“I think it’s a Cuban conspiracy,” George stated over dinner that night. “I think they’re going to find there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, once they start digging below the surface.” Paxton looked at him and wondered if there was any truth in that. He was an intelligent man, even if he wasn’t an exciting person. Most of the time he was totally involved in his medicine, and nothing really interested him except that. He had extremely insular views, and the only time he ever got really excited was over some new research development in the fields which interested him, particularly adult onset diabetes, none of which seemed overly fascinating to Paxton. He was thirty-one years old, and he had almost gotten engaged the year before, but it had fallen through, and for some reason she had a feeling her mother was relieved, although the girl was from a family her mother knew, but Beatrice had said more than once that she thought George was too young to get married. He had to establish himself first before he got bogged down with a wife and children.
And Paxton never liked the girls he went out with anyway. They were always nice-looking, but silly and superficial. There was no substance to them, and you couldn’t have a serious conversation with them. The last one he’d brought home to a dinner party their mother gave had been twenty-two years old and she had giggled all evening. She had explained that she hadn’t gone to college because she had such terrible grades, but she loved doing work for the Junior League and she was going to be in their fashion show that week and she could hardly wait, and by the end of the evening, Paxton was ready to strangle her. She was so stupid and so irritating, she couldn’t imagine how her brother could bear her, except that she seemed very coy and clingy when they left, and she was still giggling when they got into his car to go out for a nightcap. And Paxton had long since become resigned to the fact that she would probably hate the girl that George eventually married. She would be sweet, simple, undemanding, unthinking, unchallenging, and extremely southern. Paxton was southern, too, but in Paxton’s case it referred to geography, not an excuse or an affliction. There still seemed to be so many girls who wanted to play “southern belle,” and use it as an excuse for being uninformed, or just plain stupid. Paxton hated girls like that, but it was more than obvious that her brother didn’t.
Paxton couldn’t sleep all that night, and she was obsessed by the TV. She kept coming back to it, and finally at about three in the morning, she just sat there. She saw the casket carried into the White House at 4:34 A.M., with Mrs. Kennedy walking beside it. And for the next three days, Paxton felt as though she never left her television set at all. On Saturday, she watched members of the family and senior members of the government come to see the man they’d loved. And on Sunday she watched the coffin taken to the Capitol by horse-drawn caisson. She watched Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline kneel beside the casket, and the little girl slipped her hand under the flag that draped it, their faces filled with grief. And then Paxton saw Lee Oswald shot by Jack Ruby as they transferred him to a different jail, as she watched in amazement, at first thinking it was a mistake, or some confusion. It seemed impossible that yet another person had been killed in this endless horror.
On Monday, she watched the funeral, and cried uncontrollably as she listened to the mournful sound of the endless drumbeat. And when she saw the riderless horse again, for some reason, she was reminded of her father. The grief seemed interminable, the pain one that would last forever, the sorrow bottomless, and even her mother looked shaken by Monday night, and she and Paxton barely spoke as they ate their dinner. Queenie was still wiping her eyes afterward when Paxton went out to the kitchen to talk to her, and she sat in a chair, mindlessly watching her clean up, and then helped her dry the dishes. Her mother had gone upstairs to call a friend. As always, they seemed to have nothing to say to each other, to offer each other encouragement or solace. They were too far apart, and always had been.
“I don’t know why … but I keep feeling the same way I did when Daddy died … as though I’m expecting something different to happen. Like he’s going to come home any minute and tell me it’s not true, it’s all a big joke … or Walter Cronkite is going to come on the news and say it was all a test, the President is really spending the weekend in Palm Beach with Jackie and the children, and they’re really sorry they upset us … but it doesn’t happen like that. It just keeps on … and it’s real … it’s a weird feeling.”
Queenie nodded her old gray head so full of wisdom. She knew, as she always did, just what Paxton was feeling. “I know, child. It’s like that when someone dies. You sit and wait for someone to tell you it didn’t happen. I felt like that when I lost my babies. It takes a long time for that to go away.” It was hard to think of Thanksgiving now. Hard to be thankful for a confused, angry world that stole people away before they were meant to leave it. It was hard to think of the holidays, and if Paxton felt that way now, she could imagine how the Kennedys felt. It must have been the worst possible nightmare for Jacqueline Kennedy and her children. She had done a beautiful job with the funeral, orchestrated everything to perfection, right down to the mass cards printed on White House stationery. She had handwritten herself the words “Dear God, please take care of your servant John Fitzgerald Kennedy” and had excerpts from his inaugural address printed as well. It was the end of an era … the end of a moment in time … of a time that had almost come … ephemeral, fleeting, gone. The torch had indeed been passed to a new generation who held it fast now, but were no longer sure where to take it.
