Beyond Eden

her, but at Dorrey, the cook, who was placing a large rack of lamb before him on a huge silver serving tray. He was smiling at Dorrey and thanking her, telling her everything would be all right.

He turned to Sydney. “What is this about chintz?”

“I was just wondering aloud how Holly intended to decorate this room.”

“Decorate this room?” Royce repeated slowly. He turned to his wife, an eyebrow rising. “Why, she isn’t going to touch a thing. Not without my permission, in any case. Though it is rather dark and heavy in here, don’t you think so, Sydney?”

“That’s what your wife said.”

“Well, doubtless she misunderstands the concepts of shadow and light. No matter.”

Holly gasped, but father and daughter ignored her. “Tell me what you think should be done, Sydney,” Royce said.

“Well,” Sydney began, “I should give the room a lightness and spaciousness that the heavy dark pieces preclude. But there’s a consideration of effect, Father, and of period.” And she continued with a discussion of fabrics and “looks” and methods of changing lighting and tone and the feel of a room. “It takes time and thought and, of course, good taste. I think you should consider taking it on yourself, Father.”

Royce nodded to her as he continued to carve the rack of lamb. “I just might, in time,” he said.

“Do pass the vegetables, Holly dear,” Sydney said. “That’s right, pile up your plate with the green beans, not the potatoes.”

“What do you mean, Royce, that you’ll do the decorating?”

“Why, there was no ambiguity, was there?” Royce said to his wife.

Lindsay said aloud, “I would like to propose a toast. To Grandmother and to my mother. We will miss them.”

Royce smiled at that and raised his wineglass. “How very pious that sounds. But as you wish, Lindsay, not that you ever really knew either of them. Of course, you didn’t even bother coming home at Christmas, and your grandmother was very disappointed. She mentioned your absence once or twice, didn’t she, Holly? As for your mother, I doubt she noticed your truancy, but one never knows with a drunk, does one?” He then sent a toast toward Holly.

It was as if a curtain had come down in a final call. It was as if the past was behind that curtain and wouldn’t come into view again. It wouldn’t reach her again. It was gone. Lindsay rose slowly, gently pushing her chair back from the table. She was no longer a child. She was an adult and she could do what she wished to do, and what she wished to do was leave this room with all its pain and ugliness. She said to the table at large, “What time is the funeral tomorrow?”

“At ten o’clock in the morning. Sit down, Lindsay.”

“I think not, Father. At St. Mary’s?”

“Yes. Sit down, my girl. You may put on your airs in New York, but I won’t put up with your bad manners and ill breeding here in my home. God, you’re so much like your mother.”

“Thank you, Father,” Lindsay said. “Good night,” she added to Sydney and Holly. A sedate walk, she said over and over to herself as she walked from the dining room. Keep it slow. You’re an adult, not a child for him to intimidate or order around. Not anymore. She realized once she’d reached her room that she was quite hungry. Thank God for back stairs. She walked down to the kitchen, pausing as she heard Mrs. Dreyfus saying to Dorrey, “The disrespect floors me, Dorrey, absolutely floors me. I won’t stay here now that Mrs. Gates is gone, dear lady. I’m giving the current Mrs. Foxe my notice after the funeral on Friday.”

“She’ll not like that,” Dorrey said with satisfaction. “That’ll leave the weekend for her to do for herself. No, she’ll not like that at all.”

Good, Lindsay thought. She wouldn’t be here for Holly to fire her.

“Our Lindsay is better off in New York, I do know that,” Dorrey continued.

Since when had she become our Lindsay? she wondered. Dorrey had never shared home-baked cookies with her when she was a child, the way they described in novels or showed in movies. Anytime she’d come to the kitchen she had promptly been ordered out.

“Probably so. Ah, but it’s nice to see Sydney,” Mrs. Dreyfus said. “So beautiful, so perfect, and she’s in all the magazines, so lovely she is.”

“So is our Lindsay,” Dorrey said.

“Yes, I know, and she’s a sweet girl. But Sydney is different, you know that.”

“Sometimes different as in plain old nasty,” Dorrey said.

Lindsay came into the kitchen. It wasn’t that she was necessarily averse to eavesdropping, she was simply afraid if she continued to listen, she’d hate what she heard.

“Hi,” she said, dredging up a smile. “I left the table because it’s a sniper’s paradise in there. Is there something I can eat for supper?”

She became the young lady of the house, deferred to, seated at the butcher-block table, served, not allowed to do anything except lift her fork. No, she thought as she ate a goodly portion of Waldorf salad, she was no longer our Lindsay. She was one of them.

“You would like New York, Mrs. Dreyfus,” Lindsay said, biting into one of Dorrey’s homemade rolls that were better than anything Lindsay had ever had at home.

“Ha! That place of crime and sin? Ha!”

Lindsay grinned. “You can avoid crime if you’re careful, and sin is fun.”

“Miss Lindsay, don’t talk like that. You’re not sophisticated like Miss Sydney.”

“No, that’s true.”

Once back in her bedroom, Lindsay called Taylor. He answered on the second ring and she was smiling even before he spoke.

“Is this that wonderful fiancee of mine who’d better be all right?”

“Yes, I’m okay.”

Pause. “You hanging in there, sweetheart? Really?”

“Yes. My family—they snipe and carp and butcher each other verbally, me included, but you know something? It wasn’t as important this time as it always has been. I’m coming home tomorrow night.”

“The midnight flight?”

“Yes. You don’t have to come for me, Taylor,” she said, not meaning it and knowing she didn’t sound like she meant it.

“Okay, I won’t.”

She sputtered into the phone. “You jerk!”

He laughed. “Of course I’ll be there, grinning like a fool at your gate. Now, tell me what’s happening there.”

She didn’t tell him. She couldn’t.

After giving her plenty of empty air and encouraging sounds, Taylor gave up. “I had Chinese this evening with Enoch. He loves the apartment, says it’s too high-brow for me, but suits you perfectly. He thought the new Persian rug in the living room showed my good taste. Oh, yeah, I thought my fortune cookie was particularly apt: ‘You are an angel. Beware of those who collect feathers.”’

She laughed and he grinned into the phone, loving the sound, hearing the tension in her voice lighten. “Enoch and Sheila send their love.”

They spoke of the weather, of things that weren’t really important to either of them.

“I have a new case,” Taylor said, so frustrated with the conversation or lack thereof that he was willing to try anything.

“What is it? Computer or P.I. stuff?”

“The latter. A man wants me to pin his wife. He’s convinced she staged a robbery of their house, lifting everything valuable, including all her jewelry. It’s weird, but hey, I thrive on weird. Anyway, I meet the lady tomorrow. I understand she’s something of a femme fatale. Her husband also said straight out that she’s got two lovers, not just the requisite one.”

“Don’t you become number three. Good luck.” There was another long pause; then Lindsay said very quietly, “I really do miss you, Taylor, I really do.”

“Same here,” he said.