Kaleidoscope (21 page)

“You're too good-natured. How do you like these, by the way?” She smiled happily, pointing at the new ruby earrings she was wearing. She could afford to be generous with herself, partially thanks to Pierre's generosity when he died, and partially thanks to her own very handsome fortune. “I just got them.”

“I thought so.” Alexandra laughed. Her mother was always buying beautiful clothes and fabulous baubles. It was good for her, she looked well in what she bought and it made her happy, despite what Henri said about a woman spending “that kind of money.” “They're very pretty, and they suit you to perfection.”

“Van Cleef.” Margaret looked pleased with herself. “And a terrific bargain.” But at that, Alexandra laughed heartily as she set down her wineglass.

“I can just imagine.”

“No, really! They were under a hundred thousand.”

“Dollars or francs?”

“Are you kidding? Dollars of course.” Margaret grinned without a trace of guilt as Alexandra laughed at her.

“I thought so.” Alexandra smiled. It was not exactly the kind of bargain Henri would have approved of. And after almost thirty years in France, her mother
still spoke more English than French, and calculated everything in dollars. “What else have you been up to?”

“The usual. I had lunch with Mimi de Saint Bré yesterday.” She was another American woman who had married a titled Frenchman, and like Margaret, she had a good mind and a wild sense of humor. “We're going to New York together next week.”

“What for?”

“Just to get our hair done and do some shopping. I haven't been in months and thought it might be fun before the summer. After that, I'm meeting friends in Rome, and I thought I might go to San Remo for a few weeks. I haven't made up my mind yet.”

“Why don't you stay with us for a few weeks afterward?” Alexandra looked delighted at the prospect, but her mother looked cautious.

“I don't want to make your husband nervous.”

“Just don't bring the girls' whoopee cushions and those hand buzzers and everything will be fine.” They both laughed at the memory. Henri had almost fainted when he sat down in the living room with guests, and landed on one of the whoopee cushions Margaret and the children had planted.

“Do you remember how awful that was?” Margaret could hardly stop laughing at the memory, and there were tears in Alexandra's eyes when she stopped laughing. It had been awful for Henri, but in truth it was desperately funny, and they had all been banished to their rooms afterward, including Margaret, who had taught Marie-Louise how to short-sheet the beds, which had complicated matters even further. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was not Henri's favorite houseguest. “Actually, I thought I'd
see what I could find for them in New York … nothing quite so outrageous of course …” But her eyes twinkled wickedly at the prospect. She used to buy silly jokes like that for her late husband, and he had always loved them. For him, being married to Margaret was like having another child. Alexandra had always been a bit more serious than that, even as a little girl, and especially after she got married.

“I'll tell Henri you're coming.”

Margaret grinned. “Wait until you really want to annoy him.”

“Mother!” Alexandra laughed. Her mother had very few illusions. “You make him sound so awful and he isn't!” She always defended her husband, and to Henri, she defended her mother. She was loyal to both.

“He is not awful, darling.” Margaret grinned. “Just stuffy.” The afternoon seemed to fly by, as it always did when they were together, and at four-thirty Alexandra looked at her watch and stretched regretfully. She was so comfortable in the cozy room, looking out at the garden, and in her mother's company. They always had such a good time together. Margaret was still her closest friend, and always had been.

“I should go … much as I hate to …” Alexandra stood up with obvious regret as Margaret watched her.

“Why? Are you giving a party tonight?”

“No, that's next week. Tonight we're dining at the Élysée, and Henri will get nervous if I don't come home early and start getting ready.”

“You ought to do something wonderful to surprise him, like wear a skintight dress covered with rhinestones, and tease your hair straight up. It would do
them good at the Élysée.” She chuckled at the thought and Alexandra smiled. Her mother probably would have done something just like that, and Henri would have called his attorneys in the morning. With him, that was always the implication. Step out of line and … Alexandra never tested his mettle in that direction. She loved him too much to risk everything for pranks like her mother's. And besides, she wasn't like that.

