Everlasting Read online

  So the summer unfolded. She worked at Blooms and Everly. When Madeline and Hortense arrived in August, she took pride in showing them around Blooms and pleasure in their company at Everly. Kathryn held a great dinner dance in honor of her British guests, with the garden strung with hundreds of tiny white lights and a band that played old jazz and buffet tables laden with delicacies and champagne. It reminded Catherine of Kimberly Weyland’s wedding party so many years ago, which made the night bittersweet for Catherine. She was glad when the summer was over, Ann back at college, the Boxworthys back in England, and a bracing chill back in the air.

  * * *

  All afternoon and into the evening, Catherine had met with clients. It was after seven when she finally got back to Blooms. Everyone else had gone home, and she was glad for the quiet. Walking through her cool, fragrant shop, she breathed deeply, relaxing.

  As always, Carla had left the important mail and messages on her desk and fresh coffee in the pot. The late September sky shone silver through the windows. Catherine turned on her desk lamp. Bursts of honking horns and laughter from the street below drifted upward as the city slid into night. Catherine took off her suit jacket, kicked off her heels, collapsed onto her desk chair. Yawning, she stretched and picked up the pile of pink memo slips awaiting her. It was an evening like hundreds before.

  The name Kit Bemish, written in Carla’s firm, rounded script, struck her like a slap. Catherine’s heart turned inside out. She pulled the pink slip from the others. It took a few seconds for her to steady her hands, which were trembling so hard that she couldn’t read what was written before her.

  Carla hadn’t written “Kit Bemish.” She had written “Mrs. Kit Bemish.” Mrs. Kit Bemish wanted an arrangement for a dinner party two weeks away and asked that Catherine call her.

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Kit Bemish lived in a building on East Eighty-sixth. Catherine arrived precisely at four-thirty. She had tried on every outfit in her closet, looking for the one that would give her confidence, would express the real Catherine—the woman who was successful, intelligent, clever, and also madly sought after by men. She’d settled on a red paisley silk suit with a long swinging jacket of solid red lined with the same rich paisley.

  She had had two Bloody Marys at lunch, unusual for her, but she still felt nervous, almost manic. She gave her name to the doorman, took the wood-paneled elevator to the tenth floor, and was deposited in a marble foyer, facing the Bemishes’ door.

  A maid with a white crimped cap opened the door at her knock and led Catherine into Kit Bemish’s home.

  It was very modern. Leslie’s abstracts would have fit right in. Chrome-framed mirrors hung everywhere. The living room sofa was deep grape leather. A bearskin rug stretched across the white carpet in front of the brick fireplace. The coffee table was chrome and glass. A gigantic white tortoise shell sat upside down on the coffee table as an ashtray. A mountain goat with elaborate whirled horns hung above the chrome stereo cabinet. On a chain anchored to the ceiling hung a basket chair woven from cane. So did several baskets of the creepy spider plant, its skinny stalks reaching out like the arms of something starving. A beautiful Kentia palm towered in one corner.

  “I hunt.”

  Catherine turned.

  Haley Bemish stood there, unsmiling, perfect. She had the type of body that always unnerved Catherine. Tall, lanky, naturally slender, even bony, Haley Bemish showed off her easy elegance in a khaki jumpsuit. She wore gold flats of alligator skin. Her honey-blond hair swung chin length, Mary Quant style. She wore no makeup. Her skin was smooth and tanned, her eyes aquamarine. Here was the daughter Catherine’s mother had wanted. Still wanted. They shook hands.

  “Scotch?” Haley asked. When Catherine hesitated, she said, “Or a vodka gimlet. I make a dynamite vodka gimlet.”

  “A vodka gimlet would be nice.”

  The glass Haley handed Catherine was thick blue, rough, uneven, full of bubbles.

  “From Mexico,” Haley said. “Cheers.”

  They sank onto opposite ends of the grape sofa.

  “I’ve heard you were at Miss Brill’s.”

  “Yes. That was it for me and school, though. The traditional path seemed like too much of a rut.”

