Family Secrets Read online

  Everyone but one man, who was looking at her. He was standing with the group gathered around their table, a drink in his hand, managing somehow to look both part and not part of the crowd. Tall, beautifully dressed, slightly foreign-looking, he was dark, not her type; she liked blonds. Still, he was handsome. No, not handsome. Al was handsome. This man was—worldly-looking. As he looked at her, his expression was admiring and not fresh, but unnerving. When their gazes met, goose bumps broke out all over her skin. Jean liked that.

  The woman with him, who was leaning on him, running her hand along his arm, was stunning. She had hair the color of champagne and a chic creamy-colored gown that almost blended with her skin.

  I will look like that someday, Jean vowed. And someday I will have a lover who looks like that man.

  The man leaned toward her brother and said something that Jean couldn’t pick up. Jean looked away.

  “Would you like to dance?”

  It was that man.

  As he bent over her—rather closer to her than propriety might dictate, but how else could she hear him over the commotion?—she looked into his rum-dark eyes, eyes as dark and intoxicating as the liquor her parents stirred into their eggnog on Christmas Eve, and time stopped. That night and for the rest of her life she would remember that moment as the moment when time stood still.

  “I’ve asked your brother for permission,” the man was saying. “My name is Erich Mellor and—”

  Now Jean nearly smashed into him, she rose so quickly.

  “It’s really not necessary to ask my brother’s permission simply to dance with me!” she declared. Her face was burning.

  “But what if I want to do more than dance one dance with you?” Erich Mellor confided, smiling, looking deep into her eyes. “What if I knew the moment I saw you I wanted to get to know you? In that case, wouldn’t it have been prudent of me to gain your brother’s trust from the beginning?”

  Jean nearly fell back into her chair.

  Bowled over, she thought, remembering her friends saying, “He just bowled me over,” and now she felt that way, hit by a force she couldn’t resist, her breath knocked out of her chest, her legs turned to pudding.

  Erich Mellor led her to the dance floor, his hand warm and dry on hers. Jean hoped she appeared aloof as she followed him; she was nearly paralyzed. On the dance floor he took her into his arms but did not hold her too close. He was very smooth, but not bold. The band began an especially hypnotic version of “Blue Moon.” The mood of the ballroom mellowed like the prismed ball of light glittering overhead; as the lights blurred into one dreamy blue, so did the sound level of the room subside to a muted hum. Couples around Erich and Jean drew closer to each other, the women sinking their heads onto their partners’ shoulders or chests, closing their eyes, surrendering to the music. Jean’s hand was on Erich’s shoulder, and through the material of his jacket she felt his heat and strength, just as she was vividly aware of the sleek languor of her yielding back against his firm hand. Time moved again, not in its usual efficient clicks but in a drifting flow, like warm wind through grassy fronds, stirring, sensuous, beguiling. Jean’s body flushed with a sultry, helpless heat.

  With a teasing brush of the whisk against the cymbals, the band slid into “Moonglow.”

  “I asked them to play this set,” Erich informed her.

  Jean smiled. The amazing thing was not that she was in this man’s arms, gazing into his dark eyes, melting under his touch; the amazing thing was that she felt so completely herself as all this happened. She wasn’t anxious about being graceful—she wasn’t embarrassed about the frankness of her eyes meeting his. She felt easy. It was much like the first time she dove into deep water and felt as she sliced through it and it gathered back around her: Oh, I can do this; this is my element.

  When the band finally turned again to swing, Erich did not lead her back to the table where her brother and her date and the others sat, but to the bar for drinks and then out to a quiet spot in an alcove where they sat and talked. He was in banking. That made her laugh in surprise. “You look less like a banker than anyone I’ve ever met!” she said.

  He asked, “What do you think I look like?”

  “A prince. No—a baron. From some decadent European country.”

  He laughed. “Sorry. I’m afraid I’m only a shamelessly dull American banker.”

  She told him about Radcliffe, how she loved being away from the strictures of her family life, and as the evening went on she spoke about War Stories and her ambition to be part of it. He told her that her principles and optimism were admirable. He was old. He was twenty-four.

