by Cat Gardiner
A tanned man, she figured in his thirties, approached with a wide smile. Like his above average height, nothing about him was average. Light brown hair, trim, fit, and handsome with chiseled features made his bright blue eyes even more alluring. When he stopped before her, there was definitely an appealing look in those sparkling eyes.
“Are you Juliana Mart?”
She stood abruptly, chuckling and jutting out her hand to shake. “Yes, I mean, no … Martel not Mart.”
His warm hand met her cool, delicate one, and their eyes locked in immediate attraction. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess Cassandra, my secretary … um … Welcome to Newsday. I’m Jack Robertsen.”
“It’s great to meet you, Mr. Rob,” she teased. “Or shall I call you by your first name?”
“Rob or Jack—I’ll answer to it all. Just don’t call me by my middle name.”
Juliana cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, do tell.”
“Herbert,” he laughed.
“Yeah, shortening that would make you sound either seasonable, smokable, or drinkable. So Jack it is, which is certainly edible. Tell me, are you Monterrey or Pepper?”
“I do love California and have a keen addiction to cheese. So, I’ll go with Monterrey.”
She openly returned his smile back at the silly joke. “Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule, Jack. I’m sure you have tons to catch up on, or are you planning your next trip?”
“I’m happy to assist, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than help you with your project until my trip next month.”
“Are you off to somewhere exciting?”
“Paris, over July 17th weekend.” He leaned into her, lowering his voice. “… with my grandmother.”
“Aw, that sounds very sweet and memorable.”
“Oh, it will be.” Jack bent down and picked up her briefcase.
Already he had made an impression on her. Cute humor, dressed in his preppy style, acting in a thoughtful manner, world traveler with his grandmother, and his willingness to help her all spoke volumes of the type of man he was. Not that it all mattered, she was here on personal business, and most likely, this stud had a string of girls lined up to capture him.
“Follow me. I set aside a conference room where we can dig into some newspapers and talk about the Gold Coast.”
Juliana followed him through a busy newsroom lined with rows of occupied desks and filled with the low hum and ding of IBM Selectric typewriters as well as the tap, tap, taps of fingers meeting newly installed word processing keyboards. Phones rung, reporters chatted, and secretaries filed, took notes, and scanned microfiche. It was a busy hive of exciting activity, something she had experienced and enjoyed on a smaller scale during her first foray into the world of reporting, working for Women’s Wear Daily.
They arrived at a large, glass-enclosed room that could easily seat thirty. Displayed before them on the conference table were Danishes, bagels, and cream cheese as well as coffee, juice, and pitcher of water.
Jack could tell by the way she surveyed the table offerings that she must be hungry. “Yeah, I’m famished, too. After your train ride, I thought you might need something to kick-start our research. Shall we dig in?”
This new and continually improving Juliana did just as he suggested—she dug in, delighting in the vegetable cream cheese smear on top an everything bagel.
They sat with their breakfast on paper plates, catty-cornered from one another at the end of the long table, and in between chewing and sipping, Jack inquired about the article she was writing. He seemed genuinely interested, even prepared to take notes.
“So, Maxine tells me this couple you’re researching is related to you and you’re trying to unlock the mysterious disappearance of the former owner of your house. Is that right?”
“Yes, he was my great-uncle, William Martel, an Army bomber pilot with the 9th Air Force, who was completely in love with a beautiful, spirited woman from Glen Cove. They had a whirlwind romance of only seven months, until their correspondence abruptly ended at the end of December 1942. That was when he received the last letter from her, a Christmas card, only he never stopped loving her. I need to know so many things and have so little to go on, really. He disappeared in 1950, although I really can’t be sure if he died. Strangely, I feel he may be still alive. I don’t know why—maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part—but if he is alive, I’d like to find him and find her for sure. She, though, may be dead.”
