The Secret Life of Violet Grant (21 page)

“There won't
be
an afterward with us.”

“No, you're right about that. If I had you, I wouldn't let you go.”

“Then we had better not start at all.”

“No, we'd better not.” He picks up his glass, examines the remains against the light, and tilts it up to his mouth. “Your husband has invited me along to Wittenberg with you.”

“Oh? What did you say?”

He takes out another cigarette and lights it swiftly. “I said
yes
, of course. Fresh air, sunshine, tennis in abundance. Who could refuse?”

“I won't go. I'll stay here in Berlin. I'll tell him I want to keep working.”

“Look at you. You're dead frightened, aren't you?”

“What about your regiment? I suppose they need you.”

“Let me worry about my regiment.”

She grips the sofa edge and pictures Wittenberg, the charming villa
Walter has rented for the month of July, the sky and the clean water and the pungent sunshine. She pictures Lionel dropped in the center of this bucolic idyll, dazzling in tennis whites, shedding restless energy into the shimmering air. “He's your friend, Lionel. Don't do this.”

“Ah, loyal Violet. I can't imagine what the good doctor has done to earn this violent fidelity of yours. Still, I suppose I've only to wait. The chap's twenty-eight years older than you—”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty, of course. But anything might happen at that age. A heart attack, a fall, an accidental poisoning, that sort of thing. I'm a patient man.”

“I wish you wouldn't joke.”

“God
damn
it, Violet.” Lionel springs from the window and tosses his empty glass into the empty fireplace. The shattering crystal makes her jump. He follows the sound to the mantel and curls his hands around the edge, on either side of his bowed head. “I wish to God I
were
joking.”

A peal of laughter trills through the walls, unnervingly close, perhaps just outside the closed library door. Lionel doesn't move. The smoke trails delicately from the cigarette in his right hand, winding around his ear.

Violet whispers, “Perhaps you should just leave Berlin altogether.”

“If I could leave, Violet, I would. Believe me.”

Another burst of laughter, which clarifies suddenly as the library door swings open. Violet turns in a jolt. The Comtesse de Saint-Honoré illuminates the room, resplendent in red silk, her chin tilted back to expose her long neck.

“Oh!” she exclaims, looking first at Violet and then at Lionel, who now stands facing the room, one arm still slung on the mantel, one ankle crossed before the other, smiling mysteriously. “There you are! We were looking for you.”

Only then does Violet notice her husband standing next to the comtesse. His necktie has come unraveled, and his elbow forms a convenient nook for her arm.

“Violet, my dear,” he says. “Have you been hiding yourself away all this time?”

“You know I dislike parties.”

“Yes, I wondered why you insisted on coming.” He glances at Lionel and takes a drink from the glass that dangles from his other hand. “But I see you haven't suffered alone.”

Lionel shrugs his broad shoulders. “We were discussing this wretched tragedy in Sarajevo.”

“Shocking affair,” says Walter.

“Why, what's happened in Sarajevo?” asks the comtesse.

“Oh, only the assassination of the Austrian heir and his wife,” says Lionel. “Nothing for the ladies to bother themselves about.”

Violet boils over. She opens her mouth to object, but the comtesse's gravelly laughter already crowds the air.

“Oh, really, Lionel. You're impossible. But poor Sophie. I really am upset. I met her in Vienna last year. She was charming, not a snob at all, as these Austrian aristocrats usually are. What happened?”

“Shot in their motorcar on a state visit. Some damned Serbian nationalist, I'm sure. Not that the Hapsburgs are fit to govern a village sheep run any longer, but what the devil good does regicide do? Only provokes Austria to kick them with booted heel.” Lionel tosses the end of his cigarette into the fireplace, amid the shards of his whiskey.

“No doubt the diplomats will sort it all out,” says Walter blandly.

The silence in the room contrasts with the merriment outside, as if the four of them are attending some secret rite in the middle of a wedding feast. Lionel drums his fingers against the mantel and trades inscrutable glances with the comtesse.

She turns to Violet. “My dear, do come along with me. I've got so many people to introduce you to. You don't know what a divine novelty you are.”

