to have buttons shifted and reshifted, sleeves shortened or lengthened, or to have the linings, which have an infuriating habit of hanging below the back, shortened.
Perhaps, Matthew, whispers BW, this relaxed drape is more a matter of attitude than fabric and tailoring — insouciance, friend, insouciance. When you don’t care how it hangs, then, and only then, it will hang with that careless perfection you pursue by shifting buttons.
Leave me alone.
Then, too, adds BW, the fellow is considerably younger than you are, and in better shape. That would have something to do with it.
“How old?” asks Leila.
“What?” says Matthew, startled. Jesus! I’m going nuts. I’m starting to talk to myself. Leave me alone. “Oh, not that old. I’d say it’s this year’s model. Armani, I think.” A nice recovery. He’s rewarded with another of those exciting punches to the leg. “Oh. Oh. You mean the guy. Probably — ”
How old is this guy? Twenty-five? Thirty? Thirty-five?
“Twenty-eight? I don’t know. Thirty-two?”
“Close enough.”
Of course. It is close enough. Twenty-eight, thirty-two, forty-three, there’s no difference for her after twenty. I wonder how old the geezer she pegged at sixty really is.
“He’s a ‘laid-back kinda guy,’” says Matthew. “Doesn’t want anybody to think that he’s impressed with this joint. He’s got his tie loosened, you know, his collar unbuttoned. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He doesn’t have any strong expression on his face, but he’s tending toward a scowl.” Matthew imitates. “He has longish hair, thin, fine. She’s a blonde. One of those blondes who gets a tan right away, you know the kind I mean? They turn the color of teak sometime late in May and they stay that way on into October. She’s attractive.”
“Mmmm,” says Leila, pursing her lips, knitting her brows, performing a parody of jealousy.
Oh, wonderful, wonderful.
“But not my type,” says Matthew. “Too stiff. Too cold. She’s like — well — ”
“I know. Cashmere sweaters and loafers.”
“You’ve got it. She has a fur coat over her shoulders, a mink. But there’s something the matter. She’s pissed about something. She keeps poking at the tablecloth with her fork. Let’s tune in, shall we?” Leila smiles.
The blonde asks the young man, “How come you don’t like Victor when you don’t even know him?”
Matthew raises an eyebrow to ask, “Did you hear that?” Leila nods her head, just enough so that he can see.
“I just don’t like him,” the young man answers. “I just don’t see anything there to like.”
“That’s a stupid attitude, you know.”
“Stupid. Fine. It’s stupid.”
“You should see the way they’re sitting,” whispers Matthew. “They’ve twisted around so they aren’t really facing each other anymore. She’s turned more toward us, and he’s looking toward the door.”
“I’m just saying you shouldn’t make up your mind in advance,” says the blonde.
“Why are you so interested in my liking Victor?” asks the young man.
“It isn’t Victor, it’s people,” says the blonde. “You don’t like anybody anymore.”
Leila and Matthew exchange looks.
[to be continued]
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🎧 511: “If you lean . . .”