The Life She Wanted: A Novel(88)
It seemed so obvious to Pandora now. The way Archie always tried to protect her, how there was a skip to her step when he was around. Whenever they were apart, she felt like a piece of her was missing.
Perhaps it had taken this long for a reason. They both had so much growing up to do.
“You don’t believe in love and marriage,” Pandora said.
“I don’t believe in marriage for myself,” Virginia answered. “But I publish books for a living.” She smiled. “Literature isn’t anything without love.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
August 1930, Hyde Park, New York
The afternoon of Adele’s party, Pandora got ready in the cottage at Riverview. She stood in front of the small closet and wondered how her life would have turned out if Harley’s scandal had never happened and the stock market hadn’t crashed.
She would be in her dressing room at Summerhill, putting the finishing touches on her makeup. Her closet would be filled with expensive dresses from Paris and Palm Beach, and from her bedroom window, she would look out on Summerhill’s manicured hedges and the tiered garden that led down to the Hudson. Harley would appear, boyish and handsome in a white vest and straw hat, his cheeks tan and his hair golden from a summer of house parties. Esme would join them in a pretty pink dress, her doll trailing beside her, and they’d drive to Blythdale together.
Sometimes it still made Pandora so angry. Harley had risked everything to be with Porter. Harley wouldn’t be there when Esme graduated from high school, when she started college, or when she got married. And Milton and Adele would never recover from the loss. They had Annie and her children, and Esme, but it wasn’t enough. The burden of losing three sons would stay with them forever.
At other times, she felt sorry for Harley and even blamed herself. She should never have agreed to marry him, and she shouldn’t have insisted that he remain faithful. Harley couldn’t help being homosexual. If only she had been able to tell him that nothing was worth taking his own life. And she would never know if he killed himself or if he died in the fire.
She hoped that one day the world would be different. That men like Harley could live their lives in the open. What kind of life was it for those men? To be denied your goals or dreams because the one thing you wanted, to love and be loved for who you were, wasn’t possible.
As Pandora looked over the partygoers on the lawn at Blythdale, she knew she was lucky. She had Esme, her friends and family, and now she had Archie. Pandora saw Archie standing on the terrace. He looked incredibly handsome in a white polo sweater and white shorts. His blond hair had grown longer again, and his face was tan from weekends in the sun.
“There you are,” he said as he joined her. He kissed her gently. “I’m sorry I’m late; I stopped at Riverview to talk to your father.”
“To talk to my father?” Pandora repeated.
Pandora hoped Archie wasn’t going to propose. She wasn’t ready to get married.
For the first time in her life, she was really enjoying herself. She wasn’t worried that Archie didn’t share her feelings, the way she had worried with Owen. And she wasn’t nervous that something fierce and irreversible would happen to shatter their happiness, like when she was married to Harley. And their relationship wasn’t simply the sexual desire she experienced with Maurice. Being with Archie was everything she wanted at the same time. For now, she didn’t need anything more.
Archie noticed Pandora’s expression. He grinned.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop down on my knee like Owen with Lillian in front of all these people.” He chuckled. “I told Willie what I thought he should know.” He took Pandora’s hand. “That from now on, I’ll put your and Esme’s happiness before my own. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
Pandora reached her hand up to his face and kissed him.
Archie went to talk to Virginia and Wolfgang, and Pandora walked down to the river. The sun glinted on the water, and the maple trees were just starting to turn the gold and orange of early autumn.
There was nothing more beautiful than the grand estates along the Hudson. The gracious mansions and rolling, green lawns. Blythdale’s marble pergola and manicured clock garden, the Vanderbilts’ acres of farmland, Riverview’s tennis court and swimming pool. Pandora had lived more than half her life in Hyde Park; she never wanted that to change. Yet at the same time she was ready for something more. For Esme Sportswear to be in department stores across the country, instead of only in New York. To one day travel to Europe with Archie and go to all the places she had never been.
Pandora had gone through so much. The joy of Esme’s birth, followed so soon by the pain of Harley’s scandal and death. The satisfaction of starting her own sportswear company and now the giddy happiness of being with Archie.
If she had learned anything, it was how much she valued the people in her life. People she loved, and who loved her for who she was. Willie, who only wanted her to be happy, and Virginia, who was like a sister, and Adele, whom Pandora admired for her kindness and courage. Esme had those people in her life too. Now she had Archie, and perhaps one day, a brother or sister. More people to love her, to teach her about the world.
Pandora couldn’t think of anything better to give her daughter than that.
Epilogue