The LeBaron Secret (35 page)

“We don't even have to dress for lunch,” Joanna said, shaking her wet hair. “We wear sarongs like they do in the Islands.” She handed Sari a large beach towel. “And look,” she said, opening the picnic hamper, “MacDonald has even included a bottle of wine.”

“Aren't we lucky—” Peter said.

“To have a butler we can blackmail,” Joanna said.

And, after lunch, as the three of them lay on their stomachs on the deck in the sun that was beginning to lower through the Golden Gate, Sari decided that she was getting used to these wild and indifferent and irresponsible new friends who lived surrounded by this golden haze of money. Peter was cradling his harmonica against his mouth again, playing snatches of show tunes, but Sari could still not bring herself to look at him.

Then, when it was time to lift anchor and sail back across the Bay, there was a problem. The mainsail would not feed into its channel on the mast properly. A line was fouled at the head of the mast. “Nothing to do but shinny up the mast and straighten it out,” Peter said, and, from the corner of her eye, she saw him expertly starting up the mast.

When he reached the top, she finally allowed her eyes to travel upward to him, where he worked on the fouled line. With her left hand, she bridged her eyes to watch him as, naked and gleaming, he clung to the swaying masthead like a panther clinging to the trunk of a slender tree, the sun behind him, framed in the bright sunlight.

She realized that Joanna's eyes were reaching in the same direction. “Peter really is a kind of genius,” Joanna murmured. “He's afraid of nothing. He can do anything.”

Was this when Sari decided that she was in love with him, this indistinct blur of body rocking in the afternoon sun?

Ask her. But she won't tell you.

I think it was.

The next Sunday it rained, and their second outing on the
Baroness C
had to be canceled, and Sari kicked the stairs and cursed the rain all the way to her room.

Then the true summer holiday began. Sari still had her afternoon job at the Odeon, but now she had begun to think of looking for a job that would be full-time. “Oh, don't,” Joanna said. “You don't really need the extra money, do you? This way, we can have girly lunches together—you don't need to be at the theatre until three. And all your evenings will be free to have fun, and in the mornings you can sleep late, late, late—the way girls our age are supposed to do!” Joanna rattled off a long list of things that the three of them would do that summer. “We'll drive out to Stinson Beach, and Half Moon Bay. We'll take a picnic lunch to Seal Rocks. Perhaps we'll drive down to Carmel.… And Peter's very keen on taking the
Baroness C
out to the Farallons. That will be exciting—even a little dangerous, you know, because we'll be on the open ocean …”

They had done some of these things, as a threesome, driving around San Francisco in Peter's snappy little Stutz motor car, which he had painted fire-engine red (“We're Flaming Youth!” Joanna liked to cry out to other motorists as Peter sped past them on the highway), and when he and Joanna dropped Sari at the theatre, it was sometimes possible for her to sneak them in, free, to see whatever movie happened to be playing. When she did this—between her chores of showing patrons to their seats with her flashlight—Sari would come and sit with them.

But, increasingly, outside obstacles began to interfere with Peter and Joanna's summer plans.

The proposed trip to the Farallon Islands, for instance, never came to pass. “Daddy's had the marina lock up the
Baroness C
's sails and tackle, and ordered her into drydock,” Joanna said. “Really, Daddy's just being too beastly to poor Peter.”

“Why did your father do that, Jo?”

“It's the whole Yale thing, of course. And Daddy found out that Peter's been taking out the boat.”

“Isn't it Peter's boat?”

“Of course it is, really. But officially it belongs to Daddy.”

“And Peter's been taking it out without permission?”

“What difference does that make? Oh, it seems that Daddy had promised the boat to some friends of his that Sunday we all took her out. The friends arrived at the marina—and no
Baroness C!
So now everybody's sore as hell at everybody else, and poor Peter gets to shoulder all the blame. It isn't fair.”

“Poor Peter …”

“And Daddy says if Peter ever does a thing like that again, he'll take the car away from him. Can you imagine? We'd all be simply grounded. Isn't Daddy being just too beastly?”

