"Bridge?"
"Yes. Seems the women she admires all play bridge. I'm paying someone to give her instructions and teach her all the fine points," he said, crossing his legs and meticulously running his fingers down the sharp crease of his blue trouser leg. He had long, strong fingers and his nails shone.
"So," he said, "there's nothing you need? Clothes, school supplies, spending money . . . anything?"
"No," I said, but I wanted to say
Yes, I need Momma to show some interest in what happens to me too.
"Okay," he said standing. "Perhaps, I can come by one evening and take you out to dinner before I return to Farthy. Would you like that?"
"Not this week," I replied quickly. "Daddy's calling and coming to take me out to dinner."
"Oh." His lip curled a bit. Although he tried to keep his blue eyes calm and unreadable, I saw that he wasn't used to being rejected. A man of his wealth and power rarely was.
"Maybe next week," I added, and his eyes brightened again.
"Fine. In any case, I'll be by about five o'clock on Friday to pick you up in the limo. Enjoy your dinner with your father." He kissed me on the forehead quickly before he opened the office door to leave.
When I returned to the cafeteria, I found "the special club" all gathered at the window gazing out at Tony, who was standing by his limousine, talking to Miss Mallory. They were all "oohing" and "ahing," gasping and whispering. As soon as they saw me, they returned to the table.
"He's so handsome," Ellen said. "For once, Jennifer didn't exaggerate."
"When do we all get invited to Farthingale Manor?" Marie asked, and all of them chimed in excitedly. I told them as soon as I thought the timing was right, I'd have them all over for a weekend pajama party. Suddenly, I was the most popular girl in Winterhaven.
Daddy called on Wednesday and arrived on Thursday to take me to dinner. As soon as I was told he had arrived, I rushed down the corridor and into his waiting arms. He laughed and gave me a big kiss. Then he held me out to look at me.
"You're growing so fast, I hardly recognize you," he said. "I'm glad you're in an all-girls school," he added, looking around and nodding, "otherwise, so many boys would be following you around I'd have to beat them off with a stick."
"Oh, Daddy."
"Come along," he said holding out his arm for me to slip mine through, "I want to hear all about your new school and new friends and everything that's happened to you since we last spoke."
He led me out to his waiting cab and we were off to dinner at an elegant restaurant. As I told him everything, he listened attentively, his eyes fixed on me as though he were trying to drink me in, memorize my face. I talked and talked, so excited that he was really here and I was really with him. His expression didn't change until I mentioned the honeymoon. Then his eyes grew smaller and his mouth tighter. He shifted his gaze and became very pensive for a few moments
re
An alarm went off in my heart because I sensed that he had something to tell me that would make me unhappy. My teeth came down on my lower lip as I waited for his words. Sadness had rained down on me so often these last few months that I had become an expert about predicting when it would fall again. Finally, he turned back to me, his smile softer, but weaker.
"I know that you are not happy, Leigh, and that your mother has taken you away from many of the things you loved and put you in a strange new world filled with impersonal, cold people who care only about their own comfort and wealth. I deal with the wealthy and influential on a day-to-day basis, so I know how insensitive and selfish they can be. Their money blinds them, keeps them protected and away from reality, permits them to live their illusions.
"I am sorry that all this has happened to you while you are still rather young and impressionable, and just when I am struggling to keep my business alive. Don't think it hasn't torn me apart to be away from you when you need me, too.
"My one solace is that you are bright and firm, that you come from good stock, for the VanVoreens were hardy people who overcame insurmountable odds to build their lives. We are no strangers to hardships and we have not grown soft with success. At least, you have inherited that."
Oh, how I struggled with myself, one part of me demanding I tell him the truth, what I had overheard Grandma Jana say to Momma and what she had admitted, and another part of me screaming not to hurt him any more than he had already been hurt. Also, I was terrified of what the truth might do to his love for me. What if he stopped thinking of me as his daughter? Would he stop loving me? If he did I knew I would never survive, that it would be the last and worst blow of all I had received in the past several months. I could only smile and nod and reach across the table to take his hand into mine and reassure him that I would be his daughter, a true VanVoreen.
