Ivy Secrets, page 15
Charlie shrugged. “Last year it seemed you were. It was like you couldn’t wait for him to come back to Amherst. If you remember, you wouldn’t even date.”
I wouldn’t date because nobody asked me, Tess wanted to scream. “I guess that thinking about him was better than being with him.”
“Oh,” Charlie said, and started picking at the ribs of her kneesocks. “You’re sure?”
“Jesus, Charlie. What’s the big deal?”
“Well, I didn’t know what to say. But he asked me out.”
The knot in her stomach turned into a knife. “He what?”
“He asked me out. He called after dinner.”
“Oh.” It was all Tess could say.
“I didn’t say yes, because I didn’t know how you felt.”
Tess rubbed her stomach. “Do you like him?”
“I think he’s nice.”
Angry seeds of jealousy rooted. “And he’s rich,” Tess said.
“Well, yes, I suppose.” Charlie smiled. “But you know that better than I do.”
Tess nodded. “Trust me. He’s rich. And I know that’s important to you.” Her last words sizzled like spit on a flat iron.
Charlie ignored the comment and stretched out her legs—those long, lean legs, the kind Tess knew that, but for genetics, she might have had. If she had, she also might have had Peter.
“He asked me to go skiing.”
“I didn’t know you skied.”
“I don’t. But I could learn.”
“It’s not easy,” Tess replied, as if she’d ever tried it.
“He said he’d teach me.”
Her eyes watched Charlie pick at her kneesocks. She wanted to rip them off her and stuff them down her throat.
“So are you sure it’s okay?” Charlie asked.
Tess threw up her hands. “It’s great. I said it’s fine. When are you going?”
“Saturday.”
“Wonderful. Now, will you please let me get back to studying?”
Charlie stood and put her hand on Tess’s shoulder. “Thanks, Tess. I knew you’d understand.”
She left the room and closed the door behind her. Tess looked at the book on her desk, then shoved it on the floor. She put her head down and cried. And cried. And cried.
As if things weren’t bad enough, there were snow flurries on Saturday morning—the perfect backdrop for a skiing date. Tess sat in the chair by the window of her room, looking out, waiting to see Peter arrive. Earlier she had heard Charlie’s knock on her door; she hadn’t answered. The last thing she needed was to appraise Charlie’s appearance. Of course Charlie would look gorgeous. She knew Peter would think so, too. As each snowflake melted against the glass, Tess felt another tear come. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Charlie had everything, that Tess had nothing. She watched out the window and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.
Peter’s black Corvette glided down Green Street and slipped into a parking space. Tess held her breath as she watched him get out. He was dressed in a royal-blue ski jacket. Snowflakes dotted his hair; his cheeks were already pink. Tess folded her arms and watched him cross the frosted lawn toward Morris House. She wondered what had ever happened to Lydia.
He disappeared onto the porch. Tess waited, the ache inside her growing. She couldn’t seem to move; she wondered if she’d sit here all day and wait for them to come back.
There was movement four floors down. Tess looked again—it was Peter. And Charlie. Charlie—her friend—wearing Marina’s white parka and looking like some kind of snow goddess. From here, it looked as though they were laughing. They walked toward Peter’s car; he opened the door for her. She said something close to his face; they both laughed. Tess cried.
In a moment, the black Corvette was gone, leaving only an empty parking space. And then she realized she now had her answer: Tess Richards was not a lesbian. Tess Richards was in love with a man she could not have. She was a loser, but not a lesbian. She wondered if being a lesbian would have been easier. She watched the place where the car had been, watched the pavement slowly turn gray, then white with snow.
Some time later, Marina was at her door.
“Open the door, Tess,” she called. “I need your help.”
Tess remained in her chair by the window.
“I know you are in there, Tess. Open up.” She banged on the door.
Tess slowly rose from her chair. She stopped at the mirror—her eyes were red and swollen. She couldn’t let Marina in.
“Open the damn door, Tess. I can hear you moving around.”
