Loving (4 page)

"I think so." As he watched her he saw that even her lips were frighteningly pale. "It looks like I'm about to learn a few things about life."

As they drove up in front of her elaborate building he asked.

"Will you let me help you?"

She shook her head, kissed his cheek, and got out of the car.

He sat watching her until she had disappeared into the building, wondering what would happen to her now.

The doorbell rang just as Bettina looked at her watch. His timing was perfect and she smiled as she ran to the door. She greeted him with a kiss and Ivo entered and bowed, looking very debonair in a black coat and a homburg. Bettina, on the other hand, was wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans.

"You're looking very lively this evening, Miss Daniels. How was your day?"

"Interesting. I spent the day with the man from Parke-Bernet." She smiled tiredly, and he thought for a moment how he missed seeing her in her usual elegant, clothes. She seemed to have abandoned her other wardrobe in the month since Justin had died. But she also hadn't gone anywhere, except to the lawyers, to hear more bad news. Now all she wanted was to get the hell out of the mess. She was about to start meeting with art dealers, real estate agents, antiquaries, jewelers, anyone and everyone who could take the goods off her hands and leave her with something with which to whittle away the debts.

"They're taking all of this stuff off my hands"--she waved vaguely at the antiques--"as well as everything out of the house in South Hampton and the one in Palm Beach. They've already had someone to look it all over. The furniture in the South of France I'm getting rid of over there, and"--she sighed absent-mindedly as she hung up his coat--"I think the house in Beverly Hills will sell with everything in it. Some Arab is buying the place, and he left everything he had in the Middle East. So it should work out well for both of us."

"Aren't you keeping anything?" Ivo looked appalled, but he was getting used to the feeling and she was getting used to the look on his face.

She shook her head with a small smile. "I can't afford to. I'm dealing with the national debt, Ivo. Four and a half million dollars is not exactly easy to wipe out. But I will." She smiled again, and something turned over near his heart. How could Justin do this to her? How could he not have known that something like this might happen, that she would be left to clean up his mess? The unfairness of it tore at Ivo's soul. "Don't look so worried, love." She was smiling at him now. "It'll all be sorted out one of these days."

"Yes, and in the meantime I sit here helplessly and watch you tear your life apart." It was hard to remember now that she was only nineteen. She looked and sounded so much older. But there was still an occasional look of mischief in her eyes.

"And what would you like to do, Ivo? Help me pack?"

"No, I wouldn't." He snapped at her, and then apologized with his eyes. But it was she who spoke first.

"I'm sorry. I know you want to help. I don't know.

I guess I'm just tired. I feel like this is never going to end.

"And when it does end, what then? I don't like your having given up school."

"Why? I'm getting an education right here. Besides, tuition is expensive."

"Bettina, stop that!" She sounded so bitter and there was suddenly something so jaded in her eyes, "I want you to promise me something."

"What's that?"

"I want you to promise me that when the worst of this is over, when you've taken care of the apartment, the furniture, whatever you have to do, you'll go away for a while, just to restore yourself and get some rest."

"You make it sound like I'm a hundred years old." And she didn't ask him how he thought she was going to pay for the trip. There was almost nothing anymore. She was cooking for herself in the vast kitchen, and she was not doing much else. She wasn't buying anything, going anywhere. In fact, just that morning, she had been thinking of selling her clothes. The evening clothes at least. She had two closets of them. But she knew that if she told Ivo, he'd have a fit.

"I mean it, I want you to go away somewhere. You need it. This has been an enormous strain. We both know that. If I could, I'd send you away right now, but I know that you have to be here. Will you promise me to think about it?"

"I'll see." She had survived Christmas by forgetting It entirely, and spent the holidays packing up her father's books. Somehow now she couldn't think of much else. The rare books were going to London, to auction, back whence they had come, and hopefully they would bring a good price. The appraiser said they were worth several hundred thousand dollars. She hoped he was right.

"What did Parke-Bernet tell you?" Now Ivo looked tired too. He came by to see her almost every day, but he hated her news. Selling, packing, getting rid of, it was like watching her unravel her whole life.