“If I were Peter, I'd start doing things that were designed to please your father.”

“Peter won't. Peter has too much pride. It's all so silly. It's not that Daddy gives a rat's rear end about sailing. He just wants to own a sailboat because sailing's
stylish
. What a snob!”

Soon other roadblocks were appearing that were also altering arrangements for scheduled get-togethers.

“Sari darling, I can't make it for lunch today. It seems Mother's scheduled dressmaker's appointments, back to back, all day long. Oh, I hate this debutante business! I don't want to be a debutante at
all
. I'm only doing it because Mother absolutely
insists
.”

Sari, innocently enough, had assumed that one ball gown was all that was required to be a debutante. A different gown, it seemed, would be required for each of the many functions Joanna would be attending during her debutante year—a gown for the Bachelors', another for the Cotillion, and others for each one on the long list of luncheons, teas, cocktail parties, dances, and little dinners to which she would unquestionably be invited—a full year of entertainments. Each of these outfits required many hours of consultations and fittings with the dressmakers, and each gown had to be accessorized with shoes, gloves, handbags, and hats, even stockings and underwear, requiring still more hours of shopping. Then there were the consultations with florists and hairdressers and corsetieres and caterers, and long sessions with photographers and cosmeticians and stationers. The agenda of Joanna's appointments seemed endless, endless …

“Sari darling, I can't make it for lunch today, either. I'm devastated. But there's this photographer from New York named Hal Phyfe whom Mummy says is absolutely the cat's—whom Mummy says is supposed to be the absolute tops, and Mummy insists on having him photograph me. I'm dreading it, but there's no way out of it where Mummy is concerned …” When did Mother become Mummy? Sari wondered. “But look, Peter is free—why don't the two of you have lunch? Poor Peter! He's so at loose ends. All his friends are off to Europe, or at Tahoe, and Daddy won't let him do any of those things. Daddy is being absolutely relentless about Peter getting a job.…”

She and Peter had lunch in a small French restaurant on Telegraph Hill.

“Are you looking for a job?” she asked him.

“Don't have to. I have one,” he said.

“Really? How exciting. What are you doing?”

“Clerking for a law firm on Montgomery Street.”

“Wonderful!”

“I'm there right now—helping prepare briefs, searching titles, settling estates and trusts, filing suits and underwriting quitclaim deeds on underpensioned debentures, torting out the torts and summonses and serving pensions and suspensions, and otherwise helping with the ancillary legalistic forensics of the prosecutor's prosthesis. I'm having a hell of a time.”

“I don't understand.”

He grinned and touched his finger to his lips. “Ssh,” he said. “Our secret. That's what my father
thinks
I'm doing. Actually, as you can plainly see, I'm having lunch and spending the afternoon with you.”

“Oh,” she said, a little disappointed. “So you don't have a job.”

“No, but my father thinks I do, and that gets him off my back. Having lunch and spending the afternoon with you is much more fun. You're good company. I like you.”

“I like you, too,” she said. And then, “Why am I good company?”

“You're a good listener,” he said. “That's an important thing in a woman—that she be a good listener. What shall we do after lunch? Shall we nip up to Muir Woods and look at the big trees?”

“I have to be at the theatre at three,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. “I'd forgotten about that.” And now it was he who seemed disappointed.

“I could go with you to Muir Woods on Sunday,” she said.

“Sunday? Oh. Well, I don't know. We'll see …”

After lunch, he drove her to the Odeon in his car.
Ben-Hur
was playing. “I'd actually like to see that film,” he said.

“If you like, I'll sneak you in.”

“Okay …”

She sneaked him in, pretending to collect a ticket from him at the entrance to the auditorium, and, when the theatre had filled—the movie was playing to sell-out audiences—she came and sat beside him in the dark, in the only remaining empty seat, which he had saved for her. During the famous, exciting chariot-race scene, she reached out and covered his hand with hers. He did not respond. He did not take her hand in his, but he didn't withdraw his hand, either, and merely left it there, resting coolly across the armrest of the theatre chair. Clearly, he didn't mind her hand covering his. Was this a sign?

