“Frankly I think you're stark-staring crazy.”
“I know, I know. It sounds nuts.” Serena was constantly having to defend what she was doing and it was exhausting. “But, Dorothea, this is special. I don't know how to tell you. He loves me, I love him. Something magical happened between us when he was here.”
“So he's good in bed. So what? So go sleep with him in London or Paris or the Congo, but don't marry him. For chrissake, the man has been married four or five times.”
“Four.” Serena corrected soberly.
“And just what do you think will happen to your career? You won't stay on top forever, kid. Some new face will come along.”
“That's going to happen anyway, and I can work in London.” There was no convincing her, but by the time she left New York, three weeks later. Serena's psyche was exhausted. She was tired and pale and hadn't slept in weeks.
Teddy took them to the airport, and all three of them cried as though it were the end of the world. He was quiet and restrained, but the tears flowed down his face as he kissed Vanessa, and Vanessa clung to him like her last friend. Serena felt as though she were destroying the family she cherished, and at the end she held Teddy in her arms and she couldn't even speak. All she could manage to squeeze out just before they boarded was an anguished “I love you.” And then with a last wave they were gone. The flight over was bumpy and Vanessa cried most of the way, and by the time they reached London, Serena was almost ready to turn back. But as she stepped off the plane she saw him, and her eyes filled with tears as she laughed. Vasili looked like a balloon vendor at a fair, as he stood with at least fifty helium-filled balloons in one hand, and an enormous doll stuck under his other arm.
“Is that him?” Vanessa stared at him with interest, and it struck Serena again how much she looked like Brad.
“Yes. His name is Vasili.”
“I know.” Vanessa glanced disparagingly over her shoulder at her mother and Serena grinned at what an able grown-up she could be sometimes.
The doll was wearing a fancy blue satin dress, a small white fur cape, and an old-fashioned hat. She looked like a little girl of a hundred years before.
Vasili came slowly toward them, the balloons held aloft, as people smiled. “Hello, could I sell you a balloon, little girl?” Vanessa laughed. “And I also happen to have this dolly.” He pulled the big handsome doll out from under his arm and handed her to Vanessa. “Hello, Vanessa. My name is Vasili.”
“I know.” She stared at him, as though sizing him up, and he laughed. “I'm glad you came to London.”
She looked at him honestly. “I didn't want to come. I cried a lot when I left New York.”
“I can understand that.” He spoke to her gently. “When I was a little boy, I lived in London, and then I had to move to Athens, and that made me very sad.” Serena recalled as he said it that he had been two when his parents died, and he couldn't possibly remember, but at least it sounded good to the child. “Do you feel better now?” She looked up at the balloons and nodded. “Shall we go home?” He held out a hand to her and she took it, and then for the first time he stood up and looked into Serena's eyes. “Welcome home, my darling.” Her heart melted as she looked at him. She wanted to thank him for how wonderful he had been to Vanessa, but she knew that this wasn't the time. She could only tell him what she felt with her eyes.
At the little house in Chelsea he had prepared everything for Serena and Vanessa. There was. a dollhouse in the little blue and white guest room. There were dolls on the bed. There was a chair just Vanessa's size. And all over the house were enormous bouquets of beautiful flowers. He had hired a new maid to take care of Vanessa. And there was champagne cooling in a silver bucket in their bedroom, when at last Serena sat down on the bed with a sigh.
“Oh, Vasili… I thought I'd never survive.” She thought back over the past weeks and almost shuddered. For hours on the plane all she had been able to think of was Teddy, looking so bereft when they left, and his begging her not to get married right away. She had cried when she said good-bye to Dorothea Kerr too, and she already felt a twinge of nostalgia for the life she had left behind in New York. And yet this was going to be so much better, and she knew that this was right for her. But all her life she had been saying good-bye to beloved people and places, and each time she did so again, it brought back some of the sorrow of the past.
“Was it very rough?”
