by Nancy Thayer
“I haven’t told her. Can’t see what good it would do.”
“I never told her about us, either. I suppose you’re right. There’s no reason for her to know. It would only make her unhappy.”
“No reason at all, gorgeous Catherine!” Ned said, and leaning forward, he drew her against him for a long, deep, provocative kiss.
Finally they pulled away from one another.
“Ned!” Catherine said happily, terribly pleased. “You’re a cad!”
“I know. Can’t help it. I do love Ann, and God knows I’ll be faithful to her, but I’ll always be fascinated by you. Good thing we’ve got the ocean between us.”
“And I love Kit.”
“Of course. He’s perfect for you, too. Gives you stability, I can see that.”
“Oh, Ned, Kit is a rock. But privately, between the two of us”—Catherine smiled, unable to find the right words—“it’s heaven,” she finished.
“Then you’re lucky, too,” Ned said. He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the bench. “Come on. Let’s go grace the others with our marvelous presences.”
The night before the wedding the entire group gathered for a formal dinner after the rehearsal at the small village church. Everyone dressed gorgeously, and local girls were brought in to babysit. Champagne was served throughout the elaborate meal of trout, pheasant, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, and fresh raspberries, vivid as jewels, with clotted cream. During dessert, countless toasts were exchanged, and since by then almost everyone was at least tipsy if not smashed, the toasts were fervent, exalted, romantic, even sappy.
Catherine’s father was the last to rise. He spoke for several minutes about the glories of marriage, extolling his own happily married life, and went on to praise his youngest daughter and her superlative taste in men. He finished by saying, “Marjorie and I regret that our wedding present at this point isn’t equal in richness to our joy. But we would like to announce here, now, publicly, that when we inherit the American Everly from my mother, we will give it to you, Ann, our darling daughter, and Ned, our new son, as a wedding gift. Then both Everlys will belong to one family.”
“Oh, Daddy, Mummy, thank you!” Ann cried, bursting clumsily up from her place at the table to hug and kiss her parents.
Ned led the others in jolly shouts of goodwill and clapping. Kit clapped with the others while at the same time meeting Catherine’s astonished eyes.
“Jesus Christ, Dad, thanks a lot!”
Catherine turned to see her brother pushing back his chair, rising. His face was red and white, blotched with anger.
Marjorie put a restraining hand on his arm. In a low voice she said, “Shelly, dear. We plan to leave the Park Avenue apartment and the Vineyard house to you. They’re much more your style than that old white elephant on Long Island.”
Shelly sat back down, placated. “You could have told me before I made a fool of myself,” he grumbled.
“Darling, there just wasn’t time.” Marjorie patted his arm, then looked at Catherine, who was glaring, enraged. “Catherine, don’t make a scene,” she said in a low, silky voice. “You don’t need anything from us. You have everything.”
Before Catherine could speak, Kit leaned forward. “Yes, Marjorie, that’s right. Catherine does have everything,” he said.
Catherine flashed an angry look at Kit, then let her eyes fall to her plate. Voices and laughter rose around her. She worked at staying calm. She sipped her champagne and tasted bile. Stop this, she told herself. You do have everything. Kit’s right. Grow up!
For the rest of the evening and the next day, Ann’s wedding day, Catherine behaved perfectly. All the saints in heaven could have monitored her thoughts and found nothing wrong. But the next day, just before she and her family left Everly to fly back to the States, Ann hugged Catherine warmly. She whispered in Catherine’s ear, “I’m so happy. I forgive you for everything!”
Catherine, smiling sweetly so the others wouldn’t suspect, whispered back in the shell-shaped ear beneath Ann’s golden hair, “You’re a spoiled little pig, and someday I’ll prove it to you!”
Ann drew back, surprised. Catherine stooped to pick up Lily, then turned to walk toward the car. She waved at the Boxworthys, at all of them, including Ann Boxworthy, Ned’s wife and the next mistress of Everly.
