Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  "What about high schoolT'

  He shrugged. "Shit, I've gone this far; I might as well finish and wear that cute little cardboard hat and get that

  Judith Michael

  cute little rolled-up diploma and then tell 'em all to fuck off. By then I'll be smart enough to do anything I feel like, right?"

  Laura smiled. She felt good about Clay and even about Ben. She hadn't forgiven him, but he missed her, and whether she liked it or not she missed him, too—she couldn't help it—and now that she'd decided to write to him she felt better. It wouldn't hurt to keep in touch with him and maybe she could even find a way to get Leni's jewelryj back—if he hadn't sold it all. "Are you helping with Christ-' mas dinner?" she asked Clay. Ben wouldn't have a family dinner, she thought; it would be the first Christmas he didn't.

  "Allison and I are hanging holly and greens all the hell over the house."

  "Is that all you two do? Handle plants?"

  "Very funny. I'd rather handle her, but she's hung up on"— he put his nose in the air—"mature cocksuckers."

  "Clay! She never said anything like that!"

  He shrugged. "You should know; you're always yacking, the two of you. I'm just the baby brother, right? What do I know? I'm not big enough for mature screwing or any other fucking thing."

  Laura bit back a question about how much screwing he'd done. He would be eighteen in a couple of months and she'd be nineteen; they were old enough to have their own affairs and they were entitled to privacy. "Find someone your own age," she said lightly. "It's a lot simpler and probably a lot more fim." She lassed him on the top of his head. "I'll send Ben your love and tell him you miss him."

  "Bullshit." Suddenly his truculence vanished; his voice was young and almost wistful. "You can tell him I'm fine and I don't even remember what it was like to live with him."

  "I don't think I'll say that," she said quietly, and that night, on the walnut desk that had been Felix's, she wrote to him.

  Dear Ben,

  I miss you, too, and I want us to write and befriends again, but please don't come here or call us. No one

  Inheritance

  knows about you and it has to stay that way. You've got to understand that. Everything is wonderful here, we're happy, and we don't want to leave. We don't want to be forced to leave. I'm doing so many new things. . . .

  It was three months before Ben replied: a very short letter about London and a new job he had in a different hotel. He sent his love to both of them, as if they were just good friends. After that, he and Laura wrote every few months and sent cards on their birthdays. Laura would have liked more, but she wasn't sure what. She was still angry at Ben, but the robbery seemed so distant that her anger had lost much of its force. And she missed him and wanted back the strong brother she remembered, but she didn't know how they could do that. So she went along with the sporadic correspondence he had started. At least she knew she hadn't cut all her ties with him.

  Clay refused to read any of Ben's letters, though Laura always offered them to him, but he listened when she told him about Ben's new job in London, and another one after that, and then about his moving to Monte Carlo, where he worked in two hotels in eight months, and finally about his moving again, this time to Amsterdam, where he had a job at yet another hotel, on the security staff.

  "What a good place for a thief," Clay said.

  Laura did not reply. By then it was Christmas again; she was in her second year of college and she didn't get as emotional about Ben as she had. In fact, it was hard to remember what it had been hke to depend on him and be part of his life. It was Owen she depended on now.

  They had breakfast on Christmas morning, sitting in his study as they had a year ago. This time Owen's present to Laura was an envelope, and inside it she found a blank check.

  'To redecorate your apartment," Owen said. "Stop living in Felix and Asa's shadow. Make those rooms your own. I can't imagine why you've waited so long."

  "I thought I should make sure you liked having me here. What if you'd sent me away?"

  He sniiled in that quiet, intimate way she had loved from the first time she saw him. "You didn't really worry about that."

  Judith Michael

  She returned his smile, shaking her head, but it wasn't true. The worries were always there, even when she thought she'd forgotten them for a while. Even at this late date the police could find something about Ben and tell Owen, or the Salin-gers might learn from the New York police that she had a record as a thief, or Clay might let something slip and give them away. She felt safer with the passage of time, but the worries were never really gone, only held down beneath the Jl surface of her new life; and in the early dawn hours when afll garbage truck rumbled by or a car door slammed, she would^ awaken with a start and lie curled up in bed, fighting off her fears.

