All She Ever Wanted

by Lynn Austin

  She had never forgotten Leonard’s warning, though, and had quickly discovered that he’d been right. She’d learned these past two years not to trust the wealthy “summer boys” who blew into town with their fancy cars and smooth words. They were fun to dance with, fun to build bonfires with on the beach and join for an afternoon sail. But she knew better than to fall for one of them in a summertime romance. She had bigger plans in mind for her future. Her mother had always encouraged Eleanor to be independent, to get a good education, to be her own person—and that’s exactly what she intended to do.

  By the time Eleanor’s shift as a lifeguard ended, there was no one left on the beach at all. Other years, she usually could count on a handsome guy or two to offer her a ride home. Instead, she would have to walk. She climbed down from her perch and turned the sign on her chair around to read: No Lifeguard on Duty. Then she went inside the beach house to change into street clothes and prepare for the mile walk home.

  She hadn’t hiked very far when a shiny black car glided to a halt beside her and someone called to her from the open window. It frightened her until she saw that it was Mr. Messina, her mother’s landlord.

  “Can I offer you a ride home, Eleanor?” he asked. “I’m headed that way.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She climbed into the passenger’s seat, the leather upholstery hot beneath her thin summer shorts. She wondered how Mr. Messina could stand to wear a three-piece suit on a hot day like today.

  “So, have you been out for a swim?” he asked casually.

  “No, I don’t get to swim—unless someone decides to drown,” she said, laughing. “I’m the lifeguard.”

  “The lifeguard! I’m impressed!” he said with a grin. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a young woman to take on.”

  “I’m eighteen. I graduated last month.”

  “No kidding? I remember the first time I saw you—you were just a little girl. But if you’ll forgive an old man like me for noticing, you’ve turned into a very beautiful woman.”

  “Oh… well… t-thank you, Mr. Messina,” she stammered. She felt herself blushing. A few of the “summer boys” had called her pretty, but no one had ever told her she was beautiful before—much less called her a woman. And Mr. Messina was a grown man, a city man who had surely seen a lot of women. She glanced at him to see if he was serious and saw nothing but admiration in his gaze. He was a very good-looking man, even if he was old and a little overweight.

  “Hey, please don’t call me Mr. Messina,” he said, making a face. “It makes me feel old. You’re an adult now. Call me Lorenzo, okay?”

  She shrugged. “Okay.” But she was too timid to try it out. She liked being called an adult, though.

  “So what else are you doing this summer besides working at the beach?” he asked.

  “Nothing. That’s the problem. There’s nothing to do around here now that all the men have gone off to war. It’s almost as boring as in the wintertime.”

  “Do you like to sail?”

  “Sure—but there aren’t any ‘summer boys’around to go sailing with, either.”

  “We’ll have to see if we can do something about that.”

  Eleanor wondered what he meant, but she didn’t have time to ask; they had reached her apartment. She gathered up her beach bag and opened the door.

  “Thanks a million for the ride,” she said. “Bye!” She didn’t quite have the nerve to say “Lorenzo.”

  She was halfway home from work the following afternoon when Mr.

  Messina happened to drive by once again and offer her a ride. This time they got on the topic of food. “What’s your favorite restaurant?” he asked her. She laughed.

  “It’s hard to have a favorite restaurant when I’ve never eaten in one.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No,” she said, laughing again. “We can’t afford to eat at any restaurants in Deer Falls. And I’ve never been anyplace else. You can’t count the diner, can you?”

  “You have a beautiful laugh,” he said, gazing at her. “I would tell jokes just to hear it again, if I knew any. But seriously, what about all your boyfriends— don’t they take you out to nice places?”

  “I don’t have any boyfriends, L-Lorenzo.” She said his name, just to see how it felt, and was embarrassed when it came out hesitantly. He didn’t seem to notice. They pulled to a stop in front of the apartment again, but he touched her arm to stop her from climbing out.

