It almost made her long for the ads Deanne had come up with in the hippie days, with their cartoon lions and flower children.
Howard had said that they wanted her to tell the story of her contributions. Well, first off, nowadays, everyone did the kind of stuff they had invented for De Beers—placing jewelry in movies, loaning pieces to celebrities, so they could show them off in public.
They wanted to hear how she had come to write the line. Like most of life’s remarkable moments, it hadn’t seemed at all remarkable until later. In 1981, when Granville Toogood passed away, she was surprised to read in his obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer that he had written the line. Toogood was a fixture of Philadelphia’s high society, a member at both the Merion golf and cricket clubs, with his own seat at the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1930, he wrote a book called Huntsman in the Sky. He had been an executive on the business side at Ayer, with no hand in the affairs of the copy department, but apparently Toogood had gone through life telling his children and grandchildren that A Diamond Is Forever was his.
Warner Shelly, Ayer’s president at the time, had called her at home to say that he was outraged. Warner made a stink and called the paper, demanding a retraction. They never printed one, and this made him even angrier. But Frances was tickled by the whole episode: this line that she had just dashed off late one night was worth stealing, and from the Great Beyond at that.
London. They wanted her to go to London.
If only the chance had come ten years sooner. She would have leapt at it then. Now she was basically an old woman. Her eyesight had gone to pot and some days she was a bit shaky on her feet. Still, it was nice to think that life could offer up the occasional surprise, even at her age.
“I think I’ll go,” she said. “Why not?”
It was three in the morning. The dog didn’t even glance up.
As soon as it reached a respectable hour, she called Howard at home.
“Tell Mr. Hagopian I’ll do it,” she said.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” he said. “Lou will be so pleased. He’ll probably want to call you himself later in the week to talk over specifics. And someone in PR will most likely call you later today, too.”
“Fine, fine.”
There were sometimes entire weeks when her phone did not ring. But not twenty minutes after she hung up with Howard, it started. The kids in the Ayer public relations department were suddenly interested in who she was and what she thought. They asked questions and requested photos. Frances told them what they wanted to know about her personal background and her accounts, especially De Beers. It was nice to have an excuse to revisit her time at Ayer. Like it or not, her life was inextricably tied to the agency.
They wanted to know what she’d been doing since retirement. She told them she kept busy playing golf and bridge at Merion, participating in various activities at Our Lady of Assumption, and caring for her dog. At the last minute she added horseback riding to the list, even though she hadn’t been on a horse in fifteen years. It sounded nice.
She decided to send a current photograph of herself in a smart cardigan and pearls, no glasses. She gave instructions that it would look dandy in color, with the freckles blacked out. And she added a second picture, of herself at thirty-five or so, seated at her desk in the Ayer building. In it, she wore a short-sleeved dress with a Peter Pan collar, which she had always loved. Frances stared at the photo long and hard before slipping it into the envelope—her gray hair suddenly brown again, her wrinkles smoothed into plump white cheeks.
At one o’clock, it was time for her to pick Meg up for bridge.
Poor Ham had died of a heart attack three years back, but his wife still didn’t drive and never would. Frances probably shouldn’t be driving either, but she couldn’t give it up.
“You’ll never believe what’s happened,” she said when Meg slid into the passenger seat.
“What?”
“Remember I told you that Howard Davis wanted to meet with me? Well, he came yesterday and we had lunch.”
“How is Howard? Ham was so fond of him.”
Frances pulled the car into the road.
“He’s just fine. But get a load of this. Ayer wants to send me to London for part of a big celebration with the diamond people.”
Meg clapped her hands together. “Fran! How wonderful!”
They were still talking about it fifteen minutes later when they walked into the dining room. All around them, women were taking their seats and pulling out their score cards.
“Big news, everybody!” Meg said. “Frances is going to London.”
They all looked up, surprised, excited to hear more.
Frances laughed. Over the years, these gals had become her family. When she first joined the bridge club in ’73, she assumed she would have nothing in common with any of them, other than Meg, who had been the one to drag her into it. The team was made up of avid golfers and women who couldn’t golf anymore because of bad knees or what have you, but still wanted to be social.
They were mostly the wives of prominent men. Frances was the only one among them who had never married, and one of only two who had worked past the age of twenty-five. Yet as time passed, she began to see them not as merely the wives, but as themselves. She had feared that they wouldn’t have any interest in a woman like her, but they were fascinated by stories of her Ayer days. They seemed to afford her some level of sophistication unlike their own. Not society events and ballrooms, but pitch meetings and client dinners. They saw her as the only person who could truly answer the question What were our husbands up to all day for all of those years?
A lot of their husbands were gone now. In a way, it reminded Frances of the war years, when there were so few men around, and the girls banded together. They could do this without guilt or judgment, because they weren’t rejecting men. They were simply waiting to be reunited with them.
“Oh Frances, you must be so excited,” Ruth Elder said from her seat in front of the trophy case.
“Yes,” she said. “I am. But. Well, it’s silly, but to tell you the truth, I’m mostly just terrified.”
“Why?” Meg asked.