The name “Martel” continued to sound familiar to Jack. “Glen Cove, you say. Wow, I grew up in Mill Neck, right next door. Small world. I love a good mystery, and the Gold Coast is rife with them. Fortunes made and lost. For example, the Woolworth fortune—a billion dollars totally wasted and spent by the granddaughter heiress Barbara Hutton and her seven husbands. Some of those homes were incredible with fascinating stories and histories. The Woolworth mansion is said to be haunted.”
“Barbara Hutton sounds like someone I know. So you say—were incredible?”
“Yeah, many of them have been torn down. We’re talking estates once owned by J.P. Morgan and Vanderbilt. The heirs of these great treasures demolished many of them when usefulness outweighed size and especially when the tax burden became too heavy. When they were built during the Gilded Age, there wasn’t an income tax as we know it today and it was at a time when economic growth had increased exponentially, so money was aplenty.”
“I saw the movie The Great Gatsby. Was it really like that? All that pretentious wealth and high living?”
“Absolutely, but the movie was filmed in Newport, Rhode Island. Those two social circles still run very close together. They all do, actually, Newport; Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia; and Palm Beach, Florida—they’re all the same. Speaking of movies, Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn was filmed in and around Glen Cove.”
“Using one of the mansions? How exciting.”
“Yes, a Pratt mansion and a Guggenheim one, I think. Today, some of the estates are utilized as museums or catering halls. Some are schools, one is even a planetarium, but most are just sitting unoccupied, left in disrepair for as long as twenty or more years. My dad is an active member of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, a committee to help save and restore some of the estates.”
With a mouthful of bagel Juliana reflected, “Sort of how I found Primrose Cottage, the house my great-uncle gave me. It’s a time capsule and what started me on this quest. I’m thankful it’s restorable.”
Jack couldn’t help staring at her, consuming her bagel with gusto, and when a tiny piece of cream cheese-laden carrot ended up on her chin, he instinctively reached out but stopped himself short. “You have … um … on your chin.”
Juliana giggled, wiping it away with a napkin. “Oh my G-d. I’m so embarrassed.”
He stuck his finger into the cream cheese tub, put some on his own chin, and smiled. “Don’t be. We’ll play with our food together.”
Already, she felt at ease. He was just as Maxine had indicated, an absolutely gorgeous, genuine guy with a pussycat, mild manner. She reached over with her paper napkin and wiped the offending green pepper from his face.
Jack smiled, wondering if he should mention about the solitary poppy seed wedged between two of her pearly white teeth. “I hope it’s okay, but I’ve set aside some time today to drive you up to the North Shore. If the mansion you’re looking for is still standing, maybe we can arrange for a tour, and if not, you can get a general feel for the luxurious lifestyle of some of the residents along the Long Island Sound. I’ve always loved the area.”
“Do you live there now?”
“No, I live not far from here. I hate it—too far from the water. I spent many years with my grandparents, learning to sail at the Hempstead Harbor Club in Glen Cove. Apart from New Zealand, it’s my all-time favorite place to spend on the water. The Sound is so tranquil when it wants to be and from there I can sail to Connecticut or Block Island. Do you sail?”
“Me? G-d
no! I’m terrified of the water. In fact, even a bathtub makes me uneasy. Drive me across a bridge and I’m a veritable nervous wreck.”
“Well, maybe we can find a way, on another day, to take you out on the water. I assure you, it’s very safe, and I’m an excellent waterman.”
He flashed a flirtatious smile and suddenly Lizzy’s word “lulu” popped into her mind. “That would be nice. It seems as though this year is exposing me to all sorts of adventures, discoveries, and even a few resolutions, so I might consider getting up the nerve.”
Excitedly, he clapped his hands together. “Good. I’m pumped already! So tell me a little about your research thus far.”
Juliana reached into her briefcase, removing the blue box. “These are the letters received by my uncle from his girlfriend during World War Two. Totally romantic stuff, but her letters don’t paint the full picture.” She withdrew the photograph on top of the stack and slid it toward him. “This is the estate’s entrance where she grew up with her four sisters, one of whom was wheelchair bound.”