* * *
Catherine ranted and railed about her family to Kit for months after Ann’s wedding. Kit responded with patience and good humor, as well as with an almost analytic curiosity. He was an only child, and the ways of sibling rivalry were as bizarre to him as those of some aboriginal tribe. Intellectually, he could understand her sense of being wounded and abandoned, but he could not really comprehend the pain. Still, it hurt him that Catherine felt hurt, and he doubled his efforts to make her happy. Thoughtfully, he instituted a new tradition: each August they left the children with his parents in Maine and went on a trip to study a famous garden, which brought Catherine much solace and delight. The year of Ann’s marriage, Kit softened Catherine’s exile from the British Everly by treating her to a long stay at the Empress Hotel in Victoria and many visits to the Buchart Gardens. The year after that, they went south to see the magnolia gardens in South Carolina. The next year, to Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii. He was increasingly indispensable to Blooms, advising Catherine on legal matters and keeping her informed about current tax twists and international commerce changes that would affect her business.
Buoyed by Kit’s love, busy with Blooms, and overwhelmed by her ceaseless fascination with her growing children, Catherine gradually forgot her feud with Ann. She saw little of Drew and Marjorie, and when she did see them the visits only spurred her to spend more time with Andrew and Lily. She had an office set up in her White River home so that she could work from there while her children were at play school and kindergarten. That worked so well that she spent more and more time at home. Every day that she drove her children to school and picked them up again she considered a triumph of management on her part, a solid expression of her love. She was there for them—to kiss a scraped knee or praise a finger painting or share a joke. They were such golden children, so good, so happy, and as they grew it was as if she were growing all over again herself, this time growing with love.
* * *
In the spring of 1978, Ann sent the news that she was pregnant. That Saturday it rained, and Kit had both children with him at the Museum of Natural History so Catherine could spend the afternoon at Blooms. Catherine sat with Shelly in his office, going over orders and accounts, and when they’d finished with the business she leaned back in her chair and studied her brother.
He was twenty-nine and looked younger, but Sandra had apologetically reported that he was showing up at Blooms drunk more often, that he seemed bored with his work, that he wasn’t keeping up with it. He seemed increasingly dissatisfied and restless; he wouldn’t inherit his parents’ property for years, so he got no immediate joy from that. He was not essential to anyone or anything. He needs connection, Catherine thought.
“Shelly,” she said now, “do you think you’ll ever get married?”
Shelly looked startled, then let out a burst of laughter.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He rose from his chair, crossed to open a secretary, and poured himself a Scotch. “Want one?”
“No, thanks. I’m serious. Don’t you ever think about settling down?”
“Never. And you’d better thank your lucky stars I don’t. Your business would go under if I ever singled one woman out.”
Catherine swallowed her immediate rush of anger. “Do you think so?” she asked, keeping her voice pleasant.
“Yes, ‘I think so,’ ” Shelly said, mimicking her tone, prissing it up a little. This, Catherine knew, was how he got when he’d been drinking, but so far he’d had only a sip of Scotch—although she didn’t know what he’d had for lunch. “Look, Catherine, at least half the contacts Blooms has are ones I’ve made for you. I’m at every party, every dance, every galler
y opening—”
“It’s really a sacrifice for you, I know.” Catherine couldn’t resist the dig.
“No, it’s not a sacrifice, hell, did I say sacrifice? But you should know that I bring in a lot of business for you. Every time some newspaper or magazine runs a photo of me with some society broad at a fancy party, it’s like a free ad for you. Not to mention that I keep your employees happy for you, now that you’ve deserted them all. Especially Carla.”
“I hope you’re not leading little Carla to think you’re serious about her!”
“Give me a break, Catherine.” Shelly rose to pour himself more Scotch.
“Oh, Shelly. I don’t know. This seems wrong, somehow. I never get bored with my business because it’s mine. Also, I really love working with flowers, coming up with new ideas. But what you’re doing—don’t you get bored?”
“Sometimes.”