"Anyway," he said, coming to the bad news, "I have to tell you that I won't be able to see you for a while. I am opening an office in Europe to try to capture the growing European market for travelers who want to come not only to America, but also travel to the vacation spots I have been establishing with my travel experts.
"It's a mistake, you see, to think that only Americans have money and opportunity for luxurious vacations."
"What do you mean you won't see me for a while, Daddy? How long?"
"I won't be back until the summer at the soonest," he confessed. "But as soon as I do return, we'll spend as much time together as you want. I promise."
A lump came to choke my throat. The tears I trapped in the corners of my eyes burned with their demand to break free and stream down my cheeks. How could I stand it if Daddy, my rock, was gone for so long? With Momma becoming so very selfcentered and unreliable, to whom could I go for advice, for love, for the warmth of hugs and kisses? I forced myself to be the strong daughter he wanted, to be the VanVoreen descendant he believed I was.
"I'll keep writing you letters, of course," he said quickly, "and hope you'll keep writing letters to me."
"I will, Daddy."
"And as soon as I know when I will return, I will make arrangements for you to meet me." He patted my hand.
We rode back to Winterhaven sitting very close to each other in the back of the taxi, Daddy's arm around me. I listened to him tell me about his travels, the things he had seen and the people he had met, but I didn't hear his words, just the rhythms of his voice.
Instead, I was thinking about the Daddy I knew as a little girl, the Daddy who had lifted me on his shoulders to carry me along the Thames river when we toured London, the Daddy who took me in his arms and danced with me in the ballroom of his ship, the Daddy who held my hand and took me about the luxury liners, introducing me to his crews, showing me how things worked, kissing and hugging me and twirling my hair in his fingers when I sat on his lap.
That Daddy was gone, I thought, almost as gone as Jennifer Longstone's Daddy. We weren't so different, she and I, and when we lay awake at night telling stories about our childhood days, we were both thinking about times we would never see again, moments we would never have, words we would never hear, kisses and smiles that were as thin as smoke, running off into our memories and lost forever in the maze of storm clouds that had come to block out the blue sky of happiness we had both once known.
Daddy kissed me in front of the school. He kissed me goodbye and hugged me to him and told me again that he would write and think of me all the time, but I knew the moment he got into his cab and started away that his mind was already racing around with the problems of his business. I didn't hate him for it; I knew he was burying himself in his work to keep himself from being unhappy.
Jennifer was waiting in our room. She wanted to hear all the wonderful details about my dinner with Daddy. I knew she wanted to experience the happiness through me and perhaps recall the happy times she had with her own father. So I didn't tell her one sad thing. I went on and on about the restaurant and the food and the promises Daddy had made. I told her about the funny waiter who spoke in a German accent so thick that I ordered the wrong things, but ate them anyway; and anyway, they were delicious. It didn't matter because I was with Daddy, I said. Jennifer laughed.
"Thank you for telling me about your dinner, Leigh," she said. "Good night."
"Good night."
Jennifer curled up with my happy memories and I turned my back to her and cried as softly as I could, until sleep rescued me from harder tears.
All the girls in the "special club" knew Tony was picking me up on Friday, so they all accompanied me to the front stoop
of Winterhaven and crowded about me like hens. I was so embarrassed by what they might do and say that I was down the steps before Tony was out of the car and opening the door.
"See you Sunday night, Leigh!" a chorus of voices sang out. Then, ringing with giggles, they scampered back up the steps and into Beecham Hall.
"Well," Tony cut his eyes toward me, then smiled as we were driven off, "looks like I was right--you made a lot of friends fast. Did you enjoy the rest of the week here?"
"Yes, Tony, and I like my roommate, Jennifer, very much. I'd like to invite her to Farthinggale, and the other girls in my group."
"Anytime," he replied. "As long as your mother approves," he added ominously.
I asked him about Troy.
