Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  "Change it," Owen said to Laura the next day after Rosa told him it was a grim place for a young girl. "Tear it apart, paint it, fiimish it, and have the bills sent to me. Felix and Asa aren't interested in it anymore and I approve of progress. Make it yours."

  "I think I should wait, if you don't mind," Laura replied. She was sitting beside his bed, a book in her lap, thinking about the word dark. Felix and Asa's dark apartment was harsh; Owen's dark rooms were a sumptuous haven of paisley velvets. Oriental rugs, heavy silk drapes in green and gold, and gleaming brass floor lamps. "It isn't as beautifd as yours," she went on, "but just having three whole rooms to myself is so wonderful—^I have to get used to being alone, without Clay and Ben—^" Her nails dug into her palms. "One of—one of Clay's friends, you know; all hi£ fnends would come over and it would be so crowded and noisy"— just change the subject —^'*and I want to learn about Boston; it's so different from New York, so old and beautiful ..." She took a deep breath. "I'll decorate the rooms later, if that's all right with you."

  **They're yours to do with as you please, Laura," Owen said gently. *They're your home." Watching die play of alarm and confusion on her face, he longed to banish her fears, but he would not pry into what was bothering her. She would tell him when she was ready, or not at all. But as so many times before, he was amazed at how strongly he wanted to help her, to make her happy. Something about her brings that out in me, he thought, and he wondered how many other men would feel the same and go out of their way to bring back her smile.

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  He closed his eyes as she picked up the book and returned to her reading. He loved the sound of her voice, low and vibrant, slipping occasionally into a roughness that hinted at a harsh background, but then becoming smooth again, with a slight lilt, almost as if she were learning English as a new language. When she read aloud, whether from his favorite books on Cape Cod, or collections of short stories or poetry, her voice found a rhythm that sounded to Owen almost as if she were singing, and he dozed and woke and dozed again to that musical cadence that made him regret that he was past the age of courtship.

  Laura knew none of this, though she knew he liked the sound of her voice and rang for her frequently. He had at his bedside an array of buttons with which he could call one of the around-the-clock nurses who had taken over a guest room across the hall, or Rosa or any of the mjiids, or the housekeeping couple in the carriage house. But it was Laura he called most often, and even after she began classes at Boston University, she sat beside his bed when she was not at school, reading to him, talking, even doing her homework when he fell asleep.

  Owen had arranged for her to start college. He had instructed his secretary at the Salinger executive offices to call a few key people at the university, and since none of them had to be reminded of his generosity as a benefactor, Laura was accepted as a special student within a week.

  From the first she loved it. Everyone else seemed to take college for granted, but to Laura it was always a dream. The robbery at the Cape faded away; so did the police who were still working on it. And so did Ben. She was in a new life. Now and then she reminded herself how fragile it was—it all depended on Owen and she walked a thin line of possible discovery with him and his family—but then another month would go by, filled with the excitement of new ideas, new firiends who accepted her without question, even a small part in the freshman class play, and she would forget there was any danger at all.

  And with each month she knew she was becoming less like the Laura she had been. She explored the little side streets and enclosed neighborhoods of Boston, not because she was look-

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  ing for homes to rob or escape routes or crowded shopping malls for picking pockets, but because she wanted to learn about her new home. She loved the narrow cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill, each like an old English town frozen in time, with gas lamps burning day and night, solid rows of narrow, five-story houses of worn, mellowed brick with high, narrow windows, most of them fronted with wrought-iron balconies just deep enough to hold window boxes of geraniums, and tiny front yards with even tinier flower gardens. It was all snug and private and privileged, and ofren Laura found herself breaking into a small skipping step as she walked along Mount Vernon Street from Owen's huge comer house, because everything was settled and secure—and hers.

