Full Circle (13 page)

The apartment was dark when she got in, Jean was still at work as Tana looked around. Everything looked the same except smaller somehow, and drearier than she had remembered it. And as she had the thought, it seemed somehow unfair. She knew how hard her mother tried to keep a nice home for them both, and she always had. But Tana felt as though things were different now, as though imperceptibly she had changed and no longer fit in this scene. She found herself thinking of the comfortable Blake house in Washington, and how much she had enjoyed being there. It wasn't pretentious, like the Durning' house, but it was warm, and beautiful, and real. And she missed the Blakes as well, especially Sharon. Tana had watched her get off the train, feeling as though she were losing her best friend, and Sharon had turned back once to give her a big smile and a wave, and then she was gone and the train moved north, and now she was here, feeling as though she wanted to cry as she set her bags down in her room.

“Is that my little girl?” The front door slammed and Jean's voice rang out as Tana turned with a frightened look. What if her mother could read her thoughts, could see how uncomfortable she was just being there? But Jean saw nothing of the sort, all she saw was the daughter she loved, and she held her tight for an instant before stepping back again. “Boy, you look good!” And so did Jean. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, there were kisses of frost on the tips of her hair, and her eyes looked big and dark. She was so excited that she didn't even wait to take off her coat before running into her own room and emerging again with Tana's dress. It was exquisite as it hung from the padded satin hanger they had delivered it with. It looked almost like a wedding dress, and Tana smiled.

“Where's the veil?”

Her mother smiled back. “You never know. That'll come next.”

Tana laughed and shook her head at the thought. “Now let's not rush into that. I'm only eighteen.”

“That doesn't mean anything, sweetheart. You might meet the man of your dreams tomorrow night, you know. And who knows after that?” Tana stared at her in disbelief. Something in Jean's eyes said she was serious.

“Do you mean that, Mom?”

Jean Roberts smiled again. It was wonderful to see Tana again, and now that she saw the dress next to her, she knew just how fabulous it was going to look on. A victory all around. “You're a beautiful girl, Tana. And some man is going to be very lucky to have you as his wife.”

“But wouldn't you be upset if I met him now?”

“Why?” She didn't seem to understand and Tana looked stunned.

“But I'm eighteen years old. Don't you want me to go on with college and make something of myself?”

“You're doing that now.”

“But this is just the beginning, Mom. When I finish my two years at Green Hill, I want to go on and do something else.”

Jean frowned. “There's nothing wrong with getting married and having kids.”

“Is that what this is all about?” Suddenly Tana felt sick. “This coming out bullshit … it's kind of like a slave auction, isn't it?”

Jean Roberts looked shocked. “Tana, that's a terrible thing to say.”

“Well, it's true, isn't it? All these young girls lined up, curtsying like fools, and a bunch of men checking them out.” She squinted her eyes as though the girls were lined up in front of her, “… let's see, I'll take … that one over there.” Her eyes opened wide again, and she looked upset. “Hell, there has to be more to life than that.”

“You make it sound sick somehow, and it's not. It's a beautiful tradition that means a lot to everyone.” No, it doesn't, Mom, at least not to me … just to you … but she couldn't bring herself to say those words. Jean looked at her unhappily. “Why are you being so difficult about this? Ann Durning came out four years ago, and she had a wonderful time.”

“Good for her. But I'm not Ann.” She had also run off with some twit in Italy who had to be bought off, as Tana recalled.

Jean sighed and sat down, looking up at Tana from the chair. She hadn't seen Tana in three months and she could already feel the tension mounting between them. “Why don't you just relax and enjoy yourself, Tana? You never know, you might meet someone you like.”

“I don't want to meet someone I ‘like.’ I don't even want to go, Mom.”

Tears filled Jean's eyes as she looked at her, and Tana couldn't stand the look on her face. “I just wanted you to … I wanted you to have…” Tana knelt and hugged her close.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry … I know it'll be beautiful.”

Jean smiled through her tears and kissed Tana's cheek. “One thing's for sure, you will be beautiful, sweetheart.”

“I'd have to be in that dress. You must have spent a fortune on it.” She was touched but it seemed such a useless expense. She would have rather had clothes to wear at school. She was borrowing Sharon's all the time.

