Everlasting (7 page)

Leslie’s father came to the apartment about twice a year. Ceremoniously, he took Catherine to dinner at the current fashionable restaurant, pleased to have an elegant and attractive dinner companion who could understand his tales of discoveries in the Orient. Except for the two or three nights a year when Catherine went to dinner with him, she knew she didn’t impinge upon Mr. Dunham’s life at all, not even when he was in his apartment.

Leslie wrote her often from Paris about her escapades in art and conquests in love. Her letters ended with the same advice: “Get out and live a little! Your life sounds so
dull
!” Catherine would smile. She’d fold the letter, put it in the paisley box where she kept all her letters, muse on the pleasure of Leslie’s friendship for a while … then turn back to her book on dried flower arrangements, or houseplants, or primitive and contemporary religious symbols and ornaments.

Her holiday and vacation time she spent at Everly. Kathryn was fascinated by Catherine’s work. She quizzed her granddaughter about every detail, now and then mumbling to herself when something Mr. Vanderveld did sounded particularly brilliant or foolish. She never praised Catherine for choosing this work; Kathryn was not the kind to praise. But her attention to Catherine, her interest, her enjoyment and obvious curiosity, were all the accolade Catherine needed. The days she spent at Everly flew by with the same happy speed as her days working in the flower shop.

It was different the few times she visited her parents, on Easter or Ann’s or Shelly’s birthday. Catherine knew she would always have to maintain a delicate balance when she saw her father and mother. She had to be pleasant in the face of their scorn—to them, she’d become working class. She didn’t attend any of the right balls or coming-out parties or dances; she hadn’t chosen to attend the right college; she didn’t date the right people—as far as they were concerned, she was doing nothing right, and they had no interest in her. She was a disgrace. Worse, she was boring.

Catherine remained stoically pleasant in the face of their disapproval because she wanted to see her brother and sister. Shelly was bright, but too bold. At thirteen he had been suspended from boarding school for smoking in his dorm room. At fourteen he was expelled from his school for drinking whiskey and vomiting in the library. Drew considered his son’s escapades amusing and promptly found a new school for him. When Shelly wanted to, he could make A’s and charm his teachers. He was a great jock, a good-natured guy; people liked being around him. But he got bored easily, especially when Catherine tried to talk to him seriously.

As if in reparation for her older sister’s desertion and her brother’s troublemaking, Ann was busy being the perfect child. At ten, eleven, and twelve, she spent more time with her mother than with her own friends. Not yet at boarding school, she was free to spend her afternoons with Marjorie. Pattering after her mother in her black patent-leather shoes and white socks, her white-gloved hands holding her little handbag, Ann followed her mother everywhere. “That dress looks divine on you, Mother!” she said.

“Call me Marjorie,” her mother told her one day. “It sounds better.”

Catherine watched and listened, grateful at least to see her brother and sister growing up, though she could hardly influence the direction their lives took. She pitied them. Whenever she left her parents’ home, she felt like a prisoner escaping. Their life was so superficial. She wanted to rescue Ann and Shelly but didn’t know how. But she at least had won her own freedom, and there was never a day in her life when she worked at the shop that she doubted her choice.

The flower business had overcome her. She was possessed by her love for her work. She was lost in it. She was found.

Chapter 3

France and New York

June 1964

C
atherine had a hard, sensible plan that she now and then let soften into a buoyant fantasy. While her friends hoped for Prince Charmings and engagement rings, Catherine played with numbers in a small black account book. In June of 1964 she’d been working at Vanderveld Flowers for three years. By now even cranky old Mr. Vanderveld had come to trust her and, more important, to rely on her. Every year the Vandervelds had given her a raise, and since she didn’t have to pay rent to the Dunhams, she was able to save a large portion of her paycheck. Someday, she hoped, she’d be able to buy into the Vandervelds’ business. Become a partner. Have a voice in the future of the shop.

Someday, perhaps, but not soon. No matter how much she scrimped on clothes and food, she still seemed to be accumulating so little money, so slowly. She was toying with the thought of asking her parents for a loan. Every time she envisioned asking them, her stomach cramped, but really she could think of no other way to get enough money to buy part of the shop before she was old and gray.

