Time After Time (11 page)

Make no mistake, sister
dearest — the competition to reign socially over all others is a
vicious sport here, being fought to the death. At the moment the
queen is undeniably Mrs. Astor of Beechwood, but that may easily
change. A grander ball, a bigger mansion, a more titled guest list
— any one of these factors could result in an overthrow of the
monarchy.

Liz looked up from the
letter. "This is historically very interesting, but ... what about
the séance?"

"How can you not be
fascinated by it all?" asked Victoria, disappointed in Liz's lack
of interest. "That's my
life
she's writing about. One of them, anyway," she
added without a smidgeon of humor in her voice.

"I have to take Susy to
the dentist."

"Oh, go to the fourth
page, then."

Liz did so.

When it is foggy and we
are forced to stay inside, my skills are much in demand. It is very
puzzling to me how a Newport grande dame can dissolve in tears as
her departed husband begs her to seek guidance from someone like
me, now that he himself is gone — and the next day, how that same
lady can demand that I guess the content of each of her guests'
purses, and explode in shrieks of gaiety when I am
right.

I must close for now; we
are off to a picnic in a few short moments. Tonight there is to be
a rather grand affair at Chateau-sur-Mer, an imposing castle on
Bellevue Avenue. (Everyone in Newport seems to crave his own
European-style palace; I predict that more will come.) I wish you
well, dear sister.

"Wow!" said Liz. "I see
what you mean. Is she or isn't she?"

Victoria began nervously
rearranging the cheerful clutter of framed photos on the painted
mantelpiece in Liz's living room. "Exactly," she said, obviously
distressed. "On the one hand, she seems able to summon a widow's
dearly departed — knowing beforehand what he's going to
say."

"But on the other hand,"
mused Liz, "she's able to guess what's in women's purses. Not that
that's so hard," she added.

Victoria moved the framed
photo of Liz's daughter to the back, her mother to the front. "So
you think she
is
a fake?"

"Heck, I don't know," said
Liz, feeling a little preempted by Victoria and her spiritualist.
"Read some more and find out."

"How can I do that?" asked
Victoria, turning to her with a stricken look. "You know I'm going
to Martha's Vineyard for the next week. And you're not letting the
letters out of your house!"

Once again, the guilt.
Victoria was younger than Liz, prettier than Liz — unless you
happened to prefer nice-looking brunettes to knockout redheads —
and much, much richer than Liz. And yet time after time, Liz found
herself deferring to Victoria out of pity. How could she not?
Victoria had no
memory;
and if she had, her tragedy would be twice as
profound.

"Okay," Liz said. "Take
the first two shoeboxes with you. That should keep you going. But
whatever you do, please, please don't lose them."

"I'd never do that," said
Victoria, eagerly scooping up the boxes. "It'd be as bad as losing
a family album."

She gave Liz a quick
good-bye hug and went off to pack. Liz was left feeling funky and
restless and at the same time somewhat paralyzed. What was she
supposed to do now? Sit around and wait for her ears to
ring?

It wasn't her style.
Elizabeth Coppersmith had a long history of meeting crises head-on.
When Keith took off right after Susy was born, Liz had reached deep
down and come up with a new career in party planning. By giving up
sleep and with the help of Tori and her parents, Liz had managed —
without a cent of child support — to hold on to both her pride and
her credit rating.

She decided to tackle this
latest combination of setbacks head-on as well.

Between the apparition and
the ruined rugs, Liz much preferred to deal with the rugs. She'd
simply offer to have them all cleaned, no matter what the cost,
thereby demonstrating that she was both successful and gracious.
After a quick call to Netta, she put on a happy face and a new
skirt and drove the minivan over to East Gate to collect her
gear.

In the bright morning
light the Queen Anne mansion looked far more charming than spooky,
convincing Liz that the ghost had been a combination of fog and her
imagination. After Netta admitted her into the marble-floored entry
hall, Liz tested her confidence by pausing and admiring the
grandfather clock, a Chippendale mahogany longcase of museum
quality. There was nothing spectral about it; it was just your
ordinary fifty-thousand-dollar clock.

"I'm sorry I haven't had
time to pack up your things," said the elderly housekeeper, dressed
today in workaday brown and black, "but Bradley is home from day
care today. A summer cold, I expect; the poor dear is limp as a
rag."

Liz apologized profusely
for having walked out before finishing the cleanup. "I don't know
what came over me," she said ruefully. "I really lost it,
especially with Caroline."

Netta threw open the doors
to the Great Room, which smelled pleasantly of carpet cleaner, and
said, "You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done. Mr. Eastman and
I had a good chuckle over it later when I told him what you did
with the cake."

Scandalized, Liz said,
"You
saw
me?
You
told
him?
Which
Mr. Eastman?"

"Well, that would be Jack,
of course. I would never have told his father. Mr. Eastman —
Cornelius Eastman, that is — is a bit on the blind side when it
comes to the child. But Jack—"

Netta locked her arthritic
hands over her stomach in a prim way and said, "Jack is not what
you call your modem male. In many ways — I suppose it's the schools
he was sent to — he harbors old-fashioned notions. About children,
certainly. And — this I hate to admit — about women. Yes. He's a
bit, what do you say, chauvinistic," she said with obvious
affection.

Despite her own hostility
to Jack, Liz liked his housekeeper very much. There was something
about the woman's ample size and lisle stockings, something about
the kind and faded blue eyes behind the plastic eyeglasses, that
made Liz want to confide completely in her.

"This was my first event
for influential clients," she said, almost wistfully. "And I think
I blew it big-time."

