Guilt by Association (21 page)

It was the longest speech she had made in seven years.

“What a lovely thing to say,” Ione cried, rushing over to hug her.

“What a lovely idea,” Mitch said. He took a long look around the common room and a big smile slowly lit up his bearded face.
“I bet we could do it.”

“Do what?” asked Felicity.

“Why, turn this dump into a garden, of course … the Garden of Eden,” he replied. “I could do the sketches right on the walls to get us started and I can get the paint cheap. All we need is enough manpower to bring it to life.”

“I don’t remember the lease on this apartment saying anything about going Michelangelo,” Ione protested.

But the artist was in his element. “The landlord’ll love it once it’s done. After all, we’re going to provide him with something of inestimable value—an original Mitchell Rankin—free of charge.”

“What the hell,” Kevin said. “The old place could use a face-lift.”

“I can make new curtains and pillows,” offered Jenna.

“I guess I can handle a brush,” Felicity allowed.

“Then it’s settled,” exclaimed Mitch. “I’ll do some preliminary drawings in the morning.” He beamed at them. “It will be my first masterpiece.”

And, as far as Karen could judge, it was.

Mitch had created a spectacularly lush version of Eden that was perhaps more Tahitian than biblical. A thick green carpet of grass populated by inquisitive little creatures and wild-flowers crept up the common-room walls and was bordered by a colorful mass of bushes, out of which poked great stalks of hibiscus and birds-of-paradise.

In the bedroom, fish frolicked in a crystal-clear pool, and the kitchen flaunted a tangle of blooming vines, a preening parrot,
and a wide-eyed owl peering through the branches of a jacaranda tree. The whole thing was tied together by fruit trees that dripped with peaches and pears and oranges. A smiling serpent hung down from a bough of apple blossoms. A big yellow sun occupied one whole corner of the ceiling, and in another, Ione’s clouds dotted a brilliant blue sky. In addition
to basic brushwork, Mitch was using his trademark serrated palette knife to create texture. As a result, the scenes had a three-dimensional look that made them come alive.

They would paint until ten o’clock, stopping only for supper. Then they would sit around, smoke a few joints and contemplate their handiwork. It was finished on the second Sunday in February, the same day Karen turned twenty-eight.

“So we have two things to celebrate,” Ione said, digging deep into the contribution can for enough money to buy a good steak and a bottle of Bordeaux.

Kevin brought some good pot. Felicity even baked a cake. Karen made an excuse not to go home to Great Neck. After the food and wine had been consumed and the best wishes offered, Kevin brought out his pipe and passed it around. Then they turned off the overhead lights and wandered from room to room, surveying their accomplishment by candlelight. Karen had never felt more at home, more at peace, more mellow.

“Would that reality could be like this,” Kevin sighed. He was a philosophy major this term.

“Life sure isn’t the way I expected it would be when I started out,” Felicity mused. “I expected to be dancing on Broadway by the time I was twenty. Then it was twenty-five. Then it was thirty. Now I wonder about thirty-five.”

Jenna giggled. “I never expected I’d actually come to New York and study fashion design. But in five years, I want to have my own label and be sold in the most exclusive shops in town.”

Ione stretched like a cat. “I’m going to have a healthy kid, and tenure.”

“In five years, I’m going to be hanging in the Museum of Modern Art,” Mitch proclaimed, “Or, at the very least, the Guggenheim.”

“I just want to get my degree and get on with my life,” Kevin declared. “So Nixon better keep his goddamn campaign promise and get us the hell out of Vietnam.”

Everyone turned to Karen, whose only plans were for a life that had nothing to do with her now.

“Where do you want to be in five years?” Ione asked.

Karen closed her eyes and looked into the future. But there was nothing to see because, she realized with dismay, she didn’t have the faintest idea where she wanted to be in five
days,
much less five years.

1971

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.

—
Blaise Pascal

M
ay could be the most glorious month in San Francisco, once the winter rains had tapered off and before the summer fog rolled in, when the thermometer reached up into the seventies and the air smelled freshly scrubbed and the sun sparkled off the bay,
and people went around with smiles on their faces. It was a month often overlooked by tourists, much to the delight of those who lived there and kept the splendor a closely guarded secret.