  “Wait, Eleanor. You don’t mean to tell me that a beautiful, charming young woman such as yourself doesn’t have any boyfriends? I refuse to believe it.”

  “It’s true,” she said, smiling as she leaned back against the car seat. “The boys from high school are all clumsy and boring. Their idea of a romantic date is to go to the movies and buy a milkshake afterward. And I know better than to get involved with the ‘summer boys.’”

  “Why is that?” He turned toward her, stretching his arm across the back of the seat, behind her head.

  “My brother warned me about them before he joined the army—and he was right. They’re all a bunch of spoiled rich boys who flirt and lie and tell me things to get their way, but they really look down on me. I’m just a local-yokel to them, a summer fling. Their families have ‘old money’and they’ll marry wives who have ‘old money.’I hope I’ll get to meet a real gentleman, someday—someone who’ll take me to fancy restaurants and treat me like a grown-up instead a summer fling.”

  “I envy that man. He’ll be lucky indeed.”

  On the third afternoon, Eleanor saw Lorenzo’s car parked outside the beach house when she’d finished dressing after work. “I can’t believe this is a coincidence,” she said, laughing. “Are you trying to spoil me, Lorenzo? I’ll forget how to walk.”

  “It isn’t a coincidence today,” he said. He looked like a movie star when he smiled. An older Clark Gable, in fact. “I waited for you on purpose because I wanted to ask you a question.” She climbed in beside him, intrigued. Once again he turned to her, his arm stretched behind her head. “Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m perfectly serious.”

  She felt her heart do a funny little flip as he studied her face, waiting for her answer. It was the same feeling she sometimes got when a good-looking ‘summer boy’flirted with her. But Lorenzo was a grown man, a handsome man—and he found her attractive.

  “I… um… Listen, I didn’t say what I said yesterday about never eating in a restaurant so that you’d feel sorry for me and—”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you at all.”

  “W-why are you asking me, then?”

  He laughed and somehow moved a little closer to her. He smelled good—like cigars. “Because I’ve eaten in restaurants so many times they’ve lost their novelty… their charm. But if I take you, I’ll get to experience all the freshness of it through your eyes. It will be like the first time for me, too. So… will you have dinner with me tonight, Eleanor?”

  “I… I’ll ask my mother—”

  “Of course. And I’m sure Fiona will approve. But I have to say, I’m a little surprised that a young woman of your wisdom and maturity is still required to ask permission to eat with an old friend.”

  “I’m not required, exactly—”

  “Good. Then I’ll leave it entirely up to you. But I hope you’ll say yes.”

  He started the engine and swung the car around for the drive home.

  Eleanor’s head spun. She wanted to go in the worst way, but something about the offer didn’t seem quite right. She was pretty sure he was married, even though she’d never actually seen his wife. But Eleanor brushed the troubling feeling aside. Lorenzo was an old friend of the family. And he’d made her feel as though she was doing him a favor by accepting—and hurting his feelings by refusing such a generous offer.

  “I would love to have dinner with you,” she said as they pulled to a stop in front of her apartment.

/>   “Good. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. We’ll go to Sanderson’s for steaks.”

  Eleanor didn’t tell her mother. It seemed as though all the magic would fade away from this special evening if she had to explain that the landlord was treating her to dinner because she’d told him she was bored this summer and that she’d never eaten in a restaurant before.

  And the evening was magical. Lorenzo treated her to a leisurely six-course meal by candlelight, with soft music playing in the background and a fairy-tale view of the shimmering lake from the restaurant window. But it was more than her first taste of restaurant food that made the evening so memorable. It was the mannerly way Lorenzo treated her, making her feel like a woman for the first time in her life. And the way he looked at her, making her feel all fluttery inside.

  “Let’s do this again… soon,” he said when he brought her home close to midnight.

  “It can’t be too soon,” she laughed. “I won’t be hungry again for at least a week.”

  “You make me wish I was young again, Eleanor. In fact, being with you makes me feel young. Thank you so much.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Good night.”

