Provenance_InteriorDraft_07.indd

by Sawyer, Donna Drew

  jeans, tee shirts, even flip-flops.

  For two weeks they were consumed by the intimate excite-

  ment of the present. Thoughts of what came next were always

  on the periphery but they did not talk about how, or if, they

  would go back to being who they used to be. Their unspoken

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  pact was to stay in the perfection of who they were at this time

  and in this place.

  The night before Emma was scheduled to return to New

  York, Lance lay awake watching her. She slept so peaceful y, he

  had never been able to sleep like that. Do you rest easy when you face your fears? Was being fearless the secret to her strength and her compassion? He was in awe of her courage. He had spent

  most of his life being afraid of everything and everyone. These

  past two weeks showed him that in his cloistered existence he

  had missed so much.

  At the same time, their adventures had confirmed the

  choice he had made to pass. In Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, and

  Kingston and everywhere on the island in between he was

  fully aware of the racial advantage of being white. Jamaica

  was a country of black people but the most prosperous on the

  island were white tourists and the Jamaicans who ensured

  those tourists were not touched by the poverty and pathos that

  existed in the real Jamaica.

  Lance thought back to that night in Paris when he watched

  Josephine Baker perform for white men who only saw her

  sexuality; they didn’t see the woman, they only saw how she

  pleasured them. Lance had only experienced how Jamaica

  pleasured him; until now he had never seen its people. He

  secretly shared their heritage and nothing else. He felt as he

  had that night in Paris, disconnected from everyone and every-

  thing—like his father and Belle Greene warned, he belonged

  to no one and no tribe.

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  What if Emma could really see through all the barriers I’ve

  erected? Is my secret still worth protecting? What would happen if I took down that final barrier and revealed everything to Emma?

  For the first time in thirty years, he considered the prospect.

  He closed his eyes and pulled the sleeping Emma close, his

  breathing matching hers.

  “I’m not the man you think I am,” he whispered into her

  dark curls. “I never have been. You know me better than anyone

  and you don’t know me at all.”

  (XI)

  Emma left the island first.

  “When I see you in New York, we will work things out,”

  Lance said, kissing her goodbye as the taxi driver loaded her

  bags into the car. He held her close, stroking her hair. When

  she started toward the waiting car, he held onto her hand, tak-

  ing her in as if it would be the last time he would ever see her.

  “I’ll see you at home,” Emma said, as she slid into the

  backseat of the taxi.

  “I’ll see you at the house,” he answered. With those words,

  Lance burst the bubble that they had lived in for the past two

  weeks. Emma knew “house” meant something very different from

  “home.” Five-eighty Park Avenue was the house they both lived

  in, but not together, and Emma did not know if there was any

  place the two of them could make a home. Lance was the front

  of the house, she was the back of the house, and now there was

  nothing but heartache in between. He was already pul ing away.

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  Lance gave the driver instructions and enough money

  to ensure that Emma had an escort to the gate, and onto the

  plane. Lance closed the door and stood aside as the car started

  to pull away. She and the driver heard Lance shout “Emma!”

  when the car was a few feet down the road.

  “Stop the car!” Emma screamed at the driver. Not wait-

  ing for the car to come to a complete stop, she opened the

  door, jumped out and ran back to Lance, who scooped her up

  in his arms.

  “Everything that happened here was real, do you know

  that?” he asked, holding her so tight that she could barely

  breathe. The tears Emma had been able to avoid were now

  streaming down her face. “We will work this out, decide what’s

  next,” Lance whispered, as if trying to convince both of them.

  Emma held him, her eyes closed, imprinting how his body

  felt against hers. She reached up and stroked his face with the

  back of her hand.

  “Forever, I wil love you forever,” Emma said, and kissed him

  so deeply she felt like she was drowning. Then slowly, reluctantly, she pushed him away. She turned and walked quickly to the

  waiting car. Without looking back, she got in, slammed the door

  closed and said to the driver, “Go! And don’t stop for anything.”

  Lance was rooted in the middle of the road where she’d left

  him, her scent still with him, and the warmth of her kiss still

  on his lips. He stood perfectly still, a single step would shatter

  the last two weeks. He watched her taxi wind its way down

  the hill and along the road until it disappeared, never realizing

  just how far it would take them from each other.

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  • 21 •

  New York—November 1965 - February 1966

  (I)

  “I’ve neglected everything but you for the past

  couple of weeks, my business partners are not happy.

  I should be back in New York in a couple of weeks.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Emma told Lance when she

  called the villa to let him know she had arrived safely, “I’ll

  be here.”