“You're a lot braver than I am, Maman.”

“That's only because I'm not married to your husband. I can do exactly what I want now. And before, your father always let me get away with anything I wanted. I was very lucky.” She smiled gently at her daughter.

“Papa was lucky too. And he knew it,” Alexandra reminded her and the two women embraced and walked slowly downstairs, as the butler waited to let her out with his usual warm smile. He had been with them since she was a little girl, and he called her “Madame Alexandra” as he helped her into her car and closed the door firmly. She waved at her mother as the driver took her home in the Citroen, and she felt the same sadness she always did when she left her mother. Life had been so simple on the rue de Varenne, living with her parents … before … but that wasn't fair either. She loved Henri, and of course, the children. They were the life force of her existence. But seeing her mother always made her long for a life that was simpler, and a time when she didn't have quite so much to live up to.

She was still thinking of it as she slipped out of her dress and ran her bath, and took out a serious, well-covered
black evening gown for their dinner that night at the Élysée Palace.

The girls came in to say hello to her while she was in the tub, and she heard Henri go into his study while she was getting dressed, but he didn't come in to speak to her and she didn't see him until they met in the front hall, ready to go out for the evening. Her dress had long sleeves and a high neck, and a long slender skirt with beautiful gold embroidery on it. It was exquisitely made and from an old collection of Saint Laurent. She wore it with a short sable jacket and a pair of outstanding diamond earrings given to her by her father.

“You look lovely tonight.” His eyes were admiring, his voice restrained, and his manner impeccably formal.

“Thank you.” She turned to him with her blond good looks, her hair swept into a smooth French twist, exactly as it had been worn years before by Grace Kelly. It was a good look for Alexandra, and one that Henri approved of. “Did you have a good day?” Her eyes looked lonely, and she suddenly wished he would kiss her, but he didn't.

“Very pleasant, thank you,” he answered. There were times when they were like two strangers, and the intimacies of the night before seemed all but forgotten in the formality of the moment. He helped her into the car, and the driver pulled away, with both of them lost in thought in separate worlds in the backseat, and two little girls in nightgowns watching from the upstairs window.

Chapter 12

The day after Hilary saw Arthur Patterson, when he had told her he didn't know how to find her sister, Hilary felt as though the world had come to an end. She was seventeen years old and she felt as though her life was over. For years she had lived only to find Megan and Axie. And now there was no hope. They were gone forever.

She began her first job the next day with an aching void in her chest, but her face was calm, her eyes cool, and no one would have known the agony of despair she was feeling. The only thing that kept her going was her determination to survive in spite of everything, and her hatred for Arthur.

She felt like a machine as she moved through the days and nights, but she performed her job well. She improved her typing, studied steno from a book, and went to college at night, just as she had promised herself years before she would. She did everything she had said she would, but through it all there was not so much a sense of accomplishment but of heartless determination. She was going to succeed at all costs, but even she didn't know why she wanted to make it.
There was no one to prove anything to. No one who cared. No one to love or who loved her.

She only kept the job for a year, and then she got a better one. She heard about it before anyone else, at the employment agency where she worked, and she went to the interview before anyone else even knew about it. It was as a receptionist at CBA-News. It was a fabulous job that paid almost twice what her current job did, and she had to be quick, smart, and good, and she was all three. The woman who interviewed her was very impressed with her. She got the job, and managed to stay on in school. And she got steady raises from then on. She eventually became a secretary, and then a production assistant, and within five years a producer. She was incredibly bright, and by then she had graduated from college. She was twenty-three years old and she was well on her way to a real career. She was respected by her superiors, and feared by some of her employees, most in fact, and she seemed to have few friends at work. She kept aloof and worked hard, staying late most of the time, and turning in projects deserving of the praise she won. She was a remarkable girl, and when she became one of the main producers of the evening news at twenty-five, Adam Kane, the man in charge of network news invited her out to celebrate. She hesitated and then decided it would be politically unwise to refuse him. She accepted gracefully and found herself dining at the Brussels with him, drinking champagne and talking shop, discussing how important the network was and where she hoped to go eventually. He was surprised to hear that she had long-range goals, particularly since they were more ambitious than his own plans for the future.

