Time After Time (53 page)

"What about Jack's
mother?" Victoria asked, because she was as curious as Liz about
the phantom mistress of East Gate. "Is she coming?"

"Nobody knows."

"Oh, well. Maybe the
benefit will draw Cornelius out. It should be a magical evening."
Victoria smiled impishly and added, "Even if the princess
is
unavoidably
detained."

Liz winced at the reminder
and said, "Have you decided what to wear? Gilded Age or
New?"

The impish smile turned
somber. "The question is more apt for me than for most, isn't it? I
don't know, yet, what I'll wear. But it's my big night, the biggest
of my life — the night I pay my karmic debt and return the pin,"
Victoria said softly. "I should dress for it."

She really does believe
she may die once the pin's returned,
Liz
thought, amazed. It was obvious in the way Victoria held herself,
arms around her shins, chin propped on her knees, the picture of
apprehension. It was obvious in the way she stared at the middle
distance between them, seeing ... what? The split second before —
after? — the car crash? Or was she back a hundred years, staring at
two lives gone awry because of one woman's mean-spirited meddling
in their destinies?

"Victoria?"

"Hmm?" Victoria looked up,
then smiled. "Well!" she said more briskly. "One thing I know. The
costume's going to be as sexy as I can make it. I want Ben to be on
his
knees
with
desire."

****

The hundred and
forty-first ticket sale was made despite Liz's best advice. The
purchaser was a middle-aged woman who was dressed, despite the
heat, in an ill-fitting lilac pant- suit. She was a heavy-set woman
with red, rough hands and hair that clung damply to her flushed
face.

"I had to park a ways
away," she said, breathing heavily from her exertions. "I never
come downtown in summer if I can help it. But I saw one of your
posters in J0-J0'5 Fabric Shop that said I could buy a ticket here.
For the costume party, I mean." With some hesitation she said, "Can
anybody buy one?"

"Yes, you can, but — you
could've mailed a check and saved yourself a trip downtown," said
Liz with a friendly smile. "The traffic's really horrible today,
isn't it?"

The woman shook her head
in disgust.
"August,"
she said. "What do you expect? But I wanted to ask — because
I heard two ladies in the Stop & Shop talking about this
benefit thing. I've never been to something like it, but I heard
them say that Princess
Diana
is coming?"

"Oh ... no, most probably
not," said Liz, coloring deeply now. "If that's why you want a
ticket — save your money. Really."

"Oh?" The woman's face
fell. "Are you sure?"

Washed over with guilt,
Liz said, "Yes. I'm sure."

"That's too bad," the
woman in lilac said. "Because they sounded so positive. Oh, well.
Thank you."

She turned away and headed
for the narrow spiral steps that led to the reception area
downstairs. At the top of the spiral, she reversed herself and came
back.

Plunking her white plastic
handbag down on Liz's desk, the woman snapped it open and began
rummaging in it. "You know what? I want a ticket anyway. It's for a
good cause. And I think I can talk a couple of my lady friends into
going. And anyway, this is Newport; who's to say she won't show up?
She's
so
pretty.
And if she doesn't, well, sixty dollars won't break me. That's why
I buy lottery tickets. Just to dream. I don't
really
think I'll win."

With an irresistible
smile, she handed Liz six no doubt hard-earned ten-dollar
bills.

Liz wanted to hug her. She
had exactly the right spirit for a benefit: generous, open,
curious, and hopeful.

"You'll have a wonderful
time," Liz said warmly. "We're going to have a palmist for the New
Agers and a phrenologist for the Gilded Agers."

"Oh? That's nice," said
the woman uncertainly.

Liz laughed and explained,
"A phrenologist tells your personality by analyzing the contours of
your skull; they were very popular during the Gilded Age. By the
way, if you come in costume, make it as outlandish as you like.
There'll be a prize at the end for the best one."

"I'll do that," the woman
promised with an air of courage. She plunged her wallet back to the
bottom of her purse, then looked up with a timid smile. "There's
just one thing," she said. "What's a Gilded Age? And what do they
mean by the New Age?"

****

Ten days after Jack went
off to Phoenix with Caroline, he came back — with
Caroline.

Liz was making Sunday
pancakes, and Susy was in the yard, sailing a new boat in her
wading pool. Through the kitchen screen Liz heard Caroline call
Susy's name. Surprised, Liz peeked out and saw the child, pretty as
a picture in pale pink and apple green, talking to Susy through the
chain-link fence.

"I didn't see you for a
long time," said Susy, who had always spurned pink in favor of rich
reds, the color she wore now.

Caroline hooked her
Velcro-fastened shoes into the chain links of the fence, but she
couldn't hang on and fell back to the ground. "I was in Phoenix
with Jack."

"Who's Jack?" asked Susy
naïvely.

"You
know Jack," Caroline said with an impatient laugh. "You
always call him Mr. Eastman. He's my brother. He said I should call
him Jack now."

"I never knew he was your
brother!" said Susy, clearly bewildered by this new turn of events.
She added, "He's very old, for a brother."

"Not as old as my father.
Dada said his hair was gray when I was born. Now it's white. Since
the boat ride, it even got whiter."

"Is your mother so old,
too?" Susy asked artlessly.

Caroline turned grave.
"No. She was younger than your mom, I think." Her voice faltered as
she said, "But she — she died. Jack said she's in heaven now,
watching over me. And Bradley, too. But Bradley doesn't even know
it."

"Do you miss
her?"

"Yes.

"Do you want to play with
me? I have a new boat. Sometimes when the wind is blowing, it can
sail right across my pool. All by itself."

