Beautiful Lies (32 page)

One regional characteristic that hadn't wavered, however, was a belief that following one's own heart was most important. No matter how many threats Thomas made,
Liana knew it was just a matter of time until she would be free to do just that.

Thomas wanted her to earn a degree in business so that someday she could take her place at Pacific International. But Liana had decided immediately that this was something she would never do. She was disillusioned enough with the life Hope had led not to strike out on her own before she was ready, but she was also determined to reject everything about Thomas as soon as the time was right.

At Mei's urging she signed up for more jewelry classes and used her allowance to buy supplies. She found a designer at a local craft show who agreed to trade lessons in lost-wax casting for baby-sitting and simple chores. She fired clay beads in a raku kiln and wove delicate strands of hand-dyed silk on a Chinese loom.

The day she turned seventeen, Thomas came to her room when she was experimenting with colorful rhinestones she had pried from thrift-store costume jewelry. She often worked on simple designs at home, twisting wire for decorative borders for rings or bracelets or attaching findings to pieces she had made in class.

Today as always, she did nothing to hide her latest attempt at design. Her father stood in the hallway and eyed her coldly. While she had grown, Thomas had shrunk with age. At seventy-eight he was neither robust nor frail, but while he had once thought nothing of slapping her if she displeased him, now he never raised a hand in her presence. She was sure he was afraid that this time, if she fought back, she would win.

“I've come to show you your birthday present,” he told her.

Since birthdays were only nominally celebrated in the Robeson house, she was surprised. “Right now?”

He looked past her to the project on her desk. “It doesn't look like you're doing anything important.”

“Of course not.” She smiled sweetly.

“Your study time would be better spent practicing your languages.”

Years before, Thomas had ordained that Liana would become fluent in German and French while she was still in high school, so that later she would be an asset to the corporation's negotiations in other counties.

Her temper flared, and for once she forgot to be cautious. “My Cantonese is improving rapidly.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Cantonese?”

She didn't know what motivated her to go on. “Yes, I've met a woman who's teaching me privately. That only makes sense, don't you think? With the Chinese population here in the Bay Area and all the opportunities for development abroad, someone in management at Pacific will need to be fluent. I did it to surprise you.”

“Who is this woman? Where did you meet her?”

Liana wondered what had possessed her to bait Thomas. She hadn't planned to flaunt Mei in front of her father until she was ready to leave home.

It was too late now. “Her name is Mei Fong. She's wonderful. Witty, intelligent and warm. I've learned so much from her.”

He didn't ask
what
she had learned. He stepped into her room, pushing her farther inside. “How did you meet this woman?”

“One of my teachers introduced us. We had an introductory class in Chinese, and I liked it. I thought you'd be pleased if I learned a little more.” She favored him with another beatific smile.

Thomas's expression had dipped from cold to frozen. “What do you know about her?”

“Let's see…she's a widow. Her husband owned an im
port business, and her sons run it now. I think she's well off. She only tutors me as a favor.”

He glared at her, assessing her expression in his all-too-familiar way. “What else do you know?”

She pretended to consider. “She has lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, mostly boys. One of them, Frank, is almost exactly my age. He's going to Harvard next fall.”

He wanted to prod. She could see it in his eyes. But the question he really wanted to ask couldn't be spoken. If she didn't know everything about Mei, the wrong question could give him away. “You're not to see her anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I know of this woman. Her family has a bad reputation.”

“You're probably thinking of the wrong person. Mei's family is highly regarded.”

“You will
not
see her again.”

She wanted to tell him everything. Nothing would have pleased her more than to see real emotion cross Thomas's face. But she wasn't ready. She had a plan for her life, and this was not the time for confrontation.

She shrugged, as if none of it mattered. “If you say so. I don't have much free time, anyway. I was just doing it as a surprise. I live to make you happy.”

He moved closer, but she didn't budge. “You live to make me angry. I've offered you the world, and you throw it back into my face.” He waved at the rhinestones on her desk. “Do you think I don't know about this ‘interest' of yours? That I don't know you take classes behind my back? That I don't know you've studied with some hippy pothead who's as maladjusted as your mother? I watch you. I have you watched. I know what you do.”

She didn't flinch. “Then I'm surprised you didn't know about Mei.”

He raised his hand. She raised an eyebrow. “I really wouldn't do that,” she said. “It could ruin my birthday.”

