A Hundred Summers

by Beatriz Williams

  For an instant, he met me with passion, digging his fingers lower beneath the light cotton of my dress to encounter only the lace edge of my ivory silk step-ins. Changing my clothes in the oppressive heat of the late afternoon, in the hasty residual panic over Nick’s getting hurt, I hadn’t bothered with a girdle or stockings. I couldn’t even have fastened them with my trembling fingers.

  “Jesus, Lily,” Graham muttered, wrapping his hands around my hips.

  I would have given myself to him right there, in the grass, against the tree, any way he wanted it. I needed the comfort of sex, the reassurance of a man’s body over mine, inside mine. I needed connection, I needed touch and frenzy and release. I needed something to bring me back to life. I pulled Graham’s shirt from the waistband of his flannel trousers and tugged at the cotton undershirt beneath.

  “Jesus, Lily,” he said again, and then: “No.” He pulled his hand from my dress, bolted to his feet, dug his fingers into his hair.

  “Graham.”

  “No. I swore, Lily. I swore I’d do this right. This one thing.”

  “Graham, it’s all right. I want this, I’m ready for you. I am.” I held out my empty arms. I was burning. I was ready to beg.

  He laid his hands on my cheeks. “Say you’ll marry me, Lily. Just say yes, and I’ll give it to you, any way you want. I’ll make it so good for you.”

  I stared at him helplessly, body melting, mouth frozen.

  “All right, then,” he whispered. “Another time.”

  Graham Pendleton kissed me gently on the lips and walked away, a little unsteady, across the unfenced back gardens of Seaview Neck, while the lights of the mainland twinkled across the bay.

  13.

  MANHATTAN

  New Year’s Eve 1931

  The buildings slide past my eyes in a gray-brown blur. “Where are we going?” I ask, shrinking into my coat. My mother’s second-best mink coat. I can only hope she didn’t recognize it as we stole away through the crowd.

  “My father keeps an apartment downtown, for clients and for nights when he works late,” says Nick. “We can see in the New Year there. If we make it.” He checks his watch with a flick of his wrist. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Only shocked.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “You see, she never goes out. She told us she was supervising a party. For orphans!” I have to shout, above the noise of the engine and the wind. The streets are remarkably empty for New Year’s Eve in the city. Everyone must be at a party already, or at home, waiting for midnight. “But I suppose . . . well, with Daddy the way he is, maybe she wants to kick up her heels once in a while, and doesn’t want him to feel . . .” My voice drifts.

  Nick reaches out his hand and takes mine. Our masks are off now, and as the streetlamps flash against his face, one by one, I catch a glimpse of his expression: tender, inquiring. “Do you want to go home? We can go back, if you like. I just thought . . . well, it would be a shame to ruin the evening. Are you warm enough?”

  “I’m fine.” I turn to him and smile. “Actually, it’s sort of funny, isn’t it? There I am, sneaking away from my parents’ apartment to a party, thinking how naughty I am. And there’s my mother, right there, doing the same thing.”

  “Shocking, I agree.”

  I look down at the seat between us, where our hands clasp together atop our discarded masks, white and black. “And the thing is, Nick, I thought she looked beautiful. I never thought about that before. She always looks so ordinary to me, so matronly, wearing her suits and her hats. I feel like I was seeing her for the first time, really seeing her. And she was lovely, and I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Well, of course she was lovely. Look at you.” He laughs. “Anyway, we’ll have our own party now. Just the two of us.”

  “I like that.” I slide over in the seat and snuggle next to him, and he wraps his arm around me, moving it only to change gears as we stop and start for lights.

  Nick’s father’s apartment isn’t really downtown. We roll up near a discreet building in Gramercy Park, where Nick parks the car and hands me out. The park itself looms darkly across the street, behind its iron railings. My heart beats a butterfly stroke. If stealing away from my parents’ apartment to a masked party on Central Park West felt naughty, this is scandalous. I am walking into a Gramercy apartment with a man not my husband, on New Year’s Eve. Champagne still courses illegally through my veins, and my dress glitters beneath my mink coat.

  “Are you certain?” asks Nick, squeezing my hand.

