Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  "Rosa's a dictator," Clay said.

  "Rosa's a sweetie." Laura remembered Allison saying that and wondered why she hadn't seen her once since she started working in her parents' house.

  In fact she saw hardly anyone but Rosa and the house staff from the time she and Clay rode up in the mornings on the bicycles Ben had bought them to the time they rode away in the late afternoon. Leni was the only one of the Salingers to come to the kitchen; she came every afternoon, to plan the next day's menus with Rosa. They sat in the sun that stretched the length of the great room, from the panes of the wide breakfast bay that faced the rose garden, swimming pool and tennis courts, all the way to the brick fireplace at the other end. On the long maple table recipes were fanned out, and books of menus from past summers, and with them the two women, like generals planning a campaign, put together the schedule for the next day: usually a luncheon for a small group and then a dinner party for fifteen or more. But none of the other family members came to the kitchen, and after two weeks Laura was not even sure who was at the compound and who was away.

  "In Maine," Rosa said when Laura finally worked up the courage to ask where Allison was. "You'll find this family is very big on travel. Somebody's always somewhere and just when you think you know where everybody is, somebody comes back and somebody else goes."

  "They just leave their houses empty?" Laura asked casually. In her white kitchen uniform, her hair in a neat ponytail, she felt almost like a cook, almost Rosa's equal, and that made it easier to ask questions about the family. Still, as she stacked breakfast dishes in the double dishwasher, she was careful not to sound too curious.

  "Some of them are empty," Rosa replied. "Some with the

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  staff, some stuffed to the ceiling with houseguests. You'll find this family is very big on houseguests, probably because they're in the hotel business and they think something's wrong if all the bedrooms aren't full."

  She chuckled and Laura smiled with her. It was easy to be comfortable with Rosa. At sixty-seven, with unflagging energy, she was short and round with small hands that were always moving, nimbly flicking pastry finom marble board to pie plate, or cutting vegetables and stirring soup almost at the same time, or knitting a vest for her nephew while she waited for bread to rise or a roast to be done. She had promised to make Laura a sweater when the vest was finished. And no matter what she was doing, she talked steadily and shrewdly about the Salingers and the other families from New York and Boston who, generations before, had come to the towns of Osterville, Centerville, and Hyannis Port on Nantucket Sound, on the south coast of Cape Cod, to build the sprawling summer estates now being used by their children and grandchildren.

  "Mr. Owen built this one," Rosa said as she and Laura took salad ingredients from the wall of refrigerators and spread them on the long maple work table. It was the first time Laura realized that Rosa casually called all the Salingers, except Owen, by their first names. "In 1920 he brought Mrs. Owen here—^Ms, her name was, she was a lovely lady—and a year later Felix was bom. That's when I came; there were only the three of them, and I cooked and cleaned and took care of the baby, and Asa, too, when he was bom a year after Felix, and had time to get married myself and not too long later be a widow, and some time after that, I nursed Mrs. Owen when she got sick and died, and all that in the space of ten years. Which I suppose is why I never married again; I was so busy being a mother to Felix and Asa, and Mr. Owen, too, at least for Skost first few years when he was mourning, I just never had time."

  "But who are all the others?" Laura asked. "I don't even know all their names."

  Rosa reeled them off in a rhythm that matched her busy hands, chopping and slicing vegetables for the salads she was making for lunch. Owen Salinger, founder of the Salinger

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  hotel chain, had two sons, Felix and Asa; Felix had one daughter, Allison; Asa had a daughter, Patricia, by his first marriage. So Owen had only granddaughters. "Not one grandson he can count on to keep his empire going,'* Rosa said. "No nephews, either. This family is very big on women, and not one of them shows the slightest twinge of interest in running hotels. Mr. Owen's great-nephew could do it—that's Paul Janssen, the son of Leni's sister, Barbara, and her husband, Thomas—but he's something of a playboy, Paul is, and even if he does settle down, which I may not live long enough to see, it's photography that makes his eyes light up, not hotels. Who'll take over the company after Felix and Asa retire I can't imagine."