  They danced again, whenever the band played slow songs, each time coming closer to each other. Jean could feel the length of his thigh sliding parallel to, not quite touching, hers. He was several inches taller than she was, so that finally toward the end of the evening when he pressed her against him she rested her head on his shoulder, her forehead brushing his chin. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and the heat of his skin.

  It didn’t seem possible that the evening could really end, but after a final round of “Good Night, Ladies,” everyone clapped and cheered. People drifted off the dance floor. Erich brought Jean back to the table where Al sat deep in discussion with some other men. At their approach, Bobby looked up. He glared at Jean. Bobby and Al both stood up.

  Erich stretched out his hand to Al. “Nice to see you again.” He turned to Bobby. “Thanks for letting me dance with your sister. And good luck. I hope you get the submarine post you put in for.”

  Bobby nodded in reply. Any mention of the navy improved his spirits.

  “Thanks for the dance,” Erich said politely to Jean.

  With her brother and Al looking on, she could return only a stiff smile.

  “May I call you tomorrow?” he asked.

  Triumph flushed over her. “Of course.”

  The ride home was miserable. They had gone as a foursome, and as they waited for the car to be brought around, Bobby, mad at Jean for ignoring Al all evening, paced up and down the sidewalk. Hot breath steamed from his nostrils; he looked like a mad bull. Betty, in an attempt to keep everything friendly, cheeped breathlessly. Once in the car Jean slumped against one door in the backseat, weak with lust. Next to her, Al sat, gamely responding to Betty’s nonstop chatter.

  Because Betty, Jean, and Bobby lived out in Kalorama, Bobby announced that he’d drop Al off at the hotel first. It was a mercifully brief ride to the Carlton. A pang of regret struck Jean; she hadn’t ever wanted to hurt Al. Certainly she hadn’t wanted to humiliate him. Now the evening was over and he would get out of the car and she’d never have to deal with him again.

  But to her chagrin, as they approached, Bobby slammed on the brakes much harder than necessary, propelling Jean forward into the back of the seat, then cut the motor so roughly that the car coughed and jolted them all once more. Al was leaning forward, already saying, “Well, good night, everyone, and, Bobby, thanks for driving—” Bobby turned around and barked at Jean, “Jesus Christ, Jean! The least you could do is apologize to Al! You acted like an ill-bred, half-witted Jezebel tonight. You’re only a little fool of a college girl. I’m sorry, Al, but it makes me so mad to see her treat a navy man that way! Jean, I’m going to have to talk to Dad about this and see that you get a royal comeuppance!”

  It wasn’t Bobby’s anger that infuriated Jean; it was his threat to tell their father, for their father held unlimited power over Jean’s life. Immediately she knew that if Bobby had his way, he’d see to it that her father forbade her ever to see Erich Mellor again.

  “Goddamn it, Bobby!” she said, truly shocking everyone, including herself, because young women of her set did not swear. As she spoke she opened the door on her side of the car and immediately sank one evening-sandaled foot into a snowdrift. “I am not your child! I am not anyone’s child! I’m a grown woman, and you have no right to speak to me that way.”

  She hurtled
out into the very cold December night. She was shaking so hard with rage that she could hardly get the words out, but she leaned forward to yell into the car, “I used to love you, but the way you treat me, without any tiny bean of respect, makes me just hate you. I mean it, Bobby. I hate you. You just leave me alone!”

  She slammed the door.

  Other cars were crowded around the entrance to the hotel to drop off revelers in fancy dress. People in furs and capes stared at Jean with amusement or disapproval. Only low-class, ordinary women made spectacles of themselves like that, not women like Jean Marshall. It was just a good thing she wasn’t drunk, Jean Marshall thought as she stalked away from her brother’s car, because the street was so snow covered and icy and she could hardly stand up as it was.

  “Jean! You get back in this car right now!” Bobby yelled at her.

  Betty rolled down her window and stuck her head out. In a loud whisper, as if to keep others from hearing, she hissed, “Get back in the car right this minute, Jean! You are humiliating me!”

  Jean kept on walking. Thank God her raccoon coat was warm, because it was a desperately cold night and the snow had already penetrated her delicate, black high heels and silk stockings, turning her feet into two cubes of ice.

