Another Eden

  “Unless you want to hurt my feelings.”

  “Hmph.” She lifted the lid and stared down at the buttery-soft yellow cashmere scarf he’d bought her. She was silent for so long, he decided she hated it. He was sure of it when she finally looked up, eyes swimming again, and said, “Well, that beats all.”

  “You can take it back. I got it at Buckley’s, I’m sure they’ll—”

  “Oh, hush up.” She went to one of the cluttered tables the parlor was full of, this one covered with a pile of brightly wrapped packages. She picked out a square box covered in red foil, brought it back, and shoved it into his hands. “Here. Merry Christmas yourself.”

  “Do I have to open it now?”

  Mrs. Wiggs’ smiles were rare and worth waiting for. “Unless you want a kick in the shins.”

  Chuckling, he opened his present. “Well, well,” he said softly. “Great minds.”

  “Like it?”

  He lifted the yellow knitted scarf out of the box and draped it around his neck. “I love it.”

  “I was halfway done making it when it hit me that you won’t have any use for it out there. Too hot.”

  “No, you’re wrong, San Francisco’s got perfect scarf-wearing weather. Really,” he insisted when she looked skeptical. “It’s cold as a witch’s left tit about half the time.”

  “Go on with you!” She cuffed him on the shoulder, pretending his language shocked her—an old game they’d been playing for years.

  “Thank you very much. I’ll think of you whenever I wear it.”

  “Oh, pshaw.”

  He put his arms around her soft, stout body and hugged her. “I don’t know anybody but you who says ‘pshaw,’ he told her, inhaling her unique vanilla scent. “Never even knew how to pronounce it till I met you.”

  She pushed him away, fumbling in her apron pocket for her handkerchief. “Well, go on, then. Six-thirty, didn’t you say? Better hurry up so you can sit on a train with a bunch of strangers on Christmas Eve.” She blew her nose and glared at him.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  He backed out the door, feeling like crying with her. “I’ll write to you.”

  She flapped her hand. Her nose was bright red.

  “Bye, Mrs. Wiggs.” Go on.

  He sent her a last grim smile. He was halfway to the front door when she called to him. “Ma’am?”

  “You build beautiful buildings out there, Alexander, you hear me?”

  He grinned, but his nod was solemn. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I hope to do.”

  Mrs. Wiggs waved and then disappeared through her door. She left it ajar.

  Outside in the bitter-cold twilight, it was snowing again. He walked up Tenth Street to Sixth Avenue to look for a cab. If he hadn’t already been feeling dejected, the undercurrent of excitement that ran through the crowd of overcoated pedestrians rushing along the whitening sidewalks would have done the trick. Everyone had somewhere to go, some marvelous, magical destination, and they couldn’t get there fast enough. He watched a dozen black hansoms trot by, full of fares, before he wound his new scarf tighter around his neck and set off to walk uptown. He’d intended to stop at Fourteenth Street and find a cab there; but he kept walking, beguiled in spite of himself by the lights twinkling in the little gift stalls stretching the four blocks from Macy’s to Siegel-Cooper’s. Even the most garish, useless objects looked desirable tonight, cunningly displayed among the snowy evergreens and flickering kerosene lamps. Hawkers called out their last-minute bargains: brass paperweights, tiny Statues of Liberty, handkerchiefs and cheap bracelets and rows of striped peppermint canes. The smell of scorched holly and chestnuts flavored the frosty air. Two Salvation Army soldiers beat a drum and a tamborine on the corner at Twentieth Street, calling on passersby to give to the less fortunate tonight out of the spirit of Christmas.

  “Train set for your little boy?”

  Alex shook his head at an old man standing behind a long table covered in green baize, waving a feather duster to keep the snow off an elaborate labyrinth of tracks and trains and papier-mâché hills, tiny metal trees and fences, cows and farmers, ducks and dogs.

  “Sure? Make a little fellow happy on Christmas morning.”

  “No, thanks, I haven’t got a little boy.”

  “Bet you know one, though!” the old man called after him.

