He strode from the room, closing the door behind him. Georgina stood staring after him, her face drawn.
"I'm sure he'll approve it," Beth said. "I think he's—”
" 'Nice,' " Georgina quoted, whirling to face her. "My God, Beth, you think everyone's nice."
"That's not true," Beth said quietly, trying not to show her hurt at her friend's sneering tone. "That's not even what I was going to say. I think he's feeling his way. This isn't an easy situation for him."
"It's not easy for me, either." Georgina stepped forward and took Beth's hands in hers. "Oh, Beth, I'm sorry. If I thought of this as just a job, it wouldn't matter as much. There are easier ways to pay my rent and put food in my mouth, you know. But working here at Peabody, well, it means the world to me..."
Looking away, she caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. "Maybe you've forgotten, but Merrill Longyear hired me, and he pretty much gave me my head. I guess he was busy pursuing his other interests." She took a deep breath. "You see, I'm one of those who turned a blind eye. Sure, I knew he had an occasional...relationship on campus, and I didn't like it, but.… Well, dammit, Beth, I'm no Sunday school teacher. These were young women in their twenties, old enough to know the score." She paused. "I didn't know about the photos he'd taken until much later," she added in a low voice. "None of us did. The thing is, I'm not used to being challenged, and I'm scared. I keep thinking about what you said about Donovan driving the money changers out of the temple."
"Oh, Georgina."
"Longyear never laid a hand on me, in case you're wondering." She laughed. "I was going on thirty at the time, and he obviously thought me too long in the tooth. Besides, he was hardly my type."
The two friends exchanged smiles. Beth found herself wondering, as she often did, just who was Georgina's type. A scholarship student recruited from New Haven's large Italian blue-collar population, to hear her tell it she had erupted onto the Peabody campus "fiery as Vesuvius and tough as undercooked scungilli."
Her family, she said, had heaved a collective sigh of relief the day her three brothers dropped her and her scruffy baggage off in front of the freshman dorm. Four years later she emerged from her Peabody chrysalis with the rough edges smoothed off; her bright assertiveness trained but intact.
"For the first time in my life I had been treated like a person, Beth. A person of worth. Sassy little Georgy DeLuca. I could hardly believe it."
Beth realized that sometimes she still couldn't. After graduation, Georgina landed a job doing publicity for a recording company in New York. Her job soon expanded to encompass anything that needed doing, including providing TLC for rising rock stars. "It was like living in Beirut," she had said. "By turns exciting and tragic. Sordid, sometimes... always unreal."
Beth knew Georgina had married the charismatic lead singer of a new group dubbed Phoenix and the Ashes. They had two stormy years together, during which the group's albums raced up the charts, until his final crash on drugs while Georgina was out on the Coast arranging a promotional tour. When she flew back to arrange her husband's funeral, his group had already scattered. "There weren't any ashes left for Phoenix to rise from," she had told Beth.
She returned to the only place she had ever really been happy. She worked hard, and her playing was done discreetly. Once, when Beth and Ralph were having dinner with a Yale-New Haven medical group at a restaurant they rarely frequented, she spotted Georgina seated across the room with a stocky, rather flashy looking older man. Her conservative office garb—skirts below the knee; high necklines—had been exchanged for a low-cut clingy dress in a vibrant shade of red. Her wavy ebony hair, usually confined in a sleek chignon, brushed her shoulders; her dark eyes had been accentuated by liner, and her full lips shone red and moist in the candlelight that threw her cheekbones into dramatic relief. As their heads inclined toward one another in a way that bespoke intimacy, Beth had looked hastily away.
She did not mention her unintended witnessing to Georgina. Their private lives had always been just that, private. But considering Georgina's frequent claim that her three noisily affectionate Siamese cats satisfied her need for companionship, there was little doubt in Beth's mind about the kind of relationship she enjoyed with the dark stranger. Transient? Probably. That seemed to be the fashion these days, although Beth suspected Georgina was faithful for as long as a given liaison lasted. She might jeer at her family's old world ways, but they continued to lurk in her personality, informing her decisions, as much a part of her as the genes that angled her nose and arched her dark eyebrows.