"Now that's just silly.
Several of the guests commented on how clever the decorations were.
It's not your fault that Snowball got diarrhea. Which is exactly
what I told Mr. Eastman — Jack, that is. He did overreact at the
end. For goodness' sake, look at the rugs — there's no harm
done.

"It's the strain," Netta
added, shaking her head. "The shipyard's in bad trouble
financially. It's not easy watching a hundred-year-old family
business fade away," she said with a sigh. "People aren't buying
pleasure boats ... the fishermen are hurting ... regulations are
strangling everyone ... taxes are up. Jack tells all this to me,
you know, because no one else seems to care."

The housekeeper paused to
listen for something, but whether it was for Bradley's crying or
for approaching footsteps, Liz couldn't tell.

"Then, too, they've had
such terrible luck lately," Netta went on, lowering her voice. "Did
you see in today's paper about the toxic spill they found there
yesterday evening?"

Liz didn't get the
morning
Journal,
but she nodded sagely, as if she knew all about
it.

"I don't understand what's
so toxic about turpentine," Netta admitted. "In my day it was just
something you cleaned paintbrushes with. The police think it might
have been vandals. Be that as it may, it's the shipyard that's
responsible. My poor, poor Jack."

She sighed again, a deep,
heartfelt release of love and emotion for her poor, poor
Jack.

Liz didn't exactly want to
hear about Jack's troubles — just as she was
quite
sure Jack wouldn't be
interested in hearing about her own —but she made a sympathetic
sound anyway.

"Maybe things will turn
around once Mrs. Stonebridge returns," Liz said, implying that she
was more intimate in the family's affairs than she really was.
"Families have a way of pulling together." She added innocently,
"Stacey Stonebridge is, what, a cousin of Jack's?"

Netta's eyebrows did a
quick little lift. She leaned more closely to Liz, as if they were
sharing a box at the opera, and said, "Not a cousin. And nothing to
do with
Jack.
If
you get my drift."

Liz got it. She nodded and
said, "These things happen," which meant absolutely nothing but
seemed like the right thing to say.

"Well, I'd like to stay
and help, dear," said Netta, "but I have to interview a nanny in
ten minutes, and—"

"No, no, please, I'll be
fine. Thank you so much, Netta. Truly." Liz had to resist an urge
to hug the overworked housekeeper.

Netta gave Liz's forearm a
little squeeze. "His bark is worse than his bite, dear."

She left Liz on her own.
The first thing Liz did was stalk from rug to rug like a beagle,
hovering over the areas of offense and sniffing for vile smells.
She was stooped over the Aubusson, the oldest and most beautiful of
the carpets, when Jack Eastman walked in on her.

"Good morning, Elizabeth,"
he said from behind her.

Liz whirled around so
sharply that her blunt-cut hair slapped up against her cheeks. The
sound of her given name on his lips sounded shockingly intimate to
her; the tone of his voice, even more so.

"Ah! Hello,
Mr.—"

"Jack."

"Mr. Jack," she said,
unable to resist twitting him. At the same time she was saying to
herself,
Why did you do that? Be nice.
Maybe he'll pay the rest of the bill.

He was dressed in working
khakis and a dark polo shirt that showed off his strong build and
rugged good looks one heck of a lot better than some prissy old
blazer and lemon-yellow tie.
He's going
sailing,
Liz decided. Poor, poor
Jack.

"I had to come back for my
briefcase," he explained unnecessarily.

"Ah," Liz said. Not going
yachting, then. How too, too bad.

He seemed to want to chat.
"I've been so distracted by this mess at the shipyard that I walked
out without it. Every damned bureaucrat in Rhode Island is down
there, crawling over the spill." Obviously he, too, was assuming
that Liz had heard about the crisis.

She began to wonder if the
spill was serious. "How much solvent actually poured out?" she
asked, becoming alarmed.

"Someone knocked over a
fifty-gallon drum. It wasn't properly sealed — which I can't
understand — and now there'll be hell to pay."

"Not exactly Chernobyl,
then," Liz said with an ironic smile. She picked up the nearest
Mickey Mouse cutout she could lay her hands on, just to have
something to do, and began fussing with the two-sided tape on
it.

She thought he'd be on his
way in search of his briefcase, but he surprised her by coming the
rest of the way into the Great Room and perching his buns on the
rolled arm of the leather chair. He seemed to be in no hurry,
apparently pleased to think that here was yet more labor coming to
him for free.

Liz didn't like it: didn't
like having him watch her, didn't like having him stiff her, didn't
like having him out-stressing her. Dammit! She resolved not to
engage in his game of oneupmanship by either meeting his glance or
matching his stare. She simply ignored him. For all she knew, he
could be counting the squares in the parquet floor.

"I'm sorry for the way
I've behaved," he said out of the blue. "l've been taking a hell of
a lot out on you. I hope you don't take it amiss."

Amiss. Who talked like
that anymore besides lords of manors? "I'm sure you have weightier
problems than most," she said, without meaning a word of
it.

"Look, I've decided to pay
you the money that's due," he said more stiffly. "I've told my
secretary. The check's in the mail."

That
made her turn around and smile. It sounded so low-rent,
coming from him. "Of course it is," she said sweetly, mostly to
irritate him. Clearly she was still smarting from his treatment of
her.

His cheeks flushed deeply.
Something about his embarrassment made him look almost like a kid
to her, a kid in prep school who's been caught picking on someone
littler than himself. Which is exactly what he'd been doing up
until now.

He stood up and sauntered
closer. "I said I was sorry," he drawled. "Surely you can forgive a
first offense."

"Not if it was your
second," she said instantly. It was Liz's turn to color; she
remembered the moment all too well. "You ran me down in the entry
hall a week ago after having words with your ... with
someone."