Ivy Secrets (20 page)

Dell was behind the counter, fussing with the coffee-maker. “Is it still snowing?” she asked Tess.

Tess’s eyes wandered to the window where she could barely see the small flakes accumulating on the ground one story up. She wondered how hard it was coming down at Mount Tom, if Charlie and Peter would get snowbound in the lodge, if Charlie would break her leg learning to ski.

“Coffee?” Dell asked.

Tess nodded and sat at the table beside Eugenie, the smiling rag doll perched atop a stack of books.
I wish I were a rag doll
, she thought.
A rag doll safely protected in a permanent state of happiness, whose heart has been molded to know only joy, whose softly stuffed innards can never know pain.

Dell set a mug in front of Tess and sat beside her. “You’re not talking this morning?”

Tess stared into the coffee and tried to speak, but the hot ache of brimming tears dammed up her words.

“Tess?” Dell reached for Tess’s hand, and suddenly, at Dell’s touch, the tears spilled.

“Oh, God, Dell,” Tess cried. “What am I going to do?” She put her face in her hands, trying to stop crying, trying to
stop the quivering inside her, trying to stop acting like such a damn fool. It didn’t work. She sobbed and sobbed and then slowly became aware of a soft hand resting on her shoulder.

“The first thing you’re going to do,” came Dell’s quiet voice, “is tell me what happened.”

Tess shook her head. “I can’t. It’s stupid.”

The hand left her shoulder. Tess wiped her face and tried to look at Dell. But she was too embarrassed.

“Well,” Dell said, “whenever I have a problem, I’ve found it really helps to talk to the dolls. Take Eugenie, here. She sits around all day with nothing to do but wait for me to fill up her mug, which I haven’t done in twenty years. She’s a patient little bugger, that Eugenie. Which makes her a perfect listener.”

Tess sniffed a lingering tear, then turned and looked at the doll. “I can’t relate to her. She’s too fucking happy.”

“Give her a chance. What do you have to lose?”

Tess stared at the rag doll.

“Besides. Don’t let that smile fool you. Look at her. Wearing that same dusty dress all these years. Sitting on all those books but never able to take one off the stack and read it. If she did, she’d lose her seat. Then where would she go? The back room? The attic?”

The quivering inside Tess slowly settled down. The ache in her heart grew less heavy. She reached out and picked up Eugenie. “Maybe she needs a change of scenery.”

“No,” Dell said. “I think what she needs is a hug.”

Tess threaded her fingers through the brown yarn curls and looked into the painted, smiling face. Then she brought Eugenie close to her chest and hugged her, first with one arm, then both. She bent her head and whispered, “He doesn’t want me, Eugenie. He wants Charlie, not me.” With her whispers came more tears, smaller this time, less painful. And then she confided in the rag doll. She told her the whole story. That she loved Peter, the boy her mother had “chosen” for her, and that she hadn’t really realized it until today.

“If she could talk,” Dell said quietly, “I think Eugenie might ask if the only reason you want him now is because someone else has him.”

Tess frowned. “I don’t think so. I think I’ve always loved him. But it’s too late. And my parents are going to be so disappointed in me.”

“Perhaps you’re more upset over what your parents will say than over how you really feel about Peter.”

Tess set the rag doll on her lap, facing her. She ran a finger across Eugenie’s bright button eyes, then over the rosy circles airbrushed on her cheeks. “You don’t understand. My parents will be pissed.”

“Parents get over things.”

“But mine have such grand hopes for me.”

“So did mine. I was supposed to be a doctor.”

“A doctor?” She moved her eyes from the doll to Dell.

“Like my father. And my grandfather.”

“What happened?”

Dell took a long drink of coffee and winced at its flavor, or perhaps at her memories. “After medical school, I realized I was doing what everyone wanted but me. It was books that I loved. Not blood and guts.”

“My mother wouldn’t have understood that. Did yours?”

“No. Like your mother, mine had a hard time believing people were different. That not everyone aspires to being what their parents wish for them.”

