Everlasting (29 page)

Chapter 9

New York, 1970

B
y the end of January Catherine was exhausted. With Piet in Amsterdam, everyone suffered. Sandra’s husband liked to pick her up at six o’clock sharp, when he’d finished his work at the accounting firm. With Catherine’s crowded schedule, she was often late, and Sandra was rattled, knowing that while she explained necessary information to Catherine, her husband was driving around the noisy streets, tired and impatient. Jason was unhappy, too, for Catherine usually helped with the flower arrangements, bantering and teasing and complimenting him. He felt neglected. He sighed a lot. His shoulders drooped.

“Only a few more days, troops,” Catherine told them. “Then Piet will be home and we’ll be back on schedule.”

In late January Catherine had returned from a client’s apartment and was in her office, dictating her notes from the meeting into a recorder. She liked to get her thoughts down while the imprint of the room, the preferences of her client, and her instinctive reactions were fresh in her mind. Jason would listen to the tapes, then discuss his own ideas with her before they settled on a definite theme.

Now her intercom buzzed. “Boss baby,” Jason said, “your daddy’s here to see you. He’s on his way up.”

Great, Catherine thought, what does he want now? But when he entered, he looked so drawn and troubled that she felt ashamed of herself.

“Sit down, Dad. It’s nice to see you. Would you like a cup of coffee?” She took his overcoat and hung it in the closet.

“That would be very nice, thank you.”

She poured fresh coffee into the Limoges cups she’d found in an East Hampton antiques shop. He was so handsome, such a gentleman; with his hair gone silver, he looked like a worried diplomat, and she felt a wave of affection for him.

“Now. What’s up?”

“Your brother’s come home. He’s in rather bad shape. Actually, I had to go get him. Over in the western part of the state. In a hospital. The detox section.”

“Oh, Daddy!”

“It’s a mystery.” Drew Eliot smiled his charming smile. “Your mother and I have always said we have a tolerance for alcohol, and alcohol is tolerant of us. We drink too much, I’ll admit that, but it’s never affected our lives, not the way this drug business has Shelly’s.”

“What kinds of drugs was he using?”

“What wasn’t he? Everything. Even heroin. When he was admitted to the hospital, he had no identification on him, and he was so incoherent they couldn’t even find out his name. He was there for three weeks. Then he could tell them who he was, and how to reach us. Now he’s apparently ‘detoxified.’ But Catherine, he looks terrible. It breaks my heart.”

“He’ll recover. He’s young, Dad.” But Catherine felt a rush of concern for her brother.

“I don’t know. It’s not just his looks, it’s his state of mind. He just sits. Sometimes … sometimes he cries.” Drew steadied himself with a long sip of coffee. Then he looked at Catherine. “I wish you’d come talk to him.”

“Well, of course I’ll come see him, but what can I say that will help him? I’d do anything for him—you know that—but—”

“He’s always admired you.”

“Come on, Dad, he’s always thought I was a drone.”

“I don’t think it’s asking so much for you just to come see him. Talk to him. Let him know you care.”

“All right, Dad. I will. Not for a few days—I’m swamped with work. But as soon as I can.”

“Good girl. Thank you, Catherine.” Drew sighed and rose. “Do you know, it’s a terrible thing, but I hate going into my own home. He’s just sitting there. Like some wax statue. Probably a memorial to the sort of father I’ve been.”

“Oh, Daddy, don’t be so hard on yourself. Look, Ann and I are doing fine.”

“But Shelly’s my son.”

“Well, Shelly will come out of this. I’m sure he will.”

As Catherine helped her father shrug back into his expensive wool overcoat, she felt his thin shoulders beneath her hands. He looked brittle, and she imagined his bones were transparent shells, sapped of healthy minerals by years of drinking and neglect. Her father had not come out of the life his drinking had led him into, but he had survived it because of the money his father had left him. Shelly would not have that kind of inheritance. Or that stamina, she suspected. She smiled encouragingly at her father and kissed his cheek, but when he had gone she sat at her desk, musing on families and family traits, all the blessings and blights that bodies passed on through generations.

