A Hundred Summers (20 page)

“That’s Mother for you. Even New Year’s Eve.” The words send a shadow chasing across the gleaming dreams in my head. Mother has been working obsessively all winter; I have hardly seen her at all, between one committee and another, late into the night. It’s as if she’s given up on us entirely, as if she’s exchanged our familiar, intractable dullness for the zeal of serving orphans.

But I don’t need Mother anymore, do I? I have my own dreams now. My own particular zeal. I only wish, for Daddy’s sake, she might come home a little earlier. That she might not volunteer her services on New Year’s Eve this year.

I yawn again, stretch, rise from the chair, and stretch again with the book held high above my head. “I can’t keep my eyes open, Daddy. I think I’ll go to bed. Wake me up when the ball drops.”

Daddy laughs. “Oh, I’ll be long asleep by then. I think I’ll turn in now, in fact. Not much use sitting here alone on New Year’s Eve, is there?” He rises, switches off the radio, and puts the newspaper on the table. For a moment, he stares down at the still-life tableau of radio and newspaper and round blue-and-white china lamp, the entire contents of his evening, night after night. His shoulders, covered by a blue silk dressing gown, slump downward at the same angle as his bent neck. Above the mantel, the clock scratches away, nine-forty-three now.

I have many memories of Daddy before the war—bouncing, laughing memories. I remember him like the sun, always golden and shining, tossing me screaming into the ocean and hoisting me back up again, or else cuddling me on the nursery sofa as he read me stories from a large pastel-colored book,
Peter Rabbit
or something like it.

Now, of course, there is no such touching with Daddy. I hold his hand, I kiss his cheek; if he’s having a good day, I might go so far as to lay my arm across his shoulders.

I go to him now, treading my slippered feet heavily on the carpet, so he knows I’m approaching. I put my hand on his shoulder and press my lips against his cheek. His eyes are closed.

“Good night, Daddy,” I say. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year, poppet.”

I pat his shoulder and turn and leave the room, down the long hall to my bedroom.

Once there, I close the door and take off my robe. My dress sparkles beneath, a gorgeous gold sequined number picked out from Bergdorf’s a week ago with Budgie’s help. I drop to my knees next to my bed and root out the matching shoes—gold, towering heels—and strap them to my feet with shaking fingers.

I turn to the mirror above my dressing table. My face glows back at me, flushed, eyes gleaming. I dust my nose and cheeks and forehead with powder; I reach for my lipstick. One swipe, two. I blot my lips with a tissue and add another swipe.

Next to the mirror sits the tiny untouched bottle of Shalimar Daddy gave me for Christmas. (“Really, dear, it’s hardly practical,” Mother had told him with her scowl.) I close my fingers around it, lift out the stopper, and dab behind my ears and along my wrists. The fragrance drifts around me, grown-up and secretive. There’s no turning back now. You can’t go to bed smelling of Shalimar and nothing else.

My hair is pinned into tight curls; I remove the pins, fluff everything into place. From my jewelry box I pull a strand of pearls, but when I loop them around my neck, they look absurd: prim and girlish next to the gold sequins of my gown. I put the necklace back and dash to the closet, where Mother’s second-best mink coat hangs at the back, disguised by old dresses and smelling slightly of camphor.

Enrobed in mink and Shalimar, I crack open the door and poke my head into the hall. There is a light showing now from my parents’ room; my father has gone to bed. With my cold and guilty fingers I switch off my own lamp, slip through the door, tiptoe down the corridor and across the living room and pantry to the service entrance. Marelda is already in bed, in her tiny room off the kitchen.

I open the service door, and Maisie stands outside in pink-striped pajamas, her hair in a single long dark blond braid down her back. She’s suffocating a brown teddy bear under her arm.

“Maisie!” I exclaim, clutching the coat together with my fist. “What are you doing here? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Marelda usually gives me cookies. Are you going out?” She points her teddy bear at Mother’s mink.

“Why, yes.”

“You look so beautiful. Why are you using the service door?” Maisie’s voice is high and curious. Her eyes turn up at me, framed with thick black lashes, every fleck of her irises visible under the harsh bare bulb of the service landing.

“Just because.”

“Are you going out with your
boyfriend?
”

I smile. “I might be. But go to bed, Maisie. Marelda’s already in her room.”

