Family Secrets (36 page)

Everett had finally been accepted at the University of Miami. He refused to live in the dorm. He was afraid he wouldn’t make friends, but he said it was because he couldn’t stand to be with a lot of other boys. He was too good for a dorm. Papa said he could live with him and Etta in their house in Miami Beach. There was plenty of room. There really was no other solution, for you couldn’t let a young boy fend for himself in a furnished room. He would have all his meals provided for him if he lived at his grandfather’s, and he would have someone who would make him study. Etta was not one bit pleased about this arrangement, and even less pleased because no one had consulted her. Any relative of Papa’s was welcome at his home, and now she had that sloppy, antisocial teenaged boy in her house. If they had consulted Etta she would have said no. But you couldn’t cross Papa.

Everett would spend the whole summer at Windflower with his parents. Paris would be there for May and part of June until camp started, and then she would be there for September too because her school didn’t open until October first. Poor kids at public school, they had to go so much longer because the schools were so overcrowded. But a small private school with only four kids in some of the classes was much more efficient. They could teach the kids in much less time, and they got to have longer vacations.

Paris’ room at Windflower was exactly as she had imagined it, and she loved it. Little red carnations on a white background for the wallpaper, red and white gingham bedspreads on the two twin beds, and a white shaggy cotton rug because she was allergic to wool. She had her own bathroom, naturally, and a closet almost as big as a room … well, anyway, it was the biggest closet she had ever seen. You really could just go in there and sit if you wanted to. Everett had an ugly gray bedroom. It made her depressed just to look at it. And the decorator had put a ship’s model on top of his dresser, which was silly considering that Everett had no interest whatever in ships.

There was one closet in the upstairs hall which Lazarus had appropriated for his very own. He had a lock installed on it, and he had the only key, which he hid. No one knew what was in there. Everyone was curious, but they assumed it had something private to do with his business as a doctor—drugs maybe, or patients’ records. What else could it be? What it was, as only Lazarus knew, was his liquor. Bottles and bottles of whiskey, some of it left over from Prohibition days with the sticker with the skull and crossbones on it, saying “For Medicinal Use Only,” his investment. His thing of value, salvaged from the crash of 1929. The crash had been long ago, and this was the boom time of 1943, but it didn’t matter. Liquor was money. Remember how much he had paid for that bottle of Scotch during Prohibition? Why, it was as much as a workingman’s wages for a whole week. And Lazarus owned cases of Scotch. Someday he might need it again. Who knew? So he locked it away in his closet and didn’t tell anybody. It was his secret, his insurance.

Lavinia and Melissa interviewed couples, and finally hired one that Cassie sent them. They were colored, of course. The family didn’t like to hire white help any more, they were low class and you couldn’t trust them. A lot of them drank. You couldn’t get the kind of nice white help you could in the old days. The immigrants who had come to this country eager to make something of themselves had disappeared; now there was riffraff, just knocking around from one job to another, with no ambition, dirty, filthy. Colored help was the best. This couple was named Ben and Mae. Ben was little and skinny and Mae was enormous. She would be the cook and he would be the butler; he would also clean, and he could drive a car, which was very useful because Jonah was the only one who could drive a car now. Melissa had forgotten how, or so she claimed. Everett zipped around in an awful hot rod he had bought and put together. Try to get him to do anybody a favor, like take them to town to do the grocery shopping, just try. He was so lazy and selfish that it ended up with Jonah doing all the chauffeuring for that family. It would be good to have Ben.

Of course they could always order meat and fish and groceries on the phone. You never knew what kind of quality they would send you if you didn’t actually pick it out, feel it and sniff it, but it was good for emergencies. Hazel’s housekeeper would order everything by phone. Etta had to order everything by phone too, because Papa would take his limousine and chauffeur to the city every day when he went to the office. Etta couldn’t drive either. She had to come along in Jonah’s car with Lavinia and Melissa, and then there was hardly enough room to put all the groceries on the way back. It was lucky for Etta that she had Henny, who could always cook something presentable from whatever the store sent.

