“Okay, I guess what I should have said is I’ve decided to stay in Hideaway.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Yes.”
“And keep the cottage?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
“And what am I supposed to tell my clients? I told them we should be able to break ground sometime in October.”
“Your . . . I’m sorry, what?”
“They’re expecting to be in the new house by summer.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“I can’t build the house if you’re living in the cottage, Lily.”
Suddenly, with a sickening jolt, Lily understood. “The plans you were working on for the Newmans were for a house you planned to build after you knock down the cottage?”
There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. “Lily, we talked about this this morning before I left.”
“No, we most certainly did not. I told you when I got here that I’d let you know when and if I was ready to sell the cottage, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t had that discussion yet.”
“Except, we did have it. You said why put off the inevitable. You said you were okay with it. Do you not remember saying those things?”
Oh God.
“I didn’t know . . . I thought we were talking about something else.”
“What the hell else could we have been talking about?”
“I thought you were telling me it was time we went our separate ways.”
“Time to go our separate ways,” he repeated drily. “And you were okay with that?”
“More okay than with you selling my aunt’s cottage out from under me. All the number crunching you’ve been doing, the house and land package—it all hinged on you getting the cottage. And you just assumed that since we were—”
“It did seem like a reasonable assumption to make with you leaving, Lily. We even talked about it. But what you’re saying—what you’re thinking—that isn’t what happened.”
“Did you not just tell me you planned to break ground in October?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then that’s exactly what happened. All this time, while we’ve been—you were working an angle.”
“The two things aren’t related, Lily. And it’s a little late to act all broken up, don’t you think? This morning you were apparently ready to walk away without batting an eye. You thought I came to dump you an hour before getting on a plane, and all you had to say was you were okay with it. You’re not allowed to act like the injured party. Forget about the cottage. I’ll find them another property.”
And just like that the line was dead.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Lily was worn-out by the time she got back to the cottage. She had spent the last three days huddled with Sheila in Sassy Rack’s overcrowded stockroom, fleshing out an operating budget for the new line and dodging an endless stream of questions about what had happened between her and Dean. Aside from the third degree, it had been a surprisingly pleasant afternoon, and Sheila had been absolutely thrilled when Lily suggested they donate a portion of the proceeds from the new line to breast cancer awareness.
She didn’t know when the idea had popped into her head, only that she was glad it had. She liked knowing they’d be helping women while they were chasing down their own dream, even if that dream might seem small to others. After Paris, it seemed silly to be excited about designing for a fledgling private label. It wasn’t chic or couture. It wasn’t going to land her name in any glossy magazines, or on the runways of New York. And she was fine with that.
She had placed the call to Dario the minute she hung up with Dean, explaining that she was very sorry, but for personal reasons, she was going to have to pass on the job. She had needed to close the door, firmly and finally, just in case she got the urge to run again.
She hadn’t.
Dropping her purse on the desk chair, she kicked off her sandals. She was contemplating a walk, perhaps even a swim, when a knock sounded on the front door. Her heart skittered briefly, before she remembered that Dean always came up the back stairs. The knock sounded again as she padded to the foyer, more insistent this time. Was it Girl Scout cookie season again? Summoning her best polite smile, she pulled back the door and stood staring at the overnight bag clutched in Caroline St. Claire’s perfectly manicured hands.
“Hello, Lily.”
“Mother,” she managed finally. “How did you . . . What are you doing here?”
“You’ve been calling day and night for weeks. I thought it was time we got this over with.”
“All you had to do was pick up the phone. I never asked you to come.”
“I know, but I’m here. Are you going to let me in?”
Lily said nothing as she stepped aside, too stunned for rational conversation. Caroline’s first step into the foyer was a tentative one, as if she were stepping into a boat that was taking on water.
“I had to come,” she said, almost to herself. “I had to see it for myself.”
“Had to see what?”
“Her cottage.”
There was a weariness in her tone that was altogether new, something that might almost have been mistaken for defeat. She was also noticeably thinner than she’d been five weeks ago, her perfectly tailored clothes loose now, hanging slightly askew at the shoulders and sleeves. Even her face was different, her cheekbones sharper, her skin sallow and lined beneath the careful layers of her Chanel powder.
“You don’t look well,” Lily said, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “Have you been ill?”
Caroline’s head came around slowly. “Ill?”
“You’ve lost weight. And you’re pale.”
“Yes,” she answered, letting the overnight bag slide to the floor with a thump. “Yes, I suppose I am. My sister’s dead. Your father’s dead. How far behind can I be?”
Lily was about to say something snide when she took another look at her mother’s face, at the hollowed cheeks and shadowed, almost feverish eyes. How was it possible she had changed so much in only a few short weeks?
Caroline continued her tour as if in a daze, meandering slowly from room to room, halting at last to peer through the doorway of Lily-Mae’s bedroom. Lily couldn’t help wondering what was going through her mother’s mind as she stared at the bed where her husband and sister had first loved and laughed and slept.
