Time After Time (52 page)

"You do like your little
jokes, don't—ah, good morning! Is this Mrs. Vauquiez? Hello; my
name is Victoria, and I'm calling on behalf of Anne's Place, the
home for battered women here in Newport? I'd like to personally
invite you to a benefit that promises to be a magical evening to
all who—"

Victoria winced and looked
at Liz. "Hung up." She made a note next to the name on the list and
punched in the next number. "Good morning! Is this Ms. Viera?
Hello; my name is Victoria, and I'm calling on behalf of Anne's
Place. . ."

Liz watched with deepening
dismay as Victoria worked her way through the V's. Ticket sales so
far had been dismal, despite the posters, the mailing, the radio
announcements, and the lovely write-up in the paper. Obviously
there were too many worthy causes running after too few
subscribers. She was right: they should've waited for Halloween to
hold the event.

But then they would've
missed the snowbirds. And without Meredith Kinney, one of the
richest snowbirds in town, there would be no
three-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner. It was as simple as that. Not
only was Meredith the honorary chairwoman — not only had she
already gotten commitments from over two dozen dinner guests — but
she'd completely taken over running that part of the benefit
herself. There was nothing honorary about her; she was a
full-fledged working chairperson.

Which was just fine with
Liz. She had neither the time, the experience, nor the heart to
design an intimate, glittering dinner in Jack's house for Jack's
friends. It would've been awkward at best, painful at worst. This
way she could stay outside, under the tent with the rest of the
common folk, and concentrate on managing the second half of the
fund-raiser. And if inside East Gate the entrée wound up overcooked
or the floral arrangements too big to see around — it would be
Meredith's fault, not hers.

Liz's job was to sell two
hundred tickets. So far they'd sold thirty-one. A hundred and
sixty-nine to go.

Victoria hung up again and
spun around in her desk chair to face Liz.
"Sold!
Two tickets!" she said,
interrupting the meandering gloom of Liz's thoughts.

Liz perked up. "For sure?
Or: She'll think about it?"

"She's sending the check
today. The benefit falls on her anniversary, and Mrs. Young thinks
this'll be a memorable way to celebrate."

"Young?
Oh, God; you're on the
Y's
already?"

Victoria laughed and
gathered up a handful of her long red corkscrew curls for binding
in a comb.

"Cheer up," she said. "I
still have four more Youngs to go.

"But there are no Z's! I
thought we'd get well over a hundred sales from the list. Can you
believe this? Meredith Kinney probably made thirty phone calls in
one day and hauled in nine thousand dollars' worth of
contributions, while
we—

Victoria gave her a
sheepish look. "Actually, Meredith didn't even have to make thirty
calls: I bought some tickets myself. Oh, don't look at me like I'm
some traitor, Liz. The buzz around Newport is that it's a very
exclusive event. Everyone knows Jack Eastman doesn't
entertain."

Liz said with lofty irony,
"I don't blame you at all, Tori. But after you've dined in regal
splendor, I do hope you'll join the rest of us under the tent for
the cocktail reception. All thirty-four of us. I shouldn't be hard
to find: I'll be the one clutching a hundred and sixty-nine unsold
tickets in my hand."

"Don't be silly; we'll
sell them," Tori said with her usual breeziness.

"You're damned right we
will," said Liz, grimly determined now. "I'll put 'em on Visa if I
have to and hand them out free on Thames Street. Meredith Kinney,
bless her well-born soul, is
not
going to outperform me at this event."

She got up from her desk
and walked over to one of the multi-paned windows of her office,
housed in a colonial building overlooking Washington Square. The
octagonal fountain in the small grassy oasis that separated the
Broadway district from the waterfront shops was bubbling cheerfully
away, but for once Liz took no pleasure in the sight.

Her mind was picturing a
full dining room and an empty tent.

"Dammit,"
she said in a soft, heartfelt curse. "I'm not
going to fail at this. I need an angle, that's all. I need
something to bring them in — someone to bring them in. I need a
celebrity. I need royalty. I need ... Princess Diana. That's who I
need," she said, almost wistfully.

She thought for a while,
then said over her shoulder, "You probably don't know how crazy
people went when Charles came to Newport a few years ago. Even
Prince Andrew — also here before your time — sent everyone
a-twitter. Think what
Diana
would do."

Victoria laughed as she
punched in the next number on her list. "Hey, why not? Even as we
speak, she's rumored to be aboard a yacht on Martha's Vineyard. We
could fly a plane overhead trailing an invitation—"

Liz stared unseeing at the
ebb and flow of lawyers, tourists, and court employees on the
street below. "That's just it," she said thoughtfully.
"She's
rumored.
No one's actually seen her, despite the media crawling all
over the place."

She turned to Victoria
with a calculating look. "How many royal-watchers so you suppose
have jumped on ferries to the Vineyard, hoping to get a glimpse of
her?"

"Probably a — Mrs. Young?
Good morning. My name is Victoria and I'm calling on behalf. .
."

****

Liz had never actually
started a rumor before; but Victoria had no qualms about doing it.
Some idle speculation at just the right time in just the right
circles — and almost immediately the calls began coming
in.

As it happened, it was
Tori who took the call from their first Diana-watcher.

"Good
morning,
Mrs. Tewhitt," she said as
she motioned frantically for Liz to pick up the extension. "I
enjoyed talking to you the other afternoon. I'm still considering
that marble-topped plant stand."

Liz lifted the receiver
carefully and heard Mrs. Tewhitt, an antiques dealer who was
herself many, many removes from royalty, say, "I'm so upset that I
couldn't get tickets for the dinner. Only thirty? Are you certain
you can't squeeze two more at the table'?"

