“What about Susanne and Mark?” They certainly fell into that category.
“It’s different with them. They’re family. You would know, if you were closer to yours.”
Olivia felt lower than low. Natalie was sharing private things, giving honest answers even when they didn’t paint her in the best light—yet twice now, Olivia had told lies about her own situation. Suddenly that seemed very wrong.
“The truth,” Olivia said quietly, “is that I would know, if I had family at all. It’s only my mother and me. I wanted there to be a father. I wanted there to be brothers, even just one. But there aren’t.”
Natalie’s features softened. Where there might have been anger at having been deceived, there was only compassion. “Do you see her often?”
Olivia shook her head.
“Do you see her at all?”
Olivia paused. She could tell a last little lie, just to put herself in a more lovable light. But she was tired of lying to Natalie—tired of lying to herself. Again, she shook her head.
“Where is she?” Natalie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I can find out. I can put an investigator on it. People don’t disappear from the face of the earth without leaving a clue.”
“No, don’t do that,” Olivia said quickly. “I don’t think she wants to be found. I was a difficult child. I tied her down for years. She deserves her freedom.”
“But you want a mother, and you want a grandmother for Tess.”
“Not an unwilling one. What if we found her, and she resented it? That would be worse.”
“Ah,” Natalie said with a gentle smile. “It’s a matter of weighing and balancing. You’re ready to let her go, because knowing for sure may be worse than not knowing. The truth may be more painful than living without. Now you know what I felt. I was willing to pack up my love for Carl and put it in storage, because looking at it each day would have killed me.”
“But you did have to look at him each day. He was right here after the war. How could you help but think about all you’d given up?”
“What good would it have done?” Natalie cried with greater feeling. “I could have thought about it night and day, and nothing would have changed. Besides, I didn’t have the time to think about it night and day. It wasn’t like I was sitting in a hayloft all day drooling at the sight of the man that I had always thought I would marry. I had two children, a catatonic father, a house to clean, cooking to do, and a business to run. Try to find the romance in that, Olivia Jones. Morning to night, I was busy. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. That didn’t mean I didn’t think about what I had lost. Of course I did. I’m human.” She rose from the chair and strode to the far side of the patio, where she stood with her hands on her nape and her back to Olivia.
Olivia followed, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed like that.”
“It’s not your pushing that I mind. It’s your condemnation.”
“Oh, no, I’m not doing that. How could I? You didn’t condemn me when I lied about my family. How could I condemn you now?”
“Well, I condemn me,” Natalie said. When she turned her head, there were tears in her eyes. “I condemn me. I betrayed Carl. I gave up something so beautiful that it takes my breath away even now. For what it’s worth, I suffered. I suffered in ways that no one will ever know.”
She stopped and brushed at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. It appeared suddenly wrinkled and shaky, a hand that showed its age.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia whispered.
“Oh, don’t be,” Natalie muttered, bracing that hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “You’re doing what I hired you to do. I don’t like to talk about suffering. I don’t feel that I deserve anyone’s sympathy. The problem is that my children think my life has been a walk in the park.”
“Wasn’t it better once your husband got back?” Olivia asked.
Natalie gave her a look. “That was when, excuse my French, the shit hit the fan.”
Seventeen
OLIVIA DIDN’T WANT TO SEE SIMON. She didn’t know how to deal with what she felt. It was raw physical attraction with no emotional link, and it was totally wrong at this time in her life. But Natalie was right—a woman’s mind wasn’t always in sync with her body.
Actually, Natalie’s analogy had to do with a woman’s mind and her heart, but the result was the same. Olivia didn’t trust herself. For the next few mornings, she stayed in bed until Tess came through the bathroom door with a cat or two in tow. By then, Simon was long gone from the patio.
Did she think about him?
She shouldn’t have had time. When she wasn’t on the phone in the loft, she was writing, staring at the computer screen, reading what she’d written, changing it all around. She talked the story aloud and typed as she talked in an attempt to make things flow, but flow was only part of it. Words could mean one thing in one context and another in another. She had to convey just the right feeling at each turn.
Natalie was correct. Olivia had no right to be judgmental, but the opposite was just as bad. If she sugar-coated the story, it would lose authenticity.
The key was to find a happy medium. To that end, she wrote, rewrote, and rewrote yet again. She worked in the loft after Tess was in bed, and kept a pad by her own bed to jot down thoughts that came to her through the night.
Did she think about Simon? Of course, she did. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t? She might even have been seduced into doing something about it if he had showed any inclination. But he was as absent as ever. That made it easier to push him from her mind.
The chaos in the house also helped. One maid had been fired and another hired, which meant that a new person was in need of training—all of which would have been easier had Madalena been there to do it, but she and Joaquin were long gone. In their absence, the kitchen had become disorganized. Natalie was interviewing possible replacements, but she hadn’t yet met one who appealed to her. In the meanwhile, it was catch-as-catch-can. They ate dinner out. They brought lunch in. Breakfast was strictly help-yourself; at least, it was supposd to be, but Olivia liked breakfast. It was the only meal she was any good at making. So one day she whipped up a batch of pancakes; the next, omelettes; the next, French toast. She sliced a mean banana on cereal and brewed a full-bodied pot of coffee. She was having a grand time of it, until Jill came down the fourth morning wanting nothing but tea and toast.
