Empire Girls (21 page)

“Oh! That’s right. I forgot to tell you. Cat’s inside with Nell. Said to send you two gals inside when you got back from... Where’d you go, anyway?” said Viv.

Ivy and I pushed past them on the stoop in a rush to get inside. “We went to meet our future.”

* * *

“There you are,” said Cat, who was sitting on Nell’s desk. We hadn’t been in Nell’s office since the first day. It was cool and dark inside. Cat was arranging fans over bowls of ice, and Nell was seated in a proper desk chair.

“Daisy called. Seems you two were good for our Asher after all,” said Cat.
Their Asher?

“Sit down, you two,” said Nell, pointing to the two chairs across the desk from her.

“When you first arrived, you and that sister of yours, the Empire Girls here were twittering on about you, you know. They said you were both strange. As if you’d raised yourselves. Wild, with no real ideas about how to interact with people. That’s when I began to understand that perhaps Everett had ruined the both of you, as well.

“So I took a harder look at you both, and to my dismay, I found you delightful.”

“You sure hid it well,” said Ivy.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Gram, be nice. Asher is talking—didn’t you hear Daisy? A lady can admit when she’s been wrong,” said Cat, who went and sat on the front window seat. She didn’t seem half her usual, elegant, frightening self. Now, with all the pretense gone, she was a real person. We all were. Even Nell.

“Catherine, just because he’s talking doesn’t mean he’ll get well. I don’t want you and Daisy getting all excited again.”

I cleared my throat. “Cat, before we go any further, there’s something I think you should read. Ivy, can you...?”

Ivy reached inside her dress and pulled out the two letters, damp with sweat. She unfolded them both to pick the right one, then folded the other one and tucked it away again. Cat, Nell and I watched her. “What?” said Ivy. “I don’t lose things when I put them there,”

She handed Father’s note to Cat, who took it with two fingers, smiling and making fun of Ivy. That is, until she read the first few lines. “I think I’d like to read this alone,” she said. “Do you mind if I leave you all for a moment?”

“Go right ahead,” said Nell.

When the door was closed, Nell said, “What in the hell was that? I haven’t seen her so moved by anything in a great while.”

“It was a letter from our father, Nell,” I said.

“A letter from your father, you say?” The way her voice rose told me that she’d have stood up and chased us out if she could.

“It isn’t addressed to her, Nell. Calm down. It’s addressed to us.”

“Then why is she reading it?”

“Because he wanted to apologize to her, and we thought she should read it herself,” said Ivy.

I was reveling in the fact that we hadn’t actually discussed it, she and I, but we had the same opinion anyway.
So this is what it feels like to have a sister,
I thought.

“What is he apologizing for? If anything, that letter should be addressed to me. And the apology directed to me, as well. Especially after what he did!”

“There’s a message for you, too,” I said. “He wanted you to know he understood your anger, and he felt he’d earned it.”

Nell banged on the table with her fist. Her entire face was shaking.

“Don’t have a stroke, Nell!” said Ivy. “Seems to me, everything is starting to work out, the only thing we would like to know...I think—” she looked at me, and I knew what she was going to ask, so I nodded “—is why? Why did you bring us here at all, if you wanted us to stay away? Then, when we were here, why did you continue to lie to us?”

“Haven’t you girls ever heard the phrase ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’? Well, that should answer your first question.”

“How could you have thought of us as enemies? We were two country girls from upstate,” said Ivy.

“Two country girls from upstate with a father, who even from his grave, could ruin my life. I swear, that man. When we heard from the two of you, I didn’t want to answer your inquiry. It was Cat, my smart Cat, who brought up the fact that perhaps the two of you could accomplish what we could not. Daisy, protecting Asher, had hidden him right here in front of us, and no matter how we tried, we couldn’t find him.

“Can you imagine? Being separated from the person you loved the most? Well, I suppose you can now. But we didn’t know a thing about the two of you. So I decided to let you both come here and try to find him for us. Even though it was a terrible risk. Neither of you have any idea of the harm your father brought down on this family. And of the weak genes he delivered to our Asher, who has suffered from that particular weakness for his entire life.”

“But Daisy told us that he married Colleen. One would think that you would have been pleased. I know he left you with two small children to raise, but now that we know you, I think you might have been more angry if he took them. So what did he really do?”

