Willow (18 page)

In the bathroom. I looked at my face in the mirror.
"Go home. Willow De Beers," I told that face. "You're trying to get back something that never existed and probably never will."
"I can't." I replied. "I've got to try."
Why? I thought,
The first word most babies uttered was Mama.
I was almost nineteen years old. and I had yet to say it once.
That's why.

9
A Night for Romance
.
"I'm not sure I'm doing that." I said when

"Oh, of course you're sure," she declared as though she knew my mind better than I did.
Lord and Lady Thomas and the McClusters had left. and Thatcher's father had gone into his office to phone someone about the golf game he was planning for the following morning. Bunny had been showing me around the house, especially where I would stay.
"Look at the size of these rooms!' she cried. "And how far away the guest suites are from our bedrooms. Why, we won't even realize you're here, and you'll have as much privacy as you wish."
That was not an exaggeration. The rambling structure did seem to go on forever, and the rooms were enormous by any standard. The bedroom she suggested for me was, according to her, designed by Addison Mizner himself.
"He wouldn't do a house unless he could put his stamp inside as well as outside." she said.
The room was easily twenty feet by forty, with its own sitting area, large-screen television, stereo, and secretary desk--hardly what anyone would think of as a guest bedroom. It was done in soft, warm colors: salmon and beige and a pale green she called celadon.
Bunny pointed out a beautiful vase in a sort of turquoise glaze. "That's his signature color. Mizner Blue, "It's as if he left his fingerprints," she declared, and then whispered. "It makes the house more valuable. Someday, we might buy it. We're leasing with an option to buy."
I
nodded and continued to look about the room. The ceiling-high windows were draped in salmon silk, and a pair of French doors opened to a balcony that looked out at the sea.
The centerpiece was the oversized bed with an enormous arched engraved headboard. She said the furniture was in the Spanish style Mizner favored, There was a very pretty area rug over the parquet floor and a center chandelier that seemed to fit the motif so well it might have been created before electric lights were invented and used to hold candles first.
The room did have a wonderful view of the beach and, more important to me, a view of the beach house. I stood out on the balcony and looked down at it Bunny Eaton saw the direction of my gaze.
"This was once Grace Montgomery's bedroom, you know." she said.
I turned. "Oh?"
"The poor young woman was supposedly seduced in this very room," Bunny added
dramatically, and walked to the bed, looking at it as if she could see the actual seduction being replayed on its sheets and pillows. "Here she lay, young and vulnerable and trusting. Kirby Scott was a very handsome man, and charming-- the sort who could have his hand down your dress before you even realized he was nearby. How could she resist? She must have felt terribly guilty, felt as though she had stolen her mother's lover from her. That was why she kept it a secret so long. I'm sure.
"I haven't changed a thing, really, not a sheet, not a pillow, not a pillowcase," she said.
From the excitement in her voice and in her eyes. I think she believed that would add an attractive romantic element, like being where your favorite soap opera was shot or something.
On the contrary, it gave me the dreads. My mother's mental problems might have had their origin in this very room.
"Are you sure all that happened here?" I asked, embracing myself and stepping back into the room.
"Oh, yes. The real estate agent who was representing the Montgomerys at the time was absolutely positive. Things like that are part of what they call disclosure. At least, they are here in Palm Beach where everyone wants to know that sort of thing and isn't put off by it."
She studied me a moment and must have seen the revulsion in my face. It was almost as if I could see myself being violated.
That doesn't bother you, does it? I mean, we could put you in another room just as easily. It's just that
I
thought this was the nicest and had a wonderful view. It has the best bathroom. too. The most up-todate: a bidet, a multihead shower, magnifying mirrors, and just look at the work in here," she declared as if she were trying to sell the house to me.
I
gazed in at the beige and white tiled wall behind the toilet, the rich sink cabinet, and the large oval mirror above it The floor looked like chipped turquoise inlay. The shower stall had a marble seat in it.
"Well? Compares with what you have at The Breakers, doesn't it?"
"That isn't a worry of mine, Bunny. As I told you, I'm here to work on my--"
"Oh, please," she said, throwing up her hands and fanning the air between us as if she were waving away smoke. "don't start talking like a Ms. instead of a Miss and drown me in boredom with all that work you want to do."