“No cookies?” Maisie looks forlorn.

I gaze down at her. Her pajamas are rumpled, and a yellowish stain spreads across her heart, as if she’s spilled milk on it. Her hand works spasmodically around the worn neck of her teddy bear.

“Wait a moment, okay, honey?”

I slip back inside and steal to the kitchen, where the cookie jar, as always, is full. I remove two cookies, large ones, and wrap them in a napkin and take them back to Maisie.

The service elevator is dark and unheated, and even slower than the main one. Nestled snugly into Mother’s coat, the fur brushing my cheek like silk, I watch the numbers count down, one by one, until I reach the ground floor with a clang and a hydraulic sigh.

Outside, Nick leans against the passenger door of the Packard Speedster, wearing a thick wool coat and scarf, his well-shined shoes crossed at the ankles, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat. He jumps up when he sees me. “At last!” he says, and he takes me up and whirls me around and around. “I thought you weren’t coming after all.”

I throw back my head and laugh, really
laugh,
for the first time in ages. The iron strength of Nick’s arms anchors me while the world spins past my eyes. I haven’t seen him in two weeks, not since Daddy threw him out of the apartment, and I answer him now by putting my lips to his and kissing him madly.

“Look at you, all fur and sequins,” he says, burying his face in the hollow of my neck. “You smell delicious. You’re too gorgeous for me, Lilybird.”

“Budgie picked out the dress, and the fur’s my mother’s. Don’t tell.”

He picks me up and deposits me into the passenger seat before swinging himself into his own. The top is down, exposing us both to the frozen air. Nick turns on the ignition and leans toward me in the darkness. “I could eat you up. I’ve been like a madman. Why wouldn’t you meet me?”

“I told you I couldn’t. Daddy’s only just made it out of his room, the worst spell he’s ever had, and Mother . . .” I shake my head.

“Never mind.” He kisses me. “I’m going to show you the best time tonight, Lily. We’ll make up for everything. God, you’re beautiful. Have I told you that yet?” He puts the car in gear and bursts from the curb with a joyous growl of the engine.

In the past two weeks, I’ve thought of nothing but Nick, planned nothing but what I would say to him tonight. Now, with Park Avenue speeding by and the cold wind rushing over my head, I can’t think of a word. The engine’s roar and the thunder of the draft would have snatched it all anyway.

Nick shouts something and takes my hand.

“What’s that?”

The car slows down, approaching a stoplight. “We’ll go to the party first, is that all right? Do you have a mask?”

“Yes.” I pat my pocketbook.

“Good.”

The light changes, and Nick removes his hand to work the gears. We turn right onto Sixty-sixth Street to cross the park. I burrow into Mother’s mink coat and relish the icy wind on my face; I have imprisoned myself within my parents’ stuffy apartment for so long, taking anxious care of Daddy, with only brief excursions for errands and necessary social visits. I drink my twenty-two frigid degrees of fresh air in gulps. How did Nick know to put the top down, in this cold? I lean my head back against the seat and roll it sideways to watch Nick as he drives, watch his bold eagle’s profile against the sliding streetscape. The whole of my body pulses with love. I want to lie down for him, right here in the open car. We reach another stoplight, and he turns to me and smiles. “Stop that,” he says. “Or I’m going to start kissing you and crash us into a lamppost.”

Nick parks around the corner from his parents’ building, on Central Park West and Seventy-second Street. “Let me help you with your mask.” He reaches around to tie it for me.

“How do I look?”

“Like a goddess.” A kiss, and another, deeper, Nick’s hands wrapped around the back of my head and tangling in my hair. “I’m starving for you. I have to stop, don’t I, or we’ll never make it. Here, tie my mask.” He holds it up, a simple black silk scrap, and I turn his head around so I can knot the ribbons together.

“You look like a bandit.”

“I
am
a bandit. I’ve already abducted one fair maiden tonight. Come along, Lilybird. Come along and meet my crazy family.”

We can hear the party even from the elevator, which we share with seven or eight other partygoers. “Do you know the Greenwalds?” asks one, pressed right up against Mother’s furs.

“A little,” I say.

“Don’t listen to her,” says Nick. “She’s nothing but a crasher.”

“So am I!” the man says gaily. “I hear it’s the best party in town.”

