Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (114 page)

“Have I?”

“You miss her, don’t you?”

“Yes, Pompey, I miss her.”

“Me too.”

She watched him, as she climbed the stairs, coming and going in his duties. A lifetime spent in service.
They also serve who only stand and wait
, she thought, and in her room brushed her hair, looked about, knowing that everything in this house belonged to her. A charmed life …

Who could have dreamed that a few letters, with foreign stamps, would make the difference between what you wanted but couldn’t have, and what you wanted and
could
have?

The telephone, ringing, sent her to the instrument.

“It’s me, Norma.”

“Oh, hello, darling. I missed you tonight.”

“I missed you too.”

“John said you were working overtime.”

“Did he?” She laughed, a silvery sound. “Not at all. I’m home and alone. He and I had a little difference of opinion. I don’t go along with some of his ideas and vice versa.”

“Oh, well …”

“Look, pet, I’m feeling a bit low. Can I ask this of you? Come to see me? I’d love to have you here for a drink. Is it wanting too much?”

“What happened between you and John, Norma?”

“Sometimes I hate him. Forget I said that. Just … can you pop over for a drink? It’s not very late.”

Her good luck … and Norma’s malaise. “Of course,” she said. “Of course, Norma. I’ll leave right now.”

“I don’t like to ask for favors, but I’m really rather blue.”

“I’ll get into my car straightaway.”

“I knew I could depend on you,” Norma said. “I knew it. I just knew it.”

• • •

Norma’s flat was one flight up a steep staircase. The apartment was very attractive, cheerful and lamp-lit. Norma met her at the door. “Thanks for answering my Mayday call,” she said. “I’ve built a pitcher of martinis.”

“
That
sounds good. Norma, this place is lovely.”

“It doesn’t cost very much, and of course I added my own touches.”

She pointed out the built-in cabinets and bookcases. “I designed them,” she said. “And Ben Blough did the work. I do think they came out rather well.”

“Why, it’s fantastic; you’re a wizard, Norma.”

“I have taste, if that’s what you mean. Not much else, but I do have taste.”

“And a lot more besides. Don’t be silly.”

“Well, sit down.”

She filled glasses. “As good as John’s?” she asked.

“The martinis? Just as good, perhaps better.”

“So you see, he isn’t the be-all and end-all.”

Norma sat down. “You see, Margo, John and I don’t always see eye to eye. And so, this afternoon, we had a little argument. He left the office, not saying, ‘Dinner as usual, my sweet,’ and so I came home and fixed some red snapper for myself, but suddenly I couldn’t bear to be alone any longer. Forgive me, Margo, but thanks, many thanks for coming to see me.”

“Why, I’m so happy to see where you live.”

“Then you like it?”

“It’s really charming.”

“Nothing much compared to Brand House.”

“But it’s so … comfy Norma, and in the best of taste. I’m sure you’re very happy here.”

“I’ve known worse,” Norma said. “Do you want to play cards?”

“No, let’s just talk.”

“Yes, I’d prefer that too. Another drink?”

“They’re stronger than Pompey’s … well, maybe another
half
one.”

But Norma filled her glass to the brim. The liquor
did
go to her head, Margo thought, trying to clear it, and although there was a cross current of breezes in Norma’s flat, she felt rather uncomfortably warm. “Yes,” Norma said. “It’s a very hot night, Margo. How about going for a swim?”

“At this hour? And anyway, I don’t have a suit.”

“I have dozens of them. A new one too; I’ve never worn it.”

“But it’s really getting quite late, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to get up in the morning,” Norma said. “I do, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Well — ”

“I just have a craving to drive out to the lake and take a dip. Just the two of us against the world. By that I mean men, of course. I can’t tell you how much they upset me at times. You too, I’m sure. We’re women in a man’s world. But if you’re tired — ”

“No, it isn’t that. No, and I don’t mind at all. It would be rather fun, I guess.”

“Well, you
are
a darling. Come on in the bedroom, there’s a suit, as I said, I’ve never worn, it still has the tags on it. I bought it in Ottawa, where I went for my vacation this year. It’ll fit; we’re the same size.”

She dragged it out of a closet. It was very pretty, sea-green, brief and low in the back. Margo pulled up the straps, and walked into the living room. “How do I look?”

