Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-two
Back at their room, Iris got ready for dinner in the bathroom.
She had gotten pretty good at blow-drying her short hair into a swoopy retro-chic thing.
Her grandmother used to say she looked like Natalie Wood, but Iris never agreed—even as a teenager she felt too big and tall and her nose wasn’t as tiny.
Now she realized it was just Nan’s way of calling her beautiful.
A gentle bay wave of grief rippled over her feet before receding back into the place where she kept all her childhood heartbreaks, wetting her feet with the memory of her grandmother standing behind her at the mirror, her loving face a blueprint of Iris’s mother’s, smelling of Shalimar.
The perfume. Surely it had washed off from the ocean, and then the shower would’ve rid her of any trace. Was that the reason Gabe couldn’t get it up? A rush of embarrassment stung her cheeks. Was she not desirable without it?
She frantically rifled through her toiletries bag, relieved when her hand closed around the smooth travel vial she’d made. She spritzed herself twice on each wrist, her neck, and her breast. Its familiar floral musk calmed her like a drug. She was impervious again.
Thus restored, her shame curdled to resentment.
Was Gabe’s connection to her really that shallow?
She’d known the perfume had helped her first get his attention, but she had believed their bond had deepened since then, not just emotionally, but physically.
Their sexual connection had always been sheet-twisting, belly-quaking, brain-obliteratingly good—until this afternoon—but it also felt special and meaningful. It couldn’t all be the perfume.
Could it?
She quickly finished her makeup and entered the bedroom. Gabe lay back on their still made bed, scrolling his phone. She stood quietly, regarding him with new doubt. He looked over and smiled at her.
“You look beautiful.”
Look or smell ? “Thanks. I just need my shoes and then I’m ready.”
“C’mere a sec.” He reached for her with arms outstretched, opening and closing his hands like a child demanding a toy.
“They said dinner at eight, it’s ten past.”
“Don’t rich people do a cocktail hour, or three?” He took her hand and pulled her onto the bed.
It couldn’t be more obvious, Iris thought, a fresh dose of the fragrance and now he wanted her. When he tried to kiss her, she turned her cheek. “I just did my hair and makeup. You’ll mess me up.”
“That’s the fun part.” He raked his fingers through her hair and tugged lightly, which she normally liked.
But she didn’t trust his attraction at this moment and shook him off. “Isn’t it my turn not to be up for it?”
She regretted the words as soon as they left her lips, but too late—his chest caved away from her as if from a blow.
She rose from the bed and smoothed her dress. “I’m sorry. I’m nervous. This dinner is the work part of this trip.”
“Totally, I get it.” Gabe recovered, roused himself from the bed, and gave her butt a little spank. “Later.”
They were about to leave the room when she paused.
Gabe was dressed in black slacks, a white shirt, and a black vest—she suspected it was his funeral suit minus the jacket and wished he’d worn another, if he had one.
Now he wore the white shirt cuffed at the forearms and open at the collar, and his thin Cuban link necklace in lieu of a tie.
If he weren’t so good-looking, he would look underdressed.
“Do you have a jacket with that?”
“I didn’t bring it. It’s too hot. We’re at the beach.”
Not the beach, Iris thought, the Hamptons.
—
Gabe was right, Jonathan Wolff did indeed have a cocktail hour, a grand one.
They previewed the party through the glass-walled corridor, and the patio scene looked like a Slim Aarons photograph.
Elegantly dressed guests dotted the flagstone around the pool, the archetypal midcentury house to one side and the pink and purple twilight over shimmering Gardiners Bay as backdrop.
When they slid open the patio door and stepped onto the cool grass, they were greeted by the spirited melody of live Spanish guitar music and the maracas-like percussion of a cocktail shaker.
When Marilyn had told Iris that Jonathan would be hosting a dinner party, Iris had imagined it would just be the people on the helicopter, minus Allegra, who was at a friend’s slumber party, and Patrick, who was visiting college friends in Montauk.
But what she and Gabe found was a full-fledged event with more than a dozen guests.
Cater-waiters silently circulated around the chatty groupings, bearing trays of sushi—marbled tuna belly, uni fluffy and bright as a marigold, friendly California rolls with real crab—all made fresh by two Japanese sushi chefs set up on the other side of the pool.
The pool itself was lit with floating votive candles among purple water lilies and green lily pads.
She crouched to touch one waxy petal near the pool’s edge to see if it was real when Jonathan came sauntering toward her. She quickly rose.
