Everlasting Page 23

  * * *

  Friday night, just before closing, the phone rang at Blooms.

  “Catherine? Good. You’re still there. It’s Piet. I’m back. I want to see you. Can you wait for me there?”

  Lust warmed Catherine’s body at the sound of Piet’s dark voice. “Piet. You’re home! I’m so glad. I’ve missed you. Listen, don’t come here. Meet me at the apartment. I’ll make you dinner.”

  “No. I’d rather meet you at Blooms. There are some things I need to pick up.”

  “Well, all right. God knows I’ve got plenty to do here while I wait.”

  “See you soon.”

  Catherine hurried to the mirror. She was wearing a red wool suit with black trim and her enormous diamond earrings. The red made her lips and cheeks glow and made her hair look jet black against her skin. Pleased, she hurried down to be sure everyone had left for the day and the shop was locked up. Piet had his own key. They had never before made love in Blooms, but there was a sofa in her office.

  Back in her office, she forced herself to concentrate on her accounts until she heard the back door open and then the sound of Piet’s footsteps on the stairs. Then he was there, in the doorway. He wore his sleek black overcoat around his shoulders, European style, and he looked at once both tired and excited. She hurried across the room to kiss him.

  She was astonished at the coolness of his response.

  “Catherine. We have to talk.”

  “Well. That certainly sounds ominous.” She spoke lightly, knowing from experience that the harder she pushed with Piet, the more closed he became. He really was like a clam. If she pried, he clamped himself shut. She had to be still, sly, cunning, had to pretend to look in the other direction, and then sometimes he would relax his vigilance.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked, moving away from him. He smiled, and she poured them each a Scotch. He sat on the sofa, and Catherine on her chair behind the desk. She kicked off her heels and put her stockinged feet on her desktop. “So. Talk.”

  “Catherine, I have to leave Blooms.”

  “What?” She felt the panic rising in her voice.

  “Wait. Please. I’m leaving the States for a while. I have to live in Amsterdam for a few months, perhaps even a year, and after that, I’ll have to live there for at least six months every year.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “I can’t tell you. I can tell you that I have an idea that I think will make me, and you, rich, but I don’t have everything worked out yet.”

  “You have an idea that includes me? Then, by God, why can’t you share it with me? You have to!”

  “Let’s just say I’m paranoid. I don’t want anyone else getting to this first. I’ve been working on it like a dog, and I’m very close to implementing it. I’ve got to go back to Amsterdam. When things are ready, I’ll contact you.”

  “Piet, that’s not fair. I have no idea what you’re talking about!” There were times when she thought it was the fact that English was Piet’s second, or third, or fourth language that made him seem so distant. But right now, it was far more than language that separated them.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Piet. Tell me the truth. Is another woman involved in all this?”

  “Catherine, I’ve told you—please believe me. It’s nothing like that.”

  His words were kind, but Catherine caught the tang of condescension in his voice.

  “Well, there’ll be another man in my life, you can count on that, if you go away and leave me like this!” Catherine wrenched her legs off the desk and slipped back into her shoes, glad he couldn’t see her face. She was close to tears.

  “Yes. I know that’s a risk I run. You are a beautiful woman.”

  He sounded as if he meant it. When she looked at him, she couldn’t help the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  “Piet, what in the hell are you doing? We’ve been lovers for more than two years now. You’ve got to know what you mean to me. You’ve got to know how I care for you. I’m not trying to trap you or lay claim to you, but don’t you owe me something?”

  “I owe you a lot, Catherine. And I want to give you a lot, but first I have to make certain that I can.”

  “You’re talking in riddles.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If you were sorry, you’d try to talk to me honestly.”

  “It’s business, Catherine, why can’t you believe that? It’s strictly business, and important, significant business. If it works, it could change my life, and make a huge difference in yours.”

  “But you won’t tell me what it is.”

  “No.”

  “And you’re just going to leave me and my shop, without even a promise about returning.”

