Always and Forever (21 page)

At last she fell into troubled sleep, to awake at sunrise, instantly conscious of the emotional turmoil of the past dozen hours. She got out of bed with a searing need to leave the house behind her, showered quickly, dressed in slacks and a warm sweater because the beach would be chilly at this hour. She hurried from her bedroom, down the stairs of the silent house, and out into the sea-scented morning air.

Fog hung over the beach. A host of gulls cawed a jubilant welcome to the new day as she trudged over the damp white sand, as yet untouched by footprints except for those of an adventurous dog. She was grimly aware that she must gear herself to face Phil.

The time would come, she vowed, when she would free herself of this mock-marriage. But until Jesse was safely launched in life she must play the game. Nothing must be spoiled for her precious child.

By the time she returned to the house, the sun was breaking through the fog. Yesterday’s rain was a memory. Somehow, the sunlight was an affront to her.

Each hour of the day dragged. Normally, Kathy loved these days when daylight reigned until close to nine in the evening. Now she longed for night to put an end to the exuberance of day.

Late in the afternoon—when the other women were lounging on the ocean-facing deck and dissecting an earlier cocktail party—Kathy went out to the kitchen. Perched on his knees on a chair, Jesse was deep in contemplation as he considered the puzzle on the table before him. How sweet and warm and beautiful he was! Dad was so pleased, she remembered, that Jesse was enraptured by the puzzles that had been part of the third-birthday gifts.

“I’ll give Jesse his dinner and get him ready for bed, Alice. It’s a marvelous evening. Why don’t you go for a walk on the beach?”

“That would be nice.” Alice smiled in appreciation. “My hips need that walking. Everything I eat seems to be settling there.”

Jesse was finishing up his dinner when Kathy heard a car drive up to the house. That would be Phil and his father, she guessed, and was instantly tense. Moments later she heard their voices as they talked with the women on the deck. Through a kitchen window she saw Phil stroll into the house.

“Mommie, I want to do the puzzle again,” Jesse said with a determination to delay going upstairs to the nursery and soon to bed. “I can do it all by myself,” he reminded triumphantly.

“Hey, what’s my boy been up to today?” Phil swept into the kitchen, gave Kathy a perfunctory kiss and settled at the kitchen table. “Behaving yourself?”

“I made a sand castle with Alice. A big one,” Jesse reported.

“Wow, I wish I could have seen it!” This was the period each day that Phil played the affectionate father, Kathy thought.

“You didn’t come home last night,” Jesse said accusingly. “You promised to read me a story.” Jesse’s choice delaying tactic at bedtime.

“I’ll read you one tonight,” Phil cajoled. “We don’t have anything lined up later, do we?” he asked Kathy.

“No, you turned down the Jacksons’ dinner. I phoned and said you’d be out of town.”
How can I talk this way with Phil after last night?

“They’re nobodies,” Phil shrugged. “We’d be bored to death.”

“I want a ride on your shoulders,” Jesse said imperiously. “And
two
stories tonight because you didn’t read me one last night.”

She could see this through, Kathy told herself grimly while Phil swooped Jesse from his chair. She would not deprive Jesse of the life the Kohn money could give him. She wouldn’t deprive him of those moments each day when Phil played the affectionate father. Being part of a family was important to a child.

She would pretend last night had never happened. But it was etched forever on her brain.

A
S USUAL, SHORTLY AFTER
Labor Day the Kohn entourage left Southampton and returned to Greenwich. On the surface, Kathy thought, nothing had changed in her relationship with Phil. He was too egotistical, too smug, to suspect that she knew about his affair with Roz. He seemed not to notice a change in her response to his lovemaking, though that had lost its magic long before the night she found him in bed with Roz.

To Phil she was a convenient outlet for those nights when he was aroused and Roz—or whomever else he was seeing—was not available. She had to force herself not to flinch each time he reached for her, feeling herself no more than a high-priced call girl. But for Jesse she could go through with this travesty.

Phil and his father remained away from the business for only two Jewish holidays—Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. If the weather was suitable, they played golf. But on this Rosh Hashanah Phil came downstairs shortly before ten to announce he was going to his father’s house for a conference.

