Time After Time

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  She thought for a while, then said over her shoulder, "You probably don't know how crazy people went when Charles came to Newport a few years ago. Even Prince Andrew — also here before your time — sent everyone a-twitter. Think what Diana would do."

  Victoria laughed as she punched in the next number on her list. "Hey, why not? Even as we speak, she's rumored to be aboard a yacht on Martha's Vineyard. We could fly a plane overhead trailing an invitation—"

  Liz stared unseeing at the ebb and flow of lawyers, tourists, and court employees on the street below. "That's just it," she said thoughtfully. "She's rumored. No one's actually seen her, despite the media crawling all over the place."

  She turned to Victoria with a calculating look. "How many royal-watchers so you suppose have jumped on ferries to the Vineyard, hoping to get a glimpse of her?"

  "Probably a — Mrs. Young? Good morning. My name is Victoria and I'm calling on behalf. . ."

  ****

  Liz had never actually started a rumor before; but Victoria had no qualms about doing it. Some idle speculation at just the right time in just the right circles — and almost immediately the calls began coming in.

  As it happened, it was Tori who took the call from their first Diana-watcher.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Tewhitt," she said as she motioned frantically for Liz to pick up the extension. "I enjoyed talking to you the other afternoon. I'm still considering that marble-topped plant stand."

  Liz lifted the receiver carefully and heard Mrs. Tewhitt, an antiques dealer who was herself many, many removes from royalty, say, "I'm so upset that I couldn't get tickets for the dinner. Only thirty? Are you certain you can't squeeze two more at the table'?"

  "Oh, I'm afraid not, Mrs. Tewhitt. And in any case, Meredith Kinney has complete control over the earlier part of the benefit. Our office is handling ticket sales for the costume party afterward — and to tell the truth, I'm not certain how many tickets to that are left, either."

  Mrs. Tewhitt gasped. Her voice became conspiratorial. "How many will you let me have?"

  "I'm afraid we've had to limit sales to four tickets per person."

  "I'll take them. Can you drop them off at the shop?"

  "You're right on my way home."

  Victoria hung up, and Liz pounced on her. "Four? Are you crazy? Why didn't you let her have ten? Twenty? Fifty?"

  "She wouldn't have bought any, in that case. Liz, Liz — don't you see how it works? We all want what we can't have. That's what makes whatever it is so desirable."

  "True," said Liz with sudden penetrating sadness. She was somewhere else in time as she said it. We all want what we can't have. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Blindsided again. She'd done so well this week, keeping focused, shutting him out. And now, just like that, she could hardly keep the tears from rolling out.

  "I do understand," she whispered. "I understand exactly."

  Victoria took two other calls in rapid succession, selling four tickets to each of the callers. "Friends of Elena Tewhitt," she explained to Liz. "One of them is in real estate; the other's an ex-councilman's wife. Excellent. They'll spread the word."

  "What exactly did you tell Mrs. Tewhitt that day in her shop?"

  "Nothing that wasn't true. I said that Jack has a friend who knows Princess Diana — okay, so it's a friend of a friend—and that we all had high hopes, very high hopes, that she'd take advantage of the anonymity our costume party offers. And then I speculated a little over whether she'd dress in Gilded Age or New Age costume."

  "Tori, you have no scruples at all."

  Victoria shrugged and, said, "It's not against the law to speculate."

  Liz began to think that maybe Tori was an embodiment of Victoria St. Onge. It took her breath away to think that they were getting people to buy tickets to a main event without a main event. She resolved to have no part of it.

  When the phone rang while Victoria was out getting them lunch, Liz answered it with the very noblest of intentions.

  "I'm so very excited that — she— is going to be there," said Andrea Lexim, a gallery owner. "How clever of her to come in disguise."

  "Oh, but you mustn't just assume—"

  "Well, of course, one doesn't assume, dear. One merely hopes. Obviously one can't say, can one? But then, one knows what one knows."

  Gibberish!

  "In that case, how many tickets may I put you down for?" asked Liz in a silky voice.

  "Oh, the maximum, certainly. Six, I believe?"

  "I'm so sorry. Four."

