The Girl in White Gloves

by Kerri Maher

  And like a theater, the palace was amazingly versatile. This courtyard had been transformed many times since she’d arrived. Though underneath it would always be a European castle built by conquerors and princes, today it was a convincing Texas ranch, complete with split-rail fences, bails of hay, and even a small brown barn with shaded games for the children. Every male citizen of Monaco had given up his beret for a cowboy hat, every woman traded her silk scarf for a red bandanna. Everyone was a player today, shedding their real selves and real troubles, and escaping into the fantasy of another place and people. Grace sensed they found the release as marvelous as she always had.

  Grace excused herself, and let Rita and Frank catch up while she rejoined her husband. She passed around trays of watermelon and helped Albert while he gave square-dancing lessons. Even Caroline was having a good time, smiling and talking and eating with her friends. Stéphie ran ebulliently from one activity to the next, a bright pinwheel in her tight little fist, trying everything and munching a thousand ears of corn, with Cary Grant’s little girl, Jennifer, trailing enthusiastically behind. Grace smiled. After all of Cary’s tumultuous years in psychoanalysis, little Jennifer had turned out to be his savior. His love for her was palpable.

  She hoped Cary and his family, as well as Josephine Baker and her children, among her many other friends, were enjoying themselves; she’d hardly had a chance to do more than greet them. Well, she consoled herself, they would all have a more intimate supper together the next day at Roc Agel, their blessed escape just half an hour up the road toward the little town of La Turbie.

  At one point, it seemed like half the guests were on the stage at the far end of the courtyard. Shoulder to shoulder, scores of sun-browned Monégasques were learning the two-step. Rainier found Grace there, sweating and laughing in a group of older women, and he took her by the hand to the hoots and hollers of all surrounding them, then surprised everyone by stomping her expertly around the stage. They had practiced this dance for weeks, for exactly this moment, and after a few nearly broken toes—his and hers—they had finally gotten the hang of it.

  As everyone clapped, Rainier kissed Grace on the cheek, and she closed her eyes for little more than a blink, but it was like time slowed down, allowing her to soak in the warmth and joy of the moment. She wished, so much, that it was enough.

  * * *

  It was a triumph, darling,” proclaimed her mother as they put their sore feet up on ottomans in the cozy living room in the family wing of the palace. A tray with a pot of herbal tea sat on a glass table between them, steaming into the cooler evening air. They would have to change clothes and make another appearance for the fireworks in a few hours’ time, and this was a welcome and much-needed respite.

  “And I must admit,” Margaret went on, “I had my doubts. A barbecue? But it was wonderful, just wonderful. I heard people everywhere raving about the food, and the entertainment, everything! Nicely done, Grace.”

  “Thank you, Mom.” Grace basked in her mother’s compliments. Though their relationship was hardly perfect, something important had shifted between them in recent years and softened her mother toward her. Grace had suddenly become the easiest Kelly child, certainly easier than Peggy, who drank far too much no matter how often she swore she wouldn’t, and Kell, whose philandering had effectively ended his marriage. No doubt Margaret found it more relaxing to spend time with her second daughter. For her part, Grace had begun to understand and appreciate her mother better, what with the challenges of raising Caroline and Stéphanie with Rainier, under the hungry lens of the paparazzi.

  A few minutes of contented silence passed between Grace and her mother as they sipped their tea. Caroline and Albert, she knew, were napping before their official obligations at the fireworks, after which they had permission to go out for a night on the town. They rarely left the house before ten on a party night, and Grace had begun to make peace with this; she especially liked it when they went out together, as she felt that Albie had a steadying influence on Caroline. Stéphanie was in the theater watching a movie with some of her little friends, unwinding after the merry chaos of the day.

  Rainier was visiting his zoo animals, which always put him in a more tranquil frame of mind. She still didn’t understand how all that cawing and clawing could possibly help him unwind—after all, monkeys and macaws were nothing like the warm, sanguine body of a loving dog on your lap. One of her caramel poodles was nestled under her legs right now, snoozing away contentedly. But even though she didn’t understand it, she respected that Rainier’s zoo was necessary to him. And honestly, she was relieved he had something that had nothing to do with her to bring his blood pressure down.

  “Have you decided what to do about Caroline and her baccalauréat?” Her mother’s question about this high-stakes test for which her daughter would need to enroll in a special program of study was casual enough, but the piercing reality of it fractured the rare calm of the moment.

  “Rainier and I are still discussing that,” Grace said evasively, regretting the phone call from a month ago in which she had tearfully poured out to her mother so many of her fears and frustrations about Caroline going to study in Paris, especially after four years of sanctuary while she attended St. Mary’s School Ascot in England. But her oldest child wanted to study politics at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques in Paris, and for that she’d need high marks on a baccalauréat, which St. Mary’s didn’t offer. Caroline had been accepted into the Dames de St.-Maur Lycée in Paris, and now the question was where she should live.

