From the other side of the half-wall, Janet Harte Fox whispered; “Well, there she is. The most extraordinary screen presence since the young Judy Holliday.”
Stephen gave out with something that sounded like choking.
Because there was no longer any way to avoid detection—Bennis didn’t believe Patchen Rawls would ever let her do that—she decided to give it up. As Patchen padded her way into the dining room space, Bennis emerged from her semi-hiding place. She had steeled herself against attack from any and every direction. She was ready to fight off Patchen, Janet, and Stephen, separately and together. She might as well not have bothered.
Patchen had noticed Bennis joining the circle. Janet and Stephen had noticed only Patchen.
Against Victoria’s custom-designed, hardwood, hard-shellacked floor, Patchen’s sandals sounded like a wrecker’s ball. Her head swiveled back and forth between the photographs hung on every available wall, from Victoria to Janet and back again. Then she came to a stop five inches from Janet Harte Fox’s nose and said, “I think you should leave here now, you know. I think you should pack your things and get out.”
Janet Harte Fox took a deep breath. Bennis bit her lip. Stephen did nothing at all. The senator might as well have been a piece of prize jewelry trussed up against a velveteen wall. Bennis was suddenly ready to strangle him.
“For God’s sake,” she said. “It’s Janet’s mother’s house.”
The two women swung around sharply to stare at her, mirror-image she-devils of light and dark.
“Nobody owns this house,” Patchen Rawls said righteously. “People don’t own things. Things own people. We’re all the communal property of the Great Cosmic Consciousness. “The only thing that’s communal property around here,” Janet said, “is my husband’s dick.”
“Oh, Lord,” Bennis said.
Patchen walked over and stroked the arm of Stephen’s jacket, as if she were checking the material for flaws.
“Do you know what they do to get cashmere?” she said. They torture goats.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked off, through the dining room, toward the back of the house. Janet swung back to the dining room table, picked up the red, white, and blue centerpiece, and put it down again. Then she swung back to Stephen and Bennis and said, “Politics. That’s what you get when you get mixed up with politics.”
A second later, she was gone, too. Bennis’ was not sure where. She was only conscious that she had been left alone with Stephen Whistler Fox, and that the situation should have been embarrassing.
In a way, it was. It just wasn’t in the way Bennis had expected it to be.
Stephen Whistler Fox was smiling at her benignly, blankly, avuncularly, with not a hint of uneasiness in his face.
“Hello,” he said, after a while, when she hadn’t said anything and didn’t seem about to. The truth was, she couldn’t think of anything to say. “You’re here with Mr. Demarkian, aren’t you? You were in the living room last night after—after Kevin died. I don’t think we were ever introduced.”
Everything in Bennis Hannaford froze. She had imagined a thousand scenes, crazy and awkward, if she and Stephen Whistler Fox were ever left alone. It had never occurred to her that he would simply fail to recognize her.
She hesitated, wondering if it was an act. His face was so open and bland, it didn’t seem possible that it could be.
“My name,” she said carefully, “is Bennis Hannaford.”
Stephen gave her a wide politician’s smile. “Hannaford,” he repeated. “Are you from Philadelphia? Are you one of those Hannafords?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What a fine family,” he said. “What a fine, fine family. You must be very proud of your history.”
It wasn’t an act, Bennis realized with shock. Her name meant nothing to him. Worse than that, her family’s name meant nothing to him beyond the commonplace vague impressions of nineteenth-century railroad money and Main Line prominence. Six months ago, her family had gone through a catharsis that had landed them on the front pages of every newspaper and the covers of half a dozen magazines. Stephen Whistler Fox, a U.S. senator, a man who was supposed to be competent and informed, knew nothing about it.
Bennis began to back away in a semicircle, out of the dining room, away from Stephen Whistler Fox and everything he represented. It scared her, this obliviousness. It did more than scare her.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve got—I’ve got something—”
“Busy, busy, busy,” Stephen said cheerfully. “I’ve got to find my wife myself.”