Lake Como

by Anita Hughes

  Kendra had a handful of men who texted her or lingered near the store to see if she was free for dinner. But she was determined to be the most sought-after designer in the city. She didn’t want to be weighed down by a boyfriend.

  “If I have to make some guy salmon every night, I couldn’t devote myself to work,” Kendra had said when Hallie announced she was moving in with Peter.

  “Maybe you’ll find someone who cooks for you,” Hallie had replied. “Peter makes the most delicious eggs.”

  “Eggs have too much cholesterol.” Kendra had shrugged. “Patrice’s makes the best salmon. I order it and pick it up on the way home.”

  “Don’t you miss having someone in your bed?” Hallie had asked, picturing the cream satin sheets she picked out for Peter.

  Kendra had stopped arranging tulips in the store window and smiled. “I have plenty of men in my bed, I just ask them to leave before breakfast.”

  * * *

  “Rumor has it Patsy’s mother spent more on this wedding than on redecorating the house in Tahoe,” Kendra continued, scanning the guests for familiar faces.

  “I hope Patsy eats at the reception,” Hallie replied. “The last time she was in the store she looked like a toothpick.”

  “She’ll relax when she finds out her wedding present is her own Tahoe cabin,” Kendra mused. “Her mother hired us to decorate it. It’s a secret till after the wedding. I’m flying up on Saturday to draw some sketches.”

  “Hallie!” Peter called, weaving through the crowd. He wore a black tux with a crisp white shirt. His hair was slicked to one side and his shoes were black and shiny.

  “You clean up nicely.” Kendra nodded.

  “We’re not in college anymore.” Peter reached the top step and put his arm around Hallie. “I don’t attend formal events in jeans and a black T-shirt.”

  Kendra turned to Hallie. “Peter was the hit of every college party. Even in faded dungarees he looked like James Bond.”

  “Kendra wondered if you’d escort both of us into the ceremony,” Hallie interrupted. “Stefan has a head cold.”

  Peter offered one arm to Hallie and one to Kendra. “How could I say no to having two beautiful women by my side?”

  The reception seemed to drag on forever. The father of the bride gave a toast that detailed Patsy’s accomplishments, from her first steps to the pilot’s license she received at sixteen to her MBA from Harvard. Hallie was suddenly tired of caviar balls and cake pops. She thought if she heard one more band play “At Last” she might erase it from her iPod forever. She searched for Peter but he had disappeared, chasing the Apple programmer he had spotted at the bar.

  “Hallie Elliot!” A tall girl in a yellow dress approached her table.

  “Melinda.” Hallie smiled, wondering why her old school friend would pick a dress that made her look like a giraffe.

  “This is the fifth wedding I’ve seen you at this summer.” Melinda held an empty champagne flute. “Are you training for your big day?”

  Hallie blushed. “Peter and I are just living together.”

  “Which must make your grandmother turn over in her canopy bed.” Melinda giggled. “Remember when we were at St. Ignatius and the teachers caught us kissing a Justin Timberlake poster in the bathroom? They made us say five Hail Marys.”

  “My grandmother likes Peter,” Hallie replied. “There’s no rush to get married.”

  “Everyone’s getting married,” Melinda countered. “You don’t want to be the last couple at the altar.”

  “I love weddings.” Hallie sighed. “But Patsy’s is a bit over the top. There’s a Fabergé egg at every place setting.”

  “They certainly didn’t skimp on champagne.” Melinda raised her glass. “Every time I lift my hand, a waiter fills my glass.”

  “Maybe that’s why I have a headache.” Hallie glanced at her crystal flute. “I’m going to find Peter and go home.”

  “When Peter proposes I want an invitation.” Melinda smiled. “I’m the only one who can tell stories about you in braces and kneesocks.”

  “In that case we’ll elope.” Hallie grabbed her purse.

  “Now that would make Constance Playfair really happy.” Melinda giggled again, raising her glass for the passing waiter.

  Hallie walked over to the bar to find Peter. Kendra had melted into the crowd during the toasts. She had seen Beatrix Traina sitting with Jennifer Newsom and had whispered to Hallie that she was going to snag two new clients.

