Fairytales (45 page)

“… and she has been missing now for two weeks. The news has come as a shock to everyone. At this point, the police cannot make a definite statement as to the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Rossi. The only clue they have is that she left Santa Barbara to join the senator in San Diego and has not been seen nor heard from since. The senator and his family are in seclusion at the Rossi mansion in San Francisco and none of the family have made a statement. We will interrupt this program for any further developments …”

The music began again … Catherine was dumbfounded, then excitedly happy, then frightened like a child about to dive off a high diving board. She ran for the phone … “Mrs. Van Muir, did you hear the news?” Catherine asked breathlessly.

“Yes … oh my, yes, Mrs. Rossi. Do you want me to come up?”

“I want you to get me a San Francisco paper.”

“Immediately.”

When Catherine read the entire account with her picture staring back at her, she was delighted… Well, Senator Dominic Rossi, I finally made it … pushed you off the front page … for a little girl who came from New Orleans I gave you a pretty good run for your money … San Francisco, here I come.

She picked up the phone and called Gina Maria.
“Mama,”
she screamed, then cried, “Where are you?”

“Never you mind about that… for now …”

“We’ve been going out of our minds … tell me something … anything … ?”

“Not now, all I’ll say is I’m fine … couldn’t be better … just had to get away and do some tall thinkin’.”

“Why didn’t you let us know?”

“’Cause it wouldn’t have worked.”

“What wouldn’t, Mama?”

“Straightenin’ out your Papa.”

“I wouldn’t have told … if only you had let me know you were safe.”

“Not intentionally … maybe, but if you’d seen him bein’ a little concerned you’d have told him.”

“No, I wouldn’t have, Mama. We thought something terrible happened.”

“No, sir, somethin’ wonderful’s happened. I’m gonna be a wife that counts and Papa’s gonna be a husband that cares or there’s not gonna be any senator named Rossi in Washington come November, ’cause there won’t be any marriage … hear?”

“I hear …” Gina Maria answered between tears of grief and relief. “When are you coming home, Mama?”

“I’m not comin’ home … that is, right away, but I’m comin’ back to San Francisco. When I get there, I’ll call you from the hotel I’ll be stayin’ at. I’m charterin’ a plane so no need to find out about nothin’ else. You’ve got my permission to tell the others … Gina Maria?”

“Yes, Mama?”

“How are my babies?”

“Fine … they’ve asked for you, Mama.”

“Well, I’ll be seein’ them soon. Now give ’em a big kiss and hug from their
nonna.”

“I will, Mama, thank God you’re safe and coming home.”

“Me, too … nice to be wanted.”

“We all want you, Mama.”

“All? … well, we’ll see.”

When Catherine arrived in San Francisco, it was five in the afternoon and getting out of the airport incognito, then picking up the car she had reserved earlier under the pilot’s name (a deed for which he was handsomely rewarded) was no problem, but how to get into the hotel without detection, incognito or not, was no easy task. She thought it out very carefully. She drove into the hotel garage in the rented Ford (so as not to call attention via any gawkers), quickly accepted the parking tag and walked rapidly up the backstairs to the employees’ entrance. Thus avoiding the main lobby, she opened the door carefully to see if anyone was around. Fortunately, the maids going off duty paid little attention to her, if at all, since she was still wearing the dark sunglasses, bandanna and a simple cotton dress she had borrowed for this occasion from Mrs. Van Muir which was much too long and much too tight, but so far, she had not been recognized. Finding a house phone, she called the manager. When he answered, she said, enjoying all the suspense, “I’m not gonna tell who this is, but come to the second floor employees’ entrance.”

“Who is this?” he demanded.

“When you get here, you’ll find out… and Fritz, don’t bring anyone with you … hear?”

“Who are you? Fritz! … How dare you call me by my first name?”

“Because I’ve been doin’ it for years … now get up here.”

“I insist upon knowing who …”

“I’m tellin’ you to get up here, then you’ll know!”

He slammed down the phone and thought, should he take the security man with him? Well, of course he wasn’t going to go without protection, but he would have security stay tucked away, out of sight, just in case this proved to be more than he could handle. “Now, Sam, if I don’t come out in five minutes, you come in after me. Better keep the gun ready in case of any surprises,” Fritz said to security.

“Right …” security answered, and stood back against the wall as his boss opened the door and went in.