  I look up at him, at his strong regular features crossed by the light of the nearby streetlamp, and his hair dipping into his forehead beneath his hat. His trustworthy shoulders block the rest of the sidewalk from view. This is Nick, I remind myself. Nothing could be wrong, nothing could be wicked with Nick.

  “Absolutely.” I slide my arm through his.

  The apartment is on the eighth floor, overlooking the park. Nick lets me in first and switches on the light in the foyer. I halt in shock. The space is sleek and white, filled with mirrored surfaces, furnished simply. On the wall hangs an enormous abstract painting in bright red, with no visible frame, existing in a different universe from the Audubon prints on the wall in my parents’ apartment.

  “Thank God the heat’s on,” says Nick. “Let me take your coat.” He slides it off my shoulders, kisses my neck, and ushers me into the living room. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll bet there’s champagne in the icebox. Dad always keeps a bottle or two handy in case there’s a deal to celebrate.”

  I drift about the room in a haze, picking up the few tortured modern objects, thumbing through books, trying not to think about the bedroom that lies beckoning down the hall. The windows are curiously dark, as if the light from the streetlamps and the nearby buildings can’t quite find its way to us. There is a lamp on a small tripod table next to the sofa; I switch it on, and a circle of golden light pushes away the dusk. In the kitchen, Nick rattles away with glasses and cupboards. The soft pop of a champagne cork carries through the air.

  “Here we are, darling,” Nick says, handing me a glass. “Cheers. To an enchanted nineteen thirty-two, only”—he glances at his wristwatch—“twelve short minutes away.”

  “Cheers.” I take a long drink.

  His hand closes around mine. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong? Nervous?”

  “A little.”

  He pries the glass from my fingers and sets it down next to his on the mirrored surface of the table. “Come here, Lily.”

  “Come where?”

  “Just here.” Nick draws me onto the sofa. “Am I moving too fast for you? Be honest, Lily. You can tell me the truth. Tell me exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “No. You’re not moving too fast.” I look at our hands, entwined on Nick’s knee.

  “What, then?”

  His heart beats underneath my ear in measured thuds, through the stiffness of his shirt panels. I count them, one after another, steadying myself.

  “Lily. It’s me, it’s Nick. Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”

  I whisper: “It’s just that I feel so much. I want so much. And I can’t . . . I’ve never done this . . . I feel like a child still, not ready, not enough for you . . .”

  “Ah.” He sits there, stroking my fingers with his thumb. “You said something to your father, in the foyer, two weeks ago. It’s all that’s kept me going since. Do you remember?”

  I do. Still, I ask: “What was that?”

  He leans near my ear. “You said, I love him.”

  “Hmm. Well, you know, I was a little demented at the time.”

  “Are you feeling demented enough to say it again?”

  I laugh. “Nick. Of course I love you. Do you even need to ask?”

  His warm body shifts around me. “I wanted to ask you something earlier, Lily. Before we had to flee in terror.” His hand, which has been fishing around in his pocket—the inside pocket of the same tailcoat that h
e’d torn off so hastily in his bedroom an hour before—emerges and rests on my lap. When he withdraws it, a small box lies there, tied with a white silk ribbon.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your Christmas present, a week late. Do you want it, Lilybird? Will you accept it?”

  I touch the corner with my finger. The square edges blur and refract through the tears in my eyes. “Yes.”

  MIDNIGHT COMES AND GOES, and 1931 passes invisibly into 1932, but we don’t notice. We lie on the sofa, I on my back and Nick hovering next to me on his side. His arm curls around my head, just grazing my hair; his ring sparkles on my finger. We talk about the future.

  “We’ll get married right after graduation,” Nick says. His tailcoat lies discarded on the floor, and his white satin waistcoat hangs from his shoulders, unbuttoned. He dribbles his fingers down the front of my dress. “We’ll go away on our honeymoon and stay all summer. Maybe forever. What do you think?”

  “What about architecture?”