Violet protests, but the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré takes her arm. “It's
not that hard, really. They're all good and tight. Quite harmless. Just put one word in front of the other.”

Later, after Violet has made the rounds with the comtesse, has met a thousand cosmopolitan drunks and become silly herself with champagne and ragtime and male admiration, she lies sprawled on the sofa in the library while Jane strokes her hair. Neither Walter nor Lionel can be found.

“You've got to sleep here tonight, I guess,” says Jane. “There's nobody respectable to see you home.”

“There was nobody respectable here to begin with.” The gentle stroke of Jane's fingers, the rustle of red silk as she moves her arm, is lulling Violet to sleep.

“What a bad influence I am. But I can't help it, you know. It's how I'm made; I've given up trying to reform. I just like it.”

“Like what? Having parties? Having affairs?”

“Yes, all of it. There's nothing more exciting than a new lover, or the chance of one. I'm addicted to it. You should try it yourself. Or I suppose you already have, when you started with Walter.” She giggles softly. She's matched champagne with Violet that evening, glass for glass. “So try it again.”

“No, I won't.” Violet yawns. “I can't.”

“Yes, you can. Why not? Lionel's dotty for you.”

“I'm married.”

Jane laughs outright and gives Violet a squeeze with her other arm. “What does that mean anymore? I've been married three times already.”

“I don't know how you managed all that. Where did you find the time?”

“I started early, of course. That's the trick, start early. I ran away with my first husband when I was only fifteen. He was twenty-seven and a beast, but he was rich enough, the richest man in Rapid City, and I had to get away. Out of the house.” Her fingers find a few stray ends of Violet's hair and rub them together.

“I don't suppose I can argue with that.”

“I divorced him the year after that. That nice old judge awarded me plenty of money, once he saw the photographs. Always get evidence, Violet, that's my advice.”

“I'll try to remember that.”

“No, I really mean it. The deck is stacked against us, you know. I have no patience for women who won't look after themselves. I suppose that's why women don't like me very much.”

“Don't they?”

“Well, I don't guess
I'd
like me, if I were them. No, they're right. I'm not one of them, I'm the enemy. You see, I don't need all this business about cuddles and fidelity and love everlasting. I don't believe in it. I like flirting; I like making love. I don't mind sleeping with someone's husband, if the opportunity arises. Why should I? It's just a physical transaction that gives pleasure on both sides, if it's done right. I've never understood why women make such a fuss about . . .” She waves her hand. “Well, all of it. Love and babies.”

“But you've had three husbands. And a child.”

The sofa cushions move beneath Violet's shoulders. Both of Jane's hands insert themselves in Violet's hair to gather up the waves and lift them from her neck. “Do you wear it loose at night, or do you braid it?”

“Loose. I can't be bothered.”

Jane begins to braid Violet's hair. Violet closes her eyes. The little tugs and twists of Jane's manicured fingers electrify her scalp; Jane's exotic perfume drifts against the haze of champagne surrounding her brain. She loves the unfamiliar female intimacy of lying here, listening to Jane's secrets while Jane braids her hair.

“Listen, Violet. I love three things: money, myself, and my son. Not in that order. I'd do anything for them, especially Henry.”

“That's all? Not your family? Any of your husbands?” She searches for something else, some other possible object for Jane's worship, and hazards—of all things—“God?”

“God?” Jane laughs mightily. “Really? What about Him? He's done nothing for me, I can tell you. I've done it all by myself, tooth and nail. I don't see why
He
should get any credit. And you don't, either, I'll bet. That's why I like you, Violet. I don't like many women, but I like you.” She's finished the braid. She wraps her fingers around the paintbrush end and gives it a gentle pull.

“Are you sleeping with my husband?” Violet asks drowsily.

“Would you be angry if I were? Would you even care?”

Violet doesn't reply. She doesn't know how.

Jane pulls the braid apart and combs it out with her fingers. Violet opens her eyes. The apartment is quiet now, the guests shooed away, the servants in the scullery with the acres of glassware. It must be past four o'clock in the morning.

“You have the loveliest hair, Violet. I'll bet Walter loves your hair.”

