Deceptions (58 page)

'Yes, you do. Or you should.' She leaned forward, holding the girl's eyes with her own. Her voice was low, but her words whipped like steel between them. 'Because I am going to expose you for what you are, and I am going to make it impossible for you to graduate.'

'You can't do that! There's no way you can do that! Just because your husband hates me—!'

'My husband hates you? Why?'

'Because... because I wouldn't go to bed with him,' Rita said defiantly.

Sabrina shook her head slowly. 'You little fool. Couldn't you just once use your head instead of what you have between your legs? How long do you think you can buy your way by being a woman? How good a bargain can you get? And

how many friends will you have, when eveiy time you sell yourself you make it harder for women who are relying on their brains?'

*He told you to say that; that's what he said to me last June.'

Sabrina pushed aside her cup. *Now, you listen to me. My husband does not know I am talking to you. You are dealing with me, and we will settle this between us. But even if he knew 1 was here, he would not tell me what to say. No one tells me what to say. / decide what I will say, and I ask no one's permission. You would understand that if you believed in yourself as a person instead of a motorized sex machine.' She paused. 'But we were talking about other things, weren't we? Your graduation. Anonymous letters. And the kind of gene-ius who writes them.'

There was a long silence. Sabrina watched expressions move across Rita's face as the girl tried to think of a response and then slowly crumpled.

'Are you going to tell on me?'

Tell on me. As if she were three years old, Sabrina thought. 'What did you think I meant when I said I was going to expose you?'

'I didn't know. I didn't know you knew about the letters.' She waited. 'But you can't tell on me! They'd suspend me, or even expel me, and then 1 couldn't graduate!'

Exasperated, Sabrina said. 'Of course you can't graduate! I told you I would make it impossible.'

'But I have to graduate! My parents told me they wouldn't give me any more money if I didn't graduate this time. And I haven't got any of my own, so I have to graduate.'

Perfect logic, Sabrina thought. 'And how do you intend to graduate?'

*I have a C in my class, and that's all I need.*

'No, you also need to have me on your side.'

Nibbling a fingernail, Rita looked bewildered. 'But there's nothing I can do for you.'

'Think about it,' Sabrina suggested. 'Since I have no desire to go to bed with you, what might you offer that would interest me?'

Rita nibbled, glancing vaguely around the room, then

looked at Sabrina in dismay. 'You want me to tell them what I wrote isn't true! But then I'd have to say I wrote the letters! I can't do that! They'll kick me out! I won't graduate!'

'Well, I think that's negotiable/ Sabrina said with a sigh. 'I'll go with you to the vice president's office; if you confess the whole story, I'm sure the three of us can work something out.' She pushed the tea cart away and leaned closer to Rita. 'Now. Why don't we go over exactly what it is you are going to say?*

Snow fell again on Thanksgiving morning and continued all day. 'It's all right,' Dolores said briskly. 'We need the moisture. It was a diy summer and fall.'

'How grateful the snow must be,' Nat said, putting an affectionate arm around her shoulders. 'For your permission to keep on falling.'

Dolores smiled calmly. 'You'll notice I don't ask it to stop.' She winked at Linda as she went back to grinding cranberries.

Linda clutched Sabrina's arm. 'Didyou see that?' she asked in an audible whisper. Her cheeks were crimson from the heat of the oven, and her black eyes were sparkling. 'Have you ever seen Dolores wink before?'

'No,* answered Sabrina honestly. She was cutting oranges and handing them to Dolores to be ground with the cranberries, while Linda grated nutmeg for the sweet potatoes. The pungent odors filled the warm kitchen, mingling with the pervasive smell of the stuffed turkey roasting in the oven and the spicy fragrance of cooling pumpkin pies. At the other end of the counter. Garth and Marty were making com pudding from a recipe of Garth's great-grandmother's that he was trying to recall from memory as they went along, debating proportions and the scientific properties of baking soda and sour milk. Nat decanted wine and basted the turkey and circled the room, tasting everything.

