The Body in the Ivy (22 page)

“I have some ginger ale if you'd rather have something cold,” she said, opening the box of saltines and arranging them on a plate.

“How did you know…? Oh, of course, you're a caterer, you deal with food. And in any case, it wasn't exactly a breakfast order. I'll stick with the tea for now, but I'm glad you have ginger ale. I get, I mean, sometimes…”

“That's all you can manage. I am just a caterer, but I do know that the mind and the body are connected as surely as the mouth and the stomach.”

Chris smiled at her. It was a lovely smile with a lingering sweetness, and a hint of sorrow. Faith had noticed it the first night. Of all the women, Chris was the one with whom she'd had the least contact, or who had made the least impression. Rachel had been equally quiet when the whole group was together, but Faith had talked with her alone and had a sense of who she was. Although there had been Chris's conversation with Phoebe James, the one that Faith had overheard on the first night, the one in which Chris described the care
taking role she'd played for her mother, and then had made the odd suggestion that the week's reunion was actually some sort of trial. And another view of Chris had emerged when she'd forcefully cut off Maggie's discussion of Rachel's brother's suicide. Chris's tone of voice had made it clear that Maggie was to keep her mouth shut. Why? Protective of Rachel? Of Max Gold? She must have known him. Or of herself? What had she felt when he died? Had she been in love with him?

The kettle whistled and Faith made tea for them both. It was barely six o'clock and the rest of her preparations could wait. Chris might not. Faith sat down next to her, hoping to keep her from bringing the food to her room.

Chris was holding the mug in both hands, taking small sips. The photograph was directly in front of her, and it seemed to pull her gaze back whenever she glanced at Faith or around the room.

Faith reached for it. “May I?”

“Feel free. It was lying here on the counter when I came in.”

Nine young women were posed in front of an ivy-covered brick wall. They were wearing graduation robes and some had their caps on, not mortarboards, but the soft kind.

Faith pointed to one of the girls, tall and slender, her long hair parted in the middle, streaming over the gown. She was smiling. It was almost the same smile, even the sorrow. The smile in the old photograph was a tremulous one and her eyes shone with unshed tears. Sad to be leaving Pelham? Her friends? Fearful of what would come next? Which had it been for Chris? Or was it something entirely different? Amazing how much
she looked the same, except her hair was in a single braid at the moment, but still parted in the middle. It must have been ash blond all those years ago; it was still, but more ash than blond.

“You?”

Chris nodded and reached for a saltine, which she proceeded to nibble the way a child does, starting at one corner.

“And all the others, even Prin?”

She nodded again.

Hélène Prince dominated the picture, not merely because she was in the center of the group, but because of her charisma, her beauty. Faith understood now why the women were so upset at Elaine's appearance the first night. Superficially, she
had
looked like an older version of her twin's face in the photo. A Helen of Troy face, and Faith found herself wondering how much damage that modern version had done. How many ships had she launched? How many lives destroyed? And what about Prin herself, her tragic end, so young? Rachel Gold had said that Elaine was convinced Prin had been murdered and one of her guests was the murderer. Gwen's outburst that it was always about Prin and the suggestion that none of them were safe after Bobbi Dolan's death didn't contradict the notion. A trial, as Chris herself had said that first night on the landing upstairs? Is that what this was? If so, it meant that everyone had had a good reason for wanting Hélène Prince dead. Faith looked at the faces in the picture. They looked barely out of their teens, and in Phoebe's case, barely out of childhood. One of them a murderer? It seemed unlikely. Yet only Prin's face glowed. Only her smile looked genuine. Lucy
and Gwen weren't smiling at all, and the others were forced or ambiguous. Perhaps it was simply a case of not liking to have your picture taken. Faith knew she never felt comfortable when the lens was aimed at her.

