Everlasting (28 page)

Blooms did a staggering amount of business over Christmas and New Year’s. People who never bought flowers wanted flowers now, and those who always bought flowers wanted something special. People who didn’t know what to buy for presents, or had forgotten a gift, came rushing desperately into the shop and went out smiling, laden with an unusual plant or a sheaf of fresh-cut flowers. Women too busy with shopping and parties and Christmas balls and charity dinners and celebrations had Catherine come in to decorate their homes for Christmas.

“Now this is wealthy!” Catherine whispered to Piet as they set up a fourteen-foot Christmas tree in the marble-floored foyer of an apartment that looked out over Central Park. In the four niches of the semicircular foyer were four marble busts representing the virtues of the women of the British empire. Catherine attached a sprig of red-berried holly jauntily over the ear of each marble lady. That was the sort of touch the clients liked; it made them seem witty.

Once Catherine asked Piet if he would attend a holiday ball with her.

“Sorry. I know I’d be too tired. Besides, I don’t have a tux.”

“Well, buy one, Piet. You can afford it!”

“Look, Catherine. Don’t tell me what to do with my money, and I won’t tell you what to do with yours.”

“Oh, Piet! You drive me crazy!”

“I know. It’s good for you,” he replied, and began kissing the back of her neck.

It was true. Piet was good for her. Catherine was grateful for his odd way of loving her, if love was what it was. They had never said “I love you.” Not once. They never spoke about a future together. They didn’t trade intimate stories about their families and their past. They made love, and they talked shop. They lived in an infinite present, concerned only with each day’s work, each night’s pleasure. However odd it seemed, Catherine was very happy. She was free to give her life over to her ambitions for the store, knowing that she could have companionship without complications. Piet brought her pleasure, took pleasure from her, and asked for nothing more.

There were moments when she was drifting up from sleep, or relaxing in a scented bath, when thoughts of Kit would rise within her like a spell, and she remembered how with Kit she had felt like one-half of a whole. When she and Kit had made love, she had felt that they were working together toward the same thing. It was different with Piet. He did things to her. She liked what he did, and she enjoyed doing things to him, but she never felt more separate from him than when they were in bed.

So, Catherine told herself, the body lies, our deepest instincts lie. Kit was married to someone else. She shook her head sharply, snapping herself out of memory into real life.

* * *

I
n the spring of 1969, a national women’s magazine did a profile on Catherine as one of the new young female millionaires. Catherine wondered if Kit would see the article, especially the picture where Piet stood at her side in front of one of Blooms’ opulent displays. She was surprised at herself: when would she ever stop thinking of Kit?

“Spring bulbs will be plentiful,” Kathryn said.

It was late March, a windy, rainy, bleak day, but cozy by the fire in the library, where the two women sat looking at the sketch pad on which Kathryn had drawn up her diagrams and lists.

Catherine was now in the habit of visiting her grandmother once a week, on Mondays, her day off. The drive out to East Hampton and back provided her with valuable quiet time, and her grandmother’s house and gardens always gave her new ideas. And she knew her grandmother liked having her around, although it was always on Kathryn’s terms.

Kathryn was obsessed. She was seventy-three, and before she died, she wanted to plan and plant a white-and-purple garden at Everly. Years ago she’d chosen the spot, a peaceful, flat space of ground that she could see out of her bedroom window. Back then she’d had Japanese lilac trees, lilac bushes, and rhododendrons planted. Now, in the spring of 1969, these bloomed lavishly, enclosing the chosen space in dense, plumy, fragrant walls of blossoms.

Now she was making diagrams and lists of what she would plant that summer. “White: snowflowers, paperwhite narcissus, crocuses, and lily of the valley. I must write to Holland for some white tulip bulbs. Purple: crocus again, and a multitude of hyacinths. I want to have the walkways paved in a swirling design, with white paving stones. The heather and heath will grow wonderfully with that sandy soil. Late in spring, an army of iris. Then violets, although they need the shade. In the summer, larkspur, snapdragons, and sweet pansies. I’ve always loved pansies.”