Sabrina listened to the talk and laughter and breathed deeply, as if she could draw in the scents and sounds with her happiness and store them for the future. Since Gordon's doaor had ruled against his traveling, Sabrina was spared

the sharp eye of her mother and could relax in a celebration of her first Thanksgiving dinner since she was fifteen. It was the fiist time she had spent such a day with a group of friends: cooking together, decorating the rooms with the flowers and Indian com Dolores had brought, listening to the giggles and chatter of all their children setting the table while, outside, snowflakes fell, dark against the gray sky, piling in soft drifts on the ground. My first and my last, she thought, and it shouldn't even be mine; it should be Stephanie's day. Sadness slid through her happiness and a tear splashed on the orange she was cutting.

*I thought only onions did that,' Nat said, beside her. 'First time I ever saw oranges have that effect. Shall I take over?'

Sabrina shook her head. 'It will pass.'

'Mourning always does, though memories don't. You haven't had much time. And then you had this business with Garth to worry about. Which reminds me.' Picking up an open bottle of wine, he filled six glasses and hand^ them around the room. 'Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the first toast of the holiday, no doubt the first of many. We hope the first of many.' He paused as they turned to him. 'We have, of course, countless blessings, but at the moment three special ones, and so I offer a toast. To Marty Talvia, the new senior editor at Fairbanks Publishers, who will revolutionize textbooks by ensuring that they are written in English instead of jargon; and to Garth Andersen, for his victory over scurrilous lies that only a heteromorphic pinch-mouthed, dim-witted, imbecilic investigator would believe.'

'It means unnatural,' Marty said as Linda and Dolores demanded a definition. Looking up, Sabrina saw the six of them reflected in the dark window, close together in the honey-colored kitchen as the early winter night closed in. She held the picture with her eyes, fixing it in her mind. Mourning passes; memories don't. Ill have my memories. Of Stephanie. And of her friends and family. Because, for a little while, they were my friends and family, too.

'But what's the third blessing?' Dolores asked.

Nat turned to Garth. 'Your turn.'

'My wife,' Garth said, and took Sabrina's hand. 'Who discovered our anonymous letter-writer and, through a

conversation she will not describe to me, cowed the young woman into accompanying her quite meekly to Lloyd Strauss's office, where a full confession was written in ink and signed. And who kept her promise to the letter-writer by convincing Lloyd he should allow her to graduate. And who then, after the young woman departed - Lloyd told me ;his himself - gave him a scolding he will not soon forget and stood over him while he read a statement to his secretary to be telephoned to the media. And who finally, as Lloyd also told me, refused to leave until he set the date for the announcement of my appointment as director of the Genetics Institute.'

He touched his glass to Sabrina's. 'My wife. My dearest love.'

Linda's eyes brimmed with tears. 'Stephanie, you never said a word. That's the most wonderful story I ever heard.'

'Poor Lloyd,' Nat said wiyly. 'Facing Stephanie's wrath. He must have been terrified.'

'He deserved it,' said Dolores scornfully.

'I wish,' Linda said to Marty, her voice low, 'I wish I'd done something that wonderful for you.'

'You did,' he said. 'You stayed with me.'

In the golden, fragrant room, Sabrina lay her palm against Garth's cheek. 'I love you.'

He put his arms around her, his mouth close to hers. 'My life, my world, my whole being.'

She closed her eyes. / can% I can't; don't make me leave him.

In a moment, she opened her eyes. 'I have a toast, too.'

*I should hope so,' said Nat. 'My glass is empty.' Her tears were gone, he saw; she looked magnificent. Stunningly beautiful - strange how they all got used to it and then suddenly would see her as if for the first time and be taken aback by her beauty. Today, flushed from the heat of the kitchen, her hair casually held back by a gold band, she was at once a lovely woman and a young girl radiantly in love. And why not, after Garth's words? Looking at her, it was hard to believe in the confused, incoherent, grieving woman Garth had described after the funeral. But Nat still heard her stumble occasionally, thinking of herself as Sabrina, and he

knew she had not yet resolved her confusion - though at the moment she seemed to know exactly who she was.

Thinking about her, he had missed her toast. To Garth, he gathered, for being elected to the National Genetics Research Advisory Council. A high honor for a man not yet forty; no wonder they were pleased.

'—Council meeting next week in New York,* Garth was saying.

'Stephanie, too?' Linda asked. 'But the estate sale—'

'Madeline will help you,' Sabrina said. 'And I'll work with you this week, before I leave. You've learned so much; you'll be wonderful and you know it. Madeline thinks you're amazing. And so do I.'

