Possessions (14 page)

*  *  *

Saturday morning Leslie appeared as Katherine was opening the first can of paint. “I don't believe it,” Katherine said. “What good timing. Too good, in fact. How come you're here?”

Leslie sighed deeply. “Do not look a gift horse—”

“Leslie. Why are you here?”

“Long story. I stopped by this morning when you were grocery shopping and your kids were telling Annie you yelled at them last night, and worrying that you must be sick. They
also told me you were painting the place today, and I decided to make it a party. Are you sick?”

“Of course not. They told Annie? They must have been more upset than I realized. I guess we all were. I didn't understand that they were in a hurry to eat so they could give me my present—”

“Present?”

“Yesterday was my birthday.”

“Damn it, lady, why didn't you tell me? We could have had a party. Thirty-five?”

“Yes.”

“A depressing age to reach alone. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I guess I didn't want a party.” Katherine began to stir the paint. “And I had no idea Jennifer and Todd even remembered.”

“Good kids,” Leslie said casually. “Which reminds me—where are they?”

“At the hardware store. We needed extra brushes. Leslie, you don't have to help paint—”

“I know I don't. That's why I'm doing it. Don't argue. Four painters cut the work in half and double the fun.”

And they did. With Jennifer and Todd, they gathered brushes, rags, rollers, and paint, arguing vociferously over the best way to stack furniture and divide the work, and soon the small apartment rang with banter and laughter. They worked steadily, stopping only for a sandwich at noon and by three they were almost finished.

“How are you getting along with Gil Lister?” Leslie asked from the top of a ladder.

“As long as I'm his obedient puppy, we get along fine.”

“I'm sorry about that. I told you he was an ass, but I thought with your artistic eye you'd like doing the windows.”

“I would.”

“But Gil doesn't want your ideas? Pity you aren't a charming young boy with a taste for rotund queers.”

“What's a rotund queer?” Jennifer asked, coming in from the bedroom.

“An overweight eccentric,” Leslie said hastily. “I don't suppose you've met any.”

“I don't suppose that's really what it means, either,” said Jennifer shrewdly. “I'll ask my mother later; she doesn't think my education should be censored.”

“My God,” Leslie breathed. “I've been put in my place.”

“Jennifer!” Todd yelled from the bedroom. “I think I spilled something!”

“Don't you
know?”
she called back in exasperation. “Wait a minute; I'll come and help.”

When she left, Leslie grinned at Katherine. “I feel humbled. Is she always so damned bright and grown up?”

“Only often enough to confuse me.”

“It would scare the hell out of me. Whenever I think it's about time I had one of my own, I meet one of these kid geniuses and decide I couldn't possibly cope.”

“Jennifer seems pretty normal to me. What do you mean, have one of your own? Are you secretly married?”

“No. And no prospects in sight. But is that a requirement?”

Katherine cocked an eyebrow. “It's at least a convenience.”

“Not always.” Leslie waved her brush. “Not even necessarily. How many women shed unsatisfactory husbands long before the offspring are even half grown? How many men walk out and leave their wives stuck with bringing up—oh, shit, Katherine, I'm sorry. I am a full-fledged ass. I got carried away with speechmaking and forgot present company.”

“It's all right,” said Katherine absently. She had stopped painting the baseboard and was looking around, trying to figure out why she suddenly felt uneasy. From her place on the floor, she could see all three rooms at once, looking bigger and brighter in their glistening new colors. Her apartment.

How extraordinary. Her apartment, her home. Filled with her possessions, her children, and companionship. But something was wrong.

The bright rooms had the look of a doll's house: a small bedroom for Jennifer and Todd, two narrow closets, a living room with a sofa bed for Katherine, a kitchen just big enough for their oak table and captain's chairs. And then Katherine knew what was wrong.

There was no room for Craig. They had made a home for a family without Craig.

*  *  *

Melanie Hayward always asked for Wilma in the Empire Room of Heath's: the only saleswoman, she said, who understood her and always found clothes that were
her.
It was true that Wilma gossiped about the divorces and affairs and marital
tiffs of her customers, but a word from Melanie and she was silent. And Melanie always gave the word, as soon as she learned something new about her circle.

