Along the Infinite Sea (21 page)

“I suppose you wear a very stern mask at work. I shudder to think about it,” I said. “What does a military attaché do, exactly?”

“Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid. A great deal of paperwork.”

“But you must meet loads of important people.”

“Annabelle,” he said, “unless you want me to put on my very stern mask again, we must change the subject.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.”

“It is not you who should be sorry,” he said.

“That's a cryptic thing to say.”

He nudged the bay faster. “Come along. Let us see how well you sit a canter.”

14.

At the lower lake we dismounted and watched the last of the mist float off the water. The horses stretched their necks to the grass and I sat on a rock, while Johann braced his booted foot next to me and took out a cigarette case. “I didn't know you smoked,” I said.

“On occasion.”

“Is that even possible?”

“If one is disciplined.” He leaned down and offered me the open case. I shook my head. He took one, a long white brand with which I was not familiar. He lit himself up with a gleaming silver lighter and smoked silently, watching the water. A bird cried softly from the trees. I felt his boot near my leg, the unending heat of his body.

I broke the silence first. “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

“In England. My father died of peritonitis when I was six. My mother married an Englishman a few years later, and I lived at home with them until I was old enough for boarding school.”

“But what happened during the war?”

He put his hand in his pocket, fingering something there. His lighter, I thought. “I fought for Germany, of course. I was wounded twice but somehow escaped being killed. A miracle, I think. My stepfather was not so lucky. He was killed on the third day of the Somme.”

“How horrible for your mother.”

“She died not long after. I'm afraid I never saw her again, once the war began.” He lifted the cigarette, which was nearly finished, and inhaled slowly. “They had two children. My sister Margaret, who is nine years younger, and my brother Benedict, who was born a month after my stepfather died.” He dropped the cigarette in the grass and crushed it under his heel. “In another hour the lake will be full of boats. Would you like to go boating someday?”

“Yes, but not here. It's too public.”

He took my hand to lift me to my feet. “I agree.”

15.

We finished where we started, near the Porte Dauphine, now crowded with people and morning light. The groom was waiting next to the black Mercedes. He jumped to attention when he saw us, like a marionette.

“I will drive you home, of course,” said Johann.

“Only if it won't make you late for your work.”

“Do not concern yourself with that.”

“The lateness or the work?”

“Either one.”

It took much longer to drive home, because of the traffic. Paris was in full flow. The streets stank of fish and garbage and exhaust. “I would stop for breakfast,” said Johann, “but I'm afraid I do have an appointment.”

We wound our way down the crowded avenues and narrow streets to my father's apartment, in a massive silence met by the roaring undertone of the engine. Johann looked up dubiously to the building. “I hope it is safe, at least. Not so licentious as that damned villa last summer.”

“Oh, very safe. Not all that warm in winter, but safe.”

He dropped his gaze to my face and frowned. “I don't like this for you, Annabelle.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“Not at present.” He climbed out of the car and walked around to my side, next to the sidewalk, where he opened the door and grasped my hand to draw me out of the low-slung seat. He straightened my hat and tucked a piece of loosened hair behind my ear. “You are windblown and beautiful, Mademoiselle,” he said, kissing my hand. “I will come for you again on Saturday morning.”

16.

I lay for an hour afterward in a warm bath, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to do with him. Whether I wanted him for myself, or just to banish the memory of Stefan. Whether it was possible to inoculate yourself against future heartbreak. Whether one man could keep you safe from wanting another.

COCOA BEACH
•
1966

1.

On the ninth day after Annabelle's departure, Pepper takes the Ford Thunderbird out of the garage and drives herself into town.

Well, maybe “day” isn't quite the right word for it, when you consider that the sun has already fallen and the sky is purple-black. Back home in New York City, there will be a hard frost overnight, and the last tenacious leaf will shiver to the ground. But here in Florida, the daytime temperature touched eighty degrees, and Pepper wandered up and down the beach in a too-short sundress borrowed from Annabelle's closet (she has decided not to trust the Breakers with her current address) while the dogs chased each other in large circles across the empty sand, until the shadows lengthened and the horizon turned pink, and Pepper thought, I've got to get out of here, I've got to do something.

Itchy feet. They've gotten Pepper into trouble before, and they'll do it again. Tonight she's painted them both a fresh, crisp red at the tips and slipped them back into her sandals, and the one on the right is
pressed against the accelerator, the faster the better. A tiny toe beats a tattoo into the wall of her abdomen, as if in sympathy, or maybe protest. Or else warning?

Well, too late for that.

