Rare Objects (38 page)

“Here, allow me,” he said, pinning it just below my shoulder.

“What's all this for?” I smiled as if I were in the habit of receiving jewels with supper.

“For you, May. It's for you,” he said, shrugging it off. “Don't you want me to spoil you? Or do you insist on being a woman of independent means?”

“I think diamonds go with independence very nicely!” I said, relieved and yet confused by his casual attitude. Was I being provincial?

A bottle of champagne arrived, courtesy of the management. “It's always good to see you, Mr. Van der Laar,” the maître d' told us, shaking James's hand enthusiastically. “And with such a lovely companion!”

I watched anxiously as the maître d' made a great show of opening the bottle and pouring out two glasses. Under the table, I twisted my napkin tight. Mr. Baylor had told me how to keep away from bars, speakeasies, and late-night parties, and how to guard against the miserable hours of loneliness and despair. But
I was completely unprepared for the more perilous moments of romance and celebration. Now I felt like an actress playing a scene in front of a full house—only I was about to ruin it all with the wrong lines.

James raised his glass. “To us.”

“To us,” I echoed, raising my glass too.

He took a sip. I sat frozen, glass midair.

What was worse? Drinking or not drinking?

Then suddenly something snapped, and I felt a sharp pain in my finger. The champagne spilled across the table; I had been gripping the glass so tightly, the stem had shattered in my hand.

“Oh, dear!” The maître d' rushed forward with extra napkins to mop it all up. “Are you all right, miss?”

“You're bleeding.” James pointed to my hand.

I looked down. My finger was cut. “Gosh, what a mess!” I laughed awkwardly. “I suppose I should go to the ladies' and clean myself up.”

Somehow I made it out of the dining room and to the ladies' lounge. There I ran my hand under cool water, staring at the diamond brooch in the mirror. I was on dangerous ground. This wasn't my world; I'd been admitted by mistake. Any minute now they would discover I was a fraud and show me to the door.

As I headed back, I was stopped by a familiar voice.

“Oh, I know you, don't I?”

I turned round to see Smitty on the arm of an attractive young man. They were both in evening dress; she was wearing a graceful strapless gown of gauzy black chiffon that flowed effortlessly. Her brow wrinkled as she searched for my name. “It's Mabel, isn't it?”

“May,” I corrected her, certain she knew it anyway. “It's nice to see you again.”

“What are you doing in
here
?” She cast her eyes round the lobby as if it were the most inconceivable destination on earth. “Are you with someone?”

I remembered the way she'd appropriated James the last time we'd met. “I'm just dining with a friend.”

“Oh, I pity you!” She chuckled, giving her escort a knowing look. “That restaurant's an absolute
relic
! Full of old men with their mistresses!”

“I'm sorry?”

“Didn't you know? It's
notorious
! Alec and I are just having a quick drink before the show.” She nodded to the bar across the corridor. “Of course, you and your friend are welcome to join us, if you like.”

“No, but thank you. I really should get back.”

Then she noticed the brooch. “Oh! Where did you get that?”

“Nowhere,” I answered stupidly, caught off guard. “I've had it for years, actually. Why?”

“It's Cartier, isn't it?”

“It was a gift. I really couldn't say.” I smiled apologetically. “I really must be getting back.”

I could feel their eyes on me as I crossed the lobby to the main dining room, the marble floor echoing beneath my heels.

Once I was back, suddenly all I could see were the elderly couples that seemed to occupy the tables, the wilting palms, and James's slightly distracted look as he flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Are you all right?” he asked as I slid into my seat.

“I'm sorry. I saw an old friend in the lobby and couldn't get away.”

The dinner progressed from vichyssoise and oysters to an enormous chateaubriand. James told me about all the new Broadway
shows and the best places to eat in Berlin, and promised to take me to both. He even asked my dress size, in case he had “time to kill” in Paris next month. But it felt dreamlike and insubstantial, as if I could no longer feel the ground beneath my feet. Perhaps I was just unused to happiness, I told myself. Maybe I needed to loosen up. And I couldn't stop thinking about the champagne that had spilled across the table. When we were finished, he stood up, held out his arm. “Shall we?”