“What’s going on, Mother?”
Caroline turned briskly, sweeping past Lily without a word. Back in the living room, she stood with her back turned, staring out at the sea. After a few moments she turned, her eyes shiny with tears.
“You wanted answers, Lily. I’ve come to give them to you.”
It was all Lily could do not to roll her eyes. The response had been so laced with foreboding, so ominously and tremulously delivered, that she was tempted to chalk it up to her mother’s penchant for drama, but the tears shimmering in her eyes told a different story. Caroline St. Claire did not cry.
“Why now?” Lily asked almost warily. “After all the evasion and unanswered phone calls, why did you decide to show up unannounced on my doorstep?”
Caroline sighed as she looked away. “Because I knew you weren’t going to stop asking, and that one day, with or without me, you’d find out what you wanted to know. It’s how you’ve always been, even as a little girl. So I decided I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“It’s a little late for that, but you’re right. I did find out what I wanted to know. Some of it at least. And I found it without your help.”
Caroline’s chin lifted sharply. “What is it you think you know?”
“Beyond Mt. Zion, and Zell, and all of that horror? I know Lily-Mae and Daddy were married before you ever met him, that they met in Palm Beach and fell in love in this cottage.”
Caroline stood very still,
pale as marble in the warm pool of sunshine streaming in through the sliding glass doors. “And what else?”
“I know they divorced a short time later—I found the papers in Lily-Mae’s desk—and that you were right there to pick up the pieces when they did. And that you and Daddy were married four months later. What I don’t know is how that part happened—and how it happened so fast.”
Caroline’s face remained impassive. “Your father refused to see Lily-Mae after she left him. I volunteered to act as go-between. Is that all?”
Lily stared at her, stunned that she could be so glib. “You volunteered to act as go-between, and then you married him the first chance you got, knowing she was still in love with him, and that he was still in love with her. How can you stand there and ask, Is that all? She was your sister. She loved you. She sacrificed herself to protect you. And that’s how you repay her, by taking her husband? She died right here, all alone in this cottage, and you couldn’t find it in your heart to even go to her memorial.”
“May I ask how you learned all of this?”
“I told you. Lily-Mae kept journals. In fact, she kept a lot of things.”
Lily stepped away long enough to go to the bedroom, returning a moment later, the stack of black-and-white composition books in one hand and Chessie in the other. Without ceremony, she pushed the rag doll into her mother’s hands.
“Do you remember this?”
Caroline stared at the doll with a mixture of wonder and sadness. “Chessie.”
“I found it under her bed the first night I was here, along with a picture of your parents, and the notebooks she kept while the two of you were at Mt. Zion. A beat-up old rag doll, and she held on to it all these years—because it reminded her of you. In spite of everything, she never stopped loving you, and you can stand there and ask, Is that all?”
“I need a drink.”
“I don’t have any gin.”
“Vodka, then. Or scotch?”
God, she looks almost desperate. “Wine is all I have.”
“Then I’ll have wine. Please.”
Lily went to the kitchen and poured a single glass of chardonnay. Caroline was on the sofa when she returned, the stack of notebooks untouched beside her. She took the glass with shaking hands, downing half its contents in one long swallow.
“You haven’t touched the notebooks,” Lily observed as she pushed her purse to the floor and dropped into the desk chair. “You really should read them. Maybe they’ll help refresh your memory.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory, Lily, I assure you.”
Caroline glanced over at them again, the way one might eye a ticking package in a train station. With a loud sniff, she picked up her wineglass and drained it, then rose stiffly to her feet. She looked almost frail as she made her way to the kitchen to retrieve the open chardonnay and a fresh glass from one of the cabinets.
“I don’t want any wine,” Lily told her flatly when Caroline set the glass near her elbow and began to pour.
“Yes, you do—or you will.”
Something in her mother’s tone set off a warning bell. “Why?”
“Because I brought you something.”
Lily felt a prickle of apprehension as she watched Caroline cross to the abandoned overnight bag and, after a few minutes of fumbling, produce a slightly rumpled shopping bag. She recognized the Saks Fifth Avenue logo the minute she took the bag from her mother’s hand.
“I’m not eight anymore, Mother. You can’t fix this with presents.”
Caroline ignored the remark as she eased back onto the couch. Her hands shook as she refilled her own glass and sipped deeply. “Believe me when I tell you I’m under no illusions that what’s in that bag will fix anything. Go on, open it.”
For a moment, Lily considered handing the bag back unopened. She wasn’t sure what she was holding, but whatever it was, her mother had come twelve hundred miles to deliver it, and it clearly had her scared to death. Finally, she turned the bag on its side and slid the contents out onto her lap.
She recognized them immediately—three of them—smooth brown cowhide with blank spines and gold-edged pages, identical to the one she had excavated from the bookshelf in Lily-Mae’s room.
Lily’s head snapped up. “Where did you get these?”