Tess touched the corner of her swollen lid. “Go away,” she said. “I have a headache.”
“Bullshit,” came the voice from behind the door.
Tess looked at the back of her door. She’d never heard Marina be so persistent. She went to the door, unlocked it, and let her in.
“What’s up?” she tried to ask casually.
“You,” Marina said. “I was outside. I saw you sitting in the window. What were you doing? Waiting for Charlie and your boyfriend to come back?” Marina had her hands on her hips. She stared at Tess, her dark eyes flashing.
“He’s not my boyfriend, Marina. I broke up with him.” She turned to walk away. Marina grabbed her arm.
“Look, Tess, I know we always do not get along. But you cannot sit in here forever. Believe me, it does not work.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing since last year. Since Viktor left.”
“Because I am a stupid fool. You are too good for this crap. Now put on some decent clothes and come into town with me. Do something. Just get off your ass. I will even go to Dell’s with you if you want.”
Tess laughed. “You? You’ll go to Dell’s?” Though Marina had been to the bookshop on Mountain Day, it was obvious that Dell was not her favorite person since the Viktor Coe incident last year.
“Sure I’ll go. Maybe she can talk some sense into you.” Marina pushed the thick black hair from her face, and waited for a response.
“Men are such assholes,” Tess said.
“Now you are talking sense. Get dressed. I will meet you downstairs in ten minutes.”
Inside the shop, Marina swept past Dell with merely a nod and escaped to the book racks in the back. Nicholas joined her. Tess resisted shouting at Marina to grow up, to forget about Viktor Coe, and to realize that whatever he and Dell had or had not “done” together was ancient history. Unlike Tess’s life, Marina’s was far from ruined. She was beautiful, she was a princess, and she would always have men kissing her feet. She also did not have to answer to Sally Richards.
Dell was behind the counter, fussing with the coffee-maker. “Is it still snowing?” she asked Tess.
Tess’s eyes wandered to the window where she could barely see the small flakes accumulating on the ground one story up. She wondered how hard it was coming down at Mount Tom, if Charlie and Peter would get snowbound in the lodge, if Charlie would break her leg learning to ski.
“Coffee?” Dell asked.
Tess nodded and sat at the table beside Eugenie, the smiling rag doll perched atop a stack of books. I wish I were a rag doll, she thought. A rag doll safely protected in a permanent state of happiness, whose heart has been molded to know only joy, whose softly stuffed innards can never know pain.
Dell set a mug in front of Tess and sat beside her. “You’re not talking this morning?”
Tess stared into the coffee and tried to speak, but the hot ache of brimming tears dammed up her words.
“Tess?” Dell reached for Tess’s hand, and suddenly, at Dell’s touch, the tears spilled.
“Oh, God, Dell,” Tess cried. “What am I going to do?” She put her face in her hands, trying to stop crying, trying to stop the quivering inside her, trying to stop acting like such a damn fool. It didn’t work. She sobbed and sobbed and then slowly became aware of a soft hand resting on her shoulder.
“The first thing you’re going to do,” came Dell’s quiet voice, “is tell me what happened.”
Tess shook her head. “I can’t. It’s stupid.”
The hand left her shoulder. Tess wiped her face and tried to look at Dell. But she was too embarrassed.
“Well,” Dell said, “whenever I have a problem, I’ve found it really helps to talk to the dolls. Take Eugenie, here. She sits around all day with nothing to do but wait for me to fill up her mug, which I haven’t done in twenty years. She’s a patient little bugger, that Eugenie. Which makes her a perfect listener.”
Tess sniffed a lingering tear, then turned and looked at the doll. “I can’t relate to her. She’s too fucking happy.”
“Give her a chance. What do you have to lose?”
Tess stared at the rag doll.
“Besides. Don’t let that smile fool you. Look at her. Wearing that same dusty dress all these years. Sitting on all those books but never able to take one off the stack and read it. If she did, she’d lose her seat. Then where would she go? The back room? The attic?”
