Ivy Secrets (29 page)

She quickly glanced around the small coffeeshop. She wanted to flee.

Professor James laughed. “This isn’t a test, Marina. You won’t get a failing grade if you don’t answer correctly.”

She flipped back her hair and decided he could go screw himself. She’d had enough thoughts of betrayal and mistrust for one night—indeed, for a lifetime. If information was all he wanted, he could go back to the library. However, if deceit was in his heart, her running would not solve anything. But boasting about her country might help. It might prove she was unafraid of the conspirators, unintimidated.

Marina smiled. “Novokia is a beautiful land,” she began. “We have managed to avoid being swallowed up by the Soviet Union—my father says it is because we are too small to be much more than a crumb for them, that they are more interested in dining heartily.”

“Czechoslovakia. Romania.”

“Yes,” Marina said. “And geographically, we are more like Finland anyway. We have wonderful mountains, and green, green land. But in size, we are not much bigger than Monaco.”

“Just a crumb,” Edward said. If he were searching for dark secrets or exploitive angles, he was not revealing his intent.

Marina took another sip and felt the chill of Tess’s confession begin to fade, and as she sat here, defending her home, her insides begin to warm. “Yes,” she nodded. “Novokia is just a crumb.”

“A lovely crumb,” he said.

“Very lovely. With wonderful people. People who my father—and I—care very much about.”

“And one day it will be yours to rule.”

Marina took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Does that frighten you?”

“Very much.” She was surprised at her words: Marina had never admitted her fear to anyone, ever. She struggled to resume her guard.

Edward James nodded. “Ruling a country is a big responsibility. Anyone would be frightened.”

Marina saw the chance to go on the offensive. She looked squarely into his eyes and said, “Viktor Coe is not frightened.”

The professor didn’t blink. “Who?” he asked.

Marina took another drink. “No one important.” She smiled into her mug as she thought about what a paranoid princess she had become. Edward James had been a professor at Smith for years. If he was one of the “bad guys”—one of Viktor’s spies—surely he would have had more important things to do these many years since Viktor left than stay in the shadows, teaching dull classes, and going home to his wife every night. She realized she needed to relax, and to believe that not every man was Viktor Coe. Hopefully, not every man.

“It must be difficult to be a princess.”

Marina looked back into his warm eyes. “Yes,” she answered. “It is very difficult. It is difficult to be myself. Sometimes it is even difficult to know who myself is.”

He nodded. “I may be a long way from being a princess, but I think I know what you mean. It’s hard for me, too, to be myself. There’s the real me, then there’s the ‘professor’—the me I have to show my students.”

Marina nodded, and wondered which Edward James she was seeing right now. She decided it was the real him. And she decided she liked him better than the professor. Much better.

    A few days later, as she returned to her room after dinner, Marina noticed a thin strip of light beneath Tess’s door.
She leaned against the wall and stared at the light. She knew she needed to talk to Tess.

Tess had been a friend. A good friend, who had not used the princess, who had, in fact, never made Marina feel different, unwelcome, or unwanted. She smiled now as she thought of how Tess was not impressed with Marina’s royal trappings, and how she insisted on referring to the quite proper and very reserved Nicholas as “Nick.”

The truth was, Marina missed her friend.

Nothing ever hurts unless we care
, Professor James had said.

She took a deep breath, stepped across the hall, and told herself that if Charlie had forgiven Tess, then surely Marina could too.

Slowly, she raised her hand and lightly knocked on Tess’s door. There was no answer. Marina quelled a dash of fear that Tess was once again lying on the floor, gouged and bloody and half-breathing. She knocked again more loudly.

“Come in,” came a quiet voice from inside.

Relieved, Marina opened the door. Tess was not lying on the floor; she was seated at her desk, a book open in front of her, headphones on her ears.

“Hi,” Marina said.

“Hi,” Tess answered. She slowly removed the headphones and turned off her Walkman.

Marina walked in and sat on the edge of Tess’s bed. She looked around the room; it was surprisingly tidy. But the emerald vase, of course, was missing from the windowsill. Missing, gone forever, like her parents. Marina could not imagine losing her parents. She rubbed her forehead and ached for the pain her friend had endured, pain that Marina had been so blind to she had not even considered.

