Splintered Heart (3 page)

She left the window open wide even though it was freezing cold, just in case there was a Santa spirit that might want to come in.

Christmas morning Marian sprang out of bed and rushed to the window. Her stocking was empty. There was no sign, not even the tiniest indication that God or Santa had heard her prayers or that either one of them or anything like God or Santa existed.

Her room was cold. She stayed there most of the day.

When Marian brought up the subject at dinner, Daddy explained it: "Praying is something that people invented, it gives them comfort. Don't count on praying, dear. You have to do things yourself. What you pray for you do not necessarily get!"

She nodded. The philosophy was very clear.

A week later, Mamma told Marian that Ralph wasn't coming home. "Your brother has a birth defect, and he can never grow up to be a normal boy."

Marian felt as if she was going down the swooping curve on the
Coney Island
roller coaster and had left her stomach behind at the top of the hill. She wondered if what had happened had anything to do with being an Agnostic, disobeying Daddy's rules, praying to God and Santa.

Marian put her four dolls in a shopping bag to give to Mary Ellen Warner who thought having a lot of dolls was very important. The green ribbon went into the wastebasket; the cotton was flushed down the toilet. Then she broke the Christmas tree balls one by one and put the pieces in the kitchen trash can. She gave the royal rickshaw to Sara the maid.

++++++++++

Chapter
3

When the telephone rang, Marian's hair was combed, coiled, pinned back into the usual bun. She had put on blue jeans and one of Ferris' old shirts, and was busy dusting the piano. Though rarely used, it was a pleasant chore to do while enjoying a Beethoven concerto on the midday-radio concert.

At first she didn't hear the ringing. It sounded like part of the symphony. When it registered, Marian was certain it was Ferris. Her hands automatically flew to her hair to brush back the wisps. She tightened her belt and smoothed down the shirt.

"I love you, I love you," Marian sang out, grabbing the phone. She was as excited as a teenager expecting to hear from her very first young man.

"Darling?" Marian said, breathlessly. She was just about to say "I love you," but something made her stop.

The silence was strange.

There was no voice replying. No breathing. The telephone seemed so very quiet.

"Hello?" Marian hesitated, "Ferris...?"

There was nothing.

No sound.

Whoever was on the other end of the line wasn't saying anything but whoever was there was also not hanging up.

"Hello?" Marian repeated, this time with a touch of irritation.

She held on for another second, and then hung up.

It was obviously a wrong number.

"You're acting silly, Marian." She chided herself for the way she'd primped before answering it. It couldn't possibly have been Ferris. Why would he telephone to an empty apartment?

In the maid's room office, Marian yawned. "I really should phone Mamma and tell her I'm back, or maybe I should phone Elena first?"

But she wasn't in the mood.

She emptied the wastebasket — it was stuffed with brown wrapping paper. As the paper was about to fall down into the incinerator shaft, she noticed that it was stamped
Alexanders
. "How odd!" Alexanders wasn't a store where they normally shopped.

Even more surprising was the slip of note paper that fell out. In an unfamiliar left-handed handwriting, someone had written:

Be kind to loved ones in the A.M.

Attend to chores in the P.M.

Good news about money.

Scorpio, Oct. 24 — Nov. 21

It was a very strange piece of paper to find in the wastebasket of an office which nobody used except herself. She wanted to pick up the phone and speak to Charles. Even if he was bitchy, it would be better than worrying and wondering.

But the decision about
not
telephoning had already been made. Her father always said, "When you make up your mind, come Hell or high water, you stick to it!"

Waiting for Ferris wasn't Hell or high water. Marian was just restless and bored.

In the bedroom, Marian slid between the sheets without removing the perfectly arranged bed-spread.

The clean sheets felt scratchy.

Marian made a mental note to discuss this with Felipe who took the bed linens home with him for his wife to launder and hand-iron, along with Ferris' shirts.

She concentrated on the shopping list for dinner, the names of
California
ladies to whom thank-you notes must be sent.

Then it came to her. The explanation was obvious!

...
Felipe must have brought his wife along! That's why there was black hair and black bobb
y
pins. It's the wife's handwriting on the note.
Her
newspaper,
her
Scorpio horoscope from
her
daily paper. It's
her
Alexander's package...

The clock said it was almost two o'clock in the afternoon. A good nap was what she needed.

...
But if it wasn't Felipe's black-haired Latin wife, then how did the bobbypins get into the bathrobe? Unless they belonged to a client's wife? Maybe Ferris brought home a client for cocktails
...

Marian seized upon the idea as if it were a life preserver tossed from the side of a ship to the drowning passenger who'd fallen overboard.

"Yes, of course! The client's wife had to use
my
bathroom probably because the lavatory in the hallway was being used, and she wanted to comb her hair! She simply forgot her bobby pins, left them on the shelf and Felipe simply dropped them into the pocket of my robe — it was hanging just behind him as he was cleaning the damn shelf, trying to get it spotless for fussy Mrs. Marian Cooper!"

While poking the sausage pillow, trying to flatten it down, she found herself wondering who had cleaned the glass shelf — Felipe or Ferris? "Oh stop it, Marian," she scolded herself. "Ferris will explain everything. This is stupid,
unproductive
worrying! If you don't get yourself a good rest, you're going to look your real age when Ferris gets home tonight!"

