A Hundred Summers

by Beatriz Williams

  He laughs. “I don’t! Not much, anyway.”

  “Is your bedroom this grand?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I find his knee with my daring hand, under the tablecloth. “I’d love to know.”

  Beneath the shadow of his mask, Nick’s green-brown eyes widen and flare. He’s had a few glasses of champagne by now, and his resolve is weakened. My blood lightens. I lean forward. “Please, Nick? You know how I hate crowds.”

  “So do I.” He stands up. “All right. Follow me.”

  His hand is warm around mine as he threads me through the crowd, the close-packed bodies reeking of perfume and perspiration and cigarettes, the unmistakable aroma of a good party. Though the scene passing by my eyes flashes with color and shape, I see only Nick’s wide-shouldered back, covered by the inkiness of his tailcoat, rippling with movement as he parts the throng before us. Above the white line of his collar, the back of his neck glows with a faint pinkness, as if recently scrubbed.

  We pass through the entrance of the ballroom into the reception room, where the champagne fountain still glitters under the lights, and a beautiful dark-haired woman is stretching out her bare arm to refill her glass. I watch with fascination as the champagne begins to overflow the rim, and she laughs and turns around and sips greedily. She wears a large white mask covered with white feathers and a little diamond cluster at each tip, and her dress is long and white and likewise clustered with brilliants that catch the light in rainbow patterns. She is tall and stunning, and something about her graceful movements, something about her smile, rings a bell of familiarity in my champagne-fogged brain.

  But Nick is pulling me along, keeping me upright as my delicate high-heeled shoes skid on the polished marble. I skip to keep up with him, and in my exuberance lift his hand to kiss his long fingers. My dress swirls around my legs. Nick laughs and kisses my hand in return, and together we scamper through the crush in the foyer like naughty children, down a long hall and to the right, where abruptly there is peace and the laughter and music die into a distant hum.

  Nick pulls a key from his pocket. “I always lock up during these things,” he says, and ushers me in first.

  Nick’s bedroom is not grand at all. It’s not even particularly large; no more than mine, at least. Bookshelves line the walls, stuffed with volumes and topped with architectural models in various stages of completion; two large windows glow with the subdued yellow lights of the city outside. To my right, two doors stand slightly ajar: a bathroom and a closet, I guess. A single narrow bed stretches from the opposite wall, between the bookshelves, neatly made with hospital corners and a plump pillow and my mother’s second-best mink coat lying across it in a pool of luxurious brown. I look at the bed, and I think of Nick’s long body, and I wonder how he could possibly fit.

  Nick’s arms steal around my shoulders from behind. He rests his chin atop my head. “What do you think?”

  “I would have known it anywhere.” I turn around in his arms. “So how many other girls have you dragged to your lair?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “Really?”

  “No ghosts, I promise.” He senses my skeptical expression and laughs. “Look, my mother lives under this roof. I wasn’t going to bring home some good-time girl, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “So where did you take your good-time girls?”

  Nick strokes the back of my hair. “Hey, there. What are you worried about, Lily? What are you thinking? You don’t think I’m serious about you?”

  His eyes look down at me, soft and hazel-brown and enveloping.

  “No. I know you’re serious about me.”

  “Then what? Other girls? The past? You’re jealous, Lilybird? You?”

  My eyes drop to his chest. “Maybe a little.”

  “They’re gone, Lily. From the moment I saw you, there was only you. All gone, do you understand?” He makes a deprecating sound. “Not that I ever ran around much. As sordid pasts go, mine is a grave disappointment to all concerned.”

  “That’s all right with me,” I say.

  “You see? So, yes, Lily, you’re the first girl I’ve brought to this room.” He tilts up my chin and kisses me. “And I’d like to think you’ll be the last.”

  I slide my hands up his satin lapel and loop them around his neck. The skin I admired earlier now rests conveniently beneath my fingertips. “I like these shoes. Easier to reach you up there.”

