Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [192]
She stood up from the bed and put her glasses on. She peered into the mirror. Tonight she would wear long earrings of pink Lucite. She would put her lenses back in and use a lipstick that didn’t clash with the Lucite, and that would be that. Seen from a certain angle, she might simply disappear.
• • •
The party was in a room reserved for such occasions. Presumably, the view outside attracted, though the city now was gray and darkening yet. Lights twinkled at random, and it was impossible not to think: In this room or that, women will be undressing and men, with ties undone, will be pouring drinks. Though one did not know, and there were other, more grotesque, scenarios to contemplate.
The window shuddered with a gust similar to the one that had taken her hair. For a moment, the lights dimmed, causing a stoppage in the conversation of equal duration, a pause in which one could not help but think of panic in a blackened hotel, of hands groping. Some dreadful music, cousin to the malevolently bland tunes in the hotel elevator, seeped between the talk. She saw no recognizable face, which was disconcerting. There were perhaps twenty-five people in the suite when she arrived, most already drinking, and most, it would appear, already bonded into clusters. Along one wall, a table had been laid with hors d’oeuvres of a conventional sort. She set her purse under a chair by the door and walked to the bar. She asked for a glass of wine, guessing that the chardonnay would not live up to the rose coronation carpet and the bouquets as big as boys, and in this she was not wrong.
A woman said her name, and Linda turned to an outstretched hand belonging to a slight woman in a woolen suit, its cloth the color of irises. It was pleasant to see a woman not dressed in black, as everyone seemed to be these days, but then this might be taken as insult for being provincial. Linda shook the proferred hand, her own wet and cold from her wineglass.
—I’m Susan Sefton, one of the organizers of the festival. I am such a fan. I wanted to thank you for coming.
—Oh. Thank you, Linda said. — I’m looking forward to it, she lied.
The woman had feral teeth but lovely green eyes. Did she do this for a living?
—In about half an hour, we’ll all be heading down to the front of the hotel, where we’ll be taken by bus to a restaurant called Le Matin. It’s a bistro. Do you like French?
The answer couldn’t matter, though Linda nodded yes. The idea of being carted out to dinner put her in mind of senior citizens, an image not dispelled in the next instant when she was informed that dinner would be early because of the various reading schedules.
—And then each author will be taken to his or her event. There are four separate venues. A vinyl binder with colored tabs was consulted. — You are in Red Wing Hall. You’re reading at nine-thirty.
Which would ensure a smallish crowd, Linda thought but didn’t say. Most people with tickets to a festival — authors included — would be ready to go home by 9:30.
—Do you know Robert Seizek?
The name was vaguely familiar, though Linda could not then have named a title or even a genre. She made a motion with her head that might be construed as a nod.
—You and he will be sharing a stage.
Linda heard the demotion implicit in the fraction, a sense of being only half an entertainment.
—It was in the program. The woman seemed defensive, perhaps in response to a look of disappointment. — Didn’t you get your packet?
Linda had, but could hardly admit that now, it being inescapably rude not to have glanced at it.
—I’ll see you get one. The feral teeth were gone, the smile having faded. Linda would be but one of many wayward writers Susan Sefton was in charge of, most too disorganized or self-absorbed to do