  “We’ll go to Paris. You can write for the Herald Tribune, or study, or whatever you like. I’ll find someone to take me on as an apprentice. What better place for me to learn my trade than Paris?” He kisses me. “We’ll find a garret somewhere, overlooking the rooftops, and fill it with books and papers and cheap wine and secondhand furniture. You don’t need anything fancy, do you, Lily?”

  “Not if I’m with you.” His hand is so large, it seems to enclose my entire hip. He dips his head and kisses the tops of my breasts, above the neckline of my dress. My fingers find the studs of his shirt and slip them free. I want to investigate him, to uncover Nick. “We’re engaged,” I say. “I can’t believe it. Engaged to you, Nick.”

  “We have six months to convince your parents. But we’ll do it anyway, won’t we, Lily?”

  “Yes. I don’t care what they say. I’m all yours.”

  He doesn’t reply, and I look up to find his face leaning into mine, blurry and intent, scalding me with intimacy. “Nick?”

  “Where did you come from, Lily? You’re like a miracle.”

  “Your miracle.”

  He kisses me deeply, raises himself above me, tugs aside the shimmering vee of my dress and exposes my breasts to the lamplight. I think, I should be shocked, I should push him away, but instead my back arches upward to his gaze.

  Nick whispers, “Lily, you’re perfect. More than I dreamed.” He brushes his thumb across the very tip of my breast. The slender contact makes me gasp.

  “All right, Lily?” he asks, looking up.

  “Yes. Please. Don’t stop.”

  “Not unless you want it, Lily. I promise. Only if you say so.” His eyes are dark and serious.

  “I want it, Nick. Everything. I do.” My skin chafes against his shirt. I can feel every thread, every seam of him. I strain for more, for the knowledge of Nick’s skin, Nick’s flesh, anything and everything he wants to do to me. I want every secret made plain between us.

  Nick closes his eyes. The lamp shines on his eyelids, which are tinged with purple at the rims, like a bruise. His lashes fan out below, unexpectedly and endearingly long.

  He lowers his head and whispers against my ear. “Everything?”

  “Everything, Nick.”

  He hovers above me, elbows braced at my sides to support his weight, his neck bent, his cheek still touching my cheek. His long legs tangle with mine. I love his heaviness, his solid mass balanced a hairsbreadth away. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure? You trust me?”

  “Nick. Didn’t I just promise to marry you? Of course I trust you. Yes. Yes and yes.”

  Nick lifts himself away from the sofa and holds out both hands for me. “Come,” he says, drawing me up. “We’ll have to be careful. I don’t have anything with me.”

  I knit my eyebrows together, not fully sure of his meaning.

  “Never mind,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

  Nick leads me down the hall to a dark room at the end and turns on the lamp next to the bed. Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom is glossy and modern, a clean, shining box, with a large disjointed portrait above the headboard that just might be a Picasso.

  For a moment, Nick watches me, his eyes returning the incandescence of the lamp.

  “What is it?” I ask, pulling up my dress an inch or two.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t hide yourself from me anymore.” He steps to me, takes the dress from my fingers, and reaches around for the buttons. “We’re together now, Lily. You have nothing to hide from me.” My dress falls unchecked down my body. He slips off his waistcoat and tosses it on the chair; he unfastens the rest of his shirt and lifts it from his shoulders. I watch him, unable to breathe, glowing like a coal in the cool air of the bedroom. Nick takes the end of his undershirt and passes it over his head. The skin beneath glows duskily in the lamplight, sprinkled with curling dark hair. I touch it in wonder. Nick’s chest.

  He stands absolutely still, eyes closed.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “What should I do?”

  “Believe me, Lily, whatever you like,” he says, and glances at the windows and laughs. “But let’s not let the neighbors keep score, hmm?”

  I jump and cross my hands over my breasts. “Can they see us?”

  “I’m not taking any chances. I know plenty of people around town who keep binoculars by the window.” He strides to the first window, grasps the cord, and looks down.

  I know the exact instant when he notices the car pulling up on the street below. His shoulders start and go rigid, the blades projecting with readiness from the muscles of his back. The sweet tension in the air snaps like an elastic pulled too tight.

  “What is it?” I step forward in alarm.