On one such perfect Tuesday in early May, Elizabeth Will-mont was indulging in her favorite pastime—shopping. It was a rare occasion when a committee meeting was canceled at the last minute and Elizabeth found herself with a free day. She had promptly persuaded her husband to take her to lunch and then she made a beeline for Union Square.

It was no secret to anyone that Elizabeth loved to shop, and with her Modigliani-like figure and substantial bank account,
that was understandable. The product of a Colorado millionaire and a French beauty, few things delighted the young socialite more than going from one store to the next, trying on item after item, selecting what pleased her and discarding what didn’t.

By mid-afternoon, she had purchased three dresses, two
suits, and a whole host of accessories. Ordinarily, this would have put an enormous smile on her face, but as she came out of Maison Mendessolle, the elite salon in the St. Francis Hotel, and turned onto Post Street, it was an uneasy frown that creased her lovely features.

Halfway down the block, Elizabeth stopped as though something in a display window had caught her eye and caught instead a glimpse of the reflection behind her. The girl in the red coat was still there.

Elizabeth sighed. She had first noticed the girl in the fine-china department at Macy’s, just a slip of a thing with straggly hair and big brown eyes and blotches on her skin, who showed no interest whatever in Lenox or Minton and surely must have been roasting, all bundled up in that heavy coat.

Next, she turned up in the shoe department at Magnin’s, when Elizabeth was buying the silk pumps. And then there she was in Maison Mendessolle, looking terribly out of place but standing her ground, while Elizabeth chose a gown for a charity ball she was helping to organize.

The girl never came close enough for conversation, although it was clear she had something on her mind. But she never let Elizabeth out of sight, either. And in that absurd red coat, she was anything but inconspicuous. Even the saleslady noticed.

“That person over there, Mrs. Willmont,” she whispered, “do you know her?”

Elizabeth glanced casually over her shoulder. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, she certainly isn’t one of our customers, and she’s been staring at you for the longest time.”

Elizabeth shrugged it off. It didn’t do to tell help any more than they needed to know. Gossip that was started by a careless remark could spread like a brushfire and devastate the select social circle in which the Willmonts traveled. But the girl was making her very uncomfortable. If she had something to say, Elizabeth wished she would say it and get it over with.

Not that she wasn’t used to being stared at. As one of San Francisco’s most beautiful and stylish young matrons, Eliza-
beth had been photographed, interviewed, emulated and envied from the moment Robert had brought her to California as his wife three and a half years ago.

Even before that, she had often found herself in the public eye. After all, she was the only daughter of Archer and Denise Avery of Denver, where her father owned Avery Industries, and where her family was every bit as influential as the Draytons were in San Francisco.

Having inherited her elegant French mother’s flaming red hair, slanting green eyes, chiseled features and graceful ways, Elizabeth was indisputably the outstanding debutante of 1963, setting a standard for every Denver debutante to follow. By the time it was over, she had received no less than half a dozen marriage proposals. She declined them all, however, choosing instead four years at Vassar and then a handsome young attorney from California whom she met at Aspen.

It was, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, love at first sight. She had lost one of her ski poles and was having considerable difficulty trying to negotiate the slope without it when he came to her rescue.

“I believe this belongs to you,” he said with a poker face, presenting her with the wayward bamboo stick.

“My goodness,” she exclaimed with a toss of her Raggedy Ann hair, “I never even noticed it was gone.”

“Well done,” he declared with a hearty laugh and a broad wink of approval.

One look deep into his incredible aquamarine eyes was all it took. After returning to Vassar, she spent several anxious weeks—replaying every moment of their days together, recalling how well his ski outfit fit him, how wind-tanned he had been, what a decidedly sexy mouth he had, and how she had felt when he held her hand—until he finally telephoned.

Theirs was a long-distance romance that consisted of flowery letters and exorbitant telephone bills and three very closely chaperoned visits at the Averys’ gingerbread mansion in the heart of old Denver.

