A Hundred Summers

  “You’re so sweet, Lily. You have no idea how sweet.” He licked my breast. “My milk-and-honey girl. All mine now.”

  My brain was a little tipsy. I knew I should stop him. Already his hands were climbing back along my legs, unfastening the other stocking.

  “You’re so beautiful, Lily,” said Graham.

  “I’m not beautiful. Only convenient.”

  “Milk and honey.” He put his elbows next to my head and laid himself nearly flat atop my chest, his left leg braced against the floorboards and his thick right knee between my legs. He was hot and damp with sweat in the sticky Labor Day air. His breath covered me in whiskey and smoke. “Let me in, Lily, won’t you? Just for a moment. I can’t even think, I want you so much. I’m shaking.”

  “Graham, wait. Not the first time. Let’s wait until later, until I visit you in the city. The hotel, remember? We’ll have all night.”

  “I’ve been waiting all summer long for this.” He kissed me and lifted himself up. “Just for a moment, okay? Just the littlest feel of you. I won’t come, I swear.”

  I put my hands on his chest. “Graham . . .”

  But he was already fumbling at the buttons of his trousers, already grasping under my dress, already tugging down my step-ins from beneath my open girdle. “Only a moment, I swear,” he said. “I just need you so much.”

  He pressed his desperate thumbs into my skin, prying me apart, and I gave in. I gave in and let him have me, because I was already lying flat on my back on the seat of his car, because I’d already allowed him take off my brassiere and taste my mouth and breasts in the sultry darkness, because I’d already agreed to become his wife. In my intemperate despair, I had signaled my compliance in every way; it seemed churlish and even dishonorable to turn him away now, at the very gates, when he needed me so much.

  And after all, I wasn’t a virgin. I had no innocence to protect.

  At the instant of my submission, Graham’s hand found me between my legs. I gasped at the shock of intrusion.

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Graham. He hoisted himself over me and reached down between our bodies. I braced. A nudge, a stiff push; I felt myself stretch and give way until my back slid against the car seat and my legs sagged helplessly open. He groaned. “Oh, Jesus. That’s good.” He lowered himself, panting, his damp skin sticking to mine. “Just . . . let me . . . oh, you’re sweet . . . a little more . . .”

  “Graham, wait . . .”

  He pushed again, grabbed my hips, pushed deeper. My head hit the door handle. “Oh, Jesus, Lily,” he said, and moved faster, cramming me against the door at every thrust. His breath became rough. The car filled with the rhythm of his grunts, drowning out the rain. He shouted: “Oh, Jesus, I’m going to come.”

  At the thought of that, of Graham rushing unchecked inside me, I lifted my legs and arms and twisted to one side and punched his chest with my elbows. Off-kilter already, he fell out of me and onto the floorboards, shuddering, his breath coming in spasmodic gusts.

  “What the hell?” he gasped at last, grabbing his handkerchief from his lapel.

  “You said you weren’t going to come!” The crass word escaped my mouth without impediment.

  “Jesus, Lily.” He put his hand on his heaving chest and struggled upward. “I’m going to marry you, aren’t I? Who in hell cares if Junior comes a little early?”

  “I care!” I found my brassiere and put it on in angry yanks.

  He sat up and buttoned his trousers. “Well, then what the hell was this?”

  “This? This?” I slammed my open palm into the cloth beside me. “This was me very stupidly letting you screw me on the seat of your car for mutual satisfaction, except the satisfaction wasn’t exactly mutual, Don Juan, in case you didn’t notice.” I punched my arms through my armholes and sat up. “And you swore you wouldn’t . . . finish.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word this time.

  “Aw, Lily. Don’t be sore.” He wedged himself next to me and grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. “I’m sorry, all right?” He tried to kiss me, but I turned my head away. “I really am. I’m sorry, I should have stopped. I just thought . . . Come on, kiss me. Kiss me, forgive me. I lost my head. I do that with you. Kiss me, Lily, or I’ll never forgive myself.”

  He was so cajoling, so beautiful and contrite. His damp hair flopped over his forehead. I thought for an instant of Budgie, resting smugly among her pillows, her womb full and fruitful. Nick’s fruit, the baby he wanted. I let Graham kiss me, let him slide his hand under the top of my dress. His palm was hot against my skin. “You’re so sweet, those tits, just . . . just luscious. That’s the word. I couldn’t stop. I’d been waiting so long, and you’d finally said yes, you know, laid yourself out on the seat for me like that, all mine. I couldn’t hold back any longer.”

  I started to shake, from some sort of delayed reaction to what we had just done. Made love, or something like it, with Graham Pendleton, with my fiancé Graham Pendleton, on the seat of his plush new Cadillac with its whisper-soft cloth-and-wood interior. Graham’s arms went around me. “I’ll go slow for you next time. I’ll make it good for you. I know how to make it good for you.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “We could go up to your room right now.”

  “We can’t. The others will be back soon.”

  He continued: “Let’s get married soon, all right? As soon as baseball’s over. I can’t wait any longer. We’ll have our first kid by next year.”

  “Graham . . .”