  In New York, even though many buildings had been preserved from earlier times, everything seemed to be rushing toward tomorrow and the day after, but Boston always seemed to make room for yesterday, its history and memories, its small-town feel. Laura stood on street comers, craning her neck to see glass and steel skyscrapers towering above small brick buildings with white steeples, or stone churches so old the walls had taken on the color of the earth. In small byways, tiny houses crowded the narrow streets, and she could almost hear the clip-clop of horses and the cmnch of wooden wagon wheels as they negotiated the tight comers. Time-wom cemeteries and brass plaques were everywhere, marking the nation's oldest church, its first bookshop, Paul Revere's house—and at every plaque Laura stopped and tried to imagine the city as it had been.

  She had never understood what history meant until she seemed to walk within it in Boston. And when she did, she discovered another meaning for family: a private history, the story of where each of us came from, just as Boston was the story of the nation's birth and growth.

  Ben's smile came to her, and his serious frown as he helped her and Clay with their homework or planned their next break-in. Ben is my history, part of what I am now. And I've lost him. But maybe someday . . . She mcked the thought away. Someday, maybe, she would have a history she didn't have to hide.

  Each week she discovered a different part of Boston, a dif-

  Judith Michael

  ferent kind of city. She spent hours in its museums and wandered through the Fens and sat in the PubHc Gardens. She would glance at the Boston Salinger, which faced the Gardens, with Fehx's office at the comer of the top floor, and then look back to the lush landscape where she sat, watching the ducks, squinting at the statue of George Washington, and wondering who had planned the perfect symmetry of the flower beds. She window-shopped along Boylston and Newbury streets, and once, by herself, bought a ticket for the syn^hony and discovered the soaring joy of a full orchestra. And wherever she went, she eavesdropped, listening to the broad Boston a and clipped syllables and watching the people as they talked: they had a careful way of holding fiieir mouths that kept the comers almost motionless while the lips softly, opened and closed, making murmured pronouncements.

  "Prim," Owen said, laughter rolling from him as Laura mimicked the speech at dinner. "Perfect."

  "You're not like that," she said.

  "No, I escaped. Felix does it for the family. He thinks he should sound like Beacon Hill. Td rather look like it: old, a little prudish, proud of my heritage, protective of my privacy.

  "But that's what Boston is like," Laura said.

  "Much of it, not all; it's a modem city with race riots and crime and poverty and the rest. A lot like New Yoric."

  Laura shook her head. "New York is like somebody ran-ning, dashing across the streets, always in a hurry. Boston is . . . Boston is like people walking and crossing at the comers and waiting for the lights to change."

  Owen laughed again. "You've figured us out." But he noted that once more she had avoided telling him about her life in New York.

  Most of the time in those first months in Boston no one asked any questions, and Laura was content to listen, making friends at school, reading to Owen or letting him reminisce about his life witti Iris, and listening to Clay, who, for once, was not complaining. He lived in one of the rooms on the fourth floor, across the hall ftx)m Laura's apartment, and after school and on weekends he worked at Felix and Leni's sprawling home in the leafy North Shore suburb of Beverly. He and Laura had dinner together twice a week; on the other

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  nights, when she ate with Owen in his rooms, Clay
ate in the kitchen with Rosa or out with friends Laura did not know. But she didn't try to find out who they were: he was happy, he was busy, he was away from Ben. And that left her free to make her own life.

  She was always learning something new, and everything she learned she remembered. Some of the family had ideas about how she should look and behave, and she stored in her memory all their suggestions. She also was discovering in herself a flair for doing things in a way that was uniquely hers.

  It began with gentle lessons from Leni on buying clothes, and more peremptory ones from Allison when she came home from college for Thanksgiving. "Winter colors," declared Leni, appraising Laura's skin and hair as they stood before a three-way mirror at Jana's on Newton Street. So Jana brought out dresses in midnight blue, wine, rose, hunter green, white, ivory, and black, and Laura tried them on.

  "Makeup would help," observed Jana.

  "Yes," Leni agreed. "But that is for Laura to decide. I think she will, when she has proper clothes."

