Carriage Trade (19 page)

His gaze at her is so burning and intense that she looks away from him. “I think,” she says carefully, “that I hate him now.”

“Don't say that, Miranda. He was your father. Women were attracted to him, and he was susceptible.”

They sit in silence for a moment, and then he says, “In the meantime, have you given any thought to that proposition I made to you yesterday afternoon?”

“Of course I have,” she says. “I've been weighing the pros and cons of that kind of an arrangement. There are a few of both, it seems to me, and I haven't reached any decision yet.”

“I want to give you something,” he says. “I took something out on memorandum myself this morning.” He reaches in his pocket, removes a small blue box, and hands it to her. “Open it,” he says.

She lifts the lid. “What a beautiful diamond!” she says. “But Tommy, you can't give this to me!”

“Why not? Diamonds are a symbol of faith and trust. I want you to have this as a symbol of the faith and trust I have in you to run this store in full partnership with me.”

“It's beautiful, but—”

“Three point nine carats. Extra River Gem quality. Fifty-eight facets. Thirty-three above the girdle, twenty-five below.”

She looks at the ring with some misgivings.

“Put it on,” he says. He picks up the ring and slips it on the ring finger of her right hand. “Wear it on your right hand, so nobody will think you've become engaged. Wear it as a symbol of the faith I have in you to become as great a merchandising force as your father was. Wear it to remind you how much I believe in you, Miranda, and of how much I believe in our partnership. Wear it while you make up your mind.”

Back in her own small office, Miranda sits down hard in her chair and distractedly sorts through her morning mail, pushing pieces of paper this way and that, to no particular purpose, while the ring glitters on her finger. She should not have let him give it to her, and she starts to remove it and slip it in her purse when she smells the unmistakable scent of Equipage. She looks up and sees Smitty standing at her door.

Smitty's face is pale. “I came by to collect some of my things,” she says. “My Rolodex, things from my desk. It took some courage to come up here to see you, Miranda, but I felt I had to. I know you've never liked me, but I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your father. I loved your father, Miranda, and I thought I could make him happy. That's really all I have to say, that I'm sorry, and to say goodbye, and I hope we can say goodbye like ladies.” She extends her hand, and Miranda extends her own.

“Goodbye, Smitty.”

Suddenly Smitty screams,
“Where did you get that?
That ring is from my department! That's my merchandise! Give it to me!”

Miranda withdraws her hand. “Since you no longer work here, Smitty,” she says, “I don't see how you can talk about
your
department and
your
merchandise.”

“Give it to me! It's mine!”

“It should take you about fifteen seconds to get from here to the elevator,” Miranda says. “I'll give you ten.”

9

On Friday afternoons—at least when he was in town—Miranda's father would pick her up outside the entrance to the Brearley School in his car and they would drive together out to Old Westbury for the weekend. Oh, those were the best times.

Miranda loved those Friday rendezvous. They seemed to her displays of pure theater. The Rolls-Royce Corniche would stop grandly at the curb on East 83rd Street, and the chauffeur, in his snappy uniform—gray doeskin breeches, patent leather knee-high boots, tight jacket with silver buttons, and shiny cap—would hop smartly from the car, cross from the front, tip his cap smartly to Miranda, and hold the rear door open for her as she stepped into the back seat, with its mink lap robe, and took her seat beside her famous father. Then she would wave a gay goodbye to her schoolmates as they waited for their buses, the car door would close, and they would glide away. Other girls her age might have been embarrassed by such shows of raw privilege, but not Miranda Tarkington. In those days, she enjoyed being something of a show-off.

What I was was a little snot, she thinks now.

