“How do you mean?” I asked, my mind half on what he was saying, the other half occupied with the gears. First? Fourth? What did they all mean and why did there have to be so many? I was sure if the damn car were an automatic, I’d have at least a fighting chance.
“When you first arrived here,” he said, “you did not seem…It’s just that you have a new, I don’t know exactly, maybe it’s a joy about you. Before you seemed so very sad, so lost. And now you seem found. Yes, that’s it.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m getting so confident at dri—”
“Don’t grind the gears like that!”
Even Mrs. Fairly commented on the apparent change in me.
“When I first hired you, you seemed like such a meek little thing,” she said, “like a bruised flower.”
“And now?” I prompted, wondering why she would ever have wanted to hire a bruised flower in the first place.
“And now you’re positively blooming, Charlotte!”
“You mean like a peony?”
“Well, no, perhaps not anything as showy as all that.”
Rats.
“I think you might be more like bachelor’s buttons,” she added thoughtfully.
O-kay.
Even Steinway commented!
“Meow!”
“I know!” I crowed in the privacy of my own room. “I can’t believe it, either!”
“Meow!”
“Who would have ever dreamed that he would love me?” I danced the cat around the room.
“Meow!”
“Oops, sorry.” I was embarrassed. “I forgot how you hate to waltz.”
I set the cat gently down on the bed, lay down beside him, whereupon he nuzzled my nose with his.
“I love you,” I said.
“Meow!”
“Yes, I do know,” I said as he purred. “Love is grand, isn’t it?”
Of course, Gina and Britta wanted to know all the details of what was going on with me.
“You have a man!” Britta said when we went out drinking.
“It’s him!” Gina added. “Isn’t it?”
But I wasn’t saying. I wasn’t telling any of them what was going on, wasn’t telling anyone what the catalyst had been for the changes in me. After all, I’d been sworn to secrecy, hadn’t I? And I’d given my word, right?
Naturally, I wanted to be able to tell them, I wanted to be able to tell everybody, shout it to the world. I wanted to say that the difference in my days had to do with the difference in my nights.
At night, every night when he was at home, Edgar visited me in my room.
We made love. God, did we make love! I thought that maybe I should be thinking about a different form of birth control, what with how enthusiastically we both pursued this new endeavor of ours, but he didn’t seem to mind the condoms and neither did I, so we continued as we’d begun.
And we talked. God, did we talk. A part of me cautioned myself that this was all too eerily similar to what had happened to me with Buster.
But then the newer, braver side of myself busted all those negative thoughts by pointing out the differences, the big one being that this time, there was no wife on the scene.
This time, I was going to get to have my cake and eat it, too. This time, there would be no heartache waiting for me at the end.
It was just a matter of being patient enough and biding my time.
This time, everything was going to end differently than last time.
I was sure of it.
And then my father came to visit.
He called from the airport.
“I know it’s only November,” he said, “and that I said I wouldn’t be here until Christmas, but I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
That was odd, since I couldn’t remember a time in my life when he couldn’t wait to see me, but he sounded so eager and Edgar was out of the house for the day, so I asked Mrs. Fairly if it would be okay if he came by for lunch.
“Of course,” she said brightly. “I’d love to meet him.”
It had been a while, over a year, since I’d last seen him, but he hadn’t changed much. He was still incredibly tall, lanky, his straight blond hair just beginning to dull to gray, his skin a deep tan now that would probably never leave him, not even if he one day decided to leave Africa behind for good.
He didn’t look at all like me, never had. My curly black hair, my shortness—I’d gotten both from my mother.
It was awkward seeing him, just as it always was. He was a stranger, a recurring stranger in my life who just happened to be my father.
“It’s so wonderful to see you, Charlotte!” he said with a parental enthusiasm I was wholly unused to.
“It’s great to see you, too, Dad,” I stumbled on the words, not really knowing if I meant them.
It was too strange seeing him in Edgar’s house.
He took my hands.
“Let me look at you,” he said. “You look so different. I guess it’s to be expected, though,” he said wistfully, letting my arms drop. “You’re not exactly my little girl anymore, are you?”
I wish I ever was.
Lunch was a bit fancier than usual. Mrs. Fairly, perhaps wanting to impress my father—although why she should care to impress the governess’s father, unless it was with the fact that they weren’t unduly abusing his daughter in a household that boasted at its head someone referred to as “the master”—had instructed Cook to eschew the usual sandwich fare, the result being a chilled salmon served in the dining room with real china and silverware.
“I hate salmon,” Annette pouted prettily.
“Why?” my father asked with real solicitude, the kind I would have loved if only he’d bestowed it upon me when I was her age.
“Because it is so pink,” she said.
“But you love pink!” I laughed.
“Yes,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “but not on fish.”
Lars Aquavit laughed. “So close your eyes,” he suggested, “and pretend it’s cake.”
She squinched up her eyes and took a bite after only missing her mouth once with the fork. Then she chewed as we all watched.