“How are you feeling?” Marina asked.

“Okay. Better.”

Marina nodded. She did not know where to begin. She did not know how to say she was sorry. She looked at Tess’s wrist. “Is that going to be okay?”

“This old thing?” Tess said as she held up her bandaged wrist. “Are you kidding? Dell should have listened to her parents. She should have been a surgeon.”

Marina nodded again. “Good.”

Tess closed her book. “Is there something you wanted to say, Marina?”

“Yes.” God, this was so difficult. It is because you care, she thought, and smiled at the picture of Edward James that flashed into her mind. “Tess,” she began. “I am sorry.” Relief spilled out with each syllable.

“Sorry? For what? For saving my life?”

“No. No, don’t be silly. I am sorry for stomping out of Dell’s the way I did. I am sorry I was so upset when I heard what you had done …”

Tess nodded. “Willie Benson.”

“Yes.”

Tess sighed. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been sorry since it happened.”

“You have carried your burden for a very long time.”

“I didn’t think he’d hurt her.”

Marina gave a half laugh. “Funny, isn’t it? Charlie forgave you right away. But me? Oh, no, the princess had higher standards, I guess. Impossible standards.” She stood and went to Tess. “Anyway, I am sorry. I want us to be friends again. Do you think we can?”

“I didn’t know we weren’t. Besides,” Tess continued, “nothing’s really changed. I still need all the friends I can get. Now, I guess, more than ever.”

Marina nodded. “What are you going to do, Tess? Now that your parents are gone?”

Tess stared at the windowsill as though she were looking for the emerald vase that no longer stood there, the symbol of her future.

“I don’t know. Dell says I should just live one day at a time. I’m going to try. I know I’m going to stay here over Thanksgiving. Dell said she’d cook a big turkey. Her nephew, Joe Lyons—you know, the cop, God, I can’t stand him—anyway, he’ll be there. And his parents.” She shrugged. “It won’t exactly be like home, but then …”

“I think it sounds wonderful.” In the distance, Marina heard the hall phone ring twice, then stop. She thought of the only times the phone had been for Tess, when it had been Tess’s mother “checking up on her,” Tess always said. She felt a small twinge to know that those calls—and Tess’s offhand joking about them—would never come again.

Tess leaned forward. “Hey, what about you? Why don’t
you come, too? Dell’s really not such a bad person, you know. You might even like her if you let yourself get to know her.”

Marina smiled. “Thanksgiving? With Dell?” She stood up and brushed back her hair. “I appreciate the invitation, but I already have made other plans.” She did not tell her that she and Nicholas were only going to Wiggins Tavern to dine alone; she could not tell her that when it came to Dell Brooks, Marina was better off to keep her distance. She was not ready for that much forgiveness.

“Marina!” A voice bellowed in the hall. “Phone call!”

“It’s for you,” Tess said. “You’d better get it. We’ll talk later, okay?”

Marina nodded and left the room, knowing that Tess was a far stronger person than she had ever realized—far stronger than Marina suspected she could ever be herself.

    The phone call had been from Edward James.

“I have a surprise for you,” he’d said. “Can you escape from your bodyguard Saturday afternoon? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

Now, as she looked out the window of Edward’s Toyota as the car headed north on Route 91, Marina was amused at how easy it had been to dodge Nicholas. The night before she told him she had cramps and that she thought she should stay in her room the next day. Nicholas had winced, as most men of her father’s generation did when confronted by the issue of a woman’s unmentionable period. This morning, Marina had simply failed to lift her shade. Nicholas would have presumed she was safely tucked in bed, not riding in a small car heading north on an icy highway. She smiled as she watched the sparkling trees move past, and wondered why she had never had such a brilliant idea before. The freedom was exhilarating.

They listened to classical music on the radio, and spoke little. When they passed the Massachusetts border into Vermont, Marina tried to convince herself there was no need to be alarmed. The man, after all, was a professor at Smith College. The man, after all, would not jeopardize his career for a princess who looked young enough to be his daughter or a country as inconsequential as Novokia.

He wouldn’t risk it.