  “I know, I know. I’ll make sure the old ladies get their nine months, don’t worry.” He kissed my hair. “No one’s going to wonder about this one, I promise.”

  I shook my head and drew away. “Graham . . .”

  He took my hands and kissed them. “I want the whole ball of yarn, Lily. As many kids as you can handle, a dog and a cat, the biggest house on the block. I’ll give you everything you ask for. All the help you need. You won’t have to lift a finger. You’ll be the most envied woman on the eastern seaboard. Hell, I’ll adopt Kiki for you, raise her like she’s my own. I’ll . . .”

  “Stop it, Graham.” I twisted my hands until I was gripping his. “Slow down.” My head was beginning to clear. I need a cigarette, I thought. I closed my eyes and spoke carefully: “Let’s take one thing at a time, all right? Let’s enjoy being engaged first.”

  Graham laughed. “Getting ahead of myself, am I?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I’m sorry.” He rubbed my fingers. “Let’s start with the ring, then.”

  “The ring?”

  Graham winked and reached for his jacket, slung over the seat, and pulled a box out of the left pocket. “I had the bank send this down. It was my mother’s, and my father’s mother’s before that. You’ll pass it on to our son. Sort of a family tradition.”

  “Oh, Graham.” The dizziness returned at double strength.

  He opened the box, and the Pendleton engagement ring nestled inside a pile of old blue velvet, winking in the dim light. A small solitaire, in a gold band set with tiny leaves. “Old-fashioned, a bit, but you like that kind of thing, don’t you?”

  I was too dumbstruck to object when he slid it out of the box and onto my ring finger. “It’s a little large,” I said, rotating it slightly.

  “You can have it resized when you visit. Come on, Lily. Kiss a fellow and say you like it.”

  I looked up. His beautiful face shone with hope, the way Kiki’s did when I told her we might go out for ice cream in the afternoon. I pushed back his hair, kissed his lips, and told him I liked it very much.

  “Good, then. Forgive me for my loutishness?”

  “I don’t know. You were very loutish.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. Next time, I’ll be fully sober and properly equipped, I promise. A gentleman to my fingertips. When can you visit me?”

  “I don’t know. A week, maybe. I need an excuse.”

  He held up my hand. “How about resizing your rin
g? Finding a wedding dress?”

  “You really are hot to trot, aren’t you?”

  “Lily, I feel like another man. As if I’m turning over a new leaf, this very night.” He kissed my hand, right over the ring. “My milk-and-honey girl. You’ve brought me back to life.”

  The rain was letting up at last. Graham refastened my stockings, helped me out of the car, and straightened my damp and rumpled dress. He used his body as a shield to keep me dry as we scampered up the little path to my front door.

  “I’d come in,” he said, “but then I’d never leave, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I’ll stop by before I drive away, to say good-bye. I’ll phone you when I get in.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He kissed me good-bye, with his hand cupping my cheek, and ran back out into the drizzle to his car. I watched him drive away, and when he was gone I went inside and ran myself a long, hot bath.

  IN THE MORNING, Graham stopped by as promised to say good-bye, and Mother, still in her dressing gown and scintillated with the news, insisted that he sit down and have a plate of Marelda’s breakfast. She told him he could smoke if he liked, and he lit his cigarette with the air of an indulgent pasha.

  When it emerged that he planned to stay at the Waldorf, Mother would have nothing of it. She went upstairs for the key to our apartment, and told him he was to make himself right at home, to use the guest room as he liked, spare towels in the linen cupboard, we wouldn’t be back until nearly the end of the month.

  After all, she said, he was family now.

  15.

  ROUTE 9, NEW YORK STATE

  New Year’s Day 1932

  I wake up just north of Albany, when the right front tire goes flat.

  For a moment, I am utterly disoriented. My first sensation is of the downy softness of my mother’s coat brushing my cheek, and then the mingled scents of leather and oil. When I open my eyes and see the dashboard of Nick’s car, the large round steering wheel, I think for an instant that we’re back at college, and I have fallen asleep and missed my dormitory curfew.

  I sit up with a start, and a light catches my eye: the heavy glitter of a single diamond attached to my left hand.

  Nick. We are eloping.

  My heart crashes. My head aches. My tongue sticks foully to the roof of my mouth. I lean back down on the seat.

  But where is Nick?

  The car rocks with the slam of the trunk lid. A moment later, the passenger door opens in a rush of frigid air. “Awake, are you? I’m just patching up the tire. I have to jack her up now; do you want to stay inside or come out? It’s murderously cold.”

  I look up and push my hair away from my face. Nick is smiling down at me, his skin lit by the pearlescent glow of a winter dawn, his hat drawn down snugly around his face. In a few hours, I think, this man will be my husband.

  “Can you lift it with me inside?”

  Nick laughs and reaches out to chuck my chin. “Sweetheart, you’re a featherweight. Stay inside if you like. I’ll just be a minute. Are you all right? You look a little . . . well, pale.”

  “Fine,” I lie.

  “We’ll stop for breakfast soon. Just like old times, right?” He winks and slams the door shut.

  I fall back on the seat. The car begins to tilt in little jerks, in time with the rhythmic pounding in my head. Something rolls down the floorboards; I crack open my eyes and see the empty champagne bottle.

