Willow (27 page)

"We'll try to steer clear of them, although that might be difficult on a yacht. Where is Hope?" he asked, stretching his neck to look between and above people.
"You don't see her?"
"Not yet. You know." he said, "I've heard of people throwing these parties and not showing up until nearly the end of the evening:'
"Why"
"Some hate them but do them because if they don't, they'll lose their place on the totem pole."
"Is position, rank in society, so important?"
"I think that's what makes everyone here fear death so much more. There's a good chance it's not important in the afterlife," he said with a grin.
"Thatcher! I thought you weren't coming," we heard someone cry above the din. A tall, dark-haired woman with a svelte figure wearing a red silk column gown with an attached chiffon scarf stepped forward through the crowd and held out her hand, the fingers of which were so full of diamond rings
I
thought she would have trouble opening them. Her eyes were a beautiful jade color, but that looked to be the only natural thing left untouched on her cosmetically altered face with skin tucked tightly under her ears, nose surgically shaved, lips puffed with collagen. Only the small gathering of wrinkles at the base of her throat gave away her true age.
"Hope, how could I not?" he replied.
She laughed and leaned forward to give him a double air kiss, one next to each cheek.
"I'd like you to meet Isabel Amou," he said. She is visiting from South Carolina."
"Oh, yes," she said, giving me her hand. "I've already heard all about you."
The Carriage sisters?" Thatcher asked.
"Better than the CIA," Hope said. "Call me this week. I have something I need done with my property in Puerto Rico." she told him. "Please," she said to me. "enjoy. I have two of Tania Morgan's kinetic works of party art starboard behind the dessert bar. It seemed appropriate,," she added with a laugh, "For some reason, my male guests appreciate the work more. Oh, there's Donald," she cried, and moved away.
"What is she talking about, kinetic works of party art?" I asked.
Thatcher raised his eves and led me through the crowd toward the dessert bar, where we could see a thick gathering of people. When we came around. I saw two nude women completely coated with what looked like liquid silver, seated back to back, legs crossed, arms at their sides. Neither moved a muscle. Their eyelids must have been glued open. They looked like statues, human bookends. From what we heard around us, it seemed every ten minutes, they rose and switched sides, and that was what made them kinetic art.
"It's like the changing of the guard at
Buckingham Palace," a tall, thin gentleman with balding gray hair said. He had lips that looked as if they were made of rubber, "You don't want to miss it."
"I think we'd rather get something to eat." Thatcher quipped, and directed me toward the buffet.
We had just sat at a table when two older couples approached us.
"Don't get up," the shorter of the two men said as Thatcher began to rise. "Thatcher, you remember Mitch Rosewater and his wife. Brownie, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, of course," Thatcher said, rising nevertheless to shake the taller man's hand and greet his wife. "We met at the Pullmans' party, right?"
"Yes. Rather sedate party compared to this, what?" he said. He was obviously English.
'Td like you all to meet Isabel Amou, just visiting from South Carolina." Thatcher said. The line was already so connected to my name
I
thought
I'd
have to include it whenever I signed anything, "Isabel, may
I
present Tom and Melinda Dancer. Tom is, you should pardon the expression, also an attorney," Thatcher said with a wide grin.
"Merely a paper pusher compared to Thatcher here," Tom Dancer said, extending his hand to me. His wife was studying me so hard I thought I had some of the pate on the end of my nose.
"You're actually staying with Asher and Bunny Eaton at Joya del Mar, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said "What happened? Did it get into the newspapers or something?"
Everyone laughed.
"No one burps in this town without the rest of us hearing it," Tom said.
"Have you met Grace Nutcase and that son of hers yet?"
Melinda asked me. 'Really. Thatcher," she continued, not really waiting for my response, "I don't know why your parents don't just buy the property out from under them and get them off the grounds. With a loony like Linden wandering about, I wouldn't feel safe. And who knows what Grace might do one of these days. She could set fire to the place or something.'
"Oh, don't exaggerate, Melinda." Tom Dancer said. "I'm sure it's not quite that bad. Is it. Thatcher?"
"No," he said. "They stay to themselves most of the time." He glanced at me. "As long as they remain that way, there is no problem."
