Kaleidoscope

by Danielle Steel

  “Hi there.” He looked friendly, and smiled at John as he came up the steps.

  “Hello. Are you Charlie?” John smiled pleasantly. He had been good at this, in the days when he actually did the legwork. Now he just determined it from his desk on Fifty-seventh Street, but there was a certain thrill to doing this part of it again. He had tried to explain to Sasha once how much he loved it. But she couldn't understand it. To her, there was only dancing … and Lincoln Center … and rehearsals. Nothing else mattered. Sometimes he even found himself wondering if he did.

  “Yes, I'm Charlie.” The old man answered. “Who wants to know?”

  John stuck out a hand. “My name is John Chapman. I'm looking for some people who lived here years ago. In that house,” he pointed, “Eileen and Jack Jones. Do you remember them by any chance, sir?” He was always polite, friendly, at ease, the kind of guy everyone wanted to talk to.

  “Sure, I do. Got Jack a job once. Didn't keep it long of course. Drank like a son of a bitch, and she did too. I heard it finally kilt her.” John nodded as though it were something he already knew. That was part of the art form. “I used to work in the navy yard. Damn good work too, durin' the war. I was 4-F 'cause I had rheumatic fever as a boy. Spent the whole war right here, close to home, with my wife and my kids. Sounds kinda unpatriotic now, but I was lucky.”

  “You had children then, did you?” John looked at him with interest.

  “They're all growed now.” He rocked back and forth and a sad look came into his eyes as he gnawed on his pipe. “And my wife's gone. Died fourteen years ago this summer. She was a good woman.” John nodded again, letting the old man ramble on. “My boys come to see me from time to time, when they can. Daughter lives in Chicago. Went to see her last year, Christmas, colder'n a witch's teat. Got six kids too. Her husband's a preacher.” It was an interesting history and John patted the dog as he listened.

  “Do you remember three little girls who came to live with the Joneses about thirty years ago … right about this time of year … it was the summer of '58, to be precise. Three little girls. One about nine years old, one five, and the littlest one was a baby. She must've been about a year old.”

  “Naw … can't say as I do … they never had any kids, Jack and Eileen. Just as well. They weren't real nice people. Used to have some knock-down drag-out fights those two. Nearly called the cops on 'em one night. I figured he'd kill her.” It sounded like a charming home in which to leave three children.

  “They were her brother's children. They were just here for the summer, but one of them stayed on afterward …” He let his voice trail off, hoping to jog Charlie's memory, and suddenly the old man looked up at him with a frown, and pointed the pipe into John's face with a burst of recognition.

  “Now that you say all that, I do remember … some terrible thing … he had killed his wife, and the little girls were orphans. I only seen 'em once or twice, but I remember Ruth, that's my wife, tellin' me how cute they were and how terrible Eileen was to 'em, that it was a crime to leave those children with her. Half starved 'em, Ruth said, she took 'em some dinner once or twice, but she was sure Jack and Eileen ate it and never gave it to the children. I never knew what happened to 'em though. They left pretty soon after that. Eileen took sick, and they went somewhere. Arizona, I think … California … someplace warm seems like … but she died anyway. Drank herself to death if you ask me. Don't know what happened to them little girls though. I guess Jack musta kep' 'em.”

  “Only one of them. The rest of them left that summer. They just kept the oldest one.”

  “I guess Ruth musta known that. I forget.” He leaned back in his chair, as though remembering more than Jack and Eileen, it was all so long ago, and his wife had been alive then … it was bittersweet to remember back that far … he seemed to forget John as he rocked back and forth in his rocking chair, and he had given John what he'd come for. He hadn't learned anything he desperately needed to know, but it was a little piece of the puzzle. It explained some of Arthur's guilt. He must have known how terrible they were, and yet he had left them there … and left Hilary to them … in effect abandoned her to them. He could only begin to imagine what her life had been like in the house across the street, with the kind of people Charlie had described to him. The thought of it made John shudder.