“I hope you enjoyed your afternoon.”
“We did,” Iris said too quickly.
“I want to introduce you to some people.” Jonathan turned to Gabe. “May I steal her?”
It reminded Iris of The Bachelor, and Gabe had no choice but to oblige. “Sure, I’ll get a drink.”
Jonathan hooked his arm through hers and leaned in to speak to her as they walked away.
“I want you to meet Arthur Bellaus, he’s one of the biggest real estate investors in New York.
He passed on Oasys but I intend to forgive him when he invests heavily in the Hendricks site build.
I want him to meet my A-team to seal the deal. ”
“I don’t know if I qualify, but I’d be happy to meet him.”
“Your modesty is one of your most enchanting traits.”
Iris could feel her cheeks blush.
They found their target beside the deep end of the pool, and introductions were made.
“Art” Bellaus was mid-sixtyish and seemed to like to hear himself talk.
His wife, Diane, was of similar age but much better-kept, with a forehead smooth as glass and perma-arched brows that replaced interest in her husband’s conversation.
Art was telling a longish story about a dispute over his boat slip when Gabe returned from the bar with a negroni for himself and Iris’s go-to spicy margarita.
Iris took the drink and was waiting for a break in the story to introduce him when Art took Gabe’s drink from his hand and said, hardly looking at him, “Ah, thanks, and we need more California rolls over here.”
There was a slow second of silence when everyone but Art realized he had mistaken Gabe for a waiter. Iris looked at Gabe’s face and saw his nostrils flare and his jaw clench. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was casual. “Sure, man. I’ll flag down a server if I see one.”
“Thanks, honey, I’m hungry.” Iris kissed him on the cheek. “This is my boyfriend, Gabe DiDonato. Gabe, this is Art Bellaus, and his wife, Diane. Art is a real estate investor. Gabe is a glass artist.”
“Like Chihuly, do you know him?” Diane asked. It was unclear whether this was her attempt to smooth things over or if her husband’s faux pas had sailed over her head entirely.
“He came to speak at my school once.”
“RISD,” Iris provided, touching his arm.
Gabe stiffened under her hand. “Excuse me.” And he strolled off.
Iris endured another few minutes of small talk before she excused herself to go after him.
She caught up to him at the bar. “I’m sorry that guy was an asshole. Are you okay?”
Gabe drank half his cocktail in one sip, so she took that as a no. “You don’t have to hand out my CV to impress these people.”
“What, the RISD thing? I’m just proud of you is all. It’s impressive, I want them to know who they’re dealing with.”
“I don’t give a shit what they think of me. They can keep thinking I’m the help.”
She felt terrible for him. “He’s just some fossil Wolff is hitting up for money.”
“Then why do you care?”
“I don’t. I care about you.”
In the next gulp, he finished his drink.
—
The dining table was beautifully set with place cards.
Jonathan sat in the middle rather than at the head, which Iris thought was gracious of him, with his work wife, Marilyn, across from him.
Iris and Gabe were seated across from each other, Iris between Lindsay and the buildings commissioner, a man whose name Iris was now forced to pretend she hadn’t forgotten, Gabe between Bill and another big developer named Peter.
Gabe looked so vastly different from these white middle-aged bookends.
Thankfully there were a few more guests as buffer from where Art and Diane were placed.
Peter leaned back. “So, Gabe, I hear you’re an artist. We don’t know a lot of those. What’s your medium?”
“I blow glass.”
Lindsay sniggered.
“Ooh, I love that,” Peter’s wife, Jen, said, fiddling with a diamond earring the size of a blueberry. “It’s so elemental . Is it dangerous?”
“Can you make a living doing that?” Bill interjected.
“Not really.” Gabe chuckled. “Not like this.”
“A true bohemian,” Peter said.
Jen looked smitten. “I admire that.”
“You wouldn’t if you saw my apartment,” Gabe said, eliciting a knowing chuckle from her husband.
Iris added, “But you would if you saw his work . His art is incredibly powerful. I fell for one of his chandeliers before I even met him.”
“Ah yes,” Jonathan interjected. “Iris shared photos of some of your pieces. Original, evocative stuff. When we get back to the city, I want to talk to you about a piece for the lobby of Oasys.”
Gabe smiled tightly. “That’s nice of you to say, thank you. That’d be a step up from the bar Iris saw my stuff in.”
Iris wished this granite slab table was smaller so she could kick him.
Marilyn leaned her head around the server pouring her Sancerre. “Do you show at any of the SoHo galleries?”