“Shelly, I have an idea. I’ve often worried about the fact that we don’t have a liaison in Amsterdam. Not that I don’t trust Piet—I’m not saying that at all. But since this importing business started up just when I was having the children, I haven’t been able to set it up to my satisfaction. I haven’t even been there. I mean, if Piet dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn’t know whom to contact over there, or how to check the books. How would you like to go to Amsterdam for a while?”
Shelly grinned. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
* * *
In the late seventies wildflowers became the rage, and Catherine was ready. From Everly’s overflowing gardens she picked goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, maidenhair ferns, honeysuckle, blue globe thistle, and luscious overblown climbing roses, which she gathered in opulent drooping bouquets, stuck in buckets of water in the Blooms van, and drove into the city to sell for hundreds of dollars. The only problem was that she was the one who had to do the actual picking, because she didn’t want to offend Kathryn by sending out one of her employees. Kathryn didn’t mind Catherine planting and plucking in her gardens, but she steadily refused to enter into any routine agreement with Blooms. The one time Catherine had been bold enough to bring Manuel with her to help her lift and carry, Kathryn had refused to come out of the house to meet him, had refused that day to come out even to see Catherine.
Catherine was often frustrated by Kathryn’s peculiarities, and at the same time she was ashamed of herself for wanting to use her grandmother’s home for her own profit. As the months and years went by, it became increasingly difficult to talk with Kathryn. Probably she was not as deaf as she pretended old age had made her, but it was a mask she could hide behind whenever she chose, and she often chose to hide.
On this October afternoon, however, Kathryn was outside, lying on her wicker chaise in the sun, dressed in sweaters and scarves, covered with a plaid wool blanket. Clara was napping in the house. Tea sat cooling on the nearby table, but there were plenty of cakes left for the children. Andrew and Lily were sailing a twig-and-leaf boat back and forth to each other across the lily pond. Catherine sat on a lawn chair, enjoying this moment of peace.
She had come out to Everly to pick great burlap bags of autumn leaves for some Blooms arrangements. Andrew was six now, Lily four, old enough to understand that they had to behave with a modicum of good manners around their ancient great-grandmother. Kathryn seemed to enjoy seeing them. “My dears,” she said. “Come here. Let me hold you. Goodness, your face is as smooth as a rose petal.” She said this to Andrew, who smiled politely enough at Kathryn, then turned away and rolled his eyes and grimaced at Catherine, who winked at him in reply. “You have fairy-tale hair,” Kathryn said to Lily. “Princess hair. You were appropriately named.”
Catherine had taken the children with her into the forest and fields to gather up the leaves. It was a rare autumn day, with warm yet dry air and the sun so low and glowing that light seemed to flare from inside the earth, the trees, the flowers. Grasses burned amber, berries shone like amethysts. I would like to be buried here, Catherine thought. She could imagine her body stretched out under these expansive maples; her spirit would soar up their trunks and out over their outstretched arms into the sky with the ease of smoke up a chimney. Forest creatures would feast on her eyes and entrails, smacking their lips over her, gnawing at her bones with tiny pointed teeth—somehow the image filled her with pleasure.
She thought a lot about death these days, but not morbidly. Anyone with children was forced to face the idea of their own mortality in planning for their children’s future, and of course there was Kathryn, practically dissolving back into the universe before their eyes. Kathryn didn’t seem afraid of death. But then Kathryn remained a mystery. Once Catherine had tried to raise the topic of death: “I’ve thought it would be nice to be cremated and my ashes sprinkled over these gardens,” she said, hoping that Kathryn would tell her what she herself desired. But Kathryn had said only, “That would probably be good for the flowers.”
Several times Kit had suggested to Catherine that she plan an elaborate garden at their White River home, but Catherine found the thought unappealing, though she couldn’t say quite why. Perhaps it was that she didn’t want to impose her own obsession on her children. There were some flowers there, of course, the easy spring and summer bulbs, the democratic phlox and chrysanthemums, and many flowering fruit trees. But most of their land was taken up by the barn, the riding ring, and the pasture for the ponies and horses. The children loved riding, and sledding in the winter, simply running like gypsies all times of the year—and Catherine didn’t want a garden to interfere with all that.
