“It has been so long since I was up there. What is it like now? All the little stones in good order? The fence still standing?”
“It’s a bit run-down, but everything is still basically upright. A strange place,” Nora said uncertainly. Would this woman think it peculiar if she mentioned Emmeline’s grave and the odd verses on the stone?
The other woman nodded. “Yes, it is so lonely, in the middle of the woods. There are still woods? And you? What is your name?” Nora gave her name, and the woman smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Nora,” she said.
“And yours?” Nora asked. She had a sudden, unnerving intuition that the answer would be “Emmeline.” That was silly; she was talking to a flesh-and-blood woman; there was no such thing as ghosts. But she was relieved when the other woman said, with a moment’s hesitation, “You may call me Ilissa. It’s what you’d call a nickname. My full name goes something like this—” She rattled off a rapid string of syllables that Nora couldn’t quite follow. “But that’s too long and boring to say. I make my friends call me Ilissa.”
“It’s a lovely name.”
“You’re too kind! But please, sit down. You must be tired with walking so far this afternoon.”
Nora demurred, apologizing again for her intrusion. She had already imposed enough on the other woman’s good manners. But Ilissa insisted. She had been feeling bored and lonely all day, she said with a brilliant smile. It was wonderful good luck for her that Nora had appeared, and she refused to let her new friend leave —“I’m sorry, I’m just unreasonable!”—until they had had a good long chat. Nora found herself sitting on one of the recliners, sipping another glass of the red punch, and answering Ilissa’s questions. The punch must have had some alcohol in it—maybe that was what Ilissa meant by moonlight—because Nora began to feel a light buzz, and was talking more than she had expected to, trying to make a joke out of some of the things that had gone wrong lately: the problems with her thesis, Naomi’s disapproval, her dead cat, the mouse in the kitchen. Ilissa listened, apparently rapt.
Although Nora hadn’t meant to mention anything terribly personal, even the details of last night’s humiliating encounter with Dave came spilling out.
“Oh, but what an idiot,” said Ilissa, clucking her tongue. “Ignoring that other poor girl, toying with your feelings—and then not even seeing to his own pleasure or yours! No one has any fun! Everyone is unhappy!”
Nora laughed. Last night, she hadn’t considered the situation in exactly that light, but Ilissa had a point.
“I’m surprised, though, that a beautiful girl like you is unattached. Or did you leave your young man back at your university?” Ilissa said, smiling. She leaned forward and studied Nora’s face. “Wait, I see you have had another disappointment in love recently. This one is more serious than that boy who was so silly last night.”
Nora gave a feebly dismissive wave of her hand—her litany of woes, she thought, must be getting tedious for this elegant creature. But Ilissa would not be put off. So Nora told her the story of her breakup with Adam and then, because the other woman still seemed so interested, the whole history of their relationship, starting with their flirtation in Renaissance Lyric, when Adam had been impressed with Nora’s knowledge of Elizabethan sexual puns; his specialty was the modern novel. That was almost four years ago. Adam became her ally in that seminar, taught by the ruthless Naomi Danziger, and by the end of the semester, they were a couple.
As Nora went on talking, Ilissa took off her sunglasses to reveal her own eyes: a deep blue-green, slightly aslant. She looked older than Nora had expected. Not that there were any lines around those clear eyes, but her face had a honed, decisive look, as though she were used to being in charge.
“Oh, he wasn’t good enough for you,” Ilissa said dismissively, when Nora paused after describing Adam’s move to Chicago. “He didn’t know his own mind. Most men don’t, of course—I’ve learned that all too well. He got scared and lonely and he grabbed the nearest woman, this Celeste person. Men! What can you do?”
Nora couldn’t imagine Ilissa ever having trouble with men straying or not knowing whether they were in love with her or not. She said so, and Ilissa burst into a fit of giggles. “You’re so funny! If you only knew!” she said.
