Cakewalk

by Rita Mae Brown

“Well?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “You look like Mother when you do that.”

  “I miss her. I miss them all, but especially Spotts.”

  “I do too. To think I’ll never hear his rattling laugh again. Can it be two years since he was killed?” Stirling shook his head. “I often think I should have gone to France with him.”

  “Stirling, you could not. The government needed you here for the war effort. Don’t torture yourself. Plus you were too old.”

  “I could have found a way around that. After all, Spotts was thirty-six when he shipped over.”

  “He was a commissioned officer. And a West Pointer. I guess you could say it was his calling. If only, well…” She waved her hand slightly as the subject of their brother’s death remained ever painful. “No matter. Done is done. Which brings me to the upcoming wedding. Done is done.”

  Shifting in his seat, Stirling tried to shift the topic. “I hope you haven’t engaged in improvident expenditure on this wedding. It is highly peculiar.”

  “Oh, Stirling, balls. Our entire family is highly peculiar. You just hide it better than the rest of us.”

  His mouth twitched into a smile that was half grimace, and he truly hoped his sister wasn’t going to launch into a critique of his arrangement. “So you say. But you have lived a certain way for thirteen years. We’re accustomed to it.”

  “Margaret is accustomed to it? Stirling, she has come to Runnymede once in the last ten years.”

  “My wife lacks imagination.” Stirling sighed. “She’s been a dutiful wife. I really can’t complain.”

  “Well, I can. She’s too boring to have been born and you didn’t discover that until you were hog-tied. I will never understand why you married her. Yes, she brought a fabulous dowry to the family coffers, but really, you’re like Father. You can look at an apple hanging on the tree and it turns to gold.”

  He smiled. “I wouldn’t go that far. See here, Celeste, as a woman you have much more latitude than I do. You flitted off to Paris, Rome, London, and even Istanbul after graduating from Smith. After Yale I went right to work for Father. Getting married was, um, something a man does before he’s thirty. You just do it.”

  “But why Margaret?”

  “She paid attention to me.”

  “Oh, Stirling.” Her voice dropped to a near baritone. “You, the handsomest man in your class at Yale. Really now.”

  He shifted again in his seat. “The only women I really knew were Mother, you, and our dear sister, Carlotta. Who could measure up? And the girls we met at the dances, lovely things, but…?” He shrugged. “Margaret liked the arts, opera, theater, and we could talk. She liked golf and is still quite good at it. The boring arrived with the children. That’s all she talked about. She’s a good mother, Celeste, you have to admit that, but she’s conventional, judgmental, and I now exist to keep everyone in finery, send the children to the best schools, and write handsome checks to whatever charity Margaret is sponsoring this year. She has no interest in me at all. Nor you.”

  “That’s evident.” Celeste softened when he recounted his marriage.

  They could always talk to one another. No evasions. With the exception of Carlotta, the brothers and one sister could be painfully honest with one another, and Celeste and Spotts had been especially close. But even Carlotta could drop the veil of circumvention if she felt it necessary.

  He rested his hand on the arm of the leather chair. “Life doesn’t turn out as you think, does it?”

  “No. We’re so fortunate in some ways yet savaged in others. The human condition, I suppose. But see here, Stirling, you’ve really got to come to the wedding. For one thing, Curtis will be crushed.” She named their youngest sibling, who, at thirty-seven, was marrying Celeste’s lover. “And Ramelle will be hurt, too. You know how she dotes on you and I truly believe that is one of the reasons Margaret doesn’t visit.”

  He smiled, his perfect silver moustache turning upward. “Ramelle, and that laugh. Like music. I don’t know why but I pay attention to the manner of someone’s laughter. Ramelle’s is utterly adorable.”

  “Yes.”

  “Celeste, you’re putting a good face on this but it is highly irregular. Our youngest brother has gotten your longtime partner in a family way. It’s”—he thought—“disruptive.”

  She took a deep breath. “Stirling, that is the first time you’ve called Ramelle my partner. Usually you say ‘friend.’ ”

  “One is never sure of the terms, but if anyone asked I always said that you two were devoted friends. Some perfect ass would push and try to get me to say it was a Boston marriage, but…” He shook his head. “I understand why you would want her, I do, but sometimes these arrangements are hard to fathom.”

