Inheritance (7 page)

"Ah," said Owen, admiring the color in her cheeks and the depth of her deep blue eyes, less wary, more eager than the day before. "Come in, look around, then we'll begin work."

It was a man's house, with oak floors, Persian rugs, and oversize couches and chairs upholstered in dark suede. On the walls were oil paintings of the Cape and its wildlife in different seasons; the lamps were pewter, the windows bare. Beyond the living room was the library, its walls lined floor to ceiling with books, precarious towers of books stacked on the floor, books on reading stands, books strewn on long tables, window seats, and the arms of chairs. "It needs order," Owen said thoughtfully.

Laura gazed at the chaos. "I thought you said re-organize."

"I did. What you see is my first organization. You and I will accomplish iht second. Perhaps it will be more successful."

Laura looked at him and they laughed together. "I guess it can't be any worse," she said, and rolled up her sleeves.

Every day they worked side by side, alphabetizing, cataloguing, labeling shelves, wading tiirough the new piles they made as they sorted old ones. And they talked. Owen told Laura about his parents and grandparents, the first four hotels he bought—still his favorites though his company owned over fifty in America and Europe—and about Iris, ^e woman he had loved since he was fifteen, his wife and the mother of his children, whom he still longed for every day, though it had been almost forty years since she died.

And Laura talked, too, carefully choosing the memories she would share. She told Owen the same story she had told Leni: how she and Clay had lived with relatives after their parents

Inheritance

were killed in an automobile accident, and recently moved out because they didn't like it there. She told him, truthfully, what she remembered about her mother and father, a few anecdotes about her brother Clay— but nothing about Ben; don't slip and say anything about Ben —and the classes she had liked best in high school. For the first time she talked about her dreams of being an actress. 'I've had three parts in school plays and everybody says I'm really good. And I love being on the stage, all that makebelieve . . ." She talked about studying acting in college, if she ever found a way to go. "I mean," she fumbled when she remembered she'd lied about college the day they met, "I was going to start this fall, but I don't know, it may not work out ..."

"There's nothing wrong with pretending," Owen said gently.

"I wasn't pretending!" she said hotly. "I thought I'd go! I wiU go!"

"I'm sure you will," he said, still gentle.

She bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I don't know exactly what I'll do about college. I'll figure something out."

"Well," he said offhandedly, leafing through a leather-bound book, "I could loan you the money for tuition. And board and room, too, if you need it." He heard Laura's sharp breath and nodded slowly. "I could certainly do that. A loan, of course, though I wouldn't expect you to pay it back until you had graduated and were earning your living, acting or perhaps something else. However, there would be one condition." He looked up and met her quick frown. "I'd expect you to write to me, and visit me, too. I wouldn't want to lose track of you."

Laura's face was radiant, her mind racing. "It's so wonderful ..." / never have to steal again. I can go to college and learn to be somebody. And I have a friend. She put out her hand, then drew it back. She wanted to touch Owen, she wanted to kiss him, but she thought he might be angry. All he'd done was offer to loan her money. He probably loaned money to lots of people, and he wouldn't want them to start slobbering over him. She kept her hand in her lap. "You're wonderful. Thank you, thank you so much ... I'll make you proud of me, I'll work so hard . . ." She turned her head

Judith Michael

away to hide the tears that stung her eyes. "I'll write to you every day," she said briskly and picked up a book, staring at it blindly until her tears dried.

"Once a week will be sufficient," Owen said with a calm smile, and they went back to work.

From that day, Laura found it easier to talk about her life in New York, her favorite books, the hours she had spent in Cal Hendy's bookshop. She was still careful, she still had to stop herself sometimes in mid-sentence, but by th&end of their first week together the best time of her day was with Owen. It was a time when she could almost relax and forget everything outside his quiet rooms.

The only thing she couldn't forget, as hard as she tried, was Clay's admiring voice when she had told him about her part-time job. '*God, you're clever, Laura. Who else could have wormed her way into the family and made the old guy trust you in less than two months?"