“I remember the day as clearly as if it had been yesterday. No, more clearly. Mr. Prince, Prin and Elaine's father, took the picture. He sent these large copies to all of us. This must be Elaine's.” Chris's voice trailed off, and she picked the photo up, scrutinizing it for a moment before setting it back down. Faith was about to try to prod her to continue when she spoke. “They were on campus staying at the Pelham Inn for the week before graduation. Mrs. Prince was a big deal in the alumnae association and she was involved in all sorts of meetings, luncheons, college things. There were a lot of alums around, especially toward the end of the week, because reunion started the day before graduation. Pelham grads line up by class on either side of the graduating seniors when they march into the ceremony—some sort of passing-the-torch notion. And they were all in white—what a different time that was. We even had to wear white dresses under our black gowns. Purity, virginity, dominant culture—pick one, any one.” She stopped again, once more lost in thought, but not for very long. “As we marched, we joked about seeing ourselves in five years, ten years, twenty…they all seemed so old, so wrinkled, and now
we
are those wrinkled old ladies. It doesn't seem possible.

“No one wanted the picture taken except Prin and her parents. It was before the actual day. We had just come back from one of the graduation rehearsals. It was very silly, all those rehearsals, but this was a tur
bulent time, remember, and I think the college was worried that some of us might suddenly unfurl a Viet-cong flag, stencil red fists on the backs of our gowns, or take them off and streak—all very real possibilities even at Pelham. At the rehearsals, it was drummed into our heads what would happen if we did, how we would embarrass our families—and be refused a diploma. They couldn't expel us at that late date, but they could bar us from the ceremony at any point during it.”

“Were you and your friends involved in any of the protest movements?”

“I was in D.C. for the big march, the Moratorium. Lucy was there, too. She was the most radical of all of us, starting with civil rights. I doubt the others were involved in much. Maybe they lit candles and sang a chorus or two of ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?' at a campus event, but nothing that would have put them on the Nixon list. Not that I did anything, either. But I don't really know. By graduation, I had other friends. So did Gwen and Lucy. That's what was so awkward about the picture. Prin was adamant about getting one with what she called ‘the original group.' I hadn't been in her dorm freshman year, nor had Lucy. But Lucy had gone to prep school with the Princes, so I suppose that qualified her. We were all passing by the Princes on our way back into the dorm and Prin made her father stop each of us. She got
him
to ask us to pose, and of course it would have been rude not to agree. And Pelham girls were
never
rude. He'd do anything she wanted. It was very useful. Her mother, too. They thought Prin hung the moon.”

“It must have been devastating for them when she died.”

Chris nodded. “But stiff upper lip. They watched Elaine get her diploma a day later and sat through the moment of silence when Prin's name was announced. I think they went to Europe for a while after that. They had an apartment in Paris. Graduation is kind of a blur for me. Maggie was our student speaker and a girl named Lois Russell was class poet.” Chris smiled at this recollection.

“What did she do?” Faith asked. “It seems to be a pleasant memory.”

“Oh, it is. She'd had to submit her poem to the administration, of course, and they checked to make sure that the scroll she was carrying was the same, but she'd memorized a different one. Not simply an indictment of the war, but a call to arms against injustice and complacency. The last line was something like ‘Hurl teacups against false façades, fling Max Factor mud at authority.' It was very funny, very sardonic, and very courageous. We all stood up and cheered. She became a journalist, I think. I wonder where she is now?”

Faith pointed to another face. “That's Gwen, right? And Lucy's next to her?”

Chris nodded.

All of them had had long hair, except Maggie, whose tight curls were cut short. Anything long would have suggested a pot scrubber, not a Pre-Raphaelite. Her hair was even shorter now, clipped close to her head. Phoebe had put on the most weight, but her face had also remained the most like the one in the photograph, no wrinkles, and Faith doubted that someone who didn't bother with makeup or an updated haircut would have had work done. Not so for Gwen—and big time
for Elaine. Elaine. That was the greatest transformation. Chris was still sipping her tea and had picked up another saltine. Faith sensed she wanted to keep talking about those long-ago days.

“Why didn't you all want to have your picture taken? Aside from not wanting to have your picture taken, I mean.”

