A Hundred Summers (26 page)

He lowers his head and whispers against my ear.
“Everything?”

“Everything, Nick.”

He hovers above me, elbows braced at my sides to support his weight, his neck bent, his cheek still touching my cheek. His long legs tangle with mine. I love his heaviness, his solid mass balanced a hairsbreadth away. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure? You trust me?”

“Nick. Didn’t I just promise to marry you? Of course I trust you.
Yes.
Yes and yes.”

Nick lifts himself away from the sofa and holds out both hands for me. “Come,” he says, drawing me up. “We’ll have to be careful. I don’t have anything with me.”

I knit my eyebrows together, not fully sure of his meaning.

“Never mind,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

Nick leads me down the hall to a dark room at the end and turns on the lamp next to the bed. Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom is glossy and modern, a clean, shining box, with a large disjointed portrait above the headboard that just might be a Picasso.

For a moment, Nick watches me, his eyes returning the incandescence of the lamp.

“What is it?” I ask, pulling up my dress an inch or two.

“Don’t do that. Don’t hide yourself from me anymore.” He steps to me, takes the dress from my fingers, and reaches around for the buttons. “We’re together now, Lily. You have nothing to hide from me.” My dress falls unchecked down my body. He slips off his waistcoat and tosses it on the chair; he unfastens the rest of his shirt and lifts it from his shoulders. I watch him, unable to breathe, glowing like a coal in the cool air of the bedroom. Nick takes the end of his undershirt and passes it over his head. The skin beneath glows duskily in the lamplight, sprinkled with curling dark hair. I touch it in wonder. Nick’s chest.

He stands absolutely still, eyes closed.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “What should I do?”

“Believe me, Lily, whatever you like,” he says, and glances at the windows and laughs. “But let’s not let the neighbors keep score,
hmm
?”

I jump and cross my hands over my breasts. “Can they see us?”

“I’m not taking any chances. I know plenty of people around town who keep binoculars by the window.” He strides to the first window, grasps the cord, and looks down.

I know the exact instant when he notices the car pulling up on the street below. His shoulders start and go rigid, the blades projecting with readiness from the muscles of his back. The sweet tension in the air snaps like an elastic pulled too tight.

“What is it?” I step forward in alarm.

“I don’t believe it,” he breathes out. “I don’t goddamn believe it.”

“Nick,
what
?”

He turns to me. His face is still and calm and terrible. “Listen, Lily. My father’s outside.”

“What?”

“With your mother, I think. They must have found us out, God knows how.”

My hands fly to my mouth. “Oh, no!
How?
”

“Doesn’t matter. What do you want to do? It’s your choice. If you want to stay here and face them, I’ll stand by you. Or we can leave. I’ll take you down by the service elevator and drive you home. Your decision.”

I run to the window, holding up my dress with one hand, and stare down. I can’t see them clearly from above, but I recognize my mother’s long white dress, the brusque purposefulness of her motions. Mr. Greenwald—it must be him, a large-shouldered, formidable man—is helping her from the car, disentangling her flowing skirts from the seat. In minutes, they will be striding out of the elevator, pounding on the door, hands outstretched to drag me back to Park Avenue, to the stale perpetual life I knew before.

I turn to Nick. His chest is awash in moonlight, his face pale and determined. The blood pumps through my body, full of champagne, full of life, full of love. “I choose neither.”

“Neither? What, then?”

I fling my arms around his strong bare neck and laugh. “Let’s elope.”

“Elope?”

“Yes. Now. Let’s go. We have your car.”

He laughs back, lifts me up, gives me a spin. “You crazy girl. Where do we go?”

“I don’t know. Where do people go to elope?”

“Lake George, I guess. Or Niagara.”

“Lake George is closer,” I say.

We stare at each other, smiling, eyes wide with possibility.

“Let’s go,” says Nick.

He helps me with my dress; I help him with his buttons and studs. My fingers are trembling: not with nervousness now but excitement. He tosses me my mink; I hand him his coat and waistcoat. He switches off the lamps, goes in the kitchen, grabs a loaf of bread and wraps it in his wool overcoat. “Starving,” he says.