“On Rosh Hashanah?” Kathy frowned in mild reproach. “Can’t you forget business today?”

“This is a personal deal.” He grinned, clearly pleased with himself. “How would you feel about our moving back into Manhattan?”

Kathy stared for a moment in amazement.

“I’d love it,” she told him. Joyous anticipation charging through her. “But what about the house?”

“It’ll be our second home. We’ll come out some weekends, throw an occasional house party. I’m sick of these long hauls between Greenwich and the city.” He grimaced in distaste. “Of course, I have to convince the old man the move is necessary for business. More time for socializing, all that shit.”

“What about the company apartment?” Her mind ordered caution. “Won’t your father suggest we stay over in the city part of the week?” But that wouldn’t work. Jesse had just started nursery school—they couldn’t drag him back and forth.

“The company apartment will be for him and my mother. And we’ll put up management from the stores when they come into town. We should have been doing that all along.”

The company apartment would be there for Phil and Julius to take their women, Kathy thought with bitter humor. And it was a tax write-off, she mentally mimicked her father-in-law. Julius Kohn took such pleasure in charging expensive items off to the business.

“Are you having breakfast here or with your father?” she asked politely.
It would be so wonderful to be back in the city.
She could see the family more often. She could spend more time with Rhoda and Frank.

“Over there,” Phil said. “We made a date.”

Three hours later Phil returned to the house. His father had put up a battle, he reported, but he’d made his point.

“I want you to go into the city and start looking at apartments. Something on Park or Fifth—we need a classy address. And while you’re apartment hunting,” he said in soaring high spirits, “start buying more clothes. We’ll be going out several nights a week. I’ll open more charge accounts for you.”

“Open a checking account, too,” Kathy said casually. “It’s ridiculous the way I have to run to you all the time when I need cash.”

For a moment she thought he was going to argue about this, then he shrugged and nodded.

“Yeah. You pay the bills for the house and your charge accounts—save me wasting time on that crap. Oh, a news bulletin,” he said with plotted nonchalance. “As of the first of the month I’m president of the Out-of-Town Stores Division. Dad will head up the wholesale operation and the New York store. And my salary goes up again.”

“Congratulations.” She contrived to sound admiring.

“Your old man’s doing okay,” he boasted. “Dad realizes what I’m bringing to the business. And he loves those column items! I’m making Julius Kohn Furs a household name.”

Kathy began immediately to search for an apartment. By the end of the month she had located a spacious, charming apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, with sufficient space for themselves and domestic help. A high floor that, she surmised, would assure them quiet.

She arranged for Phil to see the apartment one morning. He called from the city to say he’d be signing a lease as soon as the broker had drawn it up.

“We’re renting with an option to buy,” he said ebulliently. “Hire an interior decorator. I want to move in as soon as possible.”

“I’d rather handle everything myself,” she told him. “I know what’s best for our life style.”

“Hey, you’re becoming real independent.” Phil’s voice carried an aura of surprise. “That’s what comes of taking you into the outside world,” he joshed. “Okay, I gotta run. Start looking for whatever it takes to make that apartment classy.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Kathy promised.
Didn’t he know another description besides “classy”?

Phil had wanted to give a New Year’s Eve party in their new apartment but the celebrating had to wait until late February. Kathy was pleased with the apartment. She had consulted endless interior decorating magazines and books until she could visualize each room down to the most minute detail. She’d searched the city for the right chandelier for the living room, the perfect paneling for the den. She’d been glad to be involved in a project that was so consuming.

Even Julius—who had been given a preview before tonight’s housewarming—reluctantly admired her efforts.

“I hate to see the bills,” he’d told Phil in her presence, “but you could invite the Duke and Duchess of Windsor here.”

Phil was in the living room now with Julius, who’d changed into evening wear at the company apartment and had come over early. Wally had driven back to Greenwich to bring Bella into the city. Brenda and Gail and their husbands were off on another cruise.