“You're a disgrace.”

“I thought I was exactly what you'd made me.”

He dropped his hand. He rarely did anything without thinking of all the consequences. “You'll stop this little hobby, too.”

“I don't think so. Not unless it begins to interfere with my studies. Most girls my age have a hobby, Thomas. Think of all the things I could have chosen.”

“Your future is not assured, Liana. I can write you out of my will. I don't even have to give you a job in my steno pool.”

There was so much she couldn't say. That she would never darken the door of Pacific International whether he gave her a job or not. That his threats were meaningless, since she knew that at eighteen she would inherit a substantial amount of money from her mother's estate. That he would never have a real hold over her, because she knew his secret. There had never been any shame in Thomas's heritage, but the fact that he had hidden it for so long was unforgivable.

The time wasn't right, so she simply smiled. “Well, I sure hope you don't offer me a job in your steno pool. My secretarial skills are abysmal.”

His breathing was labored, the only sign that she had gotten to him. He didn't respond, and he didn't move away. He stood absolutely still for a moment, composing himself. Then he shook his head. “Change your clothes. I'm taking you to see your gift.”

She was surprised. “Okay.” She couldn't resist. “We'll have fun. Real father-and-daughter stuff.”

He spun on his heel and left her room. She closed the door and leaned against it. She wondered if she could bear
to live with Thomas Robeson and all he represented for one more year.

She wondered if she could bear the loneliness that was always with her.

T
homas's birthday gift was the Pearl of Great Price. Not that he had any real intention of giving it to her. Thomas took Liana to the Robeson Building, past guards who bowed and scraped as if he were royalty. In his office, he unlocked the safe and removed the pearl, displaying it in the palm of his hand.

Liana felt a painful squeeze in her chest as she eyed the magnificent gem. She knew about the pearl, of course. In her quest to acquaint Liana with family history, Mei had told her the story of Tom and Archer, along with stories about Willow and her own childhood in Broome. And Liana had seen photographs of the pearl that accompanied articles about Pacific International Growth and Development. For decades “Pigged Out” had exploited the pearl as a symbol of purity and perfection: Pacific International Growth and Development, Pearl of the Pacific.

“Would you like to hold it?” Thomas asked.

Liana knew better than to answer yes, since Thomas
would then refuse. On the other hand, if she said no, he would rail at her for not appreciating his generosity.

“It looks wonderful right where it is,” she said in a rare moment of compromise.

“There's nothing you could create that would be half as beautiful. I don't know why you try.”

“The oyster gave its life for the pearl. I'm not that dedicated.”

“My father died for this.”

She pretended to be surprised, as if Mei had never told her the pearl's story. “How?”

He searched her face, as if he was weighing the honesty of her response. Then he related the story of Tom Robeson and Archer Llewellyn.

As her father spoke, Liana listened carefully, almost surprised that Thomas's story so closely matched her aunt's.

“But how did
you
get it?” she asked. Mei had never been clear on this point, only explaining that someone had reclaimed the pearl from the Llewellyns and brought it to America.

“We Robesons take back what's ours. When I learned about the pearl, I made certain it would belong to our family again.”

“And the Llewellyns?”

“Stupid people, and easy to fool.”

She suspected there was more to
that
story than she would ever hear. “Don't they want it back?”

He sniffed. “I doubt the Llewellyn descendants even know it's here. They live in Australia on a worthless cattle ranch. But be wary of every stranger who shows an interest in the pearl, Liana. The Llewellyns could come after it someday. Once it belongs to you, it will be yours to protect.”

“Once it belongs to me?” Her palm itched to hold the pearl.

“Did you think I was really going to present it to you now?”

She rolled her eyes. “Thomas, if nothing else, give me credit for knowing you better.”

For years he had insisted she call him Father—and for years she had declined. He shook his head, and his lips thinned into a grimace. “It won't belong to you if you continue to defy me.”

She felt the chains that were binding her tighten, but only a little. She didn't want the pearl that badly. “You don't want obedience, you want total control.”

“I'm too old to have another child. I didn't want one in the first place, but your mother defied me.”

“There's a pattern here,” she pointed out. “Mother defied you. I defy you. Do you detect a message?”

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. “I will never have another child, and Graham doesn't have Robeson blood.”

Silently she placed Graham a rung higher on the evolutionary ladder.