And as Queenie turned off the lights in the kitchen that night, and kissed Paxton good night, they stood there for a moment in the dark, the old and the new, the white and the black, the sadness of everyone’s loss enveloping them, and then Queenie went downstairs to her room, and Paxton went upstairs to hers, to think of what had been lost, and what lay ahead now. She felt as though she owed something to him, so he wouldn’t have died in vain. Just as she owed something to her father … and to herself. She had to be someone for them … do something important with her life … something that mattered. But what? That was the question.
She lay in bed and thought about both of them, about what they had stood for, and what they had believed, the one man she had loved so much and known so well, the other she could only guess at. And suddenly, all she wanted was to start her life … to get on with it … and get going … all she could think of now was her dream of going to Harvard, just as they had. She lay in bed and closed her eyes, and silently promised both of them to make something of herself, to be someone they would be proud of. It was her gift to them, the legacy they had left her, and a promise she knew she would keep. All she had to do now was wait for the spring … and pray that she would be accepted at Radcliffe.
CHAPTER 2
The last envelopes arrived in the second week of April. Sweet Briar had sent its acceptance in March. And Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith all sent their acceptances in the first few days of April. None of which interested Paxton. She placed the letters neatly on her desk, and continued to wait for the one that really mattered. Radcliffe. And in her mind, the two California schools were backups. She was praying she would get in to her first choice, and in truth, the prospect of not getting in didn’t seem very likely. Her father had gone to Harvard after all, and she had strong grades. Not perfect grades, but very good ones. The only thing that worried her was that she was not great in sports, and had never developed a lot of outside interests. She loved to write poetry and short stories, enjoyed the photography classes she took, had taken ballet as a child, and joined the drama club freshman year, but then dropped out because she thought it interfered with her studies. And she had heard more than once that Harvard wanted people who were good at everything, and had strong extracurricular interests. But still she was pretty sure she’d be accepted.
Her mother had been smug and pleased when the early acceptance to Sweet Briar came, and as far as she was concerned, Paxton had heard from the only school that mattered. It pleased her to be able
to say that Paxxie had been accepted at the other Ivy League schools, but like Paxton, she was unenthused about them. And as far as Beatrice Andrews was concerned, the schools in California might as well have been on another planet. She urged Paxton to make the most “sensible” move, and accept Sweet Briar before even waiting to hear from any of the others.
“I can’t do that, Mother,” Paxton said quietly, her big green eyes searching the face that always seemed more like a stranger’s. “I made myself a promise a long time ago.” But it was more than just a promise to herself, it was something she felt she owed her Daddy.
“You’d never be happy in Boston, Paxton. The weather is appalling. And it’s an enormous school. You’d be much better off closer to home, in familiar surroundings. You can always take some graduate classes at Harvard later.”
“Why don’t we just wait and see if I get in, that makes more sense.” But what made sense to her made very little sense to her mother. It annoyed her no end that Paxton was holding out so stubbornly for a northern school when she could have gone to Sweet Briar and stayed so much closer to home. George turned up one Saturday afternoon to vent his views and Paxton smiled to herself while she listened to him. Talking to George was just like talking to her mother. They both believed that her life was destined to be close to them, and that it was foolish of her to try to spread her wings and expand her horizons.
“What about Daddy, George? He seemed to have come out okay, in spite of venturing up north to go to school with the Yankees.” She was teasing him, which amused her if not him. Among his many other virtues, her brother George had not been blessed with their father’s sense of humor.
“That’s not the same thing, Pax. And you know I’m not fixated about the South. I just think that for a woman, Sweet Briar is a better choice. Mother’s right. And there’s no reason for you to go all the way to Boston.”
“With that kind of attitude, they might not even have discovered America, George. Imagine if Queen Isabella had told Columbus that there was no reason for him to go all the way to the New World.…” She was laughing at him and he was not amused by it.
“Mother’s right. You’re still a child, and it’s ridiculous to do this just to prove a point. You’re not a man, and there’s no reason on earth for you to go to Harvard. You’re not pursuing any career like medicine or law, there’s just no reason for you to go anywhere. You should be close to home with us. What if Mama gets sick? She’s not as young as she used to be, and she needs us here.” He tried everything on her, including guilt, and it served only to enrage his sister. She couldn’t understand why they wanted to clip her wings. But they seemed to feel they owned her.
“She is fifty-eight years old, not ninety-three, George! And I’m not going to sit here for the rest of my life, waiting to take care of her. And how the hell do you know what career goals I want to pursue? For all you know, I want to be a brain surgeon. Does that make it okay for me to go north to school, or do I have to stay here and bake cookies no matter what, just because I’m a woman?”
“That’s not what we’re suggesting.” He looked pained by her bluntness.
“I know that.” She tried to regain her cool. “And Sweet Briar is a wonderful school. But all my life I’ve dreamed of going to Radcliffe.”
“And if you don’t get in?” He looked at her pointedly.
“I will. I have to.” She had promised her father’s memory. She had promised him before that. She had sworn she would make him proud of her and follow in his footsteps.