  “I like your shoes, too. But if you want to reach me, you only have to ask.” He puts his hand around my waist and lifts me effortlessly, and we kiss and kiss, sharing the taste of champagne and strawberries, until even Nick’s strong arms give way and I slide down the length of his body to touch the floor with the tips of my shoes.

  “So here we are,” I say, fingering the button of his waistcoat.

  “Here we are.” He slides aside my tiny sleeve and kisses my bare shoulder. “I have a confession to make.”

  “A confession? Something naughty, I hope.”

  “I sent your father a letter about a week ago.”

  I stumble back. “You did what?”

  “Come back here.” Nick grasps my hands. “I don’t know if he read it or not. He may have thrown it away whole. But . . . well, Lily, like I said, I’m serious about you, I have been from the beginning, and I want to do things right.”

  I put my hand to my swimming head. The plain room sways around me, and the only solid object is Nick: his hands surrounding mine, his earnest face looking down at me. “What did the letter say?”

  He smiles. “I think you know.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “You look appalled. It was a respectful letter, Lily, I promise. I spent a week getting it right. I asked for his blessing, laid out my intentions, told him I understood his reservations. But—listen, Lily—I said that the final decision remains, and ought to remain, with you.”

  “Oh, Nick.” I am unable to speak. I think of my father, reading that letter in his darkened bedroom, saying nothing to me. Or else noting the return address and dropping it in the wastebasket, not even wanting to know, burying his head in the sand of his innocence. How had the envelope slipped by me? Had my mother seen it?

  My mother.

  Nick is putting his arms around me again, kissing me again. “This is why I brought you here, when I’ve never brought anyone home before.” He shakes his head. “Serious about you. I’m crazy about you. Don’t you know that? Mad for you. Drunk with you, made up of nothing but you. Since the day we met, there’s not an hour gone by that I haven’t thought of you.”

  I kiss him back, because kisses are so much easier than words, and because he’s so large and overwhelming with his formal tailcoat and his bandit’s mask, and in the tumult of my young mind and young body that’s all I want: To be overwhelmed. To be overcome.

  “I was going to wait until later, until after midnight, but the way you looked at me . . . and that dress, my God . . .” He lifts me up suddenly and carries me to his bed. I lie there for a moment, nestled in fur and disbelief, nestled with my head on Nick’s plump down-filled pillow, stretching my arms up to him as he shucks off his coat. In another instant he is covering me with his large, warm body, kissing me, until I am surrounded by Nick, drowning in Nick, nothing in the world but Nick and his all-powerful hand, sliding under the vee of my flimsy dress to cradle my naked breast.

  My mother.

  I gasp.

  My eyes fly open. I push at Nick’s chest. “Nick! Oh, God, Nick!”

  His head snaps up; his hand snatches away from my breast. “Lily! I’m sorry, I . . .”

  I struggle frantically from beneath him. He lifts himself away, hair spilling onto his forehead, eyes confused and bleary with passion behind the black silk of his mask.

  “No, it’s not you,” I cry. “It’s my mother, Nick.”

  “Your mother?”

  I grab his shirt within my fists. “She’s here tonight, Nick. I saw her. By the
champagne fountain, wearing a white dress. She’s here.”

  12.

  SEAVIEW, RHODE ISLAND

  August 1938

  Graham Pendleton courted me throughout that breathless summer of 1938, and all of Seaview approved.

  Two days after our roadhouse kisses, he appeared at the door first thing in the morning, shoes shined, hair slicked back, flowers in hand, and asked if I wanted to go walking.

  I stood, stupefied. “Walking?”

  “I’ve decided to pursue the second option.” He picked up my limp hand and kissed it. “What do you think?”

  I looked at his perfect face, marred only by a swelling purple bruise along the jaw, and his twinkling summertime-blue eyes. I had just returned from my swim, and my hair was still dripping with salt water, my unclothed body still wrapped in its robe. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely serious.”

  “And I’m supposed to go along with this?”

  “I’m hoping you will. I spent all yesterday screwing up the courage to ask.” He shook the flowers at me. “Take them. Give me a chance, Lily. At least go walking with me.”

