Toxic Bachelors (29 page)

“I hope it's not a deal-breaker for you,” he said quietly. “I'd love you to come on her one day. She's called the
Blue Moon.”
He felt better having told her about it, although he wasn't sure yet how she felt. She looked a little shocked.

“How big is she?” Carole asked out of curiosity.

“Two hundred and forty feet.” Carole whistled in response, and took a long sip of her wine.

“Jesus…I work in Harlem… and you have a two-hundred-and-forty-foot yacht … there's a discrepancy for you. But on the other hand,” she said, excusing him for the extravagance of it, “you just gave me a million dollars to spend on my kids. I guess if you didn't have that kind of money, you couldn't help us either. So maybe it's a wash.”

“I hope so. I don't want something stupid like a boat to come between us.”

She looked at him solemnly, with loving eyes. “It won't,” she said slowly. “At least I hope it won't.” There was nothing showy about him otherwise, and she could see that it was important to him, and how much he loved his boat. It was just a very, very big boat. “That's a long time to be gone in the summer,” she said pensively.

“Maybe next year you can come with me,” he said hopefully. “And I don't have to stay away as long. I had no pressing reason to come back this year, so I stayed away longer than I usually do. Sometimes I dread coming back here. I get lonely.” He looked around the apartment as he said it, and then back at her. And then he smiled. “I have fun on the boat, especially with Gray and Adam. I can't wait for you to meet them.” But Carole and Charlie weren't quite ready for that yet. They both wanted more time to establish the relationship, and then he thought of something as he looked at her, and put an arm around her. He'd been wanting to do it for days. “So now you know my darkest secret. I have a yacht.”

“Is that as bad as it gets?”

“Yes. I've never been in jail. I've never been prosecuted for a felony, or even a misdemeanor. I have no children, legitimate or otherwise. I've never declared bankruptcy. I've never been married, or stolen some-one's wife. I brush my teeth every night before I go to bed, even if I'm drunk, which doesn't happen too often. I always floss. I pay for my parking tickets. Let's see, what else …” He paused for breath, and she laughed at him. The lion's tail was sticking straight up in the air at the back of the couch.

“You look so silly with that tail.”

“And you, my darling, look absolutely wonderful with a green face.” As soon as he said it, he kissed her, and when he stopped she was out of breath. It had been an evening full of surprises, but so far they were pleasant ones, even though she was a little shocked over the size of his yacht. To her, it looked more like an ocean liner than an ordinary boat. “I've always wanted to kiss a woman with black lips and a green face,” he whispered, and she laughed at what he said. And he kissed her again. She clung to him this time as he did. He was awakening things in her that she had forgotten and repressed for years. She had put her heart and soul into her work, and had forgotten all else. But in Charlie's arms, she remembered now how sweet it was to be kissed, and how much sweeter still to be cherished by a man.

“Thank you,” she whispered as he held her close. She had been so frightened to do that with him, to be close to him, and to let herself take the risk of falling in love again. He had gently led her over the threshold into his private world, and she felt safe with him. Just as he did with her.

He walked her around the apartment then, showed her some of his treasures, and the things he loved most. Photographs of his parents and sister, paintings he had bought in Europe, including a remarkable Degas that hung over his bed. And after she had looked at it for a moment, he led her from the room. It still felt too soon for them to linger in his bedroom, but seeing his Degas led them to talk about the ballet. She told him she used to dance.

“I was very serious about it until I was sixteen, and then I quit,” she said with regret, but he understood her posture better now, and the graceful way she moved.

“Why did you quit?”

She smiled sheepishly as she answered. “I got too tall. I would have been condemned to the back row of the corps de ballet forever. Primas are always small, or they used to be. I think they're taller now, but not as tall as I am.” There were occasional disadvantages to her height, though not many as far as Charlie was concerned, he loved how tall and lithe she was. She managed to remain both elegant and feminine at the same time, and he was considerably taller than she was, so he didn't mind at all.

