The Secret Life of Violet Grant (19 page)

She's not stupid. She knows that Walter, human animal that he is, was at least as attracted to her face as her mind, and that she wouldn't have achieved her present arrangement without her large blue eyes and her full bosom. But perhaps she would have achieved more. Perhaps she'd still be in Oxford, part of a larger team, making actual progress, instead of exiled here in Berlin carrying out her experiments almost by herself.

She certainly wouldn't be standing here in this well-appointed study in Kronenstrasse, with the likes of Lionel Richardson sizing up her charms and her willingness to share them, inviting her to tell him
Yes, please, kiss me senseless, never mind my husband and my life's work, my everything.
Her wanting desperately to say
yes,
wanting desperately to be kissed senseless, and the force of that wanting carrying through the air like a wave of alpha
particles, exploding in tiny green-white pings against the solid atomic nucleus of Lionel Richardson.

The smell of Lionel's cigarette wafts past her nose. “Have I been too bold? Are you going to send me away?” he asks, in an amused voice.

“No, of course not. You're only flirting. It's what you do.”

“What if I'm not just flirting?”

Violet stares at the desktop, at Lionel's fingers spread apart like the legs of a spider.

“Do you know, this is a magnificent damned desk,” says Lionel. He flattens his palms and smoothes them across the surface. “The same one he had at the institute?”

“No, that's in his office now. But they're much the same, I suppose.”

“He keeps it very tidy, as ever.”

“Everything in its place.”

Lionel rises from his chair and switches off the desk lamp. He picks up his cane, which was leaning against the edge of the desk, and makes his way in Violet's direction.

She concentrates on her breathing as he approaches, on maintaining her clinical detachment. His heavy dark hair, his heavy dark eyes: they are simply features, objects offered up for her observation. The neat white triangles of his bow tie, lying snug against his throat: an aspect of dress.

“I've never met anyone like you, Violet. You've been on my mind constantly. I've been looking out for you everywhere, whenever your damned husband appears in the room. Wanting to speak to you, to get to the bottom of you.”

He stands far too close. Violet holds her ground and stares at the hollow of his throat. “Well, you've done that now, haven't you? Are you satisfied?”

Lionel reaches around her to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray behind her.

“No, Violet. I'm not satisfied at all.”

•   •   •

VIOLET IS STILL AWAKE
when the bedroom door creaks open and Walter's footsteps pad across the rug to the bathroom. She stares at the ceiling and listens to the rush of the faucet, the quiet bumps and clicks as he removes his clothing, discards his linen, hangs his jacket and trousers in the wardrobe. He will be thorough, she knows, taking care with every crease. His hands will pass along the sleek wool, just to be sure.

A year seems to pass before the damp lemony smell reaches her nostrils, before the bed sags under Walter's weight and the light switches off beyond her closed eyelids.

“Are you awake, child?”

“Hmm?”
Stirring. Bleary.

“I believe I smelled cigarettes in my study, when I came in. Or was it my imagination?”

She rolls her head and blinks her eyes open. “
Hmm?
Oh, that was Lionel. He fetched us back from the office. Henry Mortimer and me.”

“Yes, I recall Jane sending him off to find her boy. I suppose you asked him for a drink?”

“A glass of brandy. His knee was hurting him.”

“Did you fuck him, too?” Walter's tone remains companionable, mildly curious, as if he were asking her what she ate for dinner.

“
What?
No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous.” Her heart smacks against the sheets.

“You can't hide it from me, you know.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Walter. Of course I haven't. Where do you get these ideas? I've hardly met him. He had a drink, that's all. We talked for a bit. He smoked a cigarette in your precious study.” She rolls over, turning her back to him.

“Child, I quite understand the attraction. He's a fine sleek animal. He had any number of women back at Oxford, to my certain knowledge.”

“Well, he hasn't had
me
. I dislike him more than ever, in fact.” Her eyes are closed again; she is thinking of Lionel's lips, so close to her own in the shadowed corner of the study. His massive shoulder brushing hers, as he reached to stub out his cigarette. The intimate scent of his shaving soap disarming the pungency of the tobacco. All this, she had resisted. She had turned away from his imminent kiss, from the willing energy of his nearby arms. The injustice of Walter's accusation slips neatly between her ribs.

