Leon Uris (35 page)

“Who does he think he is!”

“I’ll see that he is reported.”

Tonyo, an archduke of a maître d’, whisked them in like a magician who had snapped a tablecloth off a fully set table without spilling a drop of water.

He showed them to a booth, quickly curtained them in, and returned to the waiting line and held up his hands. “Poor girl was about to pass out. She’ll be fine. So sorry. Let me send a round of drinks to your table.”

Zach and Amanda snorted in anger.

“Let me go. You’re hurting my wrist,” she demanded.

“Promise that you’ll stay put.”

“You are hurting me.”

“I’ll see you now,” he threatened and pleaded.

“All right, then. I’ll see you.”

Zachary released her. They stared empty-eyed and panting at a magnificently intricate tablecloth holding a king’s array of crystal and silver.

Tonyo buzzed and entered with a bottle of port, poured the glasses uncomfortably, and cleared his throat.

“See to our privacy,” Amanda commanded, “and leave the bottle. I’ll ring when I need you.”

“Yes, Miss Kerr,” he said, and snapped the curtains shut behind him so the brass rings clinked with authority.

Zach bumbled at his glass, starting to realize the import of his behavior. He felt Amanda’s fingertips touching his lips.

“Oh God,” she said softly, “I love you so. What are we going to do?”

He dared look and tears were there. He opened his handkerchief. “Here, now.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve earned these tears.”

Amanda blew her nose, which ran like a little girl’s who had fallen and scraped her knee hard, and as quickly as she had foundered, she returned.

“I’ve never seen you in officer’s dress blues. You’re beautiful.”

“Those are sad lines under your eyes, Amanda.”

“Yes,” she said, and quickly changed the subject with a reflexive reaction to the stab of a few minutes back. “She is very lovely,” Amanda said unevenly.

“And very kind,” he answered in a whisper. “Her family took me in.”

“I’m certain you prospered from the experience,” Amanda said, to boost her sagging pride.

“She’s only a friend.”

“A little more, I’d say. I suppose you’ll want a complete report on Glen Constable and myself.”

“I don’t care to know anything, ever,” he said.

“Are you that certain?”

“I am certain of how we love each other,” he replied.

“After my letter, taking up with Madame Villiard was not wrong of you. But, almighty God, this summer has hurt.”

Amanda sipped her wine, then he covered her hands with his, and she shivered. “In the garden on that first night when you took my hand, I’d never felt anything like it, till now.”

He brushed her cheeks with kisses, and she rubbed his gold bars. “My Marine. Take me somewhere now, please. I have to be with you, Zach.”

“It won’t take long before the world crashes into this booth. That stupid scene I made was like some dumb Samson pulling the temple down on our heads.”

“The beach tonight or I’ll find a place nearby,” she said.

“Listen up, darling. We can’t do anything around Newport.”

“I don’t care about gossip.”

“Listen up,” he repeated. “I just did a terrible thing out there.”

“But you did it and we are both here together now because you did.”

“I could have ruined my work,” he said. “I could have let Major Ben down, the Corps, and both of us as well. Look at me, Amanda.”

“What’s going on?” she said.

“Amanda, my assignment here will probably be the most important thing ever asked of me, in my life. Do you understand me?”

She sighed heavily, let it set in, then nodded.

“It can’t be interrupted, even by you and me.”

“How long will it take?”

“If I bear down, burn the midnight oil, I can finish it by the end of the year.”

“God, that’s a lifetime,” she said under her breath.

“Three months, maybe four. I’d better see your father and Mr. Constable now and tell them.”

“No, Zach, my father will derail your work. Hold on now. Be quiet. Let me think. I’ll hang on. I won’t disturb you. All right, here’s what we do now. I was livid when we ran into each other and I was very angry when we were seated in the booth here. I will leave after you go, and as far as Father and the world . . . and Newport . . . are concerned, I dismissed you in a rage.”

“I don’t like a lie,” he protested.

“We’re going to have to resort to a few. If there is suspicion by Father or Glen about us, I won’t be able to hold the fort till the end of the year.”

“Christ,” he said.

“Now, you hear me,” she said. “You and I are out of business until your report is turned in. Then we will make our time and place.”

Zach’s fist rapped the table over and again in frustration.

“I want to marry you, Amanda.”

“Me, too,” she said. “If my father refuses permission, I’ll be twenty-one next summer and can do as I wish.”

He flushed.

“What?” she asked.

“By next summer I’ll be long gone on sea duty or to a foreign post. I may be gone for a year, even more.”

“I’ll wait. We’ll marry.”

“Yes.”

And then the terms of the plan crushed them! Zach’s mouth went dry. The last time he’d shaken with fear was halfway up a ship’s main mast his father had dared him to climb.

“We may be talking about two years apart.”

Amanda’s face fell.

“When I finish my assignment in Newport, I have thirty days’ leave before I have to report to my new post. Let’s work something out for that time, early January into February.”

“Thirty days! That will keep me alive, Zach!”

“Let’s plan it carefully.”

Now she held his wrists tightly. “Zach, stop, Zach, stop, stop,” she cried. “I tried to talk you into taking me to the Constitution Ball because I was plain selfish. I could have hurt you then, badly. If we run off now, I’ll come through it, but this could ruin your career.”

“If we can’t have each other, even for just a thirty-day furlough, my life is ruined, anyhow.”