  It was one thing to stay out late in Monaco, where the teenage princess was known and beloved and relatively protected. Anytime she went out in another city, however, the vultures descended with their cameras and lies. In the hopes of protecting and maybe even guiding Caroline to stay out of the parties and related trouble she’d lately gotten into, Grace wanted to live with her during the week in Paris, and bring Stéphanie with them and enroll her in a nearby school. The very thought of raising her girls in one of her favorite cities thrilled her—for, despite the comfort she felt in Monaco, she also felt restless here, bored with the duties she’d mastered. She needed new challenges, new stimulations.

  But Rainier thought Grace was being overprotective, as usual. “She chafes under your mothering,” he was always telling her, though she often felt the critique was unfair. She let Caroline go clubbing in Monte Carlo, for heaven’s sake—and she wasn’t even eighteen yet! She couldn’t help feeling that much of Caroline’s behavior could be attributed more to Rainier’s spoiling her; from the moment she’d arrived, she’d had everything she ever wanted and asked for more.

  “You know you are right,” Margaret said pointedly, interrupting Grace’s train of thought. “Don’t let him change your mind.”

  “Mother, please, let’s not talk about it now,” said Grace, but her mother’s words, and everything they called to mind, had set her stomach churning. A few more minutes ticked by and sheer exhaustion helped Grace forget her mother’s words by sending her into a light sleep on the couch.

  The next thing she knew, Rainier was picking up her feet and putting them on his lap as he sat down beside her, smelling of hay and the sea wind and faintly of the droppings of many animals, the domesticated ones of their party as well as the more exotic breeds in his zoo. He had a glass of brandy in his hand. She wished he would rub her feet, but it had been many years since he’d touched her like that.

  “I thought it went well. Didn’t you?” he asked his wife and mother-in-law.

  Groggily, Grace opened her eyes and sat up a bit so that her feet slid off Rainier and burrowed under his hip. He seemed in good humor.

  “It’s not even a question,” replied Margaret robustly. “The day was a wild success.”

  “Everyone did seem to have good time,” he said musingly. Then he patted his soft belly and said, “I don’t think all the spice agreed with me, though.”
r />   “I forgot to eat,” said Grace. Her stomach growled as she thought of this. “In fact, I’m starving.”

  “You don’t think the different chilis were a bit much?” Rainier asked. Grace heard the shift in his tone, the neediness, and she knew why—she and her mother hadn’t immediately flattered him about the role he’d played in the proceedings, and so now he was going to pick something apart. Her toes curled. It was almost better when he fell asleep at an event and had less to say. Grace had been horrified years ago when she realized Rainier did this on purpose. Dozing off at the opera once in a while she could understand, but closing your eyes during Hamlet’s monologue—in the state box, no less!—was the height of rudeness. When she’d tried to suggest he stay awake at important events so as not to offend their hosts, Rainier had only replied, indifferently, “They should try harder to keep me awake.” She’d become so practiced at delivering the lie—“My poor Rainier, so tired from everything he does for the people of Monaco, he can’t even stay awake at the theater!”—that she nearly forgot the truth these days. It was much easier to believe her own words.

  “I loved the chilis!” Margaret exclaimed, which Grace knew would not endear the pots of red, white, and green chili to her husband. Grace wasn’t sure if her mother made comments like this to rile him on purpose or because she was simply done placating husbands.

  “Let’s not fret about any details when overall it was a grand day,” said Grace silkily. The last thing she needed was tension before the next wave of appearances, so she went on. “The pork sandwiches and barbecued chicken were popular, and I think everyone in Monaco could do a respectable do-si-do when they left. You led me expertly around the dance floor, darling,” she cooed, putting a hand on his arm. Her mother stood up and looked out the window, her back to her daughter and son-in-law.

  “I did manage not to step on your toes,” said Rainier, clearly angling for a bigger compliment.

  “You did better than that,” said Grace with a warm smile, feeling as she said the words that having to say them bled all the joy out of the memory.

  “The fresh ice cream was also a hit,” added Margaret, still at the window. “The children couldn’t get enough.”

  Grace laughed, grateful for the added praise. “I’m glad Rainier told the kitchen to double the amount they were planning to make!” It was actually she who’d told the kitchen to increase the order, but what did the truth matter if peace reigned in the palace?

  Rainer smiled as if recalling this small gallantry in the kitchen, and he patted Grace’s foot absentmindedly. The three of them were silent a few moments before Rainier asked, “Margaret, how is Kell’s bid for mayor coming?”

  Grace’s mother pulled in a sharp breath, and turned away from the window to face them on the couch. In a tight voice, she replied, “Oh, it’s just in its early stages.”

  Grace tried to give Rainier a look that said, I’ll fill you in when we’re alone, which he heeded since he let the subject drop—and Grace was glad again that she’d successfully stroked his ego about the jubilee. Had she not, the conversation with her mother could have taken an ugly turn.

  Much later, after the deafening but spectacular fireworks and a few required turns on the dance floor—all waltzes, and much more subdued than their do-si-do—Rainier asked, “Why did your mother seem so angry about Kell?”

