The Gilded Life Of Matilda Duplaine

“We have a gimlet prepared, just the way you like it.”

I took a deep well-needed sip. Charles and I stood at the doors, looking outside at a carpet of green.

“How are your birds?” I asked. “I heard something about homing pigeons.”

“Yes. Interesting sport, if you can call it that. I picked it up in my youth.” Charles smiled to himself, and there was something sad and longing about it. “We lived in Manhattan during the week and Tuxedo Park on the weekends. The pigeons would follow us between the two.”

“How did they find you?”

“Scientists don’t know for sure. It’s one of life’s mysteries.”

Just then a gray pigeon, all barrel chest and beak, waddled toward us. His leg was tagged.

“Not to bring up a sore subject, but did you ever find the one you lost?” I said.

“No. That’s the only one, believe it or not. Even as a kid, I never lost a single bird.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t know what happened?” I pressed.

Charles looked wistful. The pigeon in the yard waddled away.

“Thanks for coming tonight, chap.” Charles changed the subject. “Next time, let’s go to the Malibu house. The aviary there is unbelievable—and so is the bourbon.”

“Dinner is served,” a staff member said quietly, a welcome interruption in conversation.

We sat down at the long dining table. The centerpieces overflowed with roses the size of cabbages that still sparkled with dew, and the glasses were made of honed French crystal.

Unlike the last dinner party, where the group had quickly divided into factions, this time the six remained cohesive, focused on a heated conversation about technology’s influence on the music industry. Ever the reporter, always the observer, I stayed on the sidelines of conversation, which was just fine by me.

I hadn’t noticed it at the previous dinner, but this evening Charles attended to his wife’s every comfort, more like a personal valet than a husband. He asked Carole twice if she wanted more Brussels sprouts and checked her wineglass carefully to be sure it never dipped below half-full. If and when it did, a server was immediately summoned to top off the glass. At one point Carole’s heavy clip-on earring slipped low on her left earlobe and was in danger of falling off into her soup when she leaned into conversation. Charles reached out to pinch it between his thumb and index finger, positioning it back into place. Carole did not acknowledge the intimate gesture. In fact she seemed to stiffen under his touch.

When the group left the dining room for dessert wine in the conservatory, I excused myself to the bathroom. I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror. I needed a cigarette.

I opened the door to find Carole standing in the hallway. Her porcelain face was flawless.

“I thought perhaps you’d gone for a cigarette,” Carole said, and I was flattered that she had remembered my vice.

“I’ve been trying to quit,” I lied.

“I never quit anything I enjoy,” she said matter-of-factly. “Charles insisted I show you the aviary. Follow me.”

I followed Carole down the hallway and then through a tall French door outside. I heard the sound of paws on grass, wet and saturated with weeks of rain, and then a German shepherd as big as a wolf appeared.

“Malcolm, this is Thomas. Thomas, Malcolm,” Carole said.

Carole leaned over and stroked Malcolm’s neck. He was a beast of a dog, with streaks of pecan brown and white through his fur. Carole tucked a pin curl behind her own ear and then adjusted Malcolm’s collar so his tag was in its proper spot tucked beneath his chin. There was no chance of Malcolm leaving this fortress, so I wondered why he had a tag at all.

In front of us lay a lawn so vast I expected to find polo ponies roaming about or men in white playing cricket. On either side of the expanse, box hedges and plants were sheared to tight, geometric lines. There was not a single errant leaf.

Carole and Malcolm led the way. There were paths, but they opted to walk on the middle of the grass instead. I walked two steps behind.

We passed a swimming pool—refined and rectangular, in contrast to Emma’s fishy swamp—and then a tennis court with a small viewing area. Not every tennis court should have reminded me of her, but this one did. I must have slowed a step or two, not realizing it, because Carole turned around.

“Do you play?” Carole asked, glancing at the court with her sleepy eyes. I got the first glimpse of a glass structure in the distance. It must have been the aviary.