Beautiful Days (5 page)

Chapter 5

BY THE TIME IT WAS DARK ENOUGH FOR PYROTECHNICS, the star pilot had already packed up and gone home. The Beaumonts, who'd paid him handsomely for his show, had insisted that he stay long enough to shake hands with those female members of their extended family who were particularly enthusiastic about aviation, but he did not linger more than necessary. Soon after he departed, his silver plane growing ever smaller in the gathering dusk, most of the stuffier guests went, too, in a caravan of chauffeured limousines driving slowly out along the topiary-lined drive. Meanwhile, the sun had gone down in a swollen red blaze. The sky began to turn purple, and then Cordelia Grey declared that she was going home, and after that Astrid found that the party wasn't quite so fun anymore.

Not that she didn't try to make it so. That morning she had awoken to a vague headache and a dim recollection that her mother had been trying to stir up trouble, and so she put herself together with the conviction that she was going to be especially gay today and make a big show of how perfect her engagement was no matter what poison her mother tried to spread. She chose a skirt of alternating navy and white scallop-edged tiers (a color combination that Astrid knew brought out the rich yellow shade of her hair) and a loose white top with a neckline shaped like a deep
V
. The Dogwood crew had traveled over in a big, rowdy pack, and when they disembarked from the Daimler, she made sure to do so hanging on Charlie's arm. Later she and Charlie had made themselves conspicuous on the dance floor, trotting slyly and then shaking in a frenzy as though no one else could see them. Of course, other people could see them—including her mother, whom she caught watching from the tables set up on the lawn.

Then Charlie got called off somewhere and she satisfied herself dancing with the Duchess of Malden's Irish boxer. He had come to the Beaumonts' as Virginia Marsh's special guest, along with a few other of her mother's “interesting” friends who'd stayed particularly late the night before. But this was hardly as much fun—she sensed that it didn't excite her mother's jealousy half as much—and she was relieved when the crackling eruption of the first explosive went off over the sound and they could abandon the dance floor to walk toward the blankets, which had been spread out for them along the water's edge.

“I just adore fireworks,” Astrid said as she put her small, soft hand in the boxer's big, rough one, the better to balance herself as she lowered herself to the blanket and tucked her legs up under her skirt. “Don't you?”

The boxer answered affirmatively, in that inscrutable and lilting accent, and then he sat down beside her. He had lost his jacket in the course of the afternoon, his ivory dress shirt was rolled to the elbows, and she could see that there were no socks beneath the ankles of his pinstriped trousers. But he would not have appeared well put-together anyhow. His hair was cut close to his head, so that the tough bones of his skull were perfectly evident, and his shoulders were broad and meaty. These were not characteristics that Astrid particularly minded; in fact, there was something about him that rather reminded her of Charlie.

Over their heads, three rockets went skyward and flared out in red, white, and blue bursts that held a few moments, swaying in the heavens like a constellation of giant squid. Some of the ladies on the surrounding blankets shrieked at the noise. But Astrid liked all of it—how artificial and brash the fireworks were at first, and then so delicate as they faded and fizzled down toward Earth—and for a minute nothing else mattered very much.

The boxer, meanwhile, took a silver flask from his hip pocket and swigged before offering it to Astrid.

“Whiskey?”

Here was one word Astrid understood perfectly. “Thanks, you dear.”

There wasn't much in the flask, which explained why he already smelled of sweat and liquor, but she just giggled faintly, tipped her head back, and drank the rest. “I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've killed it,” she said with an exaggerated little downturn of the mouth to express her regret.

“Not to worry. I know where there's more,” he replied, flashing that grin with the gold spots in it.

There was something in that grin that made her hesitate. Flirting was Astrid's favorite sport—she liked it even better than horseback riding, and tennis she only ever favored for the outfits—but there was a fine line separating certain behaviors from other decidedly darker ones, which she was mindful never to cross. When she realized she might have given the boxer the wrong idea by dancing with him, she shook her head kittenishly, demurring. He had her hand firmly, however, and might even have succeeded in pulling her along against her will had they not been noticed, at just that moment, by a familiar face. The face was rather full, and it belonged to Gracie Northrup.

