Lake Como (3 page)

After the guests left, Peter led her out to the balcony. They stood under the stars, swaying to the Harry Connick, Jr., tune he hummed in her ear. Then they walked back into the living room, surveying the half-eaten plates of rice balls and asparagus tips.

“You turn me into someone who belongs in this apartment,” Peter whispered, putting his arms around her. “Without you I’m just a guy with a laptop and a backpack.”

*   *   *

Hallie got up and walked to the bedroom. Maybe what she saw had been perfectly innocent: Peter playing Lancelot to Kendra’s maiden in distress. But she flashed on references Peter had made about Kendra: Stanford football games they attended together, a group ski vacation to Tahoe. Hallie always assumed they just ran in the same circles. Maybe she was wrong, maybe something had happened in the past and tonight it was rekindled.

Hallie hung her pink chiffon dress in the closet and climbed into bed. She put her head on the down pillow and closed her eyes. In the morning, everything would be clearer.

chapter two

Hallie woke up and smelled eggs and toast. She opened her eyes and saw a plate of sunny-side-up eggs, whole-wheat toast, and sliced melon. There were two cups of steaming coffee, a jug of cream, and a pot of strawberry jam.

“The lady awakens.” Peter hovered over her, like the prince in a fairy tale.

“I didn’t hear you come in last night,” Hallie replied.

She sat up, looking at Peter. He wore black bicycling shorts and a white nylon shirt. He had hung his tux in the closet and thrown his shirt in the laundry. All traces of the evening were erased. The curtains were open and the bedroom was bathed in morning sun.

“You were already asleep.” Peter handed her a cup of coffee.

“You didn’t have to do this.” Hallie nodded at the eggs and toast. Suddenly the memory of Peter’s hands on Kendra’s skirt jolted her like an earthquake.

Peter sat on the bed. “Hallie, look at me. Nothing happened last night.”

“I saw you.” Hallie drank the coffee, flinching as the hot liquid hit her tongue.

“You saw me trying to get away,” Peter replied. “Kendra was an octopus.”

“You took off your jacket,” Hallie mumbled.

“I would have taken off my pants if it meant I could escape faster.” Peter sighed. “She was like the Bionic Woman.”

“Kendra is the Bionic Woman.” Hallie giggled. “She’s made of steel.”

“Honestly, Hallie”—Peter held her hand—“I would never risk what we have.”

Hallie looked into Peter’s clear green eyes. He was like a Boy scout. If he found a stray cat, he knocked on every door to locate its owner. When an old woman in the building lost her keys, Peter combed the hallways to find them.

“You’ve known Kendra for years,” she said slowly. “Maybe you were closer to her than I thought.”

“Christ, Hallie. I would have told you!” Peter exclaimed. “We were just friends. Kendra is all hard edges; I would never date a woman like her.”

Hallie nibbled her piece of toast. Peter had never lied to her, and Kendra never alluded to a relationship. Even in college she was too focused to waste much time on men.

“I believe you,” she said finally.

Peter’s shoulders relaxed and the light came back in his eyes.

“I can skip my bike ride and join you for lunch at Constance’s.” Peter kissed Hallie on the lips, scattering crumbs on the cream sheets.

“Aren’t you riding with Frank Marshall?” Hallie asked. “You were going to pry secrets out of him while pedaling over the Marin Headlands.”

“I could reschedule,” Peter replied doubtfully.

“I’m a big girl.” Hallie put the coffee cup on the bedside table. “I can handle Constance.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” Peter put his hand under Hallie’s T-shirt.

“You’re going to get jam on the sheets,” Hallie protested, feeling her nipples stiffen.

“I’ll be careful,” Peter whispered, pulling Hallie’s shirt over her head.

*   *   *

Hallie sat back against the pillows. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin smelled like sex. She thought about calling her grandmother and begging off. She could spend the rest of the day reading
Architectural Digest
and
Vogue Home.

Constance had a couple of small strokes six months ago. She no longer attended charity functions and opening galas while swathed in yards of Italian silk. She spent most days sitting at the grand piano playing Mozart and Chopin. Hallie knew Constance looked forward to Sunday lunch and planned the menu a week in advance.