  “It’s hard for me to fathom.”

  “Oh, Celeste, you never once tried to do the expected thing. You didn’t look twice at all those beaux flinging themselves at you.”

  She exhaled through her nose. “I did not. Truthfully, I liked the men I rode with in the hunt field best, but Mother did not find riding ability a suitable attribute for my husband.” She looked straight into his eyes. “The truth? The raw truth. I love Curtis. I love Ramelle. That doesn’t mean I like them sleeping together but I’ve come to accept it. I can understand it. Some of this gets back to Spotts.”

  “Was Ramelle also sleeping with Spotts?”

  She laughed. “No! But Curtis is the same age as Spotts when he was killed. Yes, he’s enjoyed his dalliances in Los Angeles, but Spotts’s death changed him. Changed all of us. And Ramelle fell in love with him. How can a woman not fall in love with him? She’s wanted to be a mother and so she will have his child—our niece or nephew.”

  “Has Carlotta responded to the wedding invitation?”

  “Not yet but I feel certain a lengthy sermon, either on paper or in person, will accompany the response.”

  “Better than her erecting a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mother in your front yard.” He laughed, a true deep laugh.

  She joined him. “Oh, Stirling, how did we come to this pass? You forty-nine and me forty-three? God only knows what will happen next.”

  “Not just in our lives but the world. It’s an unsettled time, Twink. The end of kings, caliphs, and czars. The end of a lot of things but then I know it’s a beginning, too. I try to keep an open mind, but I’m not sure exactly what is beginning.”

  “You’re sure Margaret won’t come?”

  He nodded. They remained silent for a time.

  Celeste then said, “Bring Olivia.”

  He sat bolt upright. “Celeste, I can’t do that. I have to keep to the proprieties.”

  “Oh, Stirling, all you fellows have mistresses.”

  “I concede that most of us do and we do, because, in plain words, our wives don’t take us to their bed. Or if they do, it seems such a chore. Mistresses we have but we don’t parade them. Not if we have any sense.”

  “A gentleman’s agreement?”

  “Quite.”

  “I have a way. If she will agree to it, Olivia can sing in the church.”

  Olivia Goldoni sang opera, could speak four languages, but lived simply. In contrast to her peers she eschewed most jewelry except for one lovely ring and one necklace, a cross of diamonds. She had sung with the greats of her generation, including Enrico Caruso, who had been born in 1873, the same year as Carlotta. Olivia, twenty-eight, was the child of New York City immigrants and had a wealth of common sense. And she did love Stirling, who treated her with affection and respect.

  He considered this. “I will ask her.”

  “Imagine that angelic voice in St. Paul’s? A glorious setting for what we hope will be a successful marriage. And I will tend to Olivia, see that she meets everyone. Appearances will be kept.”

  “I— Let’s try it. She is so good to me.” He seemed genuinely relieved and grateful.

  “I assume you’ve taken care of her.”

  “She asks for nothing. I bought her a bro
wnstone on Federal Hill. She travels to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, wherever there’s an opera she’s been hired to sing, but she comes back and she asks for nothing. I have given her two hundred fifty thousand dollars in railroad stock and the same in cash. She is a most unusual woman. She throws her arms around me the minute we’re alone and tells me she can’t live without me.”

  “Wonderful feeling. You’ve been generous and more than responsible. I’ve spent a lot on Ramelle, but I suppose you know that better than anyone, being in charge of the family fortune plus reviewing our personal finances, but she pays it back in her fashion, running the house, planning social events. She keeps me focused, and she is never adverse to sharing a bed.”

  “Even now?”

  “Yes.”

  Stirling found this surprising and titillating. “Does Curtis know?”

  “He doesn’t ask but surely he does.”

  Stirling settled deeper in his chair. “We Chalfontes do things in a big way.”

  Celeste laughed. “We do. Even Carlotta, who gives me fits, does things in a big way. She’s not just a religious nut, she’s an incendiary religious nut.”