  Laura contemplated herself in the mirror. Even beneath the rose-colored lights in the small, jewel-like salon, she was pale, with faint freckles from the sunmier sun at the Cape. Her hair was a mass of long, loose chestnut curls with stray curls on her forehead; her eyes were a darkly anxious blue. "I wouldn't know what to buy or how to put it on," she said.

  "You need a few lessons," Jana told her. "My services are available; I have taught the most photographed ladies on the eastern seaboard. It is very simple, believe me. You would have no difficulty; you have excellent bones. It is like an artist, working with the finest canvas; even the most basic materials make such a difference you would not believe—^"

  "Yes," Leni repeated. "Laura will decide."

  Jana fell into practiced silence, handing Laura the dresses to try on. Their vivid colors brought a glow to her pale skin. Soon, without realizing it, she was standing straighter, her head higher, and the worry was fading from her eyes. She saw hints of the kind of sophistication that seemed so natural in Allison: straight shoulders, the confidence of a level gaze, the smooth line from neck to back, with no slouch. That could be

  Judith Michael

  learned. It was much easier to leam it in an expensive dress. With Leni's approval, she bought two, all she could afford until next month's paycheck from Owen.

  Then Allison cleaned out her closets and gave eight dresses 2ind skirts to Laura, who added her own touches to them: in the flea markets around Salem and Marblehead, she bought Afghan belts, an ivory choker and stickpin, a fringed stole, sodalite beads which she twined with a strand of faux pearls, and a lace collar and cuffs from France.

  Allison took her to buy sports clothes. "You're tall enough for long lines and bulky tops. No frills and curlicues—you can't ever be cute; you're definitely the elegant type—so stick with long sweaters, long skirts and jackets, wide belts, high boots. Then if you'd remember to stand straight you'd look like a dancer." Laura concentrated on standing straight. And in the next weeks, on her own, she added long fringed scarves that made her look almost like a gypsy, her delicate face like a cameo above the vivid folds at her long throat.

  "Wear hats," said Barbara Janssen. "It's such a shame women have forgotten how much they do for one. They frame the face with refinement and distinction, and who doesn't benefit fix)m that?" Tilting her head, she gazed at Laura. "Wide brims, small crowns. You have a wonderful head if you'd only hold it high." Laura concentrated on holding it high, and added feathers and silk bands, scraps of lace and antique buttons, and, in sunmier, fresh flowers to the hats Barbara gave her from her closets, saying she had new ones and didn't know what to do with last year's.

  "Why is everyone doing so much for me?" Laura asked Rosa.

  "Well, they like you," Rosa said. "But I think mainly it's because you take care of Mr. Owen. They love him and they visit often enough, but they're very big on their own busy lives, and this way they know he's not counting the minutes until they come again." She glanced at Laura's downcast face. "Of course they do like you. I'm convinced that's the main reason."

  "Thank you," Laura said and kissed her.

  On their first Christmas together, she and Owen exchanged

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  gifts. They sat on the sofa in his study, flames softly burning in the fireplace, their breakfast on trays on the coffee table before them, and she gave him a scrimshaw letter opener, not rare, but of singular beauty. "For when you go back to work," she said, and he grinned with pleasure because he was strong again and because Laura had chosen his gift with love and care.

  "And for you," he said, handing her a leather briefcase. "For college. I thought of jewelry, but perhaps this is more useful right now."

  "It's perfect," said Laura. She ran her palm over the soft suede and smelled the pungent odor of fresh leather when she opened the case to see the compartments inside. She rested her head on Owen's shoulder. "But I don't need a gift; just being here is like getting a gift every day. I don't need any others."

  "You need dozens. Hundreds. Everyone does; don't ever believe we don't need expressions of love and admiration. I mean," he added when Laura looked puzzled, "all of us need to be told how wonderful we are, and how much we're loved and needed, but it's just as important for us to know that someone was thinking of us at a time when we were apart. If I suddenly wandered off to climb the Himalayas, wouldn't it please you if I brought you a gift when I returned so you would know I thought of you even in the midst of overwhelming new experiences? Isn't that another way of telling you I love you, to think of you and bring you something that allows you to share at least part of my exciting adventures?"