She looked at him a little sadly. “In a way, but I kept thinking that I was coming home to you.” And then she smiled tenderly at him. “I had a hard time convincing people that we aren't crazy.” She looked at him with a bittersweet smile. “Doesn't anyone believe in love anymore?” Yet even in her own heart she knew that she had done something crazy, or impetuous at best.
“Do you believe in love, Serena?” He looked at her as he handed her a glass of the chilled champagne and she took it from him.
“I wouldn't be here if I didn't, Vasili.”
“Good. Because I love you with all my heart.” He toasted her quietly. “To the woman I love … to my princess.…” He linked his arm in hers and they took the first sip, and then his eyes danced as he looked into hers. “How soon is the wedding?”
She smiled tiredly at him. “Whenever you like.”
“Tomorrow,” he teased.
“How about giving us a little time to adjust?”
“Two weeks?” She nodded. “In two weeks then, Mrs. Arbus. Until then you remain my princess.” He smiled gently at her then and took her face in his hands to kiss her, and moments later her body was entwined with his on the enormous bed, and Teddy and Dorothea and New York were all but forgotten.
41
The wedding was pretty and festive and conducted at the home of one of his friends in Chelsea. There were about thirty people present, and no members of the press. Serena looked magnificent in a beige silk dress that hung to the floor, with tiny beige cymbidium orchids in her hair.
A minister performed the ceremony. Three of Vasili's other four weddings had been only civil, so the minister had been willing to perform this one for them, after some discussion with both the bride and groom. Vanessa stood beside her mother at the wedding, holding tightly to her hand and glancing at Vasili. In the past two weeks she had begun to like him, but he was still a stranger to her, and she didn't see him very often. He was at the studio most of the time in the daytime, and every night they went out.
Serena herself was exhausted by their hectic schedule. She was trying to adjust to it all, but she never seemed to catch up. They went to parties, balls, concerts, the theater, parties after parties after parties, and were frequently not yet in bed when the sun came up over London. How he managed to work as hard as he did was a mystery to Serena. By the end of two weeks she had circles under her eyes and she was exhausted. The only prospect of relief in sight was a week at his house in Saint-Tropez, where they were going to spend their honeymoon. But Vanessa was already complaining about that. She didn't want to be left alone with the maid, and she wanted them to take her with them. Vasili wanted to be alone. And Serena felt as though she were being torn in half. After lengthy discussions with Vanessa, they did manage to leave the day after the wedding, and as they took off in the plane Serena sat back in her seat with an enormous sigh.
“Tired?” He looked surprised and Serena laughed at him.
“Are you kidding? I'm ready to drop. I don't know how you do it.”
“Easy.” He grinned at her with his boyish grin, and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small vial of pills, she saw a moment later. “I take whites.”
“Whites?” She looked startled as she glanced from him to the bottle and then back to his eyes. “You take pills?” He had never told her and he nodded.
“They allow me to keep going night and day. Want one?”
“No, thanks. I'll wait till Saint-Tropez and get some sleep.” But deep within she was shocked. She remembered suddenly what Teddy had told her, that Vasili's last w
ife had died of a heroin overdose.
“Don't look so worried, love.” He bent toward her with a kiss. “They won't kill me. They just keep me moving at a speed that I like.”
“But aren't they bad for you?”
“No.” He looked amused. “They don't do any harm. And if I take too many, I just take something to counteract it. Not to worry.” He suddenly sounded like a pharmacist and Serena was startled to realize that he took pills. She hadn't been aware of it before, and it underlined to her again how little she knew of him. At times she felt as though they had been together forever. At other times she felt as though she scarcely knew him at all. “For God's sake, Serena.” He looked at her expression again with obvious annoyance. “You look as though you've just discovered I'm an ax murderer. For chrissake …” He got out of his seat and walked to the front of the plane. He returned a few minutes later with half a bottle of wine for them both. “Or do you object to that too?”