“Like a mermaid. Well, that is a stunning suit. What did John say about your coming here tonight?”

“John? I didn’t see him. He went off, in his car, to the Tap Room of the hotel.”

“And Pompey?”

“Why, in bed before I left. He has a long day’s work; he goes to bed with the chickens.”

“Poor soul. All right, shall we go, then? It won’t take me a minute to change into a bathing suit. Be out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Finish your drink while waiting.”

But the drink was too strong. On an impulse, Margo upturned it into a plant on a window sill. She had had quite enough, and longed for the fresh air to clear her head. Thankfully, Norma didn’t take too long. She came out in a crimson-red tank suit, showing off her lovely figure to full advantage. “It may be cool,” she said. “I see you brought a sweater, and I’m taking along this mohair shawl.”

“How lovely, it looks like gossamer,” Margo said, and Norma told her it had been bought on her vacation in Canada.

“We’ll go in your car,” Norma said, “then you can drop me off afterwards, and I promise you it won’t be late. I have to get my beauty sleep. But it’s a divine night, isn’t it?”

It was. Warm and mellow, and the cicadas sang, a bullfrog in some lily pond harrumphed hoarsely. Cities seemed very far away, the night was a country night, the moon was a country moon.
I
do feel I belong here
, Margo thought, as they climbed into her car, and now she had come into a fortune, would probably live here. She was almost certain that her aunt had known about the stamps, that she had meant them as insurance … and again the uneasy feeling. Why hadn’t she lived to tell about them? That strong voice …
“I
shall expect you tomorrow …”

Norma’s shawl billowed out. Pale aqua, soft and scented, wrapped around the slender shoulders. “Oh, sorry,” Norma said, and gathered it around her again. For a moment there was a feeling of having seen that shawl before, soft and enveloping and lightly scented …

As if she had worn it herself, or had it wrapped around her. “What is it?” Norma asked, her great, jewel eyes looking sideways.

“Nothing. Remember when we used to say, ‘Last one to the raft’s a rotten egg?’”

“I remember everything,” Norma said. “That’s the way I am. It sticks with me. Yes, I remember, Margo. Things even you may have forgotten.”

“I have a pretty good recall,” Margo commented, and drove ahead, under the orange-colored moon, and the smells of the summer night in her nostrils. She thought, I
love country roads at night, just the headlamps of the car and that great, dark distance ahead.
There was a fragrance to a country night that was more potent than the most expensive perfume. And almost contiguous to her thoughts, Norma asked abruptly, “What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

“I’m not sure. I just dabbed something on before dinner.”

“It’s heady. Forty dollars an ounce, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I don’t know.”

“It smells the way it should if you can afford to pay forty dollars an ounce for it.”

It was a little distasteful, Margo thought, the emphasis on money. And for the first time she thought,
This girl might have learned many things, but underneath there’s a certain vulgarity.

And then she scolded herself. Norma had pulled herself up by her bootstraps. No one to help or guide her. And she had, in the main, done very well. Her voice was nicely modulated, her skin clear, eyes bright, and her manner almost without fault.

Don’t judge
, she told herself, and saw the sign up ahead.

Lake Aladdin.

Always, she had loved the name for the lake. Not one of those American Indian names that abounded in these parts … Lake Minnewaska, Lake Amantaska …

Her
lake had a more romantic sound.

“How come they named it that?” she asked, as she parked the car.

“Named it what?”

“I mean the lake. Lake Aladdin.”

Norma sat quietly.

“It’s such a pretty, unexpected name. I always wondered about it.”

“I didn’t,” Norma said, and opened the door on her side. “Shall we go?”

“Yes, let’s.”

Both doors banged shut. They stood on the brow of the woody hill that led down to the water. Margo looked up. “Hot day tomorrow,” she said. “Moon’s red as fire.”

“Like a watermelon.”

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t said that. Suddenly I yearn for a slice of watermelon.”

“Remember when we used to bury our faces in it?”

“Yes, and plant the seeds in the earth. We were always so sure we’d have our own watermelon garden.”

“But nothing ever happened,” Norma said. “That’s the way of things.”

