The Edith Wharton Murders Read online

  Hearty applause as Priscilla walked off stage right, and Chloe came on stage left.

  Chloe had indeed gained weight that the frumpy dark blue suit couldn’t disguise.

  “What a bizarre outfit,” I said in Stefan’s ear.

  Her dark hair was in an unflattering bun. The navy blue suit and pumps, the white blouse and Chanel scarf made her look like any one of dozens of drab businesswomen you’d see in London around St. James.

  “What’d you expect,” Stefan whispered, “Dykes Are Us?”

  “She’s bisexual,” I said. “That makes her a byke.”

  Someone a row back shushed us.

  Obviously standing on some kind of small riser, Chloe smiled, said she was glad to be at SUM, opened up the book that had apparently been waiting there for her, and began to read with almost no explanation.

  Since Chloe had started off her visit rudely by not wanting to have dinner with anyone beforehand, I expected her to be awful: boring and obnoxious and vile. I was disappointed. Chloe wasn’t personable, but she wasn’t a bomb either, and I knew at once I couldn’t expect her to humiliate herself.

  But then even if she had, would I have been able to savor it? I was calculating times: how long it would take me to get to my coat when this was all over, then to the car and back home to finish setting up for the reception. I was in the middle of my own little film, running through each action obsessively, as if somehow that would make everything work out well—and more importantly, go faster.

  From what I could make out while Chloe read, her new book was the diary of a married Byzantine noblewoman in love with Empress Theodora, and the section Chloe read was a meandering set of reflections on the theme of fidelity. I glanced at Stefan over the next half hour while she read, trying to rouse a smirk, but he had his public attentive face on: chin up, eyes fixed. He looked just right, which convinced me he thought the reading was crap.

  How do you explain the impact of Chloe DeVore’s writing? On the surface, it’s smooth, assured, decorative. Yet after a while, it doesn’t add up; you feel you’re listening to a sonorous bore who assumes every one of her sentences is elegant and wise. I guess it’s really like the Monty Python skit in which Eric Idle keeps elbowing a man, saying, “Nudge, nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean?”

  I drifted off, thinking about one of Chloe’s worst but most widely anthologized stories, about a daughter caring for her mother who’s dying of breast cancer despite a radical mastectomy. In a Bonwit’s somewhere, the daughter hands her mother a revealing negligee, and they laugh as they finger the intricate silvery lace. The portentous last line was something about “finding herself revealed at last.” It made no sense.

  When Chloe’s dry little voice wound down, I was shocked by the heavy applause. But then we live in a culture where people give standing ovations to the dreariest Broadway play, so I guess I should have expected the enthusiastic response.

  The first question came from an EAR graduate student I vaguely recognized. “Ms. DeVore, since you live in Paris, are you planning a novel about Americans abroad?”

  Chloe pursed her lips. “I couldn’t imagine anything more boring. It’s been done to death. Paris is crawling with budding writers soaking up impressions. The sound of all those tapping fingers on”—she shuddered—“laptops at cafes can be deafening. I think every one of them should be turned back at the airport, forced to go someplace more unusual. Tashkent. Montevideo. Ann Arbor.” She paused. “Well, maybe not Ann Arbor.”

  Hundreds roared at the reference to the rivalry between our school and the University of Michigan an hour away in Ann Arbor, and from that moment on she was a victor: a little haughty, perhaps, but in a conspiratorial way that turned the audience into her confederates. It was quite a show as she talked about her success, other writers, her writing habits. She kept things light, entertaining. I wanted to dislike Chloe’s confidence, but I felt swayed and bombarded as if she were a particularly hypnotic televangelist who never has to shout to make a point.

  People kept rising from the audience to gush: “I love your work.” Chloe bowed her head a bit each time, as if receiving a laurel wreath, reminding me of Ronald Reagan’s “Aw, shucks” routine. Corny, but decidedly effective. And I was impressed, even humbled a little. I’ve always admired writers who interacted well with their public, the way Stefan did.