“Fritz … how are you?” Catherine asked, taking off the glasses.

It wasn’t security Fritz needed … it was the fire department’s oxygen tank or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He looked like he was going to faint. “My God, Mrs. Rossi!”

“That’s right … Mrs. Rossi … that’s just who I am.”

“But …”

“I know, they’ve had the mounties out lookin’ for me … well, I just found out this mornin’, but I don’t want anyone to know I’m here … hear?”

Recovering sufficiently from his state of shock, he remembered Sam, who would be charging in at any moment like a bull. “Wait, Mrs. Rossi, security is outside. I’ll be right back.” He dashed from the room and returned within seconds. “Now, Mrs. Rossi, let me say how terribly happy I am to see you well and home.”

“That’s just the point, Fritz, I’m not goin’ home just yet. I need a room … You’re the only person other than my family that knows I’m safe.” A bewildered Fritz stared with his mouth hanging open. “I’m not gonna explain, but you’re not to breathe a word about this to a livin’ soul… Ya hear?”

“I understand, Mrs. Rossi … you have my word on that.”

“I sure hope so … for your sake … ’cause if the word leaks out, I’ll know where it came from.”

“Oh, Mrs. Rossi, you have my sacred word.”

“I surely hope so, Fritz, ’cause we own a sizable hunk of stock in this fine establishment.”

“Have no fear, my dear Mrs. Rossi … now what may I do for you?”

“Well, first, I want a room … then get my luggage out of the car … it’s in the garage. Here’s the parkin’ tag …” Catherine handed it to him and added, “I want you and no one else to bring the luggage.”

“Understandably.”

“Fine, then I’ll give you an order for dinner … again, Fritz …”

“I know, Mrs. Rossi, I will see no one knows. I will attend to everything personally …”

“Right on …”

Knowing this large, exquisitely furnished suite was only to be for a night, if that long, she hadn’t bothered to unpack. She was sick to death of
rooms.
What she needed now after that long lonely retreat was her
home.
Catherine was going home come hell or high water … hail or brimstone … Dominic or not … that house was
hers
as far as she was concerned, but first he was going to get out, if only temporarily … If they couldn’t come to a meeting of the minds once and for all, he could go permanently to hell. With each mounting thought grew the anger which had accumulated over a period of two weeks … no, a lot longer than that. But she’d face Dominic.

Marching into the bathroom, she bathed, put on fresh makeup, slipped into a peach-colored sheer wool dress, put her size four and one-half feet into a pair of brown suede boots, pulled them up over her legs to just below the knee, then stepped back and observed her image. After wearing nothing but cotton shifts or staying in a nightgown all day … everyday for two miserable weeks, she looked wonderful, like the Catherine of old had just come back among the living. First, she called Fritz to have her dinner brought, then phoned Gina Maria.

“Mama!”
she cried, “I’ve been waiting all day.”

“Well, I just got in a little while ago.”

“I’m so relieved, Mama, where are you staying?”

“Where else but at my favorite hotel atop Nob Hill … watchin’ the cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”

“Mama, I’m so glad to hear you’re happy, but we’ve all been under such pressure … Mama, don’t you think the least you can do is call the family?”

“No … absolutely not. In fact, Gina Maria, if you tell where I’m stayin’ I’ll never trust you with another secret… I swear, as long as I live.”

“I won’t, but I don’t understand any of this, Mama … why didn’t you go home instead of to a hotel now that Papa knows.”

“That’s a question I’ll answer later when you and Sergio get here … Gina Maria … ?”

“Yes, Mama?”

“What was your Papa’s reaction when you told him yesterday …”

Gina Maria winced and swallowed hard. “You there? … Gina Maria?”

“I’m here … he looked like, he looked like a beaten, bewildered man,” she answered, thinking, “I hope that satisfies you …”

“Okay, darlin’, I’ll see you later.”

Going to the bathroom, Gina Maria opened the medicine cabinet, reached for the bottle of aspirin, unscrewed the top, took two pills out and swallowed them with a glass of water. Trembling, she held on to the edge of the pink marble wash basin to steady herself. She looked at her pale face in the mirror, but the image she saw was not of herself, but the recollection of her father’s face which seemed to stare back at her.

Remembering his first look of total shock, too dumbfounded to speak. It was as though someone had just risen from the dead. In those few moments he ran the gamut from relief to rage.

