It is not hard to confess our criminal acts, but the ridiculous and shameful.
Rousseau, Confessions
Chapter 18
1974
Sylvie clipped a withered rosebud. A shame, she thought, not even allowed to bloom before it dies.
She bent to examine the bush, noting the fine white filaments spun like cobwebs over some of the leaves. Spider mites, from the looks of it. Well, the whole garden would have to be sprayed, and most of the bushes cut back. It didn’t seem right somehow. This glorious June day, the sun shining. Not a day for blight.
Sylvie lowered herself to her knees, clippers in hand, not moving. Just listening to the drowsy hum of insects and breathing in the lovely sun-warmed scent of roses—like to see dear Helena bottle that if she could!—and looking out over her garden. It had gotten a bit overgrown, the French lace laden down with rose-cream buds crowding up against the lavender Blue Nile, and the tea roses had climbed right off the trellis and were taking over the whole south wall.
She would never have let it get like this a few years ago ... certainly not while Gerald was alive. But in the past six years so much had changed.
She had changed, she realized with a start. Not a silly chicken any longer, frightened of my own shadow. No more apologising for what I am ... and who I’m not, what I can do and what I cannot. Why, there are even men who find me attractive, desirable even—Alan Fogherty, taking me to dinner when he’s in town, sending flowers, and Dennis Corbett at the bank, just last week calling to say he had two tickets to the ballet. And then, of course, there was Nikos. ...
Sylvie found herself growing hot, as if the sun were burning through her clothing. She imagined Nikos striding about among the piled cinder blocks and steel beams of his construction site, blue work shirt rolled up over his sturdy brown forearms, a roll of blueprints curled in his fist, his black eyes flashing this way and that, already seeing the building as it would be when it was finished.
[294] And her, did he see something more in the future with her? Did he ever think about that long-ago time when they were lovers?
God, what’s happening, Sylvie asked herself. Is he what I want?
She was annoyed to find that her hands were trembling, and a little flutter had crept into her stomach.
Making herself concentrate again on her roses, Sylvie began to snip. Healthy blossoms first, that way nothing would go to waste. She held up a perfect rose cut from the blighted bush. Snowfire, one of her favorites, also a most rare one. Perfect creamy white in the center, blushing to a deep crimson around the outer edges of each petal. Exquisite, a small miracle.
And here she was, middle-aged—she’d be fifty-two, her next birthday—kneeling in the dirt, as content as a child making mud pies, that was a kind of miracle too. How strange life was!
Maybe it was just this day—after so much rain. Sylvie felt the sunshine on the back of her neck, warm and comforting as the hand of an old friend. Soon it would grow too hot, and she would start to perspire and prickle. But right now it was the loveliest feeling in the world. She felt strong and ... as if she could do anything she set her mind to.
She snipped another blossom and set it carefully in her basket.
Her thoughts turned to Nikos again. She remembered his kindness, those dark months after Gerald’s death, with Rachel off in Vietnam. Calling to see how she was, telling her a funny story to cheer her up, letting her know he was there if she needed a sympathetic ear, a strong shoulder for her to cry on.
She felt a little ashamed. She’d leaned on him too much, taken undue advantage of his kindness. And yet, if not for him, where would she be now? He was the one who had encouraged her to take charge of her life, her money. Gerald would not have approved, but Gerald was no longer here to protect her, either. And so she had waded in, feeling like an explorer entering uncharted and possibly dangerous territory. And what a wilderness! A majority holding in the bank, other stocks, mutual fund shares, municipal bonds, Treasury notes, real estate syndications, not to mention the big houses in New York, Deal, and Palm Beach. Their lawyer, Packard Haimes, advised strongly that he be empowered to look after it all; and it would have been a big relief just to let him. But something—yes, [295] probably Nikos—had made that seemingly easy way out chafe at her.
So she’d gone up to Packard’s antique library-like office at 55 Water Street.
Dear old Packy. She could still see him, his pink face and twinkly eyes leaning over her, his big dry hand patting her shoulder as he seated her in the leather chair across from his desk. He reminded her of Raymond Massey, tall, florid, shaggy-browed, exuding fatherly concern.