Then she looked more seriously at Nora. “But the important thing now is to enjoy yourself. A broken heart doesn’t heal until you lose it to someone else. You need diversion. You should simply play, play, play—surround yourself with men until one of them makes you forget all about this poor, childish, confused Adam.”
“Surround myself with men?” Nora smiled wryly. “As though it were that easy.”
Ilissa arched her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “As it happens, I am having a party this very night, and I can assure you there will be all sorts of delightful male creatures there. It is exactly what you need. My parties are famous. Everyone always has a marvelous time, they dance, they laugh, they fall in love—sometimes twice or three times in one night. People ask me, ‘Ilissa, what is your secret?’ I tell them, ‘There is no secret. I simply invite my friends, the most beautiful and charming people in the world.’”
No party was ever so perfect, in Nora’s experience—obviously Ilissa was a bit vain about her gifts as a hostess. Nonetheless, Nora felt tempted. Then she remembered that she was due at the wedding at five. Probably she had already missed brunch. What time was it? Her own watch said 2:38 a.m.—hopeless.
Ilissa wasn’t wearing a watch. Smilingly, she shook her head when Nora explained that she needed to get back for the wedding. “I forbid it!” She laughed. “I tell you, you have never been to a party like one of mine. You cannot miss this for the world.”
Nora considered for a moment—this way, she’d avoid both Adam and Dave—then smiled daringly. “All right! I’d love to come. But I should call my friend Maggie, so that she doesn’t think I’ve fallen off the mountain. Would it be okay if I used your telephone?”
A beat passed before Ilissa answered. Then she raised her hand and made a lazy gesture in the air, indicating something in the distance behind Nora. A jewel on her finger flashed in the sunlight, making Nora blink. “Please, make yourself at home,” Ilissa said.
Nora twisted around to look in the direction that Ilissa had pointed. “Oh, I didn’t see the house before,” she said. It was a low-slung, modern structure half-hidden behind the tall hedges. She could make out sliding glass doors under a jutting slab of roof. The style complemented Ilissa’s outfit, Nora thought.
“If you don’t mind, I think I should call now,” Nora said, getting to her feet. To her relief, she wasn’t as unsteady as she had feared. The glass pitcher was empty now, she noticed abashedly. She couldn’t remember whether she had seen Ilissa drink any of the punch. Then Nora looked down at herself and cried out in dismay.
“I’m sorry, I can’t go to your party!” she said. “I’m a mess.” Her jeans were still muddy from her fall on the path. She could feel patches of damp in her T-shirt, while her hair must be a haystack after getting soaked in the rain. “I look like a refugee,” she said. “What must you think of me?”
“That’s easily remedied,” Ilissa said. “I’d love to lend you a dress, and of course you can freshen up inside.” She touched Nora’s shoulder lightly, guiding her toward the house. “I’m so thrilled that you can stay for the party,” she added. “I promise you, you’ll have a wonderful night, and I’m sure that you will find plenty of admirers. Perhaps even my son,” she said, with a half smile. “He will be there tonight, and I should warn you, he’s very susceptible to beautiful women.”
Then I’m safe from him, was Nora’s first thought. Aloud she said, “I’m sure he’s a little young for me. You can’t have a son who’s more than eight years old.”
Ilissa gave Nora a little squeeze around the shoulders. “You are too kind! No, I assure you, he is quite grown up. Of course, I was much, much younger when he was born. I will introduce you to him, and you must tell me if you can see the resemblance.”
“Oh,” said Nora awkwardly, as they passed through the sliding door into the house, “if he’s anything like you, I’m sure I’ll like him very much.”
Silver fish with trailing fins hovered and flickered behind a wall of glass tinted the cool, reassuring green of a dollar bill. Nora regarded them thoughtfully as she rinsed her hair, thinking of the bathroom in “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” The slate tub was so large that she could lie back and float full-length without touching the sides. As she sat up again, a few of the rose petals drifting in the warm water clung to her body, a crimson stippling