On that particular Friday—she is not sure of the year, but she must have been about twelve—the little princess in her Brearley uniform had been helped into her royal coach by her royal coachman and had waved a royal farewell to her less fortunate countrywomen, and the car had headed toward the Triborough Bridge. The day was special. The weather was brilliant. The East River sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. Often, her mother joined them for this drive to the country for the weekend, but this week she had left for Old Westbury the day before, and today Miranda had her father all to herself. But even more important matters accounted for Miranda's buoyant mood. Tonight, Tommy Bonham was coming to the farm for dinner, and Miranda was to be seated with the grown-ups. Since her mother and father sat at opposite ends of the table, this meant Miranda would be seated facing Tommy, where she could feast her eyes on him, and where he could feast his eyes on her. The dress she planned to wear was cut off-the-shoulder.

Meanwhile, a friend at school had introduced her to a paperback romance series called Lovedrenched. All the novels in the Lovedrenched series were about seduction, and Miranda had been wondering whether it would be possible to seduce a man twenty years her senior. Would her mother notice if she padded her bra with Kleenex for a little extra fullness in the bosom? The royal princess's loins throbbed with quite plebian lust.

Her father was deep in the pages of
Women's Wear Daily
, and Miranda was deep in seductive fantasies, when her father had suddenly put down his newspaper and said, “Wait. I've forgotten something.” He leaned forward and gave the driver an address on West End Avenue. So the chauffeur turned west and headed across town through Central Park. “Just a quick errand,” her father said. “A small package to drop off.”

When they arrived at the address on West End Avenue, between 112th and 113th Streets, if Miranda remembers correctly, it turned out to be a drab brownstone sandwiched between two massive apartment buildings. Perhaps half a dozen doorbells were arrayed beside the front door. “I'll only be a minute,” her father said, and got out of the car, his briefcase in his hand, and rang one of the bells.

The woman's apartment must have been on the ground floor, because Miranda saw her come to the door—a little fat old lady with flowing white hair, wearing glasses and a dirty apron. She seemed pleased to see him, let him in, and he was gone for several minutes. Then he came out again, got back in the car, and the driver headed back toward the Triborough Bridge.

Miranda was mystified. “Who was that?” she asked him at last.

“Who?” He seemed preoccupied.

“The fat lady. The woman whose house you just went into.”

“She's just one of our clients. You know I sometimes have to make deliveries in person.”

Miranda giggled. “She certainly didn't
look
like a Tarkington's client, Daddy,” she said. “A fat old lady in a dirty apron.”

“The woman you saw was my client's maid,” he said.

She giggled again. “She didn't even look like a Tarkington's client's
maid,”
she said.

“Well, that's who she was,” he said with a tone of finality.

“What was it you were delivering?”

“It was a—a gold bracelet. My client wants to wear it to a party tonight.”

Miranda was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. She was positive he was holding something back from her.

“I didn't know Tarkington's clients lived in places like that,” she said. “A crumby old brownstone with dirty windows and torn window shades, a brownstone that's been cut up into at least six itty-bitty apartments.”

He looked at her. “My, aren't you the observant one,” he said at last. “Don't you know that curiosity killed the cat?”

“Come on, Daddy. Tell me who she really is,” she said.

He leaned forward and rolled up the window that divided the passenger seats from the driver's seat. “Well, if you must know,” he said quietly, “she's someone I take care of.”

“What do you mean, take care of?”

“Ssh! I just realized it's the first of the month. Her rent's due.”

“You mean you pay her
rent
?”

He nodded. “Please, Miranda, not so loud.”

“But why?” she whispered.

“She's a very poor woman. She's penniless. If it weren't for me, she'd be a homeless person.”

“What's her name?”

“I have no idea.”

“You mean you pay the rent for some old woman you don't even
know
?”

He nodded again.

“But
why
?”

“I found her begging in the streets, Miranda. Several years ago. There was something about her face. She seemed so pitiful. I gave her some money, and she said, ‘God bless you,' and my heart just went out to her. I asked her where she lived, and she said, ‘Nowhere,' and I felt terribly sorry for her. It didn't seem right for people like us to have so much, and for decent people like her to have so little. She has no one—no family, nothing. I decided to find an apartment for her. It's just a little place, as you can see, but it's clean, and in a safe neighborhood, and she's able to take care of herself. I pay her rent and give her a little extra.”