  “We have to go,” I whispered to Stefan when it was clear that Chloe would be fielding questions for a good while longer.

  He nodded grimly and we annoyed everyone in our row by standing and making our unsteady way past all those knees to the aisle, then rushing out to grab our coats. The speed of our exit made me wish we were fleeing the state, not heading home.

  STEFAN HAD INSISTED on not hiring a bartender, so that he’d have something to do all night that would keep him away from Chloe and any one else he didn’t feel like talking to. Most of our department was there, plus dozens of administrators and community sponsors of the President’s Series. It was so crowded you could barely see the complex, thrusting flower arrangements, and it was almost impossible to reach the food: cheese puffs, eggplant caviar, tiny shrimp egg rolls, smoked salmon paté, leek and mushroom mini-quiches, and scallop mousse.

  Chloe barely moved from the chair by the fire (the best chair, of course, the most dramatic), as if she were content to gather adulation to her, like a sea anemone sweeping food inward with its lovely tendrils. Me, I circulated like a restless fish in one of those huge round tanks at an aquarium, moving from kitchen to living room to study to sunroom, smiling, patting backs, trying to enjoy the air of festivity. It was as if Chloe’s success had less to do with her than with the university, as if we had polished her to a brighter sheen than usual.

  Bob and Joanne Gillian came late, and I was a little surprised that they’d come at all. Surely they knew Chloe was bisexual and a bad role model.

  Bob and his wife made such an unlikely couple. It was the first time I’d seen them together. Bob was so debonair in his camel’s-hair coat and driving gloves, but Joanne looked as dowdy as Chloe, with a face just as narrow-eyed and unsmiling. In fact, they were almost the same height, with similar dark hair. From a safe distance, I watched Stefan greet them at the door and tell them where they could put their coats.

  Joanne’s eyes narrowed even more when she came back from leaving her coat in the guest room, where one of the posters was of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit in Chicago—just one of his erotic-looking flowers, but the name alone was probably enough to give her palpitations.

  Bob caught my eye and gave a half-nod that clearly acknowledged he didn’t want to greet me but since it was my house and my reception, he didn’t have much choice. I understood that he was here because of the EAR connection, but why had Joanne come too? How could she set foot in the home of avowed sodomites?

  Coral Greathouse, unusually buoyant tonight, sailed over just then and took my hand, telling me how impressive the reception was, and that Stefan and I had a lovely home.

  Two points for me, I thought, hoping she’d be even more impressed by the Wharton conference.

  “Have you seen Serena Fisch?” Coral asked, and I realized then that not only hadn’t Serena come to the party, I hadn’t seen her at Chloe’s reading.

  “Maybe she’s not feeling well,” Coral continued. “The weather’s been so nasty.” We chatted about the weather for a while, boring each other intensely.

  Priscilla kept trying to snag me that evening, but I avoided her. I knew she’d be depressed now that her introduction was over, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with her despair, fatigue, or whatever.

  Eventually Priscilla cornered me in my study, where the lights burned as furiously as if in a crisis center. I turned some lamps off, some down, wondering who’d been in there.

  Priscilla sat at my desk, nodding. “It’s not so bad,” she said.

  “What!”

  “Honestly, I mean, you dread something so long, then it happens….” She looke
d at her watch. “This time tomorrow night, Chloe will be back in France, or at least gone.”

  But Priscilla kept looking at her watch, and when I heard a raised voice out near the front door, she stood up attentively. “What’s that?”

  I followed her out to the front hall.

  A woman, a very beautiful woman, was talking rather loudly to Stefan, who held what I took to be her coat. She was slim, with masses of thick auburn hair that looked as perfect as if her stylist had followed her to the front door, making last-minute adjustments. Green-eyed, oval face perfectly made up, she was in a black woolen sheath and crimson stiletto heels, with what seemed like pounds of silver jewelry at each wrist. She looked French to me—assured, chic, flawless, like many women I’d seen near the Place Vendôme in Paris, where Stefan and I had stayed several times. As soon as she spoke again, I knew she was French.