  But she kept them to herself, and after another year she found she could turn over when she woke at night and go back to sleep. It had been three years. The police had a thousand new crimes to solve; no jewelry was worth fretting over for such a long time. Besides, Owen was fully recovered, playing golf in the summer and tennis in the winter, and spending a few hours a week in the Salinger executive offices, semi-retired but still insistent on knowing what was going on in his hotels. And Laura was no longer the girl she had been. If anyone came looking for her, it would be evident inunediately that she had become someone else, that the girl who had been a thief was gone.

  Clay was different, too, handsomer than ever and beginning to achieve a smoothness like Ben's. He had graduated from high school and was working in Philadelphia; surprisingly, Felix had kept his word and had found him a job as assistant desk clerk at the Philadelphia Salinger. He visited Boston on weekends to see friends he'd made in high school, and when he came to Laura's engagement party for Allison he brought a pretty blond girl whom he introduce as Bunny Kiric. "Bunny waitresses at Fotheringill's," he told Laura. "And Laura studies business at Boston University. Two ambitious ladies."

  Laura and Bunny talked briefly, but Clay was surveying the room, and when he found Allison he focused on her with a brooding look. He can't still believe he wants her, Laura thought, but she realized she hardly knew Clay anymore. Once, before he moved to Philadelphia, she had asked him where he got the money to date as much as he did. "I only spend what I earn at Felix and Leni's," he replied.

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  "Clay, you aren't stealing, are you? You told me you weren't."

  "Shit, Laura, you know I'm not. Who do you think I am? Ben?"

  "He's not stealing anymore."

  "How do you know?"

  "He told me in his letters."

  "Sure."

  Laura didn't pursue it. When Clay didn't want to talk, it was impossible to get past his stubborn silence. She knew he wouldn't talk about Bunny Kirk either. If she asked, he would only say that she was a good friend.

  And why shouldn't he? That's exactly what I tell him about the men I meet at college. The trouble is, it's always true: they' re just good friends.

  A toss in the hay to keep the doctor away. As Ben used to say.

  Owen had asked her, a year ago, if there were no young man she loved. They had been dining at his favorite restaurant, celebrating his recovery. "You've spent enough time on a cardiac patient over eighty," he said. "You need men your own age, and other kinds of love."

  "I'm happy with the way I am," she said. But she'd known he was right.

  She remembered that as the sounds of her party rose and fell Aythmically around her and she thought of Paul Janssen. He's not here. He isn't coming. Not on time, not late, not at all.

  "Champagne for the hostess." Thad Wolcott was beside her, replacing her empty glass with a full one. "A dreaming hostess, I see."

  "I was remembering when Owen got well," Laura said. "We had a private celebration at Loch Ober's and he gave me a lesson in how to know good wines."

  "One of his many talents."

/>   Laura looked at him. "Why do you always talk about people as if you're making fun of them or don't like them?"

  "I like all the Salingers."

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "I complimented you on your dress. Was I making fun of you?"

  Judith Michael

  Laura shrugged, then caught herself. Ladies don't shrug their shoulders, my young miss. That was the hardest habit to break. "I'm never sure how you feel about anyone," she said. "I suppose I'd have to know you as well as Allison does."

  He smiled obscurely. "Allison doesn't care how well she knows me; she only wants to reform me."

  "I didn't know you needed reforming."

  "If I didn't, Allison wouldn't want me. Even if I were perfect—which I must admit I am not—I would pretend to have faults so Allison would want to make me her project."

  Laura knew he was making fun of Allison and she looked around, wondering where she was.

  "One thing you might remember," Thad said. "I can make her happy. She'll take me in hand and I'll turn out very well. She'll be proud of me and so will you; I promise you that."