  He kept walking, but at the next corner he stopped, so abruptly the woman behind him smacked into his shoulder. “Excuse me,” he muttered, his gaze fixed blindly on the cloud of slow, thick crystals blowing a miniature blizzard in the street lamp’s silver halo. To his right was the awning-covered entrance to the Cunningham Hotel. The doorman, splendid in a royal blue uniform with epaulettes, eyed him benignly. “Is there a telephone in the lobby?” Alex heard himself ask.

  “Aye, sure.” His ruddy Irish face lit up when Alex handed him a dollar bill, just for opening the door. “And a merry Christmas to you,” he called gratefully as Alex made his way across the red-carpeted lobby to the desk.

  The telephone, the clerk told him, was in an alcove behind the potted ferns across the way. A bald gentleman with a drooping white mustache was seated at the little desk, talking into the instrument, and Alex’s heart sank. But all at once the man surged to his feet, said, “Okay, so I’ll see you at the Hoffman House in ten minutes,” hung up, and rushed past him without stopping, murmuring, “ ’Scuse me, merry Christmas.”

  Alex sat down and reached for the still-warm earpiece.

  “Number, please?” asked the agreeable-sounding woman at central.

  “Six-one-four-one.”

  “Thanks, I’ll connect you. Merry Christmas.”

  “I don’t understand you, Sara. You’re the least prudish person I know.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with prudery.”

  “Well, what has it got to do with? You won’t explain it. If you would, I might be more sympathetic.”

  “Lauren, let’s not have this conversation any longer.” She bit back anything harsher, such as, Your sympathy wasn’t solicited, even though it trembled on the tip of her tongue, and gestured toward the tea cart. “More coffee?”

  “No. All right, I’ll shut up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I still say you’re being silly. If you love him—”

  Sara stood up, walked across the drawing room, and sat down in another, more distant chair.

  Lauren made a face and thrust both hands into her short brown hair, pulling it straight up in the air and then letting it fall. Her enormous green eyes flashed an apology. “Can I just say one more thing?”

  “I really—”

  “Just one, and then not another word.” It won’t—

  “Consider the possibility, Sara—not now but sometime, and don’t wait forever—that you’re doing this out of habit.”

  “What does that mean? No—I don’t even want to know. Thank you, that’s your one thing, now let’s drop the subject. How do you like your new apartment?”

  Lauren sent her a dry, knowing look and let the conversation shift. “I love it, of course. You’d know why if you’d come see it.”

  “I’ve meant to. I will soon, I promise.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “How about tomorrow? No, it’s Christmas, I have to go to my mother’s. The day after? For lunch. You can bring Michael.”

  “We’d love to.”

  “Good!” Her vivacious face slowly sobered. “Tell me something, Sara. The truth. Do you think I’m a bad person?”

  Sara’s lips pulled sideways with impatience. “Why would I think that?”

  “Because of the way I’m living.”

  “The way you’re living?” But she knew what Lauren meant. She’d moved out of her parents’ house after her return from Paris four weeks ago, and now she lived by herself in a studio in the West Fifties, from which she took great delight in publicly advocating free love and women’s suffrage, ent
ertained gentlemen callers unchaperoned, befriended bohemian homosexuals, and painted shockingly large nudes in the Neo-Impressionist style. Lately she talked about giving up Anglicanism and becoming a Buddhist. Sara smiled, feeling suddenly old, almost grandmotherly. “No, I don’t think you’re a bad person. I think you’re having the time of your life.” Lauren grinned self-consciously. “But sometimes I worry about you. I worry that you’ll get hurt.”

  “Then I’ll get hurt,” she retorted airily. “Life’s too short to spend waiting for things to happen. If you want to be happy, you have to do something.”

  Sara blinked blandly, refusing to be drawn so soon into the old argument.

  Lauren sighed, propping her petite chin on her knuckles. “You can live any sort of life you want to now. You’re filthy rich and you’re absolutely free. Do you know how lucky you are, Sara?”

  “I have a very quiet life in mind.”

  “Yes, I know.” It reminded her—” Did the contract go through for the house?”