“I will find out, Violet. I could find out right now. I could tell if he's been inside you. Shall I?”

Violet says nothing. She waits for the expected sound of his footsteps, for the whir of the Victrola's plate and the scratch of the needle, because that's the sort of thing that would amuse Walter: confirming his wife's infidelity by the very act of enjoying her himself.

But her husband only laughs and settles himself into the mattress.

“Good night, child.”

D
on't ask me how I ended up alone in a taxi with Doctor Paul, headed downtown. Ask my mother, who had made sure I was good and liquored up before she executed her master stroke. I looked down at the pocketbook in my lap, full of Violet's letters to my aunt Christina. The champagne whirlpool in my head refused to stop swirling. What was it about champagne? I should have stuck to vodka.

“Sneaky,” I said. “Miserable, devious, underhanded rapscallion. That's you.”

“I don't know what you mean.” He was perfectly sober, damn him. “Your mother called me up at the hospital, out of the blue, and asked me to a party. Begged me, really. I rearranged my schedule. It would have been rude to refuse when she went to such trouble.”

“You are so smug.”

“I am.”

“What if Gogo had been there,
hmm
? What then?”

Hesitation. “I didn't think she would.”

“Oh, really?” I looked up at his profile in the streetlights. “How could you be so sure?”

“I called her yesterday, to see how she was doing.”

Gogo hadn't mentioned this little fact. I curled my fingers around my pocketbook. “Good. I'm glad you did.”

“Believe it or not, Vivian, I want to do the right thing here.”

“Do you, now?” I turned to the window and watched all the pretty lights dance by. “You didn't tell me you nearly slept with her, back in Los Angeles.”

His body was heavy and still next to mine. “No, I didn't. I'm not in the habit of revealing women's secrets, Vivian. I figured if she wanted you to know the details, she'd tell you herself.”

“Convenient for you.”

“Twist it how you like. It was Margaux I was trying to protect, not myself. I don't kiss and tell.”

How many glasses had I drunk after Mums pitched Doctor Paul in my direction? Enough to make it stop hurting for a minute or two. But the hurting had started up again, and now here I was, drunk as could be, right smack next to the source of my hurt, because he had to go back to the hospital and I lived a few blocks away, and it was perfect, Vivian, perfect! A kiss on each cheek from Mums, a chuck on the arm from Dad, and off we went. If only the pretty lights would stop dancing like that. “All right. If you like. But it does put a new spin on things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you went to bed with her.”

“I didn't go to bed with her. All right, I was going to, we'd had a fun evening, she was sending out all the signals. Maybe I had a little too much to drink, maybe she did. It was a warm evening. It just . . . it started happening. She took the lead. I had no idea she was a virgin. I stopped when she told me.” His voice was flatter than flat.

“So she said. Very gentlemanly of you.”

“What the hell does that mean? It didn't happen, Vivian. I didn't let it happen. I don't take advantage of drunk virgins.”

“Salisbury.” I shook my head. “Tell me something. Without naming names. Without giving numbers. Is this something you do a lot?”

“What, sex?” At the instant he said the word
sex
, God flicked his fingers, the taxi lurched sideways, and I spilled into Doctor Paul's lap.

Lady Luck, she had me by the oysters tonight.

I picked myself up with drunken dignity. “It's all easy for you, isn't it? They fall for you, you sleep with them. You put on your honorable act, but you're really not, are you? You take what's offered.”

“All right, I'm no innocent. That has nothing to do with us.”

“Yes, it does.” I was trying to find my logic here, so bear with me. “It has to do with sincerity.”

“You doubt my
sincerity
with you?”

“Well, yes. You lied about what happened with Gogo—”

“I didn't lie about it. I just didn't tell you about it. It was private, for God's sake, it was Margaux's business. I didn't tell a soul. And anyway, the whole thing should show you that I'm capable of controlling myself. We were drunk, she was ready to go, and I stopped it. I don't know if you know much about men, Vivian, but that's not easy to do. Especially when the lady's that willing.” His voice wasn't flat anymore. It rose and fell and stabbed at me.