  As Laura asked questions, Rosa described them all, with their foibles and eccentricities and triumphs. "Allison broke her finger on the slide when she was seven and never went near a swing set again, even though Felix offered her a hundred dollars because he wanted his daughter to have courage and said he'd buy it if he had to." She told Laura about the house Felix built for his father. "It's attached to this one; the door is at the end of the long gallery. After Mr. Owen gave this house to Felix and Leni, Leni wanted him to live with them in the summers—he has a mansion all to himself in Boston—but he said he liked being on his own and planned to build a small house for himself. Well, they argued and argued, and finally Mr. Owen said all right if he could draw the plans himself and also have a door he could lock. So everything worked out. When a man is seventy-eight, he should have people nearby, but he has a right to privacy, too."

  She told Laura which houses belonged to the other family members, and where they lived the rest of the year—mostly New York, California, and Boston. And she told her who was in granmiar school, high school, and college, who was working and where, and who spent most of the year in Europe.

  Gradually Laura put together a picture of the whole family, even though she hadn't yet met most of them. Owen was in Canada, visiting friends; Asa and his family would not arrive from Boston for another week; Leni's sister, Barbara Janssen, her husband, Thomas, and their son, Paul, were returning from Europe in two weeks; others had arrived at the Cape but

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  were always sailing or taking flying lessons or shopping, and when they came to Felix and Leni's for dinner Laura had either left for the day or was working in the kitchen while the maids served.

  "You could serve," Rosa said, studying her. "You're not bad looking, you're quick and neat, yoU have a nice smile which you don't use often enough and if someone asked you to do something, you'd remember it. What a memory you have! I told Leni you'd memorized everything in the kitchen in one day; never have I seen such a memory, I told her."

  Laura flushed and turned away, striking her elbow against the table. "Shit," she muttered, nursing it.

  "But you're not ready," Rosa went on. "You need to be smoothed out. A real lady doesn't use vulgarity, my young miss. A real lady doesn't have a temper, either, and I've seen signs of one in you. And you have a lot to learn. You'll find this family is very big on form, and you don't know which side to serve or take a plate from, or how to bring somebody a clean knife, or when to refill a water glass. It's a wonder to me those people wrote those fabulous letters about you, unless of course they just liked your smile."

  Laura flushed again and concentrated on slicing red peppers. "I didn't serve; I worked in kitchens."

  "My eye," Rosa said pleasantly. "You never worked in a kitchen, my little Laura, not a decent one, anyway, unless it was to wash dishes and scrub the floor." She watched Laura's face. "You needn't worry, I'm not about to tell anyone, or ask questions, either. I've been there myself, you know, a long time ago: poor and hungry and willing to do any job people would give me. I'm sure you worked hard for those people; I'm sure they liked you and that's why they wrote those letters. You'll find I'm very big on instincts, and my instinct says I trust you."

  Laura's hand slipped and the blade slashed her finger. "Danm it!" she cried, slamming the knife on the counter. Tears filled her eyes. She wanted to curl up inside the circle of Rosa's plump arms; she wanted to tell her how wonderful it was to be in her warm kitchen with her warm voice and her
trust. But she had to hold it all back, just as she had to keep her distance from Leni and Allison. She couldn't return Rosa's

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  trust, she couldn*t let herself like anyone in this family, she couldn't let down her guard.

  She was there to rob them. And she couldn't ever let herself forget it.

  The hallway was silent and cool and her feet slid silently on the hardwood floor as she opened doors for a quick survey, then closed them to go on to the next room. She had already sketched the first floor: Owen's house, at one end, was a blank, since she'd never been inside, but she had drawn the kitchen at the other end, and the hill width of the house stretching between them, with a long porch in front and the wide glassed-in gallery along the back, opening onto the living room, den and dining room.

  Now, for the first time, she was on the second floor. Guest rooms across the back of the house, each with its own bath; Allison's suite along the whole east side — bigger than our apartment in New York — then Felix's office, bedroom, dressing room and bath, then Leni's sitting room, dressing room and bath, and her bedroom on the west side.