“I didn't object to the other, I was just surprised.” She looked hurt. “You didn't tell me before.”
“Do I have to tell you everything?”
“You don't have to do a damn thing, Vasili.” She looked angry and declined the wine.
But he was looking at her more gently. “Yes, I do have to do something.”
“And what's that?” She still looked annoyed.
“I have to kiss you, that's what.” She grinned at him then, and a little while later the tension had worn off.
Their stay in Saint-Tropez was everything a honeymoon should be. They walked naked on their private beach, swam in the gentle swell of the Mediterranean, drove around the Maritime Alps in a Maserati, went to the casino in Monte Carlo, saw a few of Vasili's friends, and were mostly alone. They spent late mornings in bed, stayed up till all hours making love, and were only in the newspapers once, when one of the French papers made a fuss about their arrival at the Carlton for drinks: “Vasili Arbus and his new bride, honeymooning in Cannes … she was a princess and a model, now she's his queen.…”He read it to her the next morning over breakfast.
“How did they know that you're my queen?” He smiled happily at her.
“Someone must have squealed.”
“You know what I'd like to do next week?”
“What, my love?” She smiled at her husband. It was something very different than she had shared with Brad. But she was almost ten years older now. She felt very much a woman with Vasili, and she loved the heady feeling of being his wife.
“I'd like to go to Athens for a few days.” But her face clouded over. “Wouldn't you like that?”
“I ought to get back to Vanessa.”
“She'll be fine with Marianne.”
“That's not the same.” Vanessa was in a new environment and she wanted her mother. It had been hard enough to convince her that they really needed their one-week honeymoon alone.
“Then why don't we stop off in London and pick her up on the way?”
“What about school?” Serena felt exhausted just thinking of how complicated that would be. Sometimes it was difficult following in his wake. He did precisely what he wanted, when he wanted, and he wasn't used to all the considerations that were a normal part of Serena's life.
“Can't she skip school for a little while?”
It would be easier than arguing with Vasili, or trying to make him understand. “I suppose she could.”
“Fine. I'll call my brother and tell him we're coming.”
“You have a brother?” She looked amazed. He had said nothing about any siblings.
“I most certainly do. Andreas is only three years older than I am, but he's much more serious.” He seemed amused. “He has four children and a fat wife and he lives in Athens and runs one of the family businesses. I've always preferred life closer to my English relatives. Andreas, in his soul, is entirely Greek.”
“I can't wait to meet him.”
“And I'm sure he can't wait to meet you.”
It was easy to believe when the three of them got off the plane in Athens the following week. Andreas was waiting at the airport with a huge bouquet of roses for Serena, a doll and an enormous box of chocolates for Vanessa, and his own children had arranged a little party for her at their house in Athens. His youngest child was fifteen and his oldest was twenty-one, but they were all delighted to meet Vasili's new stepchild. He had never before married anyone with children, and they were intrigued by this new wife of his, with the golden hair. She was so beautiful and so graceful, and even Andreas was taken with her. Serena instinctively liked him. He seemed kind and generous and thoughtful, and much more serious than Vasili, who constantly accused him of being stiff. But he wasn't really. He was a man of great substance and responsibility, in contrast to Vasili's more whimsical nature. And Andreas was enchanted with his new niece, whom he escorted around Athens with great seriousness, as he showed her sights he thought would amuse her, while his own children went to school and Vasili and Serena disappeared for their own tours. Vasili had a thousand things he wanted to show Serena, and Vanessa was happy with Andreas. She liked him even better than her new stepfather, who still seemed a little odd to her and was guilty of depriving her too frequently of her mother. But Andreas reminded her a little of Teddy, and she thought him better-looking than Vasili. As she beat him for the fourth time in a row over the checkerboard, she fell head over heels into her first crush.
