But that was all in the past, wasn’t it? I rose from Doctor Paul’s bed, wrapped myself in a sheet, and found my pocketbook in the living room. I lit a cigarette and leaned against a stack of moving boxes. A piece of paper caught my eye, taped to the icebox.
Vivian
Milk in the fridge. Coffee in the pot. Toast in the cabinet. Heart in your hands. For unknown reasons, the hot water knob in the shower opens to the right.
Still dazzled.
Paul
Now, this was what I called a love note. I kissed that sweet little scrap of nonsense and slipped it into my pocketbook.
When I’d finished my cigarette, I showered, brief and scalding hot, and dressed again in my shameful clothes. I plugged in the percolator. I found fresh sheets in the box marked BEDROOM and made up Doctor Paul’s bed with precision hospital corners and lovingly fluffed-up pillows.
The clock now read eighteen minutes past eleven. I poured myself a hot one, picked up the telephone, and dialed up Margaux Lightfoot.
“Why, hello, Vivs. How was your Saturday night?”
“I met a boy, honey,” I said.
Thrilled gasp. “You didn’t!”
“I did. I’m over at his place right now, drinking coffee.”
Shocked gasp. “You didn’t!”
“I did, indeedy. Twice.” I lit another cigarette and leaned back against the cushion on the living room floor, like the tart I was. The telephone cord spiraled around my right foot.
“You’ll scare him off,” said Gogo.
“Never mind that. I’m off to Sunday lunch right now, and I need your help.”
“But what’s he like, Vivs? Is he a dreamboat?”
“The absolute boatiest. But listen. I’ve just discovered I have a long-lost aunt who murdered her husband fifty years ago. Do you think you could get your father to let me look in the archives a bit tomorrow morning?”
“Oh, Vivs, I don’t know. It’s his holiest of holies. He doesn’t even let me go in there unless it’s magazine business.”
“I could make it magazine business. I could find out what really happened and write up the story, a big investigative piece.” I unwound my foot and wound it back again the other way. “The whole thing is just so juicy, Gogo, just too succulent. Her husband was a physicist, a hotshot, entry in the E.B. and everything, and she just . . . disappeared. With her lover. Right before the war. Don’t you think that’s scandalous? And I never even knew!”
A current of hesitation came down the line. Gogo was the dearest of the dear, but some might say she lacked a certain je ne sais sense of adventure.
“Well, Gogo? Don’t you think it would make a perfect story?”
“Of course I do, Vivs,” she said loyally. “But you know . . . you aren’t really . . . you’re not one of the writers yet. Not officially.”
“Oh, I know I’m just fetching old Tibby’s coffee for now, but this is large change. Really large change. And you know I can tell a story. Your father knows it. I can do this, Gogo.”
“I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Mix him a martini first. You know he loves your martinis.”
“I’ll do my best, I promise. But never mind all that! I want more about this boy of yours. What’s his name? What does he do?” She lowered her voice to a whisper of guilty curiosity. “What did he do last night?”
“Oh, my twinkling stars, what didn’t he do.” I straightened from the cushion. “But I don’t have time now, Gogo. Sunday lunch starts at twelve sharp, or I’ll be heave-hoed out of the family. Which is a tempting thought, but I’ll need my inheritance one day, when my luck runs out.”
“I want details tomorrow morning, then. Especially the ones I shouldn’t hear.”
“You’ll have your details, if I have my afternoon in the archives.”
Despairing sigh. “You’re a hard woman, Vivian Schuyler.”
“One of us has to be, Gogo, dear. Go give that boy of yours a kiss from me.” I mwa-mwa’d the receiver, tossed it back in the cradle, and stared at the ceiling while I finished my coffee and cigarette.
Was I speculating about Violet, or recalling my mad honey-stained hour of excess with Doctor Paul?
I’ll let you decide that one for yourself.
? ? ?
NOW, you might have assumed that my mother named me Vivian after herself, and technically you’d be right. After all, we’re both Vivians, aren’t we? And we’re mother and daughter, beyond a doubt?