“I found them in your father’s desk when I was cleaning out his study. A package came for him about a year ago. I assume it’s the one you asked about the last time you called. It came not long before she died. I never asked Roland about it. I didn’t have to. The address said it was from Stephen Singer, but I knew it was from her the minute he shut himself up in his study with it. I barely saw him for the rest of that week.”
“Have you read them?”
Caroline’s chin jutted sullenly. “She was my sister. He was my husband. Of course I read them.”
“Why send them after all that time? When they hadn’t spoken in years?”
“There are three kinds of secrets, Lily. The ones we keep from strangers, the ones we keep from the people we love—and the ones we keep from ourselves.”
Lily shook her head, baffled by her mother’s cryptic response. “I don’t understand.”
Caroline closed her eyes, as if her lids were suddenly too heavy. When she opened them again her lashes were damp with unshed tears. “You will when you read what you’re holding.”
She looked around then, with the faraway gaze of someone lost, until she managed to locate her handbag. With shaking hands, she extricated a silver cigarette case and lighter and, scooping the stack of composition books off the sofa, marched out onto the deck. Lily watched through the open glass doors as she leaned against the railing for support, a Benson and Hedges Menthol clamped between her perfectly drawn lips. Her hands were still shaking as she grappled with the lighter in the stiff sea breeze. Successful at last, she sagged into one of the deck chairs, letting her head fall back as she exhaled a long plume of smoke over her head.
After a moment, Lily turned away, returning her attention to the books in her own lap, Lily-Mae’s missing journals. Breath held, she folded back the first cover, staring at the date penned at the top of the page in her aunt’s elegant but slanted script.
THIRTY-EIGHT
October 11, 1957
New York, New York
We’ve been back from Paris nearly a month now, living in Roland’s apartment on Fifth Avenue. I’m still not used to the doorman calling me Mrs. St. Claire, but I do so love the sound of it.
The news of our marriage spread like wildfire, thanks to the gossip rags. Celia Gardiner’s name appeared in most of the articles, claiming credit for bringing us together. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, though I do wish they would stop reprinting that silly billboard story every time they mention Roland’s name. If he minds all the fuss, he shows no sign, but then I suppose he’s used to his share of fuss. It’s been nothing but parties since we returned, champagne and caviar and goose liver pâté, a fresh whirl of faces every night, and another list of names to remember.
Caroline is with us now, happy enough to leave her school friends once she heard where she’d be living. It took almost no time for Roland to win her over. He spoils her almost as badly as he does me. In less than a week he had set up accounts for her at all the best stores, and she hasn’t been shy in using them. She has become the belle of every ball, her closets overflowing with Park Avenue fashions. I worry at times that she’s taking advantage of his kindness, but he doesn’t seem to mind, or even to notice, despite Caroline’s best efforts to charm him.
I try to tell myself it’s her shamelessness about spending Roland’s money that makes me uncomfortable, but it’s more than that. I’ve seen the looks she gives him, the way she pouts her lips and bats her lashes to get what she wants—like she did that day in Zell’s office. What’s worse, she knows I don’t like it, and seems to
take delight in my discomfort.
I thought by now she would have forgiven me for the lie, that she would have come to see that it was our only way out of that terrible place. She hasn’t, though, and it makes my heart ache to wonder how much longer I will have to pay for the sin of trying to protect her—of trying to protect us both.
October 17, 1958
New York, New York
How quickly life can turn to ashes.
I was relieved to be attending the final event being held in our honor—a reception thrown for us by the Barclays at the Hotel Astor. I’ve grown weary of the parties, of pretending I’m having the time of my life when all I want in the world is for Roland and me to run back to Hideaway Key, where it was just the two of us, and miles and miles of bright blue water.
I felt it the moment we walked into the ballroom: a pang of panic so swift and sharp I nearly turned and ran from the room. Roland felt me tense. He shot me a look, then a reassuring smile. I smiled back, feeling foolish as we made our way to our table, smiling and nodding, pausing now and then to shake hands along the way. A waiter brought glasses of champagne to our table. I sipped without tasting, running my eyes around the room, unable to ignore the warning bells going off in my belly.
I got through dinner somehow, politely sipping my wine, nodding when I was spoken to, laughing when it seemed appropriate, but I don’t remember a single bite or word. By the time the plates were cleared I was light-headed from too much champagne, and queasy with the certainty that some unseen threat was lurking nearby.
I slipped away while we were waiting for dessert to be served, telling Roland that I wanted to freshen my lipstick before the inevitable toast to the newlyweds. It was a relief to leave the hum of the ballroom behind, to step out into the carpeted quiet of the hallway.
I didn’t hear him come up behind me, but I knew it was him the instant he touched my arm. Part of me always knew, I suppose, that I wasn’t really through with Harwood Zell, that someday he would find me. But the sudden fact of him, standing there in front of me—paunchier after nearly three years, but wearing the same shiny black suit, still reeking of cigarette smoke and stale sweat—nearly brought my dinner up into my throat.
Summer at Hideaway Key Page 28
