Beautiful Little Fools(49)

I looked up and caught his eyes, and I smiled a little. A thank-you. An apology, too. “I suppose we do have a little time before supper.” I breathed the words softly, like a whisper-song. “And Marion can always keep them waiting in the parlor…”

Tom made a little noise of surprise, or delight. A laugh or was it a groan? I dropped the towel—I was dry enough—and I stood before him totally naked. The restless twitch had finally stopped, and I felt warmer again. Right here, with Tom, was exactly where I belonged.



* * *



TWO HOURS LATER Josephina Buckley droned on about her azaleas, and I tried to catch Tom’s eye across the length of our long dining table, while nodding and murmuring along with her. Tom was engrossed in his second glass of whiskey and his discussion about polo with Harold Buckley. For a short time before dinner, we’d connected again, but that moment was fleeting. And my legs twitched, restless again.

Josephina was at least ten years older than me, maybe fifteen. But she may as well have been Mother’s age from the frumpy way she dressed and went on and on and on about her garden. Tom was wrong—we were never going to be friends. Just this dinner felt interminable, and I stifled a yawn.

Across the table from me Rebecca, the Buckleys’ daughter, picked at her chicken with a fork, exhibiting the same boredom and annoyance I was feeling for this conversation. She was sixteen and beautiful with plump rosy cheeks and curls the color of churned butter. I considered that she was closer to my age than her mother was. And yet, I was a mother myself now, and Rebecca was still a girl.

I remembered being a girl so vividly. It wasn’t all that long ago that Rose was still alive, and Jordan and I had giggled in my bed about that handsome soldier I’d snuck into my bedroom. That time felt so close, and also, like another lifetime. I could no longer remember the exact contours of Jay’s face or the feel of his hands on my body. But I could very much remember the endless rush of joy, the happiness and warmth, the glow of my own teenage innocence. When she finally looked up from her chicken, I shot Rebecca a sympathetic smile.

She smiled back. “Could I see the ponies?” she asked me, surprising me with the clear blue sound of her voice. She looked like a young woman, but at sixteen, she was very much a child still, a little girl excited at the idea of seeing a pony.

The ponies. Tom’s goddamned ponies. There was a stable where he kept them, back across the yard, halfway to the lake. I knew it was there, I’d seen it from a distance, and yet I’d refused to step foot inside since we’d moved here.

“Oh, Rebecca, mind your manners.” Josephina let out a nervous titter, waving away the request in a way that reminded me a little of Mother, always telling me to be a lady. Rebecca cast her eyes down, back to her plate.

The rain had stopped and the air from the open door wafted in, heavy and humid and filled with the sounds of crickets preening in the distance. If Rebecca went to see the ponies, then this awful dinner could be over and I could go upstairs and still read Pammy a story before she fell asleep. Then I could get into bed myself. Exhaustion had settled over me, somewhere between the talk of Josephina’s peonies and the azaleas. I was so very tired now, I wondered if I might sleep all through the night, for the first time since we’d come to Lake Forest.

“Tom,” I said his name loudly enough that he stopped his conversation with Harold, midsentence. “Rebecca wants to see your ponies, darling.”

Tom made a face; I couldn’t quite tell if it was disdain or amusement from so far away down the table. He finished off his whiskey and stood, slapping his hands on the table. “All right then, let’s all go see the ponies. Harold, Josephina, will you join us? Daisy?” Now he was smirking, like he was thrilled by the prospect of trapping me into finally going out to his stables, and even more thrilled that I’d brought it upon myself by interrupting his conversation.

Josephina glanced at me, as if for permission. “I’m going to excuse myself to go put the baby to bed,” I said. “But you all go on ahead without me.”

“The nurse will put the baby to bed,” Tom said, quickly.

“Pammy likes it when I do it,” I said. Josephina nodded, cast me a knowing smile. Tom frowned deeply—he hated it when I chose Pammy over him, always reminding me that we had staff to look after her, to care for her every need. He didn’t understand the way that holding her, reading her a story, kissing her good night each night, feeling her soft skin and smelling her baby girl powder smell quieted the restlessness inside of me for the smallest of moments. Sometimes it felt like I needed Pammy more than she needed me. “Anyway”—I stood—“it was so nice to meet you, Buckleys. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

I could feel Tom’s disapproving eyes on me as I stood and walked away. And later, when I awoke restless again, at midnight, he wasn’t in bed.



* * *



WE WOULD NOT see the Buckleys again soon, thank goodness. Or at least, I wouldn’t.

Tom played polo with Harold still, but in the months that ensued, we looked elsewhere for social engagements. We began going into the city for parties at least once a week, and there we found a younger crowd, a wealthy crowd—friends Tom had known from Yale or boarding school who’d moved back. But still, they were Tom’s friends. They had wives, and they had girlfriends, but I wouldn’t say I really became friends with anyone on my own right in Chicago. There were other women I talked to at parties—we compared diamonds and pearls, and stories about baby nurses. And one time in September we were at a soiree so gay, we ended up all taking our clothes off and diving into the cool waters of Lake Michigan sometime just before dawn. Tom lifted me up in the water, and I was laughing, and the world felt all at once bright and surreal. But he was so drunk that night that back at home, he slept for two days straight and still had a hangover and a frown on his face the following Sunday.