The shawl flew in Margo’s face again. This time it nettled her, displeased her. She pushed it back, away from her. There was that faint, strangely familiar scent again. Like musk, like —

“Well, let’s make our way down and wet our feet,” Norma said, and threw the shawl off, folding it in her hands. They clambered down the woodsy trail and then stood at the edge of the water. Margo dropped her sweater and looked at Norma, who stood, straight as an arrow, her lovely body perfect in every detail, an Aphrodite. “All right, let’s take the plunge,” she said, and walked into the water.

Margo followed, in a kind of transport. The water was cold, almost as cold as ice, and bracing, and wonderful. She threw back her head. “And to think I won’t ever go away,” she said. “Imagine it, I won’t ever go away.”

“You’re going to stay, then?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And live in that house?”

“Why yes, of course. I’m able to now.”

A night bird, perhaps an owl, or even, God forbid, a bat, flew across their faces. “Uhg,” Margo cried, and splashed shoulder deep into the water. “What was that?”

“I think a gull,” Norma said. “They come here because people fish. I’ve heard they’ve wounded several persons. They go for the eyes.”

“My God …”

“They’re not as nice as they look, all silver and pretty. Lots of things aren’t as nice as they look.” She put an arm around Margo’s shoulder. “So you’re going to stay, after all.”

“Apparently.” She heard her own deep-throated laugh, a laugh of pure joy and wonderment, and then stood tense. There was a quick glimpse, and an expression in the eyes, and the quiet, intent posture. Yes. And something she had tried to pin down a few nights ago came to her.

Something from the long ago.

Two small girls and two boys five or six years older:

Doug: “Margo’s the fairest of them all. Mirror mirror on the wall, Margo’s the fairest of them all.”

And John: “That’s not very nice, Doug.”

“Oh, can it, you dog.”

“Don’t call me a dog.”

“Margo’s the fairest of them all,” Doug chanted again. “Mirror, mirror on the wall …”

John: “It isn’t polite; Norma’s pretty too”

“Not at all, she’s just fair to middling.”

“That’s a kind of rotten thing to say.”

A fist fight.

Margo: “Let’s leave them. Come on, Norma, they’re not being … they’re not being …”

“Not being nice? They’re just saying the truth. You are prettier than I am. I’m nothing, nothing.”

The dark-haired girl, racked with sobs, plunging into the water. Margo following. “Please … don’t listen to them, Norma …”

“
It’s because of you … why don’t you go
away!”

“Norma, don’t do that … don’t … don’t …” Ducking, wheeling, she backed away. “Norma, you don’t know what you’re doing …”

But the branch had come down over her head, and the waters closed around her, gushing into her eyes and nose and throat. And later, in bed, the realization … Norma had tried to hurt her. Aunt Vicky had fed her soup and toast fingers. “Forget it,” she said, commandingly. “Never think of it again.”

And she hadn’t.

But it had been stored in her brain cells, and was alive again tonight. There was that beautiful, implacable face, the strange, intent, determined look on the lovely face of Norma Calvet.

She suddenly knew. History was repeating itself. On this humid night in mid-summer, history was repeating itself. Once again Norma Calvet wanted her, Margo, to disappear, to go out of her life, out of the lives of all of them. And her uplifted arm, holding a heavy pine branch, underwrote her deadly intention.

But …

They were no longer children. Women, both of them, and as the past came surging back, the adrenalin flooded through Margo’s veins.
Now I know
, she told herself,
now I know.
And she threw herself down in the water, plunging beneath the surface. Behind her, the branch was lowered with a harsh swish, whistling in the dark. It hit the water, making a great splash.

It was a silent battle, eerie and ghostly. When she had to surface, she saw that Norma was only yards away from her. The grim, determined face was not beautiful now, but hard and stern and almost ugly. There was a triumphant gasp and then the branch smashed down again, sending spray into Margo’s eyes as it hit the water.

And again Margo plunged, swooping down once more. It was her heart, thudding wildly, that frightened her. She hadn’t been able to take a deep enough breath … this time she had to surface before she had swum very far. She came up, drew air into her lungs, and saw, with horror, that Norma was only a foot or so away.

It was no longer a silent struggle. Norma, in her triumph, raised the branch, her arm arcing, power behind those young muscles. “Come and take your medicine,” she cried, her voice rising hysterically. “You come here and change all our lives … I hate you, I’ve always hated you …”