The Echo of Old Books(47)

She eyed the phone, keenly aware that it hadn’t rung. It was Sunday. Maybe Ethan had gone away for the weekend. Or maybe he had a date. At least she hoped it was something like that and not a deliberate decision to ignore her. She didn’t dare call again. Not yet. She’d wait a few days. And in the meantime, she’d keep reading and hope either Belle or Hemi got careless with a detail or two.





Forever, and Other Lies

(pgs. 37–44)

November 4, 1941

New York, New York

I watch as my sister takes you off on her arm and note that you make no move to untangle yourself from her. She has always reminded me of a spider, infinitely patient, waiting for events to shape themselves to her satisfaction. And then she strikes, swiftly and without mercy. The consummate opportunist.

I’m not sure what her plans for you are yet; perhaps her intent is only to annoy me, to remind me, yet again, that she is in charge. As if any of us could forget it. At any rate, you seem quite comfortable being steered about.

How clever you think yourself, a chameleon making your way around the room, chatting and laughing with my father’s guests. No one watching would ever guess you weren’t one of them or that you had initially balked at my invitation. You play your part flawlessly, so flawlessly that I find myself wondering if your reluctance to come tonight was feigned.

You smile and nod over your gin and tonic, discussing labor disputes and monetary policy like you’re a visiting diplomat at a dinner given in your honor. And not so much as a glance in my direction as you mill about. Not even when I nearly burn a hole in your jacket with my eyes, willing you to turn and look at me. It’s to spite me, I realize, to pay me back for our argument this afternoon at the lake. I turn away and leave you to Cee-Cee.

Later, when we’re called in to dinner, I notice she’s had the place cards changed. You’re now seated at the far end of the table, as far from me as possible, and I’m forced to watch you fawn over Mrs. Viola Wheeler, smiling that easy smile of yours, charming her Montana-bred ears with your smooth British tongue.

I’m sickened watching her, an old frump in a dress the color of a bruise, giggling like a schoolgirl over whatever you’ve just said. The husky burr of your laugh drifting down the table. Your unconscious habit of raking your hair off your forehead. So familiar now. Yet you’ve barely managed a smile for me since you arrived. It’s as if we’re truly the strangers we’re pretending to be. I long for dinner to be over so I can finally peel you away from the rest of them and find some pretext to have you to myself. Instead, after the dessert has been consumed and the coffee drunk, my father suggests the men split off from the ladies and remove to his study for cigars. I’m more than a little surprised when he specifically includes you in the invitation, but as the men push back from the table, I see a look pass between Cee-Cee and my father and realize she approves, and may even have been the one to suggest including you.

The ladies linger at the table with dainty glasses of sherry, clucking about how hard it is to keep a decent cook and their utter disappointment in this year’s theatrical season. I nod vacantly, pretending to follow along, but all I can think of is you, sitting in one of the leather club chairs in my father’s study, smoking and talking with his oily friends. I feel churlish for thinking it, petulant and resentful, but I didn’t ask you here to smoke cigars and rub elbows with a clutch of odious old men.

But as I dispatch a second glass of sherry with one deep swallow, I realize those old men are precisely why you came tonight. For their wealth and connections and whatever they might be able to do for you. I shouldn’t be surprised. You introduced yourself as an adventurer the first time I met you. And now here you are under my father’s roof, invited into his inner sanctum. How neatly you’ve managed it. And how quickly. Thanks to me.

I refill my glass, suddenly on the verge of tears. Cee-Cee slants me a silent warning. I pretend not to notice, but I can’t help wondering what she sees when she looks at me. Am I as transparent as I fear?

I feel an utter fool.

I wanted you here for your sake. For how I feel when I’m with you—like my heart is too big for my chest. Like I finally belong to someone unconnected to this wretched house and my wretched family. But you obviously had different reasons for coming. Reasons that appear to have nothing to do with me. The women are still clucking about hats and hem lengths and suddenly I can’t bear another empty word or another sip of sherry. I push to my feet and excuse myself, blurting something about a headache.

My sister shoots me another of her scathing looks as I head for the door. I don’t care; I’ve grown used to her disapproval over the years. And part of me blames her for tonight, for whisking you away and parading you about.

I was always invisible to her, too young to be of any interest. I didn’t mind—my mother loved me enough for everyone—but when she died, the loss was like a hole in my chest. And so I latched on to Cee-Cee, following her from room to room, peering in when she was reading or writing letters, asking her to play a game or tell me a story. I needed someone to talk to, someone who remembered Maman and how things were before she got sick. But my sister had no patience for my neediness.

I remember creeping into her bedroom one night and crawling in beside her, desperate for comfort after a horrible dream. Instead of comfort, I received an elbow to the ribs and was sent back to my room. She eventually accepted her role as surrogate mother, though only at my father’s request. She never could deny him anything. Including marriage to the stuffy son of one of his business cronies. But then, Cee-Cee was as ambitious as he was, and eager to help the family regain its footing after the Crash. In my father’s world, everything comes with a price tag.