Olivia’s first thought was that something she had cooked hadn’t gone down the right way. Her second thought was more intuitive. “Oh dear. You must have talked with Greg.”
Jill smiled curiously. “How did you guess?”
“You’re lookin’ a mite pale.”
It was actually an understatement. Jill’s skin was nearly as colorless as the white robe she wore. Her blonde hair was limp, pushed behind her ears in a way that said she didn’t have the strength to do anything more to it.
“Greg can be difficult,” she said, dropping a tea bag into a mug. She filled the mug with water and put it in the microwave oven.
“Is he upset that you’re here?”
“Oh, no. He likes my being here. If I’m here, he doesn’t have to be.” She set the time and started the microwave. “I wish he would come. I haven’t seen him in over a month. It feels like a separation.”
“Is it?” Olivia asked, venturing deeper into the personal than she had done before with Jill, but she wanted to think that they were friends.
Jill must have agreed, because she answered without pause. “Not … formally. I spent some time with my mom. I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to give Greg a scare. Well, he does want me back in Washington with him.” She opened the refrigerator. “But we need to talk about some heavy stuff first. I’m afraid that if I go back, we’ll fall into the old routine.” She took out a loaf of raisin bread and put a slice in the toaster.
“Is he willing to talk?”
“He says so.” Leaning against the c
ounter, she folded her arms. “The thing is, his definition of talk is different from mine. He has trouble with anything deep.”
“Maybe it’s a Seebring trait,” Olivia mused, thinking of Natalie. “It’s hard to talk about some things.”
“Hard to talk about them?” The microwave beeped. “Try, hard to think about them,” Jill said as she took out the mug and began dunking the bag. “Like father, like son. Alexander wasn’t a deep thinker.”
“Natalie is. She just doesn’t like sharing those thoughts.”
Dropping the tea bag into the disposal, Jill grasped the mug. Her eyes met Olivia’s over the rim. “Is she really in love with Carl?”
“Has been since she was five,” Olivia said. Natalie had given her permission to talk freely with Jill. She had actually seemed eager for it.
“Really?” Jill asked, sounding totally surprised.
“Truly.”
“That’s so interesting.” She frowned. “It puts things in a new light. Raises a whole lot of other questions. Like about fidelity.”
“Natalie was faithful to Alexander,” Olivia said. She didn’t know that for sure, of course. She hadn’t ever asked, and Natalie hadn’t put anything on the record, but she believed that a woman should be innocent until proven guilty.
“All those years?” Jill asked. Her toast popped up. “Loving someone else?” She pulled it from the toaster.
“Was he faithful to her?”
Jill nibbled on a corner of the toast. “I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Between you and me?” She lowered her voice. “No. I think he had a little someone on the side. He loved to talk, loved to travel, loved being the center of attention. He spent more time down in our area than he ever needed to. I think he had a woman in the District.”
Olivia was deeply offended. “What was wrong with his wife?”
“If you were to ask his kids, they would say she wasn’t interesting enough. They would say she spent too much of her life here in Rhode Island. They would say she was too parochial.”
“She’s an unbelievable woman,” Olivia argued.
“You and I can see that, but we’re not Seebrings. Amazing how family dynamics cause blindness. Susanne and Greg don’t see what we do. Their own needs shape their vision. They wanted to be doted upon growing up, but Natalie was always busy. Susanne used to come here with her kids and expect Natalie to baby-sit, but she didn’t have the time.
“The irony is that she did dote on Alexander. She satisfied all his little needs, and after all that, he just put her down. So much the better it if he did it in front of other people. He’d say things like, ‘Don’t those napkins look wonderful? Folding napkins is Natalie’s specialty.’ Hey”—Jill gestured with the toast in her hand—“I’m not putting down folding napkins, but Natalie does a lot more than that around here. Whenever I’m in for more than a weekend, she puts me to work, and it’s not planning a party, it’s doing PR for a multi-million-dollar business. The amazing thing is that when I’m not here, she does it herself.”
“All of it?” Olivia asked. She knew that Natalie had her finger in more than one pie. Monitoring her telephone calls for a day made that clear. But running the entire show was something else.
Jill didn’t quite answer. “Alexander put her down because he couldn’t accept the fact that she’s a capable woman. That threatened him. So he left Natalie here to see to the day-to-day running of things, billed himself as the face of Asquonset, and went off on the road like a hero. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if along the way he found someone nonthreatening to build his ego a little.” Her eyes grew pained. “Why is it that men have trouble with strong women? Are their egos that fragile? My husband is wary discussing substantive things with me, and that goes for political issues as well as things like love and responsibility. He always said he was talked out from work, and for the longest time I believed him. But it’s an excuse. The truth is that he’s threatened by my opinions. He doesn’t want to think that they may be different from his, because there could be a chance that I’m right.”
