Ivy Secrets (26 page)

Marina laughed. “I always knew I liked the Italian language.”

“And I,” Tess said as she took a bite of chicken, “have always wanted to learn Chinese. By the way, did I tell you my parents have been in Singapore for a year?” She knew she should address this to Charlie. After all, her parents were in Singapore doing business for Peter’s mother … but, somehow, she couldn’t restrain her growing need to exclude Charlie from the conversation, to pretend that she didn’t exist. She knew that by talking of far-off, distant lands Charlie would have nothing to contribute. Chances were, the farthest Charlie’s parents had ever been was to the Pocono Mountains for a big vacation or something. Not counting when her mother came to Northampton when Charlie was in the hospital. She tried to swallow her chicken, then took a big gulp of water to help push it down, and wondered how she could possibly survive until graduation.

A few weeks later, they had all settled back into life at Smith. It was, however, a life that had changed around the edges. Charlie spent all of her weekends with Peter. Marina seemed content to study, though she’d sought out Tess one afternoon and muttered the news that Alexis had given birth to a son—“an unlucky prince” she’d called him. Tess was content to spend time alone: Her new freedom had begun to take shape in the glassblowing studio at UMass, where she relished the escape from her problems and was able—most times—to put the haunting thoughts of her abortion to rest. The friendship between the three women had become more distant, and Tess liked it that way, for the less often she saw Charlie’s scar, the better.

One Saturday afternoon, Tess sat on the bus, headed back to Northampton, sketching a design for a bowl. It was going to be cobalt blue and white—a Christmas gift for her parents, designed especially for their music room, to be set in the large window that overlooked San Francisco Bay. She’d told her parents little about the advancement of her craft: showing them would be better than telling them. Perhaps then her mother would support her decision. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as angry that Tess would not be the girl Peter Hobart would someday marry.

From the bus station, Tess toted her sketch book and toolbox toward Green Street. The air was replete with an autumn chill: Mountain Day would occur soon, thought Tess, and like most seniors, she couldn’t care less.

As she turned the corner for her last leg of the walk, Tess noticed two police cars stopped outside Morris House. Their blue lights were not flashing, there were no sirens blaring, and yet there they were: one state police car, one City of Northampton car.

She quickened her pace and wondered what had happened, and to whom. She thought that maybe Charlie had been in another accident, then realized her thought was actually a hope. She chastised herself for being such a bitch.

She raced up the front stairs and moved across the porch. There was no sign of police officers or anyone with any authority. But as Tess opened the front door and stepped into the lobby they were there: two uniformed state policemen, and a familiar city cop—Joe Lyons, Dell’s redheaded,
right-winged nephew. Surprisingly, they were talking with Marina.

“Marina?” Tess called and went to the group.

The others stopped talking. Marina looked at Tess. “Tess,” she said.

“Marina, what’s wrong?” She glanced from face to face. No one spoke.

Finally Marina stepped forward and put her hand on Tess’s shoulder. She said in a low voice: “I am afraid there is some bad news.”

“Charlie? Did something happen to Charlie?” She hoped her curiosity wouldn’t give away her secret wish.

But Marina shook her head. “No, Tess,” Marina said, her accent heavier, her voice breathier than usual. “Charlie is fine. Come and sit down.” Marina led Tess to the stiff sofa against the wall.

“Sit down?” Tess asked. What for? Why did Marina want her to sit?

They sat. Marina took Tess’s hand. “There is some bad news,” she said again. “Oh, Tess, I am so sorry.” The princess wrapped her tiny arms around Tess. Tess pulled away.

“Jesus Christ, will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Marina took a deep breath. She looked at the policemen. Joe Lyons stepped forward.

“There’s been an accident,” he said.

An accident? What did that have to do with her?

“A plane crash,” Joe continued.

A dark wave moved through her.

“In San Francisco.”

San Francisco?
She wanted to speak. She wanted to ask a question. But she couldn’t seem to bring the words together.