"Oh, I'm afraid not, Mrs.
Tewhitt. And in any case, Meredith Kinney has complete control over
the earlier part of the benefit. Our office is handling ticket
sales for the costume party afterward — and to tell the truth, I'm
not certain how many tickets to
that
are left, either."

Mrs. Tewhitt gasped. Her
voice became conspiratorial. "How many will you let me
have?"

"I'm afraid we've had to
limit sales to four tickets per person."

"I'll take them. Can you
drop them off at the shop?"

"You're right on my way
home."

Victoria hung up, and Liz
pounced on her. "Four? Are you crazy? Why didn't you let her have
ten? Twenty?
Fifty?"

"She wouldn't have bought
any, in that case. Liz, Liz — don't you see how it works? We all
want what we can't have. That's what makes whatever it is so
desirable."

"True," said Liz with
sudden penetrating sadness. She was somewhere else in time as she
said it.
We all want what we can't
have.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Blindsided
again. She'd done so well this week, keeping focused, shutting him
out. And now, just like that, she could hardly keep the tears from
rolling out.

"I do understand," she
whispered. "I understand exactly."

Victoria took two other
calls in rapid succession, selling four tickets to each of the
callers. "Friends of Elena Tewhitt," she explained to Liz. "One of
them is in real estate; the other's an ex-councilman's wife.
Excellent. They'll spread the word."

"What exactly did you tell
Mrs. Tewhitt that day in her shop?"

"Nothing that wasn't true.
I said that Jack has a friend who knows Princess Diana — okay, so
it's a friend of a friend—and that we all had high hopes,
very
high hopes, that
she'd take advantage of the anonymity our costume party offers. And
then I speculated a little over whether she'd dress in Gilded Age
or New Age costume."

"Tori, you have no
scruples at
all."

Victoria shrugged and,
said, "It's not against the law to speculate."

Liz began to think that
maybe Tori
was
an
embodiment of Victoria St. Onge. It took her breath away to think
that they were getting people to buy tickets to a main event
without a main event. She resolved to have no part of
it.

When the phone rang while
Victoria was out getting them lunch, Liz answered it with the very
noblest of intentions.

"I'm so very excited that
— she— is going to be there," said Andrea Lexim, a gallery owner.
"How clever of her to come in disguise."

"Oh, but you mustn't just
assume—"

"Well, of course, one
doesn't
assume,
dear. One merely hopes. Obviously one can't say, can one? But
then, one knows what one knows."

Gibberish!

"In that case, how many
tickets may I put you down for?" asked Liz in a silky
voice.

"Oh, the maximum,
certainly. Six, I believe?"

"I'm so sorry.
Four."

By the end of the week
they'd sold an amazing hundred and forty tickets; but the Diana
thing had been pretty much milked for all it was worth.

"Short of taking an ad in
the paper actually advertising the fraud, I'm not sure what we can
do," said Liz, putting her feet up on the desk.

It was late. Susy was
staying overnight at her grandparents', and Liz and Victoria were
lingering in the office over design sketches and cold pizza. Liz
picked off a mushroom from an uneaten slice and said, "Know any
stunning blondes with Roman noses we could hire?"

"I try not to hang around
stunning blondes," said Victoria, rolling her green eyes
heavenward. She took a long, noisy suck on her straw, then shook an
ice-cube from the paper cup into her mouth.

"You're kidding," said
Liz. "Why would
you
be intimidated by a gorgeous blonde? You're a gorgeous
redhead."

Victoria pulled her knees
up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her cobalt-blue,
star-spangled skirt. "I'm way too tall for anything but a model's
runway," she said, sucking on the ice cube. "I'm taller than Ben,
and I don't like that. I wish I was normal height. Like
you."

"And your hair," Liz said,
ignoring her friend's lament. "Who has hair like that except
heroines in novels?"

Victoria bit down on the
ice, then swallowed it. "It's just one more thing that makes me
stick out from everyone else. I wish I had thick straight hair.
Like yours. And smooth tawny skin without one freckle. Like you.
I've always thought you're better-looking than I am," she
added.

"Wow," said Liz, staring
at her friend incredulously. "Of all the things I know about
you,
that
amazes
me the most."

Victoria shrugged and
said, "Okay, fine. Don't believe me. Ask Jack."

Liz felt the color come
flowing over her cheeks. "I've told you, Jack is out of my life. I
haven't heard from him since we said good-bye through the
chain-link fence. Obviously he knows how to pick his locations,"
she added, trying to make her bitterness sound droll. "With the
fence between us, I couldn't very well throw my arms around him and
beg him to keep me."

"Give him the benefit of
the doubt, Liz," said Victoria with a sympathetic smile. "He's in
Phoenix, trying to find a life for Caroline."

"And when he gets back,
he'll have only poor Bradley to place, and then he'll be free
again. Well, bully for him. Anyway," Liz couldn't resist saying,
"You notice he found the time to call Meredith from Phoenix? You
notice he calls Netta?"

"He called Meredith to
reassure her about going through with the dinner at East Gate. He
called Netta to — well,
naturally
he calls Netta. She's nursing his father, for
pity's sake. How is Cornelius, by the way?" she asked, steering the
subject away from Jack.

Liz shook her head. "Not
good. Netta says he's holed himself up in the carriage-house
apartment and won't come out. He won't see anyone. Won't do
anything. She says he looks twenty years older."

"He's scared."

"I can understand him
being scared," said Liz, vividly recalling the brush with death her
own father had suffered years earlier. "But I can't understand him
being timid."

Her father's heart attack
had been more serious than Cornelius Eastman's. But Frank Pinhel's
reaction to it was: "The hell with it; the yews need
trimming."