“You really haven’t a thing to worry about, my dear Sylvie. Gerald’s holdings were all solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, and we and the bank can look after them and keep you in comfort for the rest of your days. So you just take care of yourself, eat a bit more, take one of those cruises ... the South Seas or some nice spot in the Caribbean would do you a world of good, you know,” he had advised, beaming his most avuncular smile, which in the past she had always found reassuring. At that moment, however, she found it irritating.
And she remembered Nikos once saying, money is usually managed best by those who risk losing their own shirt if it’s not well done. And suddenly she was saying, “I’ve decided to handle my own finances from now on.”
“You can’t be serious,” Packy had argued. “What do you know about—”
“Absolutely nothing,” she cut him off. “But I’m not stupid. I can learn, can’t I?”
And so she had learned, with Nikos’s help. And when the long columns of figures, the balance sheets, profit and loss statements, accounts of gains and losses began to swim before her eyes, she would dredge up Nikos’s encouraging words.
“It’s not so complicated,” he had told her, “it just looks that way at first. Remember two things, always. First, never be afraid to ask questions. And second, never allow yourself to believe you cannot understand the answers.”
And the notion began to grow, like a tiny seed planted in her head, that she could perhaps do more than Keep Busy, as she’d always done, with gardening, shopping, lunching with Evelyn Gold, raising money for the opera and, occasionally, dinner with Rachel and Brian.
[296] There was, after all, the bank. At first, merely the idea of showing up at the monthly board meetings—the only woman among all those men!—had sent her reeling to her bed with a sick headache.
But then, two years after Gerald died, Pelham Securities went into Chapter Eleven, owing nearly twenty million to the bank. She’d visualized all Gerald’s hard work over the years withering away like the buds on these blighted roses.
And that had given her courage to act. She dug out that the bad loan had been Hutchinson Pyne’s doing. A pompous old fool, she’d always detested him, and now it might be disastrous to let him continue as chairman. She could forgive him for being pompous, but not for being a fool.
For the next board meeting, she’d risen at six in the morning, starting with a long scalding bath to relax her nerves. Then breakfast, which she normally avoided, forcing down two eggs and several slivers of toast. She might be tongue-tied, but at least she would not faint in front of all those men.
Sylvie remembered, too, how carefully she had dressed that morning. Real silk stockings from Paris, and that Chanel suit Gerald had loved her in—double-knit, with the white piping around the hem and jacket. Then pearls, her grandmother’s, the one beautiful thing she’d had from Mama. And a hat, of course, one of those smart Halston pillboxes.
She had looked long and hard in the mirror at the final result. A bit too thin—she’d lost so much weight after Gerald died. Stringy, the way women her age seemed to get if they didn’t go the other way, plump and baggy. But on the whole, nonetheless, quite elegant.
Gerald, she had thought, would have been proud ... if a little uneasy, at what she was about to do.
Even now, as Sylvie leaned forward and pinched a mottled brow
n bud from the bush, careful to avoid the thorns, her stomach churned at the memory of that day, walking into the boardroom and seeing all those frowns and raised eyebrows. Remembering how she’d felt (the same as when she was twelve and had accidentally blundered into the men’s room at Alexander’s, seeing a row of urinals, and men holding their penises as casually as a butcher weighing out frankfurters), scared and excited both, as if she had trespassed into some secret, all-male territory.
[297] That first time, she had simply sat through the meeting, too intimidated to speak. It was enough just that she had come. The second time too. By her third, she still didn’t feel wholly comfortable, but her fear was gone. And she now could almost hear their minds dictating little labels for her: Bored just sitting around the house, lonely, wants to feel part of something. Gives her a chance to dress up in those expensive clothes, if nothing else. She’s a silly distraction, but there’s really no harm in it.