When the family was ready to move into Windflower it meant that Windflower was completely ready to be moved into. The new dishes were all washed and neatly stacked on their shelves, the new linens and towels were neatly piled in the communal linen closet of each house.

Adam had bought a table with three leaves for his dining room. When the leaves were in, the table stretched the length of the entire room and could accommodate not only the immediate family but any relatives they decided to invite. Tonight, the opening party night, it would be only thirteen: Papa and Etta, Lavinia and Jonah and Paris, Melissa and Lazarus and Everett, Hazel and Herman (leaving little Richie in the house with his nurse because it was too late for him), Rosemary and Jack, and Basil.

Basil. He had been the silent outsider through all this, not offering suggestions, not really caring. His suite had been so thoroughly decorated for him that all he had to do was move in his clothes and toilet articles. The decorator had even chosen the etching to hang over the bed, a sea scene of course. Basil brought no books, no favorite print, no little memento to make his desk personal, and he didn’t smoke. He didn’t plan to spend much time there anyway. Weekends. He wasn’t going to let that place cut into his social life, and he couldn’t bring any of his girlfriends there because she would have to sleep in a separate room, and everyone would look at her and make comments on her, either encouraging him to get serious or telling him to drop her because she wasn’t good enough. Basil didn’t bring his girls home unless it was absolutely necessary, just once in a while to prove there really was a girl and she wasn’t trash. He would bring home a nice refined widow, only a year or so older than himself, or a young girl who was the daughter of a friend of the family, and after he had presented her he would whisk her away again and concentrate on the women he really liked. He knew that his money as well as his sleek good looks attracted women, but there was no point in going too far and taking them to Windflower. One look at that place and the girl would think he was a millionaire, and she’d really try to get her hooks in him. There was an inevitable point where they all always started nagging about marriage, women were that way, but only a fool or a braggart would hasten that inevitable point. After all, it wasn’t easy to break up with a girl, it was messy. They hung on, they pursued you, and sometimes you missed them a little and gave in and saw them again, which only started the whole messy business all over again. It wasn’t easy being a bachelor. It was, however, easier than being a married man.

Everyone dressed up in their nicest summer party clothes. The crystal chandelier above the white linen tablecloth sparkled, the best dishes and silver and goblets were set out. Henny had been in the kitchen since the crack of dawn whipping up delicacies.

Lavinia handed Paris a carton of Camels. “Here,” she said, “run into the kitchen and give these to Henny. Tell her they’re a present from you.”

“Why?”

“Because help resent kids, and this way she’ll like you.”

Paris took the carton of cigarettes into the hot kitchen. Henny was mixing a huge bowl of batter for a cake. Etta was going to let them have a home-made cake tonight, oh boy! The ever-present Camel drooped from Henny’s upper lip as she mixed, and some ashes dropped into the batter but she efficiently stirred them right into it with her wooden spoon so they became invisible.

“Here, I brought you a present,” Paris said, holding out the carton.

Henny looked at her and smiled with what looked to be genuine friendliness. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

There was nothing else to say, so Paris went back to join the others in the living room where they were all chattering and waiting for dinner, which was still an hour away. Some of them were sipping sweet sherry, and Adam had his small glass of schnapps. He was joined in a drink by Lazarus and Basil. Andrew and Cassie were going to drop by after dinner to visit, because even though they were not part of Windflower they were still an important part of the family.

At last Etta summoned them in to dinner. It was seven, and they were used to eating at six, and they were all hungry. They had fresh melon balls—honeydew and cantaloupe and watermelon—a huge, rare, standing roast ribs of beef, fresh asparagus dripping with butter, fresh stringbeans, oven-roast potatoes, green salad with tomatoes in it and a glutinous orange dressing (Etta got a minus for that, but the rest of the meal was superb), and for dessert there was the cake Henny had made, neatly iced, with little soft florettes of icing all around the border. Paris noticed a tiny speck of cigarette ash nestled in the center of one of the florettes and smiled to herself.

