Writers and Readers discussion

MUCH ADOO ABOUT NOTHING

What for? said Bob McAdoo. In his hand he held a glass of water because he was not supposed to be drinking and when he asked what for and flung his arms wide in welcoming puzzlement the water flew out and splashed in the face of a heavy woman in pearls smoking a cigar the length and thickness of a pencil.
The water put out the cigar.

After some sputtering she rounded on Bob. What did he mean by this? What could he possibly mean? What was it possible to mean? said this angry elderly woman in a black suit and a soaked purple silk shirt and a dead cigar.

Bob’s wife Karen, who was telling this story to a group of her friends at another party, a different one, afterwards, made a few amusing comments about her husband’s clumsiness. She didn’t like him much, and was counting on the complicity of the others, who didn’t much like their husbands either.
But who was the woman? asked one of those in the group around Karen. All of them held glasses of wine which they had become very careful of, except one coffee, who was the person who had asked.
Lydia Florent, Karen said smugly, setting down the name like a bellboy with a heavy piece of luggage for which he was about to demand a large tip.

The Honorable, said Marta, one of the wine drinkers, impressed. But, she added later to another, mixed group at her regular Thursday bridge game, it’s not credible. A woman who dresses like George Eliot and smokes cigars is instantly recognizeable. What happened, she said confidentially, was that Bob played the naïf and treated her like an inconsequential old lady in a ridiculous outfit which didn’t suit her at all. The Honorable, having fulminated rather too long without getting an apology, found herself with no choice but to flounce out.

It was embarrasing all around, Bob said, said Karen, she said archly.

I should say so, said the man sitting closest to the fire when he heard this story some days later.
George, the man in the club chair beside him, chuckled softly and remarked that there was little a stupefied economist might say to the government’s financial director who he had just doused with water, other than to be grateful it hadn’t been hot coffee.

I pretended to be an art critic, Bob said, it’s said.
Plenty of those around, I imagine.

I wonder why, asked Allan Floyd, sitting opposite, they invite such people as Lydia Florent to these things in the first place?

Money, of course, Allan acknowledged a week later to a few friends who had taken their drinks outside onto the gallery terrace. It was yet another showing of new work and the crowd inside jostled and pushed in search of the oracles. Allan made a wide gesture, indicating the paintings and other objects about, implying that he would rather be sitting beside a fire somewhere else. These gallery openings were his wife’s business. Allan didn’t much like his wife.
You needn’t know anything if you have money, remarked Allan’s wife Hanna afterwards at dinner, with some acid.

Ah, said one of the guests at table with a glass of Perrier because, as she had explained, she was driving. But you have money, Allan.

Yes, said another. And he doesn’t know anything about art, either. Who Caravaggio was perhaps. I doubt if there were any Caravaggios about that night. Money, yes, but not that much.

The Honorable Director can’t tell a Caravaggio from a Mozart.

Hardly, Lydia Florent admitted amiably. Her somewhat dusty hair had recently been coiffed but there were some strands loose nevertheless. She brushed them aside.

The man sitting to the left of the empty chair at the head of the table, who had mentioned Mozart, was tiddlywinking his pencil while they waited for the meeting to begin.

And why was this McAdoo there at all, Lydia? he added with annoyance as the pencil hopped onto the rug. He knows nothing and has no influence in that crowd. He is quite penniless, ironically, in view of his profession.

Well, the Secretary began with a wry smile, but got no farther.