"I would still have trouble sleeping at night," Melinda insisted, "She's not a dangerous woman," I said sharply. "Far from it."
"Oh, then you have met her?" She pounced.
"Yes."
"Well, don't just sit there. Tell us about her. No one has seen her for years. What does she look like? Is it true she walks around barefoot in ripped old garments and has lost her teeth and has sand flies in her hair?"
"Absolutely not," I said finally. "She is, in fact, one of the most attractive women I've seen here. A naturally beautiful woman, with no need for cosmetic surgery or makeup," I said pointedly.
It wasn't hard to see that both she and Brownie had contributed considerably to some cosmetic surgeon's pension plan.
"Really?" She and Brownie Rosewater exchanged expressions of some disappointment. "And does she speak intelligibly or babble mad things?"
She spoke to me, and she was very informative and pleasant to be with,"
I
said a bit more calmly, realizing my face had turned crimson.
"Really," she said again, her skepticism and bitterness drooling at the corners of her mouth.
"Yes, really. I have yet to have a conversation with anyone here in Palm Beach that was as pleasant. You're missing a lot by not inviting her to your events," I added.
The women looked at each other and then laughed.
"I
guess you have a lot to teach this young lady about Palm Beach, Thatcher." Melinda said.
He shifted his eyes
to
me and then looked at her. "She's learning. I've been here all my life, and I'm still learning." he added, and they all laughed,
"Hey, enjoy," Tom Dancer said. "I'll call you this week on that matter of the Crosby Mall."
"Right. Nice meeting you," Thatcher said to the Rosewaters.
The moment they stepped away, they all burst into hysterical laughter at something Melinda had said.
"People here are very cruel to each other, aren't they?"
I
asked Thatcher.
"Maybe maybe not any more than they are anywhere else. At least they don't go around shooting each other."
"Not with guns, but they do a pretty good job with words." I said.
"You came to the Montgomery's' defense rather vehemently for someone who has just met them. Willow. That surprised me almost as much as it did them. You're sure you're not getting too involved with Linden?" he asked again.
I pushed my plate away and looked out at the crowd of mega-millionaires, their jewelry competing, their designer clothes flashing before me. If they could walk about with price tags dangling, they would. I thought,
The sound of applause by the dessert bar indicated the liquid silver women had changed position again. The band got louder. Laughter whipped through the air around us. I felt my head spinning.
"What's wrong?" Thatcher asked. "I don't know. I'm suddenly not very hungry. Maybe having so much to choose from overwhelms me. I'm beginning to believe there is such a thing as being too rich."
"Not here." he said. The relative security, the enormous wealth, the magnificent weather, this city with streets that glitter and stores that look like they have a branch in heaven itself, create this sense of being above the world. Willow. It's not an altogether unpleasant high."
"It's just as addicting as any terrible drug." "Is it so bad to be addicted to nice things?"
"You confuse me. Thatcher. Sometimes you're so negative about this world, and yet..."
"Yet I'm in it? I participate?" "Yes, exactly,"
He nodded. "Walt Whitman wrote.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself I am large. I contradict multitudes.
We're all
complicated. You're full of contradictions. too. Willow. And secrets," he added. "Right?"
I
looked away,
"Just be careful," he said. "Secrets have a way of twisting themselves around your heart like a python and choking the joy out of vou."
He started to eat again. The music grew louder.
I
nibbled on my food without any enthusiasm.
"You want to go?" he said suddenly.
"Where?"
"Let's just walk on Worth Avenue or
something."
"You want to be here. Thatcher. There are people you want to see and talk to. I know."
"I'm fine with it." he said. "Let's go. We can get ice cream sundaes or something."
"We're going to go walking in the streets dressed like this and stop at an ice cream parlor?"
"Here it's no big deal. We won't even attract a second look."
"What about Hope Farris? Won't she be insulted if you and I run out this early?"
"She won't even know we've left," he said, rising. "Come on." he urged.
I
smiled and got up. We made our way back through the boisterous crowd and hurried down the gangplank to his car. Shortly after. we were cruising down Worth Avenue, Maybe Thatcher's right,
I
thought. Maybe we are all full of contradictions, and maybe there's nothing strange about being
complicated to each other and even to ourselves. It's even good. Who wants to be predictable?
