Everlasting (21 page)

Jesus and Manuel and their girlfriends, Lina and Maria, came to work full-time for Catherine. She rented the second floor for office space for Mrs. Vanderveld, a consulting room for clients that doubled as a lounge for employees, and a private office for herself. She had her grandfather’s mahogany desk moved up into her office.

Along the walls of her private office, filing cabinets grew as if self-propagating because every night Catherine sat making meticulous notes about her clients. She wrote down everything: their address, the period of their decor, the subject and colors of the art on the walls, the amount of money they had been willing to spend in the past, any private observations she had about what they might want in the future. Later, when she was finished with her notes, she turned on the lights in Mrs. Vanderveld’s office and checked over the daily accounts.

Catherine was obsessed with Blooms. She lived for it. She thought of nothing else. Kit was a star twinkling at the back of her mind, but Blooms was sunlight, fresh air, real life. She never cooked for herself but grabbed sandwiches from the deli or pints of ice cream or Sara Lee cheesecakes. Occasionally she had dinner with her family at her parents’ Park Avenue apartment, if Shelly or Ann were home from school.

Her parents couldn’t seem to decide how to react to Blooms. Marjorie seemed more irritated than pleased by Catherine’s success. It was as if Catherine had become successful only to spite Marjorie. Marjorie was wary around her daughter, as if all her life Catherine had been hiding secrets. But her father treated Catherine with a new respect. Certainly he should. Both parents knew Catherine was giving them the money for Shelly and Ann’s schooling, but Drew was the one who actually took the checks from her. In the privacy of his den, he told Catherine how grateful he was. This year Shelly was applying to colleges. All his test scores and even his teachers indicated that Shelly was bright but undisciplined. “The boy needs a firm hand,” Drew Eliot said, clutching his whiskey glass in his own trembling hand.

In her own way, Marjorie at last became helpful to her daughter when she agreed to let Catherine pick and choose what she liked from her back closets. Marjorie changed weight so often that she had suits and gowns and dresses in all sizes, and one entire bedroom had been changed into a dressing room/storage room for anything from the previous seasons. Marjorie had beautiful taste, and every year there were times when she dieted so strenuously, she was able to buy small sizes. Of course in each year she also gained back huge amounts of weight, leaving the smaller sizes almost unworn.

“Would you mind if I borrowed something from the back closet, Mother?” Catherine asked one day.

“Oh, go ahead,” her mother replied.

“Actually, I have borrowed some of your things before,” Catherine confessed. “I didn’t know if you’d noticed. You weren’t home when I needed to ask you about them.”

“If it’s from the back closet, you can borrow it any time. I’ve got more to do than keep track of old clothes,” Marjorie said.

So Catherine left her parents’ apartment each time with a dress bag full of clothes. For consultations with her wealthy clients, the right clothes were essential, and all the clothes Catherine wore were simple, expensive material cut and sewn well. There was a navy Chanel suit with gold chains that was especially successful. A deep green wool dress with a high neck and long sleeves. A clean white-and-brown wool checked dress that fell straight to the knees, then flounced out in pleats when she walked, and a matching coat that fell to the flounce. A pale blue knit with a matching coat. Catherine spent her clothing money on expensive shoes and handbags and gloves.

Most of the time she was in work clothes, covered with a smock, up to her arms in leaves or paperwork. But as the year progressed, she decided she needed to attend more of the parties she was invited to. She had achieved a minor celebrity in the city. The more people she met personally, the more orders Blooms received. She didn’t enjoy the parties, because by the evening she was dreadfully exhausted, and there was always something else in the shop that needed to be done. Besides, most of her male escorts, men her own age or even slightly older, seemed frivolous to her. Puppies. And too often they were pleasant but patronizing. “You work with flowers? That’s nice. My grandmother likes flowers.” Or, “A florist, hm? Do you think you’d like to be an interior decorator someday?”

* * *

O
ne night she went to a charity ball at the Plaza with the brother of a classmate at Miss Brill’s. It was March. She had been so busy, she hadn’t had time to buy a serious evening gown, and as healed as she had thought her heart was, she still could not bear to put on the turquoise gown she had worn when she met Kit. Just looking at it made a sob rise in her throat. Just touching it made her want to sink to her knees, bury her head in the foamy hem, and weep like an abandoned child.