  “The trick is to make Beatrix think Jennifer has already hired me,” Kendra had whispered. “Then they’ll fight over me and we’ll get both jobs.”

  Hallie scanned the room. Gold pinpoint lighting lit the dance floor. Red velvet curtains draped the stage. Suddenly Hallie felt like the trumpets were blaring in her head. She could feel the drums beating in her chest. She weaved between the tables and ducked out a side door.

  Hallie breathed in the cold night air. The fog had come in, lying on the tops of cars like a blanket. She walked to the side of the building and saw two figures leaning against a column. The woman had her arms wrapped around the man. The man was running his hands down her skirt. Hallie turned to leave and caught sight of the woman’s shoe: a gold pump with a diamond bow.

  Hallie moved closer and recognized Kendra’s chestnut hair plastered against the column. She saw Kendra’s gold Cartier pressed against the man’s back, her other hand tearing at his tux jacket. She watched the man wriggle out of the jacket and Kendra plunge her hand under the man’s shirt.

  Hallie froze. The man had narrow shoulders and a slender chest. His hair was brown and cut short around his ears. Hallie saw the outline of his face and put her hand to her mouth.

  “Peter!” she shouted.

  “Hallie!” Peter pushed away from Kendra. He threw on his tux jacket as if he was naked. He buttoned his shirt and blinked under the floodlights.

  “What are you doing?” Hallie demanded. Her cheeks were burning and she felt like her skin was on fire.

  “Kendra’s drunk,” Peter explained. “I came out here to get her some air and she attacked me.”

  “You had your hands on her skirt,” Hallie spluttered.

  “She was taking it off,” Peter insisted.

  “Peter has lovely hands,” Kendra slurred, hugging the column. “And he’s a very good kisser.”

  “I didn’t kiss her.” Peter’s face was white. He grabbed Hallie’s arm and pulled her toward him.

  “Leave me alone.” Hallie shook free of his hands.

  “I was doing the right thing,” Peter implored. “Kendra would have passed out at the bar.”

  “It looked like you were enjoying yourself,” Hallie said, her arms and legs trembling.

  “You know me better than that,” Peter insisted. “I’m not a cheater.”

  Kendra teetered toward Hallie. She put one hand on her lips and whispered in Hallie’s ear, slurring, “I might be a teensy bit tipsy. I know he’s yours, I was just borrowing him.”

  “Let’s go home,” Peter said gruffly.

  Hallie felt the fog cut through her pink chiffon. She looked at Kendra’s wrinkled gown and Peter’s creased tux jacket.

  “I’ll take a cab.” She ran down the steps and fled.

  * * *

  Hallie entered the apartment and tried to stop shaking. Her head throbbed and her body ached. She threw her purse on the floor and collapsed on the purple sofa in the conversation pit.

  Peter had never been one of those guys who flirted at parties. He took Hallie’s hand when they crossed the street, holding it like a prize. He bought her chocolates and left books he wanted her to read on the bedside table.

  “At Stanford I studied Byron and Keats,” Peter had admitted when he filled the apartment with candles to celebrate their six-month anniversary. “I’m a closet romantic; it’s a terrible flaw.”

  “I think it’s wonderful.” Hallie had watched the room glow like a garden lit by fireflies.

  “I’m crazy
to think a beautiful blonde with a pedigree would fall for a scrappy hack like me,” he had replied, blowing out the candles one by one.

  For Christmas, Peter gave Hallie a framed portrait of her standing in front of a Queen Anne chair. Her hair was piled in a chignon and she wore a Chanel suit and a strand of pearls.

  “I don’t own a Chanel suit,” Hallie had said, baffled when he presented it to her.

  “It’s the artist’s interpretation,” Peter had explained. “I gave him your photo.”

  Hallie had studied the painting critically. “I look like my grandmother.”

  “According to San Francisco magazine, Constance Playfair is still one of the great lights of San Francisco society.” Peter had smiled. “You have impressive genes.”

  “I thought you only read Spilled,” Hallie had mused, admiring the way the artist made her blond hair look like a halo.