But instead of leaving, he walked over to the elevator.

“Oh! You're staying here?” I asked, confused.

“I have a room.”

“Oh! Shall I . . . shall I . . .”

The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside. “Shall you what?”

I wanted to say, “Shall I wait here?” but I couldn't quite get the words out.

He looked at me expectantly.

I got in too.

Upstairs, he unlocked the door to a three-room suite. Even in the darkness, I sensed the expanse of space, the icy glint of chandeliers, the generous swags of silken curtains under the high ceilings. Not bothering to turn on the lights, he walked over to the open window. Far below us, the city blinked enticingly, illuminated by glowing billboards and neon lights; it lent the room a strange otherworldly luminescence and cast a bluish shadow across his face.

He stood there, back to me. “Do you like the brooch, May?”

The night pressed in upon me, heavy and black.

“Yes.” My voice sounded hollow and far away.

“Good.”

I waited for him to say something else, something tender or romantic, but he didn't.

Coming closer, he unzipped my dress. Moving without urgency, he took what was his now, lingering over the complicated fastenings of my lingerie and slipping his fingers beneath the fabric to feel the trembling warmth of my skin. When he'd stripped me bare, he stood back.

I watched as he poured out a large whiskey.

A warm breeze sent the sheer curtains billowing into the room like a ghostly sail.

I held out my hand, and he gave me the glass.

Then, smiling just a little, he took off his jacket and knelt down before me.

A week later Diana surprised me, ambushing me in the old style. I found her waiting outside the shop, sucking on a cherry lollipop.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, offering me one too. “Busy?”

She seemed more her old self, impulsive and uncomplicated. I wanted nothing more than to slip back in time with her again and forget everything that had come between us.

“Not at all. What shall we do?” I asked, peeling off the wrapper and popping it into my mouth. “Shall we go to the apartment?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I haven't been there since I've been back. Have you?”

“No. We could go to the pictures,” I suggested.

“It's such a nice evening. Let's get lost. We'll walk until we know what to do with ourselves.”

She held out her arm, and I took it. And for a while everything
difficult disappeared. I put James in a little drawer in my head and locked it tight. Tonight we belonged only to each other.

We walked down Charles Street and around the Common. It had been a hot day, and the park was full of people. We enjoyed making small talk for a while. She told me about how she was learning to play golf, even though she hated it, because her mother insisted that all the really “smart” girls did. They'd joined the country club at Chestnut Hill and hired a pro who, she was sure, was always drunk, no matter how early her lesson. She showed me the calluses on her hands and laughed about the dreadful shoes she had to wear. “I cheat, of course. I get my caddy to do it, though, so I can always pretend I'm outraged and fire him if I'm discovered.”

“But that's dreadful!” I laughed.

“Oh, but I tip him so much he doesn't care,” she assured me. “He's going to Princeton in the autumn, and I'm told they don't respect you at Princeton unless you cheat.”

“Princeton?” I whistled. “I thought caddies lugged around clubs all day!”

“Yes, but they're all like that—going to college, zipping around in sports cars, and they have more expensive shirts and haircuts than anyone else. It's quite bizarre, actually. But I suppose they enjoy pretending to work.”

She asked me what I'd been up to.

“Just work,” I told her.

“I suppose your life is a desert now that I'm becoming a golf pro,” she teased.

“I'm without hope of ever being happy again,” I confirmed.

She looked out over the lush green lawns, at barefoot children playing tag in the cool grass and young couples lying in each other's arms. “I don't suppose you've heard from Max at all recently?”

“Me? No.” Evidently she wasn't aware how badly we'd hit it off. “Why?”