“My family’s horribly old-fashioned,” she had said, giggling on the occasion of Robert’s third stay, during the spring
break of her senior year at Vassar, when they were unable to escape from watchful eyes for so much as two minutes. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course I mind,” he grumbled, unused to this cat-and-mouse game he was being forced to play. “I suppose I’m going to have to marry you, just so I can get you alone.”

It was not exactly the proposal that Elizabeth had spent her girlhood dreaming of, but she hardly noticed. Her feet didn’t quite touch the ground for the rest of his stay.

“I think I’d better know something about your prospects, young man,” Archer Avery declared, when his daughter came seeking his blessing.

Elizabeth would never forget it. Robert sat in her father’s study, with just the right mixture of self-assurance and deference,
and looked the intimidating patriarch directly in the eye, something that few of the boys who courted her had ever been brave enough, or foolish enough, to do.

“I’m a senior associate with Sutton, Wells, Willmont and Spaulding, sir,” he said with confidence. “I believe that you’re acquainted with Jonah Spaulding.”

The older man nodded.

“It was my father’s firm, before he died,” Robert continued, “and I have every reason to believe that I will be asked to join the partnership when the time comes.”

“I assume that means you plan on taking Elizabeth to San Francisco to live?”

“Yes, of course,” Robert replied. “I’m sure she’ll love it there. It’s a lot like Denver. But we won’t necessarily live there forever. You see, sir, once I’ve established my reputation at the bar, I’m planning on going into politics.”

Elizabeth’s ears perked up. Robert had never said anything to her about having political aspirations.

“Politics?” Archer echoed, stiffening slightly.

“I’m a Drayton,” Robert explained. “It’s a matter of tradition that Draytons give something back. My ancestors have donated parks, established museums, and endowed schools. One set up the Drayton Foundation, which provides scholarships and does other philanthropic work. Several served as
judges. Others built bridges and railroads. One even sponsored soup kitchens during the Depression. Each chooses his own way. I’ve chosen politics.”

Archer grunted and scowled and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was a bull of a man and not one who bothered to keep his feelings hidden, but then he had never been able to deny his daughter anything.

“Well, I just don’t mind telling you, young man,” he rumbled, “I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t like the sound of that at all.”

“I know that politics has always been a dirty word in some circles,” Robert said quickly. “I can tell you that it certainly has been in mine. But times are changing, and I believe that government thinking has to change, too, if we expect to maintain the proper balance of interests in this country. And that means that some of us, no matter how reluctant we may be, have to do our bit.”

Archer clasped his fingers across his chest and squinted at the lawyer seated in front of him. “Just how far do you intend to go with your bit, may I ask?”

For a moment, Robert allowed himself to look slightly surprised at the question. Then he grinned.

“Why, all the way to the White House, of course,” he replied.

Their engagement was announced the following week, and three months to the day after Elizabeth’s graduation from Vassar, she and Robert were married at St. John’s Cathedral, and then feted at a lavish reception for twelve hundred at the Denver Country Club, which the
Post
later described as one of the major social events of the decade.

The new Mr. and Mrs. Willmont honeymooned in the south of France, at a villa that belonged to one of Elizabeth’s French cousins.
They spent some of their time swimming in the Mediterranean and browsing around the quaint little towns along the Côte d’Azur,
but most of their time was spent between the sheets of the huge wrought-iron bed provided for
their pleasure. The staff at the villa was kept busy changing the sheets several times each day.

Elizabeth delighted in every moment of it. Right from the start, Robert was able to generate such a feverish level of desire in her that their mutual climaxes left her laughing and crying and begging for more—far more than even her forthright French mother had led her to expect. She was prepared for an adjustment period, a time during which they would learn each other’s bodies and each other’s likes and dislikes, but there seemed to be no need for that. Somehow, he knew exactly how to please her.

“Now that you’ve had a chance to sample the goods, so to speak,” Elizabeth teased her husband one morning, “I hope I was worth putting up with all that horrid chaperoning.”