"The sale will be in two months. They'll make space for it in the schedule. And they are very pleased with our things." She handed Ivo his usual Scotch and soda and sat down. "Can I interest you in some dinner?"

"You know, I'm very impressed with your cooking. I never knew you could cook."

"Neither did I. I'm discovering that there are a lot of things I can do. Speaking of which"--she smiled at him as he took a long swallow of his Scotch--"I've been wanting to ask you about something."

He smiled as he sat back against the couch. "What's that?"

"I need a job." The matter-of-fact way she said it almost made him wince.

"Now?"

"No, not this minute, but when I finish all this. What do you think?"

"At the Mail? Bettina, you don't want that." And then, after a moment, he nodded. At least he could do that much for her. "As my assistant?"

She laughed and shook her head, "No nepotism, Ivo. I mean a real job that I'm qualified for. Maybe a copy girl."

"Don't be ridiculous. I won't let you do that."

"Then I won't ask you for a job." She looked determined. And the agony of it struck him again and again. But the truth of it was that she would need a job. She had faced it, and he was going to have to face it too. "Well see. Let me give it some thought. Maybe I can come up with a better idea than something at the Mail."

"What? Marry a rich old man?" She said it in jest and they both laughed.

"Not unless you audition me first."

"You're not old enough. Now, how about dinner?"

"You're on."

They exchanged another smile, and she disappeared into the kitchen to put on some steaks. She quickly set the long refectory table that her father had brought back from Spain, and she set a vase of yellow flowers down on the deep-blue cloth. When Ivo wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later, everything was underway.

"You know, Bettina, you're going to spoil me. I'm getting used to stopping here every night on my way home. It beats the hell out of frozen dinners or sandwiches on stale bread."

She turned to laugh at him as he said it, pushing back her rich coppery locks with the back of one hand. "Ha! When did you ever eat a frozen dinner, Ivo Stewart? I'll bet you haven't eaten dinner at home once in ten years! Speaking of which, what's happened to your social life since you started to baby-sit for me? You never go out anymore, do you?"

He looked vague as he touched the bright flowers on the table. "I haven't had time. Things have been awfully busy at the office." And then, after a moment, he looked at her again. "And what about you? You haven't been out in a long time either." His voice was very gentle, and she turned away with a soft shake of her head.

"That's different. I couldn't ... I can't...." The only invitations were from her father's friends and she couldn't face them now. "I just can't."

"Why? Justin wasn't the kind of man to expect you to go into mourning, Bettina." Or was it something else? Was she embarrassed to face people now that the truth had come out in the papers? Was it that? They had been unable to hide the truth of Justin's finances from the press.

"I just don't want to, Ivo. I'd feel strange."

"Why?"

"I don't belong in that world anymore." She said it so forlornly that he walked to her side.

"What in hell do you mean?"

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, and suddenly she looked young again.

"I'd feel like a fraud, Ivo. I ... oh, Christ, Daddy's life was such a lie. And now everyone knows it. I know it. I don't have anything. I have no right to flounce around at fancy parties anymore or hang out with the illustrious and the elite. I just want to sell all this stuff, get out of here, and go to work."

"That's ridiculous, Bettina. Why? Because Justin ran into debt you're going to deprive yourself of the world you've lived in all your life? That's crazy, don't you know that?"

But she shook her head as she wiped her eyes with the fail of her shirt. "No, it's not crazy. Daddy didn't belong in that world either if he had to run into debt for four million dollars to stay there. He should have led a very different life." All the pain and disillusionment of the past weeks suddenly came out in her voice, but Ivo pulled her gently toward him and held her in the crook of one arm. It was like being a little girl again. For a moment, she almost wanted to crawl onto his lap.