  “Do you think anyone else along here would remember them?” John asked, but Charlie shook his head, still lost in his reverie, and then he looked up at John and answered.

  “No one lived here that long, 'cept me. The others all been here ten, fifteen years … most of 'em less. They stay a year or two, then move away.” It was easy to see why. “My eldest boy wants me to come live with him, but I like it here. … I lived here with his ma … I'll die here one day.” He said it philosophically. It was all right with him. “I ain't goin'.”

  “Thanks for your help. You've been a big help to me.” He smiled down at Charlie who looked up at him with open curiosity for the first time.

  “Why you want to find Eileen and Jack? Somebody leave 'em some money?” It hardly seemed likely, even to him, but it was an intriguing idea, but John was quick to shake his head.

  “No. Actually, I'm looking for the three girls. A friend of their parents wants to find them.”

  “That's a hell of a long time ago to lose someone and then go looking for 'em.” John knew only too well how true that was.

  “I know. That's why you've been such a help. You put the picture together with little tiny pieces of what people remember and now and then you get lucky, like I did with you. Thank you, Charlie.” He shook the old man's hand, and Charlie waved his pipe at him.

  “They pay you good for a job like that? Seems like a lot of wild-goose chasin' to me.”

  “Sometimes it is.” He left the previous question unanswered and waved as he stepped off the porch and walked back to his car. It was depressing just driving down the street, and it was as though he felt Hilary's eyes on him, as though he were Arthur leaving her there, and he couldn't help wondering how Arthur could have done it.

  The drive to his parents' house after that took less than an hour, and his older brother was already there when he arrived, drinking a gin and tonic on the terrace with his father.

  “Hi, Dad. You look great.” The old man looked more like sixty than nearly eighty. There was no tremor in his voice, he still had his hair, and he had the same long, lanky legs as John as he strode across the terrace to put an arm around his shoulders.

  “Well, how's my black-sheep son?” They always teased him, but they were proud of him too. He was successful, attractive, led an interesting life. The only thing his parents regretted for him was that he had divorced Eloise, they had always hoped the two would stay together and have children. “Keeping yourself out of trouble?”

  “Not if I can help it. Hello, Charles.” He shook hands with his brother and the two men smiled. There was always a certain distance between them, and yet John was fond of him. He was a partner in an important law firm in New York and he had done well. He was forty-six years old, he was powerful in the field of international law, he had an attractive wife who was president of the Junior League, and he had three very nice children. By the standards of John's family, Charles was the major achiever. But John always felt there was something missing from Charles's life, excitement perhaps, or maybe just plain old romance.

  And with that, Leslie, his wife, walked out of the house with her mother-in-law, who gave a whoop of delight when she saw John talking to his brother and father.

  “The prodigal son has arrived,” she intoned in her husky voice, hugging him close to her. She was still a handsome woman at seventy, and even in her plain yellow linen dress, there was an innate elegance about her. She wore her hair in an elegant knot, a string of pearls around her neck that her husband had given her on her wedding day, and the rings that had been in her family for five generations. “Don't you look well, darling! What have you been up to?”

  “A little w
ork on the way up. I just started a new investigation.” She looked pleased. She enjoyed her sons. They were all handsome and different and intelligent, and she loved them all, but secretly she had always loved John just a little bit more than the others.

  “I hear you've gotten involved with the ballet.” Leslie said coolly, eyeing John carefully over her Bloody Mary. There was something mean-spirited about the girl which always irked John, but he was amazed that no one else even seemed to notice. She was one of those women who had everything and should have enjoyed it, two lovely daughters, a charming son, a handsome, successful husband, and yet she seemed to begrudge everyone everything they had, particularly John. She always felt that somehow he had done better than Charles, and it annoyed her. “I had no idea you were interested in the dance, John.”

  “You never know, do you?” He smiled noncommittally, amazed that she had heard about Sasha, and then he chuckled to himself inwardly, thinking that maybe she had been meeting a lover at the Russian Tea Room.