We race to the door, still laughing. At the last second, he stops and turns and strides back to the living room, where the bottle of champagne still sits on the sofa table, beading with condensation. He swipes it, together with our two glasses.

“Come on, Lilybird,” he says. “Let’s go get married.”

14.

SEAVIEW, RHODE ISLAND

Labor Day 1938

A
hurricane had barreled into the Florida Keys over the weekend. We listened in horror to the reports on the radio as we readied ourselves for the Greenwalds’ Labor Day party: houses flattened, trains derailed, a whole work party of war veterans gone missing.

“Dreadful,” said Aunt Julie. “Everybody’s so mad for Florida these days. I don’t understand it. Give me the South of France any day.”

“There’s the mistral,” I said.

“But no one’s in town during the mistral, darling.”

“Well, nobody’s in Florida right now,” I said. “Oh, wait! Except the people who live there, of course.”

Kiki tugged at my hand. “Come
on
.
Nick’s waiting.”

Since Nick’s accident a week ago, Kiki hadn’t wanted to let him out of her sight. We had gone over to the Greenwald house the following morning to see how everyone was doing. Nick was downstairs already, ribs bandaged, telling us it was all nothing, allowing Kiki to climb into his lap and scribble over the blueprints on the table before him. Budgie sat upstairs in bed, eating a boiled egg and looking bleary. “I must have aged a decade yesterday, darling,” she said, picking at her egg. “I can’t imagine life without him. I’ve promised myself to be such a good wife to him from now on. I’ll be quiet and faithful and make him breakfast every morning.”

I wanted to suggest that she wasn’t making such a promising start, now, was she, but instead I patted her leg beneath the comforter and told her Nick was a lucky man.

But it was more than Kiki’s desire to reassure herself of Nick’s continued existence. Her imagination was taken over by the idea that I had once been Nick’s girlfriend, that we had once been engaged. She had convinced herself that Nick should divorce Budgie and marry me, and Kiki was not the kind of girl who dreamed idly. Three days ago, emerging from the deserted cove after my early swim, I had discovered it was not quite so deserted after all. Nick stood among the rocks near the battery, rigid as a statue, face constricted into an expression of utmost terror. A large metal bucket sat next to him.

“Nick!” I jumped back in the water.

“Lily!” He spun around. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Kiki . . .”

“Kiki what?”

“She asked me to meet her here this morning. Something about fishing.”

“Is she here?”

He stared at the walls of the battery, his long back absorbing the reddish glow of the sunrise. “It doesn’t appear so.”

I treaded water for a few heavy seconds, wondering how long he had been standing there, not daring to ask. “Nick, would you mind terribly . . . ?”

“What’s that?”

“My towel.”

Nick found the towel on the rocks. The side of his face seemed flushed, though it might have been the sunrise. He held the towel out behind him, not looking. I rose from the water, snatched it from his fingers, and wrapped myself up. “You can look now,” I said.

He half turned, gazing determinedly at the waves rolling into the cove. “I’m sorry. She seems to have conceived this notion . . .”

“I know. I’ve tried to explain to her that it’s impossible . . .” I let my words trail.

“
Have
you?” he asked.

“Haven’t
you
?”

“I haven’t said anything. It’s not my place, is it?” He shook his head. “I’ll be going. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Nick, wait. How’s your head?”

“Fine.”

“Ribs?”

“Fine.”

“You’re such a damned stoic, Nick Greenwald. You always were.”

“Lilybird,” he said, staring at the sand near his feet, “you have no idea.”

He had turned then, picked up his bucket and walked away, and I had marched back to the house and given Kiki a stern lecture about the sanctity of marriage. She had looked down at the dining room table throughout, and when I was finished, asked if she could go to the Greenwalds’ for lunch.

I had told her no.

So the Labor Day party was the first time Kiki had seen Nick in days, and she darted ahead to fly up the steps and inside the house before Aunt Julie and I had even turned from the lane. (Mother, who still observed the isolation order on the Greenwalds, had walked on to the more sedate celebration taking place at the Seaview Club, with her head held rigidly high.)