Tess was surprised. “I thought you and my mother were friends.”

“Friends? Yes, I suppose we were. We lived in the same house, we had Smith in common. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t completely different. Nor does it mean that Sally Richards was right about the way she chose to live her life. Or that I was wrong. Look at you.” She pointed toward the back of the shop. “Look at the princess. You two are friends, aren’t you?”

Tess looked in the direction where Marina and Nicholas had disappeared. For the first time in nearly a year and a half, she realized that they were actually friends. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess we are.”

“Then take it from me. And from my friend Eugenie. Be yourself, Tess. Above all else, be yourself. Then, and only then, will love come.”

The cheerful face of the rag doll smiled up at Tess. She drew her close once again and hugged her. “Oh, Dell, I’m so lucky to have you as my friend.”

Just then odd-looking Willie Benson sprang from behind a book rack. “Charlie is your friend, too.”

Tess jumped.

“Charlie,” he rattled. “Charlie with the boy’s name.”

“Jesus, Dell. Does he live here now?”

Dell shrugged. “Deinstitutionalization. His family put him on a waiting list at a private facility.”

Tess shook her head. Since the state hospital up the road had begun the process of closing, more and more Willie Bensons combed the streets of Northampton.

“Charlie has such pretty hair,” Willie rambled. “I’d like to touch her pretty hair.”

“And I,” Tess wanted to add, “would like to chop it off.” But as she situated Eugenie back on her pile of books, Tess kissed the top of the doll’s head and knew that the ache in her heart had eased for now, and that the need for tears had subsided.

Being with Tess hadn’t been so bad, not when Marina compared it to what was coming the following weekend, or rather, to whom. She’d received a call from her father that Alexis would arrive in the States on Friday, and that she was “to be civil to her.”

“Your sister is very excited about her wedding,” King Andrei had said. “Help her pick out a nice gown.”

Marina wished her mother had accompanied her sister, and left Marina out of it. But the queen never stopped hoping that Marina and Alexis would become friends; she’d always said that two sisters—especially twins—should be inseparable. What did her mother know? She’d been an only child, as Marina should have been.

By Friday afternoon, Marina had exhausted all possible excuses not to be there when Alexis charged in.

So, charge in she did.

Marina and Tess were walking back to Morris House when they spotted the blond in the long fur coat marching up the stairs of the house, followed by three others: Sergi, her bodyguard; Vera, her personal maid; and another young woman Marina didn’t recognize but who was apparently another attendant.

Marina held out her arm for Tess to stop. Tess, looking at the new arrivals, said, “Don’t tell me.”

“There she is,” Marina said, “Miss Novokia.”

“She looks nothing like you.”

“God give me strength.” They laughed, then Marina took a deep breath. “I am not ready for this.”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to New York City for the weekend. You’ll have a great time.”

Marina looked at Tess. “No, Tess. If
you
were going into the city with
your
sister,
you
would have a great time. Believe me, there is a huge difference.”

Tess laughed and started walking again. “I don’t have a sister,” she said. “Now come on. I can’t wait to meet her.”

Nicholas walked up beside them. “I will be with you, Princess,” he said with a wink. “I will protect you.”

Marina smiled. Nicholas was such a nice man. He, in truth, was a better bodyguard, a better friend, than Viktor had ever been. She wondered if Nicholas knew what had really happened between her and Viktor: if he did, he’d never said. “Okay, Furman,” she said. “Lead the way.”

    “You actually
live
here?” Alexis said as she stood, hands on her slim hips, in the doorway of the suite.

“Not exactly,” Marina answered. “I actually
live
in only one room. That side belongs to my roommate.” She moved past Alexis and went into her side of the suite.

“Dear God,” Alexis muttered, following Marina. “How do you stand it? It is so … insignificant.”

Marina snorted. “Well, for one thing, it is quieter here than at the palace.” If Alexis got her meaning, she didn’t react.

“Where is one supposed to sit?”