"Now wait a minute, Justin Daniels was a brilliant author, Bettina. No one can ever take that away from him. He was one of the greatest minds of his time. And he had a right to be in all the places he was, with all the people he was. What he shouldn't have done was let his judgment get so insanely out of hand, but that is entirely another matter. He was a star, Bettina. A rare and special star, just as you are. Nothing will ever change that. No debt, no sin, no failure, no mistake. Nothing will change what he was, or what you are. Nothing. Do you understand?" She wasn't sure that she did, but she looked at him now with a look that blended confusion and pain.

"Why do you say I'm special too? Because I'm his daughter? Is that why? Because that's another thing that makes me feel I don't belong in that world anymore, Ivo. My father is gone. What right have I to go back to those people? Especially now, with absolutely nothing. I can't give them fabulous parties anymore, or wonderful introductions over lunch to the people they want to meet. I can't do anything, or give them anything ... I have nothing...." And then her voice caught on a sob. "I am nothing now."

Ivo's voice was sharp in her ears, and his arm tight around her. "No. Bettina! You're wrong. You are something. You always will be, absolutely nothing will change that. And not because you're Justin's daughter, because you're you. Don't you realize how many people came here for you? To meet you? Not just him? You're something of a legend; you have been since you were a little girl, and you've never even realized it, which was part of your charm. But it's important that now you understand that you are Someone. You. Bettina Daniels. As a matter of fact I'm not going to accept this recluse act of yours any-more." He looked purposeful as he suddenly strode across the room and picked up a bottle of wine. He helped himself to two glasses, opened the bottle, poured the deep garnet-colored Bordeaux wine, and handed her a full glass. "I have just made a decision, Miss Daniels, and that's that. You are coming with me to dinner and the opera tomorrow night."

"I am? Oh. Ivo, no...." She looked horrified. "I can't. Maybe later ... some other time...."

"No. Tomorrow." And then he smiled gently at her. "Child of mine, don't you realize what day tomorrow is?" She shook her head blankly as she took their steaks off the grill. "It's New Year's Eve. And no matter what else is happening, we are going to celebrate, you and I."

He held up his glass of wine. "The year of Bettina Daniels. It's time we realized that your life isn't over. Darling, it has just begun." She smiled slowly at him as she took the first sip of her wine.

Bettina stood in the darkened living room, watching the traffic honk its way impatiently down Fifth Avenue. Cars were crammed side by side and bumper to bumper as the festivities began. Horns blared, sirens whirred, people shouted, and somewhere in the night there was laughing too. But Bettina stood immeasurably still as she waited. It was a strange electrifying feeling, as though her whole life were about to begin again. Ivo was right. She shouldn't have stayed in by herself so much.

Perhaps her strange feelings were due to all the changes going on in her life. She was no longer a child. She was on her own. And she felt oddly grownup in a way she never had before. Her adulthood was no longer borrowed; it was real.

The bell rang a few moments later, and suddenly all her grown-up feelings seemed silly. It was only Ivo after all, and what was so different about going to the opera with him? She ran to the door and let him in. He stood smiling on the doorstep, tall and handsome, and long and lean, the white mane dusted with snowflakes, and around his neck a rich, creamy silk scarf, which was in sharp contrast to the black cashmere coat he wore over tails. She stood back for a moment, smiling at him, and then clapped her hands together like a child as he stepped inside.

"Ivo, you look Lovely!"

"Thank you, my dear, so do you." He smiled gently down at her as she bent her head gracefully in the monklike velvet hood of her midnight-blue coat.

"Are you ready?" She nodded in answer, and he crooked his arm. With a tiny smile she slipped her white-gloved hand into it and followed him back to the door. The house was eerily quiet. Gone the servants who would have held the door or taken Ivo's coat. Gone the polite bows, the instant service, the protection ... from reality ... from the world. For an instant Bettina stood very quietly as she hunted in her small navy silk evening bag for the key. And then she smiled up at Ivo as she found it and locked the door.

"Things have changed, haven't they?" She looked wistful despite the bright smile. He only nodded, feeling her pain.

But she seemed more herself as they chatted, going down in the elevator, and then in his car. The driver urged the car patiently through the endless holiday traffic, and in the backseat Bettina made Ivo laugh with tales of the people she had met a few months before in school.