There were also macaroons and cookies from a good local bakery, because at parties you always had more than one dessert. And there were silver plates of mints and salted nuts. There was coffee or tea, and skim milk for Paris, which she declined, saying she was too full. Everett lit a Chesterfield and Etta gave him a dirty look because she hadn’t bothered to put any ashtrays on the table.

“Go get an ashtray, Everett,” Etta said.

Everett pushed back his chair and nearly knocked over one of the maids who had just entered carrying a large tray containing champagne glasses and a huge just-opened bottle of champagne, frosty mist still rising from the neck.

“Sit down, Everett,” Melissa said.

“Ooh, champagne!” Rosemary said.

“I’ll get ashtrays,” Herman offered expansively, having just lit up one of his famous stinkadoros. Lavinia gave him a dirty look.

When everyone had a glass of champagne, an ashtray if it was needed, and they all were seated, Adam stood up and raised his glass in a toast.

“Speech, speech!” Lazarus said.

Adam smiled down at all of them. “Well,” he said, “here we are. My family together, with me. My dream has come true. May we always be as happy as we are today.”

PART III

Windflower

ONE

Paris loved living in New York, she loved being twelve and free, and she hated high school. Her mother had told her to expect that she would hate high school; everyone did. She was an adolescent now, which meant that she was going to do all sorts of unpredictable and irrational things. She waited for this unreasonable weirdness to overtake her. She also waited for the promised pimples. Her hands flew over her face with a will of their own, touching the spots where a pimple might appear, covering her mouth with the awful braces, hiding everything that might be ugly. All the girls wore bangs, so Paris cut bangs, the better to hide more of her face. The best bangs were worn long, almost over the eyes, like a sheepdog. She slouched in her school uniform, the better to be invisible.

The adults made it clear that teenagers were a sort of plague. Rule: It is forbidden to go outside the school in your uniform, because when you wear your uniform you represent the school. Meaning: Anything you do is bound to be disgraceful, therefore we don’t want to admit we know you. The girls wore their uniforms outside the school anyway, and were as raucous and outrageous as they wanted to be.

Dalton, Paris’ school, was divided into three parts: the primary, the middle, and the high school. Boys were allowed to go through the middle school and then sent away. She discovered immediately that the girls who had gone through the middle school together considered themselves an elite, both intellectually and culturally, and she as an outsider (especially from Brooklyn) was considered an upstart.

She didn’t mind so much that the girls who had known each other all their lives couldn’t understand how she had managed to obtain an adequate education anywhere else but at their school, but she deeply resented the attitude of some of the teachers, who felt the same way.

She would come home after school and tell her mother all the slights, insults, grievances she had accumulated during the day. Her mother would sit on the chaise longue in Paris’ bedroom, listening sympathetically as Paris poured out this hoarded collection of wrongs. She had come to this school to learn and get into college, and they were against her. The English teacher wouldn’t tell her how to make her stories better. What good was a dumb teacher who wouldn’t teach you?

“Schools are completely geared for the average person,” her mother would say, as annoyed as Paris was angry. “They have no place for the superior student. It’s easier to make everyone average.”

Every month the girls got their assignments in all their subjects for the whole month, with a chart to be initialed by each teacher each week showing that the student had done her work. If you didn’t do your work and didn’t get the initials on your chart by the end of the month, your only penalty was that you didn’t get your assignment for the next month. Paris knew one girl, a sixteen-year-old freshman, obviously nearly retarded, who had been doing the same first month assignment for the whole term. Nobody cared. You had to be at school at eight-forty-five in the morning, where you went to the “house” where you had been assigned for the term, a small group consisting of a teacher and girls from each of the four high school classes. This was supposed to be the “unity-promoting” time where you had a friendly constructive meeting and got to know the girls from the other classes. Actually, it was the fifteen-minute period where the latecomers could rush in and where everyone sat around looking at each other’s socks and shoes because everything else was covered up by the uniform so they would not become clothes-conscious. Paris, who had just become interested in clothes, was developing quite a shoe fetish.