Olivia was fascinated. She hadn’t counted on learning so much.
And Jill wasn’t done. “I’m thirty-eight years old. Up until the time I married Greg, I always worked, but he didn’t want me doing that, and I thought it was really sweet. Then I realized that it was a power thing. He was worried I might actually have a successful career. He’s the man. He’s the breadwinner. He’s supposed to be right. He’s supposed to lead. That’s what his father did.” She looked suddenly stricken. “So, does Greg have a little someone on the side who builds his ego while he’s on the road?”
“Does he?” Olivia asked, ready to condemn the man in no uncertain terms if it was so.
Jill shot a glance skyward. “God, I hope not.” In the next instant she blew out a breath, put a hand to her throat, and swore softly. Closing her eyes, she inhaled through her nose. She swallowed once, then again. Her complexion seemed to go from pale to green.
Olivia went to her side. “Are you all right?”
It was a minute and a few more swallows before Jill opened her eyes and gave a wan smile. “That depends on what you call all right. If being pregnant by your insensitive, unknowing, beloved but estranged husband is okay, then I’m all right.”
Olivia’s eye went wide. “Pregnant. And he doesn’t know?”
“Neither does Natalie. I’d like to keep it that way for now.”
Delighted to be Jill’s confidante, Olivia moved two fingers over her mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
SIMON WANTED TO SEE OLIVIA. He didn’t want to talk with her, didn’t even want to kiss her again. Well, actually, he did. But that was secondary. For now, he just wanted to see her. He wanted to look at her. He wanted to know if she was refreshingly different or … just … odd.
When she didn’t show in the window for three mornings running, when she wasn’t sitting on the patio at dawn or wandering through the vineyard, not even once during any of those following days, he realized that she was avoiding him.
Not so Tess. He would be hand-leafing on his knees in the dirt, or riding the hedger with his work gloves on and a sharp eye on the vines, and suddenly there she would be, out of nowhere, a little ghost child watching him work.
He didn’t have time to play. Without Paolo, he had to cover extra ground himself, and the weather didn’t help. Thanks to the lack of sun, he had to do added hedging to control every last lateral shoot. Thanks to the rain, he had to aerate the cover crops yet again. He wanted to do an extra round of fertilization, and more spraying, but the dampness lingered. And there was always leaf pulling, vine by vine, row by row, block by block. He was too busy to interview replacements, much less train one.
But there was Tess, watching him with her glasses at half-mast.
Glasses at half-mast. His mother used to say that when he was a kid. He wore contacts now. But he remembered those days.
He remembered something else about his mother. She hated dogs. They’d had a yellow Lab once. It was supposed to be man’s best friend, but it hung around his mother. None of them knew why. She didn’t feed him or brush him or bathe him. She didn’t even pet him. But the more she shooed him away, the closer he crept. She finally gave up and let him follow her around. He lost interest after a while.
Simon wondered if the same might happen with Tess. He was up on the hedger when he saw her next. Putting the machine into neutral, he gestured her over. She shook her head and ran off.
But she was back the next day. Buck seemed to like her. He sat beside her, staring up at her while she stared at Simon.
Simon wasn’t on a machine this time, but on his own two feet. “You can come closer,” he called. “I won’t bite.”
“My mother said I shouldn’t,” she called back.
His guess was that Olivia had told the child not to go anywhere near him, meaning that she shouldn’t be in the field where he worked at all. He guessed that she wouldn’t be ha
ppy if she knew Tess was there. She would worry that he would hurt the child again.
He wouldn’t. He still felt bad about the first time.
He was about to say that he wanted to show Tess what he was doing when she vanished.
It did occur to him that teaching the child something about the vines would lure the mother. But Tess came only so close, and what could he say to Olivia? Come see my grapes? Isn’t this a neat hedger? Want to hold a grub?
He wasn’t good at opening lines. He hadn’t needed one with Laura. They had met at Cornell, and she had been intrigued with his work from the start. Before Laura, girls had just … been there. He hadn’t needed any opening lines.
To a city girl like Olivia, his work would be boring as hell. Chores might change with the seasons, but it was a constant grind day after day, year after year. The beauty of it, to him, was that the routine was never the same. Bud break never occurred on the same date two years in a row. Waiting for it, watching for it, feeling the excitement when the vines suddenly burst into the palest of pale greens was … incredible. Same the critical few days when the buds burst into bloom. That was actually a little more hairy. He remembered seasons when they had lost an entire block of grapes because wind and cold had destroyed the petals before self-pollination could take place. A vintage was a precious thing, dependent on variables like the weather, the age of a particular vine, the size of the Japanese beetle population. Viticultural practices were changing so quickly that he was always trying out something new, but the overall picture stayed the same. He loved seeing the grapes grow and ripen, and never failed to feel a rush when the balance of sugar and acid was right and he made the decision to harvest the crop.
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