The Prodigal Daughter (8 page)

Abel smiled as
he looked up from his copy of the morning paper. “If you win a scholarship,” he
said, “you will have saved me a thousand dollars a year.
If
you come out on top, two thousand dollars.”

“Yes, Papa, and
I have plans for that.”

“Oh, do you,
young lady. And may I inquire what you have in mind?”

“If I win a
scholarship, I want you to invest the money in Baron Group stock until I’m
twenty-one, and if I’m first I want you to do the same for Miss Tredgold.”

“Good gracious,
no,” said Miss Tredgold, stretching to her full height, “that would be most
improper. I do apologize, Mr. Rosnovski, for Florentyna’s impudence.”

“It’s not
impudence, Papa. If I finish top, half the credit must go to Miss Tredgold.-

“If not more,”
said Abel, “and I’ll agree to your demands. But on one condition.” He folded
his paper carefully.

“What’s that?”
said Florentyna.

“How much do you
have in your savings account, young lady?”

“Three hundred
and twelve dollars,”
came
the immediate reply.

“Very well, if
you fail to finish in the first four you must sacrifice the three hundred and
twelve dollars to help me pay the tuition you haven’t saved.”

Florentyna
hesitated. Abel waited and Miss Tredgold did not comment.

“I agree,” said
Florentyna at last.

“I have never
bet in my life,” said Miss Tredgold, “and I can only hope my dear father does
not live to learn of this.”

“It should not
concern you, Miss Tredgold.”

“It certainly
does, Mr. Rosnovski. If the child is willing to gamble her only three hundred
and twelve dollars on the strength of what I have managed to do for her, then I
must repay in kind and also offer three hundred and twelve dollars towards her
education if she fails to win a scholarship.”

“Bravo,” said
Florentyna, and threw her arms around her governess.

“‘A fool and his
money are soon parted,”
‘ declared
Miss Tredgold.

“Agreed,” said
Abel, “for I have lost.”

“What do you
mean, Papa?” asked Florentyna. Abel turned over the newspaper to reveal a small
headline that read: “The Chicago Baron’s Daughter Wins Top Scholarship.”

“Mr. Rosnovski,
you knew all the time.”

“True, Miss
Tredgold, but it is you who have turned out to be the better poker player.”

Florentyna was overjoyed
and spent the last few days of her life at Middle School as the class heroine.
Even Edward Winchester congratulated her.

“Let’s go and
have a drink to celebrate,” he suggested.

“What?” said
Florentyna.
“I’ve never had a drink before.”

“No time like
the present,” said Edward, and led her to a small classroom in the boys’ end of
the school. Once they were inside, he locked the door.

“Don’t want to
get caught,” he explained. Florentyna stood in admiring disbelief as Edward
lifted the lid of his desk and took out a bottle of beer, which he pried open
with a nickel. He poured the flat brown liquid into two dirty glasses, also
extracted from the desk, and passed one over to Florentyna.

“Bottoms up,”
said Edward.

“What does that
mean?” asked Florentyna.

“Just drink the
stuff,” he said, but Florentyna watched him take a gulp before she plucked up
the courage to try a sip. Edward rummaged around in his jacket pocket and took
out a crumpled package of Lucky Strikes.

Florentyna
couldn’t believe her eyes. The nearest she had been to a cigarette was the
advertisement she had heard on the radio which said:

“Lucky Strike
means fine tobacco. Yes, Lucky Strike means fine tobacco,” a theme that had
driven Miss Tredgold mad. Without speaking, Edward removed one of the cigarettes
from the packet, placed it between his lips, lit it and started puffing away.
He blew some smoke jauntily into the rmddle of the room. Florentyna was
mesmerized as he extracted a second cigarette and placed it between her lips.
She did not dare to move as he struck another match and held the flame to the
end of the cigarette. She stood quite still for fear it would catch her hair on
fire.

“Inhale, you
silly girl,” he said, so she puffed three or four times very quickly and then
started coughing.

“You can take
the thing out of your mouth, you know,” he said. -

“Of course I
know,” she said quickly, removing the cigarette the way sht remembered Jean
Harlow did in Saratoga.

“Good,” said
Edward, and drank a large draft of his beer.

“Good,” said
Florentyna,
then
swallowed a mouthful of her beer. For
the next few minutes, she kept in time with Edward as he puffed his cigarette
and gulped from his glass.

“Great, isn’t
it?” said Edward.

“Great,” replied
Florentyna.

“Like another?”

“No, thank you.”
Florentyna coughed. “But it was great.”

“I’ve been
smoking and drinking for several weeks,” announced Edward.

“Yes, I can
tell,” said Florentyna.

A bell sounded
in the hall, and Edward quickly put the beer, cigarettes and the two butts in
his desk before unlocking the door. Florentyna walked slowly back to her
classroom. She felt dizzy and sick when she reached her desk and worse when she
reached home an hour later, unaware that the smell of Lucky Strikes was still
on her breath. Miss Tredgold did not comment and put her to bed immediately.

The next morning
Florentyna woke in terrible discomfort, scabious eruptions on her chest and
face. She looked at herself in the mirror and burst into tears.

“Chicken pox,”
declared Miss Tredgold to Zaphia. Chicken pox, the doctor confirmed later, and
Miss Tredgold brought Abel to visit Florentyna in her room after the doctor had
completed his examination.

“What’s wrong
with me?” asked Florentyna anxiously.

“I can’t
imagine,” said her father mendaciously. “Looks like one of’ the plagues of
Egypt to me. What do you think, Miss Tredgold?”

“I have only
seen the like of it once before, and that was 57 with a man in my father’s
parish who smoked, but of course that doesn’t apply in this case.”

Abel kissed his
daughter on the cheek, and the two grownups left.

“Did we pull it
off?” asked Abel when they had reached his study.