The only other real evening gown she had in her closet was the low-cut green work of art Helen Norton had given her not even a year ago. Catherine slipped into it. She had lost weight the past few months, worrying and working, but the gown fit all right, even if it did reveal more than she would have chosen. To cover the plunge between her breasts, she fastened in an orchid, then pinned a matching one in her hair. She looked fine, she didn’t care, she really only wanted to sleep.

It was amazing to her how little she had to say or do at a dance in order to seem even conscious. For many of the guests, these events were the high point of the week. Many of the women had stayed in bed all afternoon, resting for the party that night, or had spent the day having their hair and nails and faces done.

So that night at the dance, while the flower-decked, bejeweled, beribboned, adorned and spangled, frosted and iced, painted and garnished women whirled and laughed and called, “Darling, divine!” Catherine just drifted, nodding, smiling in reply to the compliments. She was bone-tired from hard work and deeply contented. She was really half-asleep even as she walked and talked and danced.

But she found herself jerked out of her lazy daze, like a fish caught on a hook and pulled to the surface of a frightening reality, when she found herself face-to-face with P. J. Willington. Her date was introducing them.

The old man stood before her, tall and respectable, his white starched tuxedo shirt as stiff and pure as truth itself.

“Mr. Willington, sir, I’d like you to meet Catherine Eliot. She’s the owner of Blooms, the flower shop on—”

“The shop that provided the flowers for this evening,” Catherine interrupted breathlessly. Mr. Willington would make no associations with the name Blooms, but the address of the shop where he’d gone so often to send flowers and baubles to the woman who eventually blackmailed him might ring an unwelcome bell.

“Oh, yes. I believe I recognize you from somewhere,” the old man said, scrutinizing Catherine.

Recognize the dress?
Catherine wanted to say hysterically.
I got it from an old friend of yours
.

But she didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Her breath was stuck, frozen inside her throat. How could he fail to connect her, a woman whose face he had seen dozens of times before when she wrote down his order for flowers for Helen Norton, with this gown, the very gown that Helen Norton had worn with him? Christ, P. J. Willington had paid for this gown!

“Yes,” P. J. Willington was saying. “Of course. I know your grandmother, Kathryn Eliot. She owns Everly. My wife and I spent a very pleasant Christmas night there a few years ago. Charming woman, charming. No wonder you’re a florist. She’s a real gardener, the real thing. Knew your grandfather, too. He was quite the rakehell in his day, you know. Would you care to dance?”

Catherine swallowed. What she really wanted to do was toss her champagne and canapes on P. J. Willington’s snowy shirtfront. What she did was to nod, smile, and slide into the old goat’s arms.

He whirled her onto the dance floor. The emerald gown swirled around her. Blooms’ flowers glittered from every table and pedestal stand and niche like jewels. It had been six months since P. J. Willington had been blackmailed, and here he was, hale and happy. The old pirate liked her looks, she could tell. Catherine relaxed. She waltzed in P. J. Willington’s arms.

Chapter 7

New York, 1968

A
pril in New York. Catherine in blossom.

A wealthy Texan whose wife wanted to be part of the New York art scene hired Catherine to do the flowers for an extravagant cocktail party they were giving at their new home on Washington Square. Their interior decorator had painted the walls of the huge room that served both as living and dining areas chalk white. The furniture was either teak or polished black enamel. The Texans wanted something “futuristic.” They said they had invited “everyone who was anyone.”

The husband had taken Catherine aside to tell her that this was the most important event in his wife’s life.

The wife had taken Catherine aside to tell her that this was the most important event in her life.

Catherine told them she would deliver something original and spectacular. She asked only that she and her crew work without interruption.

It was two hours before the party. The caterers were setting up their tables. Catherine was surveying her work.

