The Girl Next Door (25 page)

‘They gave us medicals and vaccinations. You could have felt quite offended, if you’d wanted. Years later I read about Ellis Island – about how it was for all the immigrants who’d gone before me – and what happened to us didn’t seem too bad, but at the time… well, you weren’t used to being poked and prodded. I never have got used to it, frankly.

‘Then there was an army camp. More physicals. It was quite comforting – there being so many others like you. I met a couple of girls from near home, and we hooked up. One was going to Texas. I don’t remember where the other one was headed. We stuck together, and had a laugh. Had my first cigarette at that camp.’

‘You don’t smoke, Violet.’

‘Did, though. Forty years or so. Till it stopped being fun. All that gloom and doom talk.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we took the train to the ship. The
Queen Elizabeth
.’

‘As in the cruise ship?’

‘Yes. Except it had been adapted for us. I never heard of a cruise ship where you slept ten to fifteen girls in the one room.’

‘Like a dorm of brides.’

‘Brides, and kids. A lot of the girls were already pregnant or had babies by the time they got on those ships.’

‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like.’

‘Noisy, excited. Not a scrap of privacy. Pretty disgusting, if you were seasick. Fortunately for me, I have the constitution of an ox – never even felt queasy once. Lots of the girls were nervous, not just seasick. I think there were more than a few second thoughts.’

‘Not you, though?’

‘Not a one. I stood on that deck like Kate Winslet on the
Titanic
, with my arms wide open, willing it forward into my new life.’

‘What about your sisters?’

‘Was I sorry I was leaving them behind? Not really. They’d both gone, by then, hadn’t they? It was every girl for herself, once my poor mum died. And I didn’t give my father a second thought. I don’t suppose I gave Gus as many thoughts as I should have. I just couldn’t wait to get there, and get on. A new life in a new country. I couldn’t wait.’

‘Wait a minute. What did you say his name was? Gus what?’

‘Gus Campbell.’

‘Not Wallace.’

‘No – not Wallace.’

‘So the Wallace is… ?’

‘My second husband. But that’s not for tonight. I’m parched now. And you’ve listened long enough. Maybe you should tell me something about you.’

‘It won’t be remotely as interesting.’

‘It will be to me…’

The power came on at 9.30 p.m. The glare of lights, and the glow of televisions, found them all in unfamiliar states. The residents of the building who’d been elsewhere when the blackout came started to make their way home.

Maria Piscatella resumed making chicken cacciatore, and hoped Earnest hadn’t been stuck in a hot, airless subway car this whole time. Hunter Stern drained the bottle of red wine he’d had no business opening, but had done, in memory of the 2003 power out and the best row he’d had in ages – the one he’d picked with Violet Wallace next door, a formidable and worthy opponent – and looked over his case notes for tomorrow’s appointments. Todd and Greg, who’d resorted happily enough to the oldest diversion in the book, pulled on their Missoni robes and wandered into the kitchen, post‐coitally ravenous. Jason Kramer grabbed the remote control for the television, flicking between an episode of
CSI
and CNN coverage of the power out, grateful still that Kim and Avery were out in the Hamptons.

Eve dozed peacefully on Violet’s sofa. As she walked softly around, blowing out candles, Violet looked at her from time to time and smiled. She didn’t want to wake her. She liked having this girl here. It was strange, spending the evening in the twentieth century, in her past. She didn’t remember the last time she’d spoken about her father, or thought about Gus.

Jackson sat on the sofa where he’d been all evening, trying to make sense of what had happened. Below him Madison and Emily both lay in bed, each feeling humiliated and embarrassed, Emily berating herself for believing that Jackson Grayling the Third could be different, might be special. The internal monologue of whether or not to go up and see him had raged for the first ninety minutes of the power out. She wished she hadn’t listened to the voice that sent her. She’d been right, from the beginning. Now, at least, she knew.

And Charlotte emerged from the elevator, hot, tired and sore, but elated. She thought she might have a plan now.