* * *

F
riday night, just before closing, the phone rang at Blooms.

“Catherine? Good. You’re still there. It’s Piet. I’m back. I want to see you. Can you wait for me there?”

Lust warmed Catherine’s body at the sound of Piet’s dark voice. “Piet. You’re home! I’m so glad. I’ve missed you. Listen, don’t come here. Meet me at the apartment. I’ll make you dinner.”

“No. I’d rather meet you at Blooms. There are some things I need to pick up.”

“Well, all right. God knows I’ve got plenty to do here while I wait.”

“See you soon.”

Catherine hurried to the mirror. She was wearing a red wool suit with black trim and her enormous diamond earrings. The red made her lips and cheeks glow and made her hair look jet black against her skin. Pleased, she hurried down to be sure everyone had left for the day and the shop was locked up. Piet had his own key. They had never before made love in Blooms, but there was a sofa in her office.

Back in her office, she forced herself to concentrate on her accounts until she heard the back door open and then the sound of Piet’s footsteps on the stairs. Then he was there, in the doorway. He wore his sleek black overcoat around his shoulders, European style, and he looked at once both tired and excited. She hurried across the room to kiss him.

She was astonished at the coolness of his response.

“Catherine. We have to talk.”

“Well. That certainly sounds ominous.” She spoke lightly, knowing from experience that the harder she pushed with Piet, the more closed he became. He really was like a clam. If she pried, he clamped himself shut. She had to be still, sly, cunning, had to pretend to look in the other direction, and then sometimes he would relax his vigilance.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked, moving away from him. He smiled, and she poured them each a Scotch. He sat on the sofa, and Catherine on her chair behind the desk. She kicked off her heels and put her stockinged feet on her desktop. “So. Talk.”

“Catherine, I have to leave Blooms.”

“
What?
” She felt the panic rising in her voice.

“Wait. Please. I’m leaving the States for a while. I have to live in Amsterdam for a few months, perhaps even a year, and after that, I’ll have to live there for at least six months every year.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“I can’t tell you. I can tell you that I have an idea that I think will make me, and you, rich, but I don’t have everything worked out yet.”

“You have an idea that includes me? Then, by God, why can’t you share it with me? You
have
to!”

“Let’s just say I’m paranoid. I don’t want anyone else getting to this first. I’ve been working on it like a dog, and I’m very close to implementing it. I’ve got to go back to Amsterdam. When things are ready, I’ll contact you.”

“Piet, that’s not fair. I have no idea what you’re talking about!” There were times when she thought it was the fact that English was Piet’s second, or third, or fourth language that made him seem so distant. But right now, it was far more than language that separated them.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do.”

“Piet. Tell me the truth. Is another woman involved in all this?”

“Catherine, I’ve told you—please believe me. It’s nothing like that.”

His words were kind, but Catherine caught the tang of condescension in his voice.

“Well, there’ll be another man in my life, you can count on that, if you go away and leave me like this!” Catherine wrenched her legs off the desk and slipped back into her shoes, glad he couldn’t see her face. She was close to tears.

“Yes. I know that’s a risk I run. You are a beautiful woman.”

He sounded as if he meant it. When she looked at him, she couldn’t help the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

“Piet, what in the hell are you doing? We’ve been lovers for more than two years now. You’ve got to know what you mean to me. You’ve got to know how I care for you. I’m not trying to trap you or lay claim to you, but don’t you owe me something?”

“I owe you a lot, Catherine. And I want to give you a lot, but first I have to make certain that I can.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you were sorry, you’d try to talk to me honestly.”

“It’s business, Catherine, why can’t you believe that? It’s strictly business, and important, significant business. If it works, it could change my life, and make a huge difference in yours.”

“But you won’t tell me what it is.”

“No.”

“And you’re just going to leave me and my shop, without even a promise about returning.”

“Yes. Although I do promise to try to return.”

Catherine was sobbing, her shoulders shaking. How could Piet watch her so coolly, without crossing the room to embrace her, to comfort her? He rose.

“Piet, you can’t go! I won’t let you! Don’t you love me? Don’t you need me?”

