The Sea Star (21 page)

     
“It is!” she said, glad to see that his mood had improved. “Did you talk to Teddy?”

     
“No. George Watkins said he’s at the Parade with your brother. I hadn’t realized their friendship was so close.”

     
“Jay,” she said tentatively, “you’re not angry with Teddy for some reason?”

     
He tucked her hand under his arm and escorted her to the door. “Angry with him? Susanna, what a question. Haven’t I told you that Teddy is one of my very best men?”

     
His answer somewhat mollified her. Perhaps she’d imagined that something was bothering him. By the time they reached the Boardwalk, Susanna had forgotten all about Teddy Addison. The Parade was almost over. A substantial crowd still trod the four-mile length, but there was room to move about now, unlike earlier in the day when not an inch of wooden planking had been visible.

     
All the attractions were busy: the Japanese artists painting flower panels, the palmists, the shooting galleries and carrousels, the Ocean, Heinz, and Steel Piers. The “Queen of Resorts” was sporting her full summer regalia!

     
“I had forgotten how lively this place is,” Jay said as they passed a pavilion where a brass band blared a Sousa march. “It’s like being inside a hurdy-gurdy.”

     
“It is noisy,” Susanna agreed, raising her voice to be heard, “but it’s exhilarating, too. I’ve never been so blue that a stroll on the Boardwalk hasn’t lifted my spirits.”

     
“I see what you mean.” Jay smiled when he spotted a capering clown distributing colorful balloons to laughing youngsters. “Being here makes me feel like a child again—except I don’t remember ever having been a child.”

     
He spoke without self-pity, but Susanna’s hand tightened on his arm. She said with a catch in her voice, “You didn’t have a very happy childhood, did you?”

     
He looked at her with some surprise. “Of course I did. Why should you think such a thing?”

     
“Morgan told me about the hard times, when your family was poor. She said things were dreadful then and that you did a man’s work when you weren’t much older than her oldest boy.”

     
Jay shook his head and laughed, but his eyes held no mirth, only memories. “Pay no attention to anything my sister told you. She has a tendency to exaggerate about those days.”

     
Susanna was tempted to remind him that he himself had told her that his family had been plunged into a state of destitution such as he had never known existed, but she decided it would be kinder to say nothing. Morgan had told her that he didn’t like to think about those times. Susanna suspected they were constantly on his mind.

     
They came to the site of his new hotel. Seeing that magnificent structure never failed to fill Susanna with pride. The exterior was essentially completed. The ornamental cladding gave the facade the look of unfolding leaves in shades of turquoise and fawn. There was a distinct Byzantine feel about the place, suggesting the great Venetian church in the Piazza di San Marco or majestic Saint Sophia’s in
Constantinople
. Whenever Susanna saw the domes and graceful buttresses, she always thought of Coleridge’s lines: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure dome decree.”

     
“Construction resumes tomorrow,” Jay said, leaning his elbows on the wooden fence surrounding the work area. “I’m particularly anxious to see this one finished.”

     
“Why this one?” Susanna asked.

     
“Because it’s the biggest, the best, and the safest,” he said quietly.

     
“What have you named it?”

     
“The Excelsior. It means ‘ever upward.’ It’s appropriate, don’t you agree? No matter how many hotels I buy or build, I still want better ones. I’m never satisfied with what I have.”

     
A great surge of love and compassion flooded Susanna’s heart. She had never felt closer to him than she did at this moment. Jay was wealthy and successful. He had achieved in fifteen years what other men had not done in a lifetime. It should have compensated for his lean years; it should have made him happy and secure. But with her first clear insight into his sometimes puzzling nature, Susanna realized that it had done nothing of the kind.

     
“I love you,” she said softly. “I love you very much.”

     
He looked down at her and smiled, then encircled her waist with an arm. “Sunny,” he said affectionately. “Was there ever a name more perfect? You have the power to brighten even the darkest of days.”

     
“Do I?” she said, nestling lovingly against him.

     
“Yes, you do,” he assured her.

     
But she wondered suddenly if her love was enough for him, if it had the power to brighten the shadows of a past that still haunted him.

Fourteen

     
How different life was now that Jay was in
Atlantic City
to share it with her. Every morning, Susanna woke up with a smile on her lips. Each day was a holiday, an adventure, simply because she was with the man she loved. He made no mention of marriage, but Susanna wasn’t worried. He was here, that was what mattered. Jay had come back to her as he promised he would. For now, that was enough to make her happy.

     
Jay was extremely busy the first few weeks he was back. He was planning a grand-opening celebration for the Excelsior, the likes of which
Atlantic City
had never seen. Susanna knew that when he was occupied with one of his hotels, everything else took second place. She understood this temperament because she shared it, although not to the obsessive degree to which Jay carried it.