  “Praying for you and me and Curtis at this very moment. She’s ferreted out that I have a mistress and is suffering deep—Marianas Trench deep—shock.”

  They laughed as conspirators. “The only thing left for Carlotta is to experience a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mother.”

  Little did Celeste or Stirling know, their sister was working very hard to get on intimate terms with the Virgin Mary.

  Whoosh, clink.

  Louise opened the pneumatic tube at the end, pulled out the eight-inch canister, opened it, and gave the change and receipt for the lovely magenta sweater to her customer, Mabel Frost, an attractive woman in her early twenties. “Mrs. Frost, you look wonderful in that color. Just brings out the peaches and cream of your complexion.”

  “Oh, I hope so, Louise. Winter just washes me out.” She leaned forward, taking her wrapped purchase.

  Louise lowered her voice conspiratorially. “And so many of the ladies put on too much makeup. You don’t make that mistake. It’s why you look so fresh even in winter.”

  Louise had to tread carefully since Big Dimps sold cosmetics.

  Beaming, Mabel replied, “Thank you, Louise. Remember me to your mother.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Louise liked working at the Bon Ton. In her two years there, her record, quite good, demonstrated her ability to talk to customers. Owner Asa Grumbacher had noticed. He also noticed that Louise got along with the other girls. She even managed to stay on the good side of Sidney Yost, the floorwalker, who lived to find fault.

  The same names appeared generation after generation in Runnymede: Yost, Grumbacher, Frost, Anson, Cadwalder, McGrail, Wheeler, Nordness, Rhodes, Rendell, Dexter, Frothingham, Tedia, Constantino, Most, and Wilcox. Though new names also appeared—a Japanese family, the Mojos, had moved in a few years ago—for the most part, the names of the town’s wealthy remained firmly English, with a few Scots and plenty of German names. Chalfonte, Creighton, Thatcher, Rife, Spangler, Finster, and Falkenroth were the main ones, but people formerly of what the upper crust called the middling orders were beginning to make good money. Harvey Moon, for one, had developed a fog light for automobiles. His factory was humming. Of course, as in every American town north, south, east, and west, Browns, Smiths, Jones, Martins, and Carters abounded.

  Mostly, whomever you met, except for the Mojos, was related to someone else. Fortunately, everyone pretty much knew everyone else, but one had to teach newcomers who was who before they insulted an old Runnymede citizen’s beloved but slightly potty aunt.

  The other odd thing about this small town perched on the Mason-Dixon Line was that people might leave, but they most always came back. Thrilling as New York City or faraway San Francisco was, eventually one longed for the square, or the special celebrations like Magna Carta Day in June. A person might even begin to miss the mad musings of poor Patience Horney at the train station, who would go on and on about how the space people who lived on Saturn’s rings loathed the tiny pink people who lived on Mars. The Saturnians had told her so.

  Since the middle of the seventeenth century, generation after generation had built this town, farmed the fields around it, loved the four distinct seasons, the coming of the robins, the honking of the Canada geese flying south in the fall and the sunsets, each one different from ones before and each one spellbinding.

  Yes, they bickered over which side of town was founded first, but only a few passionate local historians cared. For the rest, it was an excuse to fuss. Few could resist that.

  Those on the Maryland side paid scant homage to Annapolis, an astonishingly beautiful town but the state capital with all that entails. Baltimore exerted greater pull.

  For the Pennsylvanians, Philadelphia was the cultural center, the lodestar. Harrisburg, the state capital, was visited only in extremis, and Pittsburgh! Surely you jest. Pittsburgh might as well be in Ohio, and the hell with it.

  Celeste would laugh at that. Friends with the Mellons, Mr. Carnegie, and the food fellow, Heinz, she found Pittsburgh rather exciting. After all, Lillian Russell hailed from Pittsburgh, and Celeste knew the beauty and her Diamond Jim Brady quite well. Too well perhaps. They had met in Saratoga in the summers when Celeste was in her twenties. Even though Celeste would bring her adored Ramelle, she found ways to keep her occupied while she disappeared with Lillian or Jim. Or maybe just Lillian, who radiated eroticism to an intense degree.