  That was the one she wanted. Silently she opened the bedroom door and slipped inside, taking in with a swift glance the seafoam and ivory colors, ivory shag rugs on gleaming hardwood floors, the bed in the next room draped in seafoam silk and ivory lace. The rooms were cool and serene, like Leni. Laura thought of what it would be like to come to a mother in rooms like these, and curl up and talk about the things she worried about.

  Well, I never will, that's all. And it doesn't matter; fve outgrown that.

  She had to hurry. She surveyed the spacious rooms with a more calculating eye. Sitting room desk, coffee table and ar-moire—all of them with drawers. In the bedroom and adjoining dressing room, four bureaus and a dressing table, nightstands flanking the bed, a wall of closets. Swifdy and silently, Laura opened them all, her slender fingers slipping among silk and cotton and lace without disturbing one perfect fold; she looked beneath the furniture without moving it; she tilted pictures from the walls without changing one angle.

  Nothing, nothing . . . where would she keep them . . .

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  there's no scfe . . . Then she came to the last closet, and found it locked. Finally . . . She knelt before it. She could get it open; she'd done it so many times. She reached in her pocket for the small set of steel picks Ben had bought her for her birthday, and it was at that moment that the sitting room door opened.

  "What the hell—!" Allison's voice exclaimed. She stood in the doorway, her eyes changing as she recognized Laura. "A burglar!" she cried in mock alarm. "How terrifying! But I know you! Rosa's new assistant . . . yes?"

  Laura nodded. She had leaped to her feet but she was dizzy and her legs were weak, and she leaned against the closet. Her throat was dry, her heart was pounding; she thrust her clenched fists deep inside the pockets of her uniform to hide the picks in her shaking hands. Rosa had said Allison wasn't due back from Maine until tomorrow, and everyone else was spending the day on Felix's yacht. It was supposed to be empty up here all ctftemoon.

  "But what are you doing in my mother's room . . . Laura, isn't it? Have we started cooking dinner up here? Or were you looking for my great-grandmother's sterling that she brought over from Austria? It isn't here; Rosa could have told you it's in the dining room conunode."

  Laura shook her head. "I wasn't looking— ** She cleared] her dry throat. "I wasn't looking for sterling." She took a step^ forward. "I ought to be downstairs . . ."

  "Indeed you should. But first let's have a talk." Allisoi strode across the room, grasped Laura's arm, and forced her walk beside her out of the room, down the full length of the hall, and into anotiier suite at the opposite comer from Leni's. "This is mine. Perfectly private. Sit down." Laura stood indecisively. "I said, sit down."

  Laura sat down. Her white cotton uniform seemed plain and harsh in the delicate white wicker chair witii its chintz cush-i(m. The room was bright and airy, in gold and white with lamps and throw pillows of sea green and indigo blue. It seemed that all the colors of the Cape were there, shimmering in the sunlight that streamed across the ocean and the beach and the smooth lawns of the estate for the sole purpose of brightening Allison Salinger's rooms.

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  Finally Laura's eyes rested on the stack of suitcases in the comer of the room. "I came back early," Allison said. "I was exceedingly bored." She had watched Laura survey the sitting room and the bedroom, visible through its open door, and now she gave her a keen look. "Maybe this isn't the first time you've been here." Laura, frozen in her chair, said nothing. "Have you already been here?"

  Laura shook her head.

  "My God, have I petrified you into silence? What are you afraid of? It isn't a crime to look at people's rooms; I poke around to see how my friends fix up theirs; why shouldn't you do the same? I won't turn you in, if that's what you're worried about. I don't care what you do; you work for Rosa, not me. It would be different if you'd been going through Mother's closets; if the alarm had gone off there'd be hell to pay."

  Laura's heart began to pound again, the blood hammering in her ears. / should have thought. . . I should have known . . . Whafs hi^pened to me that I don't do things right in this house? "Alarm?" she asked, making it sound as casual as she could.