  Hallie had never seen Kendra drunk. She glided around parties perfectly poised, her chestnut mane swinging back and forth like a pendulum. But at Patsy’s wedding the waiters were more attentive than flight attendants in a first-class cabin. Maybe Kendra didn’t notice how many times they filled her glass. She probably bumped into Peter at the bar. Maybe she made a scene, threatening to dance on a table.

  Peter would have taken her arm and guided her outside. Hallie imagined Kendra stumbling in the dark. Kendra grabbed Peter to steady herself and pulled him toward her. She started taking off her skirt, tugging at Peter’s jacket. Peter was trying to break free when she discovered them.

  Hallie ran her fingers along the beveled glass coffee table. She remembered Peter’s house-warming party. All the guests had complimented her, saying she had achieved a perfect union of classic and modern pieces. She had been so pleased, keeping her relationship with Peter a secret, held tight to her chest.

  After the guests left, Peter led her out to the balcony. They stood under the stars, swaying to the Harry Connick, Jr., tune he hummed in her ear. Then they walked back into the living room, surveying the half-eaten plates of rice balls and asparagus tips.

  “You turn me into someone who belongs in this apartment,” Peter whispered, putting his arms around her. “Without you I’m just a guy with a laptop and a backpack.”

  * * *

  Hallie got up and walked to the bedroom. Maybe what she saw had been perfectly innocent: Peter playing Lancelot to Kendra’s maiden in distress. But she flashed on references Peter had made about Kendra: Stanford football games they attended together, a group ski vacation to Tahoe. Hallie always assumed they just ran in the same circles. Maybe she was wrong, maybe something had happened in the past and tonight it was rekindled.

  Hallie hung her pink chiffon dress in the closet and climbed into bed. She put her head on the down pillow and closed her eyes. In the morning, everything would be clearer.

  chapter two

  Hallie woke up and smelled eggs and toast. She opened her eyes and saw a plate of sunny-side-up eggs, whole-wheat toast, and sliced melon. There were two cups of steaming coffee, a jug of cream, and a pot of strawberry jam.

  “The lady awakens.” Peter hovered over her, like the prince in a fairy tale.

  “I didn’t hear you come in last night,” Hallie replied.

  She sat up, looking at Peter. He wore black bicycling shorts and a white nylon shirt. He had hung his tux in the closet and thrown his shirt in the laundry. All traces of the evening were erased. The curtains were open and the bedroom was bathed in morning sun.

  “You were already asleep.” Peter handed her a cup of coffee.

  “You didn’t have to do this.” Hallie nodded at the eggs and toast. Suddenly the memory of Peter’s hands on Kendra’s skirt jolted her like an earthquake.

  Peter sat on the bed. “Hallie, look at me. Nothing happened last night.”

  “I saw you.” Hallie drank the coffee, flinching as the hot liquid hit her tongue.

  “You saw me trying to get away,” Peter replied. “Kendra was an octopus.”

  “You took off your jacket,” Hallie mumbled.

  “I would have taken off my pants if it meant I could escape faster.” Peter sighed. “She was like the Bionic Woman.”

  “Kendra is the Bionic Woman.” Hallie giggled. “She’s made of steel.”

  “Honestly, Hallie”—Peter held her hand—“I would never risk what we have.”

  Hallie looked into Peter’s clear green eyes. He was like a Boy scout. If he found a stray cat, he knocked on every door to locate its owner. When an old woman in the building lost her keys, Peter combed the hallways to find them.

  “You’ve known Kendra for years,” she said slowly. “Maybe you were closer to her than I thought.”

  “Christ, Hallie. I would have told you!” Peter exclaimed. “We were just friends. Kendra is all hard edges; I would never date a woman like her.”

  Hallie nibbled her piece of toast. Peter had never lied to her, and Kendra never alluded to a relationship. Even in college she was too focused to waste much time on men.

  “I believe you,” she said finally.

  Peter’s shoulders relaxed and the light came back in his eyes.

  “I can skip my bike ride and join you for lunch at Constance’s.” Peter kissed Hallie on the lips, scattering crumbs on the cream sheets.

  “Aren’t you riding with Frank Marshall?” Hallie asked. “You were going to pry secrets out of him while pedaling over the Marin Headlands.”

  “I could reschedule,” Peter replied doubtfully.

