Remembrance (10 page)

“Oh, Serena darling … I love you so.…”

She whispered his name in the moonlight, and for long hours before sunrise they forgot that there was another woman, and again and again Serena was his.

9

Major B.J. Fullerton stood looking very tall and straight and handsome at the military airport outside Rome. Only his eyes looked faintly troubled, and there were weary smudges to indicate that he had slept little, and as he lit a cigarette he realized that his hands were trembling. It seemed foolish to be nervous about seeing Pattie, but he was. Her father, Congressman Atherton of Rhode Island, had arranged for her to join a military flight over, and she was due in ten minutes. For a brief moment B.J. wished that he had had a drink before he left the house. And then suddenly he saw the plane, circling high above and then drifting lower, heading toward the runway, and finally making a graceful landing, then taxiing down the runway toward the small hastily erected building where he stood. He stood very still as he watched two colonels and a major step down the gangway, then a small cluster of military aides, one woman dressed in the uniform of a military nurse, and then he felt his heart break into a gallop as he saw her, standing at the top of the gangway, looking across the tarmac until she saw him, waving and smiling gaily, the raven hair neatly tucked into a bright red hat. She was wearing a fur coat and dark stockings, and she touched the railing, as she made her way down the stairway, with one elegant little hand neatly encased in a black kid glove. He was struck, even at this distance, by how pretty she was. That was the right word for Pattie. Pretty. She wasn't beautiful like Serena. She wasn't striking. But she was pretty, with a brilliant smile, wide baby-doll blue eyes, and a little turned-up nose. In the summer her face was lightly dusted with freckles when she went to Newport with her parents and summered at their fourteen-bedroom “cottage” with all the other friends she joined there every year. Pretty little Pattie Atherton. He felt his stomach quiver as he watched her. He wanted to run toward her as she was running toward him, but something stopped him. Instead he walked toward her with long slow strides and a wistful smile.

“Hi, pretty girl, can I show you around Rome or is someone meeting you?” He kissed her playfully on the forehead and she giggled, turning her face up toward his with her dazzling Miss America smile.

“Sure, soldier, I'd love to see Rome with you.” She slipped a hand through his arm and squeezed tightly, and B.J. had to fight not to close his eyes, so afraid was he that they would show his feelings. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to play games with her or be funny. He wanted to tell her the truth as they stood there at the airport, looking at each other.… Pattie, I fell in love with another woman.… I have to break our engagement.… I want to marry her.… I don't love you anymore.… But was that true? Didn't he love Pattie Atherton anymore? He didn't think so as he watched her. In fact as he picked up her suitcase and followed the fur coat out of the airport, he was almost sure.

He had arranged for a car and driver, and a moment later they were sitting side by side in the backseat of the car … when suddenly she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth, leaving a bright red imprint of the lipstick that so perfectly matched her hat.

“Hey, babe, take it easy.” He reached quickly for his handkerchief while the driver stowed her bag in the trunk.

“Why should I? I came four thousand miles to see you.” Her eyes glittered a little too brightly, as though already she knew, as though she sensed something different. “Don't I get a kiss for all that?”

“Sure you do. But not here.” He patted her hand and as she took off her gloves he saw the sparkle of the engagement ring he had given her only that summer. And now it was not yet Thanksgiving and he was already having second thoughts.

“All right.” She looked at him matter-of-factly, and he could see shades of her domineering mother in the way her jaw set. “Then let's go back to the palace. Besides,” she smiled sweetly, “I want to see it. Daddy says it's divine.”

“It is.” He felt a tremor pass through him. “But wouldn't you rather go to where you're staying first? Where are you staying, by the way?”

“With General and Mrs. Bryce.” She said it smugly, like Congressman Atherton's daughter, and for a moment he hated her for her arrogant ways. How different she was from gentle Serena, how harsh she seemed in comparison. Was this really the pretty girl he had spent so much time with in Newport, and taken out so ardently last summer when he'd been home on leave? She didn't seem nearly as attractive now as they sat here, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he asked his driver to take them to his home.

He looked at the sleek waves of her bobbed hair and the expensive red wool hat. “Partie, what made you come over here now?” B.J. had put up the window between them and the driver and now he looked Pattie straight in the eye as he sat back in his seat. He was on his guard, though he wasn't sure why. “I told you I'd try to come home at Christmas.”

“I know.” She attempted to look at the same time petulant and alluring, and she was almost successful. Almost. “But I missed you too much.” She kissed him playfully on the neck, leaving her imprint on him once again. “And you're such a lousy correspondent.” But as she looked at him there was something searching. She was asking him a question, if not with her words, then with her eyes. “Why? Do you mind my coming over, Brad?”

“Not at all. But I'm awfully busy just now. And”—he stared out the window, thinking of Serena, before he looked back at Pattie again with reproach in his voice and his eyes—”you should have asked me.”

“Should I?” She arched one eyebrow, and again he found the resemblance to her mother striking. “Are you angry?”

“No, of course not.” He patted her hand. “But, Pattie, six months ago this was a war zone. I have work to do here. It won't be easy having you around.” In part it was true, but the real reason was hidden beneath. And Pattie seemed to sense that as she looked him over appraisingly.

“Well, Daddy wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, and this was it. Of course”—she looked at him with faint accusation—”if you're too busy to see me, I'm sure that General and Mrs. Bryce will be happy to take me around, and I can always go on to Paris. Daddy has friends there too.” It all sounded so petulant and so petty, and it annoyed him. He couldn't help listening to the contrast between her veiled threats of “Daddy” and Serena's solemn, whispered explanations about “My father,” as she told B.J. about his conflicts with his brother, their implications, and the political pressures that had eventually led to his death. What did Pattie know of things like that? Nothing. She knew of shopping and tennis and summers in Newport, and deb parties and diamonds and El Morocco and the Stork Club and a constant round of parties in Boston and New York. “Brad.” The look which she gave him was part angry, part sad. “Aren't you happy that I came to see you?” Her lower lip pouted, but the big blue eyes shone, and as he watched her he wondered if anything really mattered to her. Only that she got her own way, he suspected, from Daddy or anyone else.