  Lance wasn’t sure why he lied to her. He could return to

  her now. He could tell her the truth about who he was and

  what that meant. He had never been this close to sharing the

  facts of his life with anyone other than Belle. But he did what

  he always did—he pulled back. It would be three months and

  as many continents before Lance returned to New York. He

  flew to Europe, then Mexico, then back to the Caribbean,

  slipping back into the man he was before his time with Emma.

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  He needed to think about what had happened to him, why

  she had made him consider doing something he had spent his

  whole life resisting. He regretted not heeding Belle’s advice,

  he needed to talk this out with someone who knew his truth,

  but he had no one he could confide in, he belonged to no tribe.

  Ah Bel e, I need you, Lance thought missing her. The only other person who knew his truth was Charlotte, and despite what

  Emma said about her, Lance knew she was not someone he

  could confide in.

  So Lance did what he always did when he was trying to

  solve a problem—he returned to his lifelong mistress, art. With

  her, he was the powerful Collector, always in control. As he

  toured studios and galleries, talking with artists and gallerists,

  he was preoccupied with the prospect of life with or without

  Emma. Was he willing to risk everything, all of the secrets he

  had buried, for what would be a difficult life for both of them?r />
  She would always be the maid who married the millionaire.

  He recalled the merciless way the media savaged the kitchen

  maid who wed one of the Rockefeller heirs. Emma told him

  she was fearless, but could she withstand that kind of hell?

  Then there was the age difference, he was almost two

  decades older than she was, he would be a cliché as well. If

  they had children and they bore signs of his hidden heritage,

  would she love them without reservation? Would he? It was

  impossible for him to consider all of the implications of loving

  Emma; but he did love her, he was sure of that now. But was

  love enough? No matter how much art he bought, or how much

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  he tried to dissuade and distract himself with business and even

  other women, he always came back to Emma.

  With no clear answers, but determined they could resolve

  everything together, Lance called Emma to tell her he would

  be home in a few days. He left several messages, which she did

  not return. When he finally arrived at 580 Park Avenue, Mina

  told him that Emma had been gone for more than a month.

  It never occurred to him that Emma would not wait for him.

  “She just left, Mr. Withers. She didn’t say anything to

  anyone,” Mina told him. “She and Miss Charlotte had dinner

  together, and the next day Emma was gone. We’re all trying

  to figure out what happened.”

  •

  “What did you do this time?” Lance said, bursting into

  Charlotte’s room.

  “What did I do?” Charlotte retorted. “What did you do?

  You took advantage of that girl in Jamaica. Don’t look so sur-

  prised. It was all over her when she got back here. At first I

  didn’t know it was you until your secretary told me you flew to

  Jamaica after you left Omaha. I already knew she was there.

  Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlotte.”

  “I know you compromised that poor lonely girl.”

  “Charlotte, what did you do to her? Why did she leave?”

  “You acted like a damn fool, Lance, but I took care of it.”

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  It took Lance just two steps to cross the room and grab

  the old woman. “What did you do, Charlotte?” he bellowed.

  “Don’t you talk to me that way, Lance Henry Withers.

  Your cavalier behavior put us all in jeopardy. I wasn’t going to

  let some fling with the housekeeper change our lives. What

  if you’d gotten the woman pregnant? Do you think for a

  moment our friends would be eager to accept a colored child

  you fathered with the housekeeper? Think with the right

  head, Lance.”

  Lance let go of Charlotte and dropped into a chair, his

  face in his hands.

  “What would you have me do, Lance? Tell her the truth?

  If you loved her so much what took you so long to get back

  here? Why didn’t you tell her who you really are?”

  “What have you done?” Lance was nearly frantic. “Where

  did she go?”

  “I have no idea,” Charlotte said, straightening the sleeve

  of her sweater where Lance had grabbed her. “I told her there

  was no chance that you would marry her, and that I would

  not allow it. You two had your fling, and now it’s over. After

  that, she left. Not sure exactly when she left, she just took her

  things and slipped away.”

  Charlotte did not mention that she told Emma that it was

  Lance that wanted her to leave—making her believe that he

  didn’t have the courage or the decency to tell her himself. She

  also neglected to tell him that Emma left him a note:

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  “Lance, I think we both knew we could never work.

  I just wish you had told me. Stil , I wish you wel .

  Fearlessly, Emma”

  When Charlotte found the note, she destroyed it.

  Lance looked up at Charlotte. “It wasn’t a fling. I love her.”