Joe Lyons played with his hat, which he held in his hand. “It’s your parents, Tess. They’ve been killed.”

Tess stared at him a moment. Then she looked down at her sketchbook. She curled the edges, fluttering the corners in manual animation. She looked back at Joe. Marina again took her hand.

“The plane was returning from Singapore,” Joe said quietly as he rubbed the rim of his hat. “It missed the runway and crashed into the bay.” He wiped his brow. “They’re
ruling it ‘pilot error,’ ” he added with a shake of his head that was like an apology, as though the crash had been his fault.

Tess was aware that the front door opened. She stared at Joe’s hat, at the fingers that gripped the edge. In her peripheral vision, she could see a woman step inside the foyer.

“What’s going on?” It was Dell’s voice. Tess meant to turn to her, but she was hypnotized by Joe’s fingers as they moved around the brim of his hat, as though rubbing it could magically change the words he had just said.

“I had a message to come to Morris House,” Dell said. Tess sensed she was now talking to Joe. “What’s happened?”

Tess pulled her eyes from Joe’s hat. She grasped her sketchbook and stood, facing Dell. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said calmly. “It seems that my parents are dead.” She started to walk toward the staircase when Dell grabbed her arm.

“Tess?” she asked.

Tess stopped. She stared ahead at the stairs, the wooden stairs she’d climbed so often over the years. Suddenly they looked so steep, and so far away.

“Tess?” Dell asked again. Tess felt Dell’s arm slip around her. “My God, what happened?”

The trembling began somewhere in her toes and shook its way up her legs, into her stomach, into her chest. Then Tess threw the sketchbook at the banister and broke down into uncontrollable sobs.

    The organ music droned on. Tess sat in the wing-backed chair in the Golden Gate Funeral Home and stared at the floor. She didn’t know why she’d agreed to have the memorial service so quickly: “Get it over with and get on with your life,” had been the advice of the Graysons and the Archambaults. What did they care? she thought as she studied the mauve carpet and tried to ignore the sickish scent of lilies and roses. The Graysons and the Archambaults had only lost their friends: their bridge and mah-jongg partners, their place for Thanksgiving dinner. The Graysons and Archambaults hadn’t lost their parents, their entire family.

Tess tuned out the thin words of the minister. He hadn’t known her parents: he hadn’t known anything about them. He didn’t know that they had both wanted to be cremated,
their ashes sprinkled into the Pacific. No remains had been found, so he didn’t know the irony that their ashes could not be sprinkled because their entire bodies had been dumped. The Pacific had become their grave after all.

She looked at her feet, at the plain flats that peeked from beneath her long black skirt. She was suddenly aware that she would no longer have to dress in the clothes her mother wished, or wear the makeup her mother liked. She would no longer have to do anything to please her mother. Or her father. Or anyone. There was no one left to please. A small cry came from somewhere in her throat. She quickly covered her mouth and hoped that no one else had heard.

A hand reached across her lap and rested on her knee. Dell’s hand. Her mother’s long-ago classmate, the woman who’d become Tess’s friend. Dell. Who had accepted money from Marina to make the cross-country trip. Marina and Charlie had also wanted to come, but Tess had said no. She did not want the attention of the princess and her bodyguard; she did not want Charlie here. She was afraid Peter would have come, too. And even if he hadn’t, it would have been too difficult to see Charlie in the same room where Peter’s mother sat—Peter’s mother, the woman who Sally Richards would never know would not become Tess’s mother-in-law.

Elizabeth Hobart
, Tess thought as she forced herself to glance across the room.
At least she had the decency to come.

Tess closed her eyes, squeezed Dell’s hand, and tried not to think that if it weren’t for Elizabeth Hobart and her ongoing quest for more money, more power, Tess’s parents wouldn’t be dead at all.

At last, the service ended.