“And if you don’t get in?” her brother persisted coldbloodedly. “Then will you agree to stay in the South?”
“Maybe … I don’t know.…” The three Ivy League schools didn’t appeal to her either, and she hadn’t given any serious thought to Stanford or Berkeley. She couldn’t begin to imagine going there, and she didn’t know anyone in California. “I’ll see.”
“I think you’d better give it some serious thought, Paxton. And you’d better think twice about upsetting Mama.” Why did he have to do this to her? It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to sacrifice her life for them? What did they want from her, and why did they want her there in Savannah? It seemed so pointless. Just so she could go to luncheons and meetings of the Daughters of the Civil War with her mother, and eventually join a bridge club, so Beatrice wouldn’t be “disgraced,” so Paxton stayed within the mold. But she didn’t want the mold. She wanted something more. She wanted to go to the School of Journalism at Radcliffe.
She had often told Queenie as much, and Queenie was the only one who encouraged her, who loved her enough to be willing to release her. She knew what Paxton needed, and she wanted to see her fly free of the two people who seemed to expect so much from her and had always given her so little. She had a right to more than that in her life, and her mind was so bright, so full of new ideas, she deserved something more than the life she would have if she stayed in Savannah. And if after she went away to school, she wanted to come back, then Queenie would be there to welcome her with open arms. But she wasn’t going to beg her to stay, or nag her like the others.
The envelope arrived on a Tuesday afternoon, and it was sitting in the mailbox when she got home, along with one from Stanford. And Paxton held her breath the moment she saw them. It was a warm spring afternoon, and she had strolled slowly home, thinking of the boy who had asked her to the spring prom just that afternoon. He was tall and dark and handsome, and she had admired him for the past year, but he had been going with someone else. And now suddenly he was free, and Paxton’s head was full of dreams and wishes. She was going to tell Queenie all about him eventually, and now suddenly, there was the letter she’d been expecting. Her whole future on a sheet of clean white paper, folded and sealed into an envelope from Harvard. Dear Miss Andrews, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to … Dear Miss Andrews, we are sorry to inform you that … which one was it?
Her hands shook as she took the envelopes out, trying to decide which one to open first, as she sat down on their front steps in front of the solid-looking brick house, and decided to open the one from Radcliffe first, because in truth it was the only one that mattered and she couldn’t bear the suspense of waiting till she had opened the other. She flung her long blond mane over her shoulders and down her back, closed her eyes and leaned against the intricate wrought-iron railings, praying for her father’s blessing on their answer … please … please … oh, please let me have gotten in … She opened her eyes and, as quickly as she could, ripped open the letter. And the opening line was not at all what she had expected. It gave nothing away at all, and droned on endlessly about what a fine institution Harvard was, and what a fine applicant she was, and it was only in the second paragraph that they said what she’d been looking for, and she could almost feel her heart stop as she read it.
“Although you have all the qualifications to make an excellent candidate for Radcliffe, we feel that … at this time … perhaps another institution … we regret … we are sure that you will do extremely well at any academic institution you choose … we wish you well.…” Tears filled her eyes and the words danced in a blur of grief as they cut through her heart. She had failed him. They had turned her down. All her dreams dashed in a single instant. Radcliffe had denied her. And what would she do now? Where would she go? Did she really have to stay in the South, with all its narrow thinking, familiar themes, and proximity to her mother and brother? Was that it? Had it come to that, then? Or would she go to Vassar? Smith? Wellesley? Somehow they seemed so boring.
Hesitantly, she tore open the second envelope, feeling nervous now. Maybe it was time to give some serious thought to Stanford. But not for long. They said it in the first paragraph instead of the second, and their answer was almost identical to Radcliffe’s. They wished her well, but felt she would do better at another institution. Which left … nothing. The choices she already knew she had, and an unknown quantity at Berkeley. She could feel her spirits plummet as she stood, walked up th
e steps, and let herself into the house. She dreaded having to tell her mother.
She told Queenie first, of course, and the old woman was grief-stricken for her at first, and then, finally, philosophical.
“If they didn’t accept you, then it wasn’t meant to be. One day you’ll look back at that, and know it.” But in the meantime, the prospects it left her with were depressing. She didn’t want to stay in the South, didn’t want to go to a girls’ school, and she couldn’t even imagine going to Berkeley. Now what? But Queenie’s thinking was more advanced than Paxton’s. “What about California? It’s a long way from here, but you might like it.” One of her daughters had moved to Oakland several years before, and although she’d never been there, she had always heard that San Francisco was lovely. “I hear it’s beautiful. You won’t be cold like you will up north.” She smiled gently at the child she had loved and comforted since she was born, and it hurt her now to see her so bitterly disappointed. “Your Mama would kill me if she could hear me suggesting it to you, but I think you ought to be thinkin’ about California.” Paxton grinned. Her mother would kill both of them if she could hear half of their conversations.
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