  “Yes. Although I do promise to try to return.”

  Catherine was sobbing, her shoulders shaking. How could Piet watch her so coolly, without crossing the room to embrace her, to comfort her? He rose.

  “Piet, you can’t go! I won’t let you! Don’t you love me? Don’t you need me?”

  He hesitated before speaking—and that hesitation enraged her, told her more than anything he’d said all night.

  “I love you,” Piet said at last. “I love you. I thought you knew that. I would like you to believe it, even though I know I make it hard. But to answer your other question, no, I don’t need you.”

  “Then God damn you!” Catherine wanted to run and hold him back. She wanted to hurl her glass paperweight at his back. “Get out of here. Don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”

  Even then, she thought he would stay. She sank onto her chair and buried her face in her hands and waited for him to cross the room. She waited for the weight of his hands on her shoulders. Instead, when she looked up, she saw that he was gone. He had left her office door open. Holding her breath, she listened and heard the downstairs back door open, then click closed.

  * * *

  Catherine locked up and walked through the winter streets to her apartment. The curbs were banked with dirty snow that glittered vilely in the streetlights, and the wind buffeted and shoved at her. She was crying as she walked, oblivious of the people who were rushing by her, their heads down against the wind. At home she shed her suit and sat in her dark bedroom wrapped in her thick terry robe, a glass of Scotch in her hand. But by midnight she was exhausted. She woke at three in the morning to find that she’d fallen asleep on top of her bed. She took a long, hot, cleansing shower, then walked through her apartment with a glass of milk. She turned on all the lights in each room. This antique mahogany sideboard, these silver candlesticks—what had they not witnessed in the hundred years they’d existed—perhaps other abandoned women. She was not the first. She had never, ever, desired the role of weak woman, victim. And she had been left before, by a better man. She hated her pain. She would not tolerate it. She would not let herself think of Piet again.

  The next morning Catherine held a brief conference with her employees. “Piet has left the company,” she told them. “He’s gone to Amsterdam.” Holding up her hands, she forestalled their questions. “No, I have no address for him. I don’t know his plans. His absence will call for some adjustments on all our parts.” She lowered her eyes to avoid meeting their collective gazes. After the meeting, she called a dozen employment agencies; by the end of the day she’d hired Carla Shaw to act as receptionist at the front desk, answer the phone, and run errands for herself, Sandra, and Jason. Carla was only nineteen and a bit rough around the edges. She lived on the Lower East Side and hadn’t had the money or grades to go to college, but she was cheerful, energetic, quick, eager to please, and eager to make something of herself. As the days passed, she learned how to be prim with motherly Sandra and flirtatiously complimentary with sensitive Jason. With Carla on board, Catherine could relax just a little. And with Piet gone, perhaps forever, she went back to her routine of buying the flowers early in the morning and catching a nap in the early afternoon o
n the sofa in her office. She was tired, and she was determined, and she could fall asleep in an instant and in an instant be awake and ready to get back to work.

  Sunday afternoon Catherine walked over to her parents’ apartment. It was about one o’clock, early by their standards, when she arrived, and as she expected, her mother wasn’t yet out of bed. Her father answered the door in his robe.

  “Hi, Dad. I’ve come to see Shelly.”

  “Come in, Catherine. Christ, I feel like a truck hit me. Shelly’s in the living room. I’m going back to bed.”

  She found Shelly sitting alone by a window. He was dressed for the day in khakis, a button-down shirt, and red crewneck sweater, but the clothes hung loosely on him. Catherine was glad to have a few seconds to catch her breath before he saw her. He sat hunched over like an old man. He was twenty-one years old, and he sat looking out the window at nothing.

  “Shelly!” She crossed the room and bent over to kiss his cheek. “Don’t get up.” She put her hands on his shoulders.

  “I can stand up!”

  “Go ahead, then. But I’m sitting down.” Catherine ignored his bad humor, pulled a chair close to him.