Silver trays of small sweets and thin china cups were set up in a reception room at the funeral home. Tess didn’t want to go in; she wanted to go … where? Home? She stood close to the wall and stared at the refreshment table as though it held the answer. The Graysons and the Archambaults and others hovered in small groups; their conversations drifting toward her in indistinct sounds.

“I’ll fix some tea,” Dell said and began to move toward the table.

Tess wanted to reach out and stop her. She wanted to
cry “Don’t leave me!” She wanted to hold on to Dell for support, for strength, forever. But as she watched the back of the long-skirted woman in black and fixed her gaze on the gray-and-black braid that hung down the woman’s back, Tess realized she was too tired to call out.

Then she felt a hand on her arm. “Tess, dear,” a woman’s voice said, “I really don’t know quite what to say.”

Tess blinked and looked into the narrow eyes of Elizabeth Hobart.

“I feel somehow responsible,” the woman continued. “If they hadn’t been in Singapore …” her words floated off and blended into the toneless sounds of the crowd. Tess watched the woman’s thin lips move, first apart, then together, apart, together. She watched her lips move but did not hear the words. She scanned the woman’s perfectly made-up face, her smoothly bobbed white hair, the discreet pearls that adorned her ears. Tess wondered if she wore them to all the funerals of her employees—her slaves. She wondered how many of them Elizabeth Hobart had killed off.

“… perhaps I could send my driver by to pick them up this afternoon?” the woman was asking.

Tess blinked again. Suddenly Dell was at her side, handing Tess a cup.

“What is it you want?” Tess heard Dell ask the woman.

Elizabeth sipped her tea. Tess wondered if the woman’s lipstick had left a puckered imprint of coral on the rim of the china.

“My files. Hobart Textiles files. I need them in New York.”

Dell nodded.

Tess tried to hold the teacup steady in her hand, but it jiggled against the saucer, trembling as if by some force beyond.

“I believe Joseph kept confidential files at home, away from his downtown office. I must retrieve them before I return to New York.”

She must retrieve them?
Tess wondered who was going to retrieve the bodies of her parents from San Francisco Bay, while Elizabeth Hobart was retrieving her precious confidential files.

“The material they contain involves some sensitive negotiations.”

Dell nodded. “Tess? Are you aware of where your father may have kept the files?”

Tess stared at her as though Dell had just said she knew where the bodies could be found.

Dell looked back to Elizabeth. “Perhaps we can locate them for you. Perhaps not.”

Tess smiled at the way Dell said
perhaps
, as though she were mimicking the unfeeling matriarch.

“I’ll phone before I send my driver,” Elizabeth said. Then she walked to the table, set down her cup—there was, Tess noted, no lipstick-stamped rim—and left the room with a stiff carriage and eyes fixed on the door.

“To think,” Dell whispered, “you could have had that as a mother-in-law.”

Tess stared at the doorway, at the invisible trail of power that lingered even after Elizabeth had gone. “Charlie will.”

“I didn’t think Charlie’s happiness was high on your list of priorities.”

Tess pictured Charlie as she had lain in her hospital bed, unmoving, unseeing, unknowing, as though she, too, were dead. As dead as her parents at the bottom of the ocean. Charlie could have been dead, and it would have been Tess’s fault. Tess set her cup down beside Elizabeth Hobart’s. “Charlie is my friend,” she said.

“Well, Charlie will make out just fine,” Dell said. “She doesn’t have your sensitivity.”

Sensitivity? Tess wondered just how much sensitivity she’d had to have done the things she’d done. She let the tears come to her eyes, safe in the knowledge that anyone who saw them would suspect they were over her dead parents. But Tess knew those tears would come later. Right now, her tears were for the baby she could have had—the baby who, for no reason now, would never exist. Her tears were for her baby, and her tears were for Charlie. She wanted to turn to Dell and tell her. She wanted to confess her other crime—the crime that no one knew. But as Tess turned toward Dell, a group of guests approached. The moment was lost. She stuffed her guilt inside once more, and shook yet another person’s damp, limp hand.