How wrong! Sylvie thought, chuckling to herself, remembering their stunned and outraged looks. Who would have thought Gerald’s timid widow would stand up and propose, bold as brass, that they elect a new chairman, one she already had in mind, a young vice-president named Adam Cutler. He was the son of a shoe salesman in North Carolina, and had come up the hard way. On the board, Cutler plainly was not part of the “in group,” but to Sylvie he was the only one with any real sense or brains.
The moment following her proposal was engraved in her memory. The long walnut table—so highly polished she could see their reflections, faint ghosts on the veneer. Then Pyne, his face stiff and slightly purple with concealed outrage, rising to his feet, impaling her with a steely smile.
“We ... and I think I speak for all of us here ... welcome the interest you have recently begun showing in our bank, Mrs. Rosenthal,” he said in a voice that seemed to lower the room temperature a good twenty degrees. “But I feel it’s in all of our best interests to remind you that what we’re dealing with here isn’t organizing a cocktail party or settling an overdue charge account at Saks.”
And Sylvie had been grateful to him, yes, grateful, for stirring up the anger to galvanize her. Her hands, which moments ago had begun trembling, now lay still, and the men seated about the table seemed no more threatening than the handymen, chauffeurs, salesmen, and clerks she’d always dealt with at home and in stores.
“You’re trying to embarrass me,” she stated bluntly. “And it’s true, what you say, that I’ve only recently become involved.” She had looked at those men’s gray faces, one by one, forcing herself to meet their eyes. “But the only thing I have to be embarrassed about is my not getting involved sooner. Now, let me remind you I own sixty percent of Mercantile Trust. If you don’t wish to take me [298] seriously, I think it only fair to inform you that I have a buyer who has offered me a good price for my shares. ...”
“Don’t see how we could be much worse off than we are now,” sniped perspiring Sol Katzman, and Sylvie watched him viciously tug at his tie, yanking it from the collar of his hand-tailored shirt as if he meant to hang her with it.
“I believe several of you already know the buyer I speak about,” she continued sweetly, waiting a beat before she dropped the bomb, “Mr. Nikos Alexandras.”
There was silence; and she wanted to clap her hands with glee. She had played her cards just right. It was plain that they would rather deal with a woman than a foreigner, an outsider. And a Greek, at that, whom they no doubt feared would connive to get the best of them all.
Even before they took the vote, Sylvie knew that she had won. Then the only question was, Could she make it out of there without collapsing in the elevator?
Well, I didn’t, did I? Sylvie interrupted her reverie to struggle to her feet, clutching a stake for support. She felt a moment’s dizziness. Orange-red sunspots danced before eyes. Her heart was beating too quickly.
Time to go in, she thought, surveying the noon shadows beneath the rosebushes and the alabaster tubs of flowering quince and mock orange bordering the brick patio. If she hurried, she’d still have time to call Manuel about spraying this garden before getting ready for her lunch date with Nikos.
He had some exciting news he’d said he wanted to share with her. What could it be? Perhaps, she thought with a sudden dart of envy, he’d met someone—a woman he wanted to marry. And why not? He was still so vital, attractive. And best of all, he was kind.
Of course there was no reason he shouldn’t marry. It was just, well, she hadn’t thought of it before. And ... oh dear, would that mean that they’d have to stop getting together for these lunches she so looked forward to? And the opera? And the charity affairs where Nikos saved her from being seated next to some pathetic old man who had just lost his wife?
Dear Nikos. She owed him so much. Rachel, most of all. In spite of Sylvie’s denials, Nikos still seemed to believe Rachel was [299] his, yet he did not press the issue. Never. Always courteous and friendly toward Rachel, and that was all. Sylvie felt so grateful she would have given him anything in return. Anything, that is, except the truth ... about Rose.
All those years I lied to Gerald, and now I’m lying to Nikos. The thought stabbed her like a sharp rose thorn.
If he were to know about Rose, he’d move heaven and earth to find her. And didn’t he deserve to have the child he longed for?
God knows, she had tried to tell him, and yet each time the words just wouldn’t come. For there was Rachel to think of. And Rose too ... and herself, yes.
Sylvie lifted the straw basket laden with roses—blooms in every shade of yellow and pink and red—and she was so struck by their delicacy and exquisite beauty, her eyes filled with tears.