Now her hair flutters in the draft, her lipstick is warm and sticky-red on her lips. She glances in the rearview mirror, and her skin glows back at her, reckless and pregnant. She's not out to find a man, of course not. She just needs to know that she's still beautiful. That her face, which has gotten her into so much trouble before, is yet capable of more.

2.

As usual, the trick is finding the right spot. There's always a spot, and Pepper has a nose for them. She parks the car and reaches for her pocketbook on the empty passenger seat. She checks her lipstick in the mirror and slings her cardigan over her shoulders.

Inside, the air is polished and classy and not too old. Pepper pauses in the doorway, just long enough for someone to catch sight of her, and then it passes in a familiar ripple through the room. Awareness. The electric pause, the drinks set down, the sidelong stares. There is the usual narrowed hostility from one of the women, the quick look away from the man who pretends he doesn't give a damn, the shy glance into the whisky from the one who thinks he doesn't stand a chance, the bold stare of the one who's confident he does. The same old chain reaction, the same old Pepper.

The thing about Pepper is she hasn't actually slept with that many men, if you line them up end to end. There was the father of her baby, of course. Oopsy-daisy. There was a supremely eligible young man in New York, before she left, a friend of her cousin Nick Greenwald: a lawyer who wanted to marry her, a man she probably should have married if she knew what was good for her. Before that, a photographer who
enchanted her, who was her lover for a year and a half, who called her his muse and took thousands of pictures of her; a man whom she actually thought she might marry, until he moved to Paris one afternoon with a seventeen-year-old fashion model, a change of heart she discovered two weeks later from a mutual friend. An older man, one summer on Long Island, on the sly. A boy in college who worshipped her. The man on the terrace, who sent her bouquet after bouquet, note after note, begging her to see him again, until even her parents took notice and registered disapproval.

But mostly, Pepper loves to flirt. She loves the joy of the hunt, though she stops short of the kill. Like any Thoroughbred, she was born to run. That's what matters, after all: the knowledge that you were the fleetest animal in the pack, and who cares if you get to stand in the winner's circle with the flashbulbs popping and the garland looped around your neck? All you need, all you really feed on, is the knowledge that you're the most desirable woman in the room.

Until it doesn't matter anymore.

Because she's not the same old Pepper, is she? Because at this very second, her right hand, obeying a primeval impulse, lies across the apex of her belly. She couldn't have stopped it if she tried, if she actually held it down with her left hand. She, the predatory Pepper, is now on the defensive. She's got something worth protecting.

She can't win. She can't go back. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, she crossed an invisible line, a Rubicon of biology, and became a mother. She doesn't belong here anymore. She may never belong here anymore.

The reflection breaks over her like one of the more vigorous waves washing up on the beach this afternoon—the surf was brisk, the weather was on the move—and for an instant she hesitates, there in the doorway with all eyes on her.

The instant passes and so does Pepper, right back into the Thunderbird, right back to the old house by the sea, though she maybe makes a wrong turn or two along the way.

3.

By the time Pepper undresses and crawls into bed, her limbs are done for the night. Her brain, on the other hand, doesn't know when to quit.

The room is peacefully dark, not a drop of light. She lies on her side, gazing at the space where the opposite wall should stand—if she could see it—and forces her eyes shut, except that they keep pinging open again, like a child's pop-up toy, indefatigable. The baby kicks around in sympathy.

After half an hour or so, she sits up and turns on the light. What's happening to her, that her body is so weary and her brain can't stop jumping? She wants to sleep. She wants to finish something first, and she doesn't know what it is.

Pepper used to sleep naked. It's a sensual thing, a freedom thing, but since coming to Annabelle's house, since jumping awake at every little whisper in the night, wondering if they've tracked her down already, she's taken to wearing underwear and a long shirt. She still resents them for it. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and reaches for the linen robe draped across the nearby chair. She slings her arms inside and belts the sash high, above her bump. She leaves the slippers behind and makes her way softly across the midnight courtyard to the main house, which is unlocked, and pauses in the doorway, because she doesn't know what she's doing here.

In the absence of purpose, she wanders to the kitchen and pours herself a drink of water from the tap. The house is so silent, she wants to scream.

She stares through the kitchen window into the black courtyard. This silence, my God, this void. This itchy absence of sound. She would talk to anybody right now, just to get rid of the quiet. But mostly, she thinks, gazing at the corner of the courtyard where the lemon trees grow side by side with the bougainvillea, she wants to talk to Annabelle. Gentle, frank Annabelle, who disappeared nine days ago.