Jack froze, staring down at the entrance to a mansion he knew well. He felt the blood rush from his brain from the shock of seeing the M staring back at him. Forcibly trying to control any and all expression—giving away nothing of what he knew of Meercrest or its loathsome secrets bulldozed to the ground in 1975—he remained expressionless, feeling as though he was about to pass out.
His eyes shifted away from the snapshot, unwilling to look at Juliana, and he deliberately picked up his Mont Blanc. Pretending to be at the ready to write, his mind raced a mile a minute for discernment.
“Do … do you know the name of the estate?” he barely managed without an obvious stammer, his smile waning ever so slightly.
“Meercrest,” hung heavily in the airspace between them as if she had spoken the poisonous exclamation, “Heil Hitler.”
Jack closed his eyes, the smile wiped from his lips, panic rising within him like an ominous sea wall readying for mass destruction. His heart seized in his chest, yet his pen remained stilled, and his eyes continued to stare at the legal-sized pad before him.
“Meercrest, you said? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Lizzy wrote about it in her letters. Do you know it?”
He fought the pull to search her expression for fear that she would read his own. He looked to the door as his mind silently scrambled for an answer, his heart rate increasing expeditiously. Lizzy. She just said “Lizzy.” He hadn’t heard that moniker since he was a boy.
Internal panic rose like a tidal wave, and a clammy, cold sweat spread over his body from head to toe. Terrified, yet curious about what Juliana knew, he finally peered up to meet her expressive, blue eyes. A half-truth formed on his lips as he attempted to maintain their amicability, if not his own composure.
“No. Um … I mean, the mansion is gone now, razed to make way for a senior home for veterans.”
Jack could see the disappointment upon her face fall like a shadow, but there was no way in hell he was going to expose the dark secrets of Meercrest to a woman writing an article for a magazine with over one million readers no matter how attracted he was to her. He’d die with the Renner family secrets tightly locked within his heart and mind. The legacy of those people had been replaced with new, honorable legacies. The past was dead, and he’d see that it remained so, despising himself for the necessity of the sidestepping and lies he knew he’d be forced to employ.
“I’m sorry, Juliana. I could still drive you out there to look around, but I think only the boathouse and a water tower remain, maybe this archway, too. It’s probably all overrun with weeds.”
“Oh, I see. Do you know who owned the estate?”
His smile had now disappeared altogether. “Nope. Haven’t a clue.”
“Do you think your father may know?”
He continued to lie, his expression remaining impassive. “Doubtful. It was demolished long before he became active with the Society.”
“Maxine mentioned that the archives of the newspaper may shed some light. Any chance we can check them out?”
“Sure, but we only have papers onsite beginning in 1976.”
That was a definite blockade, or rather a lie, on his part. All fifty-two years’ worth were in the room down the hall, but he wasn’t about to let her see anything pertaining to the Renner scandal or Meercrest, knowing unequivocally that she would find the sensational news coverage splashed across the front pages in 1945 and 1947.
Jack tapped his pen upon the pad and still unable to meet Juliana’s gaze looked away. “Besides, Newsday probably didn’t cover the local happenings in a sleepy coastal town such as Glen Cove.”
When he finally chanced a glance at her, she looked crestfallen. Internally, his shame struggled with righteous duplicity when she dejectedly surmised, “I guess I misunderstood Maxine when she indicated you would show me the archives going back to 1940. That’s disappointing.”
“Juliana, I hate to bring this up because truly I can see how important this is to you, but have you given any thought to the fact that maybe … just maybe … Lizzy or William don’t want to be found. Maybe the past is better left in the past, and we should just look to the future. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that.”
“I’ve thought about that, but I disagree with you. My uncle’s military service shouldn’t be forgotten simply because it happened two generations ago, and this girl Lizzy was a part of that time in his life. I imagine that her story during the war years is as worth telling as my uncle’s. I realize now how important it is to share someone’s legacy, especially how it relates to such a period of time as historically important as the Second World War. While I admit, I’ve been clueless about the war, its effects may have shaped the dynamics of my family.” She snorted a laugh. “My dysfunctional family. So, if love is there—in the midst of despair and heartache—I need to find it.”
