Ivy Secrets, page 24
Slowly, the princess lifted her face. There were no tears; only a look of painful sorrow. “Are you sad that you left Peter?”
Charlie felt a lump in her throat. His name alone brought his face into her mind. His soft, gentle face. “Yes,” she answered quietly, “I am sorry I left him. But there was no choice.”
Marina looked out across the lawn. “You love him.”
Charlie swallowed. “Yes.”
“How wonderful that must be. To love someone. To have someone love you in return.”
Charlie thought of all the dates Marina had had during their first year at school—the plethora of boys who scrambled for the chance to go out with the princess. But that had been before Viktor left. Since then, there had been no one. She wondered if Marina was still in love with Viktor. “Marina, surely there will be someone for you to love.”
“Love? I am afraid that is something a princess cannot count on.”
“I think you’re being unfair.”
“No, Charlie. I am being realistic. I can never love a man because I can never be certain any man will love me for myself, for Marina the woman, not Marina the princess.”
Charlie thought for a moment. She thought of Peter, and of her doubts if she would have loved him had he been poor. She remembered her decision that she would have loved him anyway, for better or worse, for rich or for poor. “Maybe none of us can ever be certain why we love someone.”
Marina stared into Charlie’s eyes. “One man loved me.”
Charlie nodded. “Viktor.”
Marina shook her head. “No. Viktor did not love me. I offered myself to him. But Viktor only used me.”
“Who, then? Marina, have you been holding out on me?”
“Yes. But this man was too good to become idle gossip.”
“He loved you.”
“Yes.”
“And you love him?”
Marina stretched her neck and looked up into the clear blue sky. “I do not know. I know I love the way he loved me. The way he made me feel so normal, so alive.”
“Will you see him again?”
“No. It was several months ago.”
“You haven’t seen him since?”
“We both knew it could not work.”
Charlie nodded. She wished that Peter had seen that they could not work; it would have made these past weeks so much easier for them both. “You have the memories though. You have the memories, even though it’s over.” She spoke as much for herself as for her friend.
“I am afraid I have more than that,” Marina said.
Charlie turned to her. “More than that? What do you mean?”
“I mean, I have more than memories.” She looked back up into the sky. “I am going to have a baby, Charlie. I am going to have his baby.”
Charlie thought she must have heard her wrong. “What?”
Marina closed her eyes. “I am four months pregnant, Charlie.”
Charlie gasped. “My God, Marina, you’ve got to be kidding.”
The look on Marina’s face told her she was not.
“What are you going to do?”
The distant look that Charlie had noticed these past weeks once again washed over the face of the princess. “I have no idea.”
A winter cloud moved across the early spring sun, changing the air to gray, chilling the air with fear. Charlie was suddenly aware that the concrete bench had become damp, uncomfortable.
“Marina?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
Marina nodded.
“Maybe we could talk to Tess,” Charlie said. “Maybe Tess will know what to do.”
“She will not know any more than I know. Or than you know.”
“But you can’t just do nothing, Marina. Maybe Tess might know someone …”
“For an abortion? How would Tess know?” Marina looked sharply at Charlie. “I do not want Dell Brooks to know about this.”
“Dell has medical training, Marina. She saved Tess’s life.”
“Bullshit. We saved Tess’s life, Charlie. You and me. Not that communist bitch.”
Charlie sighed. “You’ve never forgiven her for Viktor, have you? Even though you never knew for sure.” As soon as the words were out, Charlie regretted them. She had no business mocking Marina—the girl who had saved her family, the girl to whom Charlie owed so much. She touched Marina’s arm. “God, Marina, I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t want to go to Dell. That was stupid of me.”
Marina stared straight ahead.
“I just thought that between us …”
“We might come up with a solution?” Marina finished Charlie’s thought.
“Yes.”
Marina said nothing.
“Marina,” Charlie continued. “You’re right about something. We did save Tess’s life. You and me. And, in a sense, you saved mine, too. Mine and my family’s.”
“My problem cannot be solved with money, Charlie.”
“No. But maybe it can be solved with friends. With people who love you.” She didn’t know what she and Tess could possibly do, but Charlie knew they would have to try. Marina deserved that much; they owed it to her.
“You don’t understand,” Marina said. “The more people who know the worse it will be. Tess is not to be told.”
Behind them, someone coughed. Charlie turned. Her heart sank. “Exactly what is it I’m not to be told?” Tess asked.
Tess couldn’t believe Marina was pregnant. Of the three of them, the princess was the last she’d have expected to end up like this. But the small mound below the belt of Marina’s jeans suggested the princess was telling the truth.
“So who’s the father?” Tess asked as she moved around the curved bench and sat beside Marina.
Marina said nothing.
“It’s none of our business,” Charlie said.
Tess nodded. “It’s not Nicholas, is it?”
Marina looked at her with venom in her eyes. “Nicholas is older than my father.”
Tess shrugged. “Well, you never know.”
“It is not Nicholas.”