  By the end of the week they'd sold an amazing hundred and forty tickets; but the Diana thing had been pretty much milked for all it was worth.

  "Short of taking an ad in the paper actually advertising the fraud, I'm not sure what we can do," said Liz, putting her feet up on the desk.

  It was late. Susy was staying overnight at her grandparents', and Liz and Victoria were lingering in the office over design sketches and cold pizza. Liz picked off a mushroom from an uneaten slice and said, "Know any stunning blondes with Roman noses we could hire?"

  "I try not to hang around stunning blondes," said Victoria, rolling her green eyes heavenward. She took a long, noisy suck on her straw, then shook an ice-cube from the paper cup into her mouth.

  "You're kidding," said Liz. "Why would you be intimidated by a gorgeous blonde? You're a gorgeous redhead."

  Victoria pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her cobalt-blue, star-spangled skirt. "I'm way too tall for anything but a model's runway," she said, sucking on the ice cube. "I'm taller than Ben, and I don't like that. I wish I was normal height. Like you."

  "And your hair," Liz said, ignoring her friend's lament. "Who has hair like that except heroines in novels?"

  Victoria bit down on the ice, then swallowed it. "It's just one more thing that makes me stick out from everyone else. I wish I had thick straight hair. Like yours. And smooth tawny skin without one freckle. Like you. I've always thought you're better-looking than I am," she added.

  "Wow," said Liz, staring at her friend incredulously. "Of all the things I know about you, that amazes me the most."

  Victoria shrugged and said, "Okay, fine. Don't believe me. Ask Jack."

  Liz felt the color come flowing over her cheeks. "I've told you, Jack is out of my life. I haven't heard from him since we said good-bye through the chain-link fence. Obviously he knows how to pick his locations," she added, trying to make her bitterness sound droll. "With the fence between us, I couldn't very well throw my arms around him and beg him to keep me."

  "Give him the benefit of the doubt, Liz," said Victoria with a sympathetic smile. "He's in Phoenix, trying to find a life for Caroline."

  "And when he gets back, he'll have only poor Bradley to place, and then he'll be free again. Well, bully for him. Anyway," Liz couldn't resist saying, "You notice he found the time to call Meredith from Phoenix? You notice he calls Netta?"

  "He called Meredith to reassure her about going through with the dinner at East Gate. He called Netta to — well, naturally he calls Netta. She's nursing his father, for pity's sake. How is Cornelius, by the way?" she asked, steering the subject away from Jack.

  Liz shook her head. "Not good. Netta says he's holed himself up in the carriage-house apartment and won't come out. He won't see anyone. Won't do anything. She says he looks twenty years older."

  "He's scared."

  "I can understand him being scared," said Liz, vividly recalling the brush with death her own father had suffered years earlier. "But I can't understand him being timid."

  Her father's heart attack had been more serious than Cornelius Eastman's. But Frank Pinhel's reaction to it was: "The hell with it; the yews need trimming."

  "What about Jack's mother?" Victoria asked, because she was as curious as Liz about the phantom mistress of East Gate. "Is she coming?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "Oh, well. Maybe the benefit will draw Cornelius out. It should be a magical evening." Victoria smiled impishl
y and added, "Even if the princess is unavoidably detained."

  Liz winced at the reminder and said, "Have you decided what to wear? Gilded Age or New?"

  The impish smile turned somber. "The question is more apt for me than for most, isn't it? I don't know, yet, what I'll wear. But it's my big night, the biggest of my life — the night I pay my karmic debt and return the pin," Victoria said softly. "I should dress for it."

  She really does believe she may die once the pin's returned, Liz thought, amazed. It was obvious in the way Victoria held herself, arms around her shins, chin propped on her knees, the picture of apprehension. It was obvious in the way she stared at the middle distance between them, seeing ... what? The split second before — after? — the car crash? Or was she back a hundred years, staring at two lives gone awry because of one woman's mean-spirited meddling in their destinies?

  "Victoria?"

  "Hmm?" Victoria looked up, then smiled. "Well!" she said more briskly. "One thing I know. The costume's going to be as sexy as I can make it. I want Ben to be on his knees with desire."