“This pearl should remain in our family,” he finished.

“Sounds like I'm the Great White Hope for the Great White Pearl.”

“Well, I can have it sold or locked away for future generations if I have to. I can secure it legally for decades, even a century.”

“Why this sudden sentimental attachment to family? Why should you care whether someone with your bloodlines gets it or not?”

He closed his fingers around the pearl, and it vanished. He didn't speak.

She wondered if this man, who had never shown her any
real kindness, had a flicker of warmth in his icy soul. Could Thomas feel some attachment to the father he'd never known? Some attachment to future generations? It seemed so human, and so unlike him.

“I really don't set out to defy you,” she said, when they had stood in silence long enough to make her uncomfortable. “It's just that we don't have anything to offer each other. I wish things between us were easier.”

“When I was a boy, I didn't think what my grandparents could offer me. I was grateful for whatever they chose to do.”

She tried to think of something she was grateful for, just to let him know she was trying. But she was afraid the moment she told him something pleased her, he would take it away.

“What about the things your grandparents didn't do?” she asked at last. “Didn't you ever wish there was somebody who loved you just because you'd been born?”

For just the briefest moment there was something faraway in his eyes, something almost childlike. Then it vanished before she could be certain it had ever been there. “This can be yours someday, Liana. But only if you live the way I want you to. Study and learn. Perfect yourself. Curb your tongue. Above everything, show me that you're worthy of this legacy.”

Any possibility of understanding vanished. A knot formed in her stomach. It was so much worse to believe in possibilities, no matter how briefly. “I can't show you what you don't want to see,” she said.

He turned away and strode to the safe. She had not even held the pearl. As he placed it back inside, she suspected she had seen the Pearl of Great Price for the first and last time.

 

One year later, with her high school diploma in hand and her inheritance from her mother safely transferred to her name, Liana packed her suitcases and, in the dead of night, slipped away from the red sandstone mansion in Pacific Heights. She had never felt closer to Hope than she did at that moment. She supposed her father would discover the news of her disappearance, only to say “like mother, like daughter,” and go about his business.

She had been preparing for her departure for a year, although part of her had hoped it wouldn't be necessary. But on the day of her graduation, their troubled relationship had erupted irrevocably. For the past year she had been doubly careful to hide every encounter with Mei. This had meant less contact and rigorous planning, but Thomas had never again mentioned Mei. Liana hoped she had fooled him. She was proud to be Mei's niece and sorry to be Thomas's daughter, but until she was eighteen, Thomas controlled her life.

On graduation morning Thomas announced he would not be attending the festivities, nor would Sammy, who would be accompanying him to a business dinner. This meant that no family member would be present to mark the occasion, since Graham was still at Princeton, finishing his sophomore year. Liana couldn't believe even Thomas would be so unfeeling. She was sure she would be the only graduate with no one to cheer for her. Until she thought of Mei.

Mei questioned her about the wisdom of attending the ceremony, but Liana assured her that Thomas wouldn't be there. “And besides,” Liana said, “I'm nearly eighteen. Until now I didn't have any choice about this, but now I don't care what Thomas knows. Pretty soon he won't be able to hurt me anymore. But if you're afraid he'll come after you…”

Mei didn't smile. “I have strong sons, and influence of my own.”

So Liana graduated that night under a bower of ivy and white roses, knowing that the one person in the world who really loved her was sitting proudly in the audience. The euphoria lasted as long as the ceremony. Afterwards, as Mei came to hug her wayward niece, Liana looked up to see Thomas and Sammy standing at the edge of the crowd.

Liana turned her attention back to Mei. “Auntie Mei, my father's here.”

“Is he?” Mei seemed unconcerned. “Perhaps he hoped to trap you?”

Liana rejected that. Thomas would never want this scene to be played out in public. “I won't let him hurt you,” she promised.

Mei touched her cheek fondly. “He can't hurt me. But I'll say goodbye now.”

“I'm going to tell him I know who you are.”

“I think he knows already, Liana.” Mei kissed her, then disappeared into the crowd. The small auditorium was filled with members of San Francisco's most successful families. Ironically they represented a rainbow of nationalities and races, and Mei melted in, unremarkable and unnoted. Thomas's Chinese heritage might have been a professional asset in this rapidly transforming, multicultural world, but even the national fascination with genealogy, inspired by the bestselling
Roots,
had never moved him to tell his secret.