Owen met her in the kitchen just after lunch and took her to meet the family. They went from house to house along paths lined with old-fashioned gas lamps and rhododendron bushes, and Laura was reminded of books she had read about an earlier century, when people made calls in the afternoon, leaving calling cards if no one was home. But for Owen, everyone was home. And though they were puzzled, and Laura was almost mute from shyness, everyone was kind. Only Felix and Asa made clear how peculiar they found the situation, even allowing for their father's famous whims, and Asa's wife, Carol, didn't know whether to echo her husband's chilly greeting or Leni's pleasant one.

As they were leaving Asa's house, Allison arrived with her cousin Patricia. "Oh, we've met," Allison said casually when Owen began his introduction. Laura held her breath, but Allison breezed on. "When mother hired you, remember? I was so glad she did. When Rosa does the hiring she always finds elderly ladies with thin lips who play bridge and only cook lamb chops and Jell-O. She did hire a terrific college girl last summer who mixed up oregano and marijuana. Fortunately Rosa discovered it before we ate the lasagna. Grandpa said we would have been known as the Stoned Salingers, which annoyed my father, but his sense of humor is rather dim."

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"Allison," Owen said, "that is no way to talk of your father."

"You talk about him that way." Allison's voice deepened and she drew her brows together like Owen. "Telix, you*d live longer and make the rest of us much happier if you learned to laugh occasionally.'"

Owen smiled, but Laura thought there was a sharpness in the way Allison talked about everyone, from elderly ladies to her own father.

"I assume," Allison was saying to her, **you can distinguish between oregano and marijuana and you excel at something besides lamb chops and Jell-O."

"I don't excel at anything yet," said Laura, but I can make it in a tough neighborhood better than you ever could. Standing beside Owen, staring at the porcelain beauty of Allison ai^ her silent cousin, she felt a surge of anger. Why was it that peq)le who had lots of money also had p^ect figures and beautiful faces and respectability, too? Why weren't those things parceled out so everybody could at least have some-tfaing? "But I will. I'm going to college aad be an actress, or ma}^"—she cast about, trying to sound as self-assured as the Saiingers—^"I'll own somediing, a bosiiiess or a bookshop, or mayl^ a restaurant, and hire people to woric for me."

">^y not a hotel or two?" Allison asked with amusement.

"I might," said Laura. She raised her chm. "I'd like that."

"Would you? From what I can see, it's hard woik."

So is being sent to Cape Cod to help my brother rob your house. "I don't mind woric. There are so many things I want and there's no other way . . ." Her voice trailed oH. How would someone like Allison ever understand what that meant? All she and Laura had in common was that they were both eighteen.

"I think you'll do and be whatever you want," said Owen. "But one thing you may not do: when you open your first hotd you may not steal Rosa from us to run your kitdien."

Laura smiled, gratefril for his int^rventicm when she was feeling infnior, and in a few minutes they left for the Jans-sens' house down the road.

'^Come back another tune," Allison said, keepmg pace wifii them. "Ws can talk and get to know each odier. I'll teach you

Judith Michael

to play tennis, if you like. When could you do it? Rosa gave you time off today; she'll do it again."

Laura was silent, ignoring Owen's curious glance.

Allison's eyes gleamed. "I'll invite you for dinner; you won't have an excuse."

"I woric for Rosa at night."

"Which nights?"

"As often as she needs me."

"I'll invite you on your day off."

"I like to spend time with my brother."

"All day?"

"Allison," Owen said as they reached the Janssens' front porch, "why do you press someone who seems reluctant to accept?"

There was a pause. "You really are, aren't you?" Allison said to Laura. "Reluctant to be witfi me. Most people think it's a big deal to socialize with the Salingers. And here's Grandpa wanting us to be friends and you absolutely refuse. Because you don't like me, right?"

I'm afraid of liking you. I'm afraid of talking to you. "I'm just so busy," she started to say, but she stopped. It would be socially right to say that, but not personally right, because Allison would know it wasn't true. Laura Fairchild had never thought about the difference between socially and personally right. I'm learning, she thought. I could live the way they do. And what's wrong with learning? As long as I have to be here for Ben, I might as well get something out of it. And if Owen really wants us to be friends . . .

"Maybe I could get away for dinner some time," she said to Allison. "And I'd like very much to learn tennis."

'Then it's set," Allison said with satisfaction. "I'll tell Rosa and we'll do it in a couple of days. Tennis in the afternoon and then a swim."

