Too Much Too Soon (69 page)

A minute later, Vi waddled over to slowly spell out that there was a b’stilla and Lissie should get some now before it was all gone.

Then Honora drifted into the music room. “Lissie, the buffet’s open. Wait until you see the sushi.”

Lissie glanced in mock dismay at Vi, Joscelyn and Honora. “I’ll be fatter than a house, with my three mothers,” she said. But it was Honora’s hand that she clasped.

*   *   *

When everyone was in the hall or dining room, Gid stood on the staircase, introducing his uncle.

Curt took a glass and Gid handed him the mike.

“I’m going to make two toasts, but I promised Crystal not to let the dinner get ruined, so they’ll be short.” He raised the tulip-shaped glass. “I give you Talbott-Ivory, a joining of the two best damn engineering outfits the world has ever seen.”

With a scattering of hurrahs, the assembly chorused, “To Talbott-Ivory.”

“And now let’s drink to absent friends.” Curt held his glass higher. “I give you Gideon Talbott, my mentor, a man of utmost integrity, an illustrious engineer. He’s still with us, and if you don’t believe me, take a look out the window and you’ll see his bridges.” Curt paused, and when he spoke again his eyes were fixed on Crystal. “And I give you Alexander
Talbott, whose brilliance was cut short. Many of you here knew Alexander both as a boy and a man.” His voice went lower with sincerity. “I envy you.”

Crystal’s guests drank her vintage French champagne, but she did not. She was weeping, and so was Gid, who had his arm around her.

The crowd milled toward the buffet.

Curt drew Honora a few steps up the staircase. “Listen, you didn’t mind my mentioning Alexander?”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Time was when you couldn’t cope with that particular situation.”

“Neither of us could,” she said. The years had healed her wounds and now she was able to think of Alexander as her dead nephew. And as for Curt, after that confrontation with Crystal in his hospital room, his fevers (and paternal resentments) had ceased.

*   *   *

For Honora, the dark nooks and corners, the ornate bulges and heavily fringed velvet upholstery were crowded with youthful ghosts. Filled with a desire to recapture that time when life was lit by a younger, rosier star, she set down her half-eaten curry, murmuring an excuse to Gid and Anne, who were sharing a chair next to hers. She slipped across the hall into the circular room, the
Salon Oriental.

She was alone and as she closed the door, she could hear, actually hear, the hushed, bickering English voices. Her ears tingled, growing warm. She sank down on the huge,
voluptuous central ottoman, remembering, remembering.

As the door opened she glanced up with a hint of annoyance. But the intruder was Crystal, a flutter of fog-gray chiffon, the other half of her memories.

“So you weren’t able to resist either,” Crystal said. “Can’t you just see the pair of us in our City of Paris marked-down bargain hats?”

“It’s sheer magic, Crystal, the way you’ve turned back the clock.”

Absurdly delighted by Honora’s approval, Crystal laughed. “Do you remember how you fought against coming?”

“I never did have your good sense.”

Crystal took this sincere compliment for a sisterly dig, possibly about Padraic Mitchell: though she clung obstinately to him, she was extremely sensitive about the relationship, seeing criticism everywhere. “If it hadn’t been for my so-called good sense,” she retorted, “what sort of lives would we have had?”

“Exactly what I was thinking when you came in. Crystal, Gideon was so very good to us.”

Though mollified, Crystal couldn’t help adding another prod. “You never would’ve met Curt.”

“Crystal . . . have you ever stopped to think that we’re each connected to him by our children? I have Evan. Joscelyn asked him to adopt Lissie. And there was . . .” Her voice faded. Crystal’s lovely mouth had curved down. Honora put an arm around the small, square shoulders. “Crys, do you still miss him
so terribly?”

“Every day—every single day—I wake up thinking, ‘This morning I’ll see Alexander.’” Crystal paused, continuing in a determined voice, “Curt tells me you’re doing a reflecting garden for the Norock Museum.”

Honora held up her crossed fingers. “Hoping to.” Pregnancy had put an end to her London landscaping career. However, Evan, after his first two years, had steadfastly battled off any attempt at high-caliber mothering so Honora had begun working again, this time from an office in her Bel Air house: she had more than enough jobs to keep her busy. “They’re making their decision next week.”

The door opened again.

“Crystal, Honora,” Joscelyn said.

As her sisters turned toward her, Joscelyn couldn’t control a dart of that old, childish misery.
They never thought of asking me to come in here with them.
Would she ever shake this sense of being barred from their closeness, cut off from their enviably popular, more beautiful lives? “Why’re you hiding?”

“We both felt drawn,” Crystal said with a hint of annoying mystery.

“To what?” Joscelyn demanded.

“This room. It’s where we were put to wait for Gideon the first time we visited,” Honora explained, smiling and making a circular, invitational gesture with her arm. “Come be nostalgic with us.”

Feeling part of the Sylvander sisterhood again, Joscelyn sat on the ottoman with them.
“What point in the memoirs have you reached?”

Crystal said, “We’d just started.”

“The first time
I
saw the place I can remember quite distinctly thinking that there couldn’t be a man richer or more lavish than Gideon.”

“He was always tremendously generous,” Honora put in.

“Looking back, in our cases maybe a bit much so,” Crystal said thoughtfully. “He gave us too much too soon.”

“Especially me,” Joscelyn chuckled. “God, the amount of cake I gorged at those Open Houses!”

“It must’ve been pretty dreary for a child,” Honora excused. “No wonder the food seemed the best thing to you.”

The sentimentality that Joscelyn normally kept incarcerated had been released. “Not the best thing,” she said a bit shakily. “I know I kept it well hidden, but having you two for sisters was the best thing—and it still is.”

“Same here,” Honora and Crystal said at the same moment.

Misty-eyed, the sisters wound their arms around one another, a joint hug like the embraces that the Sylvander family had shared long ago.

Joscelyn pulled away first.

They began dredging up recollections of those long ago months when they had lived under this immense slate roof, interrupting one another as the memories flooded.

Curt had come to the door, which Joscelyn had left ajar. He stood for maybe a minute
watching the three women on whose lives he had made such an indelible imprint. “Don’t get too close to the nitty-gritty, gals,” he said, his flippant tone marred by a slight huskiness. “You have an eavesdropper.”

As they looked toward him, each remained immersed in the past.

Crystal inevitably thought of the hideous speck of time when he had flung himself between a gun and all that she held dearest on this earth.

Joscelyn’s mind jumped to a thin, homely, painfully bright little girl falling for this same teasing smile—oh, how Curt had molded her life.

Honora’s thoughts were softer and fuzzier than those of her sisters: she was trying to recapture the magic of that love-at-first-sight moment by the bric-a-brac covered piano.

He came over to link his arm in hers. “I hate like hell to break this up,” he said, “but in case you’ve forgotten there’s a party going on.”

His smile included them all.

The three women smiled back, but as they left the circular room with him their eyes were again moist.

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