“Would you like to go to the ballet sometime?” Her eyes lit up as he asked her, and he promised her they'd go. There were so many things he wanted to do with her. The fun had only just begun.

She stayed till nearly midnight, and he kissed her again several times. They wound up in the kitchen finally, where they had a snack before she left. They'd never eaten a proper dinner that night, just a lot of cupcakes and candy, until they made sandwiches and sat at the kitchen table, chatting.

“I know this sounds ridiculous, Charlie.” She was trying to explain to him how she felt. “All my life I've hated extravagance, and the snobbishness and arrogance of rich people. I never wanted to be special, unless I'd earned it. Not because someone I was related to had. I wanted to help poor people, and people who never had any luck. I feel guilty when I do things other people can't, or spend more money than they, so I don't. Not that I can anyway. But if I could, I wouldn't. It's just who I am.” He already knew that about her, so he wasn't surprised. She never spoke of her family, so he had no idea if they had money. Given the way she lived and the life she had devoted herself to, he suspected they didn't. Maybe some, but not much. There was nothing about her, other than her aristocratic good looks, that suggested she came from money. Maybe a good solid family of modest means, and sending her to Princeton had probably been a stretch.

“I understand,” he said quietly as they both finished their snack. “Are you horrified that I have a boat?”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “It's just not something I would do even if I could. But you have a perfect right to spend your money any way you like. You do a lot of good for people through the foundation. I just always feel I should be living in abject poverty, and giving whatever I have to someone else.”

“Sometimes you have to keep a little and enjoy it yourself.”

“I do. But I'd rather give mine back. I feel guilty for taking a salary at the center. I just figure other people need it more than I do.”

“You have to eat,” he pointed out to her. He felt far less guilty than she. He had inherited an enormous fortune at an early age, and had lived up to the responsibility of it fully over the course of many years. He enjoyed his luxuries, his paintings, the objects he collected, and most of all his boat. He never apologized to anyone for it, except indirectly to Carole now. Their philosophies were very different, but not too different, he hoped.

“Maybe I've been a little too extreme,” she admitted. “Austerity allows me to feel I'm atoning for my sins.”

“I don't see any sins,” he said seriously. “I see a wonderful woman who has given of her life's blood to others, and works herself to the bone. Don't forget to have some fun.”

“I have fun with you, Charlie,” she said softly. “I always do when we're together.”

“So do I.” He smiled and kissed her again. He loved kissing her, and longed to go further, but he didn't dare to yet. He knew how frightened Carole was, of getting too attached, of getting hurt again, and he had his own fears to contend with too. He worried about the same thing, and he was always waiting for the fatal flaw to surface. In her case it was an obvious one, and not a hidden flaw. It was right out in front, like a flag. She came from a different background than he did. She was a social worker, devoted to her work in Harlem, and she was skittish about his world. She wasn't a debutante or a socialite, and if anything she disapproved of his way of life, although she totally approved of him. But the big question for him was whether or not she could overcome her reservations and accept the way he lived. If they were going to be together, and stay together, she was going to have to make her peace with that discrepancy, and so was he. At the moment, he thought they could. It rested more on Carole, at this point, than on him. She was the one who was going to have to be willing to forgive the frivolous extravagances of his world, without wanting to run away from him.

He took her home in a taxi, and kissed her at her front door. She didn't invite him up, but she had told him earlier that her place was a mess. He had never seen her studio, but could well imagine how challenging it was to live in one room. And she led a busy life.

He kissed the tip of her nose before he left her, and she laughed when she saw that he had green lips. Her face was still painted green from the Halloween party that night.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he promised, as he got back in the cab. “And I'll see about ballet tickets, maybe for next week.” She waved and thanked him again, and then disappeared into the house as he drove off.

His apartment seemed empty without her when he got back. He liked the way she filled his space, his life, his heart.