August

Jackson

What was he doing? August in New York? This was a first. He should be out in the Hamptons now. Not here. He should be messing about with his friends, on jet skis and boats. Board shorts and reef shoes. Drinking beers and tequila shots, and eating lobster rolls. Building bonfires and making out with whichever pretty girl he ended up with at the end of the night, in whichever bed was nearest. Sleeping until noon, and not before dawn.

That was the pattern of his summers.

And what had been wrong with that? What was he doing here? Sweating in a button‐down and chinos, listening to his mother complain about the heat of the city.

Martha was fanning herself furiously with a Spanish lace fan, and debating whether to move tables. ‘There’s more shade there. Shall we move?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Thank God your father isn’t here. He’d be in a foul temper. He likes his heat with an ocean breeze and there isn’t a puff of wind in this city today.’

Exactly. That was why he’d asked for an audience with his mother. He knew that his father might be the head of the family, but that his mother was the neck.

‘You look nice.’ She stopped fanning for a moment and looked him up and down. ‘Very nice.’

A Ralph Lauren pastel button‐down shirt and chinos had been his mother’s idea of a good look for him since he was two years old. He hadn’t had to think too hard about what to put on today. He’d just had to shop for it; he hadn’t owned either since she’d stopped shopping for him. Clean‐shaven and neatly combed, too, he knew he was looking exactly the part of the dutiful son he wanted to convince her he was.

‘This was a nice surprise, I must say, Trip. When you called, I thought you’d be calling from one of those trashy house shares you will insist on doing out in the Hamptons. I did not expect to see you in person. That was a very nice surprise. And looking so good, too…’

But this wasn’t about Martha. This was all about Emily. Not that he would tell his mother that, of course. His mother would get the version in which he’d taken time to think through his options, the way he’d been promising to for years now. And that he’d decided it was time to go to work for his father. Begin to learn the business he would one day be running – the business of managing the family fortune.

Emily didn’t know anything about it. The family fortune. He didn’t think that would help his cause any. That could come later. First he had to convince her that he could be taken seriously. That meant a job.

She had changed everything for him – a woman he barely knew. It was a mystery to him, but he felt powerless in the face of his feelings. She had no idea. No idea at all what she’d done.

He needed his mother now.

Charlotte

It was the hottest night of the summer – it had to be. Charlotte couldn’t sleep. Romance novels usually sent her quickly enough into swooningly sweet dreams, but she wasn’t reading romance novels any more. She hadn’t read one since the night she’d been trapped in the elevator with Che. The stack of titles she usually kept by her bed – new volumes, and old favourites – had been moved to the floor by the bedside cabinet, replaced by her new reading material.

She’d started the next day. She’d thought of it in bed, and been too excited by the idea to sleep that night. She’d gone into work early to use the computer to Google everything she wanted to know. What did people do before Google?

The Rosetta Stone programme she’d ordered had arrived within the week. She’d chosen that method because it promised the quickest results. She’d checked out some books from the library, too. Conversational Spanish. An English to Spanish dictionary.

She’d learnt some Spanish at school. She’d never been very good at it, nor especially interested, as a child. She’d have preferred to learn French. Even then, she’d dreamed of Paris, most romantic city in the world. But they didn’t offer French at her high school. Just Spanish.

And some of it had come back quickly. She’d be able to order drinks and tapas, or book tickets on a ferry. Find the cathedral, and introduce her brother. All that useless high school stuff they taught you. What she needed was a bit different.

She knew that people who wanted to stop smoking, or become more assertive, or lose weight sometimes listened to hypnosis tapes overnight – that the messages entered their brain subconsciously while they slept. So she played her Rosetta Stone disks at night, through her headphones, for a while. She slept on her stomach, though, and they kept slipping forward and off her head, so she abandoned that. She wore headphones to and from work, and on her long weekend walks – her one concession to this city’s obsession with fitness – and while she did her ironing, repeating the words and phrases over and over again. She worried about her accent – she couldn’t roll her r’s, and she thought her ‘th’ sound was too lispy. But lots of vocabulary came flooding back, and some of the grammar, too.

