“Tell me how things are going with your clinic,” she said.
“Good,” he answered, nodding. “I’ve been busy.” Then, wickedly, “Shirley says hi.”
“She does not!”
He laughed, and she felt his wine-scented breath on her cheek. “No, she doesn’t. I try not to talk to her about my social life.”
“I do think that’s best,” Tory said, with mock sternness. “She’ll be handling your social appointments, too!”
He grinned, and propped his chin on his hand, keeping his eyes on her. It occurred to her that everyone was treating them as a couple. That they were behaving like a couple. A little thread of guilt over that wormed its way through her. She couldn’t be doing that, could she? Not with—not when Jack thought she was—
At just that moment, Hank said, “Paulette. I told you my story, but you haven’t told me yours. How did you become one of Iris’s refugees?”
Tory’s heart skipped a beat. She had a sudden, vivid vision of Ellice Gordon’s black gun, the flat look in her eyes as she recited what she knew about Jack. Oh, no . . . Tory’s hand, lying on the table next to the fork she had laid down, began to tremble, and her voice shook when she said, “Hank, I just—I don’t know—”
He leaned back, not abruptly, not dramatically, but just enough to break the circle where she had felt, for a moment, safe. Connected. He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was even. Too even. It chilled her, despite the warmth of the room. He said, “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked.”
She dropped her hands to her lap and twisted her fingers together. “I can’t talk about it,” she said in a little rush. “I want to, but I can’t.”
He withdrew his arm from the back of her chair, and reached for his water glass. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“I—no, Hank, you don’t understand.” She glanced sideways at him, at his unsmiling face, the shuttered expression that had come into his eyes.
“No, Paulette,” he said quietly. “I don’t. But there’s no reason I should.”
“If I were able to tell you,” she said, whispering now, speaking too fast, too urgently, “I would. If I were going to tell anyone, it would be you.” His eyebrows rose, but she shook her head. “Hank, it’s just not—” She had been going to say “safe,” but she caught herself. Even that was giving away too much. She finished weakly, “It’s just not possible.”
“Forget I asked,” he said.
Her throat tightened so she couldn’t answer. Someone spoke to Hank on his other side then, and he turned away from her. She saw Iris get up to clear the table, and she pushed her own chair back to go and help, her feet dragging, the swish of her pretty green dress around her ankles no longer giving her pleasure. The bright colors of the decorations, the glimmering candles, the gay music all had lost their luster. She collected plates, smiled automatically, accepted an apron from Iris as she went to the sink to rinse dishes and set pots to soak. She helped serve tiny dishes of peppermint ice cream with Christmas tree cookies, but when she sat down before hers, she couldn’t eat it. She felt Hank’s eyes on her from time to time, but he didn’t say anything more.
Tory was startled, as the front door opened for the first of the departing guests to go to their cars, to see snow on the lawn and in the street. It fell in shimmery flakes that reflected the red and green lights from Iris’s front window. The shrubs and lawns glittered under the streetlights.
“I didn’t know it could snow here,” Tory said to Iris.
“Sometimes,” Iris said. “Won’t last, though. Never does here on the coast.”
Tory retrieved her jacket from the coatrack, and dug her car keys out of the pocket. She thanked Iris, and was surprised to find herself in the older woman’s embrace, Iris’s lined cheek pressed briefly to hers. She felt oddly violated, as she had when she found Iris in her house, but she knew that wasn’t fair. She managed to smile, and not to pull away too soon.
When she reached the front step, she found Hank waiting for her. She said artlessly, “I’m glad you’re still here.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you?”
She put her hand on his arm. “Of course I am. I was hoping to wish you a merry Christmas before you—we—”
“I’m going to follow you home,” he said. “The snow will make the streets dangerous.”
“There’s no need, really. I’m used to snow driving.”
“Are you?” He smiled, but it wasn’t the easy smile he had bestowed on her at the dinner table. He said in an offhand way, “Well, just the same, Paulette. The snow here is really slippery, because of being so close to the ocean.” When she still hesitated, he said, “Look. You don’t have to talk to me. Just let me follow you, for my own peace of mind.”
Tory nodded, mute and embarrassed. He walked her to the Beetle, held the door for her, and then went to his own car and got in. She started her engine, backed out of the driveway, and waited for him to pull out behind her before she turned her car for home.
His headlights followed her steadily back to the cottage. She turned in, shut off her motor, and climbed out. Hank pulled in after her, but only, it seemed, to back up, to turn back to the road. She hurried up to the driver’s side of his SUV, her pumps sliding dangerously on the icy driveway. He stopped, his engine idling, and slid down his window.
“Hank,” she said. She bit her lip, searching for something to say. “Hank, I—come down to the beach with me. With us, I mean. Me and Johnson. I know it’s late, and a little cold, but . . .”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s freezing,” he said.
“I know. Johnson has to go out, though, so I . . .”
With deliberate movements, he switched off his engine. He reached into his backseat for a thick parka before he opened the door and put his long legs out. “Get the dog,” he said, smiling at her. “But you’d better change those shoes.”