  Unfastening her favorite feather-shaped pearl-and-diamond earrings and clinking them into the little porcelain dish where she kept her most loved jewelry, she replied, “Well, you know that since his separation Kell’s been running around Philadelphia like a madman.” It had been five years since Kell’s wife, Mary, had understandably kicked him out, and everyone hoped his philandering would calm down. But Peggy had told Grace on the phone after a few too many mimosas at a christening that it had actually gotten worse. And there are rumors that the latest one is actually a man dressed as a woman. Grace had no intention of getting into that with Rainier tonight, so she said, “And Mother is beside herself that he hasn’t pulled himself together, even with his political career on the line. She wished maintaining the good Kelly name was enough to curb his behavior, but since it isn’t, she hopes that if the stakes are higher, he will fall in line. But he hasn’t. Yet.”

  Grace’s heart went out to her brother. If Kell were gay, what a confusing time of life he must be in—already married once with six children and a bitter, exiled wife. Better to have chosen the other path early in life, like Uncle George, than to have confused matters by pretending to be something he wasn’t. But then, so many men felt they had to get married and do what was expected of them, even in Hollywood, where differences were tolerated in ways they were not in Philadelphia.

  Kell had spent his whole life living up to their father’s expectations—Henley, the Olympics, running Kelly for Brickwork—and nothing was ever quite good enough for John B. Kelly Sr. Certainly not the bronze medal, but not even the two Henley wins. For so long, Grace had been jealous of the praise her father heaped on his son, until she’d come to realize the heavy price her brother paid for it—the constant striving for more, more, more. It dawned on her now that she and her brother weren’t so different in the relentlessness with which they pursued their goals, in the hopes of their father admiring them. She wondered, then, what the difference was between them: why was Kell coming apart at the seams, so outwardly and publicly, while Grace came undone in ways no one could see?

  As she rubbed a thick salve of shea butter into her hands, Rainier approached her from behind, and set a black velvet box on the table in front of her. She was sitting before her vanity mirror, and so she looked up at him standing behind her and said, “You shouldn’t have.”

  “But I should,” he said.

  Her breath caught, wet, in her throat. And there she’d been, thinking unkind thoughts about him all day. She opened her mouth to say something, and Rainier interrupted, leaning over and tapping the box. “Open it.”

  With a muffled pop! the box opened, and inside there was a thin silver bracelet with two charms on it, one in the shape of a cowboy boot and the other with the number 25. Turning to face him, she said, “It’s perfect, Rainier. Thank you.”

  “You know you can go to Cartier anytime you like,” he said, “but I didn’t think you’d make yourself something of real Texas silver.”

  Grace shook her head and swallowed down the rising emotion. Occasions like these felt so confusing—she couldn’t feel pure joy in the gift, because it was such an isolated moment. Then she felt guilty for constantly, inwardly criticizing. There was also the familiar despairing question: which was the real Rainier? The one who knew how to bestow compliments and gifts? Or the one for whom nothing was good enough? It seemed impossible that they were one and the same.

  She plucked the bracelet out of the box and slid it over her hand. The two charms jingled together merrily. She put her hand on Rainier’s cheek and kissed him. “Thank you. I can’t imagine a more perfect gift.”

  He kissed her back, and it was warm but dry. He retired to their large bed, with its stacks of books and magazines and half-drunk glasses of water on each side, and Grace wondered if she was really going to live the rest of her life in this marriage with a man who seemed to think a bracelet was a substitute for love, real love. Grace craved the kind of understanding he had seemed capable of so many years ago. She wanted to hear him say, knowing he meant every word, “I love you, my darling Grace. I want you to be happy. What would make you happy?”

  She was forty-four years old, and she felt young. When she saw a handsome man on the street, she felt the tug of desire inside her—but only the suggestion of it, nothing close to the release. When she saw a movie, especially one of Hitch’s, or one with Audrey Hepburn, who was a mere six months older than she was, she felt such a mounting tension of jealousy in her chest it seemed as though her ribs might actually crack from the pressure.

  As she got into
bed, where Rainier lay reading a magazine about sports cars, Grace observed the expanse of white-sheeted space between them. Could passion fix the rest of what ailed their marriage? What would happen if she crossed to his side of the bed, if she pulled her cotton nightgown over her head and kissed him, first on the cheek, to gauge his interest? She sighed, remembering the last time she’d tried something like that—what, a year or so ago? Not tonight, he’d said without looking up from his magazine. To some it might have seemed like a small rejection, but she remembered it—and felt it again that night—as a blow to the center of her body. It might have been one moment, but it was in keeping with so many other small moments, that it had the effect of a final sucker punch that left her winded.

  So she picked up her own magazine from the top of the stack on her side of the bed and stared unseeingly at the words and pictures, formulating in her mind a list of tasks to accomplish the following day. Ticking each item off the list would at least bring her a sense of peace, and for now, that seemed to be the best she could hope for.