  “I’m a big girl.” Hallie put the coffee cup on the bedside table. “I can handle Constance.”

  “I’ll make it up to you.” Peter put his hand under Hallie’s T-shirt.

  “You’re going to get jam on the sheets,” Hallie protested, feeling her nipples stiffen.

  “I’ll be careful,” Peter whispered, pulling Hallie’s shirt over her head.

  * * *

  Hallie sat back against the pillows. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin smelled like sex. She thought about calling her grandmother and begging off. She could spend the rest of the day reading Architectural Digest and Vogue Home.

  Constance had a couple of small strokes six months ago. She no longer attended charity functions and opening galas while swathed in yards of Italian silk. She spent most days sitting at the grand piano playing Mozart and Chopin. Hallie knew Constance looked forward to Sunday lunch and planned the menu a week in advance.

  Hallie wished her mother, Francesca, would spend more time with Constance. But there had always been friction between Constance and Francesca. Even when Hallie and her mother lived in one wing of the mansion on Broadway, Francesca and Constance hardly spoke. When Francesca finally made enough money to afford her own apartment, she whisked Hallie away to a cramped one-bedroom in Cow Hollow.

  Hallie missed the ballroom where she pretended her dolls were dancing to an unseen orchestra. She missed Louisa, who smuggled hot chocolate and marshmallows into her room at night. But mostly she missed Constance, who moved around the house like a figure from a Victorian novel.

  Constance didn’t let Hallie wear makeup, even when she was old enough to own a bra. She interviewed every friend, boy or girl, who came over to play. But Constance listened to her like no one else did. She trained her sharp gray eyes on Hallie and let her pour out her dreams. Constance was a calm ocean liner in the choppy waters of Hallie’s youth.

  * * *

  Hallie parked under a cherry blossom tree and climbed the steps to Constance’s house. It stood between two neoclassical mansions with marble columns and slate roofs. The three houses occupied their own block, commanding dazzling views of the bay. Hallie could see freighters cruising under the Bay Bridge, and the distant green hills of Berkeley.

  When Hallie was a girl, her grandmother used to walk her to school. They would set off, Hallie in her brown school uniform, Constance in a London Fog coat and boots, and walk four long blocks to the Burke School. Hallie thought everyone lived in a house with three sto
ries and a garage that contained a fleet of cars. It wasn’t until she was fourteen, and Francesca moved them to a one-bedroom walk-up apartment, that Hallie realized there was another way to live.

  * * *

  “Hallie.” Constance opened the front door. “I’m so glad you’re here. Where’s Peter?”

  Hallie shrugged off her cardigan and hung it in the hall closet. She followed her grandmother into the grand salon, admiring the arrangements of tiger lilies that filled the room.

  “He had a cycling date he couldn’t break.” Hallie sat on a plush gold sofa, glancing around the salon. Heavy chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. The marble floors were buffed and polished. The windows were covered by velvet curtains that Hallie used to wrap around herself like an evening gown.

  Hallie fell in love with the house at the age other children became fixated on puppies. When she was six she was left alone after school, and she would walk from room to room, admiring the silk sofas and mahogany tables. She knew in the first grade she wanted to be an interior designer. Her taste changed over the years: sometimes she thought a room should be filled with color, other times only beiges and browns appealed to her. Now when she needed inspiration, she sat in the grand salon, or the library, or the music room, and gazed at the ornate plastered ceilings and thick Oriental rugs.

  “I asked your mother to join us, but she’s delivering a wedding cake in Woodside.” Constance poured a glass of Scotch from the decanter on the sideboard. “One would think after twenty years of baking wedding cakes, she could find a husband.”

  “Francesca doesn’t want a husband.” Hallie caught a whiff of the Scotch and her stomach flipped uneasily. “She said being married was like being in a convent, with stricter rules.”

  “That was thirty years ago.” Constance sighed. “No one should get married at nineteen. I still blame myself; if I hadn’t sent her to Europe she wouldn’t have met Pliny. I’m so glad you found the right man. Will there be a wedding next summer?”

  “You ask me that every Sunday,” Hallie said, frowning. “Peter hasn’t proposed yet, but he has been dropping hints.”