Johnson, released after the long evening, leaped over the doorstep and out into the yard, where he paced the inside of the fence, glancing back impatiently as if to see what was keeping Tory. Hank stayed with him while she slipped out of her dress and into warmer clothes. When she emerged, the three of them walked out through the gate and down to the beach. There was no snow here, but the wind from the ocean was as cold as Tory had ever felt it. She walked close to Hank, not taking his arm, but glad of the warmth, and the shelter from the wind his height gave her.
They strolled for a time, not speaking, listening to the waves wash against Haystack Rock. Johnson ran in exhilarated bounds, making big circles around them. When they reached the rock, they stood in the lee of it, out of the wind, and watched the dog sniff the tide’s edge.
Hank said, “Christmas Eve tomorrow. Hard to believe it’s here already.”
“It always seems to come too fast.”
He said, “A very different Christmas this year, I think. For both of us.”
She glanced up, and met his intent gaze. That half-forgotten feeling trembled in her belly again, and she put her hand on his arm. He covered it with his own, pressing it against his sleeve, his eyes on her face. “Hank,” she said. “You’re really—I mean—” She broke off, shaking her head. “This is like high school,” she said. “I was never any good at it then, either.”
“It’s not like high school for me,” he said, laughing. “I went to a seminary school.”
“Oh, my god. I never thought of that!”
He turned her hand, and held it in both of his. “So we’re a little awkward. Let’s try anyway.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “I just wanted to say how glad I am that I met you. How very nice you are.”
He chuckled, dropping her hand, putting his long arm around her shoulders. He pulled her close enough to press his cheek against her windblown hair. She leaned against him, closing her eyes. His chest was warm, and his hand on her shoulder was strong and sure. She wished she could hold this moment, preserve it like the gold butterfly frozen forever in
sea-green glass. She wished she didn’t have to open her eyes and remember who she really was, why she was here, what dread hung over her.
It was Johnson who broke the mood. He trotted up to them, bumping their legs to get their attention. Tory opened her eyes. The dog smiled up at her, winding around the two of them, smearing them both with cold wet sand. Hank released Tory, and she, laughing now, said, “Johnson, stop it!”
“I think he’s trying to tell us to get out of the weather,” Hank said.
“It’s a good idea.” Tory patted the dog, and her hand came away covered in sand. “Come on, Johnson. Let’s get you inside and toweled off.”
“I’ll help you,” Hank said. As they headed up the beach toward the lights of the cottage, he took her hand. His skin was smooth, his fingers strong and warm. She found, when they reached the gate, that she regretted having to let it go.
She brought a towel to the front step. Hank scrubbed Johnson from head to tail, then shook the towel out over the thin layer of snow that covered the yard. “That should do it,” he said.
Tory, feeling shy again, stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Can I get you anything?”
He was brushing sand off his coat. He looked up and smiled. “It’s late,” he said. “I have clinic hours in the morning, even though it’s Christmas Eve.”
“And I’ll be at the shop.”
“What are you going to do for Christmas, Paulette?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m going to do anything.”
“That’s not good.” He wasn’t smiling now, but looking at her intently. “Why not come to Mass with me?”
She was suddenly, sickeningly, overwhelmed by a flash of memory from her last dream, people on the steps of a church, shouting, threatening each other. A rush of panic made her heart thud in her ears. She said, with more force than she intended, “No! Oh, no, I—I don’t think—I don’t really—” She wanted to say something that might make sense, something that would soften her refusal, but she couldn’t think what it would be.
He said softly, “It’s okay, Paulette.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, weakly, but meaning it.
“Don’t be sorry. I just wish you wouldn’t be alone for Christmas.”
“I’ll be okay,” she said. He hesitated, looking at her. She thought for a moment he might kiss her cheek, but he touched it instead, the slightest brush of his fingers as he said good night.
As he turned toward his car, she called after him, “Merry Christmas, Hank.”
He glanced back. “And to you.”
He lifted one hand to her as he drove away, and she gazed after him, wishing . . . wishing what? Wishing he wouldn’t leave. Wishing it could all be different. Wishing she had met this lovely man at a better time, a time when she was free.
This was another way Ellice Gordon had hurt her, an unexpected wound. The anger that had flickered in her breast earlier that day grew into a flame.
28
Sorda ai consigli, sorda ai dubbi,
vilipesa, nell’ostinato attesa raccolse il cor.
Deaf to all entreaties, deaf to doubting, humiliated,
blindly trusting to your promise, her heart will break....
—Sharpless, Madama Butterfly, Act Three
For weeks after Christmas Doria never left her mother’s house. Not even to celebrate capo d’anno, the new year of 1909, could she bring herself to face the people of Torre. Father Michelucci took to calling every day, and for that she was grateful. Otherwise she saw no one.
The priest knew all the news of the Puccinis. The signore, in a towering temper at Elvira’s behavior on Christmas morning, had left Torre when their children did, leaving Elvira alone in Villa Puccini. Elvira was, Father Michelucci said, worse than ever. Her dresses were dirty, because no one but Zita would work for her now, and Zita flatly refused to do her laundry. Elvira’s eyes were wild, and at night, her neighbors saw her stalking through the empty house, talking to herself. People had taken, Father Michelucci said, to ducking into doorways or alleys when they saw her coming. She prowled the lanes of the village, seizing people’s arms, recounting her stories to anyone and everyone who would listen.