Budgie greeted me at the door, eyes bright and lips red, with a kiss to my cheek. She held out a glass of gin and tonic, crammed with ice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

I took the glass. “Here we are.”

She looped her arm through mine. “Graham’s here, looking morose. Haven’t you told him
yes
yet, you silly girl? The poor fellow.”

“I’ve only been seeing him a few weeks.”

The house was crowded already, with giggling women and leering men. Budgie drew me toward the sunroom, murmuring in my ear: “I need to talk to you. I’ve been desperate to talk to you.”

“Here?”

“Later,” she said, winking, stopping at the entrance to the sunroom, where Nick and Kiki had sprawled over the New York apartment blueprints a week or so ago. “But here’s Graham. Go. Make him happy, darling.” She gave me a little push to my back.

Graham was standing at the apex of a close-knit triangle with two young women at the opposite corners, one a blonde and the other a redhead. He held a whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and was brandishing them both to illustrate a point. He glanced over when I entered the room and had the grace to look sheepish. I turned to Budgie, but she had disappeared.

“Ladies,” Graham said, making a little bow. His words were slightly blurred at the edges. “May I present my fiancée, the beautiful Lily Dane.”

The two women turned in unison. Their eyebrows were delicately painted, à la Garbo, and extended into their foreheads in identical arcs of astonishment.

Graham set down his whiskey, stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray, and walked over to me. I hadn’t seen him since the night of Nick’s accident. I had kept to the club and the house, and he hadn’t visited. He took my hand now and kissed it reverently.

I wagged my other fingers from around the side of my highball glass. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

It was hot in the sunroom. Graham led me back through the house to the terrace. I kept my eyes on his back, refusing to look for Nick. We reached the terrace and he kept going, until we were standing on the dock, looking out across the bay. “Sit,” he said, and I sat. He offered me a cigarette, and I took it. “Drink,” he said. “All of it. I want you good and drunk, Lily. It’s the only way with you.”

I drank my gin obediently, smoked my cigarette. The clouds sat heavily above us, threatening imminent rain. From the house and terrace came the sound of raucous laughter. Graham sat cross-legged in front of me, earnest, radiantly handsome, incongruously humble, more than slightly drunk. He lit a cigarette of his own and held it in his mouth while he took my free hand with both of his.

“I’ve given you a week to miss me,” he said.

“I’ve missed you.”

He lifted one hand to remove his cigarette. “How much?”

“Very much.” I smiled.

“Drink some more.”

I took another drink.

“Do you have an answer for me yet?”

I sat there pondering, making busy with my drink and cigarette. “Who were those girls with you? Friends of yours?”

“Fans. Never saw them before this morning. It’s part of the game. But you’re avoiding my question.”

“What do you mean
part of the game
?”

He sighed. “I mean, in the course of my duties, I occasionally encounter members of the opposite sex with base designs upon my person. Understand?”

“And what do you do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, Graham? Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. If you can’t tell me the truth, I might as well get up now and go back in the house.”

Another sigh. “In days gone by, I might occasionally have availed myself of the convenience. Not anymore.”

“Hmm.”
I took a drink.

“Don’t
hmm
me, Lily, in that mysterious voice of yours. I need an answer. I’m going back in the city tomorrow. Appointment with the team doctor.”

“Tomorrow?”

“They want to see if I’m ready for October.”

“What’s in October?”

He rolled his eyes and leaned back against his hand. “The playoffs, Lily. The World Series, if we make it.”

“Your shoulder’s all better?”

“Enough better. Palmer’s been catching for me in the mornings; my arm’s pretty well back. I’m driving down first thing tomorrow.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “I’ll be staying at a hotel. I let another fellow have my apartment for the summer, a fellow on the team, fellow from Ohio. Here’s the address.” He held out a piece of paper.
The Waldorf-Astoria,
it said.
Suite 1101.

“Why are you giving me this?”

“So you can visit me.”

“Oh.” I took the paper from him. I had no pocketbook, no pockets. I fiddled it with my fingers, examining the black ink, the careless scrawl of Graham’s handwriting.