Everlasting (39 page)

At four-thirty the phone woke her. Immediately, she was alert, her brain clear. She dialed the GardenAir office number, and in only seconds a secretary had put her through to Piet.

“Piet. This is Catherine. I have a surprise for you. I’m in Amsterdam. I’ve come over to see the
Bloemenveiling
.”

“You’re here now?”

“Yes. I arrived this morning. I’ve already caught up on my sleep.”

“This is a surprise. Well. Shall we have dinner tonight?”

“That would be lovely.”

“Shall I call Shelly and ask him to join us?”

“No. As a matter of fact, Piet, I’d like you to do me a favor. Don’t tell Shelly I’ve called. Don’t tell him I’m here. Not yet.”

“Ah. So you are here not just for the auction.”

“I’d rather discuss this with you in person, Piet.”

“Very well. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

* * *

C
atherine showered and dressed carefully. She and Kit had been married for sixteen years now. There were times when she thought she would happily have murdered him for his obsession with
The New York Times
crossword puzzle or some other daily ritual. When Kit was engrossed with that damned crossword puzzle, she knew she could crawl across the carpet naked and bleeding, and he wouldn’t look down until he’d finished the last word. There were also times, she knew, when Kit wanted to murder her, usually for being too impetuous, too neurotic. In the middle of a peaceful Sunday afternoon she might decide she needed to visit her grandmother at Everly. Or she’d have a great idea for a new flower arrangement, and she’d want to rush into her office to work. Often she made major decisions about their house or children without first discussing it with him. It was the children they fought about most of all: Kit was more of a disciplinarian, while Catherine was quick to give and forgive.

But over the years they had tempered each other. They knew this, and it pleased them. Catherine had learned to share more with Kit, because she had learned to trust him. Most and best of all, never in all the times of anger or bitter disagreement had she stopped wanting him. Even now there were moments at business meetings in the Blooms conference room when Catherine would look down the length of the table to see her husband speaking in his utterly calm, rational, reasonable way, and she would flash on how different he was in bed, how passionate, demanding, abandoned, ardent. She would be flushed, flustered, and as happy as a young girl in love for the first time. She had never been unfaithful to him, and he had never been unfaithful to her.

And she did not want to go to bed with Piet. But she couldn’t help but think that it would be nice if he wanted to go to bed with her. He had never married. He hadn’t been back to the States for several years. He and Catherine spoke often about business, but for the past few years Shelly had been their main contact. The international life had been good for Shelly, Catherine had thought, had given her brother a sufficient taste of an exotic, challenging world in which Shelly had seemed to thrive.

Catherine looked at herself one last time in the mirror. She had put on an Escada suit whose stained-glass hues set off her coloring. She couldn’t help it. She wanted Piet to find her ravishing.

And she could not help it when she saw him in the lobby and her heart leapt like a bird, exploding from its cage, flaring and soaring and swooping. He still frightened and excited her at the same time.

Piet was wearing a beautifully cut custom-made suit complete with vest and Italian shoes of leather as supple as silk. From the neck down he looked like a prosperous, respectable, even bourgeois businessman. But his sleek black hair was pulled straight back and tied with a black velvet ribbon into a short, low ponytail, emphasizing the angles and arches of his face and eyebrows. He looked as diabolically seductive as dark wine.

They kissed lightly, European style. As the hot perfume of his cloved breath brushed her cheek, Catherine swayed. She had to put her hand on his arm to steady herself. Jet lag, perhaps, but she felt giddy.

Piet was a gentleman as always and said nothing about her brief weakness. He spoke about Amsterdam and the world news as he escorted her into his car and to the d’Viff Vlieghen restaurant. Not until they were seated almost in secrecy in one of the dark, museumlike rooms and had ordered their dinner did he ask her why she had come.

Catherine looked across the table at Piet. Old lover, old friend, she thought.

“You say you’ve come to see the
Bloemenveiling
,” Piet said, smiling.

“I do want to see the auction. But there’s something else. Piet, I’m taking a chance by telling you this. I’m assuming you’ll be truthful with me.”

Piet shrugged but smiled at the same time, and the smile was also in his eyes.