“—taken up with Ivan something,” Wilma chattered as she helped Melanie into a silk sheath with a chiffon scarf. “Macklin, I think, Ivan Macklin; they've been seen together at Carmel and Las Vegas and her husband told her to drop him or get out. ‘I'm not running no motel,' he says. ‘Either you—‘”

“I hardly think,” Melanie cut in, “that those were his words.”

“No'm, maybe not,” Wilma agreed cheerfully. “Now you can either loop this scarf around your neck or wear it around your shoulders . . .”

By the end of the afternoon, Melanie had spent just under six thousand dollars on five outfits for the winter season, had learned three new items about her friends, and had instructed Wilma to watch for something special for an April gala she was planning at the Fairmont. Humming, she browsed casually along the main floor, then stopped abruptly near the Union Square exit. Through an open door in the wall, she had caught sight of two people dressing a mannequin in a velvet evening gown.
“Hand
me the sash, my dear,” the man said testily as Melanie watched, and the woman stretched her arm out for him to take a sash from her hand. What the hell, Melanie thought, remembering the last time she had seen the woman—pale, wearing a wrinkled suit, and ready to flee Victoria's dining room. What the hell is she doing here? Ross never said a word.

She watched as they put a champagne glass in the mannequin's hand and moved on to dress another in satin and lace. Not as pale, Melanie thought, and the haunted look was gone. But there was something forlorn about her as she stood waiting for the little man's orders, obediently handing him clothing and props and, once, glancing furtively at her watch. Serves her right, Melanie thought, for trying to worm her way in.

But why was she working at Heath's? Driving home across the Golden Gate Bridge, Melanie seethed over it. What was she doing in San Francisco? How long would she wait to call the family and announce that she was ready to become a Hayward and share the Hayward wealth?

Maybe she already had. Maybe they knew and hadn't told her about it. Forced to slow down in the heavy traffic, Melanie clenched the wheel. Of course little Katherine would call Ross the minute she arrived. And he kept it a secret. She swung the wheel at the Tiburon exit and a mile farther, at the base of their hill, put the car in low gear and took the steep road a little too fast all the way to the top. She wondered if he'd told Derek. Or Victoria. Or all of them. Why the hell, she demanded silently, am I the last to know?

“I saw your mousy little friend today,” she told Ross at dinner. “Working at Heath's.”

He looked up from contemplating a bottle of wine. “Who?”

“You know perfectly well. Your dowdy Canadian protégée, the one who told us off at Victoria's.”

“Katherine? In San Francisco?”

“Don't put on an act with me. Do you think I don't know you're behind it?”

“At Heath's, you said? By God, that took courage. As a sales clerk?”

“I
said,
don't put on an act. You know damn well she's not a sales clerk. You probably got her the job. And a place to live. Without once mentioning it to me. Who
did
you mention it to? Victoria? Derek?”

“I didn't know about it.” They sat across from each other. Carrie and Jon had eaten earlier, as usual, in the kitchen with the maid and the cook, and, as usual, he and Melanie faced each other with no one to break the silences between them or moderate their taut exchanges. “I haven't spoken to Katherine in weeks.”

“You didn't know she was moving to San Francisco?”

“No. We did talk about it once; in fact, I suggested it, but she didn't—”

“Suggested it!”

“She grew up here; she has a close friend—in fact if anyone is helping her, that's probably who it is. And she has us.”

“She doesn't ‘have' us. She has nothing to do with us. If you didn't keep dragging her in—”

“I didn't drag her this time. She made up her mind by herself and didn't tell me about it. What was she doing at Heath's?”

“Window dressing. Helping a nasty little man who treated
her like dirt.” The maid came in to clear their plates. “What did you do today?” Melanie asked brightly.

He sat back. “As a matter of fact, this was a red-letter day. I was waiting to tell you about it.”

“About what?”

“We got approval from the mayor's office for BayBridge Plaza.”

“Oh?”

“Melanie,” he said very softly. “BayBridge Plaza. I've told you about it perhaps a hundred times in the four years I've been working on it. Approval from the mayor's office is almost the last hurdle. A few more approvals—maybe another month of negotiating—and we can begin.”

