The Life She Wanted: A Novel(32)
At the end of August, the Vanderbilts would hold the last house party of the summer. There would be golf and games and afternoon tea served on the lawn. The grounds boasted two thousand rosebushes, and Frederick had commissioned New York’s leading landscape architect, Charles Platt, to design the pergolas and swimming pool. Guests could visit Frederick Vanderbilt’s farm, and the invitation promised a tour of the mansion and the multitiered gardens, each with its own type of plant.
The Roosevelts and Dinsmores would attend, as well as Archie and Virginia and their parents and the Winthrops and Enrights. Harley had invited Pandora as his guest.
Pandora had seen Harley twice a week for the past month. It wasn’t like when Owen used to come to Riverview to lounge around and play tennis. Harley took her boating and on drives. He brought her little gifts—roses from the Enrights’ garden, a jar of jam made by the cook. His mother sent small things too—a book on influential women Adele thought Pandora might like, a scarf she happened to see at the dress shop.
Milton Enright kept his promise and invited Willie to play tennis at Blythdale. Pandora and Harley and Adele watched from the sidelines, and Pandora could have kissed her father when he let Milton win. After the match, they drank lemonade and talked about current tennis stars: the French player René Lacoste, known as the Crocodile for never letting an opponent get away, and the American hero Bill Tilden.
Harley was so sweet to her. He wasn’t like other young men who treated dates as something to get out of the way before the real fun of the evening began: playing poker and billiards with their friends and seeing who could drink the most old-fashioneds.
Her favorite thing to do with Harley was to see plays at the playhouse in Poughkeepsie. Afterward, they would dine at a restaurant and talk about how Harley would have directed the play or what the playwright was trying to say. It was during those times, sharing large plates of spaghetti and drinking frosty Coca-Colas, that Pandora felt something she had never felt with Owen. A friendship as well as an attraction.
Harley asked her opinion about the costumes, and Pandora drew sketches on the napkins. Often their arms brushed, and a frisson, like some kind of electric shock, shot through her.
It was a thirty-minute drive from Poughkeepsie to Hyde Park. On the drive home, Harley hummed show tunes, and Pandora gazed at the mansions sleeping behind iron gates. For the first time, she felt like she belonged.
In the beginning, Pandora had been attracted to Harley for his good looks and the attention he lavished on her. Now she realized that she was falling in love with him. Her heart seemed to beat faster when she was with him. When she wasn’t with him, she was distracted and had to pull her mind back to her chores. It frightened her. She didn’t want to get hurt the way she had been by Owen.
The week after the party, Harley would return to Princeton. He hadn’t kissed her yet. He was raised too properly to do anything impolite, but it made Pandora anxious. At Princeton, Harley would be busy with classes and the theater. She worried the whole thing might fizzle out.
And she had so enjoyed being with Adele. Adele was everything a mother should be. She talked about Harley incessantly. And she was so kind to Pandora. Offering Pandora her scarf or a pair of gloves when Harley and Pandora went to the theater. If Harley lost interest in Pandora, she’d lose Adele too.
Pandora was in her room in the cottage at Riverview, packing her overnight bag, when a knock came at the door. She assumed it was Virginia seeing if she was ready.
Except it wasn’t. It was her father, and he looked concerned.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
With his height and strong physique, her father had always looked young for his age. But over the past few months he had grown older. His shoulders were slightly stooped, and his blue eyes were watery. The laugh lines around his mouth had deepened and were visible even when he wasn’t smiling. It was Pandora’s fault. If only she could fix it.
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” Willie sat on the chair that stood at her dressing table.
“I’m going to pay you back soon. I started looking for jobs in the newspapers. It’s just . . .”
She couldn’t tell her father the truth. That she had been rejected for the girl Friday job in New York. That every advertisement she had seen—as a telephone operator at Macy’s department store, as a clerk in a flower shop—required experience she didn’t have. It was demoralizing, and since she’d started seeing Harley, she’d stopped looking.
“I’m still angry, but it’s not about that.” Willie waved his hand. “I want to talk to you about Harley Enright.”
The color rose to Pandora’s cheeks. She never talked about men with her father. The only person she confided in was Virginia.
“What about Harley?” Pandora wondered.
“You’re out with Harley all the time, and he’s always sending flowers and boxes of chocolates.”
Pandora twisted her hands nervously. She couldn’t let her father believe she was enjoying herself when she had lost his money and should be looking for a job. Perhaps if Willie knew that she and Harley were serious about each other, he would feel differently.
“It has been a nice summer; Harley is kind and funny, and he’s interested in what I say.”
“Harley is still in college; perhaps he’s just having fun.”
“Harley isn’t like that; he’s different than other young men,” she persisted. “I’m sure he’ll declare his feelings soon, and then I’ll be able to pay you back. You could buy a house or take a holiday,” she said earnestly. “You haven’t taken time off in years.”