She had bought eight mannequins, four of each sex, removed their heads, and painted them eight striking colors: magenta, chartreuse, acid yellow, carmine, ink black, raw umber, peacock blue, and emerald. She had shaped sphagnum moss into heads and wired them onto the torsos. Ivy trailed like pre-Raphaelite tresses over some heads, some were bald, some had dark or daisy or grass hair. Different flowers—carnations, mums, roses, bachelor buttons—had been stuck into the moss faces as eyes, noses, mouths, and ears. The result was humorously eerie.

Catherine knocked on the door leading to the hall, bedrooms, and den. Mr. and Mrs. Simon appeared in a flash. They hurried into the middle of their living area, stood still, and looked around. They approached each of the mannequins and inspected them closely.

“Oh,” the wife said in her high little drawl. “These are certainly … unusual.”

“Yes,” echoed her husband in his great big drawl. “They are definitely … unusual.”

Catherine took a gulp of Scotch to keep herself from screaming: “Okay, let’s
have
it! Do you like them? Hate them?
What
?”

The husband looked at the wife.

The wife looked at the husband.

“Well, we’d better get dressed, darlin’,” the wife said.

Mr. Simon turned to Catherine. “Thank you, Miss Eliot,” he said formally. “If you’ll excuse us, we’d better get dressed.”

“Thank you, Miss Eliot,” the wife called from the hall doorway. She fluttered her hand good-bye.

They don’t know if they like the arrangements or not! Catherine realized. She had seen this happen before. Not until the guests came and either were enraptured or disgusted would the hosts know what to think.

The next morning the phone rang at Blooms.

“Miss Eliot, I just want to thank you again,” Mrs. Simon cooed. “Everyone just went wild about those flower people. Some photographers took some shots, and one man told me he’s putting a story in
Chic
about the flowers and us. You are just so clever. Oh! My husband wants you to know he’s sending an extra little something to y’all in gratitude.”

Now the paralysis that had frozen Catherine’s lungs evaporated. She hung up the phone and took a deep breath. She was alone in her office, trying to hide her fear from her employees. At times like this she remembered she was only twenty-five. At times like this she remembered she was only pretending to know what she was doing.

Fortunately everyone else seemed to think she knew exactly what she was doing. In three short years she had made Blooms a prosperous company and herself a moderately wealthy and well-known young woman.

Accordingly, she had changed her look. These days she could afford to have her hair done. Her hairdresser scissored it short in a gamine cut. Her makeup consultant praised Catherine’s vivid coloring instead of despairing of it as Marjorie had. Now Catherine smugly wore the brilliant tones that paler women couldn’t carry.

Catherine lined her dark eyes with deep seal brown liner. She painted her lips scarlet. She had her ears pierced in spite of the fact that her mother insisted only whores and gypsies had holes in their ears, and she bought herself half-carat diamond ear studs. More and more she spent money on clothes for herself, because her mother’s expensive outfits were too simple and restrained for the look Catherine liked. The boldest women wore pantsuits these days. Catherine looked wonderful in slacks.

With the help of Mr. Giles and a money manager he recommended, she invested most of her money. Her major investment had been buying herself an apartment, the second floor of a dove gray stone building on Seventy-fifth Street just off Park. It had a fireplace in the living room, a balcony off the bedroom overlooking a tiny walled-in garden, high ceilings, ornate moldings, shining dark wood floors. Best of all, it was near Blooms.

She didn’t spend much time furnishing the apartment. She chose everything one afternoon in Bloomingdale’s. It was all good-quality, comfortable, dark mahogany contrasting with bright floral prints. It was satisfactory, and she was in a hurry.

Besides, she seldom had anyone in her home. If she entertained, she took people out for dinner or drinks or held small cocktail parties in the lusciously decorated consulting room at Blooms. She concerned herself with every detail of Blooms and with her own person as an adjunct of Blooms. Her own apartment was merely a convenience and a retreat.

It wasn’t only that she wanted to spend every waking moment and every ounce of her energy on Blooms. It was now also that she had to.

With each passing day, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveld grew less helpful and more troublesome. With Mr. Vanderveld it was the sad fact of aging that caused him to slow down, but Catherine was not sure whether Mrs. V was losing her mind or employing a cunningly destructive one.