  “God. How true.” Haley took a Gauloises from a lacquered box. She offered one to Catherine. “I only did one year of college. At Vassar. I was so bored. So I went off fishing with Daddy. We did some hunting, too. I miss it.”

  They chatted formally, two civilized women. The fishing had been in Alaska and Scotland. The hunting had been in India and Africa.

  Catherine couldn’t help it. She admired Haley Hilton Bemish. She was a strong character.

  “I’ve brought my portfolio,” Catherine said at last. “Photos of what we’ve done before, and—”

  Haley tossed her head irritably and interrupted Catherine. “Forget it. I don’t want to see anything you’ve done before. I want something completely new. Something you haven’t done before. This is an important dinner party.” Her tone implied that Catherine probably hadn’t encountered that level of importance before.

  In fact, Catherine had encountered that level of importance many times before. All too often. With relief, she stopped liking Haley.

  “Perhaps if I could see the dining room …”

  “Of course.”

  Haley rose and led Catherine into an enormous room. The walls were orange, covered with African and North American Indian masks. The fireplace mantel, stripped down to bare wood, was covered with wooden fertility gods and goddesses, squat creatures with swollen bellies, funnel-shaped breasts, and exaggerated penises. A sharp-leafed yucca plant stood guard in one corner. A huge rubber plant stood in another. Its flat leaves were well dusted. Clearly Haley liked the bold and unusual. Yet all this prickly harshness made Catherine wonder what it would be like to live with her.

  “What table service will you be using?”

  Haley crossed to a teak hutch, took out a wooden plate, handed it to Catherine. The grain was beautifully striped, like a wild animal.

  “The plates and bowls are zebrawood. From Africa. The glasses will be Mexican. Blue. Like the one in your hand. The napkins bleached burlap. The silver will be our own pattern from Tiffany’s. At least it’s plain.” Haley sounded as if she wished they could all eat with their fingers.

  Catherine watched Haley carefully. She wasn’t kidding. Catherine couldn’t imagine dear gentle Kit with this Tarzanella.

  Catherine turned. She walked up and down the long glass-and-chrome dining room table.

  “There will be twenty for dinner,” Haley said.

  “I see snakes,” Catherine said.

  “What?” Haley’s eyes widened.

  “Snakes,” Catherine repeated. She stretched out her hands toward the table. “Four terrariums down the length of the table. Live snakes inside. Harmless, of course, and with lids on the terrariums. Moss—no—grasses and straw and bamboo on the lids. Carrot and beet greens wound in and trailing to the table. Orange allium heads, very spiky, sticking out. Pebbles here and there. Ranunculus heads stuck here and there for color, harmonizing, of course, with the color of the snake inside. Or moss roses. Candles scented with Indian jasmine in your pottery holders.”

  Haley looked at Catherine. Her blue eyes were as pure as truth. Catherine met Haley’s gaze.

  “Snakes,” Haley said.

  “I’ve never done them before. I’ve always wanted to. So colorful, you know, and then movement is always clever. I’ve done birds. It would give the table a rather … mysterious … wilderness … atmosphere.”

  “Um. Yes. I see.”

  Haley walked around the table, envisioning it as Catherine had described.

  “Wonderful,” she said at last. “Brilliant. Of course you’ll come get the snakes after the party? The next morning?”

  “Of course.” Catherine waited a beat, then said, “I’m afraid it will be rather expensive.…”

  Haley shook her shinin
g head. “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Fine, then,” Catherine said. She raised the gimlet glass to her lips to hide her irrepressible smile.

  Somehow Catherine made it through the next few minutes and back out to the street without exploding with laughter. Hurrying down Park Avenue toward Blooms, she began to giggle. Snakes. Poor Kit. Haley was actually rather wonderful in her own way, but she was also either slightly crazy or stupid. The giggles spiraled wider and wider, so that when she entered Blooms she leaned against the door and burst into such helpless laughter, she ended with tears running down her face.

  The next day she went to a pet shop and picked out four snakes, each a little over one foot long. A bull snake of yellow brown with dark geometrical blotches. A slender grass snake of such emerald brilliance, even Catherine enjoyed looking at it. Two king snakes, one black with yellow rings, one with black, yellow, and scarlet rings.