“I have nothing to wear.”
They got a good laugh over that.
“You’ve come to the right place, my dear,” Ruth said. “The women in this room have heaps of clothes. And more jewelry than we know what to do with! We’ll help you.”
“Really?” Frances asked.
“Of course,” piped up Miriam Tuttle. “I can think of five dresses I’ve got hanging in the closet collecting dust that would be perfect on you.”
“I just bought a gorgeous blue evening gown for our cruise,” said Rose Thompson. “It will look lovely with your complexion.”
They arrived at her house that evening at six, twelve cars lined up along the cul-de-sac. Frances watched them come up the front stairs, their arms weighed down by gowns and brooches and shoes and furs, a fashion parade.
“Come in, come in!” she said, pushing the screen door open.
They marched to her bedroom, where she had a tray of martinis waiting on the dresser.
“Try this one first,” Ruth said, handing her a long silk sheath.
Frances stepped into the bathroom and slipped it over her head.
She opened the door. “Well?”
“Gorgeous!” Meg said.
“You still have a great figure, Frances,” said Marge Samuels. “You ought to dress up more often.”
She laughed. “For what? To walk the dog or hang the laundry?”
Marge shrugged. “You never know. Maybe you’ll meet some dashing Brit while you’re over there, and never return.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
She tried on the dresses one by one as her friends stood around giving their opinions—this one was too tight in the hips and that one was too short, but the third would be perfect for an evening affair.
They brought a lot of costume jewelry along, and Frances wore
it all at once, just for a laugh—big ruby earrings and ten different necklaces, and half a dozen bracelets.
“It’s about jewels, after all,” Meg said. “Diamonds, to be specific. We owe it to you that we got these sparklers in the first place. If you need to borrow one, here.” She pulled her solitaire from her finger and tossed it onto the bed as if it weren’t her most precious possession.
Frances wondered if Meg had dipped a bit too far into the martinis.
“I’ve got another you can take,” Marge said. She slid her pretty engagement ring off. “Oh, and this.” Her eternity band.
“One more,” Rose said. She tugged at her ring, but it wouldn’t budge. “Hold on.” She ran to the bathroom and held it under a stream of cold water until it dropped.
“Now!” she said, holding it out in triumph. “Here we are!”
She added it to the pile.
One by one, they took off their diamond rings. It was only a joke. They knew she wouldn’t really take them. But Frances would never forget the sight of that mound of gems, glittering before her.
Part Four
1972
On the many occasions when she had thought about it, Evelyn had assumed that her son’s mistress would be beautiful. But she wasn’t, not in the slightest. Nicole wore platform shoes and a very short dress, though her legs were thick and unshapely. Her forehead was too high and Evelyn would swear that her stick-straight brown hair was a wig. She couldn’t hold a candle to Teddy’s own wife. It was just one more part of this whole ludicrous arrangement that made no sense at all.
Evelyn ushered them inside. Her inner self screamed, shouted, raged with anger. Yet all she said was, “Let me take your coats.”
It amazed her how different the surface could be from what one felt beneath the skin. It made her wonder for a moment how a person could ever be certain of anyone else’s true feelings. Or maybe it was just her. Another mother might have grabbed the boy by his shoulders and shaken him until he bled from the ears.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Nicole said, her eyes roaming from the carpet to the grandfather clock, to the hat stand, to the table, as if she were a burglar assessing the value of the place. “Wow, this house is incredible! I feel like I’m in a museum.”
The first time Evelyn had been to Gerald’s family home, she too was overwhelmed by the level of wealth they displayed, but she had been refined enough not to act like it. So, for that matter, had Julie, who grew up on a small farm in Oregon, yet had the manners of a girl who’d been educated at Miss Porter’s.
“We brought you some flowers,” Teddy said, extending the soggy parcel.
Evelyn took hold of it without meeting his eye. That we had pierced her like an arrow. She wanted them gone. She wanted Julie and the girls here for Sunday dinner, talking and laughing while her son sat in the next room watching television with Gerald.
“Thank you, darling. Wasn’t that sweet.”
Her husband descended the staircase now, wearing a tweed blazer over slacks.
“Teddy!” he said in a jolly tone, shaking his son’s hand and patting him on the back. He didn’t seem in the least bit surprised by the woman’s presence.
“This is Nicole,” Teddy said.
“Nice to meet you,” Gerald said.
Her husband’s ease irritated her. They ought to be making this harder for Teddy. They were uncomfortable, and he should be too. She didn’t like to think that way, but in this case it was for the greater good of the family. He had to be made to know that they did not approve, and never would. Not that he had ever cared what they thought.
“Why don’t you two have a seat in the living room while I put these in some water,” she said. “Teddy, you lead the way.”
She walked toward the kitchen, with Gerald close behind.
“What is she doing here?” she whispered.
“I don’t have a clue.”
Sadness consumed her. He hadn’t come open to changing his mind. The decision had already been made.
“These are terrible,” Evelyn said, looking at the carnations. “They’re practically dead. Why would he bring me these?”
“Just put them on the table, they’re fine,” Gerald said.