The summer before, he had found her so charming, so cute, and so sexy, and so much more amusing than the other debutantes he had known before the war. But he had to admit now that the only thing different about her was that she was a little bit shrewder and a lot smarter. He suddenly wondered if she had manipulated the engagement. She certainly had had him panting for her body on the summer porch in Newport. A diamond ring had seemed then a small price to pay for what lay between those shapely legs. “Well, B.J.?” She still wanted an answer to her question, and he had to pull his mind back to the woman sitting beside him in the car hurtling through the streets of Rome.

“Yes, Pattie, I'm happy to see you.” But it had the dutiful ring of an unhappy and long-married husband. He didn't feel like a lover as he sat beside her in the car, glancing at the pretty face, the red hat, and the fur. “I think I'm just a little surprised.”

“Surprises are nice though, B.J.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I love them.”

“I know you do.” He smiled at her more gently then, remembering how pleased she had been by all of his offerings, flowers and little presents and once a horse-carriage ride in the moonlight that he had arranged especially for her. He reminded her of it now and she grinned.

“When are you coming home again, B.J.?” The petulance was back in her voice again and he sighed. “I mean for good this time.”

“I don't know.”

“Daddy says he could arrange it real soon, if you'd let him.” And then she winked. “Or maybe even if you don't. Maybe that could be my Christmas present to you.” But just hearing her say it made him panic. The thought of being torn from Serena before he was ready filled him with dread.

He squeezed Pattie's hand too hard, and in his eyes she thought she saw terror. “Pattie, don't you ever do that. I'll handle my life in the army myself. Do you understand that?” His voice rose harshly and her eyes held him in check. “Do you?”

“I do.” She answered quickly. “Maybe even better than you think.” He wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but he didn't dare. Whatever she knew, or suspected, he didn't want to hear about it yet. Sooner or later he would have to talk to her. He would have to make some kind of decision, and perhaps even tell her what had happened in the past months. But not yet. In a way he knew that she was smart to have come over. If there was a way that she could have kept him, this was it. If they were truly
to
be married, it was good that he be reminded of her now, in person, before it was too late. But just as his thoughts began to fill with Serena, the driver passed through the palazzo's main gate. “Good heavens, B.J.!” She looked at it in astonishment. “Is this it?” He nodded, half in pride and half in amusement at the look on her face. “But you're only a major!” The words slipped from her and she clapped a gloved hand over her mouth as he laughed.

“I'm glad you're impressed.” He was distracted as he helped her out of the car, and he felt a wave of nervousness sweep over him. He had wanted to take her
to
the general's and not bring her here in the daytime. They were sure to run into Serena, and he wasn't sure that he could handle that. “I'll give you a quick tour, Pattie, and then we'll get you settled at the Bryces.”

“I'm in no hurry. I slept all the way to Ireland on the plane.” She smiled happily at him and walked majestically up the steps to the main hall. Here one of the orderlies swept open the enormous bronze doorway, and Pattie found herself standing beneath the magnificent chandelier. Her eye caught the grand piano and she turned to see B.J. behind her, looking amused, despite himself, at her reactions. “War is hell, huh, Major?”

“Absolutely. Would you like to see the upstairs?”

“I sure would.” She followed him up the stairs, as all eyes followed. In her own way she was a very striking young woman, and none of them had seen a woman like her in a long time. Everything about her reeked of money and class. She looked like something right out of
Vogue
magazine, deposited on then-doorstep, some four thousand miles from home. The orderlies exchanged quick glances. She was a looker, all right, and they had all heard that she was a congressman's daughter. If the major's old man hadn't been a senator once, and if they hadn't all known that he came from money too, they'd have wondered what he was after. But this way it seemed like they were made for each other, and as one of the orderlies whispered to another, “Jesus, man … just look at them legs!”

B.J. took her from room to room, introducing the men in various offices, and the secretaries, who all looked up from then-work. They sat in a little drawing room where he sometimes entertained guests, looking out over the garden, and then suddenly she looked up at him, tilted her head to one side, and asked the question he'd been avoiding. “Aren't you going to show me your room?” He had whisked her quickly through his office, but he had purposely avoided the enormous room with the antique canopied bed.

“I suppose so, if you'd like that.”

“I certainly would. I suppose it's as lavish as the rest of all this. Poor B.J.,” she crooned jokingly. “What a hard life you live over here! And to think, people feel sorry for you, still being in Europe after the war!” But mere was more than amusement and raillery in what she was saying, there was accusation now and suspicion, and resentment and anger. He began to sense all of it as he led the way down a marble hall and opened a pair of handsomely carved double doors. “Good Lord, B.J.! All this for you?” She turned to face him too quickly, and suddenly she saw him blushing to the roots of his hair. He said nothing further and walked swiftly to the long rows of windows, opened one of them and stepped onto the balcony, saying something about the view. But it wasn't the view he was seeking. He was longing for a glimpse of Serena. After all, this was her home too. “I had no idea you lived so comfortably, B.J.” Pattie's voice was smoky as she stepped outside and stood beside him on the little balcony looking out over the gently rolling lawns below.

“Do you mind it?” His eyes looked deep into hers now, trying to understand who she was, and what she felt. Did she really love him, or merely want to have him? It was a question he had been asking himself now for quite a while.