“I just wondered.” Then she added almost guiltily. “I don't really know why I asked. It's a stupid question.” She began picking at the varnish on her thumbnail.

“Why don't you ring her?”

“No. It doesn't matter. It's a bad habit.” She smiled quickly. “One I must learn to break.”

“Do you think you'll ever see her again, just as friends?”

“No. I expect not. Though it's not as easy as I thought to control one's thoughts,” she admitted sadly. “They go where they like, don't they?”

We carried on down the path that circled the pond. The evening had cooled down a little, and a gentle fragrant mistiness rose from the grass beneath the lilac-tinged sky. Eventually we came to the far edge of the water. Diana stopped. Sitting on a bench on the other side were a woman and a young boy. The boy had a notebook open on his lap.

“Isn't that Andrew?” I asked.

She nodded. “He likes to record the number of passengers on the swan boats. They often stop here on their walks, when the weather is fine.”

Just as she said, Andrew was making notations, while the woman next to him, presumably his nanny, knitted in silence.

“He calculates which boats transport the most people throughout the year. He would do the same with trolley and railway cars, only he's not allowed. It used to be a rule that he wasn't permitted to stop, but Mrs. Hawkins is older than the other nannies, so she doesn't mind.”

“The other nannies?”

“They never stay long. He goes through them like wildfire.”

“Let's say hello.” I started for the bridge.

“No.” Diana put a hand on my arm. “Best not to bother them. I just like to check and see if they're there.” Tenderness softened her features.

“I saw him, you know. Did he tell you? At the parade.”

“No. I don't get to speak to him as often as I'd like.” We stood a little longer before she asked, “Does he seem happy to you?”

“Yes. Why wouldn't he be?”

“I mean, he seems like a normal little boy?”

Andrew was undeniably unusual in some ways, with his remarkable memory and obsession with insects. “He's quite intelligent,” I said after a while, “but he seems fine. Why?”

“Elsa says he has the most terrible temper tantrums, that the school doesn't want to keep him anymore. There's talk of sending him away.”

“Away where?”

“Maybe abroad. To a French school.”

“He seems a little young for that, don't you think?”

Diana nodded slowly. “I couldn't bear it.”

“Is there anything you can do? Perhaps speak to your aunt?”

“I don't know. Maybe.” She turned back to face me. “Do you still see Mr. Baylor?”

In truth, it had been a while since I'd been. I didn't want to tell him about James, about our time together, augmented by champagne and whiskey. “Sometimes,” I lied.

“Does it help?”

“It's not easy,” I warned. “In fact, it's much harder to maintain.”

“But you can see improvement,” she pressed. “You're getting better?”

There was an urgency in her voice that pricked my conscience.

“Well, I'm not getting worse, am I?” It came out too sharp.

She lapsed into silence, absentmindedly running her fingers across her pearls.

“I want to be different,” she said after a while.

“You mean, become a golf pro?” I joked.

“No, I'm trying,
really
trying, to change.”

I didn't quite follow. “Change what?”

She gave me a look. “The way I am. I'm a moral defective. We both know that.”

It shocked me to hear her sounding like Dr. Joseph—using words like
moral defective
. “You don't honestly believe that, do you?”

“I
know
that. If I don't face my failings, I can't change them. There's a minister, a spiritual leader of the Reformed Church, Dr. Alder. Elsa's arranged for me to see him. He's helped many people, including her.”

Her change in attitude unnerved me. “But you don't need a spiritual leader, Diana. You're not evil!”

She turned on me. “What do you think evil is, May? Don't you think that having a perverted nature, wanting to do things that both the church and society find repulsive and abhorrent, to the detriment of yourself and your family . . . don't you think that's evil?”

A chill went up the back of my spine. “Do you think I'm evil?”

She hesitated. “You're weak. Unable to control yourself,” she said after a moment. “It's not the same.”

“But you're not a bad person!”

She stared at me hard, irritation flickering in her eyes. “And if it's it not natural, then what is it?”

“Different!”