“Why, Daddy, what a super thing to do!” It was in the days when Miranda and her classmates were always using words like “super.”

“At least she's safe and off the streets.”

Later, when they were across the bridge and on the Long Island Expressway heading east, she said to him, “Does she know who
you
are, Daddy?”

“Of course not,” he said.

“Really?”

“Did you ever hear of Maimonides, Miranda?”

She shook her head.

“Maimonides was a great philosopher in the twelfth century. He wrote about ‘the golden ladder of charity.' The highest rung on that golden ladder, he wrote, is when you give to someone whom you do not know, and when that person does not know who the donor is.”

“Does Mother know you're doing this?”

He seemed to hesitate. Then he said, “Yes.”

She reached out and squeezed his arm. “She must be very proud of you,” she said. “I know
I
am. I think this is just the nicest, kindest, most super thing you're doing, Daddy. It really is.”

“Well, one tries to do what one can to help the less fortunate in this world,” he said, with a little sigh. “Now, are you quite satisfied, Miranda?”

“Oh, yes!”

He leaned forward and rolled down the window that separated them from Billings, the driver. “Think we'll have rain this weekend, Billings?”

“No, sir!”

Now, sitting alone in her office, unable to take her eyes for long from the diamond ring Tommy placed on her finger and thinking of the things he said to her, and of all the events and revelations of the past few days, she wonders: Could the little fat old lady on West End Avenue actually have been his mother, her own paternal grandmother—a grandmother whose very existence she has been denied? A grandmother! Just think of it! There, all along, had been a dear little grandmother whom she could have taken Easter baskets to, who could have joined the family for Sunday dinners and at Christmastime; she had been right there, all through her childhood, just a few city blocks away. She had always been told that her father was an orphan. She had been robbed of a whole segment of her family history.

But did that explain the curious scene that took place later that same evening, after dinner at the farm? Not only had Miranda been seated at the grown-ups' table but her mother had allowed her to be served wine, and after dinner they had all withdrawn to the sun room for coffee. Miranda's mother had picked up her needlepoint, and the two men were discussing, of all things, zippers. A manufacturer's rep had shown Tommy some new zippers from France that were so skinny and narrow they were almost invisible, and Tommy was proposing that these new French zippers be introduced in the Custom Salon.

There was a lull in the conversation, and Miranda said, “Daddy, tell Uncle Tommy about the little fat lady on West End Avenue.”

Her mother dropped her needlepoint. “I think not,” she said sharply.

“Oh, but it's a super story, Daddy,” she persisted. “Tell it.”

“Miranda,” her mother said warningly, “I said I think not.”

“Tell him about Maimonides and the golden—”

“Miranda, what did I just tell you? Your Uncle Tommy would be bored to tears.”

Miranda looked imploringly at her father, who was looking uncomfortable. “Perhaps not,” he muttered. “Perhaps not tonight.”

“But—”

“Actually, I'd like to hear the story,” Tommy said pleasantly.

“No!” her mother said. “Miranda, it's past your bedtime. Run along to bed.”

Red-faced, humiliated, Miranda rose to her feet. “But Mother—”

Her mother clapped her hands. “Off to bed! Say good night to our guest and then off to bed with you, young lady.”

As she left the room, she heard her mother say brightly, “What has the store decided to do about designer jeans?”

Alone in her bedroom but far from asleep, Miranda had been furious at her mother. She had been seated at the grown-ups' table, she had been served wine, she had tried to keep up her end of the conversation, and then, at half-past nine, which was
not
her bedtime—and in front of Tommy Bonham, the man with whom she had decided she was passionately in love—she had been ordered to bed like a little child. She lay there, fully dressed, on top of her bedspread in the dark room, wanting to cry but comforting herself by plotting some sort of hideous and elaborate revenge against her mother. She would put itching powder in her sleep mask. She would put a whoopee cushion under the seat of her chair the next time she had a dinner party. She would poison the fish in the lake in her mother's Dell Garden. She would …