“If you had a greenhouse, Grandmother, you could start the pansies, and many of the others, in the house in the winter.”

Kathryn brushed at the air as if at an irritating gnat. “I’ve always thought greenhouses looked vulgar. Like factories. No, there’s no need for a greenhouse. I can start what I want in the windows of the pantries and sheds.”

Catherine didn’t argue. She didn’t want to offend her grandmother by presuming to tell her how to run Everly. Still, with Blooms, it was such a temptation, all this open space here, so close to New York; if she could have only an acre of ground to plant.… The floral trade was such a competitive business, especially in New York. Yet while Kathryn encouraged Catherine to talk about her latest, most clever arrangements, she grew impatient with any real shop talk, to say nothing of discussing finances. Catherine supposed one of the prerogatives of old age was that of choosing to listen only to what was pleasant.

* * *

C
atherine worked hard, and she was getting rich. Twice a month she had dinner with her financial adviser, Mr. Giles, who adored her for making so much money at such a young age. Following his advice, when she was offered the chance of buying the apartment beneath hers, she grabbed it and turned her apartment into a spacious duplex. Now she had a living room, dining room, and guest room on the first floor and a huge bedroom with a fireplace, a dressing room, and an office on the second. She furnished the apartment with European antiques that Mr. Giles considered shrewd investments; she bought at Christie’s or one of the smaller auction houses like Tepper.

She did not suggest to Piet that he move in with her, for whenever she even approached the subject, he shied away. The more she tried to learn about him, the more mysterious he became. If she tried, however subtly, to pry, he closed up, a creature with a shell. She knew everything about his body, but almost nothing about his private thoughts. The few times she got angry, he remained fatally cool; the more she stormed, the thicker his invisible shield became. Frustrated, she now and then threatened to break things off. But this always led to Piet smiling and touching her, drawing her near him, kissing her, embracing her, and then they were making love and she forgot about leaving him.

* * *

T
hat summer she took Ann to France to spend a week touring the castles in the Loire Valley. Then Ann flew to England to work with Hortense for the summer, and Catherine spent a week in Paris with Leslie. Leslie’s Left Bank loft was full of vivid abstract paintings that Catherine found rather alarming; and Leslie herself seemed a bit alarming, too. She still wore black constantly, with heavy black eye shadow and white lipstick, and she worried constantly, neurotically, about her paintings. “I didn’t get this one quite right,” she said over and over again to Catherine, biting her nails, intense. Catherine met Leslie’s current lover, another artist named Paul, a skeletal, nervous, vaguely sadistic man who gave Catherine the creeps.

“Don’t you ever think about getting married? Having children?” Catherine asked Leslie. They were sitting under an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe, drinking Pernod.

“God, no. The very thought horrifies me. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of that kind of life! Catherine, you’re a closet bourgeois.”

“Perhaps. At least I’m beginning to wish whatever it is I have with Piet were a little more definite. Do you know, we’ve been lovers for a year now, and he hasn’t ever said he loves me!”

“What about you?”

“Of course I have—” Catherine grinned. “But now that I think about it, I’ve always said it when we’ve been … in bed. I’ve never said it when we’ve been, oh, walking down the street. As a matter of fact, when we’re not in bed, we’re rarely together, unless we’re working. And then it’s as if we’re completely different people. He never touches me at work—and I’m grateful, but still, Leslie, don’t you think that’s weird? After a year of being lovers?”

“Mmm?” Leslie’s attention had wandered. A handsome young man in blue jeans had sat down at a table near theirs and was eyeing Leslie over his beer.

“Leslie,” Catherine whispered, “he’s too young! I’ll bet he hasn’t even graduated from college!”

“They’re the best kind. They can go on all night.”

“You’re a hopeless degenerate.”

“I’m working at it. You should work at it, too, Catherine. You don’t want to end up married and dead.” Leslie lowered her eyelids and smiled invitingly at the young man. “I’d die if I didn’t get a look like this at least once a week,” she said.