“It’s not the flowers,” she said. “I should have known something was up when he said he wanted to come here to celebrate your retirement. As if he’d ever think of anyone but himself.”
“It’s all right.”
“No it isn’t. He should have warned me she was coming.”
“He probably knew you’d never agree to it.”
“Well, that’s true. I wouldn’t have. I’m not sure I can do this.”
“You can.”
He called out, “Kids? Cocktails?”
“I’ll have a whiskey sour,” Teddy called back. “And a vodka tonic for the lady.”
Gerald poured the drinks, and brought them into the other room. Evelyn cut the flowers short. She placed them in a low vase, pulling off a few dead petals. She began to cry, but closed her eyes tightly to ward off the tears. None of that now. She took a plate of cheese balls from the icebox and carried them into the living room, setting them on the coffee table. She placed the flowers on the hope chest in the corner. It was covered in framed photographs of her granddaughters: Melody’s ballet recital, and June’s school play. The two of them dressed up as mermaids for Halloween. Sitting under the Christmas tree in flannel nightgowns, a sea of silver wrapping paper all around. She hoped her son would look over and feel ashamed or heartsick with longing for his children, but he wasn’t paying any attention.
“How was the flight?” Gerald asked.
“Great,” Teddy said. “We got champagne and orange juice and this big, amazing breakfast—fruit cocktail, and pancakes and sausage patties and scrambled eggs. Air travel is so luxurious. I never want to get off the plane once I’m on it.”
“Not me,” Nicole said. “It’s fun, I guess, but I get restless if I’m not moving around for long.”
“Nicole’s a big runner,” Teddy said, taking her hand.
This gesture sent a chill through Evelyn. It felt as much a betrayal as if Gerald had just kissed another woman, openmouthed, at the dinner table.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Nicole said. “I just enjoy a light jog at the end of the day. It relaxes me.”
Their joined hands landed in her lap, until Teddy pulled his away and began massaging the back of her neck with his fingers. Evelyn felt her chest seize up at the sight of it. How could this be allowed? She expected someone to swoop in and stop him, but who, if not she herself?
“Look for her in the Olympics one day, Dad,” Teddy said. He took a cheese ball and ate it in one bite.
“Don’t get me started on the Olympics,” Gerald said. “This summer was our worst gold-medal showing in the history of the games.”
Evelyn had often marveled at how truly worked up her husband could become about sports. When the Red Sox lost some important game early in their marriage, Gerald had locked himself in his study and (though he would never admit it) cried for fifteen minutes. She could hear him in there, sniffling like a child. She enjoyed watching sports well enough, but could never manage to feel much about the outcome. It was only a game.
“But that was in part because of the judges,” Teddy said. “Stripping two men of their medals for laughing and talking on the awards podium?”
“Well now, that was a disgrace,” Gerald said. “They acted like a couple of hooligans.”
“Oh, come off it. If they’d been white, no one would have blinked. The whole thing now is nothing but countries fighting over ideologies in the name of sport. It’s a joke. I think we ought to spread the Olympics out. Have them in several countries at once, so they’ll become a less obvious target for violence.”
Gerald frowned. “I don’t know about that.”
A month earlier, eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team had been murdered by Arab terrorists in West Germany during the games. This tragedy put
her in mind of so many private sorrows, the jumble of sad surprises that had been their early days together. The time they had all gone to Lake Placid, just before Nathaniel’s accident, naively thinking that it was only the beginning. Young life, cut down so soon. And then, their family temporarily parted when Gerald went off to war. He was proud to enlist and fight, but he was old for a soldier by then. She spent useless hours working in her victory garden, wondering if God would be so cruel as to take one more love away from her, even though as far as she could tell, God didn’t control things like that.
“The world’s gone crazy,” Nicole said. “Everything is falling apart.”
“Once you live long enough, you’ll see that the world has always been crazy,” Gerald said. “It’s always falling apart, but it never completely crumbles.”
“Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down,” Teddy said, and he and Nicole giggled. He was acting like a teenager, not a man with a wife and children who depended on him. Evelyn knew now for certain that allowing this lunch to go on had been a mistake. She and Gerald were enabling the whole absurd thing to continue, when they ought to be putting a stop to it.
“What happened was an atrocity,” Gerald said. “Certainly not what the Germans had in mind. The whole purpose of the thing was to make the world forget those horrific Nazi Olympics in 1936. And now, well—who can think of anything else?”
“Germany didn’t deserve the Olympics, if you ask me,” Nicole chimed in.
Evelyn closed her eyes. She agreed, actually, but she disliked talking about unpleasant topics during social gatherings. Next, they’d be onto Vietnam, or Thomas Eagleton’s shock treatments, when really they were here because her son had made a horrendous mistake. She needed to get him alone. Maybe she could ask Teddy to take a walk around the property after lunch, just the two of them. The sooner they finished eating, the sooner she’d have her chance.
“Why don’t you two move into the dining room?” she said abruptly. “Gerald, would you please help me in the kitchen for a minute? I need you to slice the roast.”
The Engagements Page 31
