Vicky Banning (20 page)

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Sarah said, sashaying toward them. “I was waiting in the wings for my cue”—she had become very show biz-y—“when I heard that awful, screechy sound coming from on-stage. What did you do, swallow a rusty hinge?”

“Actually,” said Vicky, affecting a pose, “that’s my natural speaking voice. I soften the tone when I’m in polite company…unless I get angry.”

A playful grin curved Sarah’s lips, and she half-winked at
Doris
. “I thought that might be the case,” she said. “I recognized a hint of it when you sang at the benefit.”

Vicky glanced sidelong at her, an eyebrow raised. “Watch it, sister,” she said with a mock threat in her voice. “You’re not in my league quite yet, you know.” Her back arched and her chin jutted forth with over-dramatic elegance as she spoke in a pretentious soprano: “It takes great talent, my dear, and years of practice…to become a truly accomplished bitch!”

Doris
’s contralto laughter filled the room, joined by Sarah’s and Vicky’s. The milling crowd to turn in their direction.

“What’s this about a movie being made?” Sarah asked.

Vicky shrugged. “Apparently he didn’t show up. Maybe, tomorrow.”

“You should have hired a professional,” Sarah said, turning haughtily on her heel. “Amateurs are so unreliable.” The prima donna glided off to embrace her waiting admirers,
Burton
among them. The rest of the cast watched her go, open-mouthed.

“Looks as if you’ve lost a beau,”
Doris
said with a chuckle. “Are you going to break your ‘engagement’ publicly?”

Vicky laughed. “No, I don’t think so. The intrigue will keep the residents young. How are things going with Roger and Steve? I haven’t seen much of you people lately. How was the dinner at their place?”

“Marvelous,”
Doris
said, “after two hours of the most excruciating politeness you’ll ever find outside a convent. It got so bad that we finally broke down and laughed at ourselves. We couldn’t think of anything safe to talk about.”

Vicky grinned. “Except me.”

“You?”
Doris
said with wide-eyed innocence. “What makes you think we’d talk about you?”

Vicky smiled, but didn’t answer.

“Oh, all right,”
Doris
said. “We did talk about you. But you couldn’t have arranged it, you weren’t even there. Besides, you had no reason…”

“
Doris
, dear,” Vicky interrupted, placing her hand gently on hers. “After all this time, hasn’t it occurred to you that
everything
I do, or
don’t
do, is for a reason?” She winked and slowly eased herself to her feet. “Help me get this clown’s hat off, will you?” she asked, groping for the hatpin. “It’s making me lopsided. Then, let’s go out and celebrate. I hear there’s a new women’s nightclub opening in
Harrisburg
…and they’ve got the
grooviest
male strippers.”

“Vicky, have you heard?” Sarah called in a shrill whisper as she rushed up to the breakfast table by the window. She pulled a chair out and plunked herself into it. Her body aquiver, she leaned across to Vicky. “Rumors are flying everywhere that the President’s mother will be here next week, right after Christmas. She’s coming to visit someone.”

“How nice,” Vicky said, nipping the corner of a toast triangle. “President who?”

Sarah stared at her with unabashed astonishment. “Why,
the
president, of course. What other president is there?”

“Well,” Vicky said, counting on her fingers,” my son is the president of Banning Realty. Betty Brown’s daughter…”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Sarah snapped. “Who cares about their mothers? I’m…”

“I beg your pardon!” Vicky said. She set her teacup down with a clunk.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Sarah said. “Stop being so arbitrary. You know very well who I mean. I’m talking about the White House President’s mother, Miss Lillian, not just some…” A look of futility crossed her face and she sank back into her chair with a sigh. After a moment, she said, “You must have had an awful night’s sleep for you to be so ornery this morning.”

Vicky looked concerned and sympathetic. She patted Sarah’s hand gently and in a gentle voice said, “I hate to break this to you, dear, but the Carters are no long—”

“I
know
that!” Sarah insisted. “But Miss Lillian is still Miss Lillian!”

“Right on!” Vicky exclaimed. “And she’s coming to visit? How exciting. Who is she coming to see?”

Sarah had to settle down a bit before she could revive her eagerness and send it in a new direction. The effort showed in the twitching of her shoulders, the fluttering of her hands. She was a veritable whirlwind of activity, all while remaining seated. She spoke quickly, as if afraid someone else might get to spread the rumor before she did. “We don’t really know. It seems to be a deep, dark secret, but we have it on good authority…”

“Whose?” Vicky asked. She turned to scan the dining room, listening to an odd sound, like a breeze rustling through tree branches, tiny whistles being sounded. She finally realized that it was the sound of whispering through musical dentures. At each table, gray heads were tilted to receive confidences from behind mouth-shielded hands, only to turn away in order to pass it along—a senior citizen’s
I’ve Got A Secret
.