“How could she have subjected us to this monstrous anxiety … put us through this unforgivable kind of apprehension. It’s inhuman …” he screamed as though he had lost all his senses. “What kind of a person in their right mind does a thing like that? I ask you, who?”

So outraged, he shook with the desire to strike Catherine … to retaliate, if only she were there at that moment, and Gina Maria was sure he would have for the first time in his life. The effects of seeing her father in such a state unnerved her so, she could not control the fears of what she anticipated the first meeting would eventually be like between her parents.

Gina Maria and Sergio sat together on the settee in Catherine’s room, as she reclined fully dressed against the pillows, propped up in bed. After the salutations were out of the way, Catherine began, “You asked me before why I didn’t go home … well, it’s simple. I want your father to leave my house and I want you to tell him.”

“Why, Mama … why?”

“Because I can’t face him … and not out of fear.”

“What has he done so dreadful,” Sergio spoke up, “he is a man who has suffered painfully in your absence.”

“Has he really?”

“Yes, he has asked over and over why you became so angry … he does not know in what way he offended you.”

“Oh, doesn’t he?” Catherine said. “That’s just the point … he’s so busy with his own affairs, he doesn’t know I exist.”

Sergio was not an American so it was impossible to understand how a woman could run off and abandon her husband and children. What she had done, he considered absolutely unforgivable. But he was in no position to go against her since he felt his obligation to her keenly. It was Catherine who had insisted Dominic buy the travel agencies. It was Catherine who purchased the house for Gina Maria and furnished it while they were in Italy on their honeymoon for three months. Catherine gave so much, it became virtually impossible not to surrender one’s self. He loved Gina Maria and he also loved his life, but it took a strength he did not have to reject the keys to the kingdom when they’d been handed to him … and Catherine always pulled the strings not only with him, but with all her children … and the string could be cut at any time. It was very fragile. One never knew. Guardedly, Sergio said, “But now, Papa is very much aware you exist. I think you should go home and find out.”

“You sound like you’re favoring him, Sergio, and I don’t think that’s bein’ very grateful,” she said.

Gina Maria took the initiative. “Mama, please listen … we’re at a loss to know exactly the reasons you found it necessary to go into hiding, but since you did, then you must go home and face Papa,” she said, her face set and strong. This was an attitude Catherine rarely saw in her daughter. But she did not delude herself … if Gina Maria were forced into a position, it would be with Dominic against her … and Catherine’s daughter represented a loss she knew she could not endure … sons were sons. They now belonged to their wives, but a daughter always belonged to her mother. Catherine listened quietly as Gina Maria continued, “I refuse to take sides against my parents … I don’t think you really want me to … I’m not going to say who’s right or who’s wrong but I am going to remind you that once when you and Papa were not together, Papa came home and faced you for all our sakes … and, Mama, I think you should be equal to that … now, go home … resolve what must be resolved … whether Papa’s in the house or out, you’re going to have to talk this out. You may not like the position, but the whole country is waiting to hear what happened to you because you have made yourself a public person and the responsibility of that falls upon you to explain. Papa is in the public eye and his situation is untenable. I love you both, but, Mama, you started something and you must finish it.”

Catherine looked at Gina Maria intently, knowing in her heart she was standing in judgment.

“Gina Maria’s right, Mama … it’s the only way,” Sergio said, pleadingly.

“You think so … do you?” Catherine asked without rancor.

“Yes, Mama … if you decide to take her advice, we will drive you … now … please.”

“Alright… get my coat, Gina Maria, while I call to have my bags brought down … the backstairs. That’s the way I came in … Now, onward christian soldiers!”

Fortified with the boldness of a Carrie Nation, Catherine strode up the wide marble stairs to Dominic’s room. Without knocking, she flung open the door and found a Dominic who looked like he had turned to stone, staring at her as she stood with her hands poised on her hips, waiting for Dominic to make the first overture. She would know how to deal with him no matter which way he decided to pursue the subject. Pacing back and forth, trying with all his might not to give in to his desire to strike her … he continued to pace; at this moment his desire was so great it would have taken very little to incite him. The wrong word … the magic word … would have set him off into a rage of uncontrolled violence. He could see it now in large, black headlines: “Senator Strangles Wife.” Finally he stopped short, stood very close to her.
“Why have you done this to me
…
?”