"He's getting stronger every day. The doctor says we will be able to take him home either Wednesday or Thursday, so he will be at Farthy when you return next weekend," he told me. I was anxious to see him, but I was also anxious to spend a weekend at the school. The "special club" went to movies together and shopped together, and some weekends there were mixers, dances organized between Winterhaven and boys' prep schools like Allandale.
When we arrived at Farthy and I entered the big house, I was immediately impressed with the silence, especially without little Troy scampering up and down stairs and through doors, calling my name or calling for Tony. There was barely a footstep echoing through the great rooms; this, in contrast to the world I had just left--a school filled with teenage girls laughing and singing, music coming from the rooms, girls chattering together in the hallways, bells ringing, dishes clanging, friends calling to each other through the corridors--a world of energy, noise, young life. Once again, Farthy seemed like a museum, a house of whispers.
"Your mother's probably in her rooms," Tony said, looking at his watch. "She's only just returned from a bridge game, I'm sure."
I ran up the stairs to see Momma. I was filled with mixed emotions--eager to see her since we had been apart a whole week, anxious to tell her about the girls and the things we had said and done; but also angry, angry and hurt that she hadn't once called to see how I was, and still angry that she hadn't come along with Tony and me that first day. Tony was right--she had just returned from a bridge game and was preparing to take a shower and dress for dinner.
"Oh Leigh," she said as soon as I entered her bedroom. She looked surprised. "I forgot you were coming home today, forgot today was Friday. Can you imagine? That's how busy I have been this week." She stood there in her slip, her hair down. Then she smiled and held out her arms, expecting me to run into her embrace. There was an awkward moment, then she lowered her arms to her sides quickly. "But wait," she said, "let me look at you. You look so much more mature, or is that a look of reproach? Are you angry with me for some reason?"
"Momma, how could you not even call me all week? I called you once and left a message with Curtis. He said you were out with friends, shopping, and in Boston! You could have stopped by the school," I complained.
"Oh Leigh, how would that look--me bringing all these sophisticated women along to visit my daughter who had been away only a few days. They would think I was babying you. And besides, you don't know what it's like going places with these women. They gossip and chatter so much, we barely have time to do anything. I'm the one who's always saying, 'Ladies, please, let's move along or we won't get to do this or do that.' They simply adore me, though. They say I'm the freshest, brightest person they've met in ages and ages.
"No, you must not be angry with me," she insisted. "It's not that I haven't been thinking about you. I asked Tony to stop by to see you during the week and he did, didn't he?"
"Yes, but it's not the same thing, Momma," I protested.
"Oh, poo. You're getting to be as stuffy as your father. It's those puritanical VanVoreen genes you've inherited," she declared. I was so angry I nearly told her what I knew and demanded she stop lying to me.
"And besides; Tony wanted to do it. You've become very important to him, Leigh, which is something I think is wonderful. You can't begin to understand how much easier this has made my life. Please, don't be angry," she cajoled and then held her arms out for me again.
I wanted to resist; I wanted to talk and talk until she understood how cruel she had been to me, but she wore that same gentle smile I loved to see when I was a little girl, the smile she wore while she brushed my hair and told me about all the wonderful things that would happen to me, the places I would go, the princes I would meet, the world of magic and love that awaited. She had spun my childhood dreams and fantasies on a magical loom and had made the world outside seem nothing but candy canes and rainbows.
I hugged her and let her hold me. She warmed my cheeks with kisses and stroked my hair, and part of me hated that it made me happy but it did. Then she sat me down on her bed beside her to tell me about all the new friends she had made, each one richer than the next, all from well-known families, pure blue bloods.
"Why do you still look so sad?" she asked, suddenly. "Was it because of your dinner with your father?" Her eyes grew small with suspicion. "Tony told me he was coming to take you to dinner."
"No, Momma. Well, yes, that's part of it," I confessed, and I told her of Daddy's plans to establish a European office and why that meant I wouldn't see much of him.