  ****

  The hundred and forty-first ticket sale was made despite Liz's best advice. The purchaser was a middle-aged woman who was dressed, despite the heat, in an ill-fitting lilac pant- suit. She was a heavy-set woman with red, rough hands and hair that clung damply to her flushed face.

  "I had to park a ways away," she said, breathing heavily from her exertions. "I never come downtown in summer if I can help it. But I saw one of your posters in J0-J0'5 Fabric Shop that said I could buy a ticket here. For the costume party, I mean." With some hesitation she said, "Can anybody buy one?"

  "Yes, you can, but — you could've mailed a check and saved yourself a trip downtown," said Liz with a friendly smile. "The traffic's really horrible today, isn't it?"

  The woman shook her head in disgust. "August," she said. "What do you expect? But I wanted to ask — because I heard two ladies in the Stop & Shop talking about this benefit thing. I've never been to something like it, but I heard them say that Princess Diana is coming?"

  "Oh ... no, most probably not," said Liz, coloring deeply now. "If that's why you want a ticket — save your money. Really."

  "Oh?" The woman's face fell. "Are you sure?"

  Washed over with guilt, Liz said, "Yes. I'm sure."

  "That's too bad," the woman in lilac said. "Because they sounded so positive. Oh, well. Thank you."

  She turned away and headed for the narrow spiral steps that led to the reception area downstairs. At the top of the spiral, she reversed herself and came back.

  Plunking her white plastic handbag down on Liz's desk, the woman snapped it open and began rummaging in it. "You know what? I want a ticket anyway. It's for a good cause. And I think I can talk a couple of my lady friends into going. And anyway, this is Newport; who's to say she won't show up? She's so pretty. And if she doesn't, well, sixty dollars won't break me. That's why I buy lottery tickets. Just to dream. I don't really think I'll win."

  With an irresistible smile, she handed Liz six no doubt hard-earned ten-dollar bills.

  Liz wanted to hug her. She had exactly the right spirit for a benefit: generous, open, curious, and hopeful.

  "You'll have a wonderful time," Liz said warmly. "We're going to have a palmist for the New Agers and a phrenologist for the Gilded Agers."

  "Oh? That's nice," said the woman uncertainly.

  Liz laughed and explained, "A phrenologist tells your personality by analyzing the contours of your skull; they were very popular during the Gilded Age. By the way, if you come in costume, make it as outlandish as you like. There'll be a prize at the end for the best one."

  "I'll do that," the woman promised with an air of courage. She plunged her wallet back to the bottom of her purse, then looked up with a timid smile. "There's just one thing," she said. "What's a Gilded Age? And what do they mean by the New Age?"

  ****

  Ten days after Jack went off to Phoenix with Caroline, he came back — with Caroline.

  Liz was making Sunday pancakes, and Susy was in the yard, sailing a new boat in her wading pool. Through the kitchen screen Liz heard Caroline call Susy's name. Surprised, Liz peeked out and saw the child, pretty as a picture in pale pink and apple green, talking to Susy through the chain-link fence.

  "I didn't see you for a long time," said Susy, who had always spurned pink in favor of rich reds, the color she wore now.

  Caroline hooked her Velcro-fastened shoes into the chain links of the fence, but she couldn't hang on and fell back to the ground. "I was in Phoenix with Jack."

  "Who's Jack?" asked Susy naïvely.

  "You know Jack," Caroline said with an impatient laugh. "You always call him Mr. Eastman. He's my brother. He said I should call him Jack now."

  "I never knew he was your brother!" said Susy, clearly bewildered by this new turn of events. She added, "He's very old, for a brother."

  "Not as old as my father. Dada said his hair was gray when I was born. Now it's white. Since the boat ride, it even got whiter."

  "Is your mother so old, too?" Susy asked artlessly.

  Caroline turned grave. "No. She was younger than your mom, I think." Her voice faltered as she said, "But she — she died. Jack said she's in heaven now, watching over me. And Bradley, too. But Bradley doesn't even know it."

  "Do you miss her?"

  "Yes.

