Searching for Grace Kelly (23 page)

“I'm sorry,” she blurted out. She wanted to say more, but the words wouldn't come. She felt the burning of tears, lowered her eyes toward the sidewalk.

They stood in silence for a while. She was starting to shiver from the mist.

“Does he know? About me?”

She shook her head.

“Were there others?”

Her eyes shot up to meet his. “Of course not.”

“Why, Laura? I swore I wasn't going to ask, but now I have to know.”

“You might not believe this,” she said, summoning the courage to continue to meet his stare, “but I do, really, honestly care about you. The truth is I met you both at the same time and it just seemed okay at first—”

“Yeah, you see, that's the key phrase: At first. I didn't expect you weren't seeing other guys when we met, Laura. You're a pretty girl. But my God. After that date in Atlantic City? We spent almost an entire
twenty-four hours
together. And then all the other days and nights over the last few months? And you watched me falling in love with you and never thought it might be worth mentioning that you also happened to be dating the city's most well-known bachelor?”

She heard nothing after
You watched me falling in love with you
. She began crying, big, gulping sobs that choked in her chest and heaved from her lips in jerking bursts, as if she were grieving at a hospital bedside. Her voice cracked like an adolescent boy's. “I'm . . . I'm sorry.”

It was awful, rote, magnificently inadequate. But it was all she could manage.

He went to say something but stopped, and instead simply turned away, slowly walking back toward the bar.

The tea was hot and delicious and served in tiny individual pots of delicate porcelain that matched the teacups and saucers, a decidedly feminine pattern of curlicues and flowers swirling around the edges of each. Laura, Dolly, and Vivian sat in the dining room of the Barbizon—“imbued with Old Charleston atmosphere,” as the brochures declared, a bit optimistically—each making polite conversation in spectacularly unsuccessful fashion.

This had been Laura's idea, and she knew it had been a mistake even before the tier of tea sandwiches and the perfectly shaped mounds of clotted cream had been placed on the table. She was still worried about Vivian, who seemed increasingly distant, devoid of any of the jaunty joie de vivre she'd exhibited ever since she'd barreled into their room looking for cover from Metzger. So Laura had convinced Dolly that they should take Vivian to a proper British tea, which was served several afternoons right inside the cavernous dining room. She had hoped that perhaps the gesture would lift her own spirits, too. Now, looking at Dolly's similarly pained expression, it appeared all three of them were in desperate need of a boost. And not likely to get it from the other two.

Dolly leaned back in her chair. “Well, ain't this the cat's pajamas,” she said, breaking through the falsity. “Three girls all dressed up for tea, and nothing but Gloomy Guses in the lot.”

“Not everyone,” Vivian said, nodding quietly over to a table in the corner. Two of the Women sat, chatting amiably. They were archetypal: dowdy, eschewing makeup or fashionable hairstyles, in nondescript, shapeless dresses with little adornment. The one with her back to them sat with a single long-stemmed rose by her place setting. But the one whose face they could see seemed decidedly content, even occasionally smiling, which was not common for that demographic. At one point she reached across the table and gently laid her hand over the other woman's, whispering something. The gesture lasted only seconds but spoke volumes.

“Are they . . . I mean, do you think they . . . ,” Dolly whispered.

“Yes, I do,” Laura answered.

“Oh my!” Dolly said. “I mean, I'd heard rumors of that sort of thing among the older ones, but out in public? In the
dining room
? I'm speechless!”

“Well, that would be a first,” Vivian replied, and for the first time today the three of them laughed. Vivian delicately balanced the strainer over her teacup and began pouring, still stealing the occasional glance over at the far table. “And don't be so hasty to dismiss Sapphic attachment, darling. I'm beginning to appreciate its merits more and more every day.”

Dolly giggled, less from the comment but more from the way Vivian pronounced
appreciate:
appree-see-ate. She loved how the English talked. Everything always sounded better. She'd decided that if she was ever declared terminally ill, she wanted Vivian to be the one to deliver the news.