* * *

W
hen Catherine returned from her vacation, Piet was gone to Amsterdam. She had to work twice as hard to make up for his absence, and what free time she had she spent at Everly with her grandmother. Almost every Sunday Catherine spent weeding and watering the white-and-purple garden, which was taking nicely; then she’d sit with Kathryn and Clara, drinking tea and admiring the results of their labor.

One Sunday afternoon Catherine spotted a postcard on the front hall table, message face up. She recognized the handwriting.

Dear Grandmother, I’ve got blisters on my hands from the secateurs and spades, aches in my back, dirt under my nails, and I’ve never been so happy. The next time you come to this Everly, you can see what I’ve done. I think I’ll become a horticulturist.

Love, Ann.

Well, Catherine thought, good for Ann. At last. She, too, had found her vocation among flowers.

Yet beneath her pleasure for her sister, Catherine felt a vein of fear streak through her heart, a greedy faultline of possessiveness. What was Ann up to? Would Kathryn leave her Everly to the grandchild who planted flowers rather than to the one who sold them?

Such thoughts, Catherine knew, were ugly and destructive; they blackened her heart. She had never counted on her family to give her anything. She must remember to remain that way.

* * *

S
he was glad when the rushing routine of fall returned. She was too busy for jealous fancies, and anyway, Ann was safely back at college. The Arthritis Foundation wanted Blooms to do the flowers for their charity ball at the Waldorf. The New York Insurance Company was working on a new publicity scheme and wanted to change the containers of the flowers she delivered each week. They wanted their image to look more “natural,” more “healthy,” so she designed an arrangement of ferns, begonias, and African violets in plain green ceramic containers. Deep inside the containers were moss balls to hold the fresh flowers Blooms would add on special occasions.

A container wholesaler called Catherine with a scoop: he had in a new line of containers in plastic, a novelty and luxury in 1969. The vases were dark orange, dark green, dark blue, strikingly modern. A well-known artist in the Village wanted something distinctive for his opening and called Catherine. She knew the dark plastic containers were perfect—a stark arrangement of five cattails cut at different lengths, a large white lily arching to the right, and an arum leaf branching to the left. The effect was as haunting and original as the artist’s own work. And so Blooms became the favorite of the Warhol crowd as well as high society.

* * *

I
t wasn’t until the second day of 1970, after the holiday rush, that Catherine and Piet were finally able to relax together in her apartment. Catherine had cooked a homey meal of roast chicken and wild rice, which tasted exotic and delicious after all the takeout food they’d consumed standing up while rushing through work during Christmas. She had even attempted a homemade chocolate cake, and now they lingered over it with freshly brewed coffee. It was by far the most elaborate meal she’d ever made for Piet—and she hoped he was as impressed as she was.

“Catherine,” Piet said, “I need to go to Amsterdam for a while.”

“Oh? Is something wrong? Is someone ill?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just some things I want to attend to. I should be gone only a month. I’m sure you can get along without me for a while. I’ll be back in time for the Valentine’s Day rush.”

“You’ve never had to go over at this time of year before.” Catherine waited for Piet to explain, but he only sipped his coffee and took another bite of cake. “What’s over there now?”

“Just some business. Something I want to look into.”

“Jesus Christ, Piet!” Catherine threw her napkin on the table and leaned toward him, clutching the table’s edge. “Why must you make your life such a mystery? What are you, a spy? A criminal? You never share anything with me. I’ve known you for years—we’ve been lovers for years—why can’t you confide in me?”

“Catherine, don’t be so upset. There’s nothing to confide.”

“Then why are you going—”

“Look. I have an idea about something, and I need to explore a few things. If they work out, I’ll tell you about them. If not, then I haven’t wasted any of your time.”

“Wasted my time! Piet, why won’t you talk to me? You never talk, you never tell me what you want out of life, what’s hurt you or made you happy. For all I know, you have a wife and children in Holland!”

“I don’t have a wife and children in Holland.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Catherine felt wild, desperate.

“My dear Catherine, I trust you completely.” Piet reached across the table and held her hands in his. “You are the only woman in my life. You are the only woman I want. Be patient with me. I need to take this time in Amsterdam, and then, when I come back, I’ll share everything with you.”