“I guess it’s not so bad,” she finally said, “but it could use some frosting.”
The meal passed with my father regaling Mrs. Fairly and Lars Aquavit with tales of Africa. I wouldn’t have expected the latter to be so interested in a place so drastically different from his island home, particularly since he never mentioned any other country at all unless it was to mildly disparage Americans, and the former had never shown any interest in anything that didn’t directly concern the running of the household. After all, just because they were in the employ of an ambassador, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that they’d be curious about the rest of the world.
Even Annette got in on the act.
“What kind of dolls do they have there?” she asked with total seriousness.
“Actually,” he said, “Africa is a very big continent with lots of countries in it, so there are different dolls depending on where you go. Which kind of dolls do you like best?”
It took her only a half moment of deep thought.
“The kind that dances,” she said definitively.
“Oh, I’m sure I could find you one of those. Tell you what, when I go back home—” of course he thought of it as his home “—I’ll find one to send here to you.”
I couldn’t stifle a flare of resentment. All my life, all he’d sent me or brought me, when he sent or brought me anything at all, had been the kind of artifacts that only served to give me nightmares: big scary wooden sculptures with bared teeth and spears in their hands, looking like they couldn’t decide whether to kill me first or just eat me alive.
When dessert came, it was cake, which made Annette truly happy. I’d had the pleasure of seeing her eat cake many times before. She liked to pick the frosting off a little bit at a time with her fingertips, licking them like five lollipops. None of us ever tried to dissuade her from
what many would term unladylike table manners in this regard, because as her proud papa pointed out, “I’m sure that when she’s sixteen and on a date, she won’t still be eating like that.”
To which I’d queried, “You’ll let her date when she’s sixteen?”
He did seem like he’d be a very strict father.
“Did I say sixteen?” he’d laughed. “I meant thirty.”
But on this day, I wasn’t destined to see Annette eat cake at all, because Mrs. Fairly had a different plan.
“You haven’t seen your father in so long,” Mrs. Fairly pointed out. “And here we’ve been monopolizing all his time. I think it best we leave the two of you alone so you can chat a bit.”
Did I want to be alone with him?
No.
But apparently I was to be permitted no choice in the matter, as Mrs. Fairly rose, indicating that Lars Aquavit and Annette should grab their cake plates and join her for their dessert in the kitchen.
What to say, what to say…
Him: “My trip was—”
Me: “I hope your trip was—”
We both laughed, still awkward, a false tinny sound that rankled. Why couldn’t he talk as naturally to me as he talked to Annette and the others? Why couldn’t I talk to him as naturally as I talked to…?
Okay, there really was no right way to end that, since there was no one I talked naturally to, not ever, not really. Edgar came closest, but as close as we’d come, I still felt that shadow of a wall between us. Maybe there was one reticent part of myself that was holding back until he’d made some sort of public commitment.
“It really is great to see you,” my father said, taking a deep breath for courage as though what he was about to do, placing his hand over mine, needed great courage.
“You said that before,” I said.
“And you’re so different,” he added.
“I’m pretty sure you said that, too,” I pointed out.
“Well, you can’t blame your old dad for marveling at you, can you?” he asked.
He wasn’t old at all, had never seemed old, but yes, I found that I could and did blame him for a lot.
He must have read some of the resentment in my eyes, because he shied back a bit. Then:
“There was someone I wanted you to meet,” he said, “someone I brought with me on this trip.”
I’ll admit my curiosity was piqued.
“But,” he went on, “I thought it best I come here alone this first time and now I’m glad I did. This is quite a place you’re living in.” His eyes took in the grandness of the dining room. “But are you really sure this is the place for you?”
It was a tough question to answer, particularly since I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. I wanted to tell him about Edgar, tell him that now this was the most right place for me, but I couldn’t do that.
So instead I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know.”
If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked.
“It’s just that,” he said, “doing this kind of work was all right when you were younger, but don’t you think it’s time you found something you could commit your future to? And isn’t it awful in a way, working in such a subservient position?”
I wanted to tell him that from where I was sitting, this was all his fault. If he’d imbued me with any sense of self-worth, if he’d ever been around long enough to imbue me with any sense of self-worth, I wouldn’t have spent my adult working life thinking that the only thing I was fit for was serving someone else.
But then the thought occurred to me, for the first time, that it wasn’t all his fault. Oh, sure, he could have been a better father. I mean, he really could have been a better father. He could have been like, say, Carson Drew.
But none of that mattered anymore. I was an adult now. At least I was supposed to be. And whatever decisions I had made that had brought me here, I’d made them myself. They were my choices. They would be my consequences.
I sought to change the subject.
“So, who’s this person—” I was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Fairly, all abustle.
“The master came home early!” she announced.
My father’s eyebrows shot up. “The master?” he mouthed to me silently.
I started to rise.
“I’d better get back to work,” I said.
“Oh no!” she said. “He seemed thrilled your father came for a visit, but he didn’t want to disturb you.” She turned to my father. “He’s invited you back for dinner this evening.”