Hallie wished her mother, Francesca, would spend more time with Constance. But there had always been friction between Constance and Francesca. Even when Hallie and her mother lived in one wing of the mansion on Broadway, Francesca and Constance hardly spoke. When Francesca finally made enough money to afford her own apartment, she whisked Hallie away to a cramped one-bedroom in Cow Hollow.

Hallie missed the ballroom where she pretended her dolls were dancing to an unseen orchestra. She missed Louisa, who smuggled hot chocolate and marshmallows into her room at night. But mostly she missed Constance, who moved around the house like a figure from a Victorian novel.

Constance didn’t let Hallie wear makeup, even when she was old enough to own a bra. She interviewed every friend, boy or girl, who came over to play. But Constance listened to her like no one else did. She trained her sharp gray eyes on Hallie and let her pour out her dreams. Constance was a calm ocean liner in the choppy waters of Hallie’s youth.

*   *   *

Hallie parked under a cherry blossom tree and climbed the steps to Constance’s house. It stood between two neoclassical mansions with marble columns and slate roofs. The three houses occupied their own block, commanding dazzling views of the bay. Hallie could see freighters cruising under the Bay Bridge, and the distant green hills of Berkeley.

When Hallie was a girl, her grandmother used to walk her to school. They would set off, Hallie in her brown school uniform, Constance in a London Fog coat and boots, and walk four long blocks to the Burke School. Hallie thought everyone lived in a house with three stories and a garage that contained a fleet of cars. It wasn’t until she was fourteen, and Francesca moved them to a one-bedroom walk-up apartment, that Hallie realized there was another way to live.

*   *   *

“Hallie.” Constance opened the front door. “I’m so glad you’re here. Where’s Peter?”

Hallie shrugged off her cardigan and hung it in the hall closet. She followed her grandmother into the grand salon, admiring the arrangements of tiger lilies that filled the room.

“He had a cycling date he couldn’t break.” Hallie sat on a plush gold sofa, glancing around the salon. Heavy chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. The marble floors were buffed and polished. The windows were covered by velvet curtains that Hallie used to wrap around herself like an evening gown.

Hallie fell in love with the house at the age other children became fixated on puppies. When she was six she was left alone after school, and she would walk from room to room, admiring the silk sofas and mahogany tables. She knew in the first grade she wanted to be an interior designer. Her taste changed over the years: sometimes she thought a room should be filled with color, other times only beiges and browns appealed to her. Now when she needed inspiration, she sat in the grand salon, or the library, or the music room, and gazed at the ornate plastered ceilings and thick Oriental rugs.

“I asked your mother to join us, but she’s delivering a wedding cake in Woodside.” Constance poured a glass of Scotch from the decanter on the sideboard. “One would think after twenty years of baking wedding cakes, she could find a husband.”

“Francesca doesn’t want a husband.” Hallie caught a whiff of the Scotch and her stomach flipped uneasily. “She said being married was like being in a convent, with stricter rules.”

“That was thirty years ago.” Constance sighed. “No one should get married at nineteen. I still blame myself; if I hadn’t sent her to Europe she wouldn’t have met Pliny. I’m so glad you found the right man. Will there be a wedding next summer?”

“You ask me that every Sunday,” Hallie said, frowning. “Peter hasn’t proposed yet, but he has been dropping hints.”

“I would love to see one happy marriage in this family.”

Constance wore a pink silk blouse and a gray pleated skirt. Her hands were the only thing that showed her age: her knuckles were gnarled, and the diamond and emerald rings squeezed her fingers.

“I promise you’ll be sitting in the front row of the church,” Hallie replied, placing her glass on the end table.

“Portia left her husband.” Constance sat on the sofa facing Hallie. “He’s been seeing an actress in Milan. She moved back into the villa with Sophia and Pliny. Poor Sophia, it’s a terrible scandal.”

“How could Riccardo cheat on Portia?” Hallie exclaimed. “She looks like Carla Bruni.”

“Portia is almost thirty, that’s ancient by Italian standards.” Constance frowned. “The actress is twenty-two. Sophia is beside herself. Riccardo has disgraced Portia and the whole Tesoro family.”

Hallie pictured Portia living under the strict Catholic roof of her father and grandmother. Portia had wild black hair and emerald green eyes. She wore multicolored Pucci dresses and five-inch Louboutin heels. The only sign that she came from a religious family was the gold cross she wore around her neck.