  Charlotte was unmoved. “You say that now, but later you’l

  thank me. I just did what was best for all of us. She couldn’t stay here. She was smart enough to know that—for that I give her

  credit. I won’t have that kind of thing going on in my house.”

  “Your house? Who are you to make decisions about what

  goes on in my house?” Lance shouted.

  “But for me you would have none of this, Lance Henry

  Withers,” Charlotte said fingering the strands of pearls she

  still wore every day, “I plotted and planned to get this life, this house and everything in it for you. Do you thank me? No, you

  detest me for it. What were you going to do with that poor

  woman? Marry her? Keep her and any black babies you’d have

  with her hidden away?” Charlotte said, lowering her voice for

  the last sentence.

  “Charlotte, I have lived with that threat for so long. It is

  1966, none of this matters anymore.”

  “It matters to people like us,” Charlotte assured him. Lance

  laughed at the hypocrisy of their lives. “Like us? We’re not

  even people like us, Charlotte. We just pretend to be. You of

  all people know Lance Henry Withers doesn’t really exist. He

  was never born. He is one of your creations.”

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  “Yes, I may have fabricated Lance Henry Withers, but

  you brought him to life,” Charlotte said triumphantly. The old woman walked over and closed the door to her suite. Eighty-nine

  and still formidable, she stood over the defeated Lance, “Tell

  me, Lance. What is it exactly that you hate about me?”

  “I don’t hate you, Charlotte. I hate the things you do. I’m

  fifty-three years old and you are still interfering, trying to

  control my life.”

  “The things I’ve done, I’ve done for you. I made your grand

  and glorious life possible, Lance. When your father made certain

  your only future was that of a Negro in the segregated South,

  it was Charlotte that made sure that didn’t happen. I kept this

  family financially solvent, even during the Depression. I took

  the family to Europe. When you needed contacts and season-

  ing, I was the one who asked Belle Green to take you under her wing. When your mother was sick, I took care of her because

  you were too selfish to leave your life in Paris.”

  “You can stop the martyr act. I know exactly what you’ve

  done, Charlotte. I know everything,” Lance said, opening the

  dam on more than thirty years of truth and hurt. “I know my

  mother kil ed herself because she thought she’d lost everything.

  You never understood. My mother loved my father. She loved

  him, Charlotte, but you never let up on him. No matter what

  he did, how successful he was or how much his family loved

  him, he was just ‘the janitor’ to you. What did you call him

  on the night he died? A nigger? She loved a nigger more than

  she loved me or you!”

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  “You’re a cruel bastard,” Charlotte said, her eyes welling

  with tears.

 
; “It seems to run in the family doesn’t it?” Lance said. “You

  wanted to have this conversation, Charlotte, so we’ll have it.

  Here’s more truth,” he said, moving in to confront the old

  woman. “You took control of me and my mother and all of

  my father’s money as soon as he died. We were still in shock

  but before my mother and I knew it, you had my father’s body

  removed from the hospital and buried. No funeral, no flowers,

  no regrets. You treated him like a mongrel dog,” Lance said,

  wincing in pain from the memory. “And you never even both-

  ered to tell his wife or his son when or where he was buried.

  You changed my name and my mother’s name without our

  knowledge or consent. I know you threatened to blackmail

  Bel e if she didn’t, what did you call it, take me under her wing?”

  “And you benefitted from everything I did for you, not to you,” Charlotte said.

  Through gritted teeth, Lance continued to list his grand-

  mother’s grievous acts.

  “You prostituted me with your little bargain with Belle

  Greene. You didn’t tell me my mother had died; for more than

  a year after she killed herself you sent me letters and wires as

  if they were from her. You did the same thing to my mother

  that you did to my father. You never gave me a chance to say

  goodbye.” Lance said, the pain of both losses still palpable.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back from Europe if it

  was just me,” Charlotte wailed.

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  “You threatened and controlled me with the fear of who I

  was and how loving someone, anyone, would ruin my life and

  so I never loved or was loved—until Emma—and now you’ve

  destroyed that, too.” The hate welled up in him. He wanted

  to hurt Charlotte for all the years he allowed her to hurt him.

  When she began to whimper in fear, he was unrelenting.

  “Do you know why you’re here, Charlotte? Why you’ve

  lived in my house all of these years? It would have been so

  easy to . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, he was afraid of

  what he might say. “Before my mother killed herself, she sent

  me a letter. She said, ‘If anything ever happens to me, please

  take care of my mother. Keep her with you, no matter what.’

  She said that we were each other’s only connection to our

  true past. She asked me not to forget that she loved you, and

  that she loved me. She wrote, ‘Despite everything, remember