by Kitty Zeldis
“You’re upset,” he said.
She thought of the night in his room last summer, when she’d gone to him without fear, without shame, with her desire for him glowing like a candle cupped by her two willing hands. She wanted to be that girl again, but that girl no longer existed. The realization made her cry.
“Ah, Eleanor, no. Don’t.”
When she didn’t stop, he asked, “Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Something happened last summer. Something I didn’t want to tell you, ever. But it’s no good—I have to tell.” She blotted her face, blew her nose, and began to speak.
“That son of a bitch!” Tom exclaimed when she finished. “He didn’t, I mean you weren’t—”
“Raped?” she said. “No.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“He was your sister’s husband. I knew you’d be loyal to her. And I was afraid you’d think I encouraged him in some way. That I deserved it.”
“I would never think that,” he said. “I know you too well.” His face changed. “And I know him. Or I thought I did. He was always a little too free with his hands, but I never dreamed he’d cross the line. I’m going to have it out with him—”
“You’re not going to hit him, are you?” There was something horrifying about the idea. Also thrilling.
“Hit him? No, I wouldn’t stoop to his level. I just want him to know how contemptible I find him.”
“I thought it was all behind me.” She blew her nose. “I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry.”
He began to stroke her hair again and she wanted to give in to the feeling it stirred. Yet before she could succumb, there was something else she had to say. “I’m still a virgin—at least in the literal sense. But Wynn took something from me that I can never have back. I don’t feel the same anymore.”
“He did. You are different now. I can sense it,” he said.
“So you see it too?”
“I do and it makes me sad. That trusting quality you had—it’s gone. I know it was bound to go for one reason or another. I’m just sorry it was because of my brother-in-law.”
“I am less trusting. I don’t even trust you.” She had to look away then.
Tom put a finger under her chin to turn her face back to his. “Last summer when I told you I wouldn’t let you become my mistress, it was because I knew that no matter what you said, deep down you wanted to save that part of yourself for a husband, Eleanor. It’s what you were raised to believe was right, and you did believe it. I never met anyone who believed it more. To have slept with you then would have been selfish. Cruel even. I still want to sleep with you—I want that very much. But I’m not going to pressure you. I have to know that you want it as much as I do. And that you’ll be able to wake up tomorrow with no regrets.”
No regrets? How could she know that? Yet he was leaving it up to her—he respected her and would let her take the lead. As they continued to look at each other, she realized that she wanted to have this night with him. She leaned into him and this time, she initiated the kiss. She saw his eyes widen a little in surprise. Then they closed as he pulled her even more tightly to him.
Afterward, Eleanor lay next to Tom as he slept, eyes gradually adjusting to the dark. On the nightstand, next to a lamp, was the green-and-red tin of Romeos, the brand of rubbers Tom used. She had never seen one up close before.
Tom let out a single, clipped snore but didn’t wake. She had done it, crossed the threshold, surrendered, or rather, put aside, her virginity. The act itself had hurt, but Tom had been gentle and reassuring; he said it would be better the next time. She nodded and went into the bathroom to wash away the coin-size smudges of blood on her inner thighs before returning to bed. She was sorry, but her regrets—and yes, she did have them—were not about what she’d done, but how she felt when she had done it. Again she traveled back to the time last summer when she’d gone up to Tom’s room, and wished she could graft that night on to this one. It was like she’d told Tom—she’d already lost her innocence and she mourned that more than anything else.
Eleanor got up quietly, feeling around for the clothes that had been tossed to the floor. Tom stirred and rolled over on his side. “Do you have to go?” he said.
“I do. My mother expects me.”
“You’ll come back? Soon?”
“Very soon.”
“Will you be all right getting home?”
“I’ll be fine. It’s not even that late.”
“Let me at least come downstairs.” He reached for his clothes.
They were very quiet on the stairway and Eleanor turned away quickly, before he could kiss her. Then she waited on the curb while he hailed the taxi, and without looking at him, took the bill he pressed into her hand. “I’ll call you,” he said.
Settled in the backseat, Eleanor looked out at the city as the Checker cab made its way uptown. The somnolent streets of the Village gave way to the liveliness of Times Square, where people were streaming out of theaters and movie houses, and the lights from the marquees illuminated the throngs on the sidewalks. She wondered whether her mother would still be up and began to come up with some details about the party. The need to lie to Irina was about to end though. She was going to get a place of her own. What had been a wish, a dream, a speculation became in this moment a certainty. She couldn’t live amid the trappings of her childhood any longer; she had moved too far beyond their confines.
Three days later, Eleanor signed a lease for a small apartment on Barrow Street, not far from her office. A four-flight walk-up, it had a front room that faced the street, and a back room that looked out over a tiny garden. She had no access to it and nothing was in bloom, but there were all sorts of shrubs and even what she thought might be a cherry tree; come spring, she would find out. Between the two rooms was a combination kitchen and bathroom, with a hinged-over tub that served as a counter when not in use, a hot plate, and an old-fashioned icebox under which she kept a pan, to catch the drips. The toilet was just outside the apartment, behind a separate door.