Kathy had insisted that they keep the list small.
“That makes it more important.”
Neither her parents and Aunt Sophie nor Rhoda and Frank would be here tonight. This was their café society “inner circle”—including Roz Masters. While Phil was out of town last week, she’d had family and Rhoda and Frank to a preview dinner. Mom and Aunt Sophie had been so delighted with the apartment. Zipping up the back of her white chiffon evening dress, over which she would wear a black silk tight-fitting jacket, Kathy remembered Aunt Sophie’s remark:
“Kathy, it’s like I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s the most beautiful apartment I’ve ever seen.
”

She heard Bella being welcomed in the foyer as she left the master bedroom. Bella would want to look in on Jesse, even though he was asleep. Kathy hurried down the hall to the living room.

“Darling, you look beautiful,” Bella greeted her with a kiss. “Now can I look in on Jesse? I promise not to awaken him.”

“Of course.” Kathy linked an arm through her mother-in-law’s.

The party was a huge success, but Kathy was ever conscious of Roz’s presence. She caught the secret small exchanges between Roz and Phil. She heard Phil’s low expression of approval of Roz’s red velvet evening dress, cut daringly low. How long before he left Roz for someone new?

“It was a marvelous party,” Bella told her as she and Julius took their departure—the last of the guests to leave. “But make Phil buy you some spectacular jewelry,” she ordered, loudly enough for the two Kohn men to hear. “Nothing advertises a man’s success like the jewelry his wife wears.”

Kathy managed a show of enthusiasm when Phil arrived at the apartment a week later with a diamond and sapphire necklace that she knew must have cost a small fortune.

“Don’t wear at until I have the insurance policy taken care of,” he admonished.

“I won’t,” she agreed.
The necklace was hers.
Also, a small but growing savings account in her name. Rhoda had prodded her into managing this.

Their lives were falling into a pattern. Four nights a week they played on the café society circuit. One night a week Phil would call to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner.
“I’m tied up at the office, baby.
” Kathy understood this to mean that he was holed up at the company apartment with Roz. She always knew when this happened. The next night Phil always brought her flowers.

On alternate weekends they went up to the Greenwich house. Usually there was a small house party. Phil relished playing the genial host. Kathy contrived to hide her boredom. These people spent their waking hours seeking amusement. She was concerned about the Korean War and the possibility of World War III. Their conversations revolved around the “in” vacation spots, the newest splashy musical on Broadway, who was sleeping with whom. Kathy came alive in intense discussion with Rhoda and Frank about the ignominious Redbaiting through
Red Channels
that was infecting the country.

To fill the empty hours, Kathy focused on building an exquisite wardrobe. She signed up for a class in fashion design. And she found pleasure in shopping for small but luxurious gifts for her parents and Aunt Sophie—conveniently charged to her account at one of the Fifth Avenue stores.

On Alice’s midweek day off she waited downstairs for Jesse to be delivered home from nursery school, took him upstairs for lunch, then off to Borough Park. Business was good in the candy store. Her father had arranged for Mannie to come in on a regular basis, which allowed her mother some free hours.

She was delighted when her father told her at the Passover seder that in August he and her mother and Aunt Sophie were taking a week’s vacation—for the first time in Kathy’s memory.

“Mannie and his friend will run the store,” her father said with elaborate casualness. “We’ll go to the Catskills. Not to Grossinger’s or the Concord,” he said humorously. “A smaller, less expensive place. But for a week Aunt Sophie and Mom won’t cook and clean. Mom and I won’t stand fourteen hours a day in the store. We’re learning to live, Kathy.”

She could survive, Kathy thought tenderly, because of the hours here with the family, and the hours with Rhoda and Frank, when Phil was out of town on his constant trips or was “otherwise engaged.”

Phil sat with his legs crossed and one expensively shod foot jiggling impatiently as his father talked on the phone with an out-of-town supplier. At last Julius put down the phone.

“Let’s shake a leg, Dad. If we’re not at the bridge by four, you know what traffic’s going to be like getting to the Hamptons.” The city had been like a steambath the past three days. When the hell was this August heat wave going to break?