     
He was continually in a state of energetic impatience. He had to personally inspect each installation in the hotel—the Numidian marble staircase, the Otis elevators, the stained glass panel in the lobby—and woe betide the party responsible if something aroused Jay’s disapproval.

     
Laborers, artisans, and artists would blanch when they saw him coming. “This doorway has to be widened,” he would command, uncaring of the problems it might entail. Or: “I wanted
Isfahan
carpet, not
Tabriz
.” Or: “The draperies in the grand salon are an inch too short. Lengthen them at once.” Behind his back, the people who worked for him called him “Grainger the Hun.”

     
With Susanna, however, he was another man entirely—warm and affectionate, although sometimes, beneath the surface of his calm, Susanna sensed the rumblings of volcanic unrest.

     
He indulged her outrageously. Rarely did he call on her without bringing a gift: ivory combs for her hair, a necklace hung with chalcedony and onyx cameos, an obviously costly piece of porcelain in the shape of a soaring sea bird.

     
“You mustn’t waste your money on me,” she constantly protested. “You need it for the Excelsior.”

     
“I’m completely solvent now, my little watchdog. I can ‘waste’ as much money on you as I wish.”

     
Unbidden,
Dallas
’s words rose to haunt her.
He’s richer than Croesus.... Why should you have given him the Sea Star when he has hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, in the bank?

     
“Jay, how can you have money all of a sudden? You owed money on the Majestic. You had notes on all your hotels.”

     
“It isn’t all of a sudden, Susanna. Five months’ time has filled my coffers, that’s all.”

     
She chose to believe him. What reason did she have to doubt him? She knew very well the ups and downs of the hotel business. Besides, she was so happy to have him with her again that if he’d told her he had found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, she might possibly have believed that as well.

     
She was happier with Jay than she’d ever been before. Their separation had changed him in a subtle but perceptible way. He was more aware of her now, more intensely attached to her. When they were together, he would touch her, embrace her, hold her face in his hands and gaze at her in wonder, as if awed and not quite believing that this precious prize belonged to him.

     
When he kissed her, which was often, it seemed he couldn’t get enough of her. He would crush her in his arms, his breath would come faster, mingling hotly with hers. He would whisper her name over and over again, kissing her, touching her, arousing her, inflaming her—but always he would stop at the point when she most wanted him.

     
One morning in May, as they strolled on the deserted beach, an odd contemplative mood came upon him. It was early, not yet seven, a bleak sunless morning. A dense fog hung in the air, stinging the eye, chilling the bone. The beam of Absecon Light swung over the water. In the distance could be heard a mournful foghorn and the muted clang of a bobbing buoy. Although they walked arm in arm, Jay seemed a million miles away from her.

     
“What are you thinking?” she asked, sensitive to his mood.

     
“About you,” he said quietly.

     
“
What
about me?”

     
He looked down at her and didn’t answer. He just took her hand in his, traced each slender finger, then pressed slow ardent kisses to her sensitive palm. He raised his gaze to hers, his eyes deeply shadowed by the thick brush of his lashes. Still he said nothing, but in the stern curve of his mouth Susanna saw an emotion so intense it took her breath away. Her legs grew weak, she shivered with pleasure, and felt the imprint of his mouth on her skin like an indelible brand of ownership on her heart.

     
He never answered her question. He never told her what he’d been thinking that morning, nor did she ask him again. Susanna had come to know that although Jay owned her, body and soul, there was a part of him that he wouldn’t or couldn’t share with her. If he were less obviously devoted to her, it might have worried her. But he loved her, she was sure of it, just as much as she loved him. For now, she was content with what she had of him.

     
If Jay was a tyrant at the Excelsior, he was very near a saint at the Sea Star. With the staff—even with
Dallas
when he saw him occasionally—he was as friendly and as charming as could be. With Teddy Addison he was especially agreeable, so much so that Susanna’s suspicion that Jay might be jealous was completely wiped out of her thoughts.

     
“You’ve done a fine job with the place,” Jay told Teddy one evening in June. “I knew I had picked the right man when I sent you down here.”

     
They were seated on wicker chairs in the fragrant garden, having aperitifs before dinner. The sun was setting in an amber-colored sky, turning marigolds and buttercups into blossoms of bronze. Susanna watched the two men in quiet contentment. How alike they were in many ways, and yet how dynamically different was the one to whom she’d given her heart.

     
Teddy sloughed off Jay’s compliment with a wave of his hand. “That’s what you pay me for, Jay. Any one of your people would have achieved the same results.”

     
“You’re too modest,” Jay said and tasted his sherry. “The Sea Star was on its last legs—“ He glanced at his betrothed. “Forgive me, Susanna, but it’s true. And you, Teddy, helped Susanna to bring it back from the very edge of the grave. Your efforts won’t go unrewarded.”