“He killed my daughter!” cried Nell. Her sorrow and rage filled up the whole room. “He came here, swept her off her feet, altered the course of her life, and she died delivering that weak little boy. I knew, if he came back, he’d do it again. Break something fragile that was not his to break!”

“Is that it?” asked Ivy, a look of dawning understanding on her face. “You thought he would come back and break Asher? Or were you worried we’d find him?”

“I don’t know what you are getting at, Ivy,” said Nell.

“I think what Ivy is trying to ask is
why.
Why did you hide your relationship to Asher from us? Why hide your relationship to Cat? Why coax this entire building to evade any mention of him? And now that we know many of the truths, they all seem connected to the final question. Why did Daisy keep you from Asher?”

“Well said, sister,” said Ivy, patting my hand.

Cat reentered the office carrying a large dress box, in the midst of the tension and just in time to hear the end of my litany of questions.

“Here’s your dress, Ivy. It’ll be grand for tonight. Don’t open it up yet, because I’d like to hear my grandmother answer this question. Ladies, I’ve thought myself brave for my entire life. Brave and independent, I even gave myself the name LeGrand to make sure everyone knew it. But I have mustered up the moxie to ask her about Asher, and now that you have, I’m on pins and needles waiting to hear the answer.” She said that without looking at us at all. She said it with her arms folded across her chest, staring straight at Nell.

“Well, he was weak! Sickly and scared his whole life. He worried me to tears, and I thought the war...I thought it would make a man of him.”

“You were wrong,” said Cat. “He was creative and thoughtful, and you pressuring him into enlisting was a mistake. He went to please you, and now he’s lost to both of us.”

Nell huffed and turned back to me and Ivy.

“He never ran around like Sonny—that boy had to fight for him in the streets. He couldn’t stand up for himself, just like his father couldn’t stay and raise him...or you for that matter, Cat LeGrand. A fake name for a fake girl. You run like the rest.”

“That was a low blow, even for you, Grandmother.”

“Ladies, please. If I may?” I asked.

The two women were standing now, facing each other with their arms crossed. The tension was thick and unbearable.

“Before this gets out of hand, and you both say or do things you don’t mean, Ivy and I would like to share something with you.”

“Spill it,” said Cat, still staring at Nell.

Ivy told Cat and Nell the story of Asher’s heroic deed. And I told them of Daisy, and how wonderful she’d been taking care of him.

Our narratives did the trick, and soon both women were calm again. Ivy and I shared a knowing look...one that meant we knew all too well what kinds of things people who love one another can say in anger.

“We’re glad he’s safe and well cared for,” said Cat, wiping a tear from her eye. “I’ve missed him so much. He was all I had for so long, and then he was gone.”

“You had me,” said Nell.

“You wanted me to be different than who I was. You wanted me to be my mother. And no one could ever take her place, Grandmother.”

Nell started to defend herself, but then she did something that surprised all of us. She walked to Cat and enfolded her into a long embrace. The two of them cried together, and then sat close to one another on the window seat.

“I suppose I wanted Asher to be different, too. Is that it? Has this really come to pass? It took Everett Adams’s other children to slap me with this information? How unbelievably odd.”

“You know,” I said, “one of the things I’ve learned this summer about myself, is that I can be obtuse to my own agenda.”

“I’m not speaking about this anymore. All is well now, and we can get back to normal. Now that you’ll be helping with Asher, I’ve decided to give you the nicer, full apartment on the second floor. You don’t have to pay rent, but will have to contribute your earnings as any member of a family would.”

I could tell my sister wanted more from Nell, and I knew that Nell had nothing more to give us. I’d learned that loving someone was both simple and complicated, and that there was no other answer than that she loved Asher and wanted to protect him. It was the only answer there was. So I was relieved when Cat broke the tension in the room.

“Let’s go have a look at that dress, Ivy.” She must have been used to giving up when it came to Nell.

Ivy and Cat went toward the door. “Ivy,” said Nell, “you may like the fact that as a part of the family, you don’t need to follow the rules as closely as you’ve had to in the past.”

Ivy could not contain her laughter, and she and Cat almost fell through the door on their way out.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go and be a giggling ninny along with the others. I have work to do,” she said, pretending to blot invisible ink off a blank envelope.

“I like you, Miss Nell. I don’t know why, but I do. So I want to tell you something.”

“Go on,” she said.