"Can I bring my doll
over?"

"Yes, but you better watch
her. Toby likes to scratch his claws on my doll's stomach. My
doll's a Raggedy Ann. They're good for scratching on, I
guess.

"My doll's a Madame
Alexander. I don't think Toby would do anything to her."

He wouldn't
dare
,
thought Liz, smiling at the scene before
her.

She saw Netta coming up
behind the children, so she popped the pancakes into the
just-heated oven, then ran out to learn more about Caroline's
return.

After the two women agreed
that the girls could play together in Susy's yard — a first, of
sorts — Netta hit on a shortcut method of getting there. Huffing
and puffing, she dragged a heavy wooden staging ladder belonging to
the shipyard over to the fence. Between her and Liz, they managed
to set the thing up so that one set of rungs was on each property:
a jungle-gym shortcut for the girls to commute back and
forth.

Caroline ran to get
Madame, and Susy went off to fetch Raggedy. Liz took advantage of
the lull by asking Netta outright why Jack had brought his
half-sister back to Newport.

The portly housewife
glanced behind her, then said, "He didn't like the setup, is what
he told me. Stacey's sister is sharing an apartment with two other
women, all of 'em young and dating. He said they looked on Caroline
like some pet cat. Besides," she said, lowering her voice, "it's
the wrong environment, if you know what I mean."

"So Cornelius decided to
have Jack bring her back to East Gate? Well, that's good news. It
means—"

"Oh, no, Mr. Eastman did
no such thing. Jack made the decision on his own. Mr. Eastman, he's
still acting like he's got one foot in the grave. What that man
needs," she added sharply, "is a good shaking."

"Will Mrs. Eastman be the
one to give it to him?"

"I wish I
knew."

****

After a couple of hours,
Caroline climbed over the jungle- gym ladder back to her mansion.
Liz cleaned up the breakfast dishes, put on a high-cut bathing
suit, and went out to read the Sunday papers. She told herself that
she was giving Susy some quality time. She told herself that she
needed a little down-time herself. She told herself everything
except the one obvious, unalterable truth: Despite all her previous
resolve, she was hoping that Jack, if he were home, would notice
her and stroll over to the chain-link fence.

But an hour went by, and
the only one who noticed her was Susy. The child, wearing a
Kelly-green bathing suit, came over to Liz and stood on the frame
of the plastic-strapped chaise longue, showing off her balancing
act.

"Are you going in the pool
now, Mommy?"

"I'm still reading,
honey," said Liz absently.

"Mommy? Are you
old?"

Liz put her paper down.
She knew exactly what was on Susy's mind, so she said with extra
emphasis, "For goodness sake — no! I'm pretty young. I'll be around
for a long, long time.''

Susy jumped backward off
the chaise onto the grass. "Forever?"

Liz held out one arm and
pulled her daughter close. "Almost forever," she said, drinking in
the sweet summer smell of her daughter.

But oh, how I wish it
could be forever — for you if for no one else.

****

That night Liz dreamed
about — or saw, or dreamed she dreamed about — Christopher Eastman
again. But this time it was different; this time, he held her in
his arms.

It felt so shockingly
real, so shockingly comforting. She buried her face in his shoulder
and, with tears falling freely, said, "How can I make him love me
enough? How can I?"

And Christopher, warm and
solid, stroked her hair and said, "I love you. I love you very,
very much. Someday you will know that."

She said, "Someday! Will I
live forever?"

And he answered, "There is
only one way you can live forever, and that is through those who
love you. Remember that. Now sleep, Elizabeth. . .
sleep."

****

On Monday, Liz was in her
office, working through lunch, when she heard someone taking the
narrow spiral of stairs two at a time. She looked up, and there he
was: Jack Eastman, in a thunderous mood.

He marched up to her desk
and, flattening his hands on it, bent over it toward her at a
frightening angle — the better, she thought, to grab her by the
throat. She leaned her chair away from him.

"What the
hell
are you doing,
telling everyone Princess Diana plans to come? Are you
nuts?"

"We didn't ... really say
that," Liz said, cringing behind a placating smile. "We said you
were friends with someone who was friends with her. Or something
like that."

"Who are you talking
about? The senator?"

She didn't have a clue.
She took a shot. "Yes. Aren't you a friend of his?"

"I'm a friend of the
senator's
son.
Not that it matters — the senator doesn't know her either!
They met at a charity function. She said how do you do. He said I'm
pleased to meet you. Jesus! It wasn't exactly a bonding
moment!"

"Oh. We must've gotten
that wrong, then," she said, still winging it. The one thing she
didn't want him to know was that the whole thing was a fabrication
from the start.

He spun away from her,
slamming his fist on the side of the desk as he did it. She'd never
seen him so angry. He ran his hand through his unruly hair and
said, "I'll be a laughingstock — or an object of pity. I can't
believe this!"

"I don't see why you
should be either one," she ventured timidly. "You're just
underwriting the event, not starring in it.

He turned back to her. His
mouth, pressed tight in a thin line of fury, cracked a little into
a contemptuous smile. "Really. Did I forget to mention that the
society editor of
The New York
Times
called me? That she wanted to know,
was it true that I was Princess Diana's
date?"

Aiii.
"I don't know why she'd think tha-at," Liz said, bleating
like a lamb.

"Could it be because one
of you two dingbats
told
her?"

"Please. Give us
some
credit," Liz said,
stung.

He wasn't listening. He
was staring at the wide-board floor, hand on the back of his neck,
clearly envisioning the night of the benefit. "Is there anything
more
absurd,"
he
said, seething, "than being stood up by the future Queen of
England?"