  Eleanor walked on air all week, even when she had to walk home from work. Lorenzo only happened to be passing her way twice, and the second time he asked her which afternoon she had off.

  “I’m off this Thursday—why?”

  “Would you go sailing with me?” He looked so eager, so hopeful, she couldn’t refuse. She didn’t want to refuse. She told her mother that she was going to the lake with friends—which was true enough. Lorenzo spent the entire afternoon with her on his magnificent sailboat. All they did was swim and sunbathe and talk, but he was so attentive, asking her hundreds of questions and listening with genuine interest to everything she had to say, that by the time the day ended she felt as though she had gone on an exotic vacation.

  Eleanor had lived in Deer Falls most of her life, but she’d never seen Lorenzo Messina’s summer home before. It was at the end of a long, gated driveway, hidden within dozens of acres of woodland. He had his own private boat launch and dock, and a secluded beach. It seemed like paradise, right outside Deer Falls.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked her as two servants ran outside to help him tie up the sailboat. “Of course you are. Come in, and I’ll have my chef fix us something.”

  She agreed, curious to see what the inside of his magnificent home looked like. What she saw of it was dazzling. And the meal his servants served—by candlelight in the mansion’s dining room—was even better than the dinner at Sanderson’s had been.

  Once again when Lorenzo dropped her off at the apartment, he thanked her. Then he leaned close, the scent of sun and sand and fresh air on his skin, and gently kissed her on the cheek. Eleanor barely felt the pavement beneath her feet as she stepped out of the car and watched him drive away. But when she turned to go inside, she saw her mother standing in the store window holding the blackout curtain in her hand, her face a mask of horror.

  Eleanor had never felt more afraid. Fiona moved like a woman in a dream, opening the shop door to let Eleanor inside, the expression of shock and revulsion never leaving her face. She trembled from head to toe as she stood in Eleanor’s path.

  “What in heaven’s name did you think you were doing!Where did you go with that man? What did he do to you?”

  “N-nothing—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” She slapped Eleanor across the face. “I saw you together! I saw him kiss you!”

  “I-it was nothing. It didn’t mean anything.” But Eleanor knew as she rubbed her stinging cheek that she was lying to her mother. She remembered the wonderful, giddy feeling she’d had all day when she’d been with Lorenzo on the boat. She wanted to be with him again tomorrow and the next day and the next. If her mother was upset about the age difference between them, then she’d have to make her understand that it didn’t matter.

  “Don’t you ever go near him again, do you hear me?”

  “Why not? Lorenzo respects me, Mom. He treats me like a grown-up, which is more than you or anyone else around here does. He’s the only person in the world who listens to me.” Fiona looked as though she might faint.

  “No, Eleanor, no! He’s not listening to you, he’s trying to seduce you!”

  “He is not! How can you say such a thing?”

  “Because I know what kind of a man he is. I know exactly what he’s trying to do. He’ll flatter you and make you feel special and win your trust, and then… then—” A cry choked off her words.

  “You don’t know anything about Lorenzo. He’s kind and sweet, and he laughs with me—”

  “I know everything there is to know about him! I’m his mistress, Eleanor! That’s how I’ve been able to support you all these years.”

  Eleanor went cold all over. “That’s a lie!”

  “It’s the truth, God help me. I wish it wasn’t. And now it seems he wants you for his mistress, as well. I’ll never let him have you, Eleanor. If I have to lock you in your room to keep you away from him, I swear I’ll do it!”

  Eleanor pushed past her mother and ran up the stairs to the bathroom, slamming the door, locking it behind her. She was afraid she was going to be sick, that she’d throw up the wonderful dinner that Lorenzo’s chef had prepared. She sat on the toilet seat in the darkened bathroom and sobbed. She didn’t know which was worse—the thought of what Lorenzo Messina did to her mother or of what he’d nearly done to her.

  After a long time, her mother knocked on the bathroom door, pleading with her. “Eleanor, please. Open the door.”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t move.