"It doesn't surprise me, Leigh," she snapped. "And don't think he wouldn't have done something like this even if we hadn't divorced. Oh, when I think of the precious time I've wasted, the youth I've wasted!" Her face burned with frustration and anger for a few moments and then she caught her image in the mirror.
"Oh, I must not let myself frown!"
she cried with such desperation, I actually jumped. "Do you know one of the best beauty experts says frowning speeds up wrinkling." She sounded frantic. "I've been reading an article he wrote. People with quiet, happy dispositions age far more slowly than people who are always annoyed and upset. The trick is to keep your anger subdued and to quickly think of something pleasant. He compared it to throwing water on a fire.
"The fire burns, consumes your youth and beauty, if you permit it to, so you have to smother, stifle and extinguish it as fast as you can." She smiled widely as if to demonstrate.
"Now, I must take a warm shower and give myself a facial before dinner. Then you and I will sit down and you will tell me all about Winterhaven, okay?"
My head was spinning from all the different subjects she had covered in minutes. "But I want to ask you something, Momma. I've already asked Tony and he said it would be fine with him if it would be fine with you."
"What is it?" She started to grimace as if preparing herself for a horrible question or terrible demand.
"I've made some nice friends at Winterhaven, especially my roommate, Jennifer Longstone. I'd like to invite them here on weekends."
"On weekends! Oh, not for a while yet, Leigh, please. I can't have you conducting tours of girls through the estate and being occupied with these new friends. I need you to help me occupy Tony. He wants to teach you how to horseback ride and ski. He told me so himself, and he's looking forward to using the weekends to do it.
"You promised you would help me in this way. You did, Leigh," she reminded me, her face twisted in a look of urgency. "I'm sure Tony was only being polite when you asked him. He would much rather have you all to himself, at least for a while.
"And then, we'll let you invite your little friends here one at a time."
"But Momma, there's so much room. We can have more than one at a time!" I exclaimed.
"We'll see. I'm sure they're all nice and proper girls if they go to Winterhaven," she added and started for the shower. "But please, Leigh, no more difficulties. I'm absolutely drained," she said and followed it with a trail of laughter.
And so my first weekend home from
Winterhaven began the way most all of these weekends would. Our Friday night dinners were always quite formal, and unless Tony and Momma wererinvited someplace to have dinner, they usually invited friends to join us. None of the couples ever brought their children along, so except for me and Troy, when he was well enough to join us at the table, I was always with the adults, who talked about things that I had little interest in.
Sometimes Tony had a movie to show in the little theater. A friend of a friend would get him something that was popular. A few times we had a pianist perform in the music room. On those occasions, Tony and Momma would invite a half dozen or more of their friends to dinner and the private concert. Momma said it was not only chic, but it was her way of supporting the arts and the artists who needed the added income to continue their creative work.
Tony and I did go to a nearby ski hill on Saturdays throughout the winter months. He employed a private ski instructor to teach me the fundamentals and before long, I was following him down the intermediate slope. Tony was a magnificent skier who usually took the most difficult runs. We would have lunch in the ski lodge, sitting by the fire.
Momma never came along with us. While we were away, she would go somewhere to play bridge or have her women friends over to play at Farthy. If she didn't play bridge, she would go shopping or to matinees in Boston.
Troy, still weak from his terrible bout with pneumonia, was kept inside most of the time. At Momma's insistence, Tony hired a full-tirne nurse to look after him, even though he was no longer sick. In late March when he came down with chicken pox, which was then followed with the measles, Momma never stopped reminding Tony and me how clever she was to insist Troy have personal medical attention around the clock.
Being sick more often than he was well left poor little Troy thin and weak. He would look at me with large, sad, sunken eyes staring out of his small pale face when Sundays came and I was to return to Winterhaven, for he knew he was confined to five more days of little company and enjoyment. Momma treated him like a walking germ, avoiding him whenever possible and, I found out when I returned one weekend, having him fed at a different time so she wouldn't have to be at the same table with him.