Marina was adamant about not revealing the name of her baby’s father. Tess couldn’t imagine who it could be—any one of the guys she dated probably. Any one of many, though Tess hadn’t noticed anyone sniffing around the princess lately. She tried not to smile. Obviously, there had been someone. So much for royal secrets. “Do you want to have an abortion?”
Marina stood and put her hands in her pockets. “I have been thinking about it.”
“You’d better think fast,” Tess said. “I’m not sure anyone would even do it at four months.”
“What makes you such an expert?”
Tess took a deep breath. “Dell told me.”
“Dell told you?” Charlie asked. “What does Dell know about abortions?”
Tess sucked in her cheeks, wishing she’d never brought up the subject. “Look,” she said, “a lot of college girls get pregnant. They have to go to someone.”
Marina let out a short laugh. “Does Dell Brooks do abortions? Where? In the back room of the bookshop? Do the girls get to read while the babies are being killed?”
“Wait a minute,” Charlie said. “Abortion is legal. Roe versus Wade, remember?”
“That only covers the first three months,” Tess said. “And for your information, Dell doesn’t perform abortions. But she knows a doctor who does.” She let out a sigh, then added, “He’s the one who did mine.”
Rain began to sprinkle from the gray sky.
“You had an abortion?” Charlie asked.
No tears came to Tess’s eyes. She stared straight ahead, then turned to watch a group of underclassmen scamper down the steps at Lawrence House. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you surprised that a man would make love to me? I told you about Giorgini. Did you think that was a girl? Did you think I was some kind of lesbian?”
“No, Tess …” Charlie began.
Marina took her seat on the bench again.
“The irony is,” Tess continued, “I had the abortion because my mother would’ve shit.” She sighed again. “As it turned out, my mother would have been dead before the baby was even born. She wouldn’t even have known.” She held out her hand. Cool raindrops splattered onto her palm.
Marina pulled back her hair.
Charlie said, “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Tess echoed. “Wow,” then closed her hand and pushed her fist against her side.
“Is that why you tried to kill yourself?” Marina asked.
Tess shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it was that. And other stuff.”
“Well, I am not going to kill myself,” Marina said. “I do not know what I am going to do, but I am not going to kill myself.”
Tess’s jaw twitched. “Look, Marina, I’m only trying to help. You’re too far along for a legal abortion. But maybe I can convince Dell to do one. She must know how. Why the hell did you wait so long to do anything about it?”
Marina looked up at the sky, then back to Tess. “You do not understand. This is not an ordinary baby. This is an heir to the throne.”
Big fucking deal, Tess wanted to scream. She wanted to shout that just because Marina was a fucking princess didn’t give her the right to have a baby when Tess hadn’t been able to. It isn’t fair! her racing thoughts cried. It just isn’t fair! She stepped forward, ignored Charlie’s warning look, and moved close to the princess. “What will your fellow Novokians think of your bastard heir?”
Charlie groaned. “Tess. Please …”
Marina shook her head. “It’s all right, Charlie. Tess is right. If I don’t have an abortion, I will have to give my baby up for adoption.”
“Everyone would still find out,” Tess said.
“Maybe not.”
Tess laughed. “Look around, Princess. You’re followed by that man practically twenty-four hours a day. He probably reports back to your father every night.”
“Nicholas might keep my secret.”
“Once you’ve told one person something,” Tess said, “it’s no longer a secret. Besides, you’re supposed to go home in May. When’s the baby due?”
“August.”
“Maybe you could stay here,” Charlie said. “Maybe you could say you failed a class and have to make it up in summer school or something.”
Tess held up her hand. “First, we’ll see if Dell will do an abortion. We might not have to worry about any of this.”
“We?” Marina asked.
“Yeah,” Tess said, “we. You guys may not realize it, but whether we like it or not, you’re the closest thing to family that I have.”
Dell wouldn’t perform the abortion. And though it seemed pretty weird to Tess, Marina didn’t seem disappointed. She said it had something to do with the “heir to the throne” thing, which didn’t make sense, because the princess was adamant about no one finding out, that she would give the baby up for adoption and relinquish her ties. None of it made any sense, Tess thought now as she walked along Main toward South Street. If Marina’s life was so bad, you’d think the last thing she’d do would be to get pregnant and pass along the stigma to the next generation.
Tess turned onto South Street and tried to quiet the excitement growing inside her. Stigma or not, Marina’s decision could possibly be the answer to Tess’s problems. It was too soon to tell anyone, too soon to let on, but Tess had a plan. A plan that would help Marina and, most of all, help herself.
She looked up at the red-and-white shingle that hung in front of a yellow colonial house. “Smith Real Estate,” the sign read. Tess smiled and headed up the walk.
“I must have a separate building for a studio,” Tess said to the middle-aged woman as they leafed through pages of multiple listings. “And it must be in town.”
“Are you an artist?” the woman asked.