Kathryn had given Catherine a substantial check for Christmas, which Catherine had eagerly added to her savings account. Then she received the invitation to Kimberly Weyland’s wedding. Kimberly, one of Catherine’s and Leslie’s best friends at Miss Brill’s, was marrying Philippe Croce, the son of one of France’s wealthiest financiers, and the wedding was to be held at the Croces’ country estate outside Paris.

“You
have
to come!” Leslie wrote. “I’ll
die
if you don’t!”

It would be a treat to see Leslie, Catherine thought, and in an odd way didn’t she owe it to Leslie, since Leslie was giving her a free place to live? Also, this particular wedding party would be crammed with wealthy people, especially young people her age, planning more weddings. It would be a great way to make contacts for the flower shop.

And besides, Catherine wanted to go. She’d been working hard for a long time, and the thought of staying in a château in the French countryside was too tempting to resist. Catherine took her grandmother’s Christmas money from her savings account and bought a roundtrip ticket to Paris.

Catherine had asked for so little over the past three years that the Vandervelds couldn’t refuse her the time off even during the busy month of June. Piet surprised her by offering to drive her to the airport in the delivery van. She accepted, partly because she wanted him to see her transformed by her pale green silk suit, gold jewelry, and high heels and partly to save the cab fare. It was delicious to dress up, as if slipping into a new, resplendent self, and as she stepped out into the bright June evening, she wondered if Piet would be moved to compliment her. If he did, she thought, it would mean that a new chapter of her life was opening. At the very moment she had the thought, she knew it was foolish, yet it was so sweet to indulge in such illusions!

But she might as well have been a pig in an apron for all Piet noticed. He talked shop talk all the way to the airport.

Then he surprised her. At the terminal Piet handed her bags to the porter, then fixed Catherine in his gaze.

“You look beautiful, Catherine. Be sure to come home.”

Without warning he kissed her on her cheek, close to her mouth.

“Oh,” she said.

“Have a safe trip,” he said.

Piet was the one to turn away first. Catherine stood wavering in her high heels, transfixed, until he got into the van. Behind her, the porter cleared his throat. Stunned, jubilant, Catherine trotted to the airline counter and then to the gate. It had been only a kindness, she told herself, to send her on her way full of self-confidence. Still, she smiled.

While waiting to board the jet, she discovered three other classmates also going to Kimberly’s wedding. Their squeals of delight at seeing Catherine made her feel young again. She was aware of the other passengers noticing them: four pretty girls in pastels full of high spirits, on their way to a wedding. It was like drinking champagne, inhaling perfume, to be so lucky, so lovely. With earnest, profuse professions of gratitude, the girls charmed other passengers into trading seats so they could all sit together, and the flight was passed in an orgy of gossip, memories, and laughter. Hours later the four women arrived in France sleepy and silly.

A stoic chauffeur met them. It was his task to deliver them to the Croces’ country house two hours from Paris. In the privacy and quiet of the smooth, luxurious limousine, the young women fell asleep and missed seeing the change in the landscape as the city gave way to small stony towns and sun-dappled green fields.

They awoke to find the limo entering high, wrought-iron gates that led to the grounds of the Croce estate. The massive, honey-colored stone château was set formally in the middle of manicured gardens, symmetrical paths, and graveled drives. After the long flight and the brief nap, Catherine felt as if she were moving inside a dream as she walked up the wide stone steps and through the great doors into the château.

Inside, the vaulted, tapestry-hung entrance hall echoed as the Miss Brill’s girls were all reunited. Leslie came running down the long curving staircase, arms wide, chattering and laughing. Her father, who was a friend of Monsieur Croce, greeted Catherine more decorously. While their luggage was taken to their rooms, the four new arrivals were led into a small salon for refreshments. Leslie ate heartily of the hot anchovy canapés and tiny crepes filled with chicken liver and mushrooms, but Catherine felt stuporous. It was all she could do to remember enough French to converse with the bridegroom and his parents. Finally, after a polite hour of the requisite courtesies, the four travelers were shown to their rooms to rest. There would be a banquet and ball that evening; the wedding was the next day.

