While she’d been thinking, Jessie had remained quiet, and when she turned to look at him, she saw that he’d been watching her.
“You have some heavy things going on inside you, don’t you?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she answered. “I do. But, you know something? I don’t care anymore.” With that, she smiled. She really, really smiled. And she looked about her at the beauty of their surroundings, and she took a deep breath. Maybe the divorce court system in this state was a travesty, but the air was heavenly.
“I don’t want to go home,” she said. “There’s nothing there for me. And when do you want me to have Lew’s wife over for lunch?”
When Jessie didn’t answer, she looked down at him. He was looking up at her with those male eyes again. But this time Ellie didn’t run away. And she certainly didn’t start crying. No, instead, she bent down to kiss him, and in the next moment she had his shirt unbuttoned.
Twenty-four
1980
OHIO
One second Leslie was in the Victorian house of a woman named Madame Zoya and the next she was standing in the dormitory room of her university.
She stood there blinking, disoriented, not sure of what she was seeing. There were two beds in the room, hers, neat and tidy, with its often-washed spread that she’d had since she was a freshman, and the other, her roommate’s bed. It was a jumble of covers that looked as though they’d never been washed.
Leslie’s first thought was that she was going to have to get after Rebecca to make up her bed. And straighten up her desk and—
It was then that the realization of what she was seeing hit Leslie. And when she had the thought, she didn’t believe it. She took a step backward.
And that’s when the realization of her body hit her. She was at least fifteen pounds lighter than she had been ten minutes earlier.
Her mind was clearing now, and even though she didn’t believe what she was seeing and feeling, it seemed to be real.
“Mirror,” she said aloud, then tried to remember back to her college days. Where was the—Ah, back of the closet door.
Opening the door, she was hit with the sight of herself at twenty years old.
Staring back at her was a Leslie Aimes that she hadn’t seen in a long, long time. It wasn’t just the twenty-year-old body that had had a lifetime of twisting and twirling that had made it into this beautiful machine. No, Leslie remembered that body. Every morning when she awoke, she remembered that body—and missed it. She missed being able to bend and stretch and turn with ease and grace.
No, that wasn’t what surprised her as she looked in the mirror. What astonished her was the look of hope on the face of the girl in the mirror.
“When did I lose that?” she asked aloud. “When did I change?”
The Leslie looking back at her had sparkling green eyes that seemed to be on the verge of laughing. This was a girl who believed in herself, was sure that she was going to go far in the world.
This was not a girl who thought she was going to end up a housewife who served on one committee after another. This wasn’t a woman who was terrified that her husband was going to leave her for a girl half her age.
Leaning toward the mirror, Leslie turned her face this way and that. No lines, no wrinkles, just pure, smooth skin. Gone were twenty years of damage caused by playing tennis in the sun and sitting by the club pool with the children. Maybe this time around she’d have sense enough to slather on sunscreen.
“And this girl isn’t afraid of anyone,” she said as she looked at herself. And that thought was a shock to her. When had she become frightened? Had it been when she’d found out that she wasn’t going to be a Great Dancer, in capital letters? Had she become frightened when she’d gone crawling back to Alan, feeling that she was a failure? What had happened to Leslie to change the look that was sparkling in this girl’s eyes?
When the telephone rang, Leslie jumped and looked about for someone to answer it. But then she remembered that it was her phone and she should answer it.
“Hello?” she asked tentatively.
“Leslie? Is that you?”
It was Alan.
“Yes,” was all she could manage to say. She’d spent her entire life with him so now the impulse to tell him what had happened to her was strong. But she couldn’t do that. Would she start with how she’d dumped him ten days before the wedding and end with Bambi?
“You sound odd. You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
Had he always been so cut-and-dried? Where was the romance? “No,” she said softly as she held the receiver tightly. She was trying to remember exactly what Alan looked like the year before he graduated from college.
“Well, something’s wrong with you,” he said, sounding annoyed. “I just called to tell you that I’ll pick you up at eight A.M. tomorrow and we’ll drive home together.”
Leslie knew that Alan’s car was going to break down on the way to her college and that he was going to spend the whole week of spring break trying to get the parts to repair it. And she was going to end up alone at school for that week, dancing alone in the studio, eating alone.
“Are you there?” he asked, this time sounding almost angry.
“Yes, I’m here,” Leslie said. “I was just thinking how much I’d like to see you again. What do you want us to do together next week?”
“Together? Are you kidding? With your mother and mine planning our every minute? We have to do those things that have to be done to get ready for a wedding. You know better than I do what they are.”
And at thirty-nine years of age I know what a waste of time they are, she thought. It’s what comes after marriage that’s important. Maybe if she and Alan had spent more time with each other, had talked more, then Leslie wouldn’t have run away to New York and—
“You’re acting very strange,” Alan said. “So I hope you get over it by tomorrow. We have a lot to do this coming week. Mother’s invited some important people to spend next weekend with us, and I think you and I should try to come to some agreement about where we’re going to live.”
Leslie opened her mouth to tell him that they were going to buy the old Belville place, but she closed it. One thing about Alan: He didn’t change. At twenty he was as bossy as he was at forty.