“Hey, hold on there … what is this?—a staff meeting for women's lib?” He was an attractive man with brown hair and gentle brown eyes, and a philosophical way of looking at life. “Why such big plans?” She was the first woman he'd ever known who had admitted her ambitions to him, and he admitted to her that he found it frightening. He and his wife had just gotten divorced because she didn't think she wanted to be a “wife anymore.” and it had shaken him to the core. They had two little boys and a house in Darien, and now suddenly he was living alone on the West Side, and women were talking to him about “goals within corporate management.” He laughed softly as he looked at her. She was so beautiful and so young and so intense and yet there was something missing. “What's happened to women who want to have babies and live in the suburbs? Is that totally out of fashion?”

She smiled at him, aware that she might have overstated her case, but she so seldom went out with men. She forgot that one had to be quiet about things, and this one was nice. She liked working for him. “I guess that's out for some of us.” She didn't apologize for it. She knew where she wanted to go, and nothing would stop her until she got there. She was still running from the demons of the past after seventeen years and knew she probably would forever. She accepted that now, though she didn't explain it to him. She never told anyone anything. She lived alone, and she went to work, and other than that, she had no interest in anything. He sensed that now, and it frightened him, for her. He knew how much more there was to life. He was thirty-eight years old and he had married at
twenty-three. And now he was discovering endless new horizons.

“Don't you want a husband and kids one day?”

She shook her head. He looked as though she could be honest with him. “That's not very important to me.” More than that, she didn't want anyone she could lose … least of all two little girls … two little children someone could take away from her…. She knew she would never let that happen to her. She wanted to be alone, and she was, and it only hurt occasionally, like now, as she looked at this man and wondered what it would be like to be close to him. Or was it only the champagne, she wondered.

“My children are the best thing in my life, Hilary. Don't cheat yourself of that.” She couldn't tell him that in a way, she had already had kids. She never told anyone that, and knew she never would. Ever.

“Why does everyone think you have to have kids to be complete?”

“These days they don't. Most women think like you, but they're wrong. Hilary, the women who don't have children now are going to panic in ten or fifteen years, mark my words, we're going to see a whole generation of women fighting their own biology before it's too late. But now they're all cool, they figure they've got years ahead of them. But it's a mistake to rule it out. You've never been married?” He looked into her eyes and he liked what he saw there, courage and honesty and integrity and intelligence. But he saw fear too. She was running from something and he couldn't figure out what it was that had hurt her. Maybe, maybe she'd had a bad experience with someone … not unlike his with Barb. He still couldn't believe she had left him and taken his children.

Hilary shook her head in answer to his question. “No, I've never been married.” And then she laughed. “I'm only twenty-five. What's the big rush?”

“These days none at all. I was just curious. I was twenty-three when I got married. My wife was twenty-one. It was real important to us. But that was fifteen years ago, things have changed a hell of a lot since then. This is 1974. We got married in '59.” And then he smiled at her over the last of their champagne. “What were you doing then? You were probably just a kid.”

Her eyes clouded over then, thinking back. 1959 … she'd been in Boston then, with Eileen and Jack … or were they in Jacksonville by then? … the thought of it almost made her feel ill. Axie and Megan were already gone. “Oh, nothing much. I was living with an aunt in Boston around then.” She tried to make it sound ordinary, almost fun.

“Where were your folks?”

“They died when I was eight … and nine …”

“Separately?” She nodded, anxious to change the subject back to work again. She didn't want to talk to him about this. Not to him or anyone. “How terrible. In accidents?” She nodded noncommittally and finished her champagne at one gulp. “Were you an only child?”