  "Do you want to play with me? I have a new boat. Sometimes when the wind is blowing, it can sail right across my pool. All by itself."

  "Can I bring my doll over?"

  "Yes, but you better watch her. Toby likes to scratch his claws on my doll's stomach. My doll's a Raggedy Ann. They're good for scratching on, I guess.

  "My doll's a Madame Alexander. I don't think Toby would do anything to her."

  He wouldn't dare, thought Liz, smiling at the scene before her.

  She saw Netta coming up behind the children, so she popped the pancakes into the just-heated oven, then ran out to learn more about Caroline's return.

  After the two women agreed that the girls could play together in Susy's yard — a first, of sorts — Netta hit on a shortcut method of getting there. Huffing and puffing, she dragged a heavy wooden staging ladder belonging to the shipyard over to the fence. Between her and Liz, they managed to set the thing up so that one set of rungs was on each property: a jungle-gym shortcut for the girls to commute back and forth.

  Caroline ran to get Madame, and Susy went off to fetch Raggedy. Liz took advantage of the lull by asking Netta outright why Jack had brought his half-sister back to Newport.

  The portly housewife glanced behind her, then said, "He didn't like the setup, is what he told me. Stacey's sister is sharing an apartment with two other women, all of 'em young and dating. He said they looked on Caroline like some pet cat. Besides," she said, lowering her voice, "it's the wrong environment, if you know what I mean."

  "So Cornelius decided to have Jack bring her back to East Gate? Well, that's good news. It means—"

  "Oh, no, Mr. Eastman did no such thing. Jack made the decision on his own. Mr. Eastman, he's still acting like he's got one foot in the grave. What that man needs," she added sharply, "is a good shaking."

  "Will Mrs. Eastman be the one to give it to him?"

  "I wish I knew."

  ****

  After a couple of hours, Caroline climbed over the jungle- gym ladder back to her mansion. Liz cleaned up the breakfast dishes, put on a high-cut bathing suit, and went out to read the Sunday papers. She told herself that she was giving Susy some quality time. She told herself that she needed a little down-time herself. She told herself everything except the one obvious, unalterable truth: Despite all her previous resolve, she was hoping that Jack, if he were home, would notice her and stroll over to the chain-link fence.

  But an hour went by, and the only one who noticed her was Susy. The child, wearing a Kelly-green bathing suit, came over to Liz and stood on the frame of the plastic-strapped chaise long
ue, showing off her balancing act.

  "Are you going in the pool now, Mommy?"

  "I'm still reading, honey," said Liz absently.

  "Mommy? Are you old?"

  Liz put her paper down. She knew exactly what was on Susy's mind, so she said with extra emphasis, "For goodness sake — no! I'm pretty young. I'll be around for a long, long time.''

  Susy jumped backward off the chaise onto the grass. "Forever?"

  Liz held out one arm and pulled her daughter close. "Almost forever," she said, drinking in the sweet summer smell of her daughter.

  But oh, how I wish it could be forever — for you if for no one else.

  ****

  That night Liz dreamed about — or saw, or dreamed she dreamed about — Christopher Eastman again. But this time it was different; this time, he held her in his arms.

  It felt so shockingly real, so shockingly comforting. She buried her face in his shoulder and, with tears falling freely, said, "How can I make him love me enough? How can I?"

  And Christopher, warm and solid, stroked her hair and said, "I love you. I love you very, very much. Someday you will know that."

  She said, "Someday! Will I live forever?"

  And he answered, "There is only one way you can live forever, and that is through those who love you. Remember that. Now sleep, Elizabeth. . . sleep."

  ****

  On Monday, Liz was in her office, working through lunch, when she heard someone taking the narrow spiral of stairs two at a time. She looked up, and there he was: Jack Eastman, in a thunderous mood.

  He marched up to her desk and, flattening his hands on it, bent over it toward her at a frightening angle — the better, she thought, to grab her by the throat. She leaned her chair away from him.

  "What the hell are you doing, telling everyone Princess Diana plans to come? Are you nuts?"

  "We didn't ... really say that," Liz said, cringing behind a placating smile. "We said you were friends with someone who was friends with her. Or something like that."