  “Want some baby mice or little toads for them to eat?” the pet owner asked.

  Catherine declined.

  Catherine hoped Kit might be at his apartment when she went to set up the flowers for the dinner party, but the only person she saw was the maid who let her in. “Those things can’t get out, now, you’re sure?” the woman asked Catherine nervously.

  “I’m sure,” Catherine said. “Look. The lids are heavily weighted.”

  “They give me the creeps. I’m afraid to be alone in the room with them, setting the table.”

  “Try to think of them as living flowers. Moving colors,” Catherine said, knowing her words might be repeated to Haley Bemish. Secretly she felt pity for the maid and for Haley’s guests. The muscular coiling of the snakes seemed intestinal, repellent, unappetizing.

  Catherine never went to collect flower containers anymore. It was the sort of thing the least-experienced, lowest-paid employee could do. But she wanted one more chance to see Kit, so she rose early the morning after Haley’s party and presented herself at the Bemishes’ apartment at eight-thirty, hoping Kit wouldn’t have left for work yet.

  The maid with the starched cap admitted Catherine and Danny, one of her men, and led them to the dining room.

  “I wouldn’t say your ‘flowers’ were a great success,” the maid said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  Catherine hid a smile. “Shall I leave the flowers and grasses on the table? Or shall I take them?”

  “Mrs. Bemish didn’t say. She’s not up yet. I’ll ask Mr. Bemish.” The maid disappeared.

  Catherine’s heart jumped.

  “Danny, take those terrariums down to the van. You can carry two at a time, I think. Don’t drop them.”

  As Danny turned and left the dining room, Kit came in.

  He stood just inside the doorway, looking at Catherine. He was in suit pants, a striped shirt, and socks. His tie was draped around his neck but not tied. Obviously he had just shaved, for his face had a ruddy, smooth glow. The image of him bare-chested, shaving, hit Catherine deep in her stomach. He was thirty-two and had a few lines at his eyes and a hardness to his jawline that made him look not older, but more masculine.

  “Hello, Kit,” she said.

  He nodded in reply.

  “I asked your maid whether you and Haley wanted us to leave these flowers and grasses or take them with us. I know she wanted me to take the terrariums and snakes.”

  “Leave the flowers, I suppose.”

  “How did everyone like the arrangement?”

  “Not much, since you ask. It made the meal very tense. One of the women couldn’t eat. She was almost paralyzed with fear.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I doubt it. I have a feeling you were making fun of Haley. Having a joke at her expense.” His eyes were wood catching fire.

  “Your wife wanted something I’ve never done before. Something unusual—”

  “She is serious about her interests and tastes—”

  “So am I! I didn’t get successful by making fun of my clients.”

  “I’m surprised you have any clients, if this is your idea of something exotic—”

  “Excuse me, sir.” Danny was back for the second two terrariums. He slipped past Kit, widening his eyes in consternation at Catherine.

  Catherine turned her back on Kit and bent over the table. Her shaking hands made the bamboo and grasses rustle loudly against each other.

  “Danny, take these on down to the van. I’ll rearrange the flowers on the table and be with you in a minute.”

  Danny hefted the two heavy terrariums and, ducking his head at Kit, headed out.

  She felt the heat of Kit’s body when he came to stand next to her.

  “Catherine. How are you?”

  Catherine straightened. She turned to look at him. He was close enough to kiss. After all these years, she knew she still loved him. His heat was like a signal, like the sun.

  “I’m fine,” she said, smiling. “And I’m still in love with you.”

  “Jesus Christ, Catherine,” Kit said softly.

  “I’ll let your wife do the rest,” Catherine said coolly, for the maid had entered the room. Catherine moved away from Kit. “I would suggest putting the flowers in shallow bowls of water. They’ll float and last quite prettily for a few days. Without water, they’ll wilt today. Also, the ranunculus—these—are fragile.” She looked at Kit. “I’ll be glad to put them in a bowl for you.”