“I think you don’t like it when people leave you. I think you made Asher weak in your own mind, so he would be tied to you forever. I think you wanted Ivy and I to come here, hoping we would want to stay. I think...you don’t want to be alone.”

“Nonsense,” she said, as a tear fell onto the stationery below her.

“Nell, we won’t be taking the apartment,” I said. “But we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Then why won’t you take the apartment?” she asked.

“Why would we, when we already have the penthouse?” I replied.

* * *

All the girls from the stoop were now gathered in the penthouse watching Ivy get dressed. “What’s this about The Albert?” I asked.

“Oh, not much. Mr. Lawrence wants to meet with me.”

I looked at her, the dress, a silver beaded beauty over black silk with double-strung pearls pulling down the neckline to show off her perfect neck. She wore a silver band with a black feather around her head, and her hair was thick with the humid air.

“You look perfectly perfect,” I said. “And I don’t believe for one second that you are dressed for anything like a meeting. Ivy, I’m so pleased! I love Lawrence.”

“Don’t go jumping to conclusions, sister,” she said. “Besides, I have to get by the doorman, and that’s one ritzy part of town. I might be back sooner than you think.”

We were all gathered together there. I’ll admit, it wasn’t a dinner table...it was better. I was sitting on my bed, and Claudia was behind me, braiding my hair.

Cat was adjusting more fans over bowls of ice, while Viv and Maude made sure Ivy’s makeup was adjusted to every type of light we had in that attic.

“Don’t worry about a thing, honey,” said Cat. “You and your sister are part of this family now, and you don’t need fancy names or fancy clothes, though they’re fun to wear, or even friends in high places to get yourselves noticed in this world. Just walk straight into The Albert, and you know what that doorman will say? He’ll say, “Move outta the way, folks. See that young lady over there—that’s an Empire Girl, and Empire Girls, they make you drunk without even breaking the law. No gin required.”

September 30, 1928

Dear Nell,

Well, we did it! We sailed across the ocean and are now safely ensconced in a villa outside of Paris. I really can’t believe we’re here. I wish you could have come with us! The ocean liner was more than comfortable; it was like sitting in the lap of luxury. At the beginning, Asher stayed on the deck. He even slept out there for a few nights. But Daisy, she stayed right next to him. You should see them, Nell. Ivy and I are constantly amazed by the playfulness between Santino, Lawrence and Asher. Asher has become quite fond of John—or John the Wonder as Ivy still calls him, even now that they’re wed. They have long talks about politics and art. Cat is having the time of her life. As soon as we stepped off the boat, there wasn’t one man in the whole of Europe who was safe. I must admit, we are a giddy crew. Ivy has just discovered she’s expecting a child in April. We were relieved when the ship’s doctor gave us the news, because we all thought she was suffering from a never-ending bout of seasickness.

Indeed, this news has given Santino ideas about starting a family of our own. Only you would understand, Nell, why I’m simply not ready to do that. There are too many things to write, to discover, to feel! I was trapped, much like Asher, for so long. Ivy miraculously survived our childhood with her voice intact. And now? She’s the voice for all of us. And what a lovely voice it is.

Though the journey across the sea was more delightful than expected, besides Ivy’s initial sickness, of course, and our first few days traveling from England to France were ripe with laughter and true companionship—I don’t want you to think it’s all frivolity. Darling Nell, our itinerary and intention remains the same.

Ivy, Cat and I stayed up late last evening and sat on a veranda overlooking the French countryside. Santino, Asher, Daisy and Lawrence had already retired, but the three of us—your Empire Girls—sat together and talked about our brother. We’d been worried about bringing him back here, to the origin of his trauma. All of us, even Santino, were worried. Asher had finally been released from the prison of his mind. Forever changed, yes...with dark days every now and again, but each year brought more sunshine and less echoing of pain. Each one of us needed this trip, geared to help him face those days and perhaps bring even more light into his life. Daisy wants to have children. Santino needs a “brother in arms” to talk to about his own demons. It’s a heavy burden to carry alone. Ivy and I needed to see a glimmer of the boy he used to be. And Cat? Cat needed him most of all. During our search for Asher, that wild and gin-soaked summer of 1925, we couldn’t have known that Asher had another sister who’d lost so much more than Ivy and I could have imagined. Part of our peace comes from bringing those two back together.