Hallie remembered the first summer Portia and her brother came to visit. Hallie was seven and Constance appeared in her bedroom. She had sat at the foot of the bed, stroked Hallie’s bunny slippers, and turned the pages of a Beatrix Potter book.

“Your half brother and sister are coming to stay with us.”

“What’s a half sister?” Hallie had asked, hoping it was a doll that she could play hopscotch with.

“Your mother refused to go to college, so I sent her to Switzerland to finishing school.” Constance had watched Hallie to make sure she was listening.

“Finishing school!” Hallie had exclaimed indignantly. “I thought I’m finished with school after the second grade.”

“Finishing school is a place where young ladies learn to be good hostesses.” Constance had smiled. “Your mother met an Italian prince named Pliny Tesoro on the ski slopes. They fell madly in love, got married, and moved into his mother’s villa on Lake Como.”

“My mother was married to a prince!” Hallie’s eyes had danced with excitement. “Did she have ladies in waiting and a carriage like Cinderella?”

“It was a beautiful villa. You’ll visit when you’re older. Francesca and Pliny had two children: Marcus and Portia. But then Francesca became very unhappy and she wanted to come home to America.”

“How can anyone not want to be a princess?” Hallie had frowned, sucking a blond pigtail.

“It’s hard to explain,” Constance had said tentatively. “But sometimes when you marry very young, you don’t know the person you are marrying.”

“Then I’ll wait till I’m really old,” Hallie had replied emphatically. “At least till I’m twenty.”

“Francesca came home but her mother-in-law wouldn’t let her take Marcus and Portia. Pliny’s mother is a very fierce woman named Sophia. Everyone was scared of her; someday you’ll meet her.”

“Is she a wicked witch like in
Sleeping Beauty
? Did she make my mother eat a poisoned apple?”

“Francesca was very sad to leave her children,” Constance had mused. “Luckily she met your father and had you.”

“Is my father a prince?” Hallie had asked hopefully.

“No.” Constance had paused. “I’m only telling you this because Sophia is finally allowing Portia and Marcus to come for the summer. You and Portia will share a room; you can teach her how to be American.”

*   *   *

Portia and Marcus arrived the next day and the two girls circled each other like jungle cats. Portia was barely nine, but she carried herself with a European sophistication that thrilled and puzzled Hallie. Portia wore perfume. Portia wore a bra, though her chest was as flat as Hallie’s. Portia’s hair was wild and curly, but it didn’t look messy like Hallie’s when she woke up in the morning. Portia’s hair looked like it belonged in a fashion magazine.

Marcus was ten and had no time for his American half sister. But Hallie and Portia quickly became inseparable. Portia was used to living in a mansion and invented new games to play.

They slid down the grand staircase. They pretended the ballroom was an ice-skating rink. They bought a family of black mice and a pumpkin and played Cinderella getting ready for the ball. At night they lay side by side, Portia in the twin bed that had been installed in Hallie’s room, and described the men they were going to marry.

“My husband is going to have a speedboat,” Portia declared. “He’s going to take me out on the lake and feed me grapes and smelly cheese.”

“I hate cheese.” Hallie pinched her nose. She wore a pink nightgown and her hair lay in a thick braid down her back.

“All grown-ups eat smelly cheese,” Portia replied knowingly. “Every Saturday night the villa is full of adults eating stinky cheese and drinking bottles of wine. One night I snuck into the courtyard and saw my father kiss a woman. She had black hair and her mouth was as big as a fish. If you both eat stinky cheese, it cancels each other out.”

“My husband is going to buy me chocolate-chip ice cream,” Hallie replied. She had never seen her mother kiss a man. Occasionally her mother went out to dinner but she came home after Hallie went to bed. When Hallie inquired the next morning how Francesca’s “date” went, Francesca rolled her eyes and muttered, “Next time I’ll buy my own dinner.”

“My husband is going to propose on a gondola in Venice,” Portia continued, her eyes flashing. “He’s going to give me a diamond ring as big as a walnut. We’ll get married in a castle on Lake Como, and our guests will drink champagne and eat chocolate cake.”

“My grandmother says you have to get married in a church,” Hallie said, frowning. “She says God can’t hear you unless you’re in His house.”

“God is always in my father’s house.” Portia sighed dramatically. “God is at school, God sits above my bed. I’m going to keep my wedding private.”