  She nodded. A Mr. and Mrs. Eustace Turnbull, the dewiest of the newly rich, had offered an unbelievable—to Sara, who would have settled for much, much less—amount of money for the New York house. Now she could pay off what Ben had owed on Eden and still have money left for the modest home she had in mind for her and Michael somewhere uptown, possibly on Central Park South. Ben’s real estate investments would be sufficient to pay off his other debts, which arose mainly, she’d learned, from his failing slaughterhouse empire. So about one thing he’d been right: she was no longer a millionaire, but she was still extremely comfortable.

  “That’s good; now you can start house-hunting in earnest. Have you heard anything lately from Miss Eminescu?”

  “No, not since her letter. I don’t expect to.”

  Lauren shook her head in awe. “The nerve of that woman!”

  Nerve didn’t cover it, thought Sara. Two weeks after Ben’s death, Tasha had sent her a letter in a frail, shaky hand, postmarked from Mercy Hospital. Her legs were broken; she had internal injuries that might shorten her life; she was only just recovering from a serious head wound, and her face had been permanently disfigured. She understood perfectly well if Sara could not find it in her heart to forgive her for succumbing, after a long and terrible struggle, to her husband’s relentless seduction. But if there was any charity left in her, now was the moment when it was most needed—for Tasha had no money at all, and although she was almost too weak to lift her head, the doctors said she must leave the hospital unless she paid them four hundred dollars immediately.

  It hadn’t sounded very plausible. Still, as much as she despised her, Sara hadn’t been able to dismiss completely the possibility that Tasha’s story might be true. So she’d telephoned the hospital. Miss Eminescu? Yes, she’d been a patient there. Her injuries? A broken ankle, bruises and contusions, a cut on the forehead that might leave a scar. She’d been released over a week ago.

  “What do you think she’ll do now?” wondered Lauren.

  “Who knows? I’m sure she’ll land on her feet somehow. I don’t think about her.” But she wasn’t as indifferent as she sounded. That Tasha had been blackmailing her was a secret she couldn’t tell anyone, not even Lauren; the tawdriness of it still shamed her, and she expected she would take that profound embarrassment to her grave.

  Lauren raised her arms and stretched. “I’d better go soon. I have to get ready for Maximillian Amis’s Christmas party tonight.” A thought struck. “You could come with me, Sara. Max knows who you are, we’ve spoken of you often. Why don’t you come? It’s such an interesting crowd, I know you’d enjoy yourself.”

  Sara smiled and shook her head, glancing down briefly at her black faille mourning gown.

  “Oh. I forgot. I guess it wouldn’t look quite right.”

  “Not quite.”

  “What will you do, then?”

  “Michael and I are going to trim the tree and give each other our presents. And then he wants A Christmas Carol again. He’s never stayed awake past the first ghost,” she explained fondly, “but this time he swears he’s going to hear it all.” Lauren’s look was tender and—if she wasn’t being fanciful—a bit pitying. “It’s what I want to do,” she cried, laughing. “I thank you for the invitation to Mr. Amis’s party, but to tell you the truth, it’s the last thing in the world I’d want to do tonight.”

  “Then you’re in worse shape than I thought,” Lauren snapped disapprovingly. Sara only smiled and shook her head again.

  The telephone rang twice and stopped. Presently the maid put her head in the drawing room door. “A call for you, Mrs. Cochrane. Mr. McKie.”

  Color flooded Sara’s cheeks, but she said without hesitation, “Tell him I have company, Dora.”

  Lauren jumped up from her chair. “No, I’m leaving.” Her grin was huge. “I’ll see myself out. Dora, will you get my coat?” Sara stood up much more slowly. Lauren went to her and took her hands. “Merry Christmas, Sara.”

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “Yes, I do, I said so five minutes ago. Give Michael my love. And give my very best regards to Mr. McKie.” She laughed at Sara’s expression, then turned serious. “Take an old friend’s advice and meet the man halfway. I don’t even think you understand yourself why you’re treating him this way.” She kissed Sara’s hot cheek, whirled, and tripped out after Dora.

