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Always and Forever Page 29
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Phil walked into Trader Vic’s with an air of satisfaction that he was now on a first-name basis with the front-line staff. Every time he was in town he made a point of having dinner here at least once. It was becoming a kind of club for celebrities.
He’d made a very early reservation, not only because he was impatient for what he liked to call his “special dessert,” but with an eye to avoiding anyone who might know him. Any friends, acquaintances, or business associates wouldn’t arrive until 8 P.M. By then he and Sascha would be cavorting in the style he liked best in his suite at the Palace.
Walking into the nautical “Bali Hai” atmosphere of Trader Vic’s, he thrust from his mind the gnawing reminder that his father was going to be furious that he had no lead on Kathy’s whereabouts. Worry about that later, he thought in soaring high spirits. Tonight was for relaxing.
Sascha was waiting at the table for him. She was one of the few models he knew who could appear voluptuous with small tits and an almost flat rump, he thought. It was the way she moved.
“Hi.” Her amazingly blue eyes were provocative against a perennial golden tan. She wore a flattering black sheath with the shorter skirt Dior had decreed last year and that women had rushed to adopt.
“Hi.” He slid into his chair and a knee reached under the table to find hers. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Later we play.” She laughed in that throaty way that set his teeth on edge.
For a few minutes they concentrated on what to order. Both focusing on the Polynesian specialties. He could be happy with his life as it was, he told himself, with a wife conveniently off in the wild blue yonder. He could play with impunity. Why did the old man insist on getting back at Kathy before he turned over that stock?
Phil pretended to need swift service, and their waiter served them with commendable speed. Sascha scolded him when he rejected dessert as a time-waster. Still, he suspected, she was pleased that he was so hot to trot.
“We’ll order dessert sent up to the suite,” he promised. “If you still want it later.” His eyes full of promise.
Once in Phil’s suite they embarked on a passionate path to the bedroom. This was a chick who knew how to please a man, he thought in triumph while they dallied at the entrance to the bedroom. No doubts tonight that he’d be able to perform like an eighteen-year-old.
Sascha always wore sexy black lace underthings, he remembered while he helped her out of her bra. His hands fondling the tiny, huge-nippled breasts for a moment before reaching to release the hooks of her garter belt—all that she wore beneath her dress.
Her long slender fingers played with his hair—still movie-star lush except for the one thinning spot of which he was desperately conscious—while he dropped to his knees to guide her nylons down slender thighs and legs, his mouth nuzzling at her pelvis.
“Phil, let’s go to the bed,” she whispered. “Sweetie, I can’t wait!”
“Okay, okay.”
They were caught up in a crescendo of passion, moving to their ultimate destination with a matching frenzy when the phone rang.
“Damn it!” Phil grunted, freezing for a moment.
“Do you have to answer?” Sascha asked, her crimson nails digging into his shoulders, her body refusing to abandon its race.
“No,” he said thickly. “Let him call back later.” Knowing it was his father. “Let’s get this show on the road!”
Chapter 26
KATHY AND MARGE WERE in a festive mood when they headed together for the New Year’s Eve party Noel was giving in his late mother’s Washington Street mansion: Christmas business had been gratifying. Back from a month in the south of France, Fred and Cleo were impressed with the sales figures.
Kathy and Marge were hoping they were sufficiently impressed to put up funds for an advertising campaign. They plotted to discuss this with Fred and Cleo at Noel’s party. It was Noel who cannily suggested he invite them. “My parties are a real mix of people. They’ll have fun. Sometimes that’s the best time to get across a business message.”
In the few weeks since they had met at that sidewalk cafe in Little Italy, Kathy and Marge had become fast friends with Noel. He was bright, warm, intelligent. He was unhappy about the split with his sister Wilma, but he had no intention of giving her half-interest in the house, as she demanded. “She’d have it on the auction block in a week.”
They knew that Noel had never held a full-time job in his life. He’d played at being an actor, a writer, an artist. Most of the time he had been his mother’s traveling companion on frequent jaunts to exotic places.
