How Nancy Drew Saved My Life (27 page)

If I'd known, I wouldn't have asked.

“It's just that,” he said, “doing this kind of work was all right when you were younger, but don't you think it's time you found something you could commit your future to? And isn't it awful in a way, working in such a subservient position?”

I wanted to tell him that from where I was sitting, this was all his fault. If he'd imbued me with any sense of self-worth, if he'd ever been
around
long enough to imbue me with any sense of self-worth, I wouldn't have spent my adult working life thinking that the only thing I was fit for was serving someone else.

But then the thought occurred to me, for the first time, that it wasn't all his fault. Oh, sure, he could have been a better father. I mean, he
really
could have been a better father. He could have been like, say, Carson Drew.

But none of that mattered anymore. I was an adult now. At least I was supposed to be. And whatever decisions I had made that had brought me here, I'd made them myself. They were my choices. They would be my consequences.

I sought to change the subject.

“So, who's this person—” I was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Fairly, all abustle.

“The master came home early!” she announced.

My father's eyebrows shot up. “The master?” he mouthed to me silently.

I started to rise.

“I'd better get back to work,” I said.

“Oh no!” she said. “He seemed thrilled your father came for a visit, but he didn't want to disturb you.” She turned to my father. “He's invited you back for dinner this evening.”

“Well—” my father hesitated “—I do have a traveling companion with me and we were planning on—”

“Oh no!” she said again. “I mean, oh yes! Feel free to bring your companion with you. I'm sure the ambassador won't mind. Why, it'll be like a second house party!”

As if the first one had been so much fun. I thought of the wine stains on my white dress, thought about my jealousy over seeing Edgar for the first time with Bebe Iversdottir.

“The more the merrier!” Mrs. Fairly called over her shoulder as she exited the room.

Who knew she could be so trite?

My father rose.

“I'd better get going,” he said, “if I'm to wake up in time for tonight.”

Maybe, I thought, he was more like Nancy Drew than Carson Drew. After all, Nancy always took naps when there was a big night ahead. Of course, she was always hiding in closets and checking luggage for false bottoms, too.

“The older I get,” my father said, “the more jet lag affects me.”

Then he bent over, like he might want to kiss me goodbye, but then stopped. Perhaps he sensed what I felt inside, that I was still distant from him.

“I guess I'll see you tonight,” he said.

“Bye, Dad.”

I watched him leave, a sight I'd seen all too often in my life. No matter that a moment ago I'd all but forgiven him in my own mind, at least for his parental shortcomings; some bitterness was still there.

Idly, I picked at my uneaten cake with the fork. Then I put the fork down and, with my fingers, started picking at the icing, coating the tips of each of my five fingers before commencing to lick the pink frosting off. Annette's way of eating, I decided, had a lot of merit to it.

I was sucking on my middle finger, the thumb and forefinger clean now, the ring finger and pinkie still bearing their tiny mountains of goo, when Edgar walked in.

How embarrassing!

But what I found embarrassing, he found charming.

“Perhaps,” he said, “it is you who should be paying Annette for all she has taught you.”

“Hey,” I said, feeling daring as I offered out the pinkie, “don't knock it until you've tried it.”

He surprised me by bending his head and licking the proffered finger.

“A bit sweet for my taste,” he reflected, “but I like what's underneath it.”

It felt thrilling, daring, to be flirting in public like this. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't technically public, since no one else was in the room except us, but it felt public. It was certainly the most openly physical he'd been with me outside of my bedroom.

I'd once asked him, late at night, my head on his shoulder, why it was always my bedroom, never his. I didn't really care, but was just idly curious.

He'd replied, “Because who knows what would happen in my room? Your madwoman might set me on fire again.”

He still laughed at me about that and I let him. I didn't mind.

Now he pulled one of the high-backed chairs up beside me, looking a bit furtive, like we were two spies on a joint mission.

“I saw your father leave,” he whispered.

“Did you introduce yourself?” I whispered back.

“No,” he whispered, “I figured that could wait for this evening.”

“Why are we whispering?” I whispered.

“Because I don't want Mrs. Fairly to hear us. I told her I was sending you out on a mission—” see? I'd been right! There was a mission! “—and that she was to keep Annette amused this afternoon.”

“What's the mission?” I asked.

“You're supposed to meet me up in your bedroom,” he said, “where I'm going to make love to you so thoroughly, you'll be helpless to ask any more questions.”

Oh!

“How will we avoid detection?” I asked.

“They're all the way back in the kitchen right now,” he said. “Annette has persuaded Mrs. Fairly that she should receive a second slice of cake since she only ate the frosting from the first, will only eat the frosting from the second, and so, one plus one in this case makes only one. If we dash upstairs now—dashing quietly, of course—no one will hear us. Of course,” he added, “when we get to your room, you'll need to be a little quieter than usual, none of that shouting you're prone to.”

I reddened a bit. I was a bit of a shouter.

“Well, if you didn't always—“ I began defensively.

“It's okay,” he said, licking that last frosting-covered finger, my ring finger, “I like your, um,
loudness.
”

“I'm not—”

“Come on,” he said, pulling me to my feet, “I'll race you. But remember—it has to be a quiet race.”