  I took the flowers and sniffed them. They were lilies, a thoughtful touch, and beautifully fragrant. I smiled at him. “Go in the kitchen and find a vase. I’ll shower and dress.”

  When I came downstairs, Graham was waiting in a chair in the hall. The flowers sat on the table next to him, in a long crystal vase filled with water. He opened the door for me and took my hand as we walked down the path to Neck Lane.

  “I’ll show you the cove,” I said.

  We sat down on the rocks near the battery. The sky was overcast, like a warm blanket, and the ocean restless. No one was out yet. Seaview Neck sat still and lifeless, except for a few gulls perched atop the circular stone walls of the battery, searching the rocks with sharp eyes. Graham stared out to sea, frowning, as if he didn’t know how to look at me. I nudged his shoe with my toe. “You’re supposed to be courting me.”

  He laughed and turned. He really was too beautiful. “All right. How does a girl like to be courted?”

  “You could start by telling me how lovely I am, how you’ve never known anyone like me.”

  “You’re lovely, Lily. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  I laughed. “You’re supposed to make it sound like you mean it.”

  He picked up my hand and played with my fingers. “I do mean it.”

  “Graham, I’m not an idiot. You’ve been running around with beautiful women since you wore long pants. I can’t hold a candle to that.”

  “Yes, you can.” He lifted his gaze. “You’re like . . . I don’t know. You’re not glamorous, of course, except when you dress up for balls and roadhouses. But your face . . . it’s an honest beauty, Lily. A clear beauty. The shape of your eyes. And your eyelashes: I didn’t notice those until the other night, but they’re so long and curling, like a child’s.”

  “Now you’re talking. What else?”

  “Your hair.” He touched it, curled a piece around his forefinger. “I’ve always liked your hair, even in the old days. That’s how I used to think of you—Nick’s girl, Lily, with that hair. All wild and full of color. It looks almost red in this light.” He paused. “Am I allowed to talk about your figure, when we’re courting?”

  “It’s considered vulgar.”

  He winked. “Then I won’t. But I do think about it. A great deal.”

  “Hmm.” I drew my hand away from his and propped up my chin with it. “And when did all this admiration start? It just came out of the blue, a week ago?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked back out to sea. “No, it didn’t. In fact, you’ve been on my mind for years. Maybe it was that last New Year’s Eve, that party at the Greenwalds’. I caught a glimpse of you sneaking off with Nick, wearing another one of your startling dresses. I thought, Goddamn. Maybe Nick picked the right girl after all.”

  “And after that?”

  He shrugged and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket and fiddled with the packet, turning it sideways and back up again. “And then I got on with things, and so did you, and so did Nick. But I thought about you, whenever I was blue and tired of life. I don’t know why, you just appeared in my brain, like the antidote to all evil. And then old Emily called me up, out of nowhere, and invited me in. And here we are.” He handed me a cigarette. I held it between my lips, and he drew out his gold lighter and flicked it twice, until the end of the paper flared orange in the heavy gray light.

  “Here we are,” I said, blowing smoke out to sea.

  Graham lit himself a cigarette and sat quietly for a moment. “I’m sorry about the other night. I lost my head. I don’t think of you that way, Lily.”

  “What way?”

  “Just someone to have a good time with.”

  I dug my toe into one of the crevices filled with grit. “Nothing wrong with having a good time.”

  “Yes, there is. Not that I can find it in me to regret what happened. I don’t think I’ve thought of anything else since.” He shook his head. “The thing is, Lily—and I’m being serious, now—a fellow’s got to settle down sometime, doesn’t he? And if he’s going to settle down, he might as well settle down with a girl like you.”

  I flicked ash onto the wet rocks below. “Pretty, but not too pretty. Quiet, but not too quiet. Virtuous, but not too virtuous.”

  “Very pretty. Virtuous enough for me.”