Noel had become their escort at the occasional diversions they allowed themselves. He treated them to a night at the San Francisco Symphony. Now it was a Friday night routine for Noel and Marge to come to Kathy’s apartment for dinner, a festive occasion that Jesse enjoyed. Noel was so gentle and tender with Jesse, Kathy thought. The way David had been.
The Bartlett mansion was elegant without being intimidating. Kathy and Marge, along with Jesse, had been there for Thanksgiving dinner—prepared and served by Noel’s staff of two. “The terms of the will keep Curt and Greta on the job until they decide to retire. They’re both in their middle seventies, but they love this house. They’ll be here till they drop.”
Kathy and Marge arrived early. Despite their wealth and world-traveler status, Fred and Cleo were shy at being among strangers. And both women knew that holidays were trying periods for Noel. Despite his often irreverent remarks about her, he deeply missed his mother. He’d always made a point of spending holidays with her during the long years of her widowhood.
“You both look marvelous!” He greeted them with exuberant embraces and led them into what his mother liked to call the grand salon—a huge carpeted room with a grand piano at one side and a parade of six crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. The room had been cleared of its usual 18th-century furniture to allow for a change in decor. A pianist was playing a Cole Porter tune.
“Curt and Greta are setting up the most gorgeous buffet,” Noel told them. “And Curt will do bar duty until midnight. After that we’re on our own.” Already Curt was behind the improvised bar.
“Noel, you’ve made it look like a Paris sidewalk café,” Kathy said admiringly, viewing the line-up of small tables along one wall, temporarily adorned with prints by famous French artists. Colorful tablecloths were spread on the tables, each table with a silver vase holding a single red rose. “You have a talent for these things.”
“That’s the story of my life,” he nipped. “A collection of tiny talents. None of them big enough to be developed. That’s one of the reasons I love you two. You’re both talented, and you’re working at it.”
The first of the sixteen guests Noel had invited began to arrive. Sixteen, he’d pointed out earlier, because he loathed the habit of pairing off dinner partners “like Noah’s Ark.” Fred and Cleo were the last to arrive. Hurrying to welcome them—they’d met Noel at the shop so he wasn’t a complete stranger—Kathy saw their wary glances about the room.
Noel’s guests were an eclectic group. Kathy saw that Fred and Cleo would not be comfortable with Chris Logan, the talented young homosexual artist who followed Noel about with adoring eyes, nor with the Amazonian lesbian writer who was celebrating the sale of her first novel ten days ago. Noel had instructed Greta to lay four settings at each table except for one with five. That was deliberate, to allow Marge and her to sit alone with Fred and Cleo.
While gypsy-garbed fiddlers strolled among the guests, Greta began to bring huge platters of food to the buffet at one side of the room. When she signaled Noel that everything was in place, he clapped his hands together for attention.
“Chow time,” he announced effervescently. “Let’s greet 1954 with satiated tummies!”
It was incredible, Kathy thought with gentle amusement, that Fred and Cleo could be so traveled, so accustomed to money, and yet remain so unsophisticated. But they were enjoying themselves, she decided, w
hile Cleo talked about the bargains she’d found in Italy on their last visit. To so many women, European cities were mainly a shopping mecca. Sightseeing took second place.
She would have enjoyed the party immensely, Kathy told herself, if she and Marge were not so determined to persuade Fred to put up money for promoting the shop before he and Cleo took off again, this time for Palm Beach. For a moment she felt a touch of alarm. Probably Bella and “the girls” would be in Palm Beach, also.
But even if they should meet in that society whirl, Fred and Cleo knew her as Kathy Altman. Nor was it likely, she decided realistically, that talk about Phil’s wife would enter their conversations. She must learn that she lived in an entirely new world now. Kathy Kohn was dead. Long live Kathy Altman.
“Marge tells us you came up with the title for the shop,” Fred punctured her introspection.
“Not just the title,” Marge said. “The whole concept of the shop. And it’s working well. With some major promotion the idea could really develop big.”