“Sari dear,” Joanna was saying on the telephone, “all hell has broken loose here. Daddy's found out that Peter really doesn't have the job with the lawyers that he said he had. Daddy actually called the lawyers up to check on him! Wasn't that the nastiest thing to do? And on top of everything, I can't meet you today because of more photographs Mummy wants taken. But Peter's free. See what you can do to cheer poor Peter up. The pressure's really on him now …”

But then, all at once, the pressure was off again. Julius and Constance LeBaron were leaving for the Islands. In the East, the Islands mean the Caribbean, but in California the Islands mean Hawaii. Julius was taking Constance, who was close to a nervous breakdown from all her shopping, on a three-week holiday. They were sailing on the
Lurline
. The children would have the California Street house to themselves. The pressure was not only off, it had disappeared.

“The three of us will meet tonight at eight o'clock in the Mural Room at the Saint Francis,” Joanna said. “Peter's made a reservation. After dinner, we'll decide what else to do—but it'll be something
wild
. Flaming Youth. I may be a few minutes late, because there's something going on at the Burlingame Country Club. But I'm going to tear myself away from that. See you later …”

Sari and Peter arrived first, and Sari was impressed to see that the headwaiter recognized Peter, bowed to him, and called him “Mr. LeBaron,” and “sir.” They were led to one of what were considered the best tables, on the aisle, in the front of the room. When they were seated, Peter poured a little whiskey into each of their water glasses from the silver flask he carried in his jacket pocket. By now, Sari knew that everyone in America was doing this, and nobody paid any attention to it. They clicked glasses. “Joanna really hates this debutante business,” Peter said.

“Do you think so? I'm really not so sure. I think she rather likes it. After all—buying all those beautiful dresses?”

He frowned and shook his head. “No, she hates it. Hates the whole thing. You mustn't be fooled by what things seem to be …”

“What do you mean?”

“Jo is a Siren. She weaves spells. She lures people toward the rocks.”

“Yes, I've noticed a bit of that.”

And then, when some time had passed and Joanna still had not appeared, Peter said, “Where the hell is she, anyway? She's nearly half an hour late.”

“She mentioned something in Burlingame,” Sari said.

“Yeah, that's what she
said
.” And then, suddenly, he said, “Do you think she's seeing somebody?”

“Seeing somebody?”

“Some man? Somebody we don't know about?”

“Oh, I don't think so, Peter.”

“Well,
I
think so,” he said, and his look was dark and almost angry. “I damn well think so.”

“I'm sure she'd have told me if there were someone—special.”

“What makes you so sure? What makes you think you can trust her? What makes you so goddamned sure?” He splashed more whiskey in his water glass.

“We promised each other that we'd—”

“And what makes you believe her goddamned promises?”

“Well, she did mention a Flood boy.”

“That nitwit! What would she see in him, for God's sake? What would she see in that goddamned nitwit? All that goddamned nitwit wants is to be able to say he's slept with every girl in San Francisco!”

Sari hesitated. “Maybe we should order our dinner,” she said. “And not wait for her.”

He consulted his watch, which he wore in his vest pocket, suspended from a gold chain. “Well, let's give her fifteen more minutes,” he said.

But easily twenty-five more minutes had passed, and Joanna had still not arrived, when the headwaiter approached their table. “Mr. LeBaron, sir,” he said. “Your sister just telephoned. She said she has been unavoidably delayed, and will not be able to join you for dinner. She says she will see you at home, later this evening.”

When the waiter had departed, Peter slammed his wadded napkin on the table. “That bitch,” he said. “Now I'm sure of it. She's seeing somebody, and she's keeping it from me, and she's keeping it from you. Sari, I want you to find out who this bastard is.”

“Well, I'll try, but I really don't think—”

“I want you to find out who my sister's seeing,” he said. “I want you to find out everything you can about this bastard. His name, what he looks like, where he lives, where he went to school, how she met him, what she's doing with him, where they go.
Everything
.”