They stayed in Athens for more than a week, and when it was time to return to London, Vanessa was bitterly disappointed. She wanted to go on playing checkers forever with Andreas, whom she had come to love, but both Serena and Vasili said that they had to get back to work. Vasili had several jobs waiting for him at the studio in London, and Serena had already made an appointment with an agency to come in and show them her book. For the next several weeks the whole family was busy, Vasili and Serena with their work, and Vanessa at school, it seemed as though everyone had settled back into real life. Until one night when Serena was waiting for Vasili to come back from the studio, he still hadn't showed up two hours after they were expected at someone's house for a formal dinner. Serena was waiting for him in a spectacular gold dress she had just got from Paris, and her calls to the studio had been to no avail. She hoped that nothing was wrong, but when he arrived at the house, she was shocked. He looked filthy and disheveled. His hair was all askew, there were deep circles under his eyes, his shirt was covered with spots, his pants were unzipped, and he was walking unsteadily toward her at a much too rapid pace, as though he were operating on the wrong speed.
“Vasili?” He looked as though he had been mugged. She had seen him leave for the studio that morning, in the same pale blue shirt, camel-colored corduroy slacks, and a tweed jacket that he had just bought. Now the tweed jacket had disappeared. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. I'll be dressed in a minute.” He sounded normal, but he looked anything but, and Serena was deeply worried as she followed him upstairs. He turned around to stare at her, and she saw that he was weaving. “What the hell are you following me for?”
“Are you drunk?” She was staring at him. But with that, he threw back his head and laughed.
“Am I drunk? Am I drunk?” He repeated it again and again.
“Are you crazy?” She knew then that he was, but he didn't really look drunk, as she followed him into the bedroom, hoping that Vanessa hadn't heard them.
“Vasili, we can't go … you're in no condition.” As she approached him she saw that his eyes looked almost crazy, and his mouth moved differently as he mimicked all that she said. “I'm not going.” There was a frantic tone in her voice. This was a man she had never seen before, and it frightened her to see in him a stranger.
“What's the matter? Are you ashamed of me?” He walked toward her belligerently, and she stepped back, frightened. “You think I'd hit you?” She didn't answer but she was very pale. “Hell no, you're shit beneath my feet.” She was shocked at what he was saying, and she turned quickly and left the room.
He found her in Vanessa's room a few minutes later, making an excuse as to why they had changed their minds about going out.
“Vasili doesn't feel well,” she said gently.
“Doesn't he?” It was a roar from the door. “Yes, he does. Your mother is lying, Vanessa.” Both mother and child looked shocked as he advanced into the room. He was steady on his feet again but the same mad light was still in his eyes.
Serena hurried toward the door and gently pushed him through it. “Please come upstairs.”
“Why should I? I want to talk to Vanessa. Hi, baby, how did your day go today?”
Vanessa said nothing and her eyes looked enormous in her face. Vasili reeled toward Serena then, still standing in the doorway. “What did you do? Tell her I was drunk?” He spat the words at her and Serena's eyes began to blaze.
“Aren't you?”
“No, you asshole, I'm not.”
“Vasili!” Serena was shouting now. “Get out of Vanessa's room!”
“Why, afraid I'll do something that will make you jealous?”
“Vasili!” It was the growl of a mother lion and he wheeled and left the room. He went down to the kitchen then, raided the icebox, and returned to their bedroom again, like an animal on the prowl.
“Want to fuck?” He looked at her over his shoulder as he picked at a plate of cold potatoes he had found in the icebox. The question seemed more rhetorical than real and Serena wanted to shake him.
“What in God's name is wrong with you? Did you take more pills?”
He shook his head. “Nope. What about you? Did you?” It was impossible to talk to him, and a few minutes later she locked herself in Vanessa's room with the child, and spent the night there.
The next morning he slept until almost noon, and when he finally came downstairs, it was evident that he was both ashamed and ill.
“Serena …” He looked at her, overwhelmed with remorse. “I'm sorry.”
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