Leslie took Catherine to the room she had arranged for them to share.

“We’re up on the third floor,” Leslie whispered, her arm linked through Catherine’s. “Family members, the maid of honor, and the bridesmaids get the posh rooms on the second floor. You’ll have to come down later and see Kimberly’s room—it looks like a brothel!”

Their room was small and sparsely furnished, with white plaster walls, a shining oak floor, two narrow beds, and an enormous, ornately carved armoire with mirrors on the doors. The large open window looked out onto the long reflecting pool and the statue-adorned paths through the gardens.

“Don’t you love all this?” Leslie babbled. “Decadence. Yum. But do you know what? There are only two toilets and two bathtubs on this floor. We’ll have to share with everyone else. There’s no shower anywhere I can see. I don’t know how I’ll wash my hair. You look exhausted. How was the flight? I promise I won’t talk forever. You have to get some sleep so you can be ready for tonight. It’s going to be an amazing party.”

“The flight was fine,” Catherine said. “It was fun talking to Anne and Robin and Melonie, but you know, Leslie, it’s just like when we were at school—they’re still as interchangeable as ever. They dress the same way, they study the same stuff at college, they think the same way. I think they could marry each other’s fiancés and the men wouldn’t even notice.”

“You’re so wicked and critical.” Leslie laughed. “And I’m so glad! Never mind them, tell me about you! Did you bring pictures?”

“Umm,” Catherine said. She jumped off the bed, dug through her luggage, and came over to sit next to Leslie with her packet. “Here,” she said. “This is it.”

She handed Leslie the first photograph: a picture of a small shop with a pink-and-white-striped awning and, in gold script on the door, the words
Vanderveld Flowers
.

“It’s pretty, Catherine. Smaller than I thought from all you’d written me.”

Catherine laughed. She looked lovingly at the photograph.

“Yes, I’m sure of that. It’s changed my life so much it should be as big as a church or a university … but even as a flower shop it’s too small. Far too small. Unfortunately the Vandervelds don’t have the money for expansion.…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered all the financial problems the Vandervelds were facing, problems that might change her future.

“Look at all those daffodils!” Leslie said, taking the next photo, which was a closer shot of the shop window. “And the tulips. I love tulips.”

“Mmm,” Catherine agreed. “You know, I didn’t realize it when I took it last month, but the window in this photo looks just like it did when I first saw the store. This is Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveld. They look like trolls, don’t they?”

“Who’s
this
?” Leslie interrupted. “You didn’t tell me about him.”

Catherine looked at the photograph, which was supposed to show Leslie what the back of the shop looked like but in which Catherine had inadvertently included a dark young man with his arms full of cardboard box flats.

“Oh, that’s Piet. Their nephew.”

“Ye-es. Go on.”

“That’s all.”

“That’s all? You work with a man who looks like that, and you tell me that’s all? Catherine, come on. I don’t believe that for a minute.”

Catherine pushed herself off Leslie’s bed and threw herself across her own. “Oh, give me a break, Leslie. God, I’m bushed. It’s five o’clock in the morning my time. I’ve got to go to sleep.”

“You’re trying to get out of telling me something! That’s not fair! I gave you my apartment, Catherine—you owe me.”

“Owe you what?”

“Everything. Your soul. At least all your secrets. So tell.”

Catherine opened her eyes. “I swear I’m not involved with him. Leslie, I’ve been working so hard now, at the shop in the day and classes at night, I haven’t had time for men at all. I promise. Don’t look that way. I’m not lying. Listen, let me sleep and I’ll tell you everything when I wake up.”

“Everything?” Leslie said threateningly, squinching up her eyes.

“Everything. And believe me, it will take about five seconds.”

“All right,” Leslie said sulkily. “I’m going on down to see who else is here. I’ll wake you in time to get ready for the party.”

Catherine closed her eyes and pulled the covers up to her neck. Her brain seemed filled with fuzz. Her body was disoriented after the transatlantic flight and the excitement of seeing old friends again. She wanted to sleep and to rush around seeing everyone, not missing a second, all at the same time.