  “You two go on. I’ll see that she gets home safely.”

  “Al—”

  “We’ll take a cab.”

  “That’ll cost you a fortune, Al. You let me—”

  “Bobby. Please. Go on home.”

  Even though Al’s voice was level and reasonable, it reached Jean’s ears. Jean was glad to hear what he said because as she reached the relative shelter of the hotel marquee she realized she didn’t have a clue about what to do next and no money in her evening bag except what girls called “mad money,” money to call home, and home was the last place she wanted to call right then.

  Head high, affecting an expression of utter boredom, Jean swept through the door that the doorman hastened to open and into the warmth of the hotel lobby. She sank onto a banquette, still shivering with anger and cold, and watched with relief as Al White approached.

  He sat down next to her and leaned back, then turned his hat in his hands for a few seconds.

  “Well, Jean,” he said calmly, “why don’t you let me get a cab and see you home.”

  “It will cost the earth.”

  “I believe I can afford it.”

  “I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me.”

  “Let’s just say it’s because we’re old friends.”

  What if Erich walked in right now and saw her sitting in a hotel lobby with Al? What would he think? Jean wondered.

  “All right,” she said. “Thank you.”

  She waited in the warm lobby while Al went out to have the doorman hail a cab. Soon Al came back in for her and off they went, together again in the backseat of yet another vehicle carrying her irrevocably toward her parents’ home.

  Chapter 3

  Julia

  Monday night, while Diane tossed in her bed, worrying about her daughter, while Jean drank café au lait on the other side of the ocean, Julia lay curled up as close as she could get to Sam. They were in the good old Howard Johnson’s Motel, where all the rooms looked the same, so that each time they went there, no matter the room number, it seemed like the same room, their own room for making love.

  Sam’s skin smelled like hot apple cider, Julia thought as she snuggled next to him. Sam was naked, asleep, and Julia was naked, too, curled up against him, her arm flung over his body. Her face was pressed against his back, and with each breath she inhaled his scent. His skin was the color of maple syrup, Julia mused, realizing with that thought how she tended to think of Sam in terms of food. Well, it was true—she was always hungry for him. She wanted to put her mouth, her tongue, on him, anywhere—his eyes like dark chocolate, his hair straight and gleaming black like licorice. Sam was short, fine boned, with milk white teeth. Because he was a half-African American, half-Vietnamese war orphan who’d been adopted by a pair of liberal Bostonian lawyers and raised in a home that was unusually affluent even by American standards, his speech was softly cultured and his bearing was confident. As a child, because of his beauty, he’d often been mistaken for a girl. He didn’t mind being part this, part that, but he was completely male and wished that, at least, were clear.

  It was clear to Julia. Her Sam was young, passionate, responsive, a man. Sometimes she’d come up behind him, wrap her arms around him, and slide her hands down inside his jeans. His gasp was her victory. She’d caress him very slowly. He’d have to unzip his jeans. She’d stroke him, feeling him stiffen, feeling her power. Sooner or later he’d twist away from her arms, push her onto the floor, yank down her pants, thrust himself into her. Those times he didn’t bother about her pleasure. Those times he knew her pleasure came from her power over him. She’d lie with her arms under her head, smiling, his servant, his queen.

  She lived for Sam. She lived because of Sam.

  Now, she’d gotten what she wanted, to be with Sam.

  She didn’t understand why she was still so afraid.

  Her day had begun at Gressex that morning. She’d gone, with great reluctance, to her scheduled conference with Mrs. Derek, her college counselor.

  “Well, Julia!” Mrs. Derek was good-hearted and energetic. Her tiny office was cluttered with stacks of books on colleges, testing procedures, rating forms. She gestured Julia to a chair, shut her office door, settled back in her seat, and took up the clump of papers that represented Julia’s academic career. “Isn’t it a beautiful fall! Did you have a good summer?”

  Julia smiled. Yes, she thought, because Sam and I became lovers.

  “Pretty much,” she replied. “Although my grandfather died.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, I got to go down with my mother to help my grandmother pack up her house.”

  “Ah, yes. This is the grandmother near Washington, D.C., the one you’re so close to?”