  Moments later, Philip arrived, looking very tan after a European vacation. He and his family lived in Connecticut, and he played tennis constantly. He had a son and a daughter and a wife with blond hair and blue eyes and freckles. She looked exactly like what she was, the childhood sweetheart he had married in college. He was thirty-eight years old, and so was she, and she won all the tennis tournaments in Greenwich. They were truly the perfect family, except for John, who had never quite fit into the mold, and never done what was expected.

  And bringing Sasha up here would have complicated things even further. Eloise had been difficult enough. When she wanted to be sociable, she was great, and when she didn't, she would bring a type-writer, and insist on working till lunchtime, which drove Leslie nuts, and made his mother worry that she wasn't having a good time. Eloise was definitely not easy. But Sasha would have really been a shock to them with her leotards and her skintight blue jeans and her fits of petulance and her scenes of defiance. The very thought of her made him grin to himself as he looked at the ocean.

  “What's so funny, big brother?” Philip clapped him on the back, and John asked him all about Europe. The hardest thing of all was that they were all such nice people, and he loved them, but they bored him to death, and by Sunday afternoon, it was a relief to be driving to the airport. He felt guilty for thinking it, but they all led such normal, suburban lives. By the end of a weekend, he always felt like a misfit. At least his mother had had a nice time. Each of her sons had given her something special that was important to her. John had bought her a beautiful antique diamond pin with a matching bracelet, and it was just the kind of thing he knew his mother loved. Charles had given her stock, which John thought was an odd gift, but she seemed to be pleased with it, and Philip had given her something she had said she wanted for years, but never bought herself. A grand piano was being delivered to the house in Boston on Monday. It was just like him to do something like that, and John thought it was a terrific gift and wished he'd thought of it himself. But she seemed happy with the pin and bracelet.

  He returned the rented car at the airport, and flew back on the commuter with a mob of people returning from the weekend, and by eight o'clock he was back in his apartment making himself a sandwich for dinner, and going through Arthur Patterson's file again. He didn't know anything more than he did before, except the kind of home Hilary had been left in. And he knew exactly what he was going to do the next morning.

  But Sasha was far from thrilled when he told her when she came to his apartment later that evening. “What? You're going away again?” She was furious. “What is it this time?”

  John tried to pacify her as best he could, they had been on their way to bed when he mentioned it to her, which was a mistake, he recognized now, but he was still hoping to make love to her that night. It had been days, and with Sasha you had to hit it right, when she wasn't too tired, her muscles weren't too delicate, she didn't have a big performance the next day. It was a real feat getting her to bed at all, and he wasn't about to blow it for Arthur's investigation.

  “I told you, baby, I have a big case, and Km handling this one myself.”

  “I thought you were the boss. The choreographer, as it were.” He smiled at the comparison and nodded.

  “I am. But this is an exception. I agreed to do the legwork myself, if I could. It's a very important case to my client.”

  “What's it about?” She looked at him suspiciously, as she stretched out again on his bed, with all her clothes on.

  “I'm looking for three girls … three women actually. He lost track of them thirty years ago, and he has to find them quickly. He's dying.” He couldn't tell her more than that, even that was something of a violation of Arthur's confidence, but he wanted to spark Sasha's interest and her allegiance.

  “Are they his daughters?” He shook his head as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Ex-wives?” He shook his head again. “Girlfriends?” He smiled and shook his head again. “Then what are they?”

  “They're sisters.”

  “And they're in Florida?” She thought it all sounded very boring.

  “One of them was, a long time ago. I have to start way back at the beginning. I thought I had her here in New York, but I didn't. So now we go back to the beginning.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few days. I should be back by Friday. We can do something nice this weekend.”

  “No, we can't. I have rehearsals.” There was no denying, her schedule was not easy.

  “All right, then we'll work around it.” He was used to that.

  “You're sure you're not just going to Florida on vacation?”