Jack hated to stonewall, hated not being able to truly help this intriguing woman in her quest for her great-uncle’s story, but that story, according to her, was inexplicably tied to Lizzy’s.
Juliana removed a stack of photographs of varying shapes and sizes from the box; most depicted Lizzy and the man he assumed was William. His heart lurched. They were a handsome couple, and Lizzy was stunning in her youth, as legendary a beauty as his grandfather had often claimed her to be. Her spirit leaped from the images, and Jack smiled thoughtfully.
“Jack, to be frank, Lizzy and William represent so much more than a historical romance—they give me hope for the here and now. Up until last week, the love you see in these snapshots seemed unreal to me, especially in 1992 when divorce is rampant and a respectful, loving relationship seems nearly impossible to attain. Yet it was real. Romantic love such as theirs intrigues me. My own history in the romance department, not to mention the example set by my parents have left me with … how should I say, a large measure of skepticism. But then, these two come along and well … whammo! I want to hold onto what they shared, feel it as they did, cherish it for a lifetime and spread it to my children.”
“Do you think your readers want to read about a wartime romance that was probably nothing more than a summer fling between a couple, actually more like two kids, fifty years ago?”
“Not just any couple. This couple.” She pointed to the photographs.
He scanned through the snapshots as though dealing playing cards until he held up a photograph of another man standing with a familiar woman. The familiarity of the surname Martel was now confirmed, his shock barely contained. A woman he knew by the name “Lillian Renner,” whose story he knew by heart, stared back at him, smiling. Through the years, he heard it time and again, remembered and retold with pride. Heck, her photograph currently hung with honor in the Long Island Holocaust Museum in Glen Cove. Lillian was a local heroine—in spite of her birth into the disgraced family.
Stunned that Juliana would have her image, he held up the snapshot, again feigning ignorance with impassivity. “Who are these peo
ple?”
“Oh! Those are my grandparents. Louis and Lillian Martel. He was a Marine in the Pacific, and she was a volunteer with the Red Cross, I’m told. I guess I got their photo mixed in with the pile by accident after my grandfather gave me a box full of his war memorabilia. William was his brother.”
And Lillian was Lizzy’s sister! In all of his travels and his experience in dealing with people all over the world, Jack Robertsen had never been as blown away as he was at that very moment. The coincidence astounded him, and this unsuspecting, young woman delivered it with an innocent smile, rendering him speechless. His boat began to capsize—this squall was too great to navigate unaffected.
“The American Red Cross?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I think so.”
Her grandmother, Lillian Renner was so much more than “a volunteer with the Red Cross.” She was the incredibly brave woman responsible for rescuing his three-year-old father from the jaws of the Nazis and starvation when she found him and other children living alone in the French countryside. It was because of Lillian Renner that his father became a Robertsen through adoption.
Jack was amazed that Juliana was clueless about her grandmother’s connection to Lizzy, but then the sobering reality of her Renner family relations came back. No, no one would admit to being a part of that family—not even Lizzy. Apart from Kitty who lived in the town over, Lizzy never even spoke of her other sisters. Jack knew telling Juliana of Lillian’s bravery meant opening the door to the stories and secrets of the other Renners and he was unwilling to do that. Others would disagree with him, but he felt strongly—nothing good ever came from fanning long extinguished ashes which could damage and engulf people in renewed flames of anger.
He hoped to G-d she couldn’t see through his façade of a beaming smile and enthusiastic proposition. “You know, Juliana, maybe we’re going about this in the wrong way. Let’s take another route. You want to know about your great-uncle, so why don’t we start with him. I have a couple of contacts down at the National Archives and the National Personnel Records Center who might be able to locate something from William’s military service records. It might be tough since so many of the records were burned in 1973, but we can try. At least we can get his social security number.”