  “Where is she? I must address her.”

  Stefan looked nonplussed.

  “That’s Vivienne Fresnel,” Priscilla whispered behind me. “Chloe’s ex,” she added even more softly. “Remember?”

  Stefan seemed to want to hold Vivianne back, but she pulled away from him and strode into the party with the poise of Audrey Hepburn approaching the throne in Roman Holiday.

  “What’s she doing here?” Stefan said, still holding her coat. “Who invited her?”

  “I want you to know,” came the clear ringing voice from our living room. The party hubbub faltered, then stopped when Vivianne repeated herself. “I want you to know that I intend to sue you in a court of law.”

  I pushed forward to see Vivianne standing a good two or three feet away from Chloe. People had cleared back as if at a saloon gunfight.

  “How did you know I was here?” Chloe demanded.

  Vivianne tossed her beautiful head of hair, but didn’t answer.

  Chloe smirked. “You’re drunk,” she said. “Go and sleep it off.”

  “I was drunk, once. With you.”

  I heard someone in the crowd sigh at the sound of those romantic French-accented words.

  “You made me drunk,” Vivianne said. “And you stole my treasure.”

  This struck me as embarrassingly like a Silhouette Romance, but I understood in a minute how wrong I was.

  “Chloe, you are a liar, and also a thief. Empire of Sin is my book, not yours.”

  Chloe was pale and frowning.

  Stefan said flatly, “This is incredible.”

  “It was my idea from the beginning. I talked to you about it for months. You can’t deny it. You have stolen my thoughts!”

  Chloe shook her head as if to say, Prove it.

  “I have my notes,” Vivianne said. “I have my friends. They know it was my idea, not yours.”

  Chloe sighed like a parent faced with a contemptuous adolescent, wondering if the child will ever be likable again.

  In the eerie silence it seemed that everyone was waiting for even the most attenuated act of violence—a smack, a drink splashed up into someone’s face, a broken plate. But Chloe and Vivianne just stared at each other, and then, amazingly, Chloe shoved past her, muttering, “You’re just hungry for attention. Jealous.” She plunged out of the room. From the door we all heard Chloe shout, “Whoever set this up will regret it!” before the door slammed.

  Someone I didn’t know said, “I’m her wheels,” and disappeared after Chloe, brandishing her coat, apparently to give her a ride back to the Campus Center hotel.

  The room was as frozen as one of those moments in an opera just before the chorus is about to burst into full-throated clamor.

  “Excuse the outburst,” Vivianne announced gracefully, with a huge smile. “Please enjoy yourselves.”

  And of course, even though the guest of honor was humiliated and gone, the party continued with renewed excitement. Some faculty members recognized Vivianne, and soon they were locked in a roiling conversation, half English, half French, which seemed only partly to concern Chloe’s malefactions.

  I stayed away. Maybe because of my parents’ disappointment at my poor showing in high school French classes, I always felt a bit embarrassed around a group of people setting off conversational flares in that very showy language. Every time I didn’t understand a word or idiom, I could feel my parents staring at me in wonder. They had spoken French to me as a little child—how could I have forgotten so much?

  Off in a corner, Bob and Joanne Gillian seemed to be having a very intense discussion, the kind where every word crackles with the rage behind it and the energy of keeping your voice low.

  Joanne’s face was red, and I was sure she was on the verge of denouncing me and Stefan as immoral monsters or something like that. Maybe Bob was calming her down, telling her that it would be unseemly in my own home. She pushed him away and made for the guest room. He followed, and they left a moment later, both looking disgusted. Great, I thought, Joanne will probably make some new accusation on the news, or write a hate-filled and dishonest letter to the Michiganapolis Tribune, painting the reception as some kind of grotesque orgy.

  Stefan was still holding Vivianne’s coat, and he looked down at it, shook his head, and headed for the guest room to lay it across the huge pile. I followed.

  He rolled his eyes at me. I giggled once, nervously, and then took his hand. “Couldn’t we leave, too?” I asked. I was thinking of our cabin up north.