A gentle warmth flowed into her … her special dot of light aglow once more. “I am a glassblower,” she said with sudden conviction. It was all part of her plan: she would buy a piece of property in Northampton, complete with a studio, in which she would craft what would become world-renowned works of glass art, and a comfortable house—small enough to be cozy, yet big enough to raise a child. Marina’s child. Tess would have her own family—she wouldn’t need parents or Peter Hobart or Giorgini or anyone. She would have her glass and have a child and have a reason to care about the future. Marina’s child would become the child she’d killed, the family she’d lost. And she’d be a wonderful mother. She’d love the child and provide for the child and never, ever, try to turn the child into becoming something it wasn’t. She would never do to a child all those things her own mother had done to her.
“Here’s a lovely place on Round Hill,” the agent said. “There’s a small barn in the back that could be converted.”
Tess studied the picture. It was perfect. Round Hill Road was just up the street from Smith, not far from Dell’s. “I want to see it today.”
“We can go now if you’d like. I have the keys.”
Tess stood quickly and realized her knees were weak. She leaned against the chintz-papered wall and caught her breath.
“There could be one problem, though,” the agent said. “Zoning.”
Zoning?
“I don’t know what kind of equipment you use for glassblowing, but you might need a variance to set up your studio here. Of course, we have other nice properties outside the city limits …”
“How do you get a variance?” Tess asked.
“The city must approve it. Do you know anyone who works for the city?”
Tess smiled. She thought of Dell, and Dell’s nephew, the redheaded conservative cop who had just made sergeant. “I don’t think a variance will be a problem,” she said with confidence.
Marina waited until the end of April to tell Nicholas. Despite the facts that she had begun borrowing large shirts from Tess and now wore stretchy knit pants instead of zip-front jeans, she knew that soon her “secret” wouldn’t be a secret to the man who followed her around every minute of every day. And though Tess and Charlie were constantly on her case, Marina was careful not to overeat. If she watched her diet, there was a chance no one at Smith would notice she would be six months pregnant at graduation.
All in all, Marina thought as she went downstairs to meet Nicholas for breakfast, being pregnant wasn’t so bad. She’d had little morning sickness, and that was so long ago she’d nearly forgotten what it felt like. And recently, she’d begun to feel the baby move inside her. For some strange reason, that sensation made her feel as though she actually had power over her own life, that by giving life, she was somehow a real person, a real woman, not just a fairy princess, a titled possession of the people.
The only time Marina felt sad was when she spotted Edward James on campus. He always smiled a warm, special smile, then continued on his way. She wondered if his heart fluttered at those chance meetings the way hers did; she wondered if he would ever know how grateful she was to him for showing her love. Even though it had been at the cost of what faced her now.
She opened the door to Morris House as Nicholas mounted the stairs.
“Good morning, Princess,” the trusted friend said.
A small catch came into her throat. Please, God, Marina begged, don’t let him give me a hard time.
“Good morning,” she answered. “I feel like a walk before breakfast.”
Nicholas nodded and fell in behind her as Marina walked down the stairs. When she reached the sidewalk, Marina stopped. “I want you to walk beside me, Nicholas,” she said, as she had planned. “I want to talk with you.”
He moved beside her and they began walking toward Paradise Pond. They passed by the Berenson dance studio in silence, then Sage Hall. “I want to go down to the red bridge,” Marina said. Nicholas didn’t protest as they went down the hill. He wouldn’t protest, couldn’t protest. Her wish, after all, was supposed to be his command.
At the small footbridge, Marina stopped. She leaned against the red iron railing and looked into the glistening spring water of Mill River as it splayed over rocks and moved forward, always forward, never turning back. No turning back, as with her pregnancy, as with this baby inside her, as with what she now had to tell Nicholas.
“Nicholas,” she said slowly as she continued to watch the water. “You have been my father’s friend for as long as I can remember.”
“Yes,” he answered.
“He trusts you with everything.” She smiled. “He even trusts you with my life.”
The water trickled under the bridge.
“What is it, Princess? What is on your mind?”
Marina took a last look at the water and took a deep breath. “I need your help, Nicholas.”
“Of course. I will help you with anything, you know that.”
“Even if it means going against the king?”
Nicholas frowned. His thick, now white eyebrows moved together. “Against your father? Perhaps you had better be more specific.”
She turned back to the water, looking for strength. This was more difficult than she’d expected. “I want to stay in Northampton for the summer,” she said. “I want my father to think I have to attend summer school.”
“I don’t understand. Are you telling me you are planing to lie to the king?”
“Yes.” She wanted to say that it was only a small lie, a white lie, one that would hurt no one. But Marina knew that any lie—small or otherwise—would not be looked upon favorably by her bodyguard.
“Why do you want to lie? If you ask the king to allow you to stay here through the summer, he might agree.”
“And he might not. I cannot take that chance. I need to lie.”
Nicholas walked to the railing and leaned against it beside Marina. “It is not my place to ask such things, but if you are planning to lie, you are asking me to also lie.”
Marina walked a few feet down the bridge. Suddenly everything seemed clouded, suddenly she was ashamed. A fat robin landed on a wood slat of the bridge. He hopped a few inches, then flew off, secure with his freedom, unbridled in his flight. Marina would never have such freedom. Once she returned to Novokia, her life, and her body, would no longer be hers. But for now, she could live free; and she could give this baby inside her the rights she had never known, or would never possess.