“I cannot be
certain, Mr. Rosnovski, but 1 would be willing to wager one dollar that
Florentyna never smokes again.”

Abel took out his
wallet from an inside pocket, removed a dollar bill and then replaced it.

“No, I think
not, Miss Tredgold. J am too aware what happens when I bet with you.”

Florentyna once
heard her headmistress remark that some incidents in nistory are so powerful in
their impact that most people can tell you exactly where they were when they
first heard the news.

On April 12,
1945, at 4:47 P.m., Abel was talking to a man representing a product called
Pepsi-Cola who was pressing him to try out the drink in the Bar-on hotels.
Zaphia was shopping in Marshall Field’s and Miss Tredgold had just come out of
the United Artists Theater, where she had seen Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
for the third time. Flo-rentyna was in her room looking up the word “teen-ager”
in Webster’s dictionary. The word was not yet acknowledged by Webster’s when
Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Of all the
tributes to the late President which Florentyna read during the next few days,
the one she kept for the rest of her life was from the New York Post. It read
simply:

Washington,
April 19

Following are
the latest casualties in the military services including next of kin.

ARMY-NAVY DEAD

ROOSEVELT,
Franklin D., Commander in Chief, wife Mrs. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

The White House.

E
NTERING UPPER
SCHOOL AT GIRLS LATIN prompted Florentyna’s second trip to New York because the
only establishment that stocked the official school uniform was Marshall
Field’s in Chicago, and the shoes, Abercrombie & Fitch in New York. Abel
snorted and declared it was inverted snobbery of the worst kind. Nevertheless,
since he had to trave
‘ I
to New York to check on the
newly opened Baron, he agreed as a special treat to accompany Miss Tredgold and
his eleven-yearold daughter on their journey to Madison Avenue.

Abel had long
considered New York to be the only major city in the world not to boast a
first-class hotel. He admired the Plaza, the Pierre and the Carlyle but did not
think that any of the threc held a candle to Claridge’s in London, the George V
in Paris or the Danieli in Venice, and only those achieved the standards he was
trying to reproduce for the New York Baron.

Florentyna was
aware that Papa was spending more and more time in New York, and it saddened
her that the affection between her father and mother now seemed to be a thing
of the past. The rows were becoming so frequent that she wondered if she was in
any way to blarne.

Once Miss
Tredgold had completed everything on the list that could be purchased at
Marshall Field’s-three blue sweaters (navy), three blue skirts (navy), four
shirts (white), six blue bloorners (dark), six pairs of gray socks (light), one
navy-blue silk dress with white collar and cuffs-shc planned the trip to New
York.

Florentyna and
Miss Tredgold took the train to Grand Central Station and on arrival in New
York went straight to Abercrombie & Fitch, where they selected two pairs of
brown Oxfords.

“Such sensible
shous,” proclaimed Miss Tredgold. “Nobody who wears Abercrombies needs fear
going through life with flat feet.” They then proceeded over to Fifth Avenue,
and it was some minutes before Miss Tredgold realized she was on her own,
Turning around, she observed Florentyna’s nose pressed against a pane Lit
Elizabeth Arden’s. She walked quickly back to join her. “Ten shades of lipstick
for the sophisticated woman,” read the sign in the window.

“Rose red is my
favorite,” said Florentyna hopefully.

“The school
rules are very clear,” said Miss Tredgold autboritatively.

“No lipstick, no
nail polish, and no jewelry except one ring and a watch.”

Florentyria
reluctantly left the rose-red lipstick and joined her governess on her march up
Fifth Avenue toward the Plaza Hotel, wheie her father was expecting them at the
Palm Court for tea. Abel could not resist returning to the hotel where he had
served his apprenticeship as a junior waiter, and although he recognized no one
except old Sammy, the headwaiter in the Oak Room, everyone knew exactly who he
was.

After macaroons
and ice cream for Florentyna, a cup of coffee for Abel, and lemon tea and a
watercress sandwich for Miss Tredgold, Abel returned to work. Miss Tredgold
checked her New York itinerary and took Florentyna to the top of the Empire
State Building. As the elevator reached the one hundred and second
floor
Florentyna felt quite giddy, and they both burst out
laughing when they discovered fog had come in from the East River and they
couldn’t even see as far as the Chrysler Building. Miss Tredgold checked her
list again and decided that their time would be better spent visiting the Metropolitan
Museum. Francis Henry Taylor, the director, had just acquired a large canvas by
Pablo Picasso; the oil painting turned out to be a woman with two heads and one
breast coming out of her shoulder.

“What do you
think of that’?” asked Florentyna.

“Not a lot,”
said Miss Tredgold. I rather suspect that when he was at school he received the
same sort of art reports as you do now.”

Florentyna
always enjoyed staying in one of her father’s hotels when she was on a trip.
She would happily spend hours waWng around trying to pick up mistakes the hotel
was making. After all, she pointed out to Miss Tredguld, they had their
investment to con * sider. Over dinner that night in the Grill Room of the New
York Baron, Florentyna told her father that she didn’t think much of the hotel
shops.

“What’s wrong
with them?” asked Abel.
mouthing
questions without
paying much attention to the answers.

“Nothing you can
point to easily,” said Florentyna, “except that they are all dreadfully dull compared
with real shops like the ones on Fifth Avenue.”

Abel scribbled a
note on the back of his menu, “Shops dreadfully dull,” and doodled around it
carefully before he said, “I’ll not be returning to Chicago with you,
Florentyna.”

For once
Florentyna was silent.

“Some problems
have come up here with the hotel and I have to stay behind to see they don’t
get out of hand,” he said, the line sounding a little too well rehearsed.

Florentyna
gripped her father’s hand. “Try and come back tomorrow. Eleanor and I always
miss you.”