  Stefan grimaced. “People will be thirsty after the floor show.” We headed for the kitchen, where Stefan returned to his duties as bartender.

  Priscilla was there knocking back a big glass of something, looking as tired as a marathoner.

  “Come over here,” I said, motioning her closer. “What’s Vivianne whatever-her-name-is doing in Michigan? Doesn’t she live in Paris?”

  Priscilla looked off into the living room, where Vivianne was surrounded by even more admirers than Chloe had been. Later I heard that she told wild stories about shopping with Derrida at Galeries Lafayette in Paris and water-skiing with Hélène Cixous.

  Priscilla turned to me, looking composed. “It wasn’t secret that Chloe was speaking here on campus.”

  “Okay. But how did she know where the party was?”

  Priscilla flushed.

  “You told her!”

  “Shh!” Priscilla glanced around us. “I wrote her an anonymous note.”

  “But how’d you get Vivianne’s address?”

  Priscilla shrugged.

  My mouth must have been hanging open, because Priscilla tapped a hand under my chin. Smiling tentatively, she said, “It turned out rather well, don’t you think?”

  Soon, Vivianne ended up thanking Stefan and me for our hospitality. I was so bowled over by her chic that I said, “We were in Paris last year,” like a trick-or-treating little kid bursting out to a neighbor that he had a new coat.

  “Yes? Where did you stay?”

  “The Hotel Vendôme.”

  “Oh, but that’s lovely.” Her eyes glittered as if I’d just presented her with the column at the center of the Place Vendôme. “You must phone me next time you’re over.”

  And she swept off, without, I realized later, having told us if her number was listed or not.

  Priscilla was in the bathroom during this interchange. She stayed on after everyone else was gone, to help clean up, and after the dishwasher had finished a second load, she, Stefan, and I sat in my study. I felt insulated there from the evening’s chaos, as if the walls of books, the heavy drapes and deep carpet were the thick steel-clad walls of a bomb shelter.

  We were drinking icy glasses of Diet Coke, which seemed to penetrate the fog. I told Priscilla about chatting with Vivianne, who had held my arm and confided that what Chloe hadn’t just stolen from her, she had lifted from Procopius’s book on Justinian and Theodora, Secret History, but without acknowledging her source.

  “Isn’t that plagiarism?” Priscilla asked, delighted.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Procopius has been dead a thousand years or more. I don�
�t think it matters. I’d just call it being lazy.”

  Stefan was silent.

  Priscilla gloated. In various ways she kept saying, “Chloe is finished.” She could have been a religious Russian exulting in the miserable fall of the Soviet Union.

  I disagreed. “You should never have gotten involved.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t control what happens.”

  Priscilla shrugged, disdainful now, relaxed.

  “He’s right,” Stefan said, surprising both of us, rumbling into life like a brooding drunk at a bar. “He’s right. This won’t knock Chloe out at all. People like that never fade.”

  Indulgently, Priscilla said, “So tell me the future.”

  Haggard now, oracular, Stefan complied, his eyes closed as if it were all coming to him. “Okay. The plagiarism suit? That’s going to make newspapers across the U.S., England, and France. In publishing, it’ll be gripping and creepy, like Court TV. Most people will dismiss Vivianne as a bitch, as a scorned lover, as overemotional—you name it. But none of that matters. Chloe’s bound to triumph. She’ll probably confess to Barbara Walters that she really did steal the book—or most of it—and she didn’t know what she was doing because she was addicted to diet pills. She’ll settle with Vivianne out of court for half a million dollars, she’ll go into a clinic in Zurich, come out three months later with the manuscript of a confessional book written in English but with a catchy French tide like—” He hesitated. “Like Je M’accuse. The critics will love it. They’ll call it a gritty, devastatingly self-flagellating exposé. After a year it’ll be translated into twenty-seven languages, and it’s bound to hover on the New York Times best-seller list for three months just above Men Who Were Run Over and Bitten by Women Who Run with the Wolves.”