"... Put in a good word for me," Georgina was saying.
"I'm sorry," Beth said, "I was thinking of something else. Good word to whom?"
"When Donovan calls you, tell him what a talented, hard-working person I am."
"What makes you think he's going to call me?" Beth was genuinely curious.
"Beth, dear Beth, you were the only person in the room as far as he was concerned."
Beth's eyes opened wide. She gave her friend an anxious look.
Georgina smiled. "It's okay, Beth. He's not my type."
Beth stiffened like a deer transfixed by oncoming headlights.
Georgina threw up her hands. "I know, I know, you weren't asking, but I'm telling you anyway. To clear the air. Just in case."
"You really are the most exasperating woman," Beth said, laughing. "I've got to run. Call me tonight—no, don't, I've got a hospice board meeting. You can leave a message on the machine, though."
"Okay, but I betcha dollars to chocolate doughnuts he leaves his first."
Beth was searching for her car keys when she heard Karim's voice behind her. Startled, she dropped her purse. Together, they stooped to retrieve her scattered belongings. Wallet, credit card case, datebook, pen and pencil, lipstick, comb, knife...
Karim smiled and raised questioning eyebrows as he balanced the finely made brass and walnut case of Beth's folding knife on his palm. His olive-skinned face was very close. She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. She took the knife from his hand and stood up.
"Handy for cutting roadside wild flowers," she said. "Also useful for tightening screws, opening envelopes, prying corks out of bottles."
He stood up beside her; the movement of his compact frame was easy and assured. "Do you have much occasion for cork-prying while driving?"
"Only when I'm drinking," she answered solemnly, surprising herself. She wasn't given to teasing.
He grinned. "I wanted to ask you—any chance you could have dinner with me tonight? I know it's short notice, but I thought maybe we could discuss—"
"Dad?" The calling voice was demanding.
Over his shoulder, Beth saw a young woman with flaming red hair looking in their direction. "Dad?" she called again, "I've got a seminar at two-thirty." There was complaint in her voice, a scowl on her face.
"In a minute, Amity," Karim called back. "My daughter," he explained. He made no move to introduce them. "I'm taking her to lunch. Now, about dinner—""I'm sorry, but I've got a hospice board meeting tonight.” That's the third time I've said that today, she realized. She felt quite put upon. "Maybe another time?"
"Yes, of course. Another time." He nodded and strode off to join his daughter, who angled a scowl back at Beth as she clutched his arm possessively.
Beth recalled Georgina's prediction. Dollars to chocolate doughnuts. She hadn't said who would get what, but if he called.… Beth opened her car door and slid behind the wheel. Dollars, she decided as she backed smoothly out of the slot, because I really prefer glazed.
Chapter Four
Karim's call came the next morning.
It was Saturday. Dana, whose New Haven apartment was only forty minutes away, had come for breakfast. They shared few traits—a fact long accepted, if still regretted by Beth—but early rising numbered among them.
"I'll make reservations for Saturday the twenty-ninth at the Applegate Inn, then," Beth said.
They had discus
sed the problem of the cancelled birthday celebration, and once Beth had convinced Dana of the impossibility of rescheduling a catered event in the spring of the year, they had decided on the elegantly renovated Applegate Inn in Washington, Connecticut, less than a half hour's drive away.
"Murry hasn't been there yet," Dana said. "I attended a business seminar there last week, and I know she'll love it. It has that upscale country look, like Ralph Lauren and Martha Stewart all rolled into one."
Beth, agreeing that would indeed be just her mother's cup of tea, urged the inclusion of Andy's family."You know how your brother is. It will mean an early dinner, of course—is that all right with you?"
Dana nodded and sighed. "When it comes to his family, Andy lives in a world of illusion. He takes it for granted everyone dotes on his little monsters as much as he and Housa do."
"Hardly monsters, dear," Beth chided. "Besides, family harmony depends on maintaining certain illusions—the appeal of great-grandchildren being one of them. I'm sure we can count on Murry to play along."