  I looked out to sea, too, thinking about Nick, thinking about sex, thinking about marriage. I thought about Daddy, too, and what he would have said if I’d brought Graham Pendleton to see him that long-ago Christmas. Would he have approved? Naturally he would. The perfect son-in-law, Graham. A lovely white wedding, a honeymoon in Europe. Of course, it would have to be in winter, so as not to interfere with baseball. Perhaps the Bahamas, then. Somewhere warmer. Days with Graham, nights with Graham. Was that what I wanted?

  “It doesn’t bother you?” I said. “What happened with Nick?”

  “That was a long time ago. Anyway, who’s a virgin anymore?” He shrugged and laughed. “Not to shock you, but I’m certainly not.”

  “You don’t say.” I played with my cigarette, not really wanting it. A fishing boat crawled across the water in front of us, heading to sea, its motor rattling the air. The faint oily trace of engine exhaust spread through the brine and the cigarettes. “Don’t forget Kiki. I can’t leave her with Mother. Where I go, she goes.”

  “I’ve thought about that, sure. I don’t mind. She’s a nice kid. I can teach her some baseball.”

  I sat with one arm wrapped around my knees, the other holding my cigarette, thinking and thinking.

  Graham reached out and put his hand on my elbow. His grip was soft, and so was his voice. “So, what do you say, Lily? Give me a chance?”

  Give him a chance. Why not? Did I have a choice, really? I could say no. I could go on as I had, withering away into a prune of an old maid. Or I could go back to New York at summer’s end and start going to parties, start looking out for a lover, the way Aunt Julie did every September. Did I want to be like Aunt Julie?

  Or I could take this man, whom any girl in her right mind should be leaping from her seat to snare: handsome to an inarguable perfection, charming company, well pedigreed, unaccountably eager for marriage and family. Would he make a good husband? Would he be faithful to me, a good father to our children? Who knew? What man was flawless? But I thought I could love him. I was already attracted to him, had always liked him. He flirted expertly, kissed expertly. He had already licked whiskey from my skin, a promising beginning, indeed; what else might he know to thrill me in bed? He would take me out, keep me amused, give me children and a home of my own. We knew the same people. He fit comfortably into my world, like a hand into a glove. Seaview liked Graham Pendleton, had always liked Graham Pendleton. A good sport, Graham Pendleton. A fine catch.

  “So why not the first option?” I asked. “Why not just go to bed with me, and figure
the rest out later?”

  “Because it’s two different things. Because you don’t just sleep with the girl you’re thinking of marrying.”

  “Is that a proposal?”

  “Not yet it’s not. But it could be. I’d sure like to find out.”

  One of the seagulls screamed and dove from the battery, and another followed. The fishing boat disappeared from sight, off to open water, and the horizon spread clear before us.

  I finished my cigarette and tossed it into the waves and stood up. “All right, Graham. You have a month and a half left to court me. Then we’ll see.”

  SO WE COURTED with great decorum, and by the scorching end of August, the news of our engagement was expected daily up and down Seaview Neck.

  “He’s perfect for you, darling,” said Aunt Julie, fanning herself languorously. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  I lay on my stomach, facing the water, hat shading my head, and watched the men cavort on the beach. Budgie had taken to inviting friends up for the weekend, stuffing her rooms with lacquered young stockbrokers and their red-lipped mistresses, who drank and smoked even more than she did. A group of them was now organizing a game of football on the beach before us—it was low tide—and Graham had been called over to fill the ranks.

  He had been lying next to me on the blanket, just outside the perimeter of the umbrella. “I shouldn’t,” he’d said. “I’m supposed to be resting my shoulder.” But Budgie herself had bounced over and dragged him up, until, laughing and protesting, he’d dropped a kiss on my cheek (You don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?) and sauntered across the sand.

  “Nobody thought of it before,” I said. “Not Graham, and certainly not me.” Even now, watching him, I couldn’t quite believe that such a magnificent creature belonged to me, or professed to, anyway. All the men were in their bathing trunks, without shirts, and Graham shone among them like a golden Adonis, tanned from the sun, muscles etched in picture-book symmetry, jaw squared and blue eyes flashing. His cheekbones rose elegantly above the rest of humanity.