  "You should be making promises to Allison, not to me."

  "That's too easy; she expects them."

  "Sometimes the easy things are the hardest to do."

  He looked at her with an alert eye. "What does that mean?"

  "It's easy to love," Laura said coolly. "But to do it well, you have to think of someone besides yourself. And that's something you haven't learned how to do, isn't it? Now if you'll excuse me, I should be taking care of my guests."

  She glimpsed his startled look as she made her way through the crowded room. For a brief moment she was proud of herself for thinking of a sharp, clever remark at the right time, just like Allison and her friends. But then she thought about Allison. I have to find out if she knows how Thad talks about her. She moved among her guests, smiling as they praised her apartment and her party and Rosa's hors d'oeuvres, but not pausing to talk until she reached Allison.

  "Laura, did you hear?" Allison asked. "One of Mother's bracelets showed up—from the robbery, you know? Just this afternoon, in a pawnshop in New York. Isn't that incredible? After all this time . . . Oh, let me introduce my friend from school; his father's a lawyer in New York, and he knows a private investigator who's been hanging on to our robbery for years ..."

  Laura did not hear his name. Ben is in Amsterdam. How could he pawn a bracelet in New York?

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  ". . . and they're looking for other pieces. Of course, it could be months or years before they show up— "

  I just got a letter; he didn't say he was coming to New York.

  "—but they think now they have a chance to find the thief. Wouldn't that be something? They might even find him before he sells Mother's necklace, which would be the most wonderful—"

  Ben, if you ruin everything I have, I'll never forgive you; I'll never have anything to do with you again.

  "I'm sorry I'm late," a voice said just behind Laura. "I really wanted to be on time but something came up."

  She turned. Paul Janssen had come to her party.

  Chapter 7

  EVERYONE stayed and stayed. "Great party!" they exclaimed to Laura. "So different!" Clay and his girl left early, but the others lingered, eating and drinking, shifting from one group to another until the noise level rose so high no one could hear the music, and Ferdy, stacking dessert dishes in the dumbwaiter, paused to turn up the volume.

  Laura had to escape the noise. Allison's words echoed in her mind— pawnshop . . . bracelet . . . a chance to find the thief —and she fled to her bedroom to catch her breath and try to ttiink. But when she turned to close the door, she found Paul standing there. "If you want to be alone I'll leave," he said before she could speak, "but if you only came in for some quiet, I'd like to share it.'*

  He was taller than she, and Laura looked up to meet his eyes, dark, probing, quizzical. She had thought about him so often over the past three years that now it was as if her thoughts had somehow come to life, dimming the fears that had seemed so terribly important just a moment before. I'll think about all that tomorrow, she thought, stepping aside, and when Paul walked into her room she closed the door behind them.

  "Much better," he said, grinning at her in the sudden silence. "That's a noisy group; you've done something they're not used to."

  "What have I done?" she asked defensively.

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  "Mixed up completely different kinds of people, given them a chance to have conversations they don't usually have. It's like a tossed salad out there. Those students never mix, you know."

  "You mean my classmates don't mix with Allison's."

  "Not in the normal course of things. And they never socialize with the others you invited—Owen's landscaper, who's out there talking to a very high-toned poet, and my mother's favorite cabinetmaker, who's drinking scotch and exchanging profound ideas with one of Harvard's top law students, or the fascinating greengrocer from the comer whom I talked to—^"

  "You're making fiin of them. Those are my friends."

  His eyebrows rose. "On the contrary. I'm admiring your courage. You invited the people you wanted instead of taking the easy way and having only Allison's friends, who know all about each other since they're together at every party all year long."

  "Courage," Laura repeated. A mischievous smile touched the comers of her mouth. "More like fear, probably. I was afraid I wouldn't have anyone to talk to."

  He chuckled, admiring her swift change from prickly de-fensiveness to sophisticated self-mockery. Another contradiction, he thought. 'Tell me how you've gathered such a wide circle of friends."