“I can’t
hear
you,” a man bellowed. “Speak
up
, I say, into my hearing aid! The residents other
what
?”

“Well,” Sarah said. “
Burton
heard it from Betty Brown, who heard it from Nancy Boyle.”

Vicky waited, then asked, “And who did
Nancy
hear it from?”

“She can’t remember.”

“I see,” Vicky said with a lift of her fork. “Well, you can’t hardly find no better authority than that, now, can you?”

“It must be true, everybody’s talking about it.”

Everyone talked about the end of the world, too
, Vicky thought,
after Orson Wells’ broadcast in ’39. And Chicken Little’s ‘The sky is falling!' So much for the deep dark secret.

Sarah looked directly at her. “Actually,” she said, “I thought she might be coming to see you, since you seem to know so many people in the outside world. Is she?”

“Not me,” said Vicky. “I’ve never had the pleasure.”

Sarah looked disappointed. “Oh,” she said, standing to look around. “Well, I must run. I want to call my children and tell them the news. They’ll be so thrilled for me.” She smiled sadly for a moment. “It’s a pity they can’t be here to meet her, but with their families, the Christmas rush and all, they just can’t get away…again, this year.”

“Of course,” Vicky said. “It truly is such a busy time.” She watched Sarah cross the dining room, moving slower than she had when she entered.
Doris
was standing just inside the doorway, her arms folded beneath her white-linen chest, looking like a
Valkyrie
from
Siegfried
, lacking only a horned helmet. Apparently she’d been standing there for some time, watching. Vicky waved to her.

“I’ve already had breakfast,”
Doris
said after crossing the room and settling herself opposite Vicky. “But I’d like to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Vicky said. She sipped at her tea and lowered the cup. “What can I do for you?”

“Did you…I mean…what do you know about this ‘President’s mother’ rumor that has everyone in such a dither?”

“Very little, actually. I just heard about it a minute ago, from Sarah. Why?”

The chair creaked as
Doris
leaned back into it, her head slightly cocked to one side, a suspicious grin on her lips. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Somehow, this seems to have a Vicky Banning ring to it.” She waited, but received no response. “Are you sure you didn’t start the rumor?”

Vicky looked shocked. “
Moi
?
Little old
moi
?” she said. “Positive!
I haven’t spoken about it to a soul.”

Doris
dipped her head a touch to look into Vicky’s eyes from under her own brows.

“Although it is quite a coincidence,” Vicky added. The seed planted, Vicky felt quite pleased with herself. She poured a fresh cup of tea, studying the swirls of steam rising from her cup as if she’d never seen them before, delighted by their performance. She added cream and sugar—which was forbidden to her—and stirred the tea with great concentration. All actions were done with slow deliberation.

After a long silence,
Doris
surrendered. It was obvious that Vicky was not going to expand on her comment without coaxing. “What…is a coincidence?” she finally asked.

“What is what, dear?” Vicky asked. “Oh! Yes.” She propped her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on the clasped fingers before her. “Well,” she said, speaking low, although no one was near, “lately I’d been getting somewhat bored with the inactivity around here, so I decided to write a short story…for
Modern Maturity
, perhaps. ‘Write what you know,’ they always say, so I decided to set the story here, at the Sanctuary.

“Strangely enough, the story was about just such a situation as this…the president’s mother coming to visit around the holidays.” She laughed lightly. “Now, what do you think of that as a coincidence?”

Doris
’s eyelids gradually lowered until they were shut. Her head nodded slowly. “Quite,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Pity, though,” Vicky said. “I was doing so nicely, until I realized that somehow I’d lost pages three and four of the manuscript. I can’t imagine where I might have left them. Can you?”

Doris
’s eyes crept open, looking wary. “No,” she said and began to rise. “I don’t know anything…and I don’t want to know anything. It’s safer that way.” She turned to leave, but turned back. “The only thing I do know is that there are going to be some very disappointed people here at the Sanctuary, waiting for someone they admire greatly to show up, and who never will.”

“
Doris
,” Vicky said, halting her departure. “Don’t be surprised if we have many more families visiting this year…perhaps even Sarah’s children will make it for the first time in all those years.”

* * * *

“Don’t make me fall!” Vicky shouted as her ice skates parted company.