     
“A job well done is reward in itself,” Teddy said with just the right amount of deferential self-effacement.

     
“That may be true of missionary work,” Jay said dryly, “but it rarely suffices in this business. No, Teddy, you’re going to get more than a pat on the back for what you’ve done. I’ve decided to install you as manager of one of my major hotels.”

     
Susanna was gratified. Now Jay would transfer him to
Baltimore
, which was what Teddy wanted and deserved.

     
But to her astonishment, Jay said, “I’m sending you to
Boston
to manage the Fenway.”

     
“
Boston
?” Teddy’s shock couldn’t have been plainer.

     
“What’s wrong?” Jay said. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

     
“I.... Of course I’m pleased. The Fenway’s a beauty. I just thought....”

     
“Yes?” Jay prompted.

     
“Well, for one thing, what about Tony Adams? Won’t he object to your replacing him as manager?”

     
“I’m sending Tony to
Baltimore
to manage the Majestic. You may have heard there’s a vacancy there.”

     
Teddy nervously looked at Susanna, who hastened to say, “It’s all right, Teddy. Jay knows I told you about Alan Devlin.”

     
Teddy relaxed visibly. But then he set down his sherry glass with a thump and rose to his feet. “I’m glad it’s out in the open.” His voice rang with resentment. “You might have told me, Jay. I’m not exactly an outsider, you know.”

     
Jay looked at him, unperturbed, and crossed his legs. “My apologies, Teddy. At first, I had so much on my mind that it simply didn’t occur to me to tell you. Then, when I thought about telling you, I remembered that you and Alan were such good friends. It seemed senseless to upset you by telling you he had betrayed me.”

     
If Susanna were not so concerned with Teddy’s feelings, she might have noticed the tension in Jay’s cat-quiet voice. As it was, she said in an effort to be helpful, “Jay, Teddy wanted to manage the Majestic. Don’t you remember my telling you that?”

     
“Yes, I do, Susanna.” His eyes remained on Teddy. “But I think he’ll be more useful to me at the Fenway.”

     
“Useful?” Teddy echoed, anger and disappointment overruling discretion. “The Fenway practically runs itself. I’d be bored to tears there. Jay, why are you doing this?”

     
“I thought I was doing you a service, Teddy. You’ve worked hard here at the Sea Star. You deserve a rest. The Fenway is the perfect place for you to take life easy for a while.”

     
Teddy, unlike Susanna, became aware of the undercurrent in Jay’s tone. Seeking to lighten a situation he didn’t fully understand, he bantered, “If I wanted to take life easy, Jay, I’d have taken a job with anyone but you.”

     
His jest drew no smile from his watchful employer. Instead, Jay said soberly, “Are you suggesting that if I send you to
Boston
, you’ll look elsewhere for employment?”

     
“God, no!” Teddy said at once. “What do you take me for? I owe you a lot, Jay. Don’t think I’ll ever forget that. There’s no question in my mind where my loyalty lies.”

     
“Nor in mine,” Jay said. “Then you’ll manage the Fenway?”

     
For a moment, Teddy said nothing, then he nodded, resigned. Susanna could feel his disappointment as keenly as if it were her own. She regarded him compassionately, her thoughts an open book, unaware that Jay was watching her with a look that was frightening in its intensity.

     
Later, after dinner, Susanna and Jay strolled, as they often did, to Absecon Inlet, that untamed primitive landscape where she first suspected she loved him. To Susanna, no place on Earth was lovelier or more romantic. An argent moon spilled silvery light on sea and sand. Gentle waves lapped rhythmically on shore. While gulls and sandpipers slept, a great horned owl serenaded the couple with a melancholy hoot. Susanna caught sight of the bird roosting on a rock, his enormous yellow eyes scanning the area for his dinner.

     
“How lonely he looks,” she said to Jay.

     
They were seated in their favorite resting spot, a curved mass of driftwood that was as secluded as a cove. Jay’s arm was around her shoulder, her head was on his chest. “You think he looks lonely, Susanna? I think he looks dangerous.”

     
“Dangerous?” she said with a laugh. “That old faker? I’ll bet he’s as tame as a canary.”

     
Jay’s gaze was on the bird, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Since leaving the Sea Star’s restaurant he had been tense and preoccupied. Susanna suspected he was thinking about Teddy.

     
“How curious,” he said quietly.

     
“What is?”

     
“The different ways that people perceive the world around them.”

     
“How do you mean, Jay?”

     
“You think he’s lonely. I think he’s dangerous.”

     
“The owl?” she said, sensing he meant another.

     
He gave her a puzzled look. “Yes, the owl. Isn’t that what we’re both talking about?”

     
“Yes,” she said. “It’s just that you seemed to be talking about more than the owl.”