  “How are you, Shelly?”

  “Just great, can’t you tell by looking?”

  Catherine had leaned forward, but she could tell that her scrutiny made Shelly nervous; he was trembling, like someone with palsy.

  “I mean, really, how are you?”

  “I’m okay now. I’m clean. This has not been the best time I’ve ever had. But I’m clean now. I’m tired, though, man. I’m beat.”

  To Catherine’s horror, Shelly’s face crumbled and he began to cry. He covered his face with his hands.

  “I know you think you’re being nice to come see me, but I wish you’d go away. I hate this charity shit.”

  “Shelly. I’m not here out of charity.”

  “Yeah, you’re here because I’m such fun. Because we’re so close.”

  “Shelly, you’re my brother. I love you.”

  “I don’t know why. I’m such a fuck-up.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Give me a break. You’ve turned into Miss Moneybags and even dippy little Ann’s going to graduate from college. I’ve just wasted my life. Shit, Dad’s an alcoholic, but people only think he’s charming. I’m not even charming.”

  “I think you’re charming.” But she didn’t think Shelly heard her. Catherine was surprised at how much it hurt to see Shelly like this—her handsome brother, once so full of energy and mischief. When he had wiped his eyes, she said, “I do think you’re charming. I think you’re smart. I know you’re smart. Remember how you always used to win at Monopoly? God, it always made me crazy, Shelly. You’re six years younger than I, and you still always beat me at Monopoly, every time.”

  Remembering brought a smile to Shelly’s face. “You used to get so mad.”

  “And at Everly, when we played hide-and-seek. I could never find you. You could always find me.”

  “You’d get so mad, you’d scream your head off at me when you found me.”

  “You were a whiz at poker. You’ve always been good at tennis, and I’ve always been a spaz.”

  “Now you’re successful, and I can’t do a damned thing.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Name one thing—just one thing I could do.”

  “You could go back to college.”

  “I doubt it. Besides, all my friends have graduated.” Shelly was choking up again. “I just totally fucked up my life. I’m just sitting here, left behind, like some pissy helpless old man.”

  Catherine took a deep breath. “Then why don’t you come work for me?”

  Shelly looked shocked. “Work for you? What could I do for you? Don’t you understand? I can’t do anything.” He laughed. “Anyway, can you see me standing around playing with flowers like some fairy?”

  “Shelly. Every day, six days a week, my employees have to carry in over a hundred boxes. They’re packed with flowers and newspapers and ice, and they weigh about a hundred pounds each. I think that you, brain-dead and pathetic thing that you are, could still lift and carry. I always need another body. I need someone to deliver. Someone who knows the city well enough to get around it fast. Perhaps when you’re through feeling sorry for yourself you’ll remember that you know this city as well as you know the Monopoly board. Or if you really want to stay at the basket-weaving level, I can stick you in the basement and let you mold sphagnum moss into cubes. I just had a guy quit. Honey, I need help so much I’d hire the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I don’t like it there?”

  “Then you can always quit. And believe me, if I don’t like the way you’re working out, I’ll fire you in a minute. I’m serious. I didn’t get to be successful by being softhearted.”

  Shelly smiled, a real smile. Even his eyes were brighter. “When do you want me to start?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  * * *

  Walking back to her apartment later that afternoon, Catherine noticed poinsettias in apartment windows and Christmas wreaths still hanging on some front doors. She remembered the Christmas night long ago at Everly when her mother banished her to the third floor. She had been furious then, certain that she did not belong with her family, terrified that she didn’t belong anywhere. Now, ten years later, she was surprised at how strong, how lasting, the bonds of family felt. No matter how she chafed at them, hated them, fought them, they would not break. Was it possible that in other families pity, hate, and anger held as fast as comfort, gratitude, and love?