The elevator stops at the penthouse, and we spill out into a soaring foyer, filled with laughing masked people and winding trails of cigarette smoke. I had thought my dress was daring, but in fact I feel almost subdued next to the plunging necklines and glittering skirts of the other women. “I’ll take your coat to my room,” Nick says in my ear, sliding the fur from my shoulders, “so it won’t get mixed up with the others. Stay right here.”

A waiter passes by with a tray of champagne. I snatch a glass and drink it eagerly, sizzling my nose with bubbles. Around me swims a sea of masks, some austere like Nick’s and some decked out with feathers and jewels. One startling Cubist masterpiece seems to have rendered its wearer practically sightless, or perhaps he’s only drunk. None of the faces seems the slightest bit familiar. I take another drink of champagne, even longer than the one before, and feel as if I’m sprouting wings and flying away, away from parents and Park Avenue, from Seaview and Smith College, from every known thing.

I wander across the foyer to a sweeping reception room, with a fireplace at one end and French doors at the other, suggesting a terrace. In the center, a giant fountain glitters pale yellow under the lights, and I realize with shock that Nick was right, that it’s flowing with champagne in merry defiance of Constitutional law. The guests are packed even more tightly, laughing even more loudly, and somewhere, a room or two away, an orchestra is playing Gershwin with well-paid enthusiasm.

Two arms encircle me from behind. For an instant, I think Nick has returned, but the arms are far too narrow and the voice is all Budgie. “Hello there, darling!
Quelle surprise.
”

I turn. “There you are! Oh, look at you.” She’s wearing silver lamé, which oozes down her lithe body without a ripple, and a matching silver mask. It suits her dark hair and scarlet lipstick and huge black-rimmed silver-blue eyes flawlessly.

“No, look at
you
! I told you that dress was perfect.” She loops her arm through mine. “Come along with me.”

“Where’s Graham?”

She waves her arm. “Somewhere. He was being difficult, so I sent him away. Oh, look! Here’s your faithful swain.”

“There you are.” Nick touches my bare arm. “I thought I told you to stay put in this crush. Afraid I’d lost you for good. Budgie. Good to see you.” He nods at her.

Budgie flings herself upward and kisses his cheek, right below the edge of his mask. “Nick, darling! You look terribly dashing. What a lovely party. Thanks ever so much for inviting me.”

He looks to the side. “Not at all. Is Pendleton around?”

Another wave of her bare arm. “Somewhere. Have you two eaten?”

“I was hoping to persuade Lily to dance with me first.” Nick turns his face to me.

“Oh, by all means. Don’t mind me. Do you like the dress I picked out for Lily?”

“Very much.”

“It’s transformed her, hasn’t it? You’d never think my sweet little mouse was inside all that.” She chucks my chin. “You two have a lovely time, promise? And don’t get into any trouble.”

The orchestra lilts its way through the transition of “Embraceable You.” As soon as we’re safely concealed by the other dancers, I lift my hand from Nick’s shoulder and rub away Budgie’s lipstick from his cheek. “This is wonderful. I haven’t danced in forever.”

“Neither have I.” He smiles.

“You’re sure you like the dress? It isn’t too much?”

Nick looks down with his piratical eyes. “The opposite, I’d say.”

We dance for a song or two, until I can see from the tiny flinch around Nick’s eye that his leg has begun to bother him. I pull back from his arms and tell him I’m hungry, and he finds me a seat and brings me a plate loaded from the buffet, with shrimp and strawberries and caviar served atop delicate toast triangles. The music swirls around us, the masks swirl around us. There’s no sign of Budgie. Nick smiles at me from beneath the black silk, tosses down more champagne, and feeds me a strawberry. We’re seated next to a soaring window at the far end of the ballroom, an ornate affair of carved pilasters and acanthus plasterwork. Everything seems to glitter, to catch the light of the chandeliers and multiply into infinity. I lean toward Nick and say, over the sound of the orchestra and the hum of voices and laughter, “How do you
live
here?”

He laughs. “I don’t! Not much, anyway.”

“Is your bedroom this grand?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I find his knee with my daring hand, under the tablecloth. “I’d love to know.”

Beneath the shadow of his mask, Nick’s green-brown eyes widen and flare. He’s had a few glasses of champagne by now, and his resolve is weakened. My blood lightens. I lean forward. “Please, Nick? You know how I hate crowds.”