Laura quickly felt the cloud of melancholy descending over the table once again and opted for a preemptive strike. “Okay,” she said, grabbing her teaspoon and gently tapping it a few times against her teacup. “Who's going to go first?”

“Pardon?” Vivian asked.

“Dolly's right. We look like we're at a funeral. We're friends, and friends confide in one another. So let's have it. Dolly? You first.”

“Wh . . . Why do I have to go first? Your problems are probably a lot more interesting than mine. You go first. Or the House of Windsor over here.” Vivian said nothing. She took a sip of her tea, gingerly placed the cup down onto the saucer.

“Fine, then, I'll go,” Laura said. And go she did: with the story of the horrors of the past few weeks, how after standing up to Marmy she'd gone to see Pete, and everything that happened afterward. A week after his blistering indictment of her on the rainy street in the Village, she'd written him a letter and left it at the bookstore with Connie but again had received no reply. When she reached the part about Pete confessing he'd fallen in love with her, Dolly openly gasped. Even Vivian raised an eyebrow. “Oh dear,” she said, returning to her milky tea.

Laura sank back into her own chair. “I should have just gone back to Smith.”

“Why on earth would you say that?” Dolly interjected. “You were dating two good guys. One of them broke it off with you because he didn't know about the other. But keep something in mind, dearie—you've still
got
the other. That's a lot more than most of the girls can say in this place. And not just any other, either: Box Barnes. You make it sound like if you had been forced to choose, you would have picked the bartender. Don't you love Box?”

This is where Vivian would have normally erupted, raising her cup and issuing some pithy accolade like, “Hickey for the prosecution!” But she remained silent, eyeing Laura cautiously. “You're being very quiet,” Laura offered.

“I think our Dolores here has posed an interesting question. And I think it would make you feel better to answer.”

“What if I don't know the answer?”

“Then perhaps you really do know the answer.”

Did she? Laura pondered the question, looking over again at the two women at the corner table. It was nice to see at least a few of the Women happy, that was certain. Laura didn't realize how rare it was until now.

Is that what love looks like?
she wondered. Love had to be deeper than that, than a glance over tea, which was indicative but not dispositive. She laughed to herself. Wouldn't Mrs. Harris, who had taught her eighth-grade grammar, be proud of her command of the language? Be proud that her pupil was now in New York, working for
Mademoiselle
magazine?

Stop it!
she admonished herself. She questioned whether everyone else's mind was as jumbled as hers seemed to always be, a random traffic jam of disparate thoughts: thinking about life's big questions, along with what she wanted for dinner, where she had last worn her silk scarf, trying to remember the name of the restaurant Box had taken her to last week, and the name of Audrey Hepburn's princess character in
Roman Holiday
. She worried that it was some sort of disease she had, this propensity to think in odd puzzles, problems and worries and joys and memories and random song lyrics all crashing into one another inside her head. Did everyone walk around like this, trying to sort it all out every moment of the day? Or was she some wild schizophrenic, headed for a psychic break?

“I'm very fond of Box,” she finally managed, instantly hating how it came out.

“Oh, I'm sure he'll be quite relieved,” Vivian muttered.

“Well, I think you're nuts,” Dolly offered. “He's absolutely dreamy, he's rich, and he's obviously cuckoo for you.” She shook her head. “Pretty girls and their problems.”

“You need to stop saying things like that,” Laura said. “It only demeans you. And me, for that matter. But particularly you. It's unattractive.”

“I have to agree,” Vivian piped in. “Your self-esteem cannot still be this low, not with that lumberjack you're snogging.”

Laura delivered Vivian a cautionary look—the things that could come out of the girl's mouth—while also being secretly pleased: The old Vivian was making a long-overdue guest appearance.

“Well, truth is,” Dolly said, evidently freed by both Laura's own confession of misery and this sudden vote of confidence, “things with Jack aren't really . . . progressing.”

“Oh my,” Vivian said, looking around for the serving girl. “I'm going to need more tea for this.”