Violet stares up at the creamy library ceiling, and her mind turns back to another sofa and another ceiling, another body pressed against hers on an Oxford winter afternoon.

“Yes, he does. Walter loves my hair.”

N
ovember! They say time flies when you're having a tawdry affair.

“Lionel arrived in her life on the same day as this Jane Johnson,” I said. “Don't you think that's a funny coincidence?”

“Hmm,”
said the man lying next to me, meaning,
I'm half asleep and I've no idea what you've just said, but even while semi-conscious I know better than to ignore you, Vivian Schuyler.

I nudged his ribs. “Violet and Lionel.”

“Violet. Sweetheart.” He turned his face into my neck and went still.

“Just listen to this. It's in the second letter, dated May twenty-first:
‘
The most extraordinary character walked into my laboratory yesterday, an old student of Walter's. His name is Lionel Richardson and he's some sort of soldier, about six feet tall with one of those large and brutal bodies, like something you might see on safari, thickly muscled, with straight black hair. He's rather alarming to sit next to; one feels as if one will be swallowed up at any instant. We took him to a café later, where we were accosted by an American woman who wants Walter to take her son into the laboratory for the summer. The son, by the way, is not yet twenty. Altogether an extraordinary evening.
'
Amazing, isn't it? And he sounds like a dreamboat.”

“Mmm.”

“And I checked it against the
Metropolitan
archives, and it's the same
day as the correspondent mentioned seeing the Comtesse de Saint-Honoré—that's Jane, she's a real husband-hunter—with her son at the Bluebird café.” I leaned my head back in the pillow and sighed to charm the angels. “It's the best feeling in the world, isn't it? When your research fits together like that, and all of a sudden you realize these were real people, living real lives, and . . . Are you listening?”

This time, no sound at all emerged from Doctor Paul's body, which lay heavy and slack against mine, one arm thrown across my middle. And really, who could blame him? His shift last night was supposed to end at ten o'clock, and I'd gone to the hospital to meet him there, but no—some sort of emergency surgery, a kid hit by a car—he would be out in an hour, in another hour, and at about midnight I'd realized that the huddled couple at the other corner of the antiseptic waiting room must be the child's parents, because they kept lifting their reddened eyes hopefully to the door whenever it moved, and the man's hand was locked so hard with the woman's that the bones of his knuckles shone white through his skin. I had sat there in a cold lump, no idea what to do. Couldn't just walk up to them and say,
Hello there, dearies, I'm Dr. Salisbury's lover, and I can assure you those clever old hands can perform all kinds of miracles,
or even
I know Dr. Salisbury personally, and he's the best new resident surgeon in years, and if anyone can save your darling angel, he will
.

And just as I'd made up my mind to do just that—the second greeting, not the first—the door had opened and Doctor Paul himself walked through in his stained blue scrubs, and from the weight of grief on his face I knew the news was as bad as news could be. I had felt an instant compulsion to run to him, to toss my cashmere arms around him and give him the unrestrained Vivian, but he didn't even see me. He walked right past my crossed and shapely legs and pulled up a chair next to the parents. He took the woman's hand like a sandwich between his own, and I thought,
Oh my God, oh my sweet twinkling stars, I love you so much, I can't even breathe, I think my heart just stopped, somebody save me.

When I brought him back to my apartment an hour later, I'd thought
he would want to go right to sleep, maybe accept a little comfort of the strictly platonic sort—look, a girl could take a rain check once in a while, in a good cause—but instead he threw me into the bedroom and engaged me like a lion, like a beast of the wild, in such a speechless frenzy of erotic energy that I, Vivian Schuyler, could hardly keep up. And I thought, as he lay sleeping and senseless the next instant, trusting and comatose along the length of my back, well, that makes sense, doesn't it? To combat death with life. To fight back.

I lifted my other hand and ran it through Doctor Paul's too-long sunshine hair, darkening at the roots now as November took its toll on all of us. Morning nudged through the cracks in the blinds. I needed my coffee and cigarette, but I couldn't dislodge my poor dear doctor, could I? I reached for Violet's gold watch, where it sat always on my nightstand, and wiped the glass with my thumb. Perpetual seven-oh-three. When time stopped for Violet and Lionel.