Roger and Steve held her up by tightly gripping her arms, lifting her from the ice as she treaded the air between them.

Doris let out a whoop of hilarity from the lakeshore, where she’d insisted on staying—rather than take the chance of breaking through the ice and ruining everyone’s fun—and clapped her
mittened
hands with enjoyment.

“This is
most
humiliating,” Vicky said to the boys. “It’s a good thing it’s Christmas and there’s so few people around to see this, or I’d box your ears.” She began to walk with halting steps toward
Doris
. “I think an hour of this nonsense is quite sufficient.”

Steve laughed loudly. “I don’t remember my
arms
ever getting so tired from ice skating before.”

Vicky frowned up at him and he laughed all the harder.

Reaching the wooden bench where
Doris
sat, Vicky groped for it, the arms of her white fur jacket inching their way towards security while her matching hat bobbed awkwardly on her head. She edged around to sit with a thud.

“I thought you said you’d been skating before,” Roger said, unwinding the long, red scarf from around his neck. “You must have been kidding.”

“I certainly was not!” Vicky exclaimed. “It has been many years, I’ll admit…that’s the problem. When I was younger, no one took me for a helpless old lady and felt they had to guide me every step of the way, as you two have done. I did just fine when I was allowed to rely on myself.
Watch
!”

Before Roger and Steve could grab her, Vicky stood, pushed off into a graceful glissade away from them, then swung her leg forward and, with a hop, reversed her balletic pose to glide backwards. She twisted again and stepped into a gradually quickening spin. She twirled faster, raising her arms into a delicate arch above her head and stopped, suddenly, poised like a statue on the frozen, white lake. With a swooping flourish of her arms, she sailed effortlessly toward her open-mouthed audience of friends.

“Help me take these skates off, will you, dear?” she asked of Roger as she sat on the bench. “I can’t seem to get anything right today.”

“You faker!” Roger shouted at her as
Doris
broke into uncontrolled giggling. “All this time you let us think that you couldn’t skate. We practically carried you around for an hour!”

Vicky looked astonished and a little hurt. “Only because you insisted, sweetie. You acted as if you had to get in your good deed for the day. Whatever made you think I needed help? Why Sonja Henie used to say to me, after I had given her a lesson…”

* * * *

“Sarah looked ecstatic this morning, didn’t she?” Vicky asked
Doris
as they strolled back to the Sanctuary. It had snowed lightly the night before and a fine white mist swirled above the mounds to hush the park.

Doris
smiled. “Her family looked as happy as she did. They had such a good time together that not once did anyone think to mention the ‘Miss Lillian’ business. But, what about your family, Vicky? Aren’t they coming?”

“Oh, no,” Vicky said. “I never let them come around the holidays.”
Or any other time,
she noted mentally;
I do the visiting.
“It gets too hectic. I prefer to keep the season pleasant, rather than frantic.”

“But this is the time when most families visit.”

“True,” Vicky laughed. “And they gang up on you trying to convince you to go live with one of them—which is very sweet, I’m sure. But children grow dependent on you, and you on them
.
I have no intentions of spending the rest of my days changing my grandchildren’s diapers.”

Doris
laughed. “No, I don’t
imag
—”

“Keith and his family did visit me one Christmas,” Vicky said. “And I nearly agreed to return to
San Francisco
with them. I do miss my boys so, especially around the holidays when I become particularly vulnerable. And Gerald…”

“Why don’t you—?”

“Because
San Francisco
is the
one
place I want to be and the
only
place I must stay away from.” She glanced nervously at
Doris
and laughed. “It may shock you to know that I’m a very sentimental woman. I find it hard to talk about my family because I love them so. It makes me miss them too much. That’s why we write, rather than call, or visit.”

As they arrived at the Sanctuary’s steps, the door was pulled open by a delicate, bespectacled lady who called, “
Doris
! A huge box was delivered while you were out. It’s addressed to the Sanctuary in care of you. Come look, it’s in the lounge.”

Doris
looked surprised and, after she and Vicky had shed their heavy coats, went to investigate the mysterious package. The box, about four feet tall, stood next to the fireplace. It had been delivered by private messenger, she was told, and the label gave no indication as to the sender. Vicky stood back beyond the crowd that surrounded
Doris
and the package.

Doris
slit the taped edges of the box with a knife, lifted the flaps, and reached inside to bring forth an envelope. She read the card that was inside to herself, then slowly raised her eyes, locating Vicky beyond the pressing group of faces.