“No, you're right, it wasn't that, although most of the women I know do hate to be photographed. More of the baggage we carry around about the way we look and the way we're supposed to look, but this was different. Gwen, Lucy, and Rachel hadn't spoken to Prin for a year or more. The last thing they would have wanted was to pose with her and say cheese.”

Faith added hot water to the teapot.

“Rachel blamed Prin for Max's death. She'd dumped him for the guy Gwen was dating. Or maybe that came later. But she had been engaged to Max. It was all so avoidable—I say this from the vantage point of age. Max was a complete romantic, very intense, very talented. But to Prin he was just another boy, just another conquest. I wish now I had said something to Rachel, or Max—but he wouldn't have listened and I didn't really know him that well. Or Prin, but then she wouldn't have listened, either. But Rachel…I wish I had talked to Rachel. We might have been able to stop Prin some way or another.”

Faith was surprised at the intensity in Chris's voice, the vehemence.

“So you didn't like Prin, either?” she said without pausing to choose her words more tactfully.

“Like her? No, I hated her. Just like Rachel and Gwen—that particular beau had been the love of her life, she said, and perhaps he was. We all thought the men we were involved with were our one-and-onlies.”

“And did she steal someone from Lucy, too?” And you, Faith wanted to ask, but she'd gone far enough as it was.

“No, I don't think so. I don't know what happened between them. It must have been something that happened during the summer following freshman year. Lucy came back in the fall and so far as I know never said a word to Prin again. If they were in the same room, Lucy would always move to the opposite side. Rachel and I talked about it, but neither of us felt comfortable asking Lucy for the details.”

“And the others—Maggie, Bobbi, and Phoebe? Her sister?”

“Elaine, Maggie, Phoebe, and Prin lived in what was called the penthouse on the top of the dorm. Crandall was one of the new dorms built in the fifties and I suppose the architect was thinking of some way to make a rectangular brick block look more interesting from the outside. There were four singles, a common room, and a bath. They lived there together for two years and they should have been in the picture by themselves. They were the ones who were tight. Phoebe was Prin's special pet. Maggie held every office she possibly could and was editor of the paper. Prin was like her campaign manager. And Elaine? Well, they were twins and twins are usually very close, although I was surprised when Elaine took Gwen's place in the penthouse. Elaine
had been so happy to have a room to herself, she'd said during housing week the previous spring. Oh, now I remember about Prin and Gwen's boyfriend. It would have been the summer before junior year that Prin scooped up what was his name, Andrew something, because Gwen wouldn't live in the penthouse when we came back in the fall. Elaine finally stepped in and changed places with Gwen. Rachel had a theory about Elaine, that she resented Prin, but I never saw it. Of course, you never did see Elaine when Prin was around, even if she was sitting next to her. Maybe Rachel was right.”

“And Bobbi?”

“Bobbi was the proverbial moth to the flame. Something had happened between them. She'd say terrible things about Prin behind her back, but when Prin would invite her to the penthouse for ‘mocktails'—V-8 juice and Ritz crackers—off she'd go.”

“And you?” Faith asked softly.

“I went occasionally. Until Prin killed my baby.”

Faith gasped and put out her hand to cover Chris's, which still held an uneaten cracker, but before she could touch her, Chris stood up and stumbled to the door, covering her face.

“Forget you heard that,” she said as she left. “Forget
everything
I said.”

Outside, a curtain of fog had descended. Faith pushed open the kitchen door, walked into the living room, then out onto the porch, which faced the water. Chris's words had been so monstrous that Faith almost thought she could see them suspended against the fog, dark and ugly. “Until Prin killed my baby.”

It was still raining, but the winds had quieted. The drops fell straight down, as if some unseen hand had drawn uniform lines with a ruler. She couldn't see what effect the storm was having on the ocean now, but she could hear the muffled sound of the waves on the rocks, not a crashing surf, but one that—with the fog—would keep all boats in port. There would be no escape. Not yet.

She went back into the house, and as she passed through the living room, she noticed that a third small vase had toppled to the floor. Its water and the single rose lay on the rug that had cushioned the fall, preventing the glass vial from breaking. When she'd arrived three days ago, there had been ten roses—and now there were seven.