Pictures of the Past (25 page)

Harold paused with a creased brow for an extended period of time before continuing. “You know, I believe that town is familiar to me. That name—Kenilworth. I am trying to recall. Someone from here lives there now. I just can’t think that fast. It’ll come to me.”

“It couldn’t be my neighbor, Jacques Van Shaw, could it?”

“That’s it—the ultimate Sport—How is he?”

“Oh, Sport is doing well. He’s actually the one who directed me here. Specifically to this inn.”

“Well, I’ll be. Now that is one coincidence—that I would be here right now, myself. Even I haven’t lived here on any permanent basis for a while. Do you sail too? I remember that is the main activity I shared with Jacques from the time we were young. I know your lake has some good strong winds.”

“Yes, sir, I do sail. I’ve never manned the lines on an ocean like you have here, but we cross the lake often—to Michigan or Indiana and back.”

“I’m not sure of my schedule quite yet, but if I set out in the next few afternoons, perhaps you might crew for me and have a spin in our territories.”

“That would be a great pleasure for me, I can assure you. I am here to visit a friend, but I will have some free time.”

“Let me ask you one more thing, young man. Are you at all familiar with the game of bridge?”

“Actually, yes. My friends and I had been playing a little after college, but…well, let’s just say, they found me a bit preoccupied when it came to leisure-time activities.”

“I love to hear that—I mean that young people are involving themselves in the game. I am actually here to meet some friends—we’re quite involved in contract bridge and working on the international bidding and club conventions. I’d love to invite you to join in a few hands, especially since you have a sense of the game.”

“I would like to take you up on that, but I am anxious to acclimate myself to the area while it is still light out. Perhaps I could catch you another time.”

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Taylor Woodmere. I will have a note delivered to your room if I find I am sailing again this week. But either way, you must send my highest regards to my dear friend Jacques.”

“That I will do for sure, sir,” Taylor answered and then was embarrassed because he knew it was too late in the conversation to ask for the man’s full name. He signed his bill, excused himself and then exited the room, discreetly taking the manager aside as he approached the front stand.

“I am very sorry to bother you with this,” he said, “but is there any chance you are familiar with the name of the fellow at the bar with whom I was just conversing? He was extremely friendly and wanted to reconnect with me and a former friend of his, but he introduced himself only as Harold.” As he spoke, Taylor was noticing that the manager seemed to have an emerging smirk. “Has he been in previously? Might you know him?”

The manager turned back over his shoulder just to confirm his intuition and almost laughed. “Yes, I am quite familiar with the gentleman. I believe that I saw you take some materials on the history of the hotel. Well, you will find that in the 1920s he was part of a group of prominent men who actually financed the building of the Hotel Explorer to house their guests and to develop a tourist trade here. And it is rather funny—you would think that Harold, in particular, could have offered a spare guest room or two at his own home. Young man, you have just met Harold Stirling Vanderbilt.”

Taylor looked down at his feet and now with his own grin, shrugged his shoulders incredulously. “Oh no, I have to think if I made a fool of myself from anything I said.”

“Never worry about that with him. What a fine man. A class act. A graduate of the Harvard Law School, but he took his place in the family business—railroads. His great grandfather was—the Commodore—Cornelius Vanderbilt. But he’s well known in his own right.”

“I know—you don’t have to say,” Taylor interjected. “He’s a revered yachtsman.”

“And he literally wrote the book on contract bridge,” the manager added.

Later that evening, when Taylor joined Emily and her entourage, he was anxious to pull her aside and share this story with her. She listened to him intently, never letting on that she also could count many of the Vanderbilt relations as friends.

He loved her new casual, unpretentious manner. She laughed and danced around with the other Newport Inn employees on the sandy shore with no regard for class distinction. And, of course, she was dressed as a waitress. Taylor found the white uniform outlining her slim body to be extremely intoxicating. For the first time in possibly a few years, Taylor was starting to be relaxed and maybe even happy. He would make no quick decisions…he would simply see where this road would lead.