  A smile curved Laura's lips. "You could take me with you, and then I could share all of them."

  Owen burst into laughter. "By God, so I could. So I shall. Would you like to go to the Himalayas?"

  "I'd love to go to the Himalayas."

  "Then we shall, someday. But I also intend to buy you gifts, because there aren't enough ways to tell you how happy you make me or to thank you for making this house a happy place again."

  Rosa knocked at the door and came to take away the trays. "Laura, this is for you," she said, handing her an envelope. "It came yesterday but it got buried in all the Christmas cards. Is there anything else you need, Mr. Owen?"

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  "Coffee and brandy," he growled.

  "You know perfectly well—" Rosa began amiably.

  "Then find me a doctor who says it's all right."

  "You keep following orders and one of these days your own doctor will say it's all right." Rosa picked up the trays and as she straightened up, she glanced at Laura. "Good heavens, child, what is it? What's wrong?"

  Owen, too, had seen Laura's stricken look. "She's probably shocked by the idea of brandy for breakfast. We don't need anything else, Rosa. What time are you leaving for Felix and Leni's?"

  "As soon as I clean up. We're forty for dinner, so I'd like Laura, too, if I can have her."

  "Later," Owen said. "I'll send her over about two." When Rosa left, he asked gently, "Would you like to talk about it?"

  Laura shook her head. "I was just . . . surprised ... for a minute. I'm fine now. Would you mind if—"

  "Of course not. Go off by yourself and read your letter."

  "Just a few minutes ..." Her words trailing away, Laura left the room so she could read Ben's letter by herself.

  Dear Laura,

  I haven't written in all this time because I was afraid you'd still be angry and not want to hear from me. I didn't like leaving the way I did but after what happened I had to get out, as far and as fast as I could. I miss you. I think of you a lot and remember what it was like when we were all together. I wonder what you're doing and how you and Clay are getting along with the Salingers and whether they've ever suspected you of anything. I wish you'd write to me at this address; I'm working as a busboy and a bellhop in a hotel. Not great jobs, but they give me time to think and to decide what I'll do next. I kee
p remembering what you said about being an executive. Maybe I'll get back to the States one of these days and see you. Write to me, Laura. I feel awfully far away and I miss you and I've got to know what's happened since the Salingers were robbed.

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  "'Since the Salingers were robbed,'" Clay scoffed when Laura read him the letter. "Why doesn't he say since he robbed the Salingers? He makes it sound as if it just sort of happened. All by itself."

  "He sounds lonely," Laura said.

  "I guess." Clay stretched out his legs and stared at his feet. "But we can't help that, can we? He did it, we didn't. I mean, i I'm sorry for him, but things are really good here and what are i we supposed to do?"

  "I think we should write to him."

  "Not me!" he said vehemently. "And I don't think you should either. Aren't you having a good time here? I mean, why risk it? I'd rather not even know where he is."

  "In London, at a hotel called Blake's. And I think he really wants to hear from us."

  "Damn it, it's too dangerous! I'm sorry, Laura, but—"

  "You think Ben is dangerous? Or it's dangerous for us to write to him?"

  "I don't know. Maybe both. Anyway, he only wants us to write because he's afraid we might give him away."

  "That's ridiculous; he knows we wouldn't."

  Clay shrugged. "I just think we've got something pretty good going here; why should we risk it?"

  Laura gazed at the letter in her hand. As long as Clay liked it with her, he wouldn't leave. As long as he thought Ben was dangerous, he wouldn't go to him. "Will you go to college?" she asked.

  "Oh, shit." Clay made a face. **Listen, I'm a lousy student and I know it. I'll learn on the job; I'm good at that."

  "What job?"

  "I don't know yet. Maybe in a Salinger hotel. Felix was saying there might be a chance."

  "Felix?"

  "He probably only said it because Leni told him to. But I didn't ask; he brought it up and I said I might be interested."