At one point he took her hand and placed it around his erect p.e.n.i.s. "Do that," he said, moving her hand. "Ah. Yes. John Thomas likes that a lot."
"What?" Catherine asked, puzzled. "Who?"
Ned laughed. "I guess you"ve never read Lady Chatterley"s Lover. John Thomas is what the gamekeeper calls his p.e.n.i.s."
"Good heavens, you"re literary even when you"re making love!" Catherine exclaimed, and Ned laughed again.
When he finally entered her, Catherine didn"t feel the dreamy glow of first love that she"d felt with Kit, but she did feel pleasure. She enjoyed the slide of skin against skin. His breath, his sweat, his concentration ... the intimate shock of connection. The sounds he made. The puppyish way he had nuzzled against her. It didn"t matter that he hardly knew her and didn"t love her. It was just so very pleasing to be touched.
This is good, Catherine told herself. Now I"m not even thinking of Kit, and how he made love to me, and later I won"t remember Kit"s body, but Ned"s. This is helping me forget Kit, she told herself as she moved against Ned"s body in the dark.
Ned was driving Kathryn, Catherine, and Ann back to Heathrow.
Ann was sitting on the front seat next to Ned, babbling nonstop. In the back, Catherine and her grandmother were quiet, looking out the window. The car rolled past fields of gra.s.s, corn, flax, and wheat, with occasional streams curling through, but Catherine was not really seeing the landscape. Nor was she thinking of how Ned had felt against her last night. Oddly, she was thinking of Vanderveld Flowers, and her heart was doing little drum-rolls of antic.i.p.ation. She had enjoyed this vacation, but she was glad it was over. She missed the fragrance and feel of all the cut flowers, the rainbow variety she casually worked with each day, the slither of wrapping paper, the festivity of ribbons, the sight and smell of so much sweet green. She even missed the Vandervelds, especially Piet. She had not learned to forget Kit, but she had learned that there were other things in life she wanted: right now she felt a raging desire to go home, and "home," she realized with a smile, meant the flower shop.
But first she had one final duty to perform. She"d promised Ann she"d go with her to the Eliots" Vineyard home to visit their parents. Maybe this time she could change things. Life at the British Everly had made her more optimistic about happiness in her own family.
Catherine hadn"t been to the Vineyard for the past three years.
When she arrived at her parents" house, she was shocked by how shabby it looked. The outside needed a new coat of paint, the roof needed res.h.i.+ngling, the garden was weedy and overgrown. Inside, the blond oak furniture and lightweight tables lacquered in Oriental reds and blacks-so modern in the fifties-looked dated. There were no fresh flowers, and the windows needed was.h.i.+ng. Catherine"s heart sank as she looked around. No wonder Ann had been upset.
Her father entered the living room. "Hi, Dad!" Ann cried, running to hug him. Formally, he shook hands with Catherine.
Catherine was pained by how old he looked. He was nattily dressed in patchwork cotton pants and a lime green linen blazer. He was well groomed; he would always be handsome. But he had lost weight, and his skin hung around his jawline. His eyes were sunken. Nevertheless he smiled as he offered his daughters drinks.
Catherine almost cried out when Marjorie entered the living room, the change was so terrible. Her mother had gotten so fat that she looked absolutely porcine. Her beautiful blue eyes were hidden in a face so swollen with fat, it looked quilted. Her dainty feet and hands looked ridiculous attached to her gross body. In her vividly flowered muumuu, adorned and clanking with necklaces and bracelets and rings, she looked like some kind of costumed circus animal.
"Marjorie! You should have gone with us!" Ann cried, hugging her mother. "The British Everly is smas.h.i.+ng! There, don"t I sound Britis.h.!.+ I love the Boxworthys! They"ve got a daughter, Hortense, and ..."
Under the cover of Ann"s excitement, Catherine sipped her gin and tonic and wondered how, why, had her father allowed her mother to get in this state? Always before when her weight had gotten out of control, Marjorie had gone off to some posh beauty spa in Arizona and returned after a few weeks or months slimmer and calmer. Why hadn"t he sent her off weeks, no months, ago?