She told her mother two days before she was set to move in, over cups of tea and the new issue of Vogue. “You’re leaving? Why?” Irina said. “Are you so unhappy with me?”
“Not with you, Mother. But it’s true that living here isn’t making me happy. I need to be on my own.”
“Alone? What kind of girl lives alone, without parents or a husband?”
“The kind of girl I am,” said Eleanor.
“If your father were here, you wouldn’t be doing this. You always loved him better.”
Eleanor was stunned. This was in fact true—she had always felt closer to her father than she had to her mother—but it wasn’t something that had been discussed in her family. Ever. She had thought that by never actually saying the words, her mother would remain ignorant of her preference. But clearly she’d been mistaken. How to reply to this without hurting Irina? Or telling yet another lie? “It’s not that I loved him better. It was easier with him, that’s all. He didn’t worry so much.”
“That’s because he left all the worrying to me,” Irina said bitterly.
“You sound . . . angry about that,” Eleanor ventured. Had her mother been angry at her father? Of course her parents had squabbled, but as a child, Eleanor had thought that was just what grown-ups did.
“What difference does it make now anyway?” Irina said. “Your father is dead. And you’re abandoning me.”
“Not abandoning you,” said Eleanor. “Finding me. I want to live on my own, and I think I would want that even if Papa were here.”
“I don’t understand you,” her mother said. “I left your grandmother to marry your father. That’s what girls did. Nice girls anyway.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Eleanor. “Things are different now. And you helped make me different. You sent me to college.”
“I did even though it broke my heart to let you go. But I k
new you were a smart girl. I wanted you to make something of yourself. To have chances that I didn’t have.”
“You see? You understand better than you think. You expected something else from me. And I expect something from myself too.”
“What is that thing?” Irina no longer sounded angry. She sounded like she truly wanted to know.
“I can’t say exactly,” Eleanor said. “But living on my own is the only way I’m going to find out.”
Irina stood and began clearing the table. “Maybe you’re right,” she said finally. “And I have to accept it.” There were tears on her face and Eleanor crossed the room to hug her. “I love you,” she said. “And I’ll come back to see you. I’m only going to be a subway ride away.”
“As often as you like.” Irina wiped her eyes. “I’ll be here.”
Twenty-Five
Patricia walked quickly past the wrought iron gate, the row of painted ornamental jockeys, and through the doors of Jack & Charlie’s 21 Club. During Prohibition, 21 had been a speakeasy—definitely not the sort of place she would have frequented. But she’d heard all about the police raids and the clever way the owners had outwitted discovery. As soon as the raid started, a system of levers tipped the bar shelves, sweeping all the liquor bottles through a chute and into the city’s sewers. Knowing this gave the place an added cachet in Patricia’s eyes—there was something daring and illicit in its history. Tom was less enchanted by it, but he’d still suggested that they meet here. Why?
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Bellamy,” said Clyde, the maître d’. “Your table is in the Remington Room. Right this way.”
With its collection of horse-themed paintings and bronzes, the Remington Room was one of Patricia’s favorites. “Thank you so much, Clyde.” When she got to the table, she saw Tom was already seated and waiting for her. Tom on time? That never happened.
“Tricia,” he said, rising from the table to kiss her on both cheeks, a little trick he’d picked up in Paris. “You’re looking especially ravishing today.”
Patricia knew her new, celadon-colored suit was flattering, but he was going overboard. Yet she’d take the compliment anyway. “Glad you approve.” She sat down and Tom ordered martinis while she perused the menu, settling on the Swedish herring and then the guinea hen.
“So why did you suggest meeting here?” she asked as soon as the drinks arrived.
“What do you mean? You love this place.”
“But you don’t, which makes me think you’re up to something.”
“You think I’m so devious?”
She swatted him with her napkin. “Come on, out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“Don’t be coy. You suggested this place for a reason. Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Tell you about what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She pretended to study the place setting on the table. “Maybe something about Eleanor?”
“I’m seeing her now. What else do you need to know?”
“The last time we talked about her, you said you were worried you might be falling in love.”
Their appetizers were placed on the table and Tom took a forkful of caviar. “I’m not worried about that anymore.”
“Why not?” A stir at the other end of the restaurant distracted her; a celebrity must have walked in. Patricia had once spotted FDR in this very room. Also Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, and Bette Davis. She craned her neck but couldn’t see who it was today.