Ten minutes later Vivian had a fresh pot and Dolly had finished her own tale, of Jack's secrecy and her theory that he was either married, homosexual, or—God willing—simply inexperienced with women. She was amazed that instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed, she actually felt . . . lighter. The weight of carrying around her faux romance was slowly lessening, if only within the confines of the room.

“I wouldn't worry about it,” Laura said. “Men come at these things each in their own way, and in their own time.”

“You're off your trolley,” Vivian retorted. She reached for a biscuit and the clotted cream. “Am I the only one eating?”

“You don't know—”

Dolly cut Laura off. “No, no, I want to hear what she has to say. Because no matter how rude she gets, at least I know she's always telling me the truth. Go ahead, Vivian.”

“Personally, he sounds like a bender to me,” Vivian said. “Not that I mind them, of course. We have a waiter at the Stork of that particular variety who's actually quite lovely, and I've had one or two help me pick out some darling clothes at Tomas. But for your purposes, it's a waste of time. Luckily it's all easily sorted out. The next time you're alone, simply kiss him, good and cracking, then grab him by the knob. If it's all mashed potato down there, then you have your answer.”

Dolly sighed wearily. “It's as good a plan as any. I certainly can't keep going around like this. The uncertainty is worse than having no boyfriend at all.”

“And you, Lady Windsor?” Laura offered. “Now that we've both offered true confessions, what's been eating at you lately? You haven't seemed yourself.”

I should tell them
, Vivian thought, and for a moment she almost did. They were the closest thing she'd ever had to real girlfriends. And yet something held her back. She was afraid. Not so much of their judgment—she was used to that from people—but of their pity. She couldn't face the prospect of their pity.

“Another time, my loves,” she said, rising from her chair and leaning over to give each girl a peck on the cheek. “All of this tea has wreaked havoc with my kidneys, so must dash to the loo, then into the lift to get some rest before work. But thank you for the tea and the chat. I'm feeling better already.”

Do it
, she willed herself, hurrying down the stairs toward the mezzanine.
Do it now, while you have the courage
.

A few minutes later she slipped into a phone booth, lifted the receiver, and swung her finger around the dial. “Operator,” the nasal voice intoned.

“Overseas operator, please. I'd like to phone England. Reverse the charges.”

 

Wednesday night had somehow turned, unofficially at least, into Laura's weekly date night with Box. They saw one another other days as well, and most weekends, but Wednesdays had somehow turned sacrosanct, even though neither of them had officially claimed it for the other. Laura worked late, typing up notes for a writer about a Broadway actress the writer had interviewed, and felt almost too tired to go out. But she had begun looking forward to these Wednesdays more and more, in part because they tended to be more relaxed than the weekend, often nothing more than she and Box sitting in some red-sauce joint, slurping spaghetti and talking about their day-to-day lives.

Laura was standing in the lobby of the Barbizon when the matron on duty behind the front desk beckoned her over with the crook of her finger. “Letter came for you,” she said, thrusting an envelope that had her name and the hotel's, but no stamp. Hand-delivered.

She plopped down on one of the sofas and ripped it open, silently praying for Pete's handwriting. Instead she unfolded a flyer and a piece of stationery with the logo for MacDougal Books & Letters across the top. A note from Connie.

 

Dearest Laura, As soon as I booked this reading, I thought of you. I hope you can make it—I know you're a fan! C.

 

She picked up the flyer.

 

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL EVENING WITH CHRISTOPHER WELSH, AUTHOR OF “WILL THE GIRL AND OTHER STORIES,” AS HE READS A PREVIEW CHAPTER FROM HIS NEW NOVEL, “WONDERLAND.” SATURDAY, NOVEMBER
5
TH
, 7
PM. COFFEE AND PUNCH RECEPTION WITH THE AUTHOR FOLLOWS
.

 

That was a month from now. She wondered if Pete had ever bothered to read
Will the Girl
after her review on the beach in Atlantic City. She doubted it. Surely he would avoid any reminders of her at all. Perhaps he had stopped coming into Connie's shop in fear of bumping into her.