I said quietly, so I wouldn't wake him: “I still don't know when they began their affair. She mentions seeing him at a party at Jane's apartment and that he's recovering from an operation. And then he turns up in Wittenberg, where she and Walter rent a villa every summer. But it seems as if the more she likes him, the less she writes about him.”

I looked down at Doctor Paul's head, tucked into my neck like a child's, and touched the delicate tip of his ear with my finger. “I guess I can understand that.”

A plaintive gurgle emerged from my belly. I strained my neck to place a kiss on Doctor Paul's peaceful head and then detached myself, limb by limb, from the tangle we'd gotten ourselves into. I tucked the bedclothes back around him, found my robe, and picked my way through the strewn clothes into the living room.

No sign of Sally. Surprise, surprise. I started the coffee going and rummaged in the icebox. If the mingled scents of bacon and Yuban couldn't rouse my sleeping stallion, nothing could. I whipped the eggs to a proper froth and started a batch of toast, and I was just jabbing the fork
in the toaster when a pair of arms came around my waist and a pair of lips collided with my temple.

“You again,” I said.

“Like a bad penny. That smells fantastic. Are you sharing?”

“I might, if you're a good boy and find the plates.”

He didn't move. He'd put his pants back on but not his shirt. I felt his heart beat between my shoulders. I reached to flip the bacon on the back burner.

He said, “I'm sorry about last night.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

“Are you . . . ?” Cleared the old throat. “I wasn't too . . . ?”

“Doctor. This is Vivian, remember? I'll let you know when I'm not enjoying myself.”

“Mmm.”
Another kiss.

He was making me right at home in his skin-scented middle. Ready to let the bacon burn and the eggs scramble themselves. “
Mmm
yourself,” I said.

“So. Another thing.”

“There's more?”

“Last night. In my primal haste.”

“
Hmm.
Yes. We forgot a little something, didn't we?”

“A big something. My fault. I'm sorry, Vivian, I was just so . . . God, it was such hell yesterday . . . and there you were . . . I wasn't thinking straight . . .”

“I know. My fault, too. Heat of the moment.” I peeled myself from his arms and poured a cup of coffee. “Here. My magic beans will make you all better.”

“I
do
feel better. It's you I'm thinking about.” Sip. Soulful, worried eyes. “How close are you?”

“Close. Not too close, I think.” Pretty damned hair's-breadth close.

“Jesus. It won't happen again, I promise.” He stretched out his not-coffee hand and stroked my tumbled locks. “Or there's the Pill.”

“So I've heard.”

“I do know this doctor. He could get you a prescription.”

“Do you, now. Might be a good idea. If we're planning to make a habit of this.”

I tried not to grin. I really did. So did he. But.

He said: “Thank you for last night. You saved me. You do know that.”

“Anytime. And I do mean anytime.”

He leaned forward and kissed the strands between his fingers. “I love this hair of yours.”

Look, now. A man holds your hair in his hands and kisses it, the man who made love to you last night, and I dare you not to wrap your hands around his sweet skull and kiss him silly, until you're crashing into the icebox together, spilling hot coffee everywhere, giggling and groaning, all choked up with mutual worship. And then he stops suddenly and crushes you into his bones—your robe's come undone by now, naturally, and your bare skin attaches to his bare skin—and says, “It's been magic. This month with you, it's been heaven,” and what the hell are you supposed to say to that?

“Yes.”

“I just . . . Almighty God, Vivian, I love you so much. I just need you to know that. When I fall short of you. Give you less than you deserve. I love you, you can't imagine. You're the world to me.” He said it violently, into that hair of mine he said he loved. In another second, he'd be proposing.

“Great guns,” I said. “I think the bacon's burning.”

•   •   •

DID I MENTION
today was a Wednesday? Well. Today was a Wednesday, and what with all the bacon and the shenanigans, I slunk like an alley cat into the
Metropolitan
offices well past my usual hour of lateness. And I am not, as you may have noticed, the world's earliest alley cat to begin with.