Doria said, “Stories about me?”
“About everyone, including her husband and her children. She imagines that everyone is against her, that everyone is plotting to harm her.”
Emilia poured more coffee for the priest, and then for herself. She set a biscuit on his saucer, but Doria saw she took none for herself, and she felt a rush of shame. There was little money for flour or sugar without Doria’s modest salary. She had tried to make this up to her mother, darning socks and mending towels and linens until her fingers were sore, but such efforts brought in no money.
Emilia scowled. “Those children of hers can’t stand to be with her, and I don’t blame them. But one of these days she’s going to do something really crazy, and then they’ll be sorry!”
“I’ve written to Giacomo,” Father Michelucci said. “I have his address at the Hotel Quirinale. He’s so angry at Elvira he won’t even discuss her.”
“I hope he’s working on his opera,” Doria said. She thought of him at his piano, candlelight flickering on his face, music emerging from his pencil one painful, tentative note at a time, the notes piling up, collecting, finally coalescing to make magic. She missed that magic, missed lying in bed at night and hearing his melodies and harmonies take shape in the studio. Surely she missed Puccini more than his wife did.
“His wife needs him here!” Emilia pronounced.
“She would only shout at him,” Doria said. “Then he can’t get anything done.”
Emilia tutted. “Family is more important than any opera.”
But Doria shook her head. “The signore can’t help it if his wife is crazy. He tried to stop her, Mamma, you saw him.”
“Hah,” Emilia said, sounding for all the world like Zita. “You mark my words, that woman will harm herself one of these days.”
Father Michelucci gave an unhappy sigh. “Or she will harm someone else,” he said.
It was the very next day, the twenty-fifth of January, that the message came from Villa Puccini. Emilia, still on the doorstep, called, “Doria! You have a letter! The Puccinis’ gardener brought it!”
Doria was washing clothes on the icy porch. It was a nasty chore in the winter, because no matter how hot the water was when she poured it into the tin tub, it cooled quickly. It made her long for summer, when she could wash the family’s clothes in the warm waters of the lake. She dried her reddened hands on her apron, and hurried into the kitchen, where Emilia had laid the envelope on the table and was standing to one side, her hands clasped hopefully beneath her chin.
Doria could see instantly that the letter was not from Puccini. It was from Elvira.
With trembling fingers, she picked it up and held it, gazing at the signora’s handwriting, with its extravagant loops and scrolled capitals.
“Doria!” her mother cried. “Open it, for pity’s sake! What does it say?”
Doria, biting her lip, slid her finger under the flap of the envelope and drew out a small sheet of beige notepaper, elaborately embossed with the Puccini initials. She read the note quickly, then read it again, hardly believing what she saw.
“What is it? What is it?” her mother begged.
Doria lifted her eyes to her mother’s, her heart lifting with wonder. “Mamma,” she said hoarsely. “The signora wants to see me!”
“Why? Does she want you back?”
Doria read the note a third time. “He must have written to her. Perhaps he even called her on their telephone! She doesn’t say that exactly, but she says she wants to talk to me.”
“I hope she means to give you your last two months’ wages,” Emilia growled.
“Non lo so, Mamma, but she wants me to run an errand for her on the way, and I’m to come now. Today!”
“Then you’d best change your clothes, Doria. I won’t have you running th
rough the village in that wet apron.”
Doria washed her face and hands in the basin, comforting herself as she shivered under the cold water with the thought that perhaps, soon, she could take a nice hot bath in the tub at Villa Puccini. She had pressed her best shirtwaist, and darned the moth holes in her woolen skirt. She had sewn the sleeve back onto her coat. Her shoes were spotless, and she had washed her black stockings just the day before. She brushed her hair up into its bun, perched her hat on top, and thrust the hat pin through. She smiled all the while, chiding herself for giving up hope. She should have known Puccini would not abandon her. She should have known he would take his wife in hand, sooner or later.
Her mother eyed her carefully, nodded without speaking, and opened the door for her. Doria, feeling as if the world had changed overnight, caught up a string bag and rushed out of the house. The signora’s letter requested her to pick up some disinfectant at the chemist’s. Surely that meant she had a job for her to do at the villa! No doubt it was some task she couldn’t manage on her own, and she had realized at last how much she needed Doria to help her.
A cold drizzle began the moment she was out the door, but she didn’t care about that. She felt buoyant, as if the summer sun had broken through winter’s clouds just for her, come to burn away the cloud of despair that had enveloped her since Christmas. A surge of brittle energy drove her steps until she was almost running up the lane. Though she felt curious eyes following her, that didn’t matter, either. Soon enough she would regain their respect.
In her hurry she nearly tripped over the sill of the chemist’s shop. She caught herself, and stood for a moment inside the door, out of breath, looking around for what she needed. When she spied the proper shelf, she crouched to reach for the brown bottle, neatly labeled, tucked away beneath boxes of starch and bluing and peroxide. She carried it to the counter, and set it down with a decisive gesture.
The Glass Butterfly Page 30