  It takes us almost an hour to find a restaurant open on New Year’s morning. The waitress looks us up and down. “Coming from the city, are you?” she asks. Her face is lined and sagging, as if she’s been up all night. Yesterday’s lipstick is settling into the vertical creases around her lips.

  “We’re eloping,” says Nick. “Coffee for the lady, if you please. And a cup for me, too, come to think of it.”

  I visit the restroom and wash up as best I can. My hair springs free in several directions from the careful curls of last night, and all three layers of lipstick are long gone. I pinch my cheeks, rub my lips. The sequins of my dress catch the light with a cheap glimmer below the shadowed curve of my breasts, and though the room is well heated by a noisily enthusiastic radiator, I close the edges of the mink tightly around me. Before I turn, I notice my left hand in the mirror, and the ring sparkling on my finger. I hold it up to the light, at this angle and that, trying to get used to the sight.

  “So where are you folks headed? Lake George?” The waitress’s pencil is poised above her pad of paper.

  “That’s right,” says Nick, and for a moment they go back and forth about which route to take, which highway is still unplowed after the Christmas snowfall. The waitress glances at my left hand, as if to confirm our seriousness.

  “But of course you folks aren’t planning to get married until tomorrow,” says the waitress.

  “No. Today.” Nick grins and takes my hand. “As soon as possible.”

  She gives him a pitying city-slicker smile. “But, honey, it’s New Year’s Day. Nothing’s open.”

  I look at Nick. He looks at me.

  “Now, you’ve got your birth certificates and all that, don’t you?” the waitress adds. “For the license?”

  Nick puts his head in his hands.

  “DON’T WORRY,” I say, back in the car, full of eggs and bacon and coffee and feeling much more myself. “We’ll think of something. I’ll call Budgie. She can . . .”

  “Sneak into your apartment and find your birth certificate?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nick’s hands rest on the steering wheel. “Lily, by now your father will have read the note. Everything will be in an uproar.”

  “They won’t know where we’ve gone.”

  “But Lake George is the obvious place, isn’t it?”

  A tiny flake of snow staggers through the air and lands, as if in afterthought, on the windshield.

  “Let’s just go,” I say. “We’ll figure everything out. Once we’re there together, everyone will have to go along with it. We can have them telephone down to the records office in New York. I’m sure they do that all the time.”

  Nick taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “If they can’t, though? If we have to wait?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if we’re up there together, and we can’t get married right away. Do you mind?” He turns to me with an earnest weight to his face, almost pleading.

  “Oh. Yes, I see.”

  Nick picks up my hand. “Should we just turn around and go back? Try again another time?”

  “No!” The word catapults from my throat. “No, Nick. Let’s go. We’ll . . . we’ll figure it out when we get there. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Everyone will talk.”

  “I don’t care about that. Let them talk. Don’t you see, if we’re up there together, there’s nothing my parents can do, is there? They’ll have to accept you.”

  My words swing back and forth, back and forth, in the center of Nick’s silence.

  He removes his hand from mine and curls it around the steering wheel. His voice shifts into an entirely new register, low in his chest.

  “Have to accept me? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I mean . . . you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, I get it, all right. If I’ve already gone to bed with you, if I’ve already despoiled their virgin daughter, they’ll have to approve the black wolf entering the fold. Have I got it straight?”

  “Don’t put it that way.”

  “Why not? That’s what you meant, isn’t it? Maybe I should make you pregnant while I’m at it. That would seal the deal efficiently, wouldn’t it?”

  “It might,” I say defiantly, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “It just might. Why don’t we get right to it, then? Right here in the car? What are you waiting for? The sooner the better.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” Nick holds himself still, his large frame hunched over
the wheel, staring onto the flat frozen plains outside Albany. “That’s just rich,” he says, and turns the ignition. “The honorable son-in-law. Just rich. Won’t they adore me.”

  The car rumbles beneath me. He lets it idle for a moment, warming up. The silence between us stretches as tight as a backstay, so tight I’m afraid to speak for fear of snapping everything altogether.

  At last he releases the clutch and backs out of the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Lake George, I guess.” He checks for traffic and pulls out on the highway with a mighty roar of the Packard’s engine. “God forbid we should disappoint them all.”

  BY THE TIME we reach Lake George, it’s nearly seven o’clock in the evening, and the snow is falling heavily. “I stayed here once with my parents,” says Nick, peering through the windshield into the swirling darkness. “A big old hotel, right on the lake. I’m sure they’ve got rooms.”

  His eyes are heavy, his face is heavy. He’s exhausted. One highway was blocked off, and we had to backtrack and take a more circuitous route, nearly running out of gas before we found a lone service station. The falling snow reduced our speed to a crawl. I could see how tired he was and begged him to allow me to take over, but he refused. “You don’t even know how to drive,” he said.

  “Yes, I do. I used to drive my father’s car right up Seaview Neck and back.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Not good enough. Not on these roads. Don’t worry, I can manage.”

  We stopped for lunch, where Nick drank about a gallon of coffee, and still I can feel the waves of fatigue rolling off him. “Is it close by?” I ask.