  “Hardly. I can think of a lot of places I'd much rather go, with you, my lovely.” He slid across the bed, took her by surprise and kissed her, and this time she laughed. She let him undress her, and wound her sinewy legs around his body in a way that drove him mad as they began to make love, and then suddenly she pulled away, and he was afraid he had hurt her. He looked at her through his veil of desire and whispered in a hoarse voice, “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, but she looked worried. “Do you know what I could do to myself in positions like this?” But she seemed to forget about it as his ardor increased and along with it, her own passion. But she was always thinking about herself, her dancing, her muscles, her feet, her body.

  “I love you, Sash.” He whispered as they lay in each other's arms afterward, but she was oddly silent. Her eyes were open and she was looking at the far wall and she seemed upset as he watched her. “What's the matter, sweetheart?”

  “That son of a bitch screamed at me all afternoon today, as though I were doing something wrong … and I know I wasn't …” She was obsessed with her dancing, and for a moment it depressed him. He had been there before, only the last time it had been Eloise's goddam characters and her books, and the plot she couldn't get a grip on. Women like them were exhausting. He wanted Sasha to be different, yet he wanted her to care about him, and in the moments when he was honest with himself, he was not sure that she did. He wasn't even sure she was capable of it. She was totally engrossed in herself. And when he got up to get something to drink from the kitchen, she didn't even seem to notice his absence. He sat on the couch for a long time, in the dark, listening to the noises from the street, and wondered if he would ever find a woman who cared about him, a woman who cared about his work, his life, his friends, his needs, and enjoyed being with him.

  “What are you doing in here?” She was standing in the doorway, silhouetted gracefully in the moonlight, her voice a whisper in the darkened room, and she couldn't see the sadness in his eyes as he watched her.

  “Thinking.”

  “What about?” She came to sit beside him and for a moment it almost seemed as though she cared and then she looked down at her feet and groaned. “God, I should go back to the doctor.”

  “Why?”

  “They hurt all the time now.”

  “Have you ever thought ab
out giving up dancing, Sash?”

  She stared at him as though he were crazy. “Are you mad? I would rather die. If they told me I couldn't dance anymore, I would kill myself.” And she sounded as though she meant it.

  “What about children? Don't you want kids?” He should have asked her all those things long before, but it had been hard to distract her from her dancing.

  “Maybe later.” She sounded vague. Eloise used to say the same kind of thing to him. Until she was thirty-six, and decided it would interfere too much with her career, and had her tubes tied while he was away on business. And she was probably right. She was happier alone.

  “Sometimes if you put it off, 'later' never happens.”

  “Then it was never meant to be. I don't need children to be fulfilled.” She said it proudly.

  “What do you need, Sash? Do you need a husband?” Or did she only need the ballet? That was the real question.

  “I've never thought I was old enough to worry about being married.” She said it honestly, looking up at him in the moonlight. But he was forty-two years old, and he was thinking of all those things, he had been for a long time now. He didn't want to be alone forever. He wanted someone to love him, and whom he could love, not just between books and ballets and rehearsals.

  “You're twenty-eight. You should start to think about your future.”

  “I think about it every day, with that old maniac screaming at me.”

  “I don't mean your professional future, I mean your real life.”

  “That is my real life, John.” But that was precisely what he was afraid of.

  “And where do I fit into all that?” It was a night for soul-searching, and he wasn't sure if he should have started it. But it couldn't be helped. Sooner or later they'd have to talk about something other than her feet and her rehearsals.

  “That's up to you. I can't offer you more than this for the moment. If it's enough, wonderful. And if it's not …” She shrugged. At least she was honest. And he wondered if he could change her mind, if he could induce her to marry him … to want a child … but it was crazy to do that again. He seemed to have this incredible penchant for challenges and lost causes. “You ought to try climbing Everest sometime,” his younger brother had told him once, “it might relieve some of the tension.” He had met Sasha twice and thought John was crazy. “Do you want me to stay tonight?” she was asking him now. She was perfectly willing to go. She didn't mind the chaos of her apartment on the West Side with the eight million roommates and fourteen million dance bags.