“Well—” my father hesitated “—I do have a traveling companion with me and we were planning on—”
“Oh no!” she said again. “I mean, oh yes! Feel free to bring your companion with you. I’m sure the ambassador won’t mind. Why, it’ll be like a second house party!”
As if the first one had been so much fun. I thought of the wine stains on my white dress, thought about my jealousy over seeing Edgar for the first time with Bebe Iversdottir.
“The more the merrier!” Mrs. Fairly called over her shoulder as she exited the room.
Who knew she could be so trite?
My father rose.
“I’d better get going,” he said, “if I’m to wake up in time for tonight.”
Maybe, I thought, he was more like Nancy Drew than Carson Drew. After all, Nancy always took naps when there was a big night ahead. Of course, she was always hiding in closets and checking luggage for false bottoms, too.
“The older I get,” my father said, “the more jet lag affects me.”
Then he bent over, like he might want to kiss me goodbye, but then stopped. Perhaps he sensed what I felt inside, that I was still distant from him.
“I guess I’ll see you tonight,” he said.
“Bye, Dad.”
I watched him leave, a sight I’d seen all too often in my life. No matter that a moment ago I’d all but forgiven him in my own mind, at least for his parental shortcomings; some bitterness was still there.
Idly, I picked at my uneaten cake with the fork. Then I put the fork down and, with my fingers, started picking at the icing, coating the tips of each of my five fingers before commencing to lick the pink frosting off. Annette’s way of eating, I decided, had a lot of merit to it.
I was sucking on my middle finger, the thumb and forefinger clean now, the ring finger and pinkie still bearing their tiny mountains of goo, when Edgar walked in.
How embarrassing!
But what I found embarrassing, he found charming.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it is you who should be paying Annette for all she has taught you.”
“Hey,” I said, feeling daring as I offered out the pinkie, “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
He surprised me by bending his head and licking the proffered finger.
“A bit sweet for my taste,” he reflected, “but I like what’s underneath it.”
It felt thrilling, daring, to be flirting in public like this. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t technically public, since no one else was in the room except us, but it felt public. It was certainly the most openly physical he’d been with me outside of my bedroom.
I’d once asked him, late at night, my head on his shoulder, why it was always my bedroom, never his. I didn’t really care, but was just idly curious.
He’d replied, “Because who knows what would happen in my room? Your madwoman might set me on fire again.”
He still laughed at me about that and I let him. I didn’t mind.
Now he pulled one of the high-backed chairs up beside me, looking a bit furtive, like we were two spies on a joint mission.
“I saw your father leave,” he whispered.
“Did you introduce yourself?” I whispered back.
“No,” he whispered, “I figured that could wait for this evening.”
“Why are we whispering?” I whispered.
“Because I don’t want Mrs. Fairly to hear us. I told her I was sending
you out on a mission—” see? I’d been right! There was a mission! “—and that she was to keep Annette amused this afternoon.”
“What’s the mission?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to meet me up in your bedroom,” he said, “where I’m going to make love to you so thoroughly, you’ll be helpless to ask any more questions.”
Oh!
“How will we avoid detection?” I asked.
“They’re all the way back in the kitchen right now,” he said. “Annette has persuaded Mrs. Fairly that she should receive a second slice of cake since she only ate the frosting from the first, will only eat the frosting from the second, and so, one plus one in this case makes only one. If we dash upstairs now—dashing quietly, of course—no one will hear us. Of course,” he added, “when we get to your room, you’ll need to be a little quieter than usual, none of that shouting you’re prone to.”
I reddened a bit. I was a bit of a shouter.
“Well, if you didn’t always—“ I began defensively.
“It’s okay,” he said, licking that last frosting-covered finger, my ring finger, “I like your, um, loudness.”
“I’m not—”
“Come on,” he said, pulling me to my feet, “I’ll race you. But remember—it has to be a quiet race.”
As I raced him as quietly as possible up the stairs, I felt as though I were living a surreal dream. He’d never been this playful before and it was wonderful.
I lay in his arms an hour later, feeling at peace. Every itch had been scratched with a luxurious slowness in excruciating silence.
“Are you happy right now, Charlotte?” he asked, playing with my hair.
“Mmm,” I purred, sounding like Steinway, who was asleep at our feet, no doubt having sweet dreams of chasing a catchable mouse. It seemed to me that everyone’s dreams must be sweet at that moment.
“But you could be happier, couldn’t you?” he said.
I lifted my head, looked at him.
“What?” I asked.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, getting up. He crossed to the wardrobe, gloriously naked, opened the door. From inside he pulled out a hanger with a dress on it I’d never seen before. I certainly hadn’t put it there.
It was dark red and very pretty, with simple lines. I pictured myself wearing it. The dress would fit me closely, the hem falling above the knee, the sleeves long against the cold that had a tendency to invade the rooms here even when all the windows and doors were closed, the neckline plunging down in a deep V. I could look good in a dress like that.
How Nancy Drew Saved My Life Page 20