His first kiss with Emily that was more than the casual greeting expected with close friends happened the third night. It was quick and impulsive on both parts, and neither of them knew what to make of it. The rest of that night they spent in a cautious avoidance, each by turn looking away when one caught the other’s glance. But the following evening, when Taylor was late to meet the group on the beach, Emily was so visibly anxious for his arrival that she nervously paced around and eventually returned to an adjacent area where they had once lit a bonfire, thinking he may have gotten disoriented as to their meeting place.

And Taylor had been detained, but only because he had some errands to complete, because he wanted to do something special for the group. Until then, he had acted like the out-of-town guest that he was, simply enjoying the hospitality of the others, drinking their beer, eating the food they had rounded up, even borrowing their towels after they waded into the water. But now he was feeling a part of this resort fraternity, so this time when he met them after their workday was completed, approaching from the opposite direction, he did not come empty-handed.

And soon he was having a good time watching his new friends devour his groceries and become increasingly loud and playful from the addition of more liquor. Then he drew from his bag of goodies yet one more treat, a large rubber ball he had purchased to coordinate a game of coed dodge ball that he envisioned would end up as a rowdy merging of bodies on the beach. He sorted through the collection of towels he had actually bought at the five-and-dime, and then reached the ball at the bottom of the sack. And when he rose, he naturally began looking for Emily. His plan had been to ambush her first with his possession and get the game started, but he couldn’t find her. The others were there, sitting in the sand, arms swaying to the guitar chords of a talented waiter, just beginning to slur their words a bit as they tried to sing along, but Emily was not among them. If she was there, she would no doubt have been in the center, waving her hands as the most accomplished musical director. But there was no Emily, and now that he thought about it, maybe no Mac either.

He was scanning the circle, the ball tucked in the crook of his arm. The sun-bleached hair of many of the boys in the pack made them almost indistinguishable from one another as the extended light of the summer evening had long since faded. Mac and Chase, especially, looked and dressed so similarly that he had often confused them and so now he walked around the circle for another angle to see who was missing.

“What you got there?” It was Chase, rising from the group and punching his fist to release the ball from Taylor’s arm. And then they all rose in a throng and chased it before it was consumed by the waves. Just as Taylor had hoped, the ball was a hit as a diversion and they were forming a game as if they were in the school playground at recess.

“Wait, that’s too hard,” Rita whined as Chase made his first direct hit at her waist. When it bounced back to him, he repeated the maneuver until she caught the ball and went after him and they ended up tripping in the sand, laughing hysterically, and playfully pounding each other in an increasingly more intimate manner, with the ball now moving on to Doug.

But Taylor was standing back at this point, still looking around, envious of Rita and Chase on the sand, knowing now for sure his intentions with Emily. And he felt a nervous turning in his stomach, as he thought of Emily off somewhere and alone with Mac. One of the girls in the group, having been watching him closely, finally caught his attention and was pointing down the beach. “I think I saw Emily go down that path,” she said. And then Taylor, nodding appreciatively back to her with his signature smile, took off in that direction.

He heard them first and then he saw them. Emily was standing against an old, grayish lifeguard post and Mac was leaning into her, with one arm braced on the wood at her back. But neither of them had heard or seen him approach.

“You’re still hooked on that guy. Why don’t you just admit it? I’ve been watching you and you’ve just been looking for him.”

“No. I’m over him—we’re friends again. I need that, but that is it.”

“OK, then—if you want me to believe that—then you need this from me.” He moved to kiss her, but she turned her head away. “Emily, this makes no sense. I can’t take this. Either you are the worst sort of tease or you still love him. Admit it. You are not over him. I don’t know if it is love or what. But I think you need his approval for your own self-esteem—like he knew you when you were riding high, and you want someone besides a hometown boy who will validate that image from your past.”

