Summer at Hideaway Key
Page 20
It’s hard to think about the future, but harder still not to think about it. There’s so much I want to do for Caroline, so many things she’s done without that I’d like to make up for. I can’t bring Mama back, but I can make sure she has a better life than Mama ever managed to give her.
May 14, 1957
New York, New York
Caroline seems happier now that we’ve left Mrs. Bingham’s. She likes having her own room, and a bathroom we don’t have to share with strangers. She’s at a new school now, and has made a few friends. She’s still angry with me about Mama. She doesn’t say so, but it’s there in her eyes when she looks at me. Only time will heal it now. There’s nothing left for either of us to say.
I’ve been doing catalog work since New Year’s, for Sears and Roebuck mostly. It’s steady and the pay was enough to let me quit my job at the lunch counter. I think things must be going well for Jasper, too. I’ve noticed him wearing new suits, and last week he took me with him to look at new cars. He’s got his eye on a shiny black sedan. He says if things go the way he’s hoping he’ll have a big surprise for me soon.
He’s been taking me out a lot lately, to restaurants and nightclubs—to show me off, he says. He’s always shaking hands with someone, introducing me to people whose names I can’t remember. I smile and nod, but it all makes my head spin, like I’ve stepped into a world where I don’t belong and never will. Sometimes I look around—at the fancy food and fancy plates, at more forks than I know what to do with—and I find it hard to believe that a little more than a year ago I was eating supper from a battered metal tray.
Sometimes I feel Jasper’s eyes on me, as if he can read my thoughts. He smiles and touches my hand. He wants so much for me to be happy, to relax into this new world, but I can’t. There’s a shadow that’s always with me, of Mt. Zion and Harwood Zell, and the dread that one day I’ll look up to find him standing in front of me.
June 28, 1957
New York, New York
The most preposterous thing has happened. My surprise, the one Jasper has been dangling in front of me for months, has finally come to pass. I’ve been signed as the new face of Pearl-Glo Beauty Cream. I was so stunned when he told me he had inked the deal, as he put it, that I nearly fell over in a faint. To think of my face in magazines, and plastered on billboards all over the country, was more than I could comprehend.
Still, it was the money that came as the biggest surprise. We have a car now, and a television set, and more clothes than we can ever wear. It looks like there will even be enough for the private school Caroline’s been asking to go to this fall. I’m not sure I like the idea of her going away to school, but all her friends are going, and after everything she’s been through it’s hard to deny her anything. And maybe some time apart will help to heal the rift between us.
She’s certainly not happy with me now. And I can’t really blame her after all the nonsense about the billboards. She was annoyed enough when my face started popping up all over New York, but she was positively mortified to learn that both the local news and the morning papers had nicknamed me “The Face That Stopped Traffic.”
It wasn’t my fault. Two days ago, a man on his way home from work ran into the back of another car on Fifth Avenue, who then ran into another car, who then ran into another. Before it was over eleven cars were involved, snarling traffic for more than an hour. When the police asked the driver why he wasn’t paying attention, he pointed to my face, splashed across the sign over Bond Clothing.
Now that’s all anyone’s talking about. One of the papers called—the Mirror, I think it was—asking if I would let them take my picture with the man. I told them no, and not to call again. Jasper says his phone has been ringing off the hook with offers, including one from Vogue, which he immediately accepted. Mine rings, too, but the offers are of a different sort. I don’t know who they are, or how they got my number, but they’re not the kind of thing I want Caroline exposed to.
Thankfully, she’s gone to the mountains with her best friend’s family for most of the summer. I’m going away, too. Jasper thinks it’s a good idea for me to get out of the city, to give the fuss time to die down. He’s taking me down to Palm Beach for the Fourth, as soon as the Vogue shoot is finished. We’ll be staying with his friends the Gardiners, who I met once at a dinner party. Old money, Jasper calls them, part of the Mayflower Brigade. I’m not sure what any of that means, except that they have a lot of money, and probably never had to get their hands very dirty. I’m still not comfortable around people like that, but anything’s better than staying here and listening to my phone ring.
I’m starting to worry about Jasper, though, and whether this trip is wise. I’m afraid his feelings are beginning to stray beyond friendship. I catch his eyes on me sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking, and see a kind of longing there. Not like Zell, but the kind of tenderness most woman dream of seeing in a man’s eyes. He’s never made any sort of advance, but sometimes I sense he wishes for something more. I feel bad about that. I do. For his many kindnesses, to me and to Caroline, I owe him more than I can say. Sadly, what I suspect he wants isn’t something I have to give—to him or any man.
July 1, 1957
Palm Beach, Florida
Jasper said he was bringing me to Palm Beach for the peace and quiet, but there’s nothing remotely quiet about this place, not even in the supposed off-season. There are endless rounds of parties, luncheons, dinners, outings to tennis and golf clubs where no one seems to play either tennis or golf, but everyone seems to do a tremendous amount of gossiping and drinking.