Marina looked around. Books were piled on her bed; clothes were heaped over the back of the desk chair, the only chair in the room. “One is supposed to sit on one’s ass,” she said.

Alexis sighed. “I can see I should have flown into New York instead of Boston,” she said. “I should have had you meet me there.” She moved back toward the doorway, disgust chiseled on her face. “I will wait downstairs.”

As Alexis reached for the outer door, it flew open, knocking her backward into the closet. She fell to the floor. Her fur coat caught on the door handle, her miniskirt pushed up to her waist, and a decided tear of panty hose ripped through the air. Charlie jumped back. Marina tried to hold back her laughter.

“Alexis,” Marina said, “I’d like you to meet my roommate. Charlie, this is my sister.”

“Hello,” Charlie said, gazing in bewilderment at the woman on the floor. She stooped to help Alexis up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know …”

Alexis waved off the helping hand and stood up by herself. She smoothed her hair and raised her chin. “This is a two-thousand-dollar dress,” she said haughtily. “You might have ruined it.”

Charlie was speechless.

“Since when did you give a damn about wasting a few dollars?” Marina asked.

Alexis turned around abruptly. “I will see you downstairs,” she said to Marina. “I have seen enough of college life.”

Marina saluted her. Alexis pushed past Charlie and left the suite.

“Thank you, Charlie,” Marina said. “You will never know how wonderful you are.”

“I’m sorry, Marina …”

She raised her hand. “No, I mean it. It’s good for Alexis to fall on her ass now and then. She is such a bitch.”

Charlie hesitated, then began laughing, too. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she?”

“I’d better stuff a few things in a suitcase and get out of here,” Marina said. “Wish me luck. It is going to be a positively horrible weekend.”

    They stayed at the Plaza, in separate suites. Alexis insisted on dining downstairs at Trader Vic’s—Marina would have preferred to be served in her room. But in the interest of peacekeeping and of being “civil” to her sister, she acquiesced.

They were seated at a table for two: Nicholas and Sergi sat at a table behind them. Marina plucked a paper umbrella and a maraschino cherry from her frothy, golden drink.

“I hope you do not resent that I will be the first to marry,” Alexis said as she held her left hand up to the kerosene-like torch and examined the ostentatious diamond on her finger. “After all, you are the older sister.”

Marina took a long sip through her straw. “It had not crossed my mind.”

“Well, if it does, I hope you understand.”

“What is there to understand? I need to be educated. You do not.”

Alexis dropped her hand and studied the menu. “You make it sound as though I do not have a brain.”

“You will not need one. I will.”

“Jonathan thinks I am quite intelligent.”

Marina wanted to respond that compared to Jonathan, Alexis was.

Alexis suddenly looked up from her menu. “Why do you hate me, Marina?”

Marina stared at her sister. “Hate you? I do not hate you.”

“Yes, you do. You always have.”

“I thought it was you who hated me.”

“Because you are beautiful, perhaps.”

“Because I was the firstborn, if only by a few minutes. Besides, you are beautiful, too. You know that.”

“You are right. I am.” Alexis sighed. “I think I will have the broiled scallops,” she said, as though they had been chatting about nothing more meaningful than the weather.

Marina decided to let it go. Since they were children, Alexis had behaved the same way: instigate a situation, then walk away as though she had said or done nothing wrong. As they ordered dinner, Marina remembered the first time she’d realized that Alexis was being intentionally nasty. It was their seventh birthday, and the queen had arranged an elaborate lawn party for the twins. Underneath a huge tent, circus performers entertained the children of the nearby village. Instead of bringing gifts to the birthday girls, the birthday girls were to distribute gifts to the children: dolls for the girls, fire engines for the boys. Marina and Alexis sat on small thrones, wearing white organdy and small tiaras—Marina’s atop her shining black curls, Alexis’s on her cornsilk-colored ones. The children lined up to receive their gift; as each approached the princesses, they curtsied. One little girl with long, dark hair approached them on crutches. Marina reached down to hand her a gift.