Gracie—the girl she'd found in Charlie's bed one vile night at Dogwood. The big-chested beast who very nearly broke them up was walking along the edge of the blankets, her cheeks pink from who knows what sort of exertion, and she didn't even have the humility to appear awkward when she recognized Astrid. With an expression that was either very stupid or very shrewd, she greeted her former Miss Porter's classmate, her smile wide and her wave ungainly.

She was wearing a red-and-white-striped dress, which Astrid might have advised against if she had any sympathy for the girl, and she tugged at it as she made herself comfortable on the grass. The image of Gracie with her blouse undone on Charlie's bed recurred in Astrid's thoughts, and perhaps in Gracie's, too, because she went on smiling as she asked, “Where's Charlie?”

The gall of this statement lit a fire inside Astrid that threatened to erupt into conflagration. She narrowed her eyes at Gracie and hoped that she saw what an incomparably light and superior creature Astrid was, how delicate she looked beside the Irishman, how universally desired. But Gracie only stared back dumbly. In the next moment Astrid stopped feeling hateful toward the girl in the red stripes and began to wonder where, indeed, Charlie was.

“I haven't the foggiest,” she announced. “We aren't one of those couples that cease to function without each other by our side,” she added proudly, although the fact that he was not currently at her side was beginning to make her brain tick, and before she knew it she was furious again about the lack of adornment on her ring finger. She still hated her mother for having pointed out his failure, but that did not make it any less humiliating.

“Well, can I sit here with you?” Gracie went on with a simple-minded smile. “Seems my friends have gone off.”

Before Astrid had the chance to reply, she caught sight of Charlie. He was ambling through the blankets alongside Danny, the red-haired guard at Dogwood, holding his ridiculous lemon yellow jacket over his shoulder with one finger, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. Her eyes darted from Gracie back to Charlie, and she wondered where he had been.

“You're in luck,” she declared coldly as she pushed herself up from the blanket. “There's our darling Charlie now. I hope he's just as sweet with you as he used to be with me.”

Without so much as looking at Gracie or the boxer for a reaction, she began to stride away from the crowd clustered at the waterfront. She almost really did wish that Charlie was sweet to Gracie, at least for a little while, and that they ended up together, so that Charlie could spend the rest of his days wondering why he was with such a second-rate cow instead of his first fiancée, the one he'd not bothered to buy a ring for. “Damn him,” she muttered, telling herself not to cry as she continued on toward the Beaumonts' big, pompous house, the grand fireworks display illuminating her face as though it were high noon whenever she looked back.

At first she didn't think Charlie had seen her, but when she heard him calling out her name, she kicked off her shoes and began to run. She ran as hard as she could, her feet barely touching the ground, her limbs wheeling around her body. She felt so angry and so light that she almost thought she might break free of the earth and go swinging up toward the pretty lights in the sky. It was not until she reached the top of the Beaumonts' big steps that she realized she had no idea where she was going and stopped. Very slowly, she turned around, panting, her clothes and hair askew, and looked back toward the water, wishing she were anywhere in the world but here.

Charlie had already reached the base of the steps and was standing still with his brown eyes on her. A moment ago she would have liked to yell all manner of invective at him, but now she found she could not remember exactly what it was she had wanted to say. She stared at him and narrowed her eyes and tried to conjure her anger—but he simply didn't seem like the picture of someone who had just done her wrong. For one thing, he was holding her shoes sweetly and carefully against his chest and smiling in a goofy way, his light hair greased back from his forehead, his shoulders broad under his white shirt. Behind him there were colorful eruptions high in the sky, but they seemed more distant and paler now.

“Get me out of here,” she said crossly as she began to descend the steps in his direction.

“Here?”

“Yes, you big oaf, here.”