He hesitated before speaking—and that hesitation enraged her, told her more than anything he’d said all night.

“I love you,” Piet said at last. “I love you. I thought you knew that. I would like you to believe it, even though I know I make it hard. But to answer your other question, no, I don’t need you.”

“Then God damn you!” Catherine wanted to run and hold him back. She wanted to hurl her glass paperweight at his back. “Get out of here. Don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”

Even then, she thought he would stay. She sank onto her chair and buried her face in her hands and waited for him to cross the room. She waited for the weight of his hands on her shoulders. Instead, when she looked up, she saw that he was gone. He had left her office door open. Holding her breath, she listened and heard the downstairs back door open, then click closed.

* * *

C
atherine locked up and walked through the winter streets to her apartment. The curbs were banked with dirty snow that glittered vilely in the streetlights, and the wind buffeted and shoved at her. She was crying as she walked, oblivious of the people who were rushing by her, their heads down against the wind. At home she shed her suit and sat in her dark bedroom wrapped in her thick terry robe, a glass of Scotch in her hand. But by midnight she was exhausted. She woke at three in the morning to find that she’d fallen asleep on top of her bed. She took a long, hot, cleansing shower, then walked through her apartment with a glass of milk. She turned on all the lights in each room. This antique mahogany sideboard, these silver candlesticks—what had they not witnessed in the hundred years they’d existed—perhaps other abandoned women. She was not the first. She had never, ever, desired the role of weak woman, victim. And she had been left before, by a better man. She hated her pain. She would not tolerate it. She would not let herself think of Piet again.

T
he next morning Catherine held a brief conference with her employees. “Piet has left the company,” she told them. “He’s gone to Amsterdam.” Holding up her hands, she forestalled their questions. “No, I have no address for him. I don’t know his plans. His absence will call for some adjustments on all our parts.” She lowered her eyes to avoid meeting their collective gazes. After the meeting, she called a dozen employment agencies; by the end of the day she’d hired Carla Shaw to act as receptionist at the front desk, answer the phone, and run errands for herself, Sandra, and Jason. Carla was only nineteen and a bit rough around the edges. She lived on the Lower East Side and hadn’t had the money or grades to go to college, but she was cheerful, energetic, quick, eager to please, and eager to make something of herself. As the days passed, she learned how to be prim with motherly Sandra and flirtatiously complimentary with sensitive Jason. With Carla on board, Catherine could relax just a little. And with Piet gone, perhaps forever, she went back to her routine of buying the flowers early in the morning and catching a nap in the early afternoon on the sofa in her office. She was tired, and she was determined, and she could fall asleep in an instant and in an instant be awake and ready to get back to work.

S
unday afternoon Catherine walked over to her parents’ apartment. It was about one o’clock, early by their standards, when she arrived, and as she expected, her mother wasn’t yet out of bed. Her father answered the door in his robe.

“Hi, Dad. I’ve come to see Shelly.”

“Come in, Catherine. Christ, I feel like a truck hit me. Shelly’s in the living room. I’m going back to bed.”

She found Shelly sitting alone by a window. He was dressed for the day in khakis, a button-down shirt, and red crewneck sweater, but the clothes hung loosely on him. Catherine was glad to have a few seconds to catch her breath before he saw her. He sat hunched over like an old man. He was twenty-one years old, and he sat looking out the window at nothing.

“Shelly!” She crossed the room and bent over to kiss his cheek. “Don’t get up.” She put her hands on his shoulders.

“I can stand up!”

“Go ahead, then. But I’m sitting down.” Catherine ignored his bad humor, pulled a chair close to him.

“How are you, Shelly?”

“Just great, can’t you tell by looking?”

Catherine had leaned forward, but she could tell that her scrutiny made Shelly nervous; he was trembling, like someone with palsy.

“I mean,
really
, how are you?”

“I’m okay now. I’m clean. This has not been the best time I’ve ever had. But I’m clean now. I’m tired, though, man. I’m beat.”

To Catherine’s horror, Shelly’s face crumbled and he began to cry. He covered his face with his hands.