The Better Liar(73)

“Do you ever think about moving away, Leslie?” Mary chimed in.

    “No.” I glanced around for the owner.

“No? Not even as a thought?” Albert smoothed his napkin. “You know, I always thought maybe I’d move to Vermont. I knew a family with a cabin out there. They used to invite me up for grouse season. It’s an interesting sport, although I might not be limber enough anymore.”

“Yeah, Leslie,” Mary said. “You could move to Vermont and shoot grouse.”

I shook my head.

“What’s your dream location, then?” she asked. “Where would Leslie go, if she could go anywhere?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” I said. “Maybe I’d live in Santa Fe.”

She laughed. “That’s an hour away! That’s the dinkiest dream move I’ve ever heard of.”

A waitress appeared at her shoulder, holding the bottle of wine. She poured it for Albert first, then paused. Albert glanced at her, brow wrinkled, and then said, “Oh, I see. No, I’m sure it’s fine, no need for all that,” so the waitress moved on to Mary’s glass.

“And where would you live, Robin?” Albert asked, when we had all placed our orders and the waitress had gone away again. “Would you stay in Las Vegas?”

“She’d go to LA,” I said without meaning to.

Mary’s eyes fixed on me. “Yes,” she said to Albert. “I would. I love it there,” she added, sinking back into her cheerful attitude. “It’s always seventy-five degrees and everyone has a tan and a therapist. I’m going to buy a long scarf and drive around in a convertible, like Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief.”

“A film buff! Do you like Hitchcock?”

“I hate Hitchcock. I love Grace Kelly,” Mary said.

Albert laughed. “Hate Hitchcock? How?”

“His movies are all so slow, and all the people in them are like little cutouts in a dollhouse.” She propped her chin on her hand.

“I think he’d say that’s what he wanted from his films,” Albert suggested. “He called actors cattle, you know.”

“I knew it!” Mary declared. “You can just tell from watching those movies that Hitchcock was a big old dick.”

    “Ma—Robin!” I said.

“Well, he was.”

Albert chuckled. “Robin isn’t wrong. Tippi Hedren might agree with her. But of course you can be a real jerk and still make great art.”

“Sure. But I think it creeps into your art. Art is intentionally showing your ass.” Mary fiddled with the built-in ashtray, sticking her finger in it from the underside. “If you’ve got poison in you, the art will show it, eventually.”

There was a pause as Albert pursed his lips, considering this. Finally he said, “Well, I suppose every generation must hate the previous generation. It’s a measure of growth.”

She smacked him gently on the arm. “Aw, Albert, we don’t hate you! We just want you to tip your waitresses nicer.”

The owner reappeared, followed by the waitress from before, bearing mustard-yellow plates with salmon covered in sliced lemons and parsley for Albert and Mary, and a Cobb salad for me.

“You know,” Albert said, pointing his fork at Mary, “you remind me of your father.”

I made a little noise, like a sneeze. Mary kicked me harshly under the table and I exhaled in surprise.

“Thank you,” she said at the same time. “Wow, that really means a lot. Is it my chin? I feel like he had a really distinctive chin.”

Albert pulled his fork out of his mouth; I heard the tines against his teeth. “Not that. Your sense of humor. He was a funny man.”

“No, he wasn’t,” I said, jerking my chair back several inches to avoid Mary’s shoe. Robbed of a target, she was forced by momentum down into her seat, as if several vertebrae had liquefied. Then she had to drag herself back up again, pretending nonchalance.

“You don’t think so?” Albert squinted at me. “I guess not so much when he was sick. But before that, he was like Robin. Quick, you know.”

“What a compliment,” Mary said, adjusting the top of her dress, which had lost its grip during her abrupt descent into her chair. “I really appreciate hearing that from someone who knew him so well.”

“He wasn’t like that,” I said. “Not with us. Not at home.”

    Mary glared at me; Albert patted his mouth with a napkin. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Albert said at last. “It’s too bad you only had so many years with him when he was well. I knew him for almost thirty years. We were very good friends, your dad and I.”

I didn’t reply.

“Tell me more about him,” Mary said, leaning toward Albert. “How did you meet him?”

“How did I meet him?” He took a sip of his wine and coughed. “Actually, we were coworkers. At Hogarth and Wyeth.”

“When was that?”

“The late seventies, I think. I hated him at first—he stole my girl.”

“He didn’t!”

Albert shook his head. “Of course he did. You knew him. He was competitive. I was dating one of the secretaries. A nice girl—a little meek, I thought. Well, not too meek, because she two-timed us for a while. All at the same office! We were in meetings together and we didn’t know about it. She let slip to him eventually, or he got it out of her that she was seeing other men, and she came to me one evening and said, ‘Warren told me that I must choose between you two, and I’m afraid our time together has come to an end.’ So formal. So I didn’t like him very much for a little while. But I figured I couldn’t hold a grudge, because the guy married her. I certainly hadn’t had any intention of marrying her. I thought, Good on her!”