“I'll take you—” A hiccup interrupted Charlie's sentence.

“You'll take me—where?”

“I'll take you—”

There was another hiccup and Astrid—who found hiccups appalling, especially in men, but was nonetheless becoming less and less inclined to linger at the Beaumonts'—grabbed for his hand and pulled him in the direction of the driveway.

“You'll take me home? Indeed you will. But not in a car. Not the way you're slurring. We'll just have to walk.”

Charlie agreed affably, throwing his arm around her and humming a few bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Astrid, who had selected her shoes more for the flattering way they revealed her ankles and exaggerated her height than for walking, was less ebullient. The gravel drive cut against the tender soles of her feet. The humming did not make her happy, either, and she found that being face-to-face with Charlie only led her to reimagine the scene of him leaping off Gracie Northrup, and how soon after that his proposal had come, and what a crummy thing a proposal without a ring was. But those kinds of thoughts caused her to furrow her brow, which could only result in permanent lines, which were also no good. So she was forced to hum along, ensconced in Charlie's embrace, as they shuffled past the big stone gates and out onto Plum Tree Lane.

As they walked—somewhat lurchingly and not at all fast—a few stars emerged in the darkening cloak of purple above them. The air was fragrant and quiet, and there were no silly girls trying to get attention with their antics. By the time they reached Dogwood, Astrid had almost forgotten what it was that had made her run from the Beaumonts' party in such a hurry. As they moved up the hill between the twin rows of lindens, she extracted herself from Charlie's heavy embrace. She walked ahead of him for a few minutes, listening to his feet crunch against the grass, and instead of climbing the stone steps to the entryway, she continued on into the shadow of the house. There she paused, leaning her shoulders against the cool bricks of the south wall, trying to see if she had ever loved him.

As she stared at him, his eyes grew large—there was something murky and different behind them—and then, to her utter shock, he lowered himself onto one knee.

Her first thought was that he might ruin his silly suit and what a blessing that would be. But then she realized he was going to give her something, and she experienced a lovely swelling of the heart.

“Oh, Charlie,” she said faintly as he took her hands in his.

The very act of going down on his knee must have been a sober-making one, because when he spoke it was without a trace of hiccups. “Astrid Donal, will you marry me?”

There was a little light from the house and the stars, but the ring he produced from his inside coat pocket glittered all on its own. It was a giant oval stone rising high on a swirling and very modern platinum setting. There were so many intricacies to the ring—all the other tiny sparkling stones that surrounded the big one, and the beautiful patterns on the band—that she almost wanted to excuse herself for a moment so that she could get a good look. But before she even had the chance to realize that that wouldn't really have been appropriate, the ring was on her finger, and he had risen back to his feet and picked her up in his strong arms.

“Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Charlie, we're going to be married! Really, actually, truly!”

“It's true!” he answered, his voice rising to a slightly lunatic pitch just as hers had.

She gave him three rapid kisses and then peered around his head to get a look at the beautiful piece of jewelry now adorning her finger. All of her body had become tingly and weightless. The dramas of the afternoon now seemed like nothing more than the exact path she'd had to take to arrive at this perfect place. She was almost grateful for the earlier disappointments, and in her gratitude and contentment she let out a sigh of sweet exhaustion.

“Oh,
Charlie
. It fits so perfectly. How did you know?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Never ask my methods, doll.”

Who would have thought that big, boyish Charlie would know how to do a thing like buy a girl just the right ring in just the right size? He was always buying her nice clothes, of course, but they were usually too big for her and then she had to have her maid take them in, and she suspected the taste of some salesgirl at Bergdorf's was behind most of these gifts, anyway. That he had done everything right for this far more crucial purchase made her wonder if she'd underestimated him all afternoon—and to think how little her mother knew. There was no way a woman with such a black heart could understand a thing like the love between her and Charlie, as he'd just helped her prove. The only way the moment could have been more perfect was if her mother had been there to see how utterly wrong she'd been.