Elizabeth's Daughter (6 page)

  “This is quite the place,” Tony started enthusiastically. “Of course it needs a lot of updating. But I can see potential!”

  “What do you think it’s worth, roughly?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Well, it’s not the usual thing. You know, we really need to call an appraiser in on this. This place has just been sitting here for years, appreciating.”

  “But surely you can give me an estimate,” Elizabeth persisted.

  “Well,” Tony hesitated, “strictly off the record, I wouldn’t want to stake my professional reputation on what I say....”

  “Of course not,” Elizabeth said.

  “But I’d guess a million and a quarter, a million and a half.”

  “Really?” Elizabeth said. “Well, I guess Martha knows what she’s talking about.”

  “Who’s Martha?” Tony asked suspiciously.

  “A friend of mine.”

  “Tell me I’m interfering if I’m interfering,” Peter said. “But that talk we had yesterday? About trading? Could we pursue that conversation further?”

  “Seriously?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Very.”

  “I thought we were kidding. But I’d love to continue that conversation... seriously.” She turned to Tony. “I’m very sorry Mr. Antonella, but Peter was first.”

  “Using what for collateral?” Tony confronted Peter.

  “He likes that question,” Elizabeth said, trying to lighten the tone.

  “A lake front property at
The Lakes
.”

  “It’s very unlikely that that place is equivalent to
this
property.”

  “Of course not,” Peter said, remaining polite.

  “You wouldn’t want to down scale,” Tony said to Elizabeth.

  “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  Tony nodded curtly, looking from Elizabeth to Peter. “Well,” he said, “well then, you want me to start drawing up papers?”

  “Ah... ahm... you’re going a little
too
fast, Mr. Antonella,” Elizabeth answered.

  Tony whipped out his business card and handed it to her. “Okay, well, give me a call if you need my services.”

  Elizabeth took the card and Tony turned and stalked out the front door.

  A moment later, they heard the Corvette door slam and the engine roar to life.

  “Kind of a moody guy, huh?” Peter asked.

  “Seems so, doesn’t he?” She agreed.

  They wandered into the music room. “Anyway,” she looked at Peter. Again he was drinking in his surroundings. “How shall we work this trade out, if you’re serious.”

  “I’m
serious
, and I’m willing to try and work it out almost any way you say,” he answered.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Things are moving fast, faster than I’ve ever had things move in my life.”

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said, “I don’t want to pressure you.”

  “That’s okay. Pressure me. Just keep pushing, it’s what I need. All I have to think of is that view from the kitchen at your place, and I wonder why I’m dragging my feet. Now I guess I’ll
have
to have that talk with Grandfather’s attorney. I’ll ask him to draw up some paperwork. I don’t think we need to pay Mr. Antonella when I have grandfather’s attorney on retainer. But... I hope you’ll forgive me for asking, do writers really make so much money? Did you have some blockbuster that I probably wouldn’t know about anyway?”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t make millions writing westerns. I got involved in a speculative deal and it happened to make me very comfortable. Which is one of the reasons I’m anxious to move. I’d like to invest that money in the home of my dreams before someone convinces me to speculate again, and I lose it all.”

  “I see,” Elizabeth said. “Well then, shall we say we’ll move the end of the month?”

  “Let’s say it,” Peter agreed happily.

  Elizabeth extended her hand and they bound a lady and gentlemen’s agreement, planning to meet again in a couple of days after Elizabeth had talked with Grandfather’s attorney.

  Shortly after Peter left, the telephone rang.

  “Hi, this is Tony.”

  “Mr. Antonella, how did you get my number?” Elizabeth asked, completely puzzled

  “Oh, there isn’t anything I can’t get if I decide it’s important for me to have it. Listen, the reason I’m calling....”

  “I hope you’re not angry,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I’m sorry to have bothered you today. I really didn’t think Peter was serious when the suggestion came up to trade.”

  “No, no, I’m not angry, that’s business. I assure you I’ve been in much worse situations and with intent of malice on the part of the client. I’d hardly be justified in wasting my energy on anger.”

  “Well, I’m glad.”

  “However,” Tony went on, “if you’d like to make me feel better, you’ll go out to dinner with me.”

  “Out to dinner?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yes. To eat. You do eat?”

  “Not much lately.” Elizabeth felt confused. A beautiful man was inviting her to go out to dinner. Grandfather was not standing in the back of the room. There was no reason to say no. And she wanted to say yes. She’d wanted to say yes to going out to dinner with a man for quite a few years. But now the word wouldn’t come.

  “Are you still there?” Tony asked. “I know we just met, but how can I get to know you if I don’t spend time with you?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth finally said.

  “You’ll go to dinner with me?”

  “Yes, I’ll go to dinner with you.”

  “Great! I’ll pick you up about seven?”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth said. “Seven.”

  “Bye-by,” Tony said.

  “Good-by.”

  Elizabeth hung up the telephone and stood staring at it for a moment. She walked to the mirror over the fireplace and peered at her reflection.

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth told the woman who looked back at her, “you still look plain to me. Why would Tony want to go out with you? He could go out with
any
one.” But I don’t care, she thought. I want to go out with this gorgeous man. Even if it’s only once, it sure beats never.

Chapter VII

Elizabeth had no idea where Tony was taking her for dinner but it was Saturday and she decided to dress up as much as her wardrobe would permit.

  She went to her room and slid the closet doors all the way one direction, then studied what she saw... pastels, small prints, cottons, double knits, mid-calf length.

  “Granny dresses!” She slid the closet doors the other direction to expose more of the same. “Granny dresses. All of them!”