  Sara stared at the empty doorway for a long moment, shoring up her defenses, alternately discounting and flinching from the truth of Lauren’s last guess. With lagging steps, she went into her little study and sat down at the desk, pulling the telephone toward her. She lifted the earpiece silently and put it against her ear, hardly breathing. Knowing he was there made her heart soar at the same time that it filled her with anxiety. Seconds passed. She touched her tongue to her lips, closed her eyes, and said, “Hello?”

  “Sara.”

  “Yes?”

  “Alex here.”

  There was a clattering sound on the line; Sara said, “I’ve got it, Dora.” She heard a click, and then the new silence took on an intimate tone.

  Alex broke it quickly. “I’m calling to tell you I’ve decided to take your advice. My train leaves in an hour.”

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “I see.

  Alex’s palm tightened around the long stem of the telephone. “Is that it? That’s all you can say?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Well, I don’t know, Sara. How about, ‘Don’t go’? How about, ‘I want to be with you, Alex, because I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you’?”

  “Please don’t do this.”

  But the desperate sadness in her voice couldn’t stop him this time. “I got your last letter,” he said briskly. “It was nice of you to finally take the trouble to write. But I have to ask you something. What did you mean when you said, ‘The convenient death of my husband doesn’t change anything’? Just what the hell is that supposed to mean, Sara?” He realized that if he were anywhere else but in a hotel lobby, he would be shouting. “Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “What do you think I am, some—vulture circling Ben’s body, waiting to swoop down on the grieving widow?”

  “Stop it, stop, please.”

  “Just tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “I’ve told you why.”

  He gave a sharp, derisive laugh. “I thought maybe you’d come up with something more coherent by now.”

  Sara lined four fingernails against the edge of her desk, pressing until they turned white and made tiny indentations in the wood. “I’m sorry that you can’t understand my reasons.”

  “You haven’t got any reasons. You’ve got a lot of trumped-up, half-baked excuses that don’t make any sense.”

  Silence. She sat in a cocoon of misery while Alex tried to get his temper under control.

  “Does it ever strike you as odd that I saw much more of you while your husband was alive
than I’m allowed to now that he’s dead?”

  “Alex—please. I want you to be happy. I want you to start your new life in California, just as you’d intended to do before.”

  “Before what? Say it, Sara. Before Ben died. And now explain to me how that doesn’t change anything.”

  “It just—”

  “It changes everything! There was only one thing keeping us apart, and it’s not there anymore.”

  “It’s much more complicated than that.” But she couldn’t go on, and the long, waiting quiet that followed was intolerable.

  When Alex finally spoke, his voice sounded more tired than angry. “I’ve tried to understand you. God knows, I’ve tried to respect your scruples. Sara, I’ve been as patient as a mortal man can be, but I keep coming back to the simple fact that you’re behaving like an idiot and I can’t seem to get past it.”

  “Really? Well, then, I guess there’s nothing more to say,” she snapped, anger finally sparking in her, too. It felt wonderful.

  “You’re deliberately sabotaging your own happiness, not to mention mine, and all for a lot of fatuous, nonsensical self-justifications that add up to exactly zero.”

  “Listen, Alex, I’m sorry I don’t explain myself very well, but that doesn’t give you the right to insult me.”

  He sighed. “Just tell me this—are you grieving for him? Is it that you’ve found out you were in love with him all along, and now you can’t—”

  “No, no, no, no—” She broke off, unable to talk past the lump in her throat.

  “What, then?”

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll always love you. Let me go, Alex.”

  “Listen to yourself—!” He cursed monotonously.

  “Please try not to be so angry with me,” she pleaded hopelessly. “I know why you are, but I can hardly stand it.”

  “I’m not angry!”

  “Oh, Alex—”

  “If I thought we’d never be together, Sara, then I’d be angry. As it is, I just want to strangle you for wasting so much time.” He heard her sniffling. “Don’t cry. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll write to you when I get an address.”

  “It’s better if you don’t.”