She sets the empty glass in the sink and turns off the light. There is no Annabelle; even her dogs sleep elsewhere, in Clara's quarters, down a corridor somewhere. She wanders back into the hall, bumping into corners, feeling her way along until her fingers strike air where the study should be. A pretty room; Pepper's seen it from the outside. Though the furniture is sturdy and wholesome, and the colors richly neutral, Pepper has the feeling that this was Annabelle's office and not her husband's.

She steps inside and flips on the light.

The switch illuminates not an overhead fixture but the lamp on the desk, an old-fashioned number that looks like a retrofit from the days of kerosene. The rest of the desk is mostly empty. A telephone sits at the corner. Pepper's heard it ring once or twice. It seems to have its own line; the one in the living room doesn't ring in tandem. At the top of the desk is a small clock. Pepper walks around the corner and reads it. Half past one.

If she picked up that telephone right now, at half past one in the morning, and she called her mother and said
I'm pregnant, Mums, I want to come home,
what would her mother say in return?

She pulls out the chair and sinks down to stare at the telephone.

She could call Vivian again. She
should
call Vivian again.

She should call her mother.

She puts out her hand and rests it on the smooth bakelite curve of the receiver, just centimeters away from the round dial, the little black numbers and letters.
Hello, Mums, you'll never guess. Pepper's in trouble. Big, big trouble. Maybe even a little bit scared. Maybe, for once in her life, not quite sure what to do next.

The hand falls away.

Also, at the top of the desk, there is a pair of handsome pens in a small marble stand. Right next to the clock, right next to half past one in the morning.

Pepper doesn't write letters. She writes the occasional thank-you note, when she has to, but the humility and patience of letter writing
don't exactly flow like milk and honey in her veins. She'd rather talk to you in person, face-to-face, so she can put all her talents to use.

But maybe this is one of those things you wrote down on paper, instead of telling them live and unrehearsed. Pepper takes one of the pens out of its holder and fingers the tip. Dear Mums and Dadums, It's the craziest thing. Dear Mums and Dadums, I'll bet you're surprised to see a letter from me, your own daughter. Dear Mums and Dadums, I think it's time I told you something.

Yes, that was it.

Pepper leans down and rummages through the desk drawers until she finds a box of stationery, thick and expensive and anonymous, no monogram or heading of any kind. She selects a few sheets and squares them on the blotter. She picks up the pen and writes the date and
Dear Mums and Dadums
, and that's when she hears the front door opening and closing, so softly you'd have to be paranoid to notice it.

4.

For an instant, Pepper freezes. She grips her pen and thinks, It's Annabelle, of course it's Annabelle, but that doesn't stop her heart from smashing against the wall of her chest. Doesn't stop the adrenaline from hurtling through her veins.

The lamp.

Pepper pushes back the chair and launches herself to the switch on the wall. She turns off the light and flattens herself in the lee of the half-open door.

The house has gone still again. No footsteps, not the slightest sound. But there should be footsteps, shouldn't there? If someone's just entered the house. Annabelle's heels should be clattering happily along the flagstones of the entry. She should be rattling her car keys, setting down her suitcase, tossing her pocketbook on the table, going through the mail. But there's nothing, a distinct void of noise, as pregnant as
Pepper's belly. She puts a hand on top, just to be sure, and tries to stop breathing.

And then. A voice. Deep but soft, a male voice that wants to be heard by one person alone.

“Who's there?”

If she could, Pepper would dissolve into the wall, become one with the paint and the plaster. Wouldn't that just fix everything? Pepper Schuyler, dazzling socialite, shimmering Girl Friday, now a wall in a seaside Florida villa.

The baby turns around and slugs her in the kidneys.

Pepper releases a tiny gasp, just a tiny one, but it's enough.

“Who's there?” This time, it's a demand.

Precious little light filters through the window and the half-open door. Pepper looks around slowly, keeping her cool, trying to remember what lay where. From the hallway outside comes the sound of footsteps, heavy, muffled by the rug.

The bookshelf along the wall. Pepper reaches out her arm and fingers her way along the top, something, anything. A metal shape finds her palm, too small, but that's all there is. She can feel the footsteps now, vibrating the floorboards beneath her slippers. The object is slender but heavy, a small statue of some kind. Pepper slips back behind the door, just as it begins to move, just as a hand appears around the edge.

She swings.

But the hand, the damned hand actually knows she's coming. Before she can snap her elbow forward, the fingers enclose her wrist, stopping the arc of the blow, and the next thing she knows, she's tucked in a headlock against a too-solid chest, the metal object drops on her right foot, and as she opens her mouth to scream, the voice from the hallway growls in her ear.

“What the hell have you done with my mother?”