Genene had cooked a perfect summer dinner: broiled swordfish, potato salad, corn on the cob. Drew and Marjorie toyed with their food and drank whiskey. Ann kept up a running burble of talk about Everly. Catherine wasn"t hungry. How could she have considered her family in the same light as the Boxworthys?
Sh.e.l.ly stumbled in when dinner was almost over. He was with two older boys. His face broke into a delighted grin when he saw his older sister. "Catherine! Hey, babe! You"re looking great! Hi, Annie-f.a.n.n.y. How"d you like the Brits?"
At sixteen Sh.e.l.ly was attractive in a dangerously adult way. Tanned and fit, his body radiated health and pleasure. His green eyes were as freshly innocent as Easter gra.s.s, his smile dazzling, boyish, but as he leaned over to hug Catherine, she smelled the alcohol, cloying and offensive, on his breath.
"How are you, Sh.e.l.ly?" He"s growing up too fast, Catherine thought.
"Great! I need to change my s.h.i.+rt. There"s a party at John"s tonight. Don"t wait up for me. Bye!"
He was out of the dining room in a flash, his two friends trailing him like the tail of a comet.
"That boy," Drew said proudly.
"Drew. I need another drink," Marjorie said, rattling the ice cubes in her gla.s.s.
Ann wanted Catherine to take her to a movie after dinner. The movie, a Pink Panther comedy, hardly captured Catherine"s attention. She needed to formulate a plan, a plan that would save them all. She had to talk to her father. But she couldn"t think of a thing.
They returned from the movie to find Drew waiting up for them in the living room. He and Marjorie had gone to the club to meet some friends for a drink, and now, he told them, Marjorie was already in bed.
"It"s your bedtime, too, honey," Drew said to his youngest daughter.
Always the good daughter, Ann kissed her father and sister good night. Drew led Catherine into the den, a large room with a pool table and a Ping-Pong table at one end and a nautically decorated bar along one wall. In the dark, it gave more an illusion of privacy and coziness than the other rooms of the house. Without asking, he poured a large whiskey for each of them, then sat down across from her on an overstuffed chair covered in blue sailcloth ornamented with white anchors and ropes.
"Catherine," her father began, then stopped. He cleared his throat. He could not seem to bring himself to meet her eyes. He busied himself with a cigarette and lighter, rattling the ice cubes in his drink as he spoke. "We"ve never been close, you and I. What I have to say is difficult, but you should know the truth."
"Dad. What"s wrong?"
"Well. To be blunt, I"ve had a bit of ... a financial setback. Quite a bit, actually. I made some bad investments. To be brief, we don"t have any money." He sighed. He looked older with each word he spoke. "I"ll be the first to admit I didn"t always give significant attention to my portfolio. It"s my fault, there"s no doubt about it. But a.s.signing fault doesn"t help. We"re going to have to sell the Park Avenue apartment."
"Daddy!"
Drew held up his hand to stop her. "There"s no money for Sh.e.l.ly to finish at his prep school or for college. Nor for Ann at Miss Brill"s. We"ve decided to remain on the Vineyard. There"s a decent public high school here for Ann, and it seems more-whimsical-than anything else we could do. At least Sh.e.l.ly and Ann feel at home here."
"Can"t Grandmother help?"
"She has helped. Is helping. She"s tiding us over until the apartment sells. But she doesn"t really have all that much free money, you know. What she does have will have to last her and a cook-housekeeper and a gardener for the rest of her life. She would never leave Everly. She should never have to leave Everly. But she can"t keep it up by herself. She"s not as strong as she used to be. h.e.l.l, none of us is."
Catherine shook her head, trying to imagine it all. "Sh.e.l.ly has to go to college, Dad," she said. "Sh.e.l.ly can"t not go to college!"
Her father laughed. "This from you, my dear, who insisted on not going to college?"
"That was different. Sh.e.l.ly needs discipline. Oh, Dad, what are you going to do?"
"What am I going to do? Me, specifically? Well, I"m not without plans." Drew smiled and pulled himself up. "I"m going to do what one does when he looks and speaks well and has a lot of friends. I"m going to get my broker"s license. I"m going to sell real estate."