But Jean was smiling at her. “It's a gift from Arthur, sweetheart.” Tana felt her stomach tie in a knot. Another reason to be “grateful” to him. She was so tired of Arthur and his gifts.

“He shouldn't have done that.” Tana was visibly less than thrilled, and Jean couldn't understand why except that Tana had always been jealous of him.

“He wanted you to have a pretty dress.” And indeed it was. As she stood in front of the mirror the following night, her hair teased and swept up, the way her mother had seen Jackie Kennedy's hair done in
Vogue,
with the beautiful silk dress, she looked like a fairy princess with her spun gold hair and big green eyes. It filled Jean's eyes with tears just to look at her. She looked exquisite. Moments later, Chandler George arrived to pick her up, and Jean left with them. Arthur had said that he would try to come by, but he wasn't sure. There was a dinner he had to attend that night, and he'd do his “best.” Tana didn't say anything about it to Jean in the cab, but she had heard that line before, and knew that it meant nothing at all. It had applied to Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Jean's birthdays over the years. And usually doing his “best” meant that he wouldn't arrive, but a bunch of flowers, or a telegram, or a note would instead. She always remembered her mother's crestfallen face at those times, but not tonight. Jean was too excited about her to worry about Arthur very much. She hovered like a mother hen, joining a group of the other mothers at one side of a long bar. The fathers had found each other, too, and there were clumps of well wishers and old family friends, but most of the room was filled with young people about Tana's own age, girls in pink dresses, or red satin, or bright green, and only a dozen in the white dresses their parents had bought them to come out in that night. For the most part, they were a motley adolescent herd, with faces that would take years to thin out, and waistlines to match. There was something singularly undistinguished about girls that age, and because of that, Tana especially stood out. She was tall and slim, and she held her head high.

Jean watched her proudly from across the room. When the big moment came, and the drumroll came halfway into the night, and each girl was led out on her father's arm to curtsy to the guests, there were unrestrained tears of pride on Jean's cheeks. She had hoped that Arthur Durning would be there by then, and had even dared to hope that he might lead her out. But he couldn't make it, of course. He had done enough for them, she couldn't expect him to do more. Tana came out looking nervous and flushed on the arm of Chandler George. She curtsied prettily, lowered her eyes, and disappeared into the rest of the group, and the music began again shortly after that. It had happened, it was done. Tana had officially “come out.” She looked around the room afterwards, feeling like a complete fool. There was no exhilaration, no thrill, no romantic tingle up and down her spine. She had done it because her mother wanted her to and it was over now. She was grateful for the hubbub that happened afterwards, which allowed her to get lost for a while. Chandler looked as though he had fallen madly in love with a chubby redheaded girl with a sweet smile and an elaborate white velvet dress, and Tana had discreetly disappeared, allowing him to go in pursuit of his prize, as Tana wandered into an alcove and collapsed in a chair. She lay her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed, grateful to be away from it all, from the music, the people, Chandler, whom she couldn't stand, and the desperately lonely look of pride in her mother's eyes. Tana sighed again just thinking of it, and then jumped halfway off her seat as she heard a voice.

“It can't be as bad as all that.” She opened her eyes to see a powerfully built dark-haired young man with eyes as green as hers. There was something rakish about him, even in black tie, a casual air about the way he stood, looking down at her, holding a glass, and smiling cynically at her, as a piece of dark hair fell over one emerald eye. “Bored, lovely one?” He managed to look both sarcastic and amused and Tana nodded her head tentatively in embarrassment and began to laugh.

“You caught me.” She looked into his eyes and smiled. She had the feeling that she'd seen him somewhere, but couldn't imagine where. “What can I say? It's a drag.”

“It certainly is. The cattle show. I make the rounds every year.” But he didn't look as though he'd been doing it for long. Despite the air of sophistication, he didn't look very old.

“How long have you been doing this?”

He grinned boyishly. “This is my second year. Actually, this should be my first, but they invited me to the Cotillion by mistake last year. And all the rest of the coming out balls, so I went.” He rolled his eyes with a grin, “What a pain in the ass.” And then he looked ap-praisingly at her, and took a sip of his scotch. “And how did you find your way here?”

“By cab.” She smiled sweetly at him and he grinned.

“Lovely date you had.” The sarcasm dripped from his words again and she laughed. “Engaged to him yet?”

