Star (13 page)

“I was visiting friends,” she said noncommittally, with his baby in her arms.

“Got a new boyfriend?”

“No, I don’t,” she snapped at him as she walked back to the kitchen. Her legs looked endless in the tight-fitting jeans, and he was admiring her rump as she went to make him his sandwich.

She didn’t get back to her own house till dinnertime, after cleaning up, making their lunch, and bathing little Willie. It made her sick to see how they left him. And now they were having another child, so they could let him go filthy and wild, crying half the time because he was hungry and Becky didn’t feel like making dinner. Tom went out before she left, and Crystal was relieved. She never liked the way he looked at her, and the questions he always asked about her “boyfriends.” There had never been anyone. No one except her harmless dreams
of Spencer. The others were all too afraid of her, and that suited her just fine. She had nothing in common with any of them. Their lives were confined to the valley. They had no idea that there was a world beyond it, and no thirst whatsoever to find it. Unlike Crystal who still hungered for more than the Alexander Valley had to offer.

Becky didn’t bother to thank her before she left, and at the ranch house, her mother told her to peel the potatoes for their dinner. She did as she was told, but when she finished she went to bed, too tired even to think about eating dinner. She thought about Hiroko for a little while, before she fell asleep, promising herself to go back and see them the next morning after church. She’d have to figure out a way to get away from her mother and sister. They always seemed to have chores for her. It was all so different from when her father was alive. In two months, she had become nothing more than a ranch hand, someone to do their chores and clean up after them, someone for them to shout at and ignore, and she could see the hatred in her mother’s eyes when she thought Crystal wasn’t looking. She resented her, but Crystal didn’t know why. She had done nothing to them, except love her father.

School let out in June, and she had only one more year until she graduated. But after that, what? Life would still be the same. She would be doing chores on the ranch, and watching Tom destroy what her father and grandfather had built, the ranch Tad had loved so dearly. Tom was going to plow the grapes under that year, having been unable to sell them for the first time in years, and he had sold off a lot of the cattle, saying that they were too much trouble. It put money in the bank for him, but it weakened the ranch profits a lot, and they all felt it.

Becky’s baby was born just after Crystal got out of school. A little girl this time, who looked exactly like her
father. But it was Hiroko’s baby that made Crystal’s heart sing. They christened her at a church in San Francisco and asked Crystal to be her godmother. It had taken countless lies to explain to her mother where she was all day, but she had gone with them, fascinated by the sights she saw there, and she felt alive and new again as they drove back to the Alexander Valley.

It was a beautiful summer that year, Crystal turned seventeen, and she spent long hours visiting with Boyd and Hiroko and their baby. Little Jane looked as much like Hiroko as she had when she was born, and yet at the same time there was something of Boyd about her, an expression, a smile, and the reddish brown hair that was a perfect blend of both her parents’. Crystal would lie lazily on the grass for hours, under the tree in their garden, playing and holding the baby close, feeling her warmth as she gurgled. Her visits with them were the highlights of her existence. And she only went home in the late afternoons, in time to help her mother and grandmother fix dinner. Like Tom, her mother accused her of having a boyfriend from time to time, and told her she should be helping her sister with the children, but she had other things on her mind, and so did Becky. Everyone in the valley was saying that Ginny Webster was having an affair with Tom. And Crystal suspected there was some truth to it. She asked Boyd about it once, and he only shrugged and said he wouldn’t believe what people said, but as he said it, he blushed almost the color of his hair. It was true then, not that Crystal was surprised, but she wondered if he would have dared to if her father were alive. It didn’t matter now, Tad was gone, and Tom Parker could do whatever he wanted.

Tom and Becky christened the baby at the end of summer, just before Crystal went back to school. But this time Spencer didn’t come, and her mother didn’t give a
big party. They invited a few friends for lunch after church, and Tom got drunk and left early, while Becky cried in the kitchen with her mother. And Crystal walked slowly to the river afterward, to sit near the spot where her father was buried. It was hard to believe that only a year before he’d been alive, and she had sat on the swing, talking to Spencer. She had still been a child then, she realized, but no longer. The past year had been too hard, the losses too great, the pain too deep. She was only seventeen, but Crystal Wyatt was a woman.

The invitation came to his office, and as Spencer looked at it, he smiled. His father had been right. He had read it in the papers weeks before. Harrison Barclay had been appointed to the Supreme Court, and Spencer had been invited to his induction.

It had been a good year for him, full of hard work and people he liked. Anderson, Vincent, and Sawbrook was conservative, but much to his own surprise, he liked it. And he had done well. He was already an assistant to one of the partners. And his father was pleased with him. There had been some early skirmishes between the two men, particularly over Barbara. His parents had rented a house on Long Island the summer he came home, and Barbara had spent much of August there with her two daughters. And Alicia and William Hill had counted on Spencer to come too. In the end, there was no avoiding it. He had spent two weekends there, with Barbara making up to him, and his parents’ eyes filled with expectation. She had waited for him, his mother said. She loves you,
his father prodded. And Spencer had finally exploded. She had waited for Robert, not for him, and it wasn’t his fault his brother had been killed in the Pacific. She was a nice girl, and he loved his nieces, but she was his brother’s wife. It was enough for Spencer that he had become a lawyer. He didn’t owe it to his parents and his late brother to marry his widow too.