As I raced him as quietly as possible up the stairs, I felt as though I were living a surreal dream. He'd never been this playful before and it was wonderful.

 

I lay in his arms an hour later, feeling at peace. Every itch had been scratched with a luxurious slowness in excruciating silence.

“Are you happy right now, Charlotte?” he asked, playing with my hair.

“Mmm,” I purred, sounding like Steinway, who was asleep at our feet, no doubt having sweet dreams of chasing a catchable mouse. It seemed to me that everyone's dreams must be sweet at that moment.

“But you could be happier, couldn't you?” he said.

I lifted my head, looked at him.

“What?” I asked.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said, getting up. He crossed to the wardrobe, gloriously naked, opened the door. From inside he pulled out a hanger with a dress on it I'd never seen before. I certainly hadn't put it there.

It was dark red and very pretty, with simple lines. I pictured myself wearing it. The dress would fit me closely, the hem falling above the knee, the sleeves long against the cold that had a tendency to invade the rooms here even when all the windows and doors were closed, the neckline plunging down in a deep V. I could look good in a dress like that.

“I remembered you ruining your other dress the night of the party and thought you might like a new one, in case you had a special occasion.”

Then he reached down into the bottom of the wardrobe and came out with a pair of shoes, high-heeled black satin strappy things.

“For dancing,” he said.

“I'm going dancing?” I asked.

“Well, no,” he admitted, “perhaps not tonight, unless of course you want to dance here. Originally, I'd planned on taking you out tonight. But now, with your father unexpectedly visiting, I think we might as well do it here.”

“Do it?” I asked. “Do what?”

He draped the dress over the back of the chair in front of the desk, placed the shoes gently on the floor. Then he picked up his jacket, from where it had been hastily discarded on the floor earlier, and reached into the inside pocket.

When his hand was visible again, I saw there was a small box in it. A jeweler's box.

“I'd thought to ask you to marry me over dinner out tonight,” he said with a smile, “but now, with your father here, I thought it best I ask his permission first.”

Oh!

Whatever doubts I'd ever had were now gone. If he was willing to do this, then there was nothing sham about his love for me. This was nothing like what had happened with Buster.

I reached a hand out for the box.

He held it out of reach.

“I think I'd best save this for tonight,” he said, “and do it properly. Will you say yes when I ask you, Charlotte?”

“Yes,” I said simply, “I'll say yes.”

 

I floated through the remainder of the day on angel's wings and when it was time to dress for dinner, I felt as though there were an invisible fairy there in the room with me, helping me with the complicated straps on the shoes, slipping the dress over my head, doing up the zipper, making sure every hair was in place. I looked at myself in the mirror. While it was still true that no one was ever going to ask me to model anything, unless it was my pretty dancer's feet, I felt beautiful.

I don't remember my feet touching the stairs once as I sailed down to the dining room and dinner, although they must have. When I walked into the room, breathless, late for once in my life because I'd actually taken some care with my unruly hair and bothered to put on a bit of makeup, my father was already there, his back to me as he enjoyed a drink at the sideboard with Edgar. They were laughing, having obviously made fast friends.

They turned at the sound of my high heels striking the wood floor and I saw my father had a suit on, a rare thing. I also saw for the first time the woman at his side.

His traveling companion.

She was tall, as tall as he was even without heels, with dark black skin, and wore a yellow dress, her hair braided in a complicated design on her head.

She looked to be about…my age.

“Charlotte,” my father said, looking awkward, “I'd like you to meet Sweet Maningue.”

“Sweet?” I said dumbly.

“It's a nickname,” she said in a richly accented voice.

She put her hand out and as I took it, I saw the diamond ring on her finger. It was large, square, sparkling like a huge crystal.

“Are you two going to…?” I started.

“Yes,” my father said, putting his arm around her. “This is what we came here to tell you.”

Needless to say, hearing this news knocked my own news out of the water.

 

The ensuing dinner passed in a haze. It was a good thing Edgar had given instructions that this was to be an adults-only dinner because it would surely have made me feel guilty had Annette been there and me so incapable of being attentive.

It felt like another woman listened as my father explained that Sweet was a graduate student from Nairobi who'd been sent to him to do an internship.

“We certainly didn't plan on this,” he said, covering her hand with his, “and we did wait until the internship was over before acting on our feelings.”

I tried to picture future family holidays: my father with his bride who would be my age, me with my husband who was my father's age. Sweet and I could talk about pop music while our menfolk could trade Viagra stories.

“Tell me you can be happy for us, Charlotte,” he said. “It's important to us.”

“It's important to both of us,” Sweet added.

It was weird. It actually seemed to matter to them, to both of them, what I thought. I couldn't remember a time in my life when my father had openly cared what I thought about anything.

Didn't everyone deserve a shot at happiness? And didn't he, being one of those everyone, deserve the same shot?

It was as though he read my mind.

“After your mother,” he addressed me, “I didn't think I'd ever find a woman I could be happy with again. Hell, it took me twenty years.”

I neglected to point out that twenty years ago, his future bride had probably been about three.

So, okay. So maybe family gatherings would be a little weird in a Greek tragedy sort of way. But we'd find a way to handle it.