  “Right.” Julia flashed on her grandmother, a memory accumulated from all the times she’d visited her. Julia and Jean had had a ritual from Julia’s childhood: when Julia awoke early in the morning, she ran to find her grandmother down in the kitchen, waiting for her. Together they prepared a beautiful bed tray with breakfast tea and muffins and jams laid out on Jean’s most delicate china. They carried the tray back up to Julia’s room, crawled into the high four-poster bed together, and snuggling, they ate breakfast and talked, wriggling their toes against each other’s. Grandmother’s body was as soft and cozy as pillows.

  “And did you tell her you wanted to go to college in the Washington, D.C., area?”

  Julia looked at her hands. “No.” Defensively, she pointed out, “The time wasn’t right. They were packing up the house and thinking about Grandfather. And Grandmother was talking about going to Europe.”

  “Did you discuss with your parents this idea of yours about going to a cooking school?”

  “No.”

  “Julia. You promised me you’d at least mention it to them over the summer.”

  “I know. There just wasn’t a good time.”

  There would never be a good time, but how could Julia explain this to optimistic Mrs. Derek? She’d imagined telling her parents a million times, but each time the same tape began to play in her head. “Mom, Dad, I don’t want to go to college—I want to go to cooking school.” Her father wouldn’t care, wouldn’t really hear. He’d nod, looking wise and concerned, all the time thinking of test tubes and genes. Her mother would freak out. “You want to cook! You can do anything in the world and you want to cook? We send you to a private school so you can have every opportunity in the universe and all you want to do is cook?” Diane could be terrifying when angered or disappointed.

  “Have you considered my suggestion?”

  Julia snapped back to the present, to Mrs. Derek’s kind and eager face.

  “Your strongest subject is foreign language. You’ve go
t four years of French under your belt and three of Spanish. If you major in French, you’d be in great shape when you graduate from college. You could go to France. You’d be fluent. You could study at Le Cordon Bleu. You’d have a college diploma, so your parents would be happy—and you’d have a marketable skill, one that you love.”

  Julia could tell that Mrs. Derek had really worked on this, fitting together the jigsaw pieces of Julia’s life. She didn’t want to disappoint her by confessing that she couldn’t stomach the idea of four more years of classwork. “It’s a good idea,” Julia replied.

  “You like it.”

  “I like it.” She wanted to get out of the counselor’s office. She was tired of talking.

  “So we’ll take that as a starting point?”

  “Right.” She’d agree with anything to get away.

  “Right. Good. Now. Did you look at any of the universities in the District of Columbia area?”

  God, didn’t Mrs. Derek ever let up? She was so pushy. “No. I meant to, but—with my grandfather’s death and all …”

  “You usually spend Thanksgiving in McLean, don’t you? If I remember correctly.”

  God, the woman remembered everything; she should work for the CIA. “Yes.”

  “If you go down this Thanksgiving, it would be the perfect time to look at the colleges. You have excellent grades, Julia, except in science.”

  Julia grinned abashedly. Where were her father’s precious genes now? She couldn’t think scientifically. It was all just mush to her, and she’d gone through torture to pull a C from her required biology courses. She couldn’t draw, either, in spite of all the hours spent in her mother’s studio trying to copy Diane’s swift, clever movements. Chase could do both. He was majoring in chemistry and would probably follow in his father’s footsteps if he pulled himself together and stopped being a wiseass goof-off. Julia knew her mother would love her to join her in Arabesque. Her heart burned with guilt at her failure, her treachery. She was no good at art, and worse, she didn’t want to be. Her mother’s world seemed cold and even clinical, channeled inward and down, focusing on specks. Julia hated jewelry, the vanity, the narcissistic fuss of it all. She preferred the expansive world of cooking, the generosity of food. Her mother meticulously picking away at tiny stones, holding her breath, shoulders tense, as she set a ruby into a gold ring, seemed a selfish sight to Julia. By contrast, working with her grandmother or her Aunt Susan stirring handpicked, homegrown raspberries and sugar into a bubbling jam was a happy magic, an alchemy that moistened the air with delicious fragrance. What they produced, glistening just as prettily as jewels in their quilted glass jars, could be given to friends and family, to brighten a multitude of winter days.