Catherine took a deep breath. “We have reason to believe, at home, that you—no, wait. That
someone
in your company is billing us for more flowers than we’re receiving.” She told him all that Kit had told her, watching to see if she could read any reaction in his face.

He seemed displeased, but not anxious.

“I’m sorry to hear this. Twenty boxes a day can amount to quite a considerable sum over time. How long has this been going on?”

“We have no idea. It would be impossible to judge by our records. Our profits have been dropping for some time, but of course there are all sorts of variables to consider.”

“Carla still receives the shipments and checks the invoices at your end. Correct?”

“Yes.”

Piet sighed. “Well, my dearest Catherine, I have no choice but to tell you. Shelly is the one who oversees the packaging and the invoicing. Tomorrow morning I’ll take you through the auction from start to finish so you can see how it’s done.”

“But then he’ll know I’m here.”

“Tonight, after our meal, I’ll take you out to my offices. We’ll check his desks.”

“Does he have a private office?”

“Oh, yes. With a lock and key. But your brother is a charming man, don’t forget. He has many admirers at my offices. One of them keeps a key to his office in her desk drawer, and I have access to that desk.”

“I’m sorry to ask you for this. I’ll be very sorry if it’s Shelly who’s colluding with Carla. Perhaps I was wrong to send him over here, but I needed someone from New York to know how this side works. Shelly was bored. He wanted more responsibility in the company.”

“I don’t think you made a mistake. Shelly works hard. And he has learned to speak excellent Dutch. He is respected and very much liked.”

“In New York he ran with a rather fast crowd. He still does, when he’s home. Lots of parties. Lots of drinking. Just like my father.”

“Yes, he’s that way here, too. And more than drinking, Catherine. Although I don’t want to be what you Americans call a rat on your brother.”

“What do you mean, more than drinking? What can be more than drinking? Is he gambling?”

“No, no—”

“Prostitutes?”

“Your brother does not need to resort to prostitutes—”

“Well, what are you saying?”

“Catherine, you’re so naive. What I’m saying is that Shelly, like most young men of his social level, tends to indulge now and then in drugs. Specifically, cocaine.”

“Oh, Piet, no. Are you certain?”

“I’ve never actually witnessed him using it, no. But I’ve heard things recently. And if he’s developed a habit, it would explain why he’s started ripping you off. God! What a stupid thing to do!” Piet finally sounded angry.

“We don’t know that it’s Shelly. It could be someone else.”

“I don’t think so. When we go over the books, we’ll have a clearer idea. But don’t look so miserable, Catherine. Forget about that for now. Enjoy your meal. The food is delicious. Tell me about your life.”

Catherine relaxed. She sipped her wine, which was delicious, a ruby Burgundy that swirled through her body, releasing memories, tight buds, large blossoms, velvet petals of remembrance. For just a few moments she held herself back from her usual rush through life. She let herself look at Piet. She let the memories stain her body from inside.

“I’m very happy, Piet. Kit is a wonderful husband, and my children are healthy and as happy as adolescents can be.” Suddenly, the wine made her bold. “Piet, I’ve always wondered. If I hadn’t been engaged to Kit when you returned—what would have happened?”

Piet studied Catherine, his eyes serious. She had forgotten how dark his eyes were, not black, but the deepest purple.

“I loved you,” he said. He said it as easily, as simply, as saying hello, and Catherine was shocked. “I think you loved me. And I still care for you, I always will. But you and I are strong individuals, ruthless in our ways. I am very powerfully drawn and connected to Amsterdam. I worked in the States to get established, but I am only at home here. I think the same is true for you. You are at home in New York, and perhaps at your grandmother’s. Oh, I suppose that long ago, when I was young and full of foolish dreams, I intended to present you with a fait accompli, the wholesale business, a partnership, and marriage. But it wouldn’t have worked. You would have been unhappy here. I would have been unhappy there. Besides, you’re too bossy.”

He had taken her through a range of emotions in the few moments he spoke, and his final words made her burst into laughter of appreciation and relief.

“Oh, dear Piet,” she said, reaching across the table for his hand. “I did love you so much at one time. You’re right, I still care for you. I wish someone loved you madly.”

Piet smiled. “Don’t worry. Someone does.”