“No, thanks.”

“That shows at least minimal good judgment on your part.” He spoke in a lazy, laconic way, with the accent of the upper crust, and yet he seemed to be laughing at it all, and Tana was amused by him. There was something outrageous about the boy, as proper as he was, as well dressed. But at the same time there was a shocking irreverence which showed through and suited her mood perfectly. “Do you know Chandler, then?”

The young man smiled again. “We went to the same boarding school for two years. He plays a great game of squash, stinks at bridge, bandies himself pretty well on the tennis court, flunked math, history, and biology, and has absolutely nothing between his ears.”

Tana laughed in spite of herself. She didn't like him anyway, but it seemed an almost surgically accurate, albeit unkind, portrait of him. “That sounds about right. Not nice, but right.”

“They don't pay me to be nice.” He looked mischievous as he sipped his drink again, and made an obvious appraisal of her cleavage and small waist.

“Do they pay you to do anything?”

“Not yet, actually.” He smiled benevolently at her. “And with luck they never will.”

“Where do you go to school?”

He frowned, as though he had just forgotten something somewhere, and then gazed blankly at her. “Do you know … I can't seem to remember.” He smiled again as she wondered what that meant. Maybe he wasn't going to college at all, although he didn't look that type either. “What about you?”

“Green Hill.”

The impish smile appeared again, with one eyebrow raised. “How ladylike. Majoring in what? Southern plantations, or pouring tea?”

“Both.” She grinned and stood up. “At least I go to school.”

“For two years anyway. Then what, princess? Or is that what tonight is all about? The Great Hunt for Husband Number One.” He pretended to speak into a megaphone. “Will all candidates line up against the far wall. All healthy young white males with pedigrees … have your father' D&B's in hand, we will also want to know your schools, blood type, whether or not you drive, how large your personal trust is and how soon you come into it…” He went on as she laughed at him, and he lowered his voice. “Seen any likely ones so far, or are you too madly in love with Chandler George?”

“Much.” She began to walk slowly towards the main ballroom and he followed her, just in time to see her escort kissing the chubby redhead on the other side of the room.

The tall dark handsome young man turned to Tana somberly. “I've got bad news for you. I think you're about to be jilted, princess.”

She shrugged and met the green eyes so like her own. “Them's the breaks, I guess.” There was laughter in her eyes. She didn't give a damn about Chandler George.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Sure.”

He whirled her around the floor expertly. There was something very dashing and worldly about this boy which seemed to belie his youth. One had the feeling that he had been around, although Tana didn't know where, or even who he was, a circumstance he remedied at the end of the first dance.

“By the way, what's your name, princess?”

“Tana Roberts.”

“My name's Harry.” He looked at her with the boyish grin and she smiled, and then unexpectedly he swept her a low bow. “Harrison Winslow the Fourth, actually. But Harry will do.”

“Should I be impressed?” She was, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of letting him know.

“Only if you read the social columns regularly. Harrison Winslow the Third usually makes an ass of himself, in cities that circle the globe … Paris and London most of the time, Rome when he has time … Gstaad, Saint Moritz … Munich, Berlin. And New York when he has absolutely no choice, and needs to fight with the trustees my grandmother left in charge of her very handsome estate. But he isn't very fond of the States, or of me, come to think of it.” He spoke in a flat monotone as Tana watched, wondering what was going on inside of him, but there was no clue as yet. “My mother died when I was four. I don't remember her at all, except once in a while, something comes back in a wave … like a perfume … or a sound, her laughter on the stairs when they went out … a dress that reminds me of her, but that's probably impossible. She committed suicide. ‘Highly unstable,’ as my grandmother used to say, ‘but a pretty piece.’ And poor Dad's been licking his wounds ever since … I forgot to mention Monaco and Cap d'An-tibes. He licks his wounds there too. With helpmates, of course. There's a regular one he parks in London for most of the year, a very pretty one in Paris … one with whom he likes to ski … a Chinese girl in Hong Kong. He used to take me along when I wasn't in school, but eventually I got too disagreeable, so he stopped. That, and…” the eyes grew vague, “… other things. Anyway,” his eyes came back into focus and he smiled cynically at Tana again, “that's who Harrison Winslow is, or at least one of them.”