Genuine Fraud(57)

—Charles Du Bos



Jule touched the edge of the table. She would sit at that seat, there, she decided. That would be her regular place, with her back to the light from the window and her eye on the door. She’d argue over the Du Bos quote with the other students. The teacher, a woman in black, would loom over them, not threatening but inspiring. She’d push them to excel. She’d believe that her girls were the future.

There was a cough. The catering supervisor stood in the room with Jule. He pointed at the door. Jule followed him back to the pile of napkins and began to fold.

A pianist arrived in the ballroom, bustling. He was scrawny, freckly-white, and redheaded. His wrists stuck too far out of his jacket. He unpacked sheet music, checked his phone for a minute or two, and then began to play. The music was punchy and somehow classy. It made the room feel bright, as if the party had already started. When she finished the napkins, Jule walked over. “What’s the song?”

“Gershwin,” the pianist said with disdain. “It’s an all-Gershwin luncheon. People with money love Gershwin.”

“You don’t?”

He shrugged while still playing. “It pays the rent.”

“I thought people who played grand pianos already had money.”

“We have debt, usually.”

“So who’s Gershwin?”

“Who was Gershwin?” The pianist stopped what he was playing and started something new. Jule watched his hands run over the keyboard and recognized the song. Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

“I know that one,” she said. “He’s dead?”

“Long ago. He was from the twenties and thirties. He was a first-gen immigrant; his dad was a shoemaker. He came up through the Yiddish theater scene and started out writing poppy jazz songs for quick money, then did music for the movies. Then, later, classical and opera. So he ended up high-class, but he came from nothing.”

How amazing to be able to play an instrument, Jule thought. Whatever happened to you, whatever else went on in your life, you could look down at your hands and think, I play the piano. You’d always know that about yourself.

It was like being able to fight, she realized. And being able to change accents. They were powers that lived in your body. They would never leave you, no matter how you looked, no matter who loved or didn’t love you.





An hour later, the catering supervisor tapped Jule on the shoulder. “You have cocktail sauce on you, Lita,” he said. “Sour cream, too. Go fix yourself up and I’ll give you another apron.”

Jule looked down. She took off the apron and handed it over.

There was someone using the bathroom nearest the ballroom, so Jule climbed the stone staircase to the third floor. She glimpsed a pair of elegant parlors. The tables were decorated with bursts of pink flowers. Guests shook hands and suffered introductions.

The women’s room had a lounge. It was papered in green and gold and had a small, ornate couch inside. Jule walked through and opened the door to the toilet. There, she took Lita’s shoes off. Her feet were swollen at the toes and bleeding at the heels. She blotted them with a wet paper towel. Then she wiped at the dress until it was clean.

She stepped back into the lounge barefoot to find a woman in her fifties sitting on the couch. The woman was pretty in an upper-Manhattan way: tan skin with careful rouge and dyed brown hair. She wore a green silk dress that made her seem as if she belonged on that green velvet couch with that green-and-gold wallpaper. She had bare legs and was applying bandages to her blistered toes. A pair of strappy heels lay on the floor.

“The heat makes my feet swell,” the woman said, “and then there’s no end to the suffering. Am I right?”

Jule answered in an accent that matched the woman’s: general American. “Can you spare a Band-Aid?”

“I have a whole box,” the woman replied. She dug into a large handbag and produced it. “I came prepared.” Her finger-and toenails were polished a shade of pale pink.

“Thank you.” Jule sat down beside her and doctored her own feet.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” said the woman.

“I—”

“Don’t worry. I remember you. You and my daughter Immie always looked like two peas in a pod, in your uniforms. Both so petite, and with those cute freckles across the nose.”

Jule blinked.

The woman smiled. “I’m Imogen Sokoloff’s mother, sweet potato. Call me Patti. You came to Imogen’s birthday party freshman year, remember? The sleepover where we made cake pops. And you and Immie used to go shopping down in SoHo. Oh, do you remember, we took you to Coppelia at American Ballet Theatre?”

“Of course,” said Jule. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you right away.”

“No worries,” said Patti. “I’ve forgotten your name, I have to tell you, though I never forget a face. And you had that fun blue hair.”

“It’s Jule.”

“Of course. It was so cool that you and Immie were such friends, that first year of high school. After you left, she went around with these kids from Dalton. I never liked them half as well. There are only a few recent grads here at the benefit, I think. Maybe no one you know? It’s all old girls like me.”

“They sent me the invitation and I came for the Gershwin,” said Jule. “And to see the place after being away.”