  “That’s all right, Catherine,” Kit said. He was in control again, aware the maid was watching them. “I’ll tell Haley. Thanks.”

  “Thank you, Kit. And here’s my card, if you and your wife would like to have me work for you again.” Catherine went out the door.

  * * *

  He called her at Blooms that evening.

  “Look,” he said, “I’d like to see you. To talk things over. To hear how you’ve been.”

  “Come here now.”

  “I can’t. I’m rushing. I told Haley I was just out for cigarettes.”

  “Tomorrow. Whenever. Wherever.”

  The urgency in her voice made him cautious. “This is just to talk. To—renew a friendship. That’s all, Catherine.”

  “Of course,” she said, knowing he couldn’t see her smile.

  * * *

  She left work early the next afternoon. So did Kit. They met at the tiny Bemelman’s bar at the Carlyle. Catherine was purposely late. She was wearing a minidress of deep red wool, long-sleeved, severely straight. It looked businesslike, but in fact she knew when she walked the lines of her body moving the fabric were more seductive than many more obvious dresses. There was a flower made of white handkerchief linen on the shoulder.

  She slid onto a chair across from him. He ordered martinis for both of them.

  “Kit, I have a confession to make. I didn’t think of the snakes to make fun of Haley. But I did think of them because I was angry at her. For being married to you.”

  Kit smiled. “Haley loved the snakes. She prefers almost any animal to humans. She grew up with her father, who’s a naturalist. Spent most of her life outdoors. In many ways she’s very innocent.”

  “Unlike others we could name,” Catherine said, sipping her martini.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll tell you sometime—if we ‘renew our friendship’ enough.”

  “Catherine—”

  Catherine erased the mischief from her eyes. “All right, Kit, I’ll be good. Tell me. What are you doing in New York?”

  “Working for Woodrow and Spiegel. I’m just another corporate lawyer now, Cathy. No politics for me. These aren’t especially idealistic times we live in.”

  “You’ve given up on the idea of entering politics?”

  “Cathy, I don’t even know where I stand on Vietnam. My father’s a Republican. He fought in World War Two. I admire him. I can never believe his beliefs are wrong. On the other hand, I hate this war. If I can’t decide in my own heart how I stand on such matters, how would I dare try to lead other people?”

  “You’re s
till so idealistic.”

  “I don’t think so. At any rate, I got tired.” Kit leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Haley prefers New York to Boston. It was easy enough to get hooked up with a firm here.”

  “Do you like the work you’re doing?”

  “Not much. It’s cut and dried. Boring. But I don’t think about it when I try to sleep at night.”

  “What do you think about?”

  Kit grinned. “I suppose you think I’ll say ‘you.’ ”

  “Only if it’s true. God knows I’ve spent a few nights thinking about you.” She wanted him too much to save her pride. She reached over and put her hand on his. The touch was electric.

  Kit shook his head. “No, Cathy.”

  “Do you love her?” She didn’t move her hand. He didn’t take his hand away. “Catherine—”

  “Do you?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Because if you love her, you should leave right now. But if there’s any chance you want to go to bed with me, then please, Kit, go to bed with me. I’m not asking for anything more than that. Just come home with me tonight. Or any night.”

  Kit took his hand away from hers. He rose.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” he said, walking away.

  * * *

  She knew he would call her. That one touch of her hand on his told her more than his words ever could. She knew, had always known, instinctively, what Kit needed, and it wasn’t the crisp, brittle life Haley was giving him. Her memories and dreams were strong enough to carry her for an entire week. Kit lasted that long. Then he called her again.

  This time he came to her apartment in the afternoon. This time he didn’t stop to talk. He came in the door and took her in his arms.

  They went into her bedroom. Catherine was crying. Kit kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts, her tears. He had the face of a Puritan, but he had the eyes of an idolater. She pulled him down on top of her. Their bodies closed together, and all the years they’d lost vanished. It was a coming home for both of them, and for a long while they did not move but simply lay together, Kit hard and large inside her, Catherine’s legs twined around his, her hands stroking the lovely stretch of his back, their eyes closed, their breathing warm and steady against each other’s cheeks.