“I remember. You said it was a big project. Expensive?”

“About three hundred million dollars.”

Her eyes widened. “Your fee is a percentage of that.”

He shrugged. Reliable Melanie; he always knew what would get her attention. “My expenses are up, too. I told you I hired seventy new people, and I'll be using outside consultants . . . And I have to buy out a lease on that building I bought a few years ago, on Mission Street. It's been added to BayBridge, but the former owner's still in it. I think he's ready to sell; he was talking the other day about needing money.”

“Anyone we know?” she asked idly as the maid put cups and a silver coffee server beside her.

“I
don't know him. His name is Ivan Macklin; he built the building. In fact his name is on it.”

“Macklin? I think I know him. Or maybe only the name. Where did I hear it?” Pouring coffee, she frowned. “Oh. Wilma.”

“Wilma?”

“My salesgirl at Heath's. She heard he was playing around with someone. Maybe that's why he needs money.” The maid put a bowl of sliced peaches and
crème fraîche
in front of Melanie and left the room. “Are you going to call her?”

“Who?”

“Ross, don't be tiresome. Katherine Fraser.”

“Of course.”

“I'd rather you didn't.”

“I know.”

Tight-lipped, she spooned the dessert into two bowls and
passed him one. “Are you going to buy out Ivan Macklin?”

“Do you care?”

“Not much. Not at all, I suppose. Not any more than you care that I don't want you to call that woman.”

“I do care; I'm sorry it bothers you. Why does it?”

“I've told you. She doesn't belong; she . . . complicates things.”

“Meaning money.”

“Partly.” She stirred her coffee, then burst out, “I don't want a helpless woman running around looking for protection.”

“Well at least that's honest.” Pushing back his chair, he stood up. “But I'm not sure she's helpless. A woman who moves her family a thousand miles and finds a way to support them seems pretty self-sufficient to me. In fact, the only thing she might need is friendship.” He slid open the door to the den. “I'm sorry if it bothers you, but that much I intend to offer.”

*  *  *

Katherine was filling out shipment forms for returning window scenery to the warehouse when Ross telephoned. She had thought about calling him for three weeks, ever since they arrived, but his voice was so unexpected that for a moment she was speechless. “How did you know?” she stammered. “I didn't think anyone knew we were here.”

“I'll tell you at lunch. Can you meet me at one?”

“Today?”

“Unless you're too busy.”

She looked at Gil Lister. “I only have an hour—”

“We'll try to stretch it. One o'clock then.”

“No, I can't. I mean, I can only go at noon.”

“Noon. Well—all right. The Compass Rose at the St. Francis. I'll be waiting.”

He had chosen a place diagonally across Union Square from Heath's and Katherine was there exactly at noon. “Good heavens,” she said, gaping as they climbed the carpeted stairs from the lobby to the restaurant and were confronted with a riotous conglomeration that included Ionic columns, eighteenth-century blackamoors, cobra lamps, Lebanese mirrors, and an art deco bar with huge lucite scrolls at the back and griffins at each corner.

Ross led Katherine past overstaffed chairs and couches grouped around marble and glass tables, across a small dance floor to an alcove where a velvet couch curved beneath a Chinese lacquer screen. “You've never been here?”

“I don't know how I missed it,” Katherine said. “It's just the place for people who grow up above grocery stores.”

He chuckled as he gave the waiter their order, then sat back and looked at her. “I'm glad to see you. How are you?”

“Not bad,” she said, and thought about it. “Really not bad. I don't have that feeling all the time of being on the edge of a cliff, about to topple over.”

“But you still have it sometimes.”

She looked pensively at a bronze goddess reclining beneath English pewter wall sconces. “I miss being sure of what will happen tomorrow and the day after. I miss knowing the boundaries of my days—what I can or can't do, what I'm supposed to do, what the people I love can do. I know that none of it was true—nothing was certain—but it was so comforting to think it was. And I miss it. I miss Craig; I miss our times together; I miss our house. I get lonely.” She sat straighter. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to whine.”