On the desk beside the telephone was an envelope of heavy cream-colored paper. Putting the phone to her shoulder, Leslie opened the envelope. In it was an invitation from Halliwell J. Formund IV to spend the coming spring break with him and his family and their other guests at their estate. If she accepted, a car would pick her up tomorrow morning.
Part of her wanted to tell Alan that she had another invitation for the break, but why burn bridges? Why cause unnecessary hurt?
“I’ll be ready,” Leslie said into the phone, sounding as sweet as she could manage. “But call me if you have any problems.”
“What does that mean?” Alan snapped.
“Nothing. I just meant—Never mind. Forget it. If you call and I’m not here, I’ll be at the studio dancing.”
“Aren’t you always?” he asked.
At that Leslie dropped the phone into the cradle. All these years she’d beaten herself up for running away and leaving poor Alan nearly standing at the altar, but now she remembered why she’d done it: He’d been a prig. A full-of-himself, self-satisfied prig.
But the Alan she’d married was no longer a prig. Bossy, yes. And, yes, maybe even controlling at times. But that Alan had a humility about him . . .
With wide eyes, Leslie stared, unseeing, at the bulletin board behind the desk. Had she changed him? Had her running off to New York shaken the insufferable attitude she’d just seen but had forgotton about over the years?
What irony, she thought. All their years of marriage she’d been burdened by this dreadful, dishonorable thing that she believed she’d done to dear, sweet Alan, and now she was seeing that maybe her jilting him was the best thing she could have done.
“Hmmm,” she said,
smiling as she picked up the phone. If jilting him had made him into a better person, what would spending the week with another boy do?
At that thought she laughed aloud; then she picked up the telephone and dialed the number for the Formund residence and accepted the invitation.
“It’s none of my business, dear, but aren’t you in the wrong department?” The saleswoman had iron gray hair and a suit that wouldn’t have wrinkled if she’d run a train over it.
Leslie had managed to find only one decent pair of trousers in her closet at the dorm, and a single shirt that was too frilly. What to wear had instantly become her number one concern, so now she was in the best department store in town looking through the racks of clothes.
“No, I don’t think I am,” Leslie said, annoyed with the woman for interfering. Leslie had never been extravagant, so most of the money her father sent her every month was in her bank account.
“If you were about to turn forty, this would be the perfect place for you,” the saleswoman said, laughter in her voice.
“But I—” Leslie began then stopped herself. There was a mirror to her left and she had to look at it to remind herself of what had happened. She wasn’t forty now. The truth was, that even under the harsh store lights, she looked wonderful.
With a beautiful smile on her face, Leslie turned to the saleswoman. “Could you help me?” Leslie asked in her nicest voice. “I’ve been invited to spend the break at the Formunds’ place, and—”
“The Halliwell Formunds?”
“Yes, that is their name,” Leslie said as innocently as she could manage.
The saleswoman narrowed her eyes. “I do believe they have a son about your age.”
“Could you help me with what to wear? I can’t very well show up in leotards, can I?”
“No,” the woman said slowly, and Leslie could almost hear the thoughts racing through the saleswoman’s head: If she was nice to Leslie and Leslie married a Formund, she might have a lifelong customer, and the commissions would be . . . “I’d love to help you, dear,” the saleswoman purred.
Twenty-five
Five minutes after she arrived, Leslie regretted her decision. What was she doing here? She had been put into a two-bedroom guesthouse with three other girls. At first they had asked her to join them in their activities, but when Leslie didn’t, they began to whisper about her. It had been a long time since Leslie had been this young, and she’d completely forgotten the sense of competition between young women.
It was on Leslie’s tongue to lecture them about how they didn’t need to cut each other to ribbons in their competition to get the best man to mate with. There were enough men to go around.
Leslie had given this lecture to her own daughter when Rebecca had been in a to-the-death fight with a girl who had once been her best friend. Of course it had been over a boy. Three months later Leslie had been glad to see the girls back together and the boy put on the “dregs” list, but Leslie knew that it could as easily have gone the other way.
“And where are you from?” one of the girls had asked Leslie. “And your major is what?”
Her tone was unmistakable: Leslie was not considered part of “the” crowd who usually frequented Hal’s parties.
The truth was, Leslie wondered why she’d been invited. But as she walked away from the girls and their insinuations, she knew what she would have told her daughter. Leslie had been invited for her dancer’s figure. Didn’t rich boys usually have flings with “unsuitable” girls before they settled down to marry some blue-blooded girl whose daddy owned Kansas or something?
“I’m too old for this,” Leslie said to herself as she left the guesthouse. On her bed had been a card with a printed list of activities that would be going on during the week, and as Leslie read them, she wished she’d stayed on campus and danced. Wouldn’t it be wonderful after all these years to once again have a body that could leap with ease? Pirouette without aching toes?
She left the guesthouse and began to wander about the estate. When she saw a Sussex trug on the ground and a pair of ladies’ gardening gloves and some clippers, it seemed natural to pick them up and start deadheading roses.
“Bored already?” asked a voice behind her.