I
started to laugh,
"Come along." she said. "I'll show you our bedroom. We just had it redone by this new interior decorator who is the rage of Palm Beach. Thatcher's roam is down there," she said, flipping her hand to my right as we left the bedroom. "He has his own entrance to the house. Sometimes, we don't see him for a week. I swear. I wonder if he is deliberately avoiding us sometimes."
She smiled at me.
"Maybe that will soon change. As long as you're here, at least."
I shook my head and followed after her as she rattled on and on about each and every curtain, artifact, and piece of furniture along the way. not failing to attach the cost of each as well. Just after the tour was completed and we returned to the rear loggia, Thatcher appeared.
"Well," Bunny pounced, was it worth it for you to rush off to that dreary courthouse and interrupt your parents' wonderful brunch?"
"Yes, Mother," he said. "I settled the case in less than half an hour."
"I'm sure you could have done it over the phone," she insisted, refusing to relent.
He shook his head and laughed.
"What have you been doing since I left?" he asked me with some trepidation in his eyes.
"Gossiping," Bunny answered for me. "And enjoying it." she added firmly.
"I'll bet."
"I'd better return to the hotel. I'm expecting some messages." I said. even though
I
wasn't.
"Just go back and pack up," Bunny told me. "Why spend another night there?"
"I'll see," I said.
"There's nothing to see about." she wheedled. "You'll be far more comfortable here. and you will be able to accomplish a great deal more in a shorter time."
"Mother, will you let the woman make up her own mind?" Thatcher said.
"I'm just trying to point out the obvious advantages, Thatcher."
"If they're obvious, they don't have to be pointed out." he countered.
She thought for a moment. "Sometimes, we don't see the most obvious things." she replied, sounding as if it were something she had drawn out of her well of memorable sayings.
Thatcher shook his head.
"Here," Bunny said, handing me a pink card with gold trim. "Our phone number. Call me if you need any help with anything, anything at all."
"She's not planning on moving furniture here. Mother."
"Nevertheless, there it is." she said, nodding at the card.
"My mother is just impossible," Thatcher told me as we started for the door.
"Thank you for inviting me. Bunny. Please tell Mr. Eaton I said thank you. too."
"You had better start calling him Asher. If you don't, he'll complain about how old you make him feel." she warned.
I promised
I
would.
"How old you'll make him feel," Thatcher mimicked as we made our way to his car. "Everyone clings to his or her illusions here as if they were holding on for dear life."
"Present company excluded?"
I
asked.
He smiled back at me, and we act into the car.
"Why is it I suspect I was the main topic of conversation?"
Thatcher asked.
"She worries about you," I told him.
He raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Bunny? Worries? People in Palm Beach don't worry. They just find out what the solution to the problem will cost and then buy it Didn't you see the sign on entering the island?"
"What sign?"
'There's one that reads. 'Check your worries at the gate. Smile or turn right around and leave.' Do you know there is no cemetery or hospital in Palm Beach? Death and sickness are not tolerated."
We both laughed.
I
studied him for a moment.
I
wanted to return to the house and stay, of course. What a wonderful opportunity it presented to me. I could approach my mother again but in a quieter, softer, gradual manner. However. I didn't want my motives misunderstood. I was certainly not here to play any Palm Beach romance games,
"Do you feel like telling me about Mai Stone?" I asked him.
"I knew it! I knew she brought all that up. Did she tell you her parents sold her to an Arab billionaire for his son?"
"Yes. It's not true?"
"Of course not. Mai was always unpredictable. It was what I liked and didn't like about her." he said.
"How can you be so contradictory about that, especially with someone you supposedly loved?"
He looked at me, those beautiful eyes turning darker as his face became serious.
"There's a little contradiction in every romance, and especially in every marriage. Each person has to give up something he or she wants. That's
compromise. For Mai, it would have had to have been sacrificing some of her impetuosity, her
unpredictability. She hated being tied down by any set of rules, and she took great pleasure in being outrageous, whether by defying style or etiquette or her lover's wishes."
He laughed.