My poor Rose, she thought. You don’t know me, but I think of you every day. With less anguish than I used to, it’s true. The years have been kind to me in that way. But ... oh, my dear child ... how I wish ...
Sylvie pulled one deep-crimson blossom from the basket, and touched it to her cheek for one long heart-rending moment.
Then, quite suddenly, she straightened her spine, dropping the rose back into the basket. Perhaps she had been out in the sun too long, getting herself all worked up like this.
And she had to hurry, or she’d be late. Then she felt a flush of panic. She was afraid of Nikos’s news. She didn’t need any more surprises in her life right now.
“So ... what do you think?” Nikos asked, grinning down at her from the second-floor landing of the house to which he had brought her after lunch. “Am I a fool or a genius? A hundred thousand dollars tells me I am most probably a fool.”
Sylvie caught up with Nikos at the head of the gracefully winding flight of stairs. She had come with him here, to this derelict building near Gramercy Park, up these sagging stairs, wondering what he possibly could want to show her. Now she understood. Her gaze swept over a badly damaged and rubble-strewn room, which once had been a magnificent Edwardian parlor. Enormous pocket doors that slid out from a great curved arch were hideously caked [300] with old paint, half the lovely etched panes cracked or missing. The tall and fanciful ceiling with its chipped plaster rosettes and cracked bracket moldings was like the top of a wedding cake that had been gnawed away by rats.
A house. That’s what he wanted to tell me. Thank goodness, it wasn’t any bad news.
Sylvie felt weak, almost light-headed with relief. Then she began thinking of what it would take—both in money and aggravation—to make this old wreck of a place habitable, and she grew concerned for Nikos. He wasn’t such a young man, after all, past sixty now.
Sylvie looked back at him, standing now under an archway amid chunks of fallen plaster and a pile of broken vinyl floor tiles. But he appeared as sturdy as he’d been thirty years ago. A bit heavier around the middle, but certainly not soft. Hair thick as ever, too, only gray now, crisp as iron filings.
He’d taken off his jacket, and had it slung over one shoulder, a rolled-up blueprint tucked under his other arm. Head reared back as he took in the room, the glow of s
ome future vision on his face.
It had been a while since she’d seen such a glittering in his black eyes. All through lunch, like a kid bursting with a secret, giving her those odd looks and then ordering that bottle of champagne. Well, no wonder her head was floating away. Weren’t they both a little tipsy?
“I think it ... it has possibilities,” she said at last, fumbling to avoid saying the wrong thing.
Nikos turned his dark gaze on her, and gave a booming laugh that echoed in the decrepit vacant chamber. “Bullshit. You hate it. What a lousy liar you are, Sylvie. You look as if you just bit into something tasting very bad.”
“Well, it is going to take a lot of work.” She felt embarrassed. But why should she? “Oh, Nikos, you aren’t serious about buying this, are you? I mean ... well, the location is good. So close to Gramercy Park and only five blocks from your office. But just look at it. It’s a wonder it hasn’t been condemned. And how big did you say it is?”
“Three stories besides this one. Come, take a look?” Before she could answer, he was taking her arm, guiding her up another [301] steep, curving, and—Sylvie thought with alarm—quite perilously rickety staircase.
It was perilous, she decided, feeling certain stairs sway from their weight, and creak like a ship’s mast in a high wind. And boards over the risers were missing here and there. If she were less vigilant, she could so easily fall, maybe sprain an ankle. There was a sharp, unpleasant smell, too like rotten juniper berries. Panting as she neared the top, she saw a dark shape skate out of the shadows and streak across the landing. Her heart lurched. Then she saw it was only a cat. So that’s why the place stank so.
On the third floor Nikos was taking her through a large, airy room with a discolored marble fireplace, probably a bedroom. At the soot-streaked window, looking sharply to the left, Sylvie could just make out green grass with lovely flowerbeds and neat gravel paths. Young women pushing baby carriages, and people on the benches, books open in their laps, splashed in leafy sunlight.
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