“We offer what appeals to the average young woman, and today they spend a lot of money on these items,” Kathy added with studied casualness. Her eyes warned Marge against a hard-sell.
“You’re sharp, Kathy,” Fred approved. “I could see that right off.”
“And I’d like to see us push more of Marge’s own designs,” Kathy pursued. “It’s not as easy to manufacture on a small scale out here the way it is in New York, but we can do it.”
“Kathy has an eye for what’s commercial,” Marge said. “I design and test it out on her. What she doesn’t like, I change. I may complain and grunt a lot, but I know she’s always right.”
“No more shop talk,” Cleo ordered. “We’re here to welcome in the new year.” She gazed nostalgically at the strolling fiddlers. “Do you suppose they know ‘I’m Falling in Love with Someone’?”
“I’ll ask them,” Marge said instantly.
“I love that song.” Cleo beamed a sentimental smile in Fred’s direction. “Fred used to sing it to me when we were courting.”
As Noel expected of them, Kathy and Marge remained after all the guests—except for Chris, who was staying over—had left. While Chris went out to the kitchen to make coffee for them, Noel collapsed on a sofa in the small family sitting room along with Kathy and Marge.
“Well?” he demanded avidly. “Did Fred come across?”
“He said he’d think about it,” Marge said. “Which means no.”
“We tried,” Kathy said ruefully. “He referred to promotion as ‘Madison Avenue garbage.’”
“I can put up some money,” Noel said after brief reflection. “You’ll pay me back later.”
“Can you handle that?” Kathy asked, remembering that his money was doled out annually. “I mean, we don’t know for sure when we can pay you back.”
“We’ll live dangerously.” Noel shrugged. “I’ll bet I could borrow against the trust, if I had to.”
“I’m not sure Fred is going to be happy about this.” But Marge was faintly defiant. Success had become an obsession.
“Look, you’re running the show,” Noel pointed out. “All Fred does is put up the cash, when he feels like it. Start your promotion campaign. Consider me available for your board of directors.”
“Next year this time,” Kathy predicted, her eyes aglow, “we’ll be celebrating the opening of our second shop!”
In the weeks ahead Kathy and Marge found themselves in frequent consultation with Noel. They respected his promotional ideas, used some of them. As they had anticipated, the volume of business jumped. Now, too, they were striving to stress designs by Marge.
On a late evening in February, Frank called from New York to report that Rhoda had given birth to a daughter, to be named Sara Deirdre Collins. The following morning Rhoda phoned from the hospital, deliriously happy.
“The baby’s done what Frank and I couldn’t do. She’s brought the families together. You never saw prouder grandparents.”
“How’s Frank doing with the writing?” Kathy asked. Talking to him, she’d been so excited about the arrival of the baby that she’d forgot to ask.
“He has plenty of time to write,” Rhoda said with rueful humor. “Of course, he’s as upset as hell about the job situation, but he tries to push that aside when he’s writing. He’s sold a couple of articles to some small magazines. And I’ve applied to several private schools up in Westchester County for a fall teaching position. Let’s face it, under current conditions I can forget about teaching in Manhattan.”
They talked for a few minutes about the shop, and then Rhoda had to hang up because the baby had just been brought to her for a feeding. Despite their joy over tiny Sara, Kathy sensed, Rhoda and Frank were troubled about their lack of jobs. What Phil had done to them was unforgivable.
In April, Fred and Cleo came back to San Francisco. They would remain here until they left in June for a three-month tour of the Far East. Fred was amazed by the progress of the shop, though he grumbled when Marge talked about a move to a larger shop just off Union Square. But Marge and Kathy understood that he considered it part of his role to grumble. He had no intention of standing in their way.
“Okay,” he told them shortly before he and Cleo left on their tour. “Go ahead and rent the store. I just hope profits go up enough to handle that crazy rent.”
Marge had already negotiated the lease and made the large security deposit, which left their fluid assets minuscule. But Kathy and she were convinced this was the right move at the right time.