Still, it’s lovely here, like something right out of a postcard, all swaying palms and pretty people, so different from anywhere I’ve ever dreamed of being. But I’d be lying if I said I was enjoying it. I can’t seem to manage a moment to myself. I’m forever being trotted around for introductions, like I’m some kind of movie star—or a freak from the circus—all because some silly man couldn’t keep his eyes on the road. It’s all so exhausting. I just wanted some peace. Instead, I feel like a goldfish trapped in a great big bowl, swimming alone with no way to get free.
I didn’t know there would be other guests. It never occurred to me that rich people opened up their homes like hotels. But when you have a house like this one I suppose it is rather like a hotel. I can’t begin to say how many bedrooms there are, but there’s a patio with umbrellas, a pool surrounded with wicker lounge chairs, and hovering men in starched white uniforms, ready to tend our slightest whim.
There are two other couples down from the Hamptons, who apparently travel in Jasper’s new circle, though I’ve somehow escaped meeting them until now. The women are cool but curious. The men are curious, too, but far less cool. The wives keep commenting on my accent—a drawl, they call it—which I didn’t know I had until one of them pointed it out. They think I’m charming, like Scarlett O’Hara or Blanche DuBois. But those aren’t real people. I’m not sure these women know the difference.
I dread their questions—who my parents were, where I grew up, what schools I attended, their casual references to places I’ve never been, or ever hope to go—Paris, and Venice, and Majorca. Honestly, I’ve spent most of my time here wanting to crawl under the nearest piece of furniture.
There’s another man who’s just joined the party, a banker who arrived two days ago. A last-minute addition, it seems, since a Mr. Charles Addison was abruptly cut from the guest list after it became known that he’d gone and gotten himself engaged to some twice-divorced film star. Apparently, he is what they call persona non grata among polite society, though I must confess I was at a loss to understand why his fiancée’s past marriages should be held against him, until it was explained that a man who kept such low company couldn’t help but cast an unsavory shadow over them all. I couldn’t help but wonder as I slowly sipped my cocktail what kind of shadow they would think I cast had they known about my past.<
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At any rate, his place at the Gardiners’ table was smoothly filled, and with a man who has apparently made quite a name for himself by buying and selling some hotel chain or other. Everyone was excited when his name came up. I, of course, had never heard it. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting anyone new, or enduring a fresh round of interrogation, but he put me at ease the moment we were introduced.
He’s pleasant-looking, built square and tall, with a watchful face and startling blue eyes—eyes that seek me out often, sliding across dinner tables, and crowded rooms. They don’t make me uncomfortable, only curious about what sort of man he is, and why, unlike the others, he doesn’t feel the need to grill me about my past and my pedigree.
The more closely I watch him, the more I see he’s like me: reserved, and perhaps less than thrilled with the company. There’s a power about him, a quiet self-assurance I find myself drawn to, perhaps because I wish I could be like him. He seems to care little what others think. His opinions aren’t swayed, no matter how much he’s disagreed with, though he somehow manages never to be disagreeable.
Tonight after dinner, we were playing cards, the men enjoying their scotch, the women sipping coffee, trying not to wilt in their fancy evening attire, when Celia Gardiner asked out of the blue if my parents were still alive. I froze, groping around in my head for an answer. What could I have said about Mama? “I don’t know” was hardly an answer to give a woman like Celia. I was still fumbling for something to say when Mr. St. Claire invited me to take a stroll out on the patio. I believe I could have wept with relief at the chance to escape that room.
I felt Jasper’s eyes follow us out the large double doors, sharp with disapproval, but just then I didn’t care. It wasn’t him being dissected for amusement, picked apart and studied like some peculiar quirk of nature. I can’t say whether there was malice behind their questions or not. I only know I was weary of being their curiosity piece, something to fill the empty hours between lunch and cocktails, dinner and cards.
Outside, the night was like magic, the air heady and thick with the scent of Celia’s potted gardenias, the sea beyond the low wall of rough coral stones shimmering smooth and gold beneath a fat three-quarter moon. We walked quietly for a time, taking several turns around the pool before settling on the seawall, our hips barely touching. I can’t say why I wasn’t afraid to be alone with him, only that sitting there with him in the dark, listening to the quiet pulse of the sea, felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“Ghastly woman, Celia,” he said finally. “Doesn’t have a clue when she’s stepping over the line.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.
“Her husband’s a decent sort, though, a real straight arrow. We do a lot of business together, or I would never have agreed to come down for the week. I was looking forward to meeting you, though.”
“Me?”
“The Face That Stopped Traffic? How could I not?”
I blushed, grateful for the darkness. “I didn’t know they told anyone I’d be here. Jasper thought I needed a break. I thought we were going to be the only ones here.”
“Jasper seems rather protective of you. He’s your agent?”
“Yes. And my friend.”
He turned to look at me, those blue eyes of his shining in the moonlight. “Is he anything more?”
“No,” I answered, surprising myself with the quickness of my response. “He’s been good to me, and to my sister. I don’t know where we’d be now if he hadn’t come along when he did. We owe him everything. In fact, he probably saved my life.”