'Mom, we're starved!' Cliff said, coming into the kitchen. •When do we eat?'

'My God, the bird!* Nat cried. 'I've abandoned my duties as a baster.' He opened the oven. 'When do we eat?'

'One hour,' Dolores said. 'If Garth and Marty get that com concoction in the oven right away.*

'Can we have some pretzels?' Cliff asked.

'Go easy,' said Sabrina. 'There's a feast ahead of us.*

As everyone moved about the kitchen to different tasks, she took a quick glance at the window. It was smooth and dark; all the reflections were gone.

After dinner the next night Sabrina climbed the stairs to the third floor and sat at Stephanie's desk. The room was bare but no longer dusty; Juanita's determined hand had been at work. And its sad air of defeat was gone, too; it was just a room where projects had been stored and now were about to be revived. She emptied the drawers of the records and photographs Stephanie had kept from her estate business and slipped them into large envelopes for Linda. In the years to come, she would continue the business that Stephanie had begun.

In the strange quiet, so rare in that house, Sabrina looked at the pile of envelopes. One by one she was completing the unfinished pieces of Stephanie's life. Cliff was free of his gang and so relieved about it that he was tolerating almost cheerfiilly a month of restrictions. He had gone to Garth with

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the ^niiole story, and the two of them had reached their own understanding; all Sabrina knew about it was Garth's comment later, in bed. 'Someday Cliff will appreciate what you've done for the two of us, helping us to be Mends. I appreciate it now. I appreciate/ou.*

She had seen Garth through the ugliness of the anonymous letters; the stoiy already was fading and he was deep in discussions with architects and contractors on the new Genetics Institute. She had helped Linda when she needed it, as Stephanie would have done. Soon Penny's art classes would begin, and next month the costumes she had designed and made would be seen in the class puppet show—

/ won't see it. And I promised—

'Mom? You coming down?' 'In a few minutes, Qiff,' she called. Opening the desk drawers to make sure nothing was left behind, she ran her hand to the back of each one. They were all empty. Picking up the envelopes, she reached for the light to turn it off.

'Mom!'

'Yes, Cliff, right—'

Telephone, Mom! From London!'

London? At this hour? Something must have happened; it was three in the morning there; who would call—?

She swept up the envelopes and ran downstairs to the telephone in the bedroom.

'Mrs Andersen, this is Michel Barnard; we met at Sabrina's funeral, if you remember.'

'Of course, I remember. What is it? Ambassadors? Has something happened—^?'

'No, it's something else. We wanted you to know as soon as we did. We heard today from Scotland Yard that Ivan Lazlo and Rory Carr have been arrested for placing a bomb on Max Stuyvesant's yacht. It seems they—*

'Wait. Please, wait a minute.'

'Oh damnation - forgive me - Jolie told me not to rush into -hey!'

'Mrs Andersen, this is JoUe Fantome. Michel is a boor and I apologize for him. This not the way to tell you.'

Sabrina sat on the edge of the bed. 'It's all right; I knew

there had been a bomb; it was just suddenly hearing it. It all seems so far away from here. What else have they foimd?'

'This is what we know. It will all be in our stoiy when it is published in December. You know about Max Stuyvesant's smuggling? And that Lazlo and Carr stored his smuggled goods and also had a little sideline of selling forged art mixed in with the real thing? You know all that from Sabrina?'

'Yes. But what about Ambassadors?*

'Almost nothing. It is listed in the books at Westbridge as a customer; but reporters want drama, and a few forged art works are not dramatic. The reporters are interested in Lazlo and Carr because they put a bomb on Stuyvesant's yacht. That is dramatic. And it has nothing to do with Ambassadors.*

'But it does. If Sabrina was killed because of what she knew—*

'No, that is not correct. We thought you feared that, but we could not say for sure you were wrong. Now we can. Carr and Lazlo are babbling on and on, blaming each other for everything, but it aU comes down to a quarrel with Stuyvesant over the forgeries; he said they could be discovered, which would open the door to exposing his smuggling operation. Carr and Lazlo thought he was planning to get rid of them, so they simply beat him to it.'

'It wasn't Sabrina - it was Max they were after?'