“Well, I don't know if you know much about women, Casanova, but as far as Gogo's concerned, you might as well have finished what you started.”

“But I didn't!”

“I mean as far as she's concerned. She was naked on that bed with you. She gave it all up to you. And you made her think you were doing the honorable thing by not taking the prize.”

“I was. A cad would have kept on going regardless.”

“Well, she thought the opposite. She thought you were so overwhelmed by her innocence, you were saving it for the wedding night.”

Finally, a goddamned red light. The taxi slammed to a halt. Twenty-third Street. The radio was scratching urgently about a murder in the West Side, a street gang thing. Oddly, the pretty lights didn't stop twirling. The taxi seemed to be still moving, even though it had demonstrably stopped.

“Nothing to say to that, have you?”

“I'm sorry she misunderstood. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't, I guess. Probably I shouldn't have gone in the room with her to begin with, but I did, I made that mistake, and I'm sorry. The point is, it's the past. It's what I was before I met you.”

I shook my head, side to side, against the sticky leather seat of the taxi. “It's not in the past. You can't just say, well, none of that matters anymore because I'm in love.”

“Listen to you, Vivian. For God's sake. Have I made a single peep about the men you've been with before me? We're just the same. We're not lily-white. I understood that, I didn't give a damn, I didn't need to ask. I understood you.”

I lifted my heavy head. “If you had, Doctor Paul, if you'd asked even once, you'd have known that I slept with one man. One. That professor, three years ago.”

The taxi thrust forward again. Doctor Paul grabbed the door handle.

“Is that so.”

“That's so.”

“Why?”

“Because I have this little problem, you see, that you obviously don't share. I have a little problem getting attached to the men I sleep with. So. There it is. Not quite as daring as you thought, am I?”

He tried to take my hand. I snatched it away. We bumped on down Fifth Avenue. I thought about what Mums had said, taking me aside when I went to her bedroom to pick up my coat.
Don't hate me. I asked around a bit. It turns out Uncle Leo's younger brother knew him at Princeton. He was at the top of his class, Vivian. And dear old Oscar on the hospital board says he's the most promising young surgeon they've got, he's just naturally gifted, and so good with the children. He's perfect, honey. Perfect
. I'd thought to myself, she must have it bad, he must have really bamboozled her, if she didn't care about his family and his scholarship and his obscure San Francisco roots. Did she know about the gambling father yet?

“Vivian,” Doctor Paul said, over Mums's voice in my head, “listen for a minute. Do you know what happened the other day? Margaux's father came to the hospital.”

“You don't say. S. Barnard Lightfoot III himself?” I whistled sloppily.

“Himself. He sat down and offered me a million dollars to marry Margaux.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete.”

“You don't believe me?”

“A million dollars? To marry Gogo?”

But even as I said the words, I felt that whoosh in my chest, that sudden vacuum of vital strength that meant I
did
believe him, I knew this was exactly the kind of thing Lightfoot would do, arrogant and big-balled and not to be denied. Not to be outbid by a third party, in any currency.

“You don't have to believe me, I suppose. It shocked the hell out of me, that's for certain. That doesn't mean it's not true.”

Possibly I would vomit now. I stared at the cab ceiling and tried to breathe slowly.

“A million fat ones. That's a lot of bread, young stud. You must have impressed him.”

“Half on our engagement, half on our wedding day, he said. Our own apartment on Park when we had our first child.”

“Classic six?”

“Seven.”

“Not playing around, is he? When's the wedding?”

“What the hell does that mean? I told him no.”

“But you must have been tempted. A million dollars.” I lifted my hand and rubbed together my thumb and forefinger.

“Vivian. Stop it.”

“So why are you telling me about it?”

“To show you that I'm sincere.”

“All you're showing me, Salisbury, is that you're willing to make
yourself intimate with a pretty girl and break her heart afterward. That you'll do anything, you'll turn down a million dollars to avoid making good on what you did to Gogo.”

“For the last time, I didn't sleep with her.”

I turned to him and shouted, “For the last time, it doesn't matter! It's how she feels!”