Dana looked up over the rim of her porcelain coffee cup. Her blue-eyed gaze was skeptical. "And what role do you envision for the spinster aunt?"
It was then that the phone rang.
Beth, shrugging apologetically, got up to answer it. "Good morning, Karim," she said, smiling into the wall phone's ivory receiver. "No, it's not too early. Yes... yes, I've already saved the date. Hmm-mm? Yes, I'd like that but not, I think, at Polly's." Listening to his response, she laughed and looked away from Dana's upturned face. "There's a nice place in New Milford... Charles' Bistro, on Bank Street. Thursday at 6:30? Fine. I'll be looking forward to it."
Beth hung up the phone. By the time she sat down again her smile had dimmed, but the brightness in her eyes, fueled by the pleasurable anticipation she felt, did not escape her daughter's scrutiny.
"So, Dana, have you come to a decision about the furniture yet?"
"Are you seeing someone, Mother?" Dana asked, ignoring the change of subject.
Beth blinked. "Am I what?"
"I couldn't help overhearing. This person, Karim—"
"Karim Donovan. He's Peabody's acting president. I'm sure you're aware Merrill Longyear—."
"Are you seeing him?" she persisted.
"I've 'seen him' exactly three times. Once as an unwilling house prospect; the second by accident at Polly's, and the third at a meeting in Georgina's office at the college. I've been asked to address the trustees."
Dana raised her eyebrows. You? she seemed to be saying.
"He asked me to dinner to discuss it further," Beth said. "Now then, about the furniture—"
"That business about 'not at Polly's' sounded almost clandestine. Isn't New Milford a bit out of the way?"
"You know what small towns are like, Dana. Anyone seeing us together at Polly's would put one and one together and come up with a hundred. Besides, it's daylight saving time. It's hard to find a prettier evening drive than the route through Southbury and Roxbury to New Milford."
"Is he married?"
Beth took a deep, exasperated breath. "For heaven's sake, Dana! For all I know he keeps a harem. Could we drop it please? Now, about the damn furniture..."
In the end, they decided to put whatever Beth didn't take with her into storage. Dana's taste ran to the sleek, simple lines of Shaker, but although she admitted she didn't want her parents' furniture, she couldn't bear to see it sold to strangers.
"Maybe, when Andy's kids become civilized—if ever—he and Housa will want it." Dana paused. She idly pushed the remaining crumbs of her coffee cake on her plate with one long perfectly manicured finger. "Uh, have you decided, yet what you're going to do?"
The question, Beth suspected, was anything but idle. "Not really. I know I want something smaller, less...formal. I've been thinking about a condominium unit...less to care for, you know, and I'd really like to travel. Your father was always too busy. "
"He had important responsibilities."
"I know that, dear. I was remarking, not criticizing. Of course, everyone else knows exactly what I should do. Including you?" she added lightly.
She's so like Ralph, Beth thought. The fine-boned, pale complexioned face was an ivory miniature of her father's; her blue eyes, set similarly aslant, held the same cool regard. Fine blond hair, crimped to. lend it texture, flowed to her shoulders in pale ribbons. At twenty-eight she still looked like a princess in a fairy tale. It was a look that often led people, men particularly, to think she was soft. No one made that mistake twice.
"Well, I can't help wondering.… Murry's house is really too big for one person. Your living habits are pretty similar, have you ever considered—"
"No, Dana, I haven't."
"But—”
"And I don't intend to, dear. Your grandmother is a very independent person, and I—"
Beth stopped short. And I'm trying to learn how to be one, she had been going to say, but she knew Dana would interpret that, too, as a slur on her adored father. They had been so close. Once, as Beth had been putting on her coat to go to a meeting, she overheard six-year old Dana whispering to her father, "Is she gone yet, Daddy?"
Ralph, asked about it later, had thought it cute and dismissed Beth's injured feelings as silly. "You know how little girls are about their fathers," he chided. She accepted his judgment at the time, but twenty-two years later the memory of those whispered words still hurt.