I still don’t know how I could have admitted such a thing to a stranger, but at that moment Roland St. Claire didn’t feel like a stranger. There was no judgment in his eyes when he looked at me, no need to pry into my story. He was just there, beside me, almost touching, but not. And I felt safe. Not the way I did with Jasper, but deep down in a place I thought I’d never feel safe again.
“People come into our lives for all sorts of reasons,” he said after a few moments of quiet. “And there are all kinds of ways to save a life.” He touched my hand then, the barest of touches, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I didn’t want to pull away.
TWENTY-FIVE
1995
Hideaway Key, Florida
Lily was pouring a glass of iced tea when Dean poked his head through the open sliders. In his board shorts and T-shirt, he looked more like a surfer than an architect, tall and tan, and ruggedly windblown.
“I just stopped by to say I’ll see you at six.”
“Six?”
“We had a date, remember?”
“Oh God. The Affair. I forgot it was Friday.”
Dean eyed her curiously. “Is everything okay? You look a little frazzled.”
“I guess that’s as good a word as any. I’ve been reading again. Please don’t roll your eyes. I just stumbled across my father’s name in one of Lily-Mae’s journals and it jarred me a little.”
“Jarred, how?”
“I always assumed Lily-Mae and my father met through my mother. But it turns out Lily-Mae saw him first.”
Dean’s brow creased. “Saw him first? As in . . . called dibs?”
“Not exactly, but a little bit, yeah. My mother always made it sound like it was Lily-Mae who did the encroaching, but after what I just read it looks like it was my mother who horned in.”
“Your mother obviously won the war. Does it really matter who came first?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. It’s just that it sounds like Lily-Mae fell for him pretty hard, and long before my mother ever entered the picture. But somehow my mother ended up marrying him.”
“Sounds like your classic love triangle to me, but with sisters.”
Lily shook her head, uttering a sound that was half sigh, half groan. “Every time I read a new entry I learn something that makes me scratch my head—or just plain depresses me.”
“All the more reason to stop reading. How about a swim, instead?”
“Don’t you ever work?”
“I do, actually. My office just happens to be at home. I’ve been at it since five thirty. Which is why I thought I’d take a swim. Come with me.”
Lily glanced at her watch. “I can’t.”
“Can’t swim?”
“Of course I can swim. But it’s after four, and apparently I’ve got a date tonight.” She paused to glance up at him, offering a smile that was just short of coy. “A girl needs time to tart herself up properly.”
Dean shot her a roguish grin. “I’ve never met a woman who could tart herself up properly in under two hours, but something tells me this time it might be worth the wait.”
Dean arrived promptly at six, knocking on the front door instead of coming up the back steps like he usually did. Lily tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as she finished smoothing on a coat of shimmery peach lip gloss and went to let him in. The evening was already off to much too official a start for her liking: full makeup, a fancy dress, her date coming to the front door. If he was holding a corsage, she was calling the whole thing off.
“You look amazing,” he said as she stepped aside to let him in. No corsage—thank God.
Lily grinned, batting her eyes. “Not too tarty?”
Dean ran his eyes over the length of her, slow and appreciative. “No. Just tarty enough. That’s some dress.”
“Thanks. It’s one of mine. Sort of. Sheila and I whipped it up a few days ago.”
He circled slowly, whistling softly. “Impressive. And I think you’re actually getting a bit of color.” He paused, running a fingertip over the crest of her bare shoulder. “What are these?”
Lily glanced at his finger, resting lightly on her skin. “Freckles. I told you—the curse of redheads. That’s what I get for not wearing my hat.”
Lily eyed him dubiously. “A beach without sand? Did you just make that up?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. At least I think I did. Aren’t I charming?”
“Hmmm, maybe a little too charming. Something tells me you’ve had lots of practice.”
“Not as much as you’d think, and never with a redhead.” His finger began to move again, featherlight along her bare shoulder blade. “I don’t suppose you’d consider a game of Connect the Dots before we go?”
Lily suppressed a shiver and looked up at him through lowered lashes. “I’ll get my purse.”
Beach Street had been blocked off well in advance of the festivities, with orange and white barricades stationed at each end of the four-block strand, clogging smaller side streets with rerouted traffic. For nearly a week, trucks and equipment had been pouring into town, heightening the anticipation for tourists and locals alike. According to Sheila, there wasn’t a vacant hotel room in all of Hideaway Key, and local business owners were positively beaming.
Dean had to circle several times before finally finding a parking space several blocks away. Lily was surprised at the crowds already milling along the sidewalks, parents with children, teens traveling in small packs, young couples holding hands, all clearly ready for opening-night festivities.
Dean paid for their tickets, then helped Lily put on her neon green armband before donning his own. The excitement was contagious as they stepped through the gate. Lily’s eyes widened as she took it all in, mesmerized by the noise, lights, and bustle that had transformed a sleepy little beach town into a full-fledged carnivàle. Everywhere she looked there were tents and booths, snack trucks and food stands. Even the air played a role in the magic, spiced with the delicious aromas of hush puppies, fried clams, and conch fritters.