The shop had become an obsession not only for Kathy and Marge, but for Noel as well. He enlisted Chris’s help in providing colorful posters for the windows and the walls of the shop. He developed off-beat promotions that brought in new customers. Kathy took on the often difficult job of seeing one of Marge’s designs through from sketch pad to garment.
Though every waking moment seemed crammed with activity, Kathy was conscious of surges of homesickness. It was almost a year since she had seen her parents and Aunt Sophie, Rhoda and Frank, Bella. Twice she had sent a batch of snapshots of Jesse to Rhoda, with instructions to forward them to Bella. She knew Bella was sure to understand she didn’t dare write, but the snapshots said Jesse and she were fine.
She was euphoric when her mother phoned to say that she and Kathy’s father, along with Aunt Sophie, were considering flying to San Francisco for a week.
“None of us has ever flown,” her mother said with a self-conscious laugh, “and of course, I’m terrified of planes. But Aunt Sophie says to see you and Jesse I can forget about being afraid. So if you think it’s a good idea for us to come, make arrangements for us at an inexpensive hotel and—”
“Mom, no hotel!” Kathy rejected. “You’ll stay here with Jesse and me.”
“We’ll stop off in Chicago for one day.” Her mother was overly casual. “We won’t even stay overnight.”
“Why Chicago?” Kathy was alert to trouble.
“Just in case Phil is keeping track of where we go. Dad said I shouldn’t tell you—you’d worry—but you should know. We’re stopping in Chicago because some creepy private investigator has been asking questions again. Trying to check on our mail, the postman told us. You know Pete—he’s been our postman for years. He told the man off. A couple of things like that happened. But if they see we’re leaving town, and that man comes asking questions, they’ll say we went to stay with a cousin in Chicago.” Unexpectedly she chuckled. “Let Julius Kohn spend a bunch of money looking for you in Chicago.”
Now Kathy counted the days till her family would arrive in San Francisco. It startled her to realize that Jesse had only slight recall of his grandparents and aunt, though she often talked about them with him. It was as though they were living in exile.
She had begun to accept Marge’s assumption that she and Jesse were home free—that Phil and Julius had abandoned searching for her and Jesse. But that wasn’t true. Julius had disliked her from their first meeting. Now
he harbored a vendetta against her.
If Phil and Julius knew where she was, they’d try to grab Jesse. That was her constant nightmare. Jesse would be terrified. She felt sick at the thought of their taking Jesse, of what would become an ugly custody battle. Phil and Julius would make sure that it was.
Kathy took Jesse with her to the airport to meet the family, driving Noel’s car at his insistence. “Keep it for the week. Show your folks San Francisco.” Jesse was alternately excited and shy about the reunion with his grandparents and great-great-aunt. He was impatient as he waited for them to arrive.
At last the flight was announced. Kathy and Jesse stood hand-in-hand as disembarking passengers approached.
“Here they come!” Joy surged through Kathy as she rushed forward, caught up in the miracle of seeing them at last. “Mom—Dad—Aunt Sophie!” Her face was luminous with love.
“I can’t believe this is Jesse,” her mother crooned softly, knowing she must not overwhelm him at this first encounter. “You’re so tall!”
“You must be in kindergarten already,” Aunt Sophie guessed, knowing he was now a first-grader.
“I’m in real school. First grade.” Jesse beamed.
“You still like puzzles?” his grandfather asked and extended a gift-wrapped box.
“Yes!” Jesse grinned. “Thank you.” He hesitated an instant. “Thank you, Grandpa.”
Her family’s week in San Francisco seemed both incredibly short and yet packed with wonderful hours. But Kathy fought back tears when she saw them off at the airport. When would she see them again?
Chapter 27
ON A LATE AUGUST day Kathy received a phone call at the shop from Lee.
“Kathy, I suppose I’m being morbid, but there was a news bulletin in the middle of my soap opera.” Lee was addicted to the radio soaps. “When do you expect Fred and Cleo back from their tour?”
“In a few days. What was the bulletin?” Lee’s air of anxiety infected her now. Though Lee didn’t know Fred and Cleo personally, she knew about them, of course.