Really, she knew that her heart belonged to Everly, and Kit knew that as well. If Kathryn did leave it to Drew and Marjorie, and thus to Ann, then perhaps Catherine would turn to their White River home, to begin the mammoth undertaking of gardens there. But if Kathryn willed Everly to Catherine … Catherine shifted on her chair. She wouldn’t think ahead. She wouldn’t sit here like a vulture, waiting for her grandmother to die.
“All right, children,” she said, pushing out of her chair and going down to the lily pond. “Let’s get back to work. We need to gather some grasses for my window.”
Chapter 11
New York
November 1988
“Since they’re so expensive, why don’t we put spring flowers in the guest rooms … and in all the rooms!”
Catherine smiled at the beautiful young woman seated across from her. Recognizing her youth and her eagerness to please, Catherine behaved charitably toward her. She would never forget what it was like to be young, confused, needing advice and direction.
But it was not kindness alone that motivated Catherine; it was also good business sense. Wide-eyed, doll-sweet Melody Dewey was the new, second wife of Braden Dewey, president of the Metropolitan Bank of New York, and a long-standing, important customer of Blooms. Braden had been one of Catherine’s first major clients twenty-three years ago when she was just starting out. Now they ran in the same social set. Braden would count on her subtly to educate his new wife—who was a good two decades younger than he—in the ways of dignity and protocol. Any girl named Melody in the Dewey social set would need help, and this girl, as fully pulchritudinous and smooth-skinned as a rubber doll, needed all the help she could get.
“Melody, I think spring flowers in all the rooms would be …” Catherine paused. The words tacky and ostentatious sprang to her lips, but she bit them back. Melody was a nice young woman. Also she now had access to enormous amounts of money, and she was innately smart. Braden wouldn’t have married her otherwise. When she realized how Catherine had helped her, she would come back to Blooms again and again.
Catherine could have made several thousand dollars on this one order for the upcoming visit of Braden Dewey’s former school chum, now the president of a prestigious Ivy League college, and his wife. Instead she steered Melody toward a more moderate course.
“Unnecessary. If you have them on the table for your dinner party, they’ll be a delightful surprise. A sort of e
vent. For the rest of the time, it’s usually best to use seasonal flowers. Flowers provide the appropriate mood and embellishment for each time of the year. This is especially important in the city, where we’re deprived of nature. People like having chrysanthemums and dahlias, or bittersweet berries and wild grape vines around them in the fall, just as we enjoy a wood fire or paisley velvets in the fall more than we would in July.”
Melody listened carefully, soaking it all in. She was so pleasant a pupil that when Catherine finally showed her to the door, she thought about saying, “And Melody, a bit less jewelry would be more effective than flashing it all at once.”
But it was too soon for that suggestion. As an established society florist, Catherine acted as interior decorator, party organizer, trendsetter, educator, therapist, and counselor. When invited to comment, from time to time she also played the role of fashion consultant, but she needed to know Melody better before offering such personal advice.
Besides, this session had already gone far beyond the hour budgeted in her schedule. It was seven o’clock; everyone else had gone home. Kit would be here in only a few minutes; when he’d called from his office earlier today he’d said he had something serious to discuss with her.
Now Catherine said good-bye to Melody and gratefully shut the door. She took a deep breath, kicked off her high heels, and paused to appreciate these few moments of peace.
Just looking at her office refreshed her. She had made it as much like a summer garden as any room on the tenth floor of a gray-stone Park Avenue building could be. The thick carpet was pale grass green. The heavy drapes were patterned in pink roses, lilies as orange as melons, amethyst irises, which swirled together on dark green stems against a creamy chintz background. This material had also been used to cover the long deep sofa and a wing chair where she and Melody had sat together in the far corner of the room, looking at the photographs and sketches and Blooms brochures that were arranged on the square glass coffee table.