  Catherine told both Jason and Sandra that she’d asked her brother to come to work for her, but that he was not being given any special privileges or treatment. To her surprise and relief, Shelly endeared himself to everyone by working hard and eagerly. His only real problem was an amazing ignorance of flowers. “Honey, bring me that bucket of glads, will you?” Jason would call.

  “Do you mean the tall things?” Shelly would respond. But he tried hard, and learned fast, and as he grew more comfortable with his duties, the magical charm he’d inherited from his father and grandfather returned, and it became a real pleasure for them all to have him around.

  Catherine always received invitations to all the best galas and parties. As Shelly improved, she began to ask him to be her escort. He had always loved good times, and he was wonderful fun. After their harried and often grimy work during the day, Shelly and Catherine would run home and get glamorous. Wherever they entered, heads turned: Catherine, dark and exotic; Shelly, boyishly all-American and blond. They hardly looked alike, yet you couldn’t miss the family resemblance. Shelly always met lots of pretty young women and inadvertently picked up new contacts for Blooms in the bargain.

  Catherine was moderately famous in New York and was frequently invited to serve on the boards of prestigious artistic and charity organizations. Always, she refused. With Piet gone, it took all her time and energy to keep Blooms running with the perfection she insisted upon. Besides, the competition was always out there, so she was constantly searching for new ideas, new styles, new trends. She worked as ferociously as she had when she’d first bought her shop and took an equally passionate pleasure in its success. Her old school friends Robin, Terry, Melonie, and others openly admired Catherine’s achievements, and in the spring of 1970 she was asked by Miss Brill’s to be their graduation speaker. With a great warm wash of inner smugness, she agreed with pleasure.

  Even her own parents were behaving civilly toward her, and at Easter dinner that year Catherine looked around the table at her parents’ house with a sense of triumph and pride. There sat pretty Ann, well on her way to becoming a horticulturist. And Shelly, now handsome and healthy, entertaining his mother with tales about the posh parties he’d been to—all because of Catherine and Blooms. And there sat Kathryn, clearly delighted to be talking with Ann about new technique
s in grafting. Drew was openly grateful to Catherine and now never lost an opportunity to hug her tightly in appreciation. Only Marjorie remained wary, as if Catherine’s success might suddenly turn out to be a trick or an insult.

  Catherine knew her success was real, solid. She felt it in the silk of the dresses she wore, the bite of her custom-blended perfume, the glow of her brother’s healthy skin, the laughter shared among her employees, the continual ringing of the telephone at Blooms.

  Still, sometimes at night, when she had come home from a party or wakened early to go buy flowers, she would sit in her peach-and-indigo bedroom, staring out her window at the night sky, remembering a richer sweetness: love. In certain ways, the silk-and-velvet texture of the flowers she worked with, their scents and saps, filled her life as a lover might. She did not miss colors or the slide of skin. But to last, flowers had to be kept cool. The moist chill of their stems and leaves made her lonely.

  She missed warmth. She missed heat and breath and movement.

  She remembered how Kit, after climaxing, had collapsed on top of her, letting his body touch hers all over. She had wrapped her arms around his naked back; he had put his face against her neck. Together their bodies had slowed, readjusted, like ocean divers fathoms deep.

  With Piet it had been more like skydiving. He always took her breath away. She had fallen, exhilarated, calling out with terror and joy, pushed to her limits, pushed beyond her limits, frightened and finally triumphant.

  With Ned it had been almost a kind of child’s play, sharing a candied apple, not frightening, not significant. An easy pleasure.

  She missed sex, love, life. Perhaps, Catherine mused, she should go to England this summer.

  But before she could make her plans, Kathryn phoned her in June to tell her the Boxworthys were coming to visit. Not all the Boxworthys, unfortunately, and not the one Catherine was hoping to see. Ann was going to fly over to work at the British Everly until the last week in August. Then she’d bring Madeline and Hortense back with her while Ned and Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband, Tom, ran the bed-and-breakfast back home. Kathryn was hoping Catherine would help spruce up her garden, especially the purple-and-white one.