  "A siren that wakes the dead. It's because of Mother's jewelry, you know, all the incredible stuff my great-grandmother brought from Austria with the sterling. My father keeps telling Mother to keep it in the safe in Boston, but she says what good is jeweliy if you can't wear it. If sometiiing is really in^)ortant to you, you ought to do whatever you want with it, n^t? She loves all those things because they came from her grandmother to her mother and then to her and someday they'll be mine, so if she wants to wear them anywhere in the world, why shouldn't she? What do you do besides explore bedrooms?"

  Laura flushed deeply. For the first time she was angry. Allison was playing with her like a cat trying to trip up a mouse. "I work," she said shortly and began to stand up.

  "Not yet," AlUson snapped. Her voice made it clear that she knew exactly where the power lay between the two of them. "I said I wanted to talk. You v/otk. for Rosa. What do you like best? Do you like to cook?"

  Her tone had become warm and curious, catching Laura off guard. "I guess so. I haven't done it very long."

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  "You haven't? Mother said you'd done it forever. Lots of good references, she said."

  "Oh, sure," Laura said swiftly. "I've worked in kitchens for years. I thought you meant cooking here, for your family."

  "Well," Allison said when she stopped, "do you like cooking for my family?"

  "Yes."

  "What else do you like?"

  "Oh, reading and listening to music. And I'm getting to like the beaches around here."

  "And boys?"

  "No."

  "Oh, come on. How old are you?"

  "Eighteen."

  "Same as me. And no boys? Not even one little date? Everybody dates, for heaven's sake."

  "Why do you care?" Laura burst out. "I'm just a cook—not even that, really; I'm just Rosa's assistant. What do you care whether I date or not?"

  "I don't know," Allison said frankly. She contemplated Laura. **There's something about you—something about your eyes—like you're thinking of two things at once and I don't have all your attention. It's like a game, getting to know what you're thinking, getting you to . . . see me. Do you know what I mean?"

  "No," said Laura flatly.

  "I'll bet you do. You're not from around here, are you, like most of the summer help?"

  "I've lived in New York."

  "You stiU Uve in New York?"

  "Yes."

  "So what do you do m New York?"

  Laura tossed her head. "I go out with five university guys. A couple of them are just friends but the other ones I see a lot, and on weekends I pick one or the other
of them and we go to their apartment and screw. Sometimes I'm with two of them at once. Is there anything else you want to know?"

  Allison tried to stare her down but Laura stared back. Prying bitch. Who says everybody dates? What do you know about it? "Do you have a good time?" Allison asked curiously.

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  Her voice had changed again—not quite believing Laura, but not quite sure.

  Confused, Laura was silent.

  "I don't," Allison said. "I've been with three, no four, guys, one at a time, I'm not gutsy enough for two at once, and I don't much like it. I tell myself I should because everybody else does—or at least they say they do—but, I don't know, all the boys seem so damn young. If you have college guys, you're lucky. They're probably better. The ones I know can't talk. All they want to do is get in your pants, and as soon as they get a finger in they think they've got it made and they start to babble and slobber and it's all so stupid. I mean, I have a brain, and feelings, but every boy I know treats me like some kind of doll they can play with but don't have to pay much attention to. I think they ought to carry a cantaloupe with a hole in it and whenever they get the urge just stick their cock in and jack off, and then they'd never have to make conversation at all."

  Laura broke into nervous giggles and Allison giggled, too, and then they were laughing as they had when they met. "They're probably scared to talk," Laura said. "They can feel like big men when they screw, but they sound pretty silly when you want them to talk about something serious, and I guess they know that."

  'That's it; you've got it." Allison sighed. "You know that bit about the cantaloupe? I've been thinking that for a long time but I never said it to anybody before. I haven't got anybody to talk to, that's the problem. I mean, everybody from Boston and around here thinks I'm so fucking grown-up and cool, and they all know each other, and with people like that, if you show them you're worried or not happy about something, in an hour everybody knows it and . . . oh, what the hell. It's just that I feel alone a lot of the time. Do you know what I mean?"