Possessions (70 page)

“Come, come!” Tobias exclaimed. “You cannot blame yourself. We all are responsible; none of the board members, myself included, asked enough questions. Now we will. Derek's leadership has threatened us with a scandal, possibly a large cash outlay, serious damage to our name, perhaps the ruin of Ross's reputation. I must say, when Derek does something, the repercussions are not small. And I have another thought. How do we know where else Derek has taken it upon himself to cut costs? What other surprises might be in store for us? Perhaps our Derek needs his wings clipped.”

“Perhaps he needs an overseer,” suggested Victoria.

“Ah.” Tobias cogitated. “It would be better if we had proof. Katherine says he accused Craig, and Craig is not here to refute that.”

Katherine had been watching the two of them. Now, hesitantly, she said, “Wouldn't building inspectors have forms to sign, approving the jobs they inspect?”

“Indeed!” Tobias tipped back his chair, his beard wagging vigorously. “On file at City Hall. Indeed.” Then he frowned. “Why wouldn't Ross have dug them up to convince Derek to pay?”

“He wasn't going to ask him,” Katherine said. “He didn't want to stir anything up, since he thought the repair would be part of the renovation.”

Tobias shook his head. “Stubborn.”

“We shall deal with that,” Victoria said calmly. “Tobias, dear, would you call Claude and Ross and arrange a conference?
The time has come for the chairman of the board to make some decisions.”

*  *  *

Leslie called on the weekend. “I have no problems left. Tell me yours. Unless you've solved each and every one—?”

“Hardly,” laughed Katherine. “But I have no new ones to offer.”

“Then we'll share glad tidings instead. I got your grandma's Halloween invite today; it sounds like one of those parties people will talk about for years. What are you wearing?”

“I don't know. I don't much like costume parties.”

“It's not costume and you'll like it. Claude says she and Hugh used to give one every year and those who weren't invited committed suicide, went into mourning, or slunk away in humiliation. Since we are among the favored throng, all we have to do is look magnificent.”

“Leslie, where can I get a magnificent dress at a less than magnificent price?”

“Have you tried Val's?”

“Not lately. Their prices have tripled.”

“Well, I have some hot information. The prices were tripled by a new manager who took one look at those designer seconds and went gung ho for profits. He has been booted. His replacement is at this very moment marking everything down. Get there early Monday, before the mob scene. I'm off; dinner with Claude. Oh. No word from Craig, I take it.”

“No. You'd be one of the first to know.”

“I hope so. See you soon.”

No word from Craig. Katherine had been so sure he would call within a few days of her trip to Calgary that she had sat by the telephone, jumping every time it rang, just as she had a year and a half earlier, in Vancouver. But the silence was unbroken. Back where we started, she thought.

No, not the start, she corrected herself. Because she knew, from Ross, that Craig wanted to come back. Whether he stole the money or was framed, he wanted to come back and make amends for leaving her.

Well, jibed an inner voice; isn't that nice of him?

Her thoughts argued with each other: all the voices of those who had urged her to make up her mind, to do something, to divorce Craig, to cut herself off from the past. So what if parts
of it were still dangling; so what if her marriage was unfinished; so what if—?

What's the hurry?

Why were they all rushing her? Craig had been gone a little over a year. She and Ross had been together less than four months—and for the last three weeks they'd been apart.

If I want to take some time to think about all this—sort out who I am and where I'm going—what's wrong with that? Why is everyone rushing me?

“Mom?” said Todd. “Could we get started? You said you'd help us, and all this stuff is due on Monday.”

“Right away,” Katherine said. “Give me a minute to clean up.”

She found the two of them waiting for her at the kitchen table, surrounded by bits and pieces of clay models they had volunteered to make for a school diorama on space exploration.

“Actually, we volunteered because we knew you'd help us,” Jennifer confessed as they watched their mother's skillful fingers fashion a clay model of Voyager II. “We didn't think you'd mind too much.”

“I don't mind at all,” Katherine said. “I'm having a wonderful time.”