Yes, that's the thing about most of the people I've met so far,
I
thought, They're all so predictable.
No wonder Thatcher was in love with Mai Stone. and no wonder he was heartbroken, no matter how he tried to hide it.
.
Once we were away from the rich and the famous, Thatcher seemed more relaxed and himself We parked and then walked the street holding hands, stopping at store windows. He pointed out what he called the doggie bar, a halfmoon-shaped tiled trough with a silver spigot that provided fresh water for the expensive dogs whose owners bought them Chanel collars and Gucci dog beds. He showed me one in a window. It sold for fifteen hundred dollars.
"Most people don't treat their children as well." I said.
To these people. the dogs are their children. Don't knock the pet industry. either. It's big
everywhere. not just here."' Thatcher said. once again offering some defense to what I believed was indefensible.
Eventually, we stopped at an ice cream parlor on Peruvian Avenue, and no matter what Thatcher had told me. I still thought people looked at us oddly, sitting there and ordering sundaes in our formal evening wear. However, somehow, I enjoyed this far more than I enjoyed or would have enjoyed anything at the yacht party. I told Thatcher so.
"Maybe you're just anti--rich people," he said.
"I'm neither poor nor angry at rich people." I told him. "I'm not on any social crusade here."
"No. I don't imagine you are." he said. He stared at me a moment and then smiled and said. "When are you going to tell me why you are really here. Willow?"
I nearly choked on my last spoonful. "What do you mean?"
"I think you know what
I
mean, but that's all right. Whatever the reason. I'm grateful it brought you here." he said quickly.
I felt like bursting out with the truth, but the waitress appeared and asked us if we wanted anything else. We said no, and he paid the check.
Neither of us spoke as we walked back to the car. When he got in, he started to laugh,
"What?"
"I can just imagine Bunny if
I
tell her what we really did tonight and where her pearls were seen." he said.
I
laughed, too. It felt so good.
Of course, his parents weren't home when we arrived. They had gone to an event of their own.
"Tired?" he asked.
"No."
"You haven't been to my suite of rooms yet, have you?"
"Inviting me up to see your etchings?"
"I assure you," he said. "I have no kinetic art waiting. You're the only kinetic art I'm interested in." "Is that so?"
"Yes," he said. "It's so."
We ascended the stairs holding hands and went down the corridor to his room, where our lovemaking started slowly, almost indecisively, as if neither he nor I were sure what we wanted. He kissed me on the cheek while I looked at his art and his collection of Bosson heads from England. He caressed my neck, then rested his hands on my shoulders.
I
pressed my cheek to his right hand and then moved away to gaze at the framed photographs on his desk.
"Is this Mai Stone?" I asked, lifting a picture of him on a sailboat with a beautiful, tall brunette, both of them in shorts and sailor's caps.
"Yes," he said. "Early vintage, not long after we met. If
I
only knew then what
I
know now," he added, mostly for my benefit.
I
thought.
"She's very pretty, beautiful in fact."
"And no one exemplifies the adage 'Beauty is only skin deep' more than she does."
He was determined to reduce her as a threat to me.
"If you have so many unpleasant thoughts about her, why do you still have this picture out on your desk?" I asked.
He shrugged and smiled. "It's a good picture of me, don't you think?"
"Right," I said, putting it back.
He spun me around roughly and held my shoulders firmly as he looked into my face.
"Look, Willow, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that you are the first woman I've ever been with or cared for. and
I
would tend to doubt I was the first man you have ever been intimate with or cared for, but if we hold our pasts over our heads like sins, we'll never see who we are now. The truth is, I was capable of having feeling for someone else, but
I
have more feeling for vou. Is that so terrible?"
"No," I said softly.
He smiled, "Then let's throw the baggage of bad memories overboard and sail on together with lighter hearts." he said, and kissed rue.
The kiss was long, hard, and almost desperate. I wanted to hold back, to put on some brakes and slow Our momentum toward each other.
I
was too involved in what I had come to do here now. But Thatcher was a man for whom the word no didn't exist or, if it reared its ugly head, only made him try harder. I was swept under the tide of his passion.