“Ah, but you are not grown up, just yet. You do not know men,” said Laurent, smiling. It was a kind smile, but still. I was a little insulted, because no teenage girl likes being told she’s not grown up yet, and as for not knowing men, well, I had a boy showing up to see me any minute now! So there!
“Were you in love with Theodora Bell?” I asked him, feeling that it was not every day that I conversed with random red-haired gentlemen who had just flown in from Paris and that now was the time to be bold.
“No,” he said simply. “I admired her and her beauty, and I wanted to paint her, to capture it forever. But no, Frances, I was not in love with Theodora Bell, I was in love with somebody else.”
Before I could ask “Who?” Clover had spotted Laurent and he was giving her a kiss, and then the buzzer was ringing again, and I ran downstairs to answer it. Clover called after me, “Oh, just tell Oscar to send everyone on up, Franny, dear,” just as I was opening the door and saw that it was—Alexander Austin! I hoped I didn’t blush when I saw it was him, but I think maybe I did.
“Hey, Franny,” he said. He wasn’t carrying champagne or any kind of alcohol, obviously, but instead a bouquet of flowers. They were wild flowers, which are the prettiest flowers to have in the summertime, I think. But really—it wouldn’t have mattered what kind of flowers he had brought me, even just plain old carnations, say, because the first time a boy brings you flowers, it’s simply very sweet!
“Come upstairs and have some pink lemonade,” I said. “I mean, if you like pink lemonade. There’s also sparkling water if you’d rather have that.”
Alexander said he would have pink lemonade and smiled. We went upstairs and I introduced him to Clover first, which I thought only proper. I was relieved that he had on a jacket, a blue blazer, I guess kind of like what boys on the East Coast must wear at prep school. I knew that Clover would approve of this, and Aunt Theo too, when I introduced him to her later on. I imagined it: introducing Alexander to Aunt Theo. I imagined her being proud that I had finally found an admirer who interested me, as I had promised her in my letter.
“How do you do, Alexander?” I heard Clover saying to him.
Other guests were now arriving. The secret roof-deck was getting full. A gypsy fortune-teller arrived. Her name was Mama Lucia and she had on all red and spoke with a Russian accent. “Says she used to be a countess or something,” Ellery whispered to me. “But I don’t think so…” I was also introduced to somebody named “Cousin Honor,” said by Ellery to be a relative of Theo’s and a famous modern dancer. She also had on palazzo pants! Only hers were black. I was trying to keep track of all these details so that I could “take notes” on the party in my journal later on. Meanwhile, Warren smashed a champagne flute by accident. He was a big guy and I think just couldn’t help smashing into things. Valentine went to go get a broom and dustpan to clean it up. I was too distracted with Alexander being there to help her. I wanted to prove that I was a good hostess by paying enough attention to him.
And then Warren started telling this story about Aunt Theo. “Hey, that reminds me. You remember those really colorful old dishes Theo always had, I think they must have been French—?”
“The Quimper?” Clover asked.
“If you say so, kiddo. I remember one time Theo gave me this birthday party here at this very apartment. I was still in my twenties, I was just a kid. Anyway, toward the end of the party, I must have had too much vino because I dropped one of her plates.
There was this horrible silence. Then you know what Theo did? She burst out laughing, oh, she has such a great laugh, a really sexy laugh, you know, and then she picked up her plate and dropped it. It shattered in a million little pieces. Then everyone laughed and we all had more vino. A great birthday, that party.”
Now Ellery was competing with him, starting to tell another story about one of Aunt Theo’s famous parties just as I was vowing that when I grew up and had parties of my own, I would be a hostess just like Aunt Theo. I would laugh if somebody broke a dish. I would laugh and make it all better. Then just as I was thinking this, Clover tapped me on the shoulder and announced, “It’s just been brought to my attention! We’re almost out of ice. Would you and Alexander mind running around the corner to the bodega and getting some more?”
She smiled sympathetically, and I knew that she was asking me because she thought it might be fun for me to be alone with Alexander instead of being swarmed by grownups. Grownups are interesting, but only up to a point.
“Let me,” wailed Valentine, looking all languid in the moonlight. By now it was officially dark. Looking at her striking this long-armed pose next to one of Aunt Theo’s lemon trees, I thought of a dryad or something, some mythological creature that Clover might have shown us that day we all went to the Frick together and sat by the fountain to talk of Love. “Let me, Clover. I’ll go.”