She had an almost friend, Samantha, at the library, who was married to an Ecuadorian and spoke fluent Spanish. She practised on her sometimes, at lunch‐times, and wondered when she would be brave enough to speak in Spanish to Che.

It wasn’t good enough just to start saying ‘Hola’ and ‘Adios’ and ‘Como sean usted’, though. That would come across as patronizing. She wanted to be able to really talk to him. She daydreamed of a moment when she’d come out of the elevator, or he’d hold the door open for her when she got home, and she’d just start speaking – a joke, or a humorous story – and he’d be amazed and delighted. She’d be funny, in Spanish.

Lovers did that. They were dedicated to their cause. All the great lovers of literature. Ali McGraw was wrong. Or her script was. Love didn’t mean never having to say you were sorry. What a ridiculous line that was. Only a man could have written that. She hadn’t much direct experience, admittedly, but she’d had a father, and a brother, and she’d watched and read about a thousand couples over the years, and she knew that men just plain didn’t like to say sorry. That was why Erich Segal wrote that nonsensical line. To get generations of men off the hook on the apology front. Love meant sacrifice and suffering and dedication. Lovers conquered. They overcame adversity. They moved mountains. They learnt to speak Spanish.

The first time she saw Che after the power outage, she’d been disappointed to hear them revert to their old cordial relationship. There’d been no lingering glances. No accidental touch of his hand when he was handing over a package that had been delivered for her. Neither of them referred to the evening. And the next time, and the time after that, you almost couldn’t tell that anything extraordinary had happened between them. But she knew differently. Each frustratingly mundane encounter strengthened her resolve. She would learn, and they would speak, and then, over the years, the night in the elevator would become the stuff of their own legend, told and retold, embellished, perhaps, but just as romantic for all that.

Violet

Up on the transformed roof, Eve and Violet sank gratefully on to the teak bench, and took great gulps from the big glasses of lemonade they’d carried from Violet’s apartment. The ice had quickly melted but the drinks were still vaguely cool. It was still hot, although it was late in the afternoon now.

It had been hot all week – the newscasters kept telling them it was ten degrees above the seasonal norm, sounding smugly excited from their air‐conditioned studios. Things were supposed to be cooling off now, but they showed no sign of doing so. It was hotter than July had been. Eve couldn’t wait for the fall. The humidity was exhausting at the best of times – when you were pregnant, it was almost intolerable. Her ankles were swollen already – she hadn’t expected things like that until much later. And the tiredness… it was debilitating. Some mornings, she never made it out of bed at all. And even if she did, it would sometimes strike without warning – while she was shopping, or walking through the park or talking to Ed. Heavy, instant, extraordinary fatigue that demanded she stop whatever she was doing, and curl up on her bed. Sleep would come immediately – she could feel it rolling over her like a wave. She was sleeping with just a sheet these days – it was so hot. The apartment had air conditioners – huge noisy machines that obliterated the views in all the rooms, but she hated their rattling, whirring din, and switched them off. It seemed to irritate Ed – he came in every evening soaked in sweat from the subway, pulling at his tie and top button, exasperated at the heat in the apartment. But she couldn’t have them on when she was home. And she was home a lot. Sleeping. She always woke up from these daytime slumbers hot and sweaty, usually with a headache. Ed went to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought old‐fashioned fans. Quieter, but much less efficient – they stirred the sweltering air a little, but didn’t really alleviate the problem.

It was a good thing he was away so much right now. She felt about as interesting as a carrot. She didn’t want to talk to him when he came home at night, and she didn’t want to share the sofa with him. She wanted to stretch out her full length and watch
CSI
without speaking. It was all she had the energy to do. His bulk in the bed beside her during the night made her hotter. She felt bad about it, and she hoped it would pass. Too often, when he was home, it didn’t work well. She was crabby or he was short with her. Five minutes in, and they were both irritated. He’d come home, after the power out, contrite and apologetic. They had kissed and hugged, and peace had been restored, but neither of the causes of the row had fundamentally changed. She was still needy. He was still neglectful. She wanted more from him than he was giving. So she let a little part of her shut down, close off from him. She concentrated on herself. And the bump. And the sleep…