“Tell me about her!”

“I think we’d better turn back to business instead. It’s getting late. It will take about an hour to drive out to Aalsmeer. Have you finished your coffee?”

“Damn you, Piet! You like keeping yourself secret from me, don’t you? Why?”

Piet shrugged. “It’s just my way, I suppose. Just my nature.”

* * *

I
t was pitch black when she and Piet slid into his small dark Peugeot. As Catherine shut her door, she realized how intimate European cars were compared with American ones. She could hardly avoid touching him as they sat side by side. She could not help but breathe in his clear spice scent.

“We are going south and a little west, back toward Schiphol airport, and past it to Aalsmeer,” Piet said. “Did you know that Schiphol lies thirteen feet below sea level? All this area is a polder, hollow land claimed from water. In fact, we are driving along the top of the dike that keeps the polder dry. If you had come in the spring or summer, I could treat you to a beautiful sight—seventy miles of bulb fields in bloom. However, in November the fields are not such a pretty sight. I’ll show you the hothouses instead. All the flowers are grown in about eight hundred acres of land and nurseries all around Aalsmeer, so there is no time lost in getting the flowers to the auction fresh. Tomorrow we’ll see the
Bloemenveiling
. Tonight, my offices.

“You know, when I first started wholesaling by air, I was only working with you. GardenAir. That is still the only wholesale business I have with the U.S. Shelly came to Amsterdam about the time I was expanding, so it worked nicely for me to put him in charge of the GardenAir export business. But for various reasons, some to do with my mania for privacy”—in the dark Catherine saw the flash of Piet’s smile—“I have kept the U.S., and GardenAir, separate from the rest of my export business—separate offices, separate staffs—though we’re all in the same building.

“All the flowers I export to the U.S. go through GardenAir, exclusive with you. But as you know, in the past two years the value of the American dollar has dropped. So America has to pay almost twice what it used to pay for each stem—and as a result, I am exporting to the U.S. perhaps half of the amount of roses, carnations, and mums we did only two or three years ago.”

“Yes. I know. We’re starting to buy a lot from Colombia now. They fly flowers fresh into Miami each day.”

“Well, I export all over Europe, and I’m developing a branch with the Far East. You are welcome to inspect all my books, but I think you will really need only to look in Shelly’s office. Here we are.”

Piet’s company was housed in a modern and rather ugly stone-and-glass building. He led Catherine through a maze of low-ceilinged rooms, switching on lights as he went. He stopped in a warren of desks to fish a key out of a secretary’s desk drawer, then unlocked the door to Shelly’s private quarters.

Shelly’s office was unmistakably his—the domain of a handsome, wealthy man, a man who didn’t take his work too seriously. A low comfortable sofa stretched along one wall; across from it was long teak table holding a CD player and shelves of cassettes, a television and VCR, and a silver tray with lots of glasses, a selection of alcohol, an ice bucket. The walls were hung with photos of Shelly with family and friends, for here was a picture of Andrew and Lily and Kit and Catherine, and here was a picture of Ann, Ned, and their son, Percy. An exercise bike sat in one corner and next to it a chrome valet covered with clean terrycloth towels. An unobtrusive door led into a small private bathroom.

Almost incidentally, there was also a desk in the room, and Catherine sank down onto the leather chair behind it.

“Would you like me to leave you alone? I could go to my office—”

“No. Stay. Please.”

“Of course.” Piet poured himself a drink and sat on the sofa.

Catherine flipped through the piles of papers on Shelly’s desk, finding only normal forms and letters, some recent memos from her. The middle drawer and the two top side drawers were filled with necessary paraphernalia: pens, pencils, paper clips, boxes of staples, letterhead stationery and envelopes, stamps, Scotch adhesive tape, rubber bands, labels, stickers. In the second drawer she found only a pile of men’s magazines.

“I might have to get into the computer,” she said.

“I can do that for you.”

“Wait a minute.” Catherine had opened the bottom drawer, a deep file cabinet. Mixed in between folders of letters were two green account ledgers. Catherine pulled them out. “Piet, come look at these with me.” She placed them on top of the desk and opened them. “The arrogant little fool! Couldn’t he go to a little more trouble to conceal his stealing!”