They sat drinking in silence for a few minutes while Catherine tried to take it in.
"Poor Mother," she said at last. "No wonder she looks so awful."
"Yes," Drew agreed. "It"s hard on your mother. We"ve had to sell a lot of her nicest jewelry. And some of the oils in the apartment."
"Oh, Dad. Oh, what will poor Annie do? Does she know?"
"No. Not yet. She knows we don"t have the money we used to, but so far she"s only found it an inconvenience. I haven"t told her yet that she"s not going back to Miss Brill"s. I suppose I should tell her soon. We"re getting on toward the end of the summer. I just keep putting it off."
Drew tossed back his head and downed his drink. He set the gla.s.s on the coffee table. He leaned forward and said quietly to Catherine, "We"re going to have to let Genene go. We"ve kept her on, just for the summer, till our friends leave. Then it"ll be just the four of us in the house. Imagine." He laughed, shaking his head, his eyes tearing up, his nose and cheeks turning red as the twiggy blood veins brightened.
"Well, I just thought you should know. You"re still part of the family. I know you"ll be a comfort to Ann."
"Yes. I"ll try."
"At least you got to go to Miss Brill"s. So you shouldn"t feel so mistreated by your mother and myself after all."
"Oh, Dad. I-"
"I believe I"ll go on to bed now," he said, rising. "I find I get tireder than I used to. No wonder, I suppose."
"Daddy," Catherine said, standing. "I"m sorry. I"m so sorry."
Her father didn"t turn around. His shoulders were slanted forward, but his back was still elegant in the lime blazer. "I"m sorry, too, Catherine," he said. "I am sorry, too."
When he had left the room, Catherine crossed to flick off the light switch. She wanted to be alone in the darkness to think.
Sh.e.l.ly was energetic and c.o.c.ky; he needed a strong hand. He"d been an adventurous, daredevil boy, the type of boy who with the right direction could grow up to be a hero. His father was not the best role model, and if he didn"t continue at prep school and go on to college ... Catherine couldn"t imagine what would become of him. And poor Ann, who was only beginning the adolescence she"d been dreaming of, when she could start dating and going to dances and parties ...
Catherine knew she had to do something.
But she could not come upon one wise thing to do, although she sat in the den until she was so tired, she simply stretched out on the couch and fell asleep in her clothes.
The next two days she spent with Ann. They swam and sailed, they played tennis, and Catherine laughed with Ann about her friends. But at every moment her father"s words occupied her thoughts.
"It will come to you."
Kathryn had said that to her, and now Catherine wondered if that didn"t mean responsibility would come, as well as gifts. She knew she could abandon her parents, but not Ann and Sh.e.l.ly. They mattered. To her. Even if they didn"t realize it, they mattered to her, and that was something for her to hold on to. However mysterious and frustrating her grandmother, brother, and sister were, still their fates were connected with hers.
She was desperate to leave the Vineyard-it was too hard to keep pretending to Ann. Once she was alone, she knew she could come up with a plan. If she gave her parents her savings, would that be enough to pay for Sh.e.l.ly"s tuition or Ann"s? Her savings, her savings ... her savings, the money she had pinched and h.o.a.rded these past three years while she lived for free at Leslie"s place; her savings, in the face of what her family needed, was nothing. Even if she gave up all she"d worked so hard to acc.u.mulate, her family would squander it in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 5.
New York September 1964 The tamarisk shrubs, growing low and close to the brick building, were in bloom today, their feathery spikes of tiny pink flowers trembling fragilely against the evergreen leaves. The doorman nodded at Catherine as he opened the door for her.
"Oh, hi, honey, come on in," Helen said.
Catherine paused in the doorway. Today the roses had a gift from a Madison Avenue jeweler laced through it, a gold bracelet studded with diamonds. It was a pretty trinket, but not a terribly valuable one, certainly not valuable enough to make up for the bruises on Helen Norton"s face.
"Please," Helen Norton said.
On this warm September day, Helen was wearing a heavy robe of green plaid flannel, not at all her usual flamboyant style. She huddled inside it as if it were a blanket. Her hair looked strange. As the Exotic Eleena, she had dyed her hair black, but she was really a blonde. Catherine had never seen a brunette with blond roots before.