But. I had lateness privileges now! Everyone knew I was now among Lightfoot's chosen. Even Agatha did no more than snap her Wrigley's at me as I waved my cheeriest and whipped around the corner before Gogo could triangulate my position from her radar station outside her father's office.

“Hello there, Vivs!”

Gogo was perched atop my desk, right smack between the telephone and the empty fact-checking box, gams crossed, topmost footsie bounce bounce bouncing. Her face wore a brilliant pink smile.

She knows.

Gathump gathump,
went the old heart. I swung my briefcase into place. “Hello there, honey. What's cooking?”

Who told her? Where did she see us?

“You are. You're cooking. Look at that dress! And your hair. It's all . . .” She motioned.

I coughed. “New style.” The Salon Doctor Paul Deluxe. “You like?”

“
Mmm.
I want one just like it.”

“Wouldn't suit you at all, dearest. So. What are you up to this morning? Don't you have some advertisers to charm?” My heart was slowing from a gallop to a trot. There was not a drop of guile in Gogo. If she knew about Doctor Paul, she wouldn't go about confronting me all sideways like this. She would come at me straight, with bathtubs of tears and that lost-koala expression that did me in, every time.

Gogo laughed. “Not today. I'm doing the decorations for Agatha's anniversary party, and then I'm going shopping for a new dress.”

“Nothing beats shopping to heal a broken heart.”

A bit of sparkle in the eyes. “Absolutely.”

Doctor Paul had been right about Gogo. After a week or so of despair, she'd begun to bounce back nicely. She'd returned to work, the smile had reappeared on her face from time to time, the old sunshine had begun to beam out from her baby blues. Maybe she was stronger than I thought. Maybe I was in the clear.

It didn't make me feel any less squalid as I stood before her, though.

I could meet her eyes. Just. But I couldn't return to girly intimacy with her, I couldn't lean forward across her bed and share secrets. What if she could see right through my eyes and periscope downward to the guilty depths of my hippocampus? What if she could see the memory of Doctor Paul and yours truly, locked together on a sofa, against a wall, atop a kitchen counter, asleep in his bed in a Gordian knot of perfect accord?

She took my hand. “Come with me. I miss you, Vivs. You've been working so hard.”

“I miss you, too, Gogo. But I can't come with you this afternoon. Some of us have a real job, you know.”

“Then come tonight to Daddy's place. Please? We're having dinner together. I want you to be there, Vivs. I asked Daddy. He said it was a wonderful idea. He wants you there, too.” A bit of the old lost koala to the eyes, a bit of plaintive quiver to the voice.

Dinner with Lightfoot. The chest quaked. Did he know something? He couldn't confront me with his own daughter right there, could he?

I could proclaim I was already engaged this evening. But what had Paul said this morning, as we rushed down the stairs together, all tardy-faced and laughing? He couldn't get away until midnight. He'd meet me at my place. So. I couldn't say I wasn't free.

Unless I lied.

I couldn't lie to Gogo. I know, I know. Everyone says that once you involve yourself in the Big Lie, the little lies line up behind like ducklings, until they just paddle effortlessly out of your mouth, one by one, sometimes two at a time. Not the case with me. Instead, since I began playing alley cats with Doctor Paul, I knew an unstoppable compulsion to accord myself with scrupulous honesty everywhere else. As if that could somehow atone.

I squeezed her hand. “I can make it. What time?”

“Seven o'clock sharp.” She popped off my desk and gave me a sticky pink kiss. “Don't be late!”

•   •   •

BACK IN THE STACKS.
I loved the stacks. They suited my newfound need to hide myself in obscurity, among people who no longer existed. The truth was, though, I'd reached a bit of a dead end, as I told Tibby when he walked in without warning through the Furniture Repository door at—I checked my watch—one o'clock in the afternoon.

“Miss Schuyler. How is your research progressing?”

I looked up the patrician line of his nose. “The truth is, I've reached a bit of a dead end.”

“It happens.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

“No. I came to tell you that you're wanted downstairs. Miss Brown's fortieth anniversary party. Everyone's required to attend.”