“I've sent Sammy home,” Thomas said, taking Liana's elbow with no preamble. “We'll start back on foot until the car returns.”

She shook off his hand. “I have two better invitations tonight. Why did you come? You said you couldn't.”

In an unusual absence of self-control, a muscle jumped in his jaw. “There will be no parties for you.”

“Try to stop me and I'll jump back up on that stage and tell everyone who Mei is.” She kept her voice low and a smile on her face. “But just for the record,
Daddy,
I'm proud to be Chinese. The only thing you've
ever
had to be ashamed of is your puny little heart. Luckily your sister's is larger.”

“You won't see her. You won't mention her. Never again. If you do, you'll lose everything. Choose her family or mine, Liana. But don't make the mistake of believing you can have both.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd, but Thomas didn't blend in the way his twin had. His stiff carriage and cold expression set him apart.

The next morning they didn't speak of Mei. Liana stayed on in Thomas's house only long enough to sign the papers that transferred control of her mother's estate and to buy a used Rabbit convertible. That night, she escaped. She made just one stop on her way out of town. She drove to the apartment on Waverly Place and climbed the stairs as she had so many times before. But now she didn't watch over her shoulder. She climbed proudly and boldly. Already she could feel the shackles falling away. She was free. She had made it through her childhood.

She knocked on her aunt's door, and in a rare display of emotion, she threw her arms around the sleepy woman the moment she answered.

“I'm off, Auntie Mei. At last! Wish me luck.”

Mei didn't ask where Liana was going. She knew her niece and how badly she needed freedom to try her wings. “You will write? You will call?”

“Oh, you know I will! I'll miss you so much.”

Mei clasped her close. Then she held her away. “I have regretted only two things in my life. The second was not having a daughter. Until I found you.”

Liana felt tears running down her cheeks. “You got me through this, Auntie. You're the only person in the world I love.”

“That will change soon enough.” Mei hugged her again, then she pushed Liana away. “Go, but be warned.” She spoke in Cantonese, then smiled when Liana looked bewildered. “This is something your grandmother often said to me. You are like her, of course. In appearance and in your heart.”

“What does it mean?”

“It's a common saying. Once you climb on the back of a tiger, you cannot climb down.”

“I don't understand.”

“You have chosen a new and daring path, Liana. Once you commit yourself, you must see it through.”

“I have to see it through. I sure can't go home again.”

“This is the time for you to go forward.” Mei stepped back. “I will be waiting to hear from you.”

Liana opened the door and stepped out into the hallway and her brand-new life.

She spent the summer as an apprentice to a craftswoman in Nevada who taught her mokume gane, the Japanese art of metalworking. In the fall she traveled across the country to begin school at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She wrote and called Mei often, and informed Thomas of her whereabouts, too, although she knew he had surely excised her from his life forever.

From her first day on campus, Liana remained open to other avenues for her life. She loved jewelry. She loved the cool feel of precious metals, the incomparable sparkle of
gems. She loved to manipulate materials, both mundane and priceless, to create beauty that would, by its very existence, enhance the allure of a woman or the attractions of a man.

She had expected her new world to offer limitless possibilities. Instead, with each class, with each new, unrelated adventure, her desire to focus on jewelry expanded. By the time she entered her senior year, she had won prizes for her designs and interest from the giants on New York's Fifth Avenue, as well as smaller manufacturers and retailers on Forty-seventh.

After graduation, on a trip to Manhattan to meet with an art director at Tiffany who had attended her senior exhibition, Liana met Cullen.

In her years away from San Francisco, Liana had attempted to shed the opposing philosophies of her parents and develop her own style and opinions. She had proceeded carefully in relationships, ever mindful of the many worthless men who had inhabited Hope's life. She was terrified that, like her mother, she wouldn't be able to see men clearly, and so she had kept them at a distance, losing her virginity but never her heart.

She had developed a polished but exotic exterior, symbolized by dramatic clothing of her own design, which was always a showcase for her newest pieces of jewelry. She framed the austere oval of her face by twisting and pinning up her long black hair with ivory or jade combs, or braiding it with silken cords and beads. That day in Manhattan, she wore a princess-style dress of deepest plum and her favorite gold brooch, cast and chased with amethysts and pearls. She had entwined her chignon with a rope of seed pearls and left her earlobes and arms bare, so not to subtract from the effect.