Barbara had left the house in tears, and there had been an ugly scene with his parents. He left Long Island shortly after that, never to return, and he didn’t see them again until well into fall. Barbara had gone back to Boston by then, with the girls, and he had heard recently from a friend that she was seeing the son of a key influential politician. It was the perfect choice for her, and he hoped she was happy. All he wanted was a chance to do well, and carve out a life for himself. He liked New York, but he still missed California. And more than once, he found himself thinking about Crystal. But less often now. She was simply too far away, and she wasn’t real. She had been merely a rare and beautiful vision, like a wild-flower one stops to admire in the mountains, never to be seen again, but always remembered. He had had a letter from Boyd when their daughter was born, but it had said nothing about Crystal, and he’d gotten an announcement that Tom and Becky had had another baby. But all of that seemed very remote now. It was part of the war, for him, part of another life. He was wrapped up with his work for Anderson, Vincent, and Sawbrook, and he was learning a lot about the new tax laws. His real interests were in criminal work, but none of their clients had problems in that direction. He helped to set up estates, and complicated wills, and it was interesting work he could talk about with his father.

He discovered when he had dinner with his parents
that night that they had gotten the invitation too. But his father said he was too busy to attend the induction.

“Are you going?”

“I doubt it, Dad, I hardly know him.” Spencer smiled at him. His father was wearing well. He had just been involved in an important criminal case and Spencer was anxious to hear more about it than he had read in the papers.

“You should go. He’s a good man for you to stay in touch with.”

“I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can get away from the office.” Spencer smiled, looking younger than his twenty-nine years. He was tanned from weekends at the beach, and he’d been playing a lot of tennis. “I feel foolish going, Dad. He really doesn’t know me all that well. And I don’t have time to go to Washington.”

“You can make time. I’m sure the firm would want you to go.” Always responsibilities and obligations. It chafed at him sometimes. Life here seemed so full of what was “expected.” It was part of being grown up, part of being in the “real” world, but he wasn’t always sure he liked it.

“I’ll see.” But much to his surprise, the partner he worked for echoed his father’s words a few days later. Spencer mentioned the invitation over drinks at the River Club, and his mentor suggested he go to Harrison Barclay’s induction.

“It’s an honor to be asked.”

“I hardly know him, sir.” It was the same thing he had said to his father, but the senior partner shook his head.

“No matter. He may be important to you one day. You have to keep those things in mind. In fact, I’d like to strongly recommend it.” Spencer nodded, accepting the advice, but he felt foolish when he accepted the invitation. The firm even went so far as to make reservations for him, at the Shoreham, and he went to Washington on
the train, the day before the induction. The room they had taken for him was airy and large, and he grinned to himself as he sat down in a comfortable leather chair and ordered a Scotch from room service. It was a pleasant way of life, and maybe it would be fun to go to see the Barclays again. He suspected that Elizabeth would be there. He had never heard from her after she went to Vassar. She probably had other fish to fry, and he had his share of attentive ladies. He’d been out with a dozen different women in the past year. He had taken them to dinner at “21,” Le Pavilion, and the Waldorf. They had gone to parties, the theater, played tennis with him in Connecticut and East Hampton, but there was no one he cared about particularly. And three years after the end of the war, everyone still seemed to be in a hurry to get married. It was not a pressing need for him, there was still a lot he wanted to sort out in his own mind. Somehow just practicing law didn’t seem like the end of the line to him. He liked it better than he thought he would, but secretly he admitted to himself that it lacked excitement. He was still trying to figure out how to incorporate it with something more challenging and demanding. And at twenty-nine, he figured there was still a lot of fun in store for him before he settled down with anyone for good. He had to find the right girl first, and she hadn’t come along yet.

He was just beginning to find his feet again after the interruption of the war, and the shock of his brother’s death. The pain of it had begun to dim by then. Robert had been gone for four years, and his parents still talked about him a great deal, but Spencer no longer felt quite as personally responsible to replace him. He was his own person now, and there were times when he felt on top of the world, and very much in control of everything he was doing. He was lonely at times, but he wasn’t even sure he
minded. He liked being alone. And in spite of the fact that law hadn’t been what he really wanted, he had come to enjoy what he did.

The next day dawned sunny and bright, and on a cool September morning, Spencer went to the Supreme Court Building for the formal swearing in. He wore a dark pinstriped suit, and a somber tie, and with his shining dark hair and his blue eyes, he looked very handsome. Several women turned their heads to look at him, although he seemed not to notice. And afterward, he managed to shake Justice Barclay’s hand briefly before the crowd swallowed him up and he was moved along. He didn’t see anyone he knew, and he was sorry his father hadn’t been able to come with him.

He visited the Washington Monument that afternoon, and the Lincoln Memorial, and then went back to his hotel for a bite to eat before dressing for the party he’d been invited to that evening. The Barclays were hosting a formal dinner dance at the Mayflower Hotel to celebrate his induction.

Spencer left the hotel in black tie, and hailed a cab to take him to the party, and he waited patiently on the reception line, where he was greeted warmly by Priscilla Barclay.

“How nice of you to come, Mr. Hill. Have you seen Elizabeth?”

“Thank you. No, I haven’t.”

“I saw her a few minutes ago. I’m sure she’ll be very happy to see you.” He moved on to greet her husband then, and then moved on quickly to make room for the others in the long line behind him. He went to the bar and ordered Scotch and water, and looked around at the assembled group. Most of the men were older, and the women wore expensive gowns. It was an interesting collection of the country’s well-known and most important,
and he felt a sudden surge of excitement at being there. He took a sip of his drink as he recognized one of the other justices on the Supreme Court, and then watched a younger woman talking to an older man, and when she turned around, he saw that the woman was Justice Barclay’s daughter. She looked much older than she had a year before, and prettier somehow, and as she smiled in recognition, he remembered how poised she had been when they last met, and how attractive. She was prettier than he remembered her, and he approached her with a smile, as her warm brown eyes seemed to light up. Her auburn hair was shorter now, and she was wearing a striking white satin dress with the summer tan she had acquired at Lake Tahoe, and it struck him forcefully that she was very attractive, a lot more so than he had remembered.