“Now I know I’m in love with her. In fact, I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
“Marry you!” Patricia turned back to her brother, no longer caring who might have come in. “My God, Tom, are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all. Besides, she doesn’t even work for you anymore so I don’t see why you have anything to say about it. I love her and—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. This isn’t about love. This is about the rest of your life. Even you have to admit . . . she’s . . . just not from our set. I understand that’s part of her appeal for you. But once the novelty wears off, then what?”
“And what defines our set, Tricia? Are we really that bigoted, narrow-minded, incapable of seeing beyond a bunch of petty and meaningless distinctions—”
“They’re not so meaningless. Have you thought about what your future would be like with Eleanor as your wife? The opportunities that would dry up? The doors that would close, politely but firmly, in your face?”
“Maybe they’re doors I don’t give a damn about going through,” he said a little too loudly.
“Shh,” she said. “Would you please lower your voice?”
“Anyway, this is all theoretical at the moment. She hasn’t said yes. Or at least not yet.”
“Oh, she will,” Patricia said darkly. “She’s been working that angle from the very beginning.”
“Is that really what you think of her? The heaven-sent girl who single-handedly saved Margaux?”
“Well, maybe not from the start but—”
“But nothing. You’ve been listening to Wynn for too long—you’re even starting to sound like him. Because that kind of talk isn’t you, Petunia. It never was.”
Chastened, Patricia said nothing. The use of that old childhood name sent her straight back into the past, when Tom was her everything. He could have that effect on her, acting as her conscience and guide, pushing her toward her better self.
“. . . I know she’s young,” he was saying.
The main courses arrived, and the dirtied plates were whisked away.
“Very.” Patricia tried to remember herself at that age. She was already a mother then, but her life had seemed so much easier, less fraught. Wynn was still her prince, and Margaux their perfect blond baby. She’d been blessed, and she had known it too.
“So when will you pop the question?”
“As soon as the moment’s right.”
“I can just imagine how Wynn’s going to take it . . .” Patricia hadn’t intended to say this aloud; the words just slipped out.
Tom looked up from his pheasant. “It’s none of his business either. Far from it. She told me all about that pitiful farce with the earrings.”
“He was being ridiculous and I said so.”
“Ridiculous? I think it was a bit more than that, don’t you? I mean, what he did cost Eleanor her job.”
“I didn’t fire her. She was the one who chose to leave.”
“Can you blame her? Wynn was out to get her.”
“Maybe it was time for her to go.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“Margaux needed to get out of the house and start socializing again. With people her own age. Eleanor even said so.”
“Oh, did she?”
Why did he sound so argumentative? “Yes, as a matter of fact she did. She’s the one who told me about Oakwood, and she even telephoned the headmaster about Margaux.”
“That sounds like her,” he said. And smiled in a besotted way that Patricia found especially irritating.
“How’s your pheasant?” All at once she was sick of this conversation.
“A little dry actually.” He continued sawing away at the bird. “Doesn’t Henryka do pheasant? I remember having it at your place, maybe New Year’s Eve. It was delicious. Ask her to make it again when I’m over.”
“You haven’t heard? Henryka’s left too. She’s working for a family on East Seventy-Second Street.” Patricia could not meet his eyes as she disclosed this still painful bit of news.
“Henryka? Gone? But she’s been with you forever. And with Mother before that. Why in the world did you let her go?”
“I didn’t.” And then, to her distress, she began to cry, right there in the middle of the 21 Club.
“Tricia.” Tom stopped eating and reached out to take her hand. “What is it?”
The whole story, which she had not planned on sharing with him, came tumbling out. “She wouldn’t say what Wynn ha
d done to Eleanor. But whatever it was, it required a trip to Dr. Parker in the middle of the night.”
“I know. Eleanor told me everything.”
“She did? When?”
“Just recently. Made me furious. If he wasn’t your husband and Margaux’s father, I’d have gone after him myself . . .” He pushed his plate away. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for dessert.”
It felt better to have unburdened herself, really it did, and over the plate of profiteroles au chocolat that they shared, she also told him all about the separate rooms and her growing disgust for Wynn.
“Why stay?” Tom asked. “Look at the kind of man he is. He went after Eleanor. And Henryka, for God’s sake.”
“Because I don’t want to be divorced,” she said. “Divorced women are outcasts. Social lepers . . . I’m not sure I could bear it.”
“What about Audrey?”
“It ended up all right. But at first, people shunned her. There were invitations that dried up, phone calls that went unanswered. She had to endure all of it.”
“And so you’d live with a man who, in your words, disgusts you, a man who bullies and takes advantage of the women in his employ, because you’re worried about a few invitations?”
“You make it sound so trivial. Think of what it would do to Margaux.”
“What exactly? It would let her see that her mother had some principles and was more committed to living honestly, and with a chance at happiness instead of—”
“You may be my older brother, but in some ways, you’re so young. The world isn’t like you make it out to be.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, licking the last bit of chocolate from the spoon. “You make the world you want to live in. Not the other way around.”