  So your moment comes, she thought, and you’re unprepared.

  Then she remembered her mother had left some clothes, they were so old they might be new again.

  Elizabeth hurried down the hall to her rug room and flung open the closet door. There hung a raft of silk and crepe and velvet outfits, muted solid colors, wild bright colors, black and red, fitted bodices, flared skirts and straight skirts, daring necklines, knee-length and floor length, little jackets and shawls, all wrapped up in clear plastic from the dry cleaners, just as her mother had left them, years ago.

  They were fabulous. Elizabeth had forgotten what fantastic taste her mother had. Or maybe, she thought, she hadn’t paid much attention to the clothes, when looking at them had only reminded her of her absent mother. But now she refused to dwell on that. “Thank you, Mother! It took a life-time, but you’ve finally done something for me. Now, if I can find something that more or less fits. On the list of things you didn’t give me include ‘voluptuous body’.”

  Elizabeth eliminated the black dresses and the red dresses and the floor-length dresses and the dresses with so little fabric she wondered how Gloria managed to stay in them.

  She was still left with five very likable options. Of these her eye went to a pale turquoise crepe dress of a 1940’s cut. Fitted bodice, lowered waist, cap sleeves, slightly padded shoulders, straight skirt with a peplum trimmed in a wide, antique white lace, and a little matching lace bolero. No plunging necklines, no slits up the skirt.

  “I couldn’t have found something more ‘me’ if I’d shopped for a week.” Elizabeth carried the dress to her room. She held it up to herself and looked in the full-length mirror. It suited her very well, from this perspective.

  She took off her house dress and slid the crepe over her head. She was afraid to look in the mirror. She looked down at the dress. It seemed to fit. Finally she raised her eyes to the mirror, and she thought it was nothing short of a miracle how she looked. Thin. Chic. Sophisticated.

  “Wow, Elizabeth,” she whispered. “Maybe there’s more of your mother in you than you realize.”

  She took the dress off and put it back on its hanger. “Two interesting men in two short days, Lizzie, you wild thing.” She giggled. She decided to take the entire afternoon getting ready, starting with a long, hot bubble bath.

  Everything was wonderful! She was going on a real date with an incredibly good-looking man, never mind his mood swings
–
no one was perfect. She was soon to move into a house that fulfilled dreams she hadn’t even had yet, and she owned a new car that granted her freedom. What more could she want?

  “Well,” she said, putting the plug in the claw foot tub and turning on the tap full blast, pouring in bubble bath, “I could want a child. In fact I
do
want a child. However, dear girl, you may be able to buy a house and a car and get a date in two days. But babies still take longer.”

  She let herself melt as if she was maple sap in the bath, and the warm water was a spring thaw. She indulged in a romantic fantasy with Tony as the star. But in her fantasy, he was sweet and intelligent like Peter... and he had a smile very much like Peter’s as well.

  Half-an-hour later Elizabeth got out of the tub wrapping a towel around herself. She reached for her toothbrush and saw her compact in the sink. It was open, face down. She picked it up, bits of shattered mirror fell clinking into the sink.

  Elizabeth stood, mystified, peering down at the broken mirror. “I know this wasn’t in the sink when we walked through. Peter and Tony were right with me.”

  She thought back to yesterday when Peter asked her if the house was haunted. “Well, I suppose if there was ever a man Grandfather would disapprove of me going out with, it would be Tony.” The
Mademoiselle
in the trash and the missing lipstick returned to her thoughts.

  Frowning, she cleaned up the shards of mirror. “I’m not stopping now. I have to live my life, and, haunted house or not, I intend to.”

  Tony came at seven-thirty instead of seven, and for half-an-hour Elizabeth had worked herself into a tizzy, pacing up and down Grandfather’s study.

  When Tony finally arrived, he said nothing about being late. Elizabeth debated if she should or shouldn’t mention it, when he pulled a little bouquet of pink tea roses and baby’s breath out from behind his back.

  “These remind me of you,” he said, “delicate and shy.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said, breathing in the flowers, forgetting that Tony had been late. “Let me put them in water.” She moved toward the kitchen. “Thank you,” she said again. So! men really do bring you flowers. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “No, thanks. We’ve got an eight o’clock reservation for Orange Hill. You ever been there?”

  “Not since I was about twelve,” Elizabeth called from the kitchen. She came back with the flowers in a vase and set them on the piano. “My mother and one of her boyfriends took me there a couple of times.”

  Tony nodded.

  “It has a beautiful view,” they both said together, then laughed.

  At Orange Hill they were seated by the panoramic window and Orange County spread out below them as if they were on a throne and the lights below were a diamond-studded foot stool.

  “You look beautiful,” Tony said to her. “I find a woman who can look a lot of different ways very enticing.”

  “Oh? Am I that sort of woman?”

  “I’ve seen you look like two completely different women in only one day, so I would say yes.”

  Elizabeth, determined to stay within her fantasy as long as possible, made no argument to dissuade him from this notion of her.

  The dinner and the conversation were perfect. Elizabeth realized she’d better hang onto her heart. She was in danger of falling in love with this, in all probability inaccessible, man.

  “So... what are you going do with yourself now?” Tony asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to get a job, I’d like to be meaningfully engaged, but I have no training, no skills. I actually learned quite a bit about nursing, taking care of my grandfather fro the last five years when he’s ben so ill. But I would not care to go into nursing. I’m just....”

  “You’re not cut out for it. You’re sensitive. You need to be helping people fulfill their dreams.”

  Why, yes, Tony, you’re right. That’s very well expressed.” He had definitely surprised her with his insight.