The quivering inside Tess slowly settled down. The ache in her heart grew less heavy. She reached out and picked up Eugenie. “Maybe she needs a change of scenery.”
“No,” Dell said. “I think what she needs is a hug.”
Tess threaded her fingers through the brown yarn curls and looked into the painted, smiling face. Then she brought Eugenie close to her chest and hugged her, first with one arm, then both. She bent her head and whispered, “He doesn’t want me, Eugenie. He wants Charlie, not me.” With her whispers came more tears, smaller this time, less painful. And then she confided in the rag doll. She told her the whole story. That she loved Peter, the boy her mother had “chosen” for her, and that she hadn’t really realized it until today.
“If she could talk,” Dell said quietly, “I think Eugenie might ask if the only reason you want him now is because someone else has him.”
Tess frowned. “I don’t think so. I think I’ve always loved him. But it’s too late. And my parents are going to be so disappointed in me.”
“Perhaps you’re more upset over what your parents will say than over how you really feel about Peter.”
Tess set the rag doll on her lap, facing her. She ran a finger across Eugenie’s bright button eyes, then over the rosy circles airbrushed on her cheeks. “You don’t understand. My parents will be pissed.”
“Parents get over things.”
“But mine have such grand hopes for me.”
“So did mine. I was supposed to be a doctor.”
“A doctor?” She moved her eyes from the doll to Dell.
“Like my father. And my grandfather.”
“What happened?”
Dell took a long drink of coffee and winced at its flavor, or perhaps at her memories. “After medical school, I realized I was doing what everyone wanted but me. It was books that I loved. Not blood and guts.”
“My mother wouldn’t have understood that. Did yours?”
“No. Like your mother, mine had a hard time believing people were different. That not everyone aspires to being what their parents wish for them.”
Tess was surprised. “I thought you and my mother were friends.”
“Friends? Yes, I suppose we were. We lived in the same house, we had Smith in common. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t completely different. Nor does it mean that Sally Richards was right about the way she chose to live her life. Or that I was wrong. Look at you.” She pointed toward the back of the shop. “Look at the princess. You two are friends, aren’t you?”
Tess looked in the direction where Marina and Nicholas had disappeared. For the first time in nearly a year and a half, she realized that they were actually friends. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess we are.”
“Then take it from me. And from my friend Eugenie. Be yourself, Tess. Above all else, be yourself. Then, and only then, will love come.”
The cheerful face of the rag doll smiled up at Tess. She drew her close once again and hugged her. “Oh, Dell, I’m so lucky to have you as my friend.”
Just then odd-looking Willie Benson sprang from behind a book rack. “Charlie is your friend, too.”
Tess jumped.
“Charlie,” he rattled. “Charlie with the boy’s name.”
“Jesus, Dell. Does he live here now?”
Dell shrugged. “Deinstitutionalization. His family put him on a waiting list at a private facility.”
Tess shook her head. Since the state hospital up the road had begun the process of closing, more and more Willie Bensons combed the streets of Northampton.
“Charlie has such pretty hair,” Willie rambled. “I’d like to touch her pretty hair.”
“And I,” Tess wanted to add, “would like to chop it off.” But as she situated Eugenie back on her pile of books, Tess kissed the top of the doll’s head and knew that the ache in her heart had eased for now, and that the need for tears had subsided.
Chapter 9
Being with Tess hadn’t been so bad, not when Marina compared it to what was coming the following weekend, or rather, to whom. She’d received a call from her father that Alexis would arrive in the States on Friday, and that she was “to be civil to her.”
“Your sister is very excited about her wedding,” King Andrei had said. “Help her pick out a nice gown.”
Marina wished her mother had accompanied her sister, and left Marina out of it. But the queen never stopped hoping that Marina and Alexis would become friends; she’d always said that two sisters—especially twins—should be inseparable. What did her mother know? She’d been an only child, as Marina should have been.
By Friday afternoon, Marina had exhausted all possible excuses not to be there when Alexis charged in.
So, charge in she did.