“Really?” Jennifer asked. “How come I don't think it's so much fun?”

“Because for you it's a school assignment. For me it's like going back to mud pies and childhood.”

“Oh.” Jennifer thought about it. “I don't want to be a child again. Why do you?”

Katherine kept herself from smiling. “I had less to worry about in those days.”

“We have a
lot
to worry about,” said Todd. Looking intently at his slightly deformed model of the Columbia space shuttle, he added, “Carrie and Jon brought Ross to the club yesterday; he went swimming with us and bought us lemonade.”

Katharine's heart skipped. “I hope you thanked him.”

“He asked how you are.”

“And what did you say?”

“That you miss him.”

“Todd!”

“He said he missed you, too,” said Jennifer.

“So do Carrie and Jon,” added Todd. “They wanted to know where you were. They like you.”

“They got used to all of us being together,” Jennifer explained.

“The same way we did,” said Todd.

“I like Ross,” Jennifer commented.

“Me, too,” Todd chimed in. “He's nice to be with.”

They were tossing the conversation back and forth like a beach ball. “Have you two rehearsed this?” Katherine asked.

“We talked about it,” Jennifer admitted. “We told Ross about the computer program we're writing.”

Katherine pictured the three of them talking together and felt jealous of her children. “The one for math?” she asked.

“No.” Todd looked at Jennifer. “The one to see if you'd marry Ross or get together with Dad again.”

The clay model slipped and she grabbed it. “What are you talking about?”

“We made a formula. Dad equals X, and Ross equals Y, and the number of months Dad is away equals N, and the times you ask us about Carrie and Jon when you really want to hear about Ross, equals R, but we haven't got an answer yet—”

“I'm not surprised.” Katherine went to the sink and rinsed off her hands. “Why don't you finish up? I guess I'm getting a little old for a whole afternoon of clay modeling.”

“You said you were having a wonderful time,” Jennifer reminded her. “Mud pies and all that.”

“I was just reminded that I'm a long way from mud pies and all that.” Standing at the sink Katherine studied them. “What do you think I should do?” she asked abruptly.

Taken aback, they stared at her. “I'd like Dad home again,” Todd said finally. “The way everything was.”

“I guess I would, too,” said Jennifer slowly. “Except I don't think things would be the same. Ever again.”

“Sure they would,” Todd said. “Oh, you mean our house? We'd build another one. That's easy.”

“No.” Jennifer met her mother's eyes. “I don't think Mother and Daddy feel the same way about things anymore. Neither do we.”

“So?” Todd demanded. “We're older.”

Furiously, Jennifer dashed a piece of clay against the wall.
“I don't trust him anymore!” she cried and burst into tears.

Katherine swept her into her arms and held her tight. “Jennifer,” she whispered. “Dear Jennifer—”

“I'm sorry!” Jennifer sobbed. “I'm an awful person to say that! I shouldn't even think it—!”

“You're not awful. If someone makes you unhappy, it's natural to worry that he might do it again. It doesn't mean you're awful. It just means you're worried about what's going to happen; you're not sure of the future. And once upon a time you thought you were sure.” Katherine pulled back from Jennifer and said seriously, “That's what childhood really is: a time when you think you're sure of tomorrow. And I guess, in that way, you aren't a child anymore.”

None of us is, Katherine thought later, sitting at her worktable. We all grew up when Craig left us. And Jennifer is right: nothing can ever be the same again.

She bent to her work, concentrating on linking together the segments of an amethyst bracelet. By now she was making jewelry for four small stores, and belts for Heath's. She was earning almost enough to rent a larger apartment, though not yet enough to take time each day to make enough jewelry to send Henri—and also other designs that crowded her imagination: wrist watches, pen and pencil sets, desk sets, even candlesticks and napkin rings. Her fingers itched to make them all. She might still feel trapped by Craig, but in the evenings, after her other work was done, when her pencil flew across empty expanses of paper, she was free of everything, soaring in a world of her own making, without limits or bounds. Someday she would make them all. Now she could not afford the time, or the materials.