In the spring he developed new allergies and had to be taken to see a skin specialist and an allergist almost on a weekly basis. First, they thought it was pollen and ragweed, then they thought it had to do with the fabrics in his suite, so Tony had everything changed: rugs, curtains, linens and quilts, but that didn't solve the problem. He still walked about with a running nose and coughed even on the warmest, clearest days. The hope was he would eventually grow out of the allergies, but until then, he was confined and given heavy dosages of various medicines, some taking his appetite away, some making him tired. He slept a lot, remained thin and small, and looked drained and depressed most of the time.
Naturally, he withdrew into himself, spent most of his time playing with the toys Tony bought him and with creating his own toys. A number of his creations were very good and Tony even made one into a Tatterton Toy for children Troy's age.
During the spring months Tony and I started horseback riding. He decided to teach me this himself. We would go for rides along the beach and over the dunes. Troy wanted desperately to come along and to ride Sniffles, his pony, but the allergist absolutely forbade his contact with animals. He couldn't have a puppy or a kitten, not even a hamster. It was so sad to see him standing on a hill, holding his nurse's hand and watching Tony and I start off for a ride along the beach, but there was nothing I could do about it.
That winter and spring Momma was the happiest. I was doing what she wanted--spending most of my weekends with Tony and freeing her to indulge in her own activities. During the week Tony was very busy, and from what understood listening to him and to her, they often spent whole days without seeing each other. I wondered what had happened to that driving passion, those magnificent magical moments when the world had looked as though it would end unless they broke apart my loving family so that the two of them could be together all the time.
Daddy's postcards and letters came regularly through the winter months and into the spring. Then, around May. I noticed that the next letter was long in coming. Just when I thought it would never come and had begun to fear that something had happened to Daddy it arrived. In it he mentioned someone new, mentioned her as if I had always known her.
"And today," he began in his middle paragraph, "Mildred Pierce and I had lunch on the Champs Elysees. It was a magnificent day and the street was filled with cars and people and tourists from everywhere, a veritable parade of fashion. It was the first real day off I had taken in ages. We went to museums and I even let her talk me into going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Mildred is great company."
Mildred Pierce? I thought. Who was Mildred Pierce? I thumbed through all the letters Daddy had written just to be sure he had never mentioned her before. Was she a secretary, a relative, some wellknown person in his business should have known? It was very confusing, but there was also something in the way Daddy wrote "Mildred is great company" that made my heart skip a beat.
How old was this Mildred Pierce? Could she be someone's daughter, someone my own age perhaps, someone who was taking his attention from me? I would have so loved to have had lunch with Daddy on the Champs Elysees and gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower with him, too. It wasn't fair.
And then I thought it was terribly selfish of me to begrudge Daddy this day which he called his first day off in ages. I couldn't wait until his next letter to see if he would mention her again. He didn't, but he did say he thought his return to the States would be delayed a little and he didn't give a reason, but I sensed something between the lines. Momma would have called my feelings feminine intuition. All I knew was that in my heart of hearts I feared being replaced, feared losing the love of my faraway father. I held my breath every time I opened one of Daddy's letters or read one of his postcards after that.
And then it came in early June. Daddy wrote to tell me he would be returning in mid-July. He said he was anxious to see me and he was anxious for me to meet Mildred Pierce.
I could understand why my father would be happy to meet someone to help fill his time. But he wrote so enthusiastically about this person, it made my heart worry and hurt.
"Mildred and I are very compatible. She's interested in the things that interest me and she is a lovely, gentle person. I'm sure you will like her. Being with her is like being able to push away the gray clouds and bring sunshine back into my life."
But Daddy, I cried inside, I thought I was the one who brought sunshine into your life. Is this really why you stayed away from me so long, why you lingered in Europe? Has someone stolen that part of your heart I thought had been left for me?
And what if this Mildred Pierce doesn't like me or want to be around me, or is jealous of me? Would you have even less to do with me than you do now? I looked at Daddy's photograph on my dresser for a long time before asking the scariest question, If Daddy got a new family, where would I belong?