"She drove around in her new sports car without putting on her license plates for the longest time. She was stopped three times by the Palm Beach police. She kept getting tickets. and
I
kept settling them. The fourth time, the patrolman was prepared and had a screwdriver. He put them on himself. I loved her for her carefree, wild ways, but
I
grew annoyed and tired of it as well."
"But you gave her an engagement ring, didn't you?"
"I gave it to her, but she didn't wear it. She took it and promised she would eventually. Sometimes, she put it on before we went out, but before the evening ended, she usually had it off."
"She was teasing you."
"I think she was teasing herself. maybe challenging herself." he said. "At times. I felt like a bystander, observing, waiting on the sidelines.' He looked at me. "Talk about your split personalities.
I
never knew which Mai Stone I was picking up, and sometimes didn't know until the evening was nearly ended. She made surprise into a career."
"You must have been very much in love with her to put up with all that."
"I thought so, but now I'm not so sure I wasn't simply putting myself through some form of torture." "Why would you do that?"
I
asked.
To cleanse my soul of all my previous romantic sins." he said without a beat of hesitation. his eyes back to twinkling impishly.
"I'll bet." I said. "That's the first thing you said that I believe." He roared and drove on.
"You should take Bunny up on her offer. There's a computer you can use in my home office.
I
don't really use it much. The office is adjacent to my bedroom in what
I
like to call the Far Eastern wing of the estate. Besides it being on the east end. the furniture is all Oriental in style.
^-
"Talk about surprises. The house is full of them," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Bunny told me Grace Montgomery was seduced in the room I would have."
"That's the legend."
"You don't believe it?"
"I don't know," he said. shaking his head. "Exaggerations are like an indigenous crop here. People harvest and spread them like jam and pass them around... like that campfire game, what's it called? You know, where someone begins by whispering a secret, and it gets passed along, exaggerated. changed, until it arrives at the end, almost entirely different from what it was at the beginning."
"I don't know that game," I said.
He raised those skeptical eyebrows again. "Oh? How come?"
"My father taught me how to hold onto the truth." I said softly.
He gazed at me a moment and then looked ahead and said in a soft tone of voice. "Before you leave, please teach me how that's done."
We were both strangely quiet for nearly the remainder of the trip back to The Breakers.
I shouldn't feel so different, so peculiar about myself and life
, I thought. Everyone, no matter how well-to-do, how successful in life. carries the burden of some heavy secret or secrets.
Everyone is a little bit haunted. There are ghosts within us all, truths we keep bouncing away like bubbles we are afraid to let settle inside because we're afraid they will burst and poison us with the reality we can't face or with which we can't live.
I
was beginning to understand why the wealthiest people clung to their illusions here. Thatcher wasn't wrong. They used their money to escape from themselves. My mother and my halfbrother. Linden. had lost their wealth. They couldn't afford illusions. They could do nothing but look into the mirror and see themselves as they really were, including their pasts, their memories, their pains and defeats.
Maybe I could change that. Maybe, somehow, I could change it for them.
And in doing so, change it for myself.
"What are your plans for the evening?" Thatcher asked as we drove into The Breakers.
"I have no plans," I said.
"There's an exhibition I've been invited to attend... some artist who's supposedly doing wonderful things by hand-painting digital images. Would you like to go? It's being held at the gallery that exhibits a few of Linden's paintings."
"Oh?"
"They'll have some wine and cheese, but we can have a nice dinner afterward at a quieter restaurant than where we were last night, a place on the beach where the entertainment will just be the sea and the sky."
"I'd like that,"
I
said.
"The exhibition begins at seven. Why don't
I
come by then. The gallery is only ten minutes or so away from the hotel."
"Okay," I said as we pulled up to the front and the valet hurried to open my door.
Thatcher reached for me. "Think about staying at the house, Seriously. Look at the gas I'll save."
"Oh?" "I'm just trying to do my best to conserve energy," he joked. "Right," I said, and stepped out.
As I walked into the hotel, I thought what
I
should really do between now and the time he returned was buy myself something nicer to wear, something a little more elegant. I'm not doing it to develop some romantic fling, here in Palm Beach,
I
told myself. I'm doing all this to
work myself successfully into my mother's world.
It's like a disease here, my conscience cried, a disease that builds your immune system, only it makes you immune to the truth.