  “Please, Eleanor.” Fiona was crying, too. “Please forgive me. I did what I had to do.” She begged for what seemed like hours, but Eleanor didn’t reply. She couldn’t face her. She was ashamed of her mother, ashamed of herself.

  Eleanor knew that she would have to leave Deer Falls. She couldn’t risk running into Lorenzo Messina ever again. And she could no longer face her mother, knowing what she was. As Eleanor huddled in the bathroom, waiting for dawn and the first bus out of town, she planned what she would do.

  Her mother was sitting at the table, staring blindly into the distance, her beautiful face swollen and red, when Eleanor came out to tell her of her decision. “I’m leaving. You won’t have to worry about me.” She drew a breath to steady herself and to keep from crying. “I’ve decided to go to New York City. I’m going to look up some of my father’s relatives, and—” “What? You’re doing what?”

  “Leonard found one of our father’s relatives, a man named Russell Bartlett. He directs plays on Broadway—”

  “No. … no…” Fiona moaned. “Don’t do it, Eleanor. Don’t go there. They won’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Of course they will. I must have aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents on my father’s side. They can’t all be dead. Just because you didn’t get along with them doesn’t mean that I won’t. I’ll call every Bartlett in the phone book.”

  Fiona scrambled to her feet, gripping Eleanor’s arms, shaking her. “Don’t go to New York! You’ll get hurt by those people!”

  “Why? Why won’t you tell me about my father? What happened to him? He isn’t really dead, is he?”

  “Yes he is, I swear. He died thirteen years ago.”

  “How did he die? I want the truth!”

  Fiona looked as though she’d rather die herself than tell her, but she finally did. “He killed himself. He lost everything in the stock market, and he killed himself.”

  Eleanor swayed as she absorbed the shock. “Well… well, he must have had parents, sisters and brothers. Some sort of family. I’ll look them up. I already know I have an uncle—Russell Bartlett.”

  “No… you don’t! Please don’t make me do this, Eleanor. Please don’t make me tell you—”

  “What?What are you hiding?” Fiona was so pale that Eleanor thought she might faint.

 
; “He isn’t your uncle, he’s your half-brother.”

  “How? Was my father married once before?”

  Fiona sank down on the chair and covered her face. “No… your father and I were… were never married. He was married to Russell’s mother.”

  Eleanor groped for the edge of the table to steady herself. “What are you saying? That I’m… illegitimate? You were my father’s mistress, too?”

  Fiona didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her cries of grief and despair told Eleanor the answer. She walked away from her mother, hating her, and went to her room to pack. She locked the bedroom door behind her, but this time her mother didn’t stand outside and beg.

  Eleanor took all day to pack, deliberately choosing what she would take with her, what she would leave behind. She was leaving home for good. She would never return. She would go to a place where no one knew who she was or where she had come from. She would start all over again.

  When she finished late that evening, Eleanor walked down to the drugstore and bought a root beer float and a New York newspaper, then sat at the soda fountain to read it, praying that she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. The paper was filled with advertisements for jobs in defense industries, pleading for women to come forward and do their part. She circled three or four of them in towns she’d never heard of, then went to the bus station to ask about fares and schedules. She didn’t want to go home yet, didn’t want to face her mother again, so she decided to walk around the lake until she ran out of energy, saying good-bye to the place that had been her home for thirteen years.

  The streets of Deer Falls were pitch-black with all the streetlights turned off and blackout curtains in all the houses, but Eleanor knew the way to the lake by heart. She took off her shoes and waded along the shoreline, letting the sound of lapping waves soothe her, crying and crying for all she had lost. An hour later she came to a stretch where the sand ended and the woods met the shore. She sat down on a rock and put on her shoes, then walked on. She had walked only a quarter of a mile farther when she heard a car approaching. The woods were so quiet, she could hear each sound distinctly, and the purr of the engine sounded like Lorenzo’s car—or at least an expensive car like his. She thought of him with her mother and felt sick again.