15

C
HARLIE'S SECRETARY TOLD HIM THE NEXT MORNING
that she'd gotten tickets to the ballet for Friday night. It was a supposedly excellent production of
Giselle
, and he left a message for Carole to tell her, and then sat down to open his mail. His new Princeton alumni directory had come, and just for the fun of it, he looked up Carole's name. He knew the year she'd graduated, so it was easy to look up. He flipped through the correct pages, and then frowned when he didn't see her name.

He thought about the year she'd told him, and he went through it again. She wasn't there, which was strange. There was obviously a mistake. He mentioned it to his secretary later that morning, and decided to do Carole a favor, and save her some time, since he was sure she'd want it corrected herself. He asked his secretary to call the alumni office and report the omission to them. He gave her Carole's full name, Carole Anne Parker, and gave the correct year of her graduation.

He was hard at work on some financial reports later that afternoon, when his secretary called him on the intercom, and he picked it up, looking distracted. He was trying to make sense of some extremely complicated financial projections far into the future, and had to concentrate on what she had just said.

“I called the alumni office, as you asked me to, Mr. Harrington. And I gave them Miss Parker's name and graduation. They said that no one by that name has ever graduated from Princeton. I asked them to check again, and they did. I don't think she went to Princeton. Maybe that's the mistake. The alumni office insists she didn't.”

“That's absurd. Give me the number. I'll call them myself.” He was annoyed at their stupidity, and he was sure Carole would be too. He even knew her eating club. It was all over her CV that she had gone to Princeton.

But when he called them five minutes later, they told him the same thing. They were in fact extremely disagreeable about it, and said they didn't make mistakes like that. Carole Anne Parker had never graduated from Princeton. In fact, according to their records, when they checked further, no one by that name had ever attended the school. As he hung up the phone, a cold chill ran down his spine. And five minutes later, feeling like a monster, he called Columbia's School of Social Work. They told him the same thing. She had never attended Columbia either. When he hung up the phone, he knew he had found the fatal flaw. The woman he was falling in love with was a fraud. Whoever she was, and however well intentioned her work for the center had been, she had none of the degrees she claimed she did, and had even conned a million dollars out of his foundation, based on falsified credentials and a phony reputation. It was nearly criminal, except for the fact that she hadn't wanted the money for herself, but to help others. He had no idea what to do with the information. He needed time to think about it and digest it.

When she called him that afternoon, for the first time since he'd met her six weeks before, he didn't take her call. He couldn't just disappear out of her life, and he wanted an explanation. But first he needed time to absorb it, and two days later, he was taking her to the ballet. He made a decision that afternoon to say nothing until then, and deal with it after that. He called her late that afternoon, and said the board of trustees was having a crisis and he couldn't see her until Friday. She said she understood perfectly, and those things happened to her too. But when she hung up at her end, Carole wondered why he had sounded so chilly. In fact, he'd nearly been crying. He felt completely ripped off and disillusioned. The woman he had admired so totally since the day they met was a liar.

He spent an agonizing two days waiting to see her again, and when he picked her up on Friday for the ballet, she looked lovely. She was wearing the regulation little black cocktail dress, high heels, and a simple black fur jacket. She was beautifully dressed, and had even worn a pair of very proper pearl earrings that she said had been her mother's. He believed not a single word she said now. She had tainted everything between them with her lies about Columbia and Princeton. He no longer trusted her, and she thought he looked stiff and unhappy. She asked him if everything was all right, as the curtain went up, and he nodded. He had barely spoken to her in the cab, nor when they got to Lincoln Center. Carole thought he looked awful. She could only assume that since she'd last seen him, something terrible had happened at the foundation.

At intermission, they went to the bar to have a drink, and before they went back to their seats, she excused herself to go to the ladies' room, and just as she was about to leave him, a couple swooped down on her before Carole could avoid them. She turned her head away, as though she were trying to hide from them, which Charlie noticed instantly and cringed inside. All she said to him was that they were friends of her parents and she couldn't stand them, and then she vanished. Charlie then realized who they were, as the woman in question bore down on him, and her husband quickly followed. He knew them too, and had to admit he didn't like them either. They were unbearable social climbers.