“No—no. He hurt me too badly. He let me down. He’s not great like everybody thinks he is.”

“Don’t you think I know that—I remember too that I was sad for you when he pretty much vanished from the picture when your father died. But maybe I was a little happy for me…maybe I’ve hung with you through these years, thinking we might eventually be together.” Mac saw that she was crying now and wanted to hold her, to apologize, but he finally was getting it. She didn’t want him. She never would. And when he turned away, feigning disgust so she would not see that he was simply distraught, he saw that Taylor was there and had heard it all. “You know what,” he said, looking directly at his rival. “Take her—she sends me such mixed messages. I don’t know what to make of her.” And then walking away, he reiterated, “I’m done,” pretending not to care, hoping to save his own dignity.

When she saw Taylor, she began straightening her clothes, wiping her makeup from under her eyes, pushing her hair back from her face. “He’s right, you know.” At first her voice was low and mumbling and she did not look at him. But then she lifted her head and firmed up her posture and her voice became louder and more direct. “I still want you even though you hurt me. You hurt me when I was most vulnerable. You should have really been there for me. And you are not the great person everyone thinks you are. Oh, you’ve got the brains and the charm and all that, but you’re not just the nice image you portray.”

He was blindsided and stung by her words. No one had ever called him out like that before. If he messed up, if people were disappointed in his actions, they rarely told him. He knew that he often got away with more than he deserved, that people he interacted with often found him intimidating in such a quiet, respectful manner, that they just reevaluated their own actions when his did not meet their expectations. If he was late for an event, perhaps they had called the event for too early an hour. If he didn’t complete his full share of a school group project, then they hadn’t correctly explained the assignment, or certainly he was so busy with his other demands that this was too much for anyone to handle.

But now she had said it. She had described him better than even she knew. And surprisingly, he found it a relief. For the first time he felt a burden lifted from him. Now she had verbalized it—that she knew he made mistakes in the past and would in the future—she knew he would be imperfect. He was before and he would be again. She knew it and yet, he was thinking, she still wanted him. He wouldn’t have to feel he had to always be perfect for her in the future. And if she could forgive him, overlook his past actions, if she could want him back, maybe he belonged with her.

“Let me ask you this. Can you want me again knowing how I’ve let you down—knowing that to say I won’t let you down again could be a lie?”

“You mean—can I want you again—knowing you are human—you are like the rest of us—a little bit battered— a little bit flawed—not…”

“Perfect,” he interjected, as naturally, she was thinking, as couples do who finish each other’s sentences. And so she repeated, “Yes, knowing that you are not perfect.” But then he clarified—"No—when I said ‘perfect’ I was looking at your face, your eyes, your heart, if you can believe that. I meant you are perfect.”

She was shaking her head now, rejecting that word, that medal of a label with all of its implied weight. “Just perfect for you.”

And now that he was free to be just human, not the exceptional Taylor Woodmere, he allowed his human impulses to take their course. He bent down to kiss her, first to the rose tint of her ready lips, and then directly to the rising mounds of her breasts, scooping inside her swimsuit top, and then reaching under the half skirt of her stylish suit. And next he was maneuvering their bodies to the sand, gratefully eyeing the seclusion of the overgrowth of shrubbery in the landscape and quickly returning to the luscious landscape of her body.

He didn’t know what he would do if she stopped him at any point, but he sensed by the movements of her body to accept his advances, that they would both take ownership of all that was happening, that they would each accept that they were acting on their natural human desires. Not too far in the distance, he could hear the others calling his name. “Taylor, come on. Thanks for the treasures. Taylor, you got some more?” But then, surprisingly, he heard Mac answer back to them to give Taylor some time alone with Emily. If Mac was a jerk, he was also a gentleman, Taylor was thinking. And so, although there was a momentary slowing of their passionate moves, they both relaxed again, her body continuing to respond easily to his, her hips rising rhythmically toward him.