Marina and Tess were walking back to Morris House when they spotted the blond in the long fur coat marching up the stairs of the house, followed by three others: Sergi, her bodyguard; Vera, her personal maid; and another young woman Marina didn’t recognize but who was apparently another attendant.
Marina held out her arm for Tess to stop. Tess, looking at the new arrivals, said, “Don’t tell me.”
“There she is,” Marina said, “Miss Novokia.”
“She looks nothing like you.”
“God give me strength.” They laughed, then Marina took a deep breath. “I am not ready for this.”
“Are you kidding? You’re going to New York City for the weekend. You’ll have a great time.”
Marina looked at Tess. “No, Tess. If you were going into the city with your sister, you would have a great time. Believe me, there is a huge difference.”
Tess laughed and started walking again. “I don’t have a sister,” she said. “Now come on. I can’t wait to meet her.”
Nicholas walked up beside them. “I will be with you, Princess,” he said with a wink. “I will protect you.”
Marina smiled. Nicholas was such a nice man. He, in truth, was a better bodyguard, a better friend, than Viktor had ever been. She wondered if Nicholas knew what had really happened between her and Viktor: if he did, he’d never said. “Okay, Furman,” she said. “Lead the way.”
“You actually live here?” Alexis said as she stood, hands on her slim hips, in the doorway of the suite.
“Not exactly,” Marina answered. “I actually live in only one room. That side belongs to my roommate.” She moved past Alexis and went into her side of the suite.
“Dear God,” Alexis muttered, following Marina. “How do you stand it? It is so … insignificant.”
Marina snorted. “Well, for one thing, it is quieter here than at the palace.” If Alexis got her meaning, she didn’t react.
“Where is one supposed to sit?”
Marina looked around. Books were piled on her bed; clothes were heaped over the back of the desk chair, the only chair in the room. “One is supposed to sit on one’s ass,” she said.
Alexis sighed. “I can see I should have flown into New York instead of Boston,” she said. “I should have had you meet me there.” She moved back toward the doorway, disgust chiseled on her face. “I will wait downstairs.”
As Alexis reached for the outer door, it flew open, knocking her backward into the closet. She fell to the floor. Her fur coat caught on the door handle, her miniskirt pushed up to her waist, and a decided tear of panty hose ripped through the air. Charlie jumped back. Marina tried to hold back her laughter.
“Alexis,” Marina said, “I’d like you to meet my roommate. Charlie, this is my sister.”
“Hello,” Charlie said, gazing in bewilderment at the woman on the floor. She stooped to help Alexis up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know …”
Alexis waved off the helping hand and stood up by herself. She smoothed her hair and raised her chin. “This is a two-thousand-dollar dress,” she said haughtily. “You might have ruined it.”
Charlie was speechless.
“Since when did you give a damn about wasting a few dollars?” Marina asked.
Alexis turned around abruptly. “I will see you downstairs,” she said to Marina. “I have seen enough of college life.”
Marina saluted her. Alexis pushed past Charlie and left the suite.
“Thank you, Charlie,” Marina said. “You will never know how wonderful you are.”
“I’m sorry, Marina …”
She raised her hand. “No, I mean it. It’s good for Alexis to fall on her ass now and then. She is such a bitch.”
Charlie hesitated, then began laughing, too. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she?”
“I’d better stuff a few things in a suitcase and get out of here,” Marina said. “Wish me luck. It is going to be a positively horrible weekend.”
They stayed at the Plaza, in separate suites. Alexis insisted on dining downstairs at Trader Vic’s—Marina would have preferred to be served in her room. But in the interest of peacekeeping and of being “civil” to her sister, she acquiesced.
They were seated at a table for two: Nicholas and Sergi sat at a table behind them. Marina plucked a paper umbrella and a maraschino cherry from her frothy, golden drink.
“I hope you do not resent that I will be the first to marry,” Alexis said as she held her left hand up to the kerosene-like torch and examined the ostentatious diamond on her finger. “After all, you are the older sister.”