Beth reached out to pat her daughter's arm. "I know you mean well, dear, but.…" She eyed her speculatively. "You know, I could take the house off the market and you could move in here with me. There's plenty of room, and it wouldn't be a long commute for you..."
Beth's words trailed off as Dana's eyes widened with panic. She laughed. "I rest my case."
Dana frowned, nettled at having been tricked. "That's not fair, Mother. Besides, our situations are quite different."
She knows nothing about me, Beth thought. She rose abruptly and began clearing the plates away, unsettled by her sudden realization that her daughter thought of her solely as a wife, a daughter and a mother.
Dana consulted the gold Rolex her father had given her upon graduation from the Harvard School of Business. "Got to run. I'm meeting a client for lunch."
"On Saturday, Dana? All work and no play—”
"He and his wife have a weekend place at Sachem's Head. He's a good customer, worth giving up a Saturday for. They have a superb cook and a great wine cellar. Work and play, Mom—don't knock it." They exchanged goodbye kisses. "You'd better decide what you want to do pretty soon, Mother. The real estate market always picks up around here come spring. The house could sell when you least expect it. I'd hate to see you end up sleeping in a tent."
"Might be fun. It was you who hated camping, not me, remember?"
Dana grimaced. "It always rained. That last time, in Maine? I swore I'd never play another game of Monopoly my entire life."
"Wait until you have children of your own."
"Don't hold your breath." She opened the door, then turned back. "And don't remind me of my biological clock. it may be ticking, but I don't hear it."
"You don't want to hear it," Beth said softly.
Dana shrugged. "Whatever. It comes to the same thing." She flipped one hand up in an airy wave as she trotted to her car, a sleek silver import with one of those nice-sounding but meaningless names.
Beth lingered on the threshold, staring after her daughter's accelerating car, hugging herself against the May morning chill that held little promise of rising to the sixty-five degrees predicted by the weathercaster. Is she happy? she wondered.
Dana had quickly mastered dressing for success: blonde hair drawn sleekly back and tidily secured; her slim femininity disguised in banker gray, white pleated-front shirts and bow-tied silk scarves. Once her stellar ability was recognized—it didn't take long—she learned to use her gender instead of hiding it, discarding prudent wardrobe restraints in favor of the flowing lines that emphasized h
er physical fragility. Had she learned yet how to give of herself without thought of reward? Could she? Disheartened, Beth preferred not to pursue the notion. Not when so much else demanded her attention.
The next days were busier than usual. The hospice board finalized the arrangements for the annual awards dinner and the library dinner went off as expected: the volunteers were suitably appreciative, and Beth, when pressed, told her fellow board members she would "think about" whether she wished to continue as president. On Tuesday she spent more time than expected locating a radio for Theresa Miller—Radio Shack's Southbury branch didn't have one in stock, necessitating a drive to Waterbury. Wednesday afternoon she flatly refused $1,300,000 in cash for the house offered by a man who, ignoring the realtor's listing, had called her directly. A wisenheimer, her father would have called him, but by the time Karim Donovan arrived to pick her up for dinner on Thursday she was wishing he would call back.
The day had been unseasonably hot for the middle of May. By six-thirty the mercury had dropped no more than a couple of degrees below the high of eighty-four. It was humid and Beth was out of sorts.
"My daughter told me the real estate traffic would pick up as spring wore on, but I sometimes wonder if people aren't using house-looking as a way of avoiding paying the fees charged for those house tours organized to raise funds for charities. Five couples trouped through here today, none of them promising. Each time I had to clear out, but never long enough for the air conditioning to cool my car down. Damn this lock!"
The last was addressed to her front door. Karim gently relieved her of the keys jangling in her fist, clicked the lock shut, and wordlessly dropped the key ring into the purse hanging open on her wrist. Beth looked up into his smiling face. She pushed back the tendrils of hair she sensed clinging to her damp forehead.
"Will you listen to me? Complaining about my car's air conditioning when a third of the world is starving! I'm not usually this petty."
"I know that."
"But I am looking forward to a few hours of escape." She laughed. "Not that New Milford, nice as it is, ranks high on the world list of great escapes."
And Be My Love Page 5