But—Victoria was giving a party. She ran her fingers over the square white parchment envelope addressed in gothic lettering, and reread the invitation inside.

“‘So hallow'd and gracious is the time,'” it quoted from Shakespeare, and Katherine smiled at the evidence of Tobias' hand. “All Hallows Eve . . . a time for celebrating dreams . . . for dining and dancing in the Fairmont Ballroom and Garden, Saturday, October 30, at 9:30
P.M.”

For Victoria's party, she thought, she might make some jewelry for herself. Eventually she could sell it, perhaps in
Paris. She'd never made herself a special piece. And if she found a magnificent dress . . . why not?

The telephone rang and, thinking of jewelry, she answered it. “My dear,” Victoria said. “I'm calling to invite you—”

“The invitation came in the mail,” Katherine said, “and of course I'll come; how could I stay away from your party?”

“Party? Oh, yes: All Hallows. Tobias' secretary sent those out; we have been occupied with other matters. Katherine, there is a time for parties and there is a time for business. I am calling about business. There will be a special meeting of the board of directors of the Hayward Corporation, next Thursday. I would like you to be there.”

“But . . . I'm not a member. I know nothing about it. Why would I . . . why would you want me there?”

“Because you are part of us. Because if it were not for you, and the information you brought us the other day, there would be no meeting. Because I want you beside me. I have not forgotten the frivolity of the All Hallows ball. We will have that, too. But this is more important. And it could be extremely important to you. Please, Katherine. Ten thirty, Thursday morning, the twenty-eighth. And please don't be late.”

Hanging up, Katherine stared into space. Ross would be there. And Derek. And the shadow of Craig. And Katherine Fraser—still finding out exactly where she fit in with all of them, for now and the future.

I
T
was the first time since Christmas that they were all together. Jason and Ann flew in from Maine, and Curt from Palm Springs; Ross walked the mile from his office near Telegraph Hill to the Hayward Corporation's offices in Embarcadero Center where, on the thirtieth floor, Derek strolled the hundred paces from his office to the conference room; Tobias and Victoria were driven in a limousine from Pacific Heights, stopping in the financial district to pick up Claude; Katherine took a bus from her apartment.

They were there because Victoria had summoned them as directors and shareholders of the Hayward Corporation. Refusing to give a reason, or an advance agenda, she had simply demanded their presence. And so they came, greeting each other with questions as they poured coffee from the large pot on the slate-covered sideboard (“Enough for all day,” Derek muttered to his father) and took their seats at the long rosewood conference table where each place was furnished with a pad of paper, newly sharpened pencils, and a water glass.

Ross poured a cup of coffee and took it to Katherine, who
was sitting in a corner of the room. When she thanked him, he shook his head. “I'm the one to thank you. I wanted to call you, but it seemed better to wait until today. I was wrong about Victoria, and you knew it; you did what I should have done long ago.”

“I'm glad it's all right,” she replied. The coffee cup trembled in her hand as she fought back the longing for him that pulsed through her. “I thought you might be angry. And I didn't know what I might be starting—with the family.”

“You started quite a bit. But I wasn't angry; how could I be angry with you? You took the burden from me. What I really feel is a strong desire to hold you in my arms.” He saw the startled look in her eyes, and smiled. “I see I'm not the only one.”

Tobias came up and almost apologetically suggested Ross sit down. “Claude and Victoria will be here any minute,” he said. Ross touched Katherine's hand briefly, then took his place at the table, where the others were all talking at once.

“. . . heard from Craig,” Ann suggested tentatively. “Why else would she call us?”

Brusquely, Jason growled, “Probably called his grandmother so she'd smooth his way back to the company. But he's wrong if he thinks I can just forget, as if he'd never run away . . .”

“I doubt he'll want to come back,” said Curt. “Derek runs the company and Craig would know there's no place for him. Though Victoria may try to force us to take him . . . Or she's simply rewriting her will.”