Leslie turned to see an older woman standing on the path. She wore a skirt that had been washed many times and a sweater set that had to be twenty years old. But Leslie was willing to bet that the half-inch-diameter crystal at the end of the gold chain around her neck was a diamond. This woman owned the place.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said, holding out the trug. “This must be yours. I didn’t mean—”
“That’s fine,” the woman said, smiling. “Why don’t I sit in the shade and let you do the work? Truthfully, I hate gardening. I only do it because my doctor said I have to have some form of exercise.”
“And gardening is so genteel,” Leslie said, laughing. “At least that’s what men think. Personally, I never thought there was anything romantic about cow manure.”
The woman laughed. “Nor do I. But I have been assigned the task, so I must make it look as though I’ve done it.”
Her hint was clear, so, smiling back at her, Leslie took the cutters and began removing the dead rose heads.
Mrs. Formund sat on a little iron bench under a nearby oak tree. “And which one are you?” she asked. “No, wait, you must be the dancer. No one else could move as you are doing without years of training.”
Leslie had to turn away to hide her blush. No one had said such a thing to her in a long while. “Do you have any idea why your son invited me?” she asked. She wasn’t going to pretend not to know who this woman was.
“I think the important question would be why you accepted.”
Leslie didn’t turn around, but she could hear the skepticism in the woman’s voice. No doubt she was inundated with girls who wanted to get near her rich son.
“To see the estate, of course,” Leslie said. “I’d heard of the gardens and I wanted to see them.” She paused with the cutters in midair. “And also, to get away from my boyfriend for a while. I wanted to see if there were any other men in the world besides him.”
“That’s wise of you,” Mrs. Formund said. “I had half a dozen marriage proposals before I married my husband.”
“And I’ve never even dated a man other than Alan,” Leslie said softly.
“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Formund said. “At your age, you should—Uh-oh. Here comes my doctor. Give me those secateurs and sneak away. Don’t let him see you. Oh, good! You’ve done an entire bed. He’ll report to my husband that I’ve done masses.”
Smiling, Leslie ducked down behind the bed, then waddled out along the path, her head well below the line of the roses.
She spent so much time wandering about the grounds that when she returned to the guesthouse, the other girls were just leaving for the main house and the first of several parties.
“Planning to make an entrance?” one of the girls asked snidely as she looked Leslie up and down in her tailored trousers and white cotton shirt. There was dirt on her cuff and sticktights were on her trousers.
“No, I was just so busy helping Hal’s mother in the garden that I lost all track of time,” Leslie said sweetly, then watched the girl nearly turn purple at being bested. Everyone knew that the way to get a marriage proposal was through the boy’s mother.
As the three girls hurried to leave the guesthouse, Leslie thought, Shame on you! But she didn’t feel particularly shameful for having won a cat fight. Instead, she felt rather good about it.
She didn’t want to go to the party. She’d never liked parties unless they were at her house and she was the hostess, but she knew that she had to go. She had a perfect little black dress that she knew showed off every curve of her dancer’s body, but she didn’t want to wear it—nor did she want to go prowling with the other girls.
But she made herself shower and dress because, after all, she was a guest and Leslie had strict ideas about how guests should
behave.
But the party bored her. They were kids and they were fascinated with booze and each other. And all Leslie felt was old. Her body might be young, but in her mind, she was past this. And now that she was here, she was wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have been so curt with Alan. After all, if she did end up married to him again . . .
She left the party before nine and went back to the guesthouse, where she snuggled in bed and was asleep by nine-thirty. She woke only briefly to hear the other girls come in at three A.M. She was vaguely aware of hearing them say, “She’s here. In bed. Alone.” Then Leslie heard giggles that meant that the girls had had too much to drink. As she drifted back to sleep, Leslie remembered that she hadn’t seen Hal at the party. And the truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d recognize him if she did see him. After all, it had been nearly twenty years since she’d last seen him in person.
The snores of the other girls woke her. Leslie looked at the clock. It was just a few minutes after five A.M. Getting up, she went into the bathroom, prepared to do her hair, put on makeup and get dressed. But the face that greeted her in the mirror didn’t need makeup. Her eyelashes weren’t dull and faded as they were at forty. There were no brown spots to cover up, no enlarged pores by the side of her nose. There were no dark circles under her eyes. And her hair was soft and silky, not dry, as it was going to become no matter what expensive salon treatment she used.
Smiling, Leslie didn’t even bother to comb her hair, but ran her fingers through it to pull out the worst tangles; then she went back to the bedroom to pull on jeans and a shirt. At forty messy hair in the morning was called “bed head.” At twenty, messy hair was called “sexy.”
The dew was on the grass and, if possible, the garden was even more beautiful this early. There were no lawn mowers going, no gardeners anywhere. It was as though it was just Leslie alone in God’s creation.
There was a little path that she’d seen the day before, but she hadn’t gone down it because it had looked private. But this morning there was no one about, so she walked on the little round stones, wishing they didn’t make quite so much noise. But at the end, she looked through the trees to the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. Nestled in the shade, dripping wisteria, was a summerhouse. It wasn’t as big as hers—the one she would someday own—but it was more charming. It looked like something off the pages of a children’s fairy tale, with its thatched roof and stucco walls painted a pale cream.