“What are you saying, Vivian? What do you want? Just tell me what you want and I'll give it to you.”

What do I want. A simple question.

I fingered my pocketbook, considered the envelopes tucked inside. “Funny little coincidence. As it happens, I had a conference with S. Barnard Lightfoot myself on Tuesday morning. He as good as told me that if I backed off with you, he'd give me carte blanche at the
Metropolitan
for my story on Violet. He'd make my career.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think I said? I said yes.”

Somehow, we'd reached my apartment building. Doctor Paul sprang out, opened my door, and handed me out. He reached in his pocket and shoved a couple of dollar bills through the passenger window.

“You're not coming in,” I said.

“You're not going in alone, the state you're in.”

I knew right away I wasn't going to win this battle. I let him fish my keys out of my pocketbook. “What's with all the envelopes?” he asked.

“Violet's letters to my aunt.”

“But that's tremendous! Why didn't you tell me?”

I didn't answer. I swept past him and climbed the stairs. I won't say I didn't appreciate the steadying hand he put to the small of my back. I was stumbling a little, not at my best. When we reached my apartment, I had to run to the bathroom. He was still there when I came out, tall and imposing in his overcoat. “Don't you have a hospital to inhabit somewhere?” I asked.

“Not for an hour or so.”

“Just my luck.”

He walked to the kitchen, found a miraculous tumbler in a cabinet, and poured a glass of water from the tap. “Here. You'll thank me in the morning.”

I drank obediently.

He said softly, “You're so absolute, Vivian. So ardent, inside that crisp shell of yours. You come on like Ava Gardner . . . no, that's not it. Like Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, like there's nothing you wouldn't dare. But in the end, when the chips are down, when everyone pairs off at midnight, you shy away. You can't stand the nakedness, can you?”

“I can stand it, all right. I'm just particular. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Your parents must have done some number on you. Or that professor. Tender Vivian. What did they do to you?”

I crashed the tumbler onto the tabletop, hard and loud, to shout down the sudden pain in my ribs. “Oh, you're shrinking my head now, are you? Look, I just think you should try doing the right thing for once. You know the rules. You broke it, you bought it?”

“I didn't break Margaux.”

“I beg to differ.”

He took the empty glass and poured another one. His face was somber as an abandoned puppy. “You're drunk. You don't even know what you're saying.”

“You just don't want to hear what I'm saying. I'm offering you a chance to make amends. To do what's right for someone else for a change. Not just to suit yourself.”

He watched as I drank my water. Without realizing it, I had retreated a few paces. In another step or two, I'd have my slinky low-cut back to my bedroom door. Nowhere to go. He moved forward one square.

“What are you afraid of, Vivian?”

“I'm not afraid of anything.”

Another square. “Look at you. Your eyes. You are scared to death,
Vivian Schuyler. I can tell, because for what I suspect is the first time in your life, you're not making the littlest bit of sense. Tell the man you love to marry your best friend, will you? To
marry
her? When he loves you instead? You must really want me safely out of reach, don't you?”

I opened my mouth to tell him he was an arrogant son of a gun and I didn't love him. But the damned old throat clammed up on me. Well, I'm not made of stone! He was standing right there, right there, breathing down the bridge of my nose with his promising lips, staring down the marrow of my bones with his blue-scrubbed Paul Newman eyes. Who was I to say I didn't love the very darling dickens out of him?

I took a step backward instead.

“Margaux's a big girl, Vivian. She doesn't need you to take care of her. She has lots of people to do that. She's got a father who'll spend a million bucks to buy her a husband. She'll be just fine. The thing I want to know is, who takes care of Vivian?”

I wet my lips. My back was touching the door now. I let the water glass slide to the floor with a bump. “Vivian takes care of Vivian.”

“If you don't mind my saying so, she's letting herself slip a bit at the moment.” He laid one hand against the door, next to my hair. “I'd think of hiring her an assistant, if I were you.”

“Then it's a good thing you're not me.”

“I'm close enough. You're stuck in my head, Vivian. My blood. I can't shake you.” With his other hand, he found my palm and kissed it, like a goddamned romantic movie, like a man who didn't know what was good for him.