  "You mean peculiar," she said coldly. "You wouldn't ask that if my friends all lived on Beacon Hill."

  "It wouldn't be a wide circle if they did." He stood relaxed in front of her, his hands in his pockets. "Are you always armed for battle, even when someone asks you an innocent question?"

  "That wasn't innocent. You were saying I must be different if I have such different friends."

  "You are different; that's why I'm here." He reached out to take her hand. "Could you invite me to sit down for a few minutes? It's difficult to get a friendship going standing up."

  Involuntarily Laura glanced sideways at her bed. It seemed to be oozing in all directions, looming huge and inescapable, filling her room. And Paul seemed to be bigger, too, taking up more of the private space she'd never shared with a man. She shivered slightly with anticipation and apprehension; all she could think of was Paul and her bed, a few feet apart.

  Judith Michael

  "I said friendship."

  She looked up and saw his amused smile. Stung, she turned without replying and led the way to the wing chairs flanking the fireplace. They weren't really close to the bed; they were fifteen feet away, and their high backs blocked Laura's and Paul's side vision like blinders on a horse. The two of them sat facing each other in a circle of amber light, a small table between them, the shadowed room like a retreat as sounds of the party drifted through the closed door.

  "I've been hearing about you for three years," Paul said conversationally. He sat relaxed in his chair, an ankle resting on one knee, watching her almost lazily. "And I should have spent some time with you last summer; I'm sorry I didn't. You've become a real member of the family. I assume that means you like us."

  "I love you," Laura said. She flushed. "I mean, I love Owen and Allison and Leni and Barbara—they've all been wonderful to me."

  "I don't hear my uncles Felix and Asa on that list."

  She shrugged, then caught herself. "I don't see much of them."

  "A careful answer. They're not easy men to get along with, although Asa can be pleasant when he gets out of Felix's orbit. Don't you miss your own family?"

  "No. I mean. Clay is here and . . . he's all I've got."

  "No one else? I didn't realize that. It must have been hard, then, to leave your friends in
New York."

  "It's always hard to leave friends." Laura's face was smooth. "But I like meeting new people; it gets dull having friends who know all about each other since they're together at every party all year long. Rosa says you've been traveling for the past few years."

  Something wrong there, Paul thought. She'd used his own words and they'd rung false. He wondered what was forbidden territory: her friends, or New Yoric, or leaving New Yoiic. "Europe, Africa, India," he said. "It keeps me out of trouble."

  "And what else do you do?"

  "I take pictures."

  "And sell them?"

  "No, why should I? I do it for pleasure."

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  "Some people might need the money," Laura said dryly.

  He nodded. "I'm luckier than most. My great-uncle Owen set up a trust for me when I was still crawling around his study and charming him with my baby wit. I probably looked as restless and unambitious then as I am now and he took pity on me and ensured my future. I did go to college; does that make me sound a little less frivolous? And now and then I do think about taking photography seriously. I'm told you're in college. What will you do when you finish?"

  "Something in hotel management; that's what I'm studying. And maybe some acting in my spare time." At his look of surprise, she said defensively, "Why shouldn't I? Other people have hobbies. I've had parts in four plays and everyone says I'm very good."

  "And you like it?"

  "It's wonderful. To be somebody else and have all your lines written so you never have to worry about what you might say—because playwrights use words more beautifully than the rest of us."

  He pretended he had not noticed her abrupt shift in mid-sentence. "I thought your hobby might be making friends. You were going to tell me how you met all those people out there."

  "Oh. It's nothing special; I don't know why you think it is." She was frustrated because instead of talking about himself the way most men did, he kept trying to find out about her. But she realized she wasn't angry, as she usually was when people asked prying questions; she was more concerned with saying the right things and keeping that warmth and interest in his eyes. And she knew why. Because he was the most attractive man she'd ever met; because he had an aura of excitement about him, something she might share if she could be clever and quick enough; because he was like a magnet, pulling her closer, making her want to talk instead of running away.