  Now that Ramelle was pregnant and about to marry, Cora, and even the girls, felt the pot was on the stove and sooner or later would come to a boil. Celeste, generous, kind in her fashion, was also a bit spoiled. She was not averse to affection.

  A shadow of this crossed over Louise’s face when the elegant beauty entered her department.

  “Mrs. Chalfonte, how good to see you. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in the Bon Ton. Mr. Grumbacher will be happy.”

  The older woman smiled. “Your mother tells me you’re doing very well here.”

  “I am. All the clothes, the seasons, the buyers going to New York.” Her eyes widened. “It’s so exciting.”

  “That it is.”

  “Can I interest you in something?” Louise was on duty, after all.

  “Yes, you can. My sister Carlotta’s birthday is in March. I usually get her something from Paris but I ran into Big Dimps yesterday. She wore the most becoming coat which she had bought here. She told me about her employee discount as well.”

  “I know the coat. That’s Georgina’s department. I’ll walk you over.”

  “Thank you, don’t leave your department. Just discreetly point.” She paused. “My sister will be at the wedding. That was like negotiations between France and Germany.” Celeste halted that train of thought because Louise was devoted to her sister, the headmistress of Immaculata Academy. “I need your help.”

  “Me?” Louise was surprised.

  “You are one of Carlotta’s most successful graduates and you two…how to say this? You two seem quite attuned on religious matters.”

  “Yes.”

  “She disapproves of my brother and Ramelle getting married. Could you find a way to occupy her, so she doesn’t make a scene and spoil a special day? That’s a lot to ask, Wheezie, I know, but you are one of the few people who can handle Carlotta. God knows Herbert can’t.” She named her sister’s husband.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good girl.” Celeste squeezed her shoulder, then left for the coat department.

  Asa, who could look down into the main floor of the store from his office, beheld the exchange. Hurriedly he trotted down the stairs to Louise’s department. Every clerk watched, shoulders back. Sidney Yost pasted on a smile and moved closer to Louise’s department, hoping to hear a tidbit. As Sidney was a war vet, the girls put up with him but they didn’t like him. However, all felt that one should try to get along with any
veteran.

  Asa noticed his snooping. “Sidney, I have business with Louise. Not you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Grumbacher.”

  “Louise.”

  “Yes, Mr. Grumbacher.”

  “How did you get Miss Chalfonte into the store? I’ve been trying for years and she waves me off saying she buys her clothes in Paris or Milan.”

  Quick on her feet, Louise replied, “She saw Big Dimps Rhodes wearing that polo coat, the winter one in navy-blue cut for a woman. She thought it might make a suitable gift for her sister and be far more reasonable than the cost of something from overseas.”

  He smiled at her. “Good work. Good work.”

  Sidney didn’t hear the exchange, but it was obvious Asa was pleased. The owner paid attention to young, pretty Louise, but he, Sidney, kept the place running and stopped thievery before it happened.

  Noting the odd quiet among the staff, Celeste turned to see Asa talking to Louise. She’d picked out the coat, paid for it, and swept by the stocky man. “Asa Grumbacher, you do know how to run a business.”

  Floored, he found his voice. “You’re too kind.”

  “I’ve been foolish thinking only the French and the Italians know fashion. You have some lovely things right here.” She leaned toward him, her eyes hypnotizing him. “If you would be so kind as to send fabrics to me with Louise from time to time, I would be most grateful.”

  “Of course, Miss Chalfonte, of course.” He smiled expansively.

  Celeste nodded to him then left. Asa looked at Louise, the grin plastered on his face.

  Louise, grateful to her mother’s boss and to the woman she’d known since her cradle days, said in a low voice, “You do know how to run a business, Mr. Grumbacher.”

  Beaming, thrilled, blissful, Asa Grumbacher climbed the stairs as though a Roman general celebrating a triumph.

  —

  At six that evening, Louise left the store. Standing outside, scarf wrapped around his neck, lad’s cap securely on his thick black hair, Paul Trumbull tipped his hat.

  “Hello. You could have come inside.”

  He offered Louise his arm. “I don’t mind the cold. People don’t like people in stores who aren’t buying stuff.”