Would he?

“Where are we going?” she finally asked. “And why won’t you tell me?”

He put a finger to his lips. “Sssh,” he said with a smile. “If I tell you it won’t be a surprise.”

She laughed, her nervousness dispelled, as though the sound of his voice was enough reassurance. “How much longer?”

“You sound like a little girl,” he said. “Be patient. It will be a little longer.”

“Are you trying to kidnap me?”

He laughed. “No, Princess, I am not trying to kidnap you.” Then he took her hand, squeezed it quickly, and returned his hand to the steering wheel. But the warmth of his fingers stayed on her palm. Marina looked down at her hand and wondered what was happening here, why, and if she should let it. It was the first time he had touched her; but, more than that, it was the first time he had called her Princess.

The deep, soothing strains of Mozart came through the small speakers, and Marina relaxed on the seat. She was, she realized, beginning to feel completely comfortable. Edward James was neither the untrustworthy Viktor nor a groping college boy; he was a mature man who seemed to be enjoying giving her pleasure.

As they made their way up the highway, Marina noticed the landscape begin to change. Gone were the occasional factories that stood alongside the road; in their place were mountains. Huge, beautiful mountains, grayed by the impending winter, yet beautiful, nonetheless. With each mile the traffic became lighter, lighter, then seemed to disappear altogether. They wove through the mountains, and Marina became mesmerized. Vermont was an incredible state; Vermont looked so much like home. Deep inside her, Marina felt an unfamiliar feeling, a wondrous feeling of peace.

It seemed that hardly any time had elapsed when she noticed the sun had drifted between the peaks, poking its orange glow through the crevice, spilling its late-November afternoon color across the range.

“It is magnificent, Edward,” Marina said, and realized it
was the first time she had spoken his first name aloud. If he was offended, he did not react.

It was nearly dark when she spotted the sign: “Canadian Border, 1 mile.”

“My God, we are almost to Canada!” she exclaimed.

Edward smiled. “Don’t worry, we won’t cross the border. I just wanted you to see the mountains. I thought they might make you feel more at home.”

“How did you know Vermont is so much like Novokia?”

“Nothing psychic, I assure you. I looked at an atlas. This area has nearly the same latitude.”

Marina smiled. She couldn’t believe he had done this. She couldn’t believe that anyone had done something so—so thoughtful. Just for her.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “There should be somewhere to eat off this exit.”

“Sounds good,” Marina answered, though she felt as though she could sit in the car, soothed by the music and by the mountains, forever.

They pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant that looked like a log cabin.

Inside, the lights were soft. A huge stone fireplace in the center of the room was ablaze with cozy warmth; snowshoes and skis and toboggans hung from the cedar ceiling. Around the room, Marina noticed several men, mostly dressed in bright orange vests and thick red-and-black-checked woolen shirts and pants.

“Hunters,” Edward whispered, as the hostess escorted them to a booth in the corner. “ ’Tis the season.”

He ordered a bottle of wine. Marina put the red terry napkin in her lap and rested her hands on it. She looked around the room and realized this was the first time she had been in public anywhere, any time of her life, without the smothering presence of a bodyguard in the next booth, cautiously listening to her every word, watching every move of her date.
My date?
A sudden thought gripped her.
Am I on a date with Edward James?

“So tell me what it’s like to be a princess,” he said, after the waitress had poured the wine.

She took a slow sip, grateful that Edward was treating her as an adult, an adult and an equal. “No,” she said. “I do
not want to talk about me. I want to talk about you. I want to know about your life as a scholar.”

Edward rubbed his neatly trimmed mustache. Then he looked at her and smiled. Warmth crept through her, and she took another sip of wine, hoping to push the flush from her cheeks.

“The life of a professor is certainly not an ambiguous one. Once you have tenure, it’s pretty much the same, semester after semester, year after year. Only the faces in the audience change.”

Marina laughed. “You make it sound dreadful!”

He leaned across the table, so close that Marina could feel the warmth of his breath. “It is dreadful,” he whispered, then he leaned back and laughed. “But it’s wonderful, too. This summer, for instance, I’m going to London to teach a course at Oxford.”