"I don't swim," Laura said, ashamed that there were so many basic skills she had never learned.

"Well, you'll learn that, too. We have all summer. What fun; I love being a teacher. Maybe we could tackle some other things, too. Have you thought about a haircut?"

"Allison," said Owen.

I'll let you know which day," Allison said hastily to Laura.

48

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Inheritance

**Wear tennis shoes and bring a swimsuit—do you have a swimsuit?"

Laura shook her head.

"I'll loan you one; I have dozens. Talk to you soon." Without waiting for a reply, she ran back to join Patricia.

Laura looked at the ground and then raised her head and met Owen's eyes. "I feel like I'm her newest project."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "You're very wise. Allison needs projects; she needs to feel needed. You could make her very happy." He paused. "And I think she could help you be happy."

"I am," Laura said swiftly. "I am happy." And then Thomas Janssen opened the door and Laura was led into another large house with bright, spacious rooms facing the ocean, a volleyball court and horseshoe strip on the beach, and a long oval swinmiing pool like a bright blue gem in the center of the smooth lawn. The rooms were furnished in pale blue wicker with blue and white cushions and straw-colored raffia rugs strewn at angles on bleached wood floors. Barbara Janssen was arranging roses, and she turned as Laura and Owen came in with Thomas.

"How nice of Owen to bring you to us, Laura; I hardly know the people in my own kitchen, much less my sister's. Rosa is a dear, isn't she? A trifle opinionated, but very clever. Would you like iced tea? Do come and sit for a while. I'm hoping Paul will get back soon; he took Emily shopping and they've been gone some time. E)o you take lemon?"

Laura started. "No. Thank you." She took the glass and sat next to Owen, sinking back into Barbara's steadily flowing words that sounded so like Leni's. The two sisters looked alike, as well: tall, blond and angular, with long necks and imperious heads, their voices like murmuring rivers in a cool forest. "I was always hoping for blue roses to match my furniture," Barbara was saying to Owen. "But a blue rose would be quite unnatural, and one shouldn't try to circumvent nature unless one is incredibly arrogant or incredibly clever. I've never been either, so I don't try." Laura listened, now and then looking up to find Owen watching her, or Thomas, his quizzical eyes moving from Owen to her and then back again. He was sniall and dark, with a short black beard and rimless

Judith Michael

glasses, and he almost never spoke. Laura tried to imagine him and Barbara in bed together, or even happily married, when they were so different, but she couldn*t.

Barbara stopped talking. The silence was as palpable as if a cloud had covered the sun. It was broken when Thomas said quietly, "Come in, Paul, we were hoping you'd be here."

Paul Janssen stood in the doorway, a camera slung over one shoulder. His eyebrows went up when he saw Laura, then he smiled broadly and went to her, holding out his hand. "I see my uncle had the good sense to bring you out from behind that kitchen door. I hope you feel more friendly toward us now."

Laura took the hand he o^ered, shivering slightly as his long, thin fingers enclosed hers. His distant amusement at the dinner table was gone; his smile was warm and open and his body curved above hers as she sat in the deep wicker chair, looking up at him. Suddenly she felt heavy, and hot inside, as if she were melting and everything was going to run out, all over the floor. She tightened her muscles, trying to hold herself in; then, her face burning, she let out her breath in a sigh as Paul shook her hand, like a business associate or a casual friend. He kissed his mother on her cheek and sat on the arm of his father's chair. "Have you met everyone else?" he asked Laura.

She nodded. There was a small silence. Then Owen began talking about their other visits.

"And did Allison take you in hand?" Paul asked.

Laura nodded again. She felt like a fool, clumsy and tongue-tied, not clever. That was Barbara Janssen's favorite word, and it was probably her son's, too. Paul would expect cleverness. He probably couldn't wait to get out of there and find someone clever. And beautiful.

Owen stood up. "I promised to return Laura to Rosa in good time." He turned to Barbara. "I had a thought on the way over here. Would you talk to Leni about that caretaker's cottage in the south comer? It's been empty for some time, and I thought we might offer it to Laura and her brother. They're living over a garage in Centerville, and I'm sure they'd be much more comfortable here. And of course that way they can work longer hours if we need them." He put his hand on Laura's shoulder, giving a brief smile to her stunned look. "Of