"Sit down and have some coffee with me," Helen said.
Catherine hesitated. This was her last delivery of the day. All she had ahead of her was the walk back to Leslie"s apartment, where she would sit worrying about her family. It was funny; she could have confided in any of her old school friends about all sorts of problems-if Sh.e.l.ly were h.o.m.os.e.xual, or Ann in love with an older man, or either of her parents having affairs with anyone-but she could never speak to any of them about money problems.
"Come on, kid, have a heart, sit down," Helen said.
"All right," Catherine replied, and sat.
"Would you rather have a drink?"
"No, coffee"s fine."
"Iced coffee? How about iced coffee? It"s so hot."
"Iced coffee would be great. Thanks."
Catherine looked around the room while Helen Norton clinked and clanked in the kitchenette. The florist"s box of roses lay on the coffee table between them, but Catherine didn"t take them into the kitchen for a vase of water. There wouldn"t be room with Helen making coffee. Catherine would remind Helen to put them in water before she left. Or perhaps she"d tell Helen to open the box right away. The bracelet might cheer her up.
Helen returned with two tall gla.s.ses of iced coffee. At Catherine"s suggestion she opened the box, took out the bracelet, and held it up, inspecting it.
"It"s not much, is it?" she said dejectedly to Catherine. She let the bracelet fall back among the red flowers.
"Well," Catherine said, "I think it"s very pretty...."
"Yeah, well, do you think this is pretty?" Helen pointed to her swollen cheekbone and bruised jaw. The green plaid of her robe made her skin look especially sallow.
"I was wondering about those," Catherine admitted.
"He hit me. The old b.u.g.g.e.r." Anger flared in the woman"s eyes so intensely that for a moment Catherine seemed to be looking at the Exotic Eleena instead. She could see how the woman"s fiery disposition would appeal to men.
"That"s awful," Catherine said. "What did you do?"
"Hah! What did I do? More like what I didn"t do. Or won"t." She sighed, sipped her coffee, lay back among the sofa cus.h.i.+ons. "I"ll tell you, honey, I"ve gotta get out of this, and soon. I thought he was just a harmless old gent, but I should have known better. Men are men. They"re all alike. No, rich men are worse. Take it from me. Rich men think they can buy anything they want. They think they deserve it."
Catherine was quiet. She wasn"t sure she wanted to hear any more.
"He"s getting kinky," Helen Norton said. "I should have seen it coming. G.o.d, am I blind or what? He wants to watch me do it with an animal. A dog. Can you believe that? Jesus H. Christ. I said I wasn"t that kind of woman. He said, in that ice-up-the-a.s.shole voice of his, "I think we both know exactly what kind of woman you are." The p.r.i.c.k. So I called him a name. So he hit me. So I tried to kick him out. So he reminded me just whose apartment I was trying to kick him out of. So we compromised. No animals-yet. But I said he could bring in another woman."
Catherine"s head hurt. She had to work hard to understand exactly what Helen Norton was talking about. It all sounded so tawdry.
Suddenly Helen Norton set her coffee on the table and put her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking.
"Sometimes you just think it"s no use," she said. "Sometimes you think you"ve got a chance, you"re gonna make it, after all, this is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Then something like this happens and you know you"re nothing. Men like that have everything, and you"ll never have anything no matter how hard you work."
Catherine set her coffee down on the table, too. Helen Norton"s words moved her greatly, partly because Catherine realized that Helen could be speaking for Catherine as well. Catherine had no chance, no chance in h.e.l.l, of getting her family out of the fix it was in. No matter how hard she had worked and saved over the past three years, it amounted to nothing compared with what her family needed. It was nothing compared with what she would need to buy her own flower shop. She had nothing. Helen Norton had nothing.
But P. J. Willington had more money than he could count-money he had inherited from grandparents and in-laws, more money than he could ever use in his lifetime.
"Helen," Catherine said, "I have an idea."
Helen raised her head and looked at Catherine.
"Listen," Catherine said. "I think I know a way for the two of us to get some money."