  “I don’t believe it,” he breathes out. “I don’t goddamn believe it.”

  “Nick, what?”

  He turns to me. His face is still and calm and terrible. “Listen, Lily. My father’s outside.”

  “What?”

  “With your mother, I think. They must have found us out, God knows how.”

  My hands fly to my mouth. “Oh, no! How?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What do you want to do? It’s your choice. If you want to stay here and face them, I’ll stand by you. Or we can leave. I’ll take you down by the service elevator and drive you home. Your decision.”

  I run to the window, holding up my dress with one hand, and stare down. I can’t see them clearly from above, but I recognize my mother’s long white dress, the brusque purposefulness of her motions. Mr. Greenwald—it must be him, a large-shouldered, formidable man—is helping her from the car, disentangling her flowing skirts from the seat. In minutes, they will be striding out of the elevator, pounding on the door, hands outstretched to drag me back to Park Avenue, to the stale perpetual life I knew before.

  I turn to Nick. His chest is awash in moonlight, his face pale and determined. The blood pumps through my body, full of champagne, full of life, full of love. “I choose neither.”

  “Neither? What, then?”

  I fling my arms around his strong bare neck and laugh. “Let’s elope.”

  “Elope?”

  “Yes. Now. Let’s go. We have your car.”

  He laughs back, lifts me up, gives me a spin. “You crazy girl. Where do we go?”

  “I don’t know. Where do people go to elope?”

  “Lake George, I guess. Or Niagara.”

  “Lake George is closer,” I say.

  We stare at each other, smiling, eyes wide with possibility.

  “Let’s go,” says Nick.

  He helps me with my dress; I help him with his buttons and studs. My fingers are trembling: not with nervousness now but excitement. He tosses me my mink; I hand him his coat and waistcoat. He switches off the lamps, goes in the kitchen, grabs a loaf of bread and wraps it in his wool overcoat. “Starving,” he says.

  We race to the door, still laughing. At the last second, he stops and turns and strides back to the
living room, where the bottle of champagne still sits on the sofa table, beading with condensation. He swipes it, together with our two glasses.

  “Come on, Lilybird,” he says. “Let’s go get married.”

  14.

  SEAVIEW, RHODE ISLAND

  Labor Day 1938

  A hurricane had barreled into the Florida Keys over the weekend. We listened in horror to the reports on the radio as we readied ourselves for the Greenwalds’ Labor Day party: houses flattened, trains derailed, a whole work party of war veterans gone missing.

  “Dreadful,” said Aunt Julie. “Everybody’s so mad for Florida these days. I don’t understand it. Give me the South of France any day.”

  “There’s the mistral,” I said.

  “But no one’s in town during the mistral, darling.”

  “Well, nobody’s in Florida right now,” I said. “Oh, wait! Except the people who live there, of course.”

  Kiki tugged at my hand. “Come on. Nick’s waiting.”

  Since Nick’s accident a week ago, Kiki hadn’t wanted to let him out of her sight. We had gone over to the Greenwald house the following morning to see how everyone was doing. Nick was downstairs already, ribs bandaged, telling us it was all nothing, allowing Kiki to climb into his lap and scribble over the blueprints on the table before him. Budgie sat upstairs in bed, eating a boiled egg and looking bleary. “I must have aged a decade yesterday, darling,” she said, picking at her egg. “I can’t imagine life without him. I’ve promised myself to be such a good wife to him from now on. I’ll be quiet and faithful and make him breakfast every morning.”

  I wanted to suggest that she wasn’t making such a promising start, now, was she, but instead I patted her leg beneath the comforter and told her Nick was a lucky man.

  But it was more than Kiki’s desire to reassure herself of Nick’s continued existence. Her imagination was taken over by the idea that I had once been Nick’s girlfriend, that we had once been engaged. She had convinced herself that Nick should divorce Budgie and marry me, and Kiki was not the kind of girl who dreamed idly. Three days ago, emerging from the deserted cove after my early swim, I had discovered it was not quite so deserted after all. Nick stood among the rocks near the battery, rigid as a statue, face constricted into an expression of utmost terror. A large metal bucket sat next to him.