The collective cry rings in my ears after yet another toast. I lift my glass when I’m supposed to, smile when I’m supposed to. I’m my father’s daughter, after all, and have been well trained. But inside, I’m numb. It’s as if I’m peering through a window, watching it all happen to someone else. But it isn’t. It’s happening to me, and I can’t imagine how I’ve let it.
I slip away as soon as I can manage it, leaving Teddy to talk polo ponies with his club cronies, and search out a quiet corner. The heat of too many bodies combined with the whir of conversation and music is giving me a headache. But really, I’m nauseated by the thought that I’ll soon end up like my sister. Bored. Bitter. Invisible.
Teddy isn’t George, I remind myself as I grab a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and toss it back. Teddy is athletic and dashing, highly accomplished by masculine standards—which I’ve learned are the only standards that matter—and is considered a worthy catch by just about every woman in New York. The problem, I realize as I glance about for another tray of champagne, is that I don’t want to catch anyone. Parties and dinners and bland conversation. Holidays at all the fashionable places and endless changes of clothing. God help me.
Malleable, my father once called Cee-Cee. Because she understood things like loyalty and duty. It was the day he informed me that I was to marry Teddy. When I said I wasn’t interested in marriage, he explained with strained patience that sometimes we must do what’s required for the greater good. He was talking about his greater good, of course, protecting the less-than-tidy empire he’d managed to build when the Volstead Act was passed.
Teddy and his pedigree were meant to help with that, our marriage a strategic alliance intended to advance the collective family cause and remove the stench of new money and a decade of illegal Canadian whisky. But marriage should be more than an alliance. Or so I naively assumed. I’m fond of Teddy, the way one is fond of an unruly puppy or clumsy cousin, but I feel nothing when he kisses me, nothing warm or stirring.
My experience with men at this point in my life has been limited—which is as it should be for a young lady only three years out of an all-girls school. But somewhere along the way, I picked up the idea that there should be more to the business of men and women than submission and duty, something visceral connecting us, something chemical and elemental.
These are the thoughts running through my head as I glance around and see you for the first time. I look away, startled by my own thoughts and the creeping heat I feel moving up my throat and into my cheeks. But after a few more sips of champagne, I look for you again. And there you are, tall and dark-haired with a longish face and piercing blue eyes, still watching me. The hint of a smile tugs at the corners of your mouth, as if you’re amused but would rather not show it.
There’s a mocking quality to your expression that makes me self-conscious, and makes me a little angry, too, an audaciousness that causes my skin to tingle. I meet your gaze, willing myself not to look away, even as you begin to walk toward me. I swallow what’s left in my glass as you come to stand at my side.
“Careful,” you say, your voice low and sinuous. “It’ll sneak up on you. Especially if you’re not used to it.”
I sweep you with my eyes, doing my best to appear dismissive. “Do I look like I’m not used to it?”
“No,” you reply, raking a shock of dark hair off your forehead as you run your eyes over me. “Not now that I look more closely.”
Something about the look unsettles me, like a cloud of butterflies has suddenly been let loose in my belly. Or perhaps it’s just that you’re standing so close. There’s a hint of a five-o’clock shadow along your jawline, suggesting you didn’t have time to shave before the party. Your evening clothes, though proper white-tie, seem not to fit as well as they could, your jacket the tiniest bit shy at the cuff, the seams at your shoulders slightly puckered. A rented suit most likely, rather than one owned for occasions like this.
I notice you’re not drinking and suggest a glass of champagne, but you decline in your cool, clipped British tone. Educated but not quite posh. It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t know you, despite the fact that you’ve obviously been invited to my engagement party.
I study your face as we talk about books, trying to discern what it is that makes you handsome, since, taken one at a time, your features fall a bit short of the classic definition. Your nose is narrow and a little long, giving you the look of a raven, your mouth both too wide and too full above a sharply clefted chin. No, I decide. Not nearly as perfect as I’d thought at first glance. But your eyes, an arresting pale blue with a dark ring at the perimeter, hold mine longer than is comfortable, and suddenly I can’t think of anything to say.
I’m relieved when Elaine Forester appears. She’s the mother of one of Cee-Cee’s friends, and her husband, whose family tea fortune evaporated after The Crash, is a longtime associate of my father’s. I’m hoping you’ll take the hint and wander off, but after a few simpered platitudes about Teddy and my good fortune, Elaine moves away and we’re alone again.
You lean in and offer your congratulations, softly, like you’re telling me a secret. I can’t help feeling I’m being mocked. I shrug off the words, barely remembering to say thank you. But you’re not through being insolent. Not by a long shot. You launch into a dossier on my fiancé, a catalog of all his traits and accomplishments. But your words are meant as an insult rather than praise. You even suggest I’m unhappy with my engagement. As if we haven’t just met and you somehow have the right to an opinion.
I ignore the impertinence and ask how you happen to be at my party, since I don’t know you. Your name, when you give it, is unfamiliar. Your date’s name, however, which you drop without batting an eye, is familiar, though not in a way that reflects well on you. Everyone in New York knows the infamous Goldie.
Still, I find myself at a loss for words, astonished that she’s somewhere in the crowd, drinking my father’s champagne and getting up to god knows what. How on earth did one of the city’s most notorious women—a self-styled newspaperwoman, of all things—manage to wrangle an invitation to my engagement party? Undoubtedly the work of my betrothed, who never misses a chance to get his name and face in the paper.
I should know then and there what kind of man you are, running around with a woman at least ten years your senior. A woman, I might add, known for keeping a stable of young men at her beck and call. All I can think is, What kind of man gets mixed up with a woman like that? I believe I even say something to that effect. You stiffen a little, informing me in that snooty accent of yours that people aren’t always who they pretend to be—you least of all.
What a fool I was to not take you at your word.
Forever, and Other Lies
(pgs. 7–10)
September 4, 1941
New York, New York
Imagine my surprise at seeing you a week later at the Whittiers’ dinner party. You’re with her again. She of the too-yellow hair and the too-tight dress and the snorty bray of a laugh. She of the checkered past and silly name.