The Life She Wanted: A Novel(11)

Pandora had hoped she would see Owen, but he didn’t appear. She ate eggs, a slice of toast, and some bacon and went back upstairs to her room.

The door opened and Virginia poked her head in.

“You’re all dressed and it’s not even ten a.m.” Virginia flopped on the bed. She wore crepe de chine knickers and a camisole top with a pink silk robe tied at the waist and satin slippers.

“You can’t go around dressed like that,” Pandora said, horrified. “What if someone sees you?”

“None of the guests are up this early.” Virginia yawned. “They’re all nursing their hangovers.”

“I was wondering why no one was at breakfast.” Pandora sighed. “I thought I was the only one with an appetite.”

“When you attend enough house parties, you’ll discover the only thing that sounds good before noon is tomato juice mixed with vodka,” Virginia commented. “You look much too fresh faced. Didn’t Owen keep you up, plying you with champagne and boasting about his billiards prowess until the small hours of the morning?”

“You and Archie are too hard on Owen.” Pandora turned to the mirror on the dressing table. She knew she was lucky; she had inherited her mother’s classic looks: straight blond hair, a small nose, and high, angular cheekbones. But sometimes she wished she had more unconventional features such as Lillian’s curls or a wide, sensuous mouth.

“Owen said I looked lovely in my dress.” Pandora tugged at her hair with a hairbrush. “And he’s going to get me an invitation to the Enrights’ house party.”

“I didn’t know the Enrights have a tennis court,” Virginia remarked.

Pandora’s cheeks flushed.

“Owen didn’t say a word about tennis,” she retorted. “This afternoon is the treasure hunt, I bet he’ll ask me to be his partner.”

Owen hadn’t said anything about being partners. But Pandora was almost certain he would.

“Tell me about your night.” Pandora changed the subject. “Your light was off when I came upstairs. Did you get home early?”

“Not exactly.” Virginia’s face took on a noncommittal expression.

“Don’t tell me you were out after midnight.” Pandora gasped. “You’re a woman, alone at night. What if you had a flat tire or got stopped by the police?”

“I’m perfectly capable of changing a tire, and I drove too fast for anyone to stop me,” Virginia said, the smile creeping back into her voice. “You should see Byrdcliffe: a dozen wooden cottages built in a clearing and the Catskill Mountains right behind them. There were poets and playwrights. I attended a poetry reading and got this.” She jumped up and stepped out of the room.

She returned a few moments later with a thin book.

“Did the poet give it to you?” Pandora asked.

“I borrowed it from him,” Virginia replied. “We did eat dinner together. Wolfgang read more of his poetry while we ate.”

“Wolfgang?” Pandora repeated.

“Wolfgang Bryant. He’s named for his German grandfather,” Virginia said excitedly. “Wolfgang attended Fordham, he’s twenty-four. He grew up in a house of strong women.” The color in her cheeks heightened. “His mother is a lawyer, she’s one of the first women to argue a case in front of the state supreme court. And his sister is in law school in Chicago, she wants to be a judge. We talked about women wanting careers rather than husbands and children. He agrees there’s nothing wrong with wanting a family, but he also agrees that women should know they have choices.”

Virginia jumped up. She marched back and forth as if she were delivering a lesson in a lecture hall.

“Women can do anything. Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize in the Novel, and Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden own their own cosmetics companies.” Her forehead knotted together. “But most colleges put more emphasis on finding a husband. There’s a tradition at Smith that the first girl in a class to get engaged runs around the dining table while everyone congratulates her. Getting married is considered more important than graduating.”

Virginia looked so radiant, as if a light had been switched on and refused to be dimmed.

Pandora wondered if Virginia was falling in love.

“What does Wolfgang look like?”

“I hardly noticed,” Virginia said with a shrug. “He has longish dark hair, and when he reads his poetry, he rubs the stubble on his chin. I’m not interested in his appearance; we have so much in common. We’ve read all the same authors. He loves T.S. Eliot and thinks Ulysses is overrated, and when he was a child, he read Peter Pan so many times, he almost memorized it.”

Virginia and Pandora had spent hours reading Peter Pan, even once they became teenagers. It had been Virginia’s favorite book, and her favorite character was Wendy.

“Wendy wanted to be a mother and have children,” Pandora reminded her.

“Yes, but that’s not all she wanted. She also wanted to leave home and have grand adventures.” Virginia glanced at the silver watch on her wrist. “I have to get dressed. I’m going back to Byrdcliffe tonight. I’m going to have dinner with Wolfgang again.”

“You can’t go, you’ll miss the fireworks.”

Virginia tied her robe more tightly around her waist.