“It’s very dangerous for you.”

“Don’t let me go off without loving you.”

“Zach . . . Zach . . .”

“Will you go away with me?”

“Yes, I’ll go away with you. You leave now and then I’ll leave, ‘in anger,’ as I said. I’ll work out a plan for us. Willow Fancy will contact you.”

“Good,” he said, “and if you have to reach me, it would be best to contact me through Major Ben.”

“Are you going to tell him what we’re doing?”

“I’ll tell him exactly what you tell your father. I was dismissed by you in anger.”

“But he’s your commanding officer. It will be hard for you to lie to him.”

“One way or the other, I have to be with you.”

“I’ll find us our plan. I love you. I’ll close my eyes, and when I wake up it will be January.”

Zach stood shakily. Amanda pressed the service buzzer and a waiter opened the curtains.

“Miss Kerr?”

“Leave the curtain open and get Tonyo here this instant.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

In a blink, Tonyo arrived.

“Miss Kerr?”

“Tonyo, see the lieutenant out,” she said in an angry voice, “and when he is off the premises, have my carriage brought to the members’ entrance.”

“May you rot in hell,” Zach said, and followed Tonyo out.

•
31
•

Lilly got out of her wet clothing, bathed, yanked a dressing robe off the rod, ordered up a plate from the main house, had a magnum of champagne uncorked, dismissed her maid, and drank heartily between nibbles.

The knock on her door was timid. Lilly arched her back. “Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

“You can go to hell.”

Zach tried the door. It gave. He stepped in like a brave patriot standing before the chopping block.

“I lost it, Lilly. You’ve been kinder to me than anyone in my life. I feel rotten hurting you.”

“Well, Mister I’ll-see-you-now, welcome to the endgame. All trysts end in hell.”

He asked if he could be seated. Lilly was starting to feel tipsy.
He inched down opposite her. She held up her champagne flute and was about to toss the contents in his face.

“I’d feel better if you threw it at me.”

She obliged, along with a slap. “Pour me another glass,” she commanded, and this time drank it.

“I put myself on report for my disgusting behavior.”

“Grand! Will Uncle Ben have you flogged?”

“No.”

“Oh, too bad. So?”

“I guess the superintendent will hold a captain’s mast for me. I’ll probably be confined to quarters and docked some pay.”

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. You have all those rich ladies who will take care of your odds and ends.”

Zach held up his hands, helplessly.

“So, throw something at me,” he said.

“Lilly does not get
that
angry or
that
sad.”

“I take that as a well-earned insult,” he said.

No, she didn’t crack a smile. She was hurt.

“One cannot take a summer’s pleasuring that seriously,” she said.

“I want your forgiveness.”

“It is not forthcoming.”

“Shall I go?”

“No, kindly torture yourself for a while.”

“I lost it,” he bumbled again.

“I lost it once. I was thirteen, before I went to France. I held a large Ming vase over my head and smashed it on the floor. Papa made me glue it back together. It took nearly a year, but it established my boundaries for future tantrums.”

He pointed to the champagne, filled a flute for himself, and gulped it down.

“I believe the playwright has a direction in his script that says ‘a pregnant silence followed,’” she said.

“That wasn’t me at the casino,” Zach said.

“Oh yes, it was the real you exorcising a demon. And now I’ll
show you the real Lilly. Notice, I speak calmly. I do not rant, nor do I double over with laughter. Have you not realized how perfect I am in everything, my walk, my dress, my ha-ha-ha quips, my kisses? I am studied perfection and always under control, unless suddenly hit by a wet fish.”

She wobbled from her chair, went to the French doors, flung them open, and let a sharp breeze find its way in. Her gown fluffed. She breathed in the sharp air. Zachary tried not to look at her bosom.

“The moment I saw you, Lilly, I knew I was going to need you to heal my wounds.”

“You wanted Mama!”

“Yes,” he croaked.

“Mama wanted sonny boy just as badly, Lieutenant. It’s a nasty sport, but you are one handy player.”

Lilly pushed the doors together and turned to him, opened and disheveled.

“Stop kicking yourself,” she said, tying her gown together. “The baroness chose to play with the soldier boy.”

“I wanted the summer to end with you returning to Paris holding a deep affection for me. I prayed for that,” he said.

“Ah, that must be the reason for all the candles lit in the family chapel,” she said.

“I think I’d better go.”

“I haven’t dismissed you,” she retorted.

Zachary helped himself to the Maison Villiard cognac, feeling it all the way down and up again.

Lilly fitted a cigarette into its holder and he held a flame beneath it. His hands were steady as she blew a long thin stream into his face. The smoke had a strange sweetness Zach had come to recognize. She relaxed, drifted, and rambled.

“I wasn’t exactly an innocent bystander,” she said, “but the rule of the game is never to go to the guillotine for a summer lover.”

“My behavior was shocking,” he said.

“Hmm,” Lilly mused, “have you ever been on a plantation filled with slaves?”

“No.”

“I was born on one,” Lilly said. “Thank God, on the right side. I’ve been on the other side of the field where the shacks are and people lived with death before death. And I said to myself, what a lucky girl am I. In payment for my good fortune I must master the art of being a woman. We all make some gesture of rebellion. I did mine with a Ming vase. Later, I adored being the Baroness Villiard. The one lesson I learned early as a woman is that you don’t go into the billiard room and whip the boys at the pool table.”