++++++++++

C
hapter
4

It was a vain lie, a foolish little white lie. The black lies, the harmful ones, Daddy used to say, were when you forgot after a while that you were lying. And Marian never forgot for one moment what her real age was.

When Marian was Marian Melnik and only twenty-two-years-old, time seemed to sprawl. There was no hurry, no reason to worry about age when you were twenty-two, just graduated from college.

It was summer. There were many choices, different directions to go. Daddy wanted her to take time, choose wisely.

"I know you love music, but you've got to consider very carefully how to proceed, my dear," Anatol Melnik was saying, shifting his sun glasses down to the bridge of his nose so he could look Marian in the eyes. "A small decision, happenstance, can set a young person on course. Once you are on your way it's hard to change directions."

They were lying on the beach getting sun tans, having one of their father-daughter philosophical conversations about LIFE. "Look at me, I didn't plan my future carefully," Anatol said. "I took what came along and now, here I am — chief cook and bottle washer in a Department store. Because I didn't make a determination and stick to it."

Anatol especially wanted Marian to pick a career that would passionately involve her intellect and her energies. He talked a great deal about intellect and energies, about making a determination. Although Anatol Melnik made an excellent living, his job as Executive Manager of a Department store used only half of what he had to offer. He felt that he was a failure.

Anatol talked about it sadly, but not complainingly.

Beginning with grade school, every aspect of Marian's education had concerned him. He helped with her homework, was concerned when she had tests, had praise for every
A
or
A
plus. It was Anatol who arranged for piano lessons and practice time on a neighbor's piano; a year later he purchased it from the neighbor — a
Baldwin
baby grand that crowded the Melnik's living room but enabled his daughter to practice all she wanted. At the same time, he encouraged Marian to join the Girl Scouts, the drama group, the debating team. When she had trouble with French, Anatol hired a tutor. The summer after she graduated high school he paid for typing lessons at business school, plus extra courses in business administration and accounting. In college, semester by semester, Anatol advised his daughter on what courses to take. "You've got to be more than Liberal Arts educated. You need down-to-earth knowledge, plus general, practical skills my dear — then when you graduate, you can be the top of whatever field you determine."

It was the kind of educational guidance you give to your son but both of them knew without mentioning Ralph's name, that Anatol Melnik would never be able to influence and guide his son, who was seventeen-years-old that summer and hopelessly retarded.

Mamma had never really recovered from the shock of having her baby boy put away behind the iron gates of an institution. The Father and daughter had become the loving caretakers of both Mother and child, a team who shared the problem of a depressive woman and mongoloid child without complaint.

That was another important lesson that Marian learned from Anatol, to be stoic, quiet. Complaining out loud was only passing on the pain.

Music was still
IT
, but Marian had other dreams. It was like having an assortment of delicious cookies in a glass cookie jar, she had only to choose. The Boston Conservatory? Juilliard? Or
Berlin
,
Vienna
— Marian loved the idea of studying in
Europe
. Maybe piano? Composing? Maybe conducting?

What about a love life? Getting a boyfriend?

Wasn't it time to consider that aspect of her future? Cousin Natasha was going steady and cousin Sammy's wife was pregnant. There were good-looking boys who took Marian occasionally to campus functions, but marriage? Babies? She'd never even been in love. Mamma's bad luck with Ralph seemed like a jinx.

"Experiment! Try things before you decide," Daddy said, encouraging Marian to make lists. Everything she did was always planned for, on an agenda or time table.

Marriage and Motherhood were put on the list for later on. To make her Daddy proud — carry on his name for him even if she was the daughter not the son — that was number one on her agenda.

Anatol Melnik was fifty-five and two weeks later he was gone. It was a massive coronary. Of course he had planned ahead. There was insurance, stocks and bonds, savings, a trust fund — enough to protect his son and give his wife and daughter the wherewithal to live moderately well for the rest of their lives.

No amount of planning could protect them from the desolation which set in. Lists had to be put away for the time being. Mamma needed her companionship and attention. The owners of the department store offered a part-time job. Marian needed to get out of the house once in awhile, so she accepted.

Right from the start, Marian had an uncanny sense of what would sell and what the customers were going to need.

"The girl has a talent for knowing the trend," the Head Buyer said. Not only did he pay attention, the floor managers also, began to follow the girl's suggestions.

Part-time became full-time. Marian liked the work. The owners were no longer doing the family a favor when they raised the Melnik girl's salary at the end of the year.

The second year, there was an official title — "Assistant Manager." With the promotion came a secretary-typist and a private little office. It wasn't long before the new Assistant Manager was supervising — orders required her O.K., and Inventory was dealt with as per her recommendations.

With each season, there were additional responsibilities. She needed space for a clerk; then it was two clerks, office equipment and her own assistant. The private office overflowed into a second small room, while renovations were made on a suite of offices for Miss Melnik.

And the seasons passed. When you work in a department store, the change of seasons always brings new challenges and new crises.

Time, which crawled for the ten-year-old child, which sprawled languidly ahead when she was twenty, was chugging along during her mid-twenties, without her noticing it.

One evening, about a month before Marian's thirtieth birthday, she and Martin Silverman, her assistant, worked overtime experimenting with the Burroughs machine. It was one of those new "thinking machines," not quite but almost a computer. The overtime investigation was Martin's idea since Marian had refused to go out with him socially — it was a matter of principle — she was management, he was an employee. Also, Martin was too worshipful, too obedient, eager-beaver and too skinny — definitely not her type.