Anna Godbersen - Envy
“What’s the matter?” Leland grabbed her by the wrist before she could reach for her jacket.
“Nothing, I—”
“Your face just fell a hundred stories. Something is wrong. You’re bored, aren’t you? You don’t like this place, do you?”
“No! I love it.” Carolina began laughing again at the absurdity of what she was going to say next. “It’s only that I’m in such a state, and I fear I smell terrible, and I’m stuffing food in my face like a barbarian because I’m so starved—”
“I love a woman with an appetite!” Leland grinned at her, and then put his perfect nose against her shoulder. “And I like the way you smell.”
She looked at Leland and he looked back as though there was nothing strange or inappropriate about gazing at each other in a backwoods shack on an out-of-the-way dirt road in Florida. They might have gone on like that for who knows how long, but their food arrived, and the steam that rose off their bowls was so laden with spice that it made her eyes water a little.
Her hesitation must have showed, because the next thing he said was, “Don’t you like spicy food?”
She lowered her face to the bowl and inhaled.
The Hollands, like all the old Dutch families, believed in everything in moderation, and disliked strong tastes of any kind. She had often wondered what it would be like to eat food outside of their narrow tastes, but then, of course, she had been taken under wing by an older gentleman whose stomach could not handle anything very strong, and so she’d never been able to find out.
“Not out west? I would have thought on the ranch you’d have eaten all kinds of things that we New Yorkers would be terrified of.”
Carolina’s eyes rolled to the beamed ceiling. Suddenly the full import of everything she had said over the course of the day began to dawn on her — for until that moment she had bubbled over with tales of her childhood adventures on horseback and sleeping on the range and staring into mine shafts. She had borrowed liberally from the stories Will used to tell her, for he was an obsessive consumer of any book that touched on the western states. She had guessed, rightly, that all of this would entertain a man like Leland, but had somehow failed to consider the possibility that he would remember any of it, or ask her any further questions. She had also forgotten, in the last hour, that a ranch had become a part of her fictitious personal history.
“Out west?” she stalled. The spicy smell had gone to her head now and her nose had begun to run.
“Yes — don’t cowboys love hot peppers and Tabasco?”
Carolina drew her wrist under her nostrils to wipe away the moisture there.
“Oh dear, did I say something wrong again?”
Leland brought his napkin up to her eyes and began to dab away the tears, which had continued to emerge there, even against all her willpower. She tried to think quickly, but already an explanation was tumbling from her mouth. “Father loved everything spicy. Even pancakes! It was our family joke. None of the farmhands or any of his employees could match his taste for it. The memory of all that makes me a little sad, is all, and I haven’t been able to eat anything but bland food since he passed.”
“Oh, my darling. I’m so sorry to have made you think of all that.”
She shook her head, and tried to stop the tears, which were quite naturally running down her face now. “It’s all right.” A brave smiled played on her lips.
“Maybe you would like it now?” Leland’s brows slanted downward at the corners in a show of sincere concern. “Maybe it would bring the memory back in a good way.”
“Well, I suppose I could try,” Carolina answered tentatively.
Leland dipped his spoon in the stew and brought it up to Carolina’s mouth. He watched her to make sure it was all right, but then she nodded and he brought the spoonful forward into her mouth. The gumbo was even hotter than she had imagined. It was delicious and lit up her whole mouth. In the next moment, she felt the heat over her entire body. The one bite made her realize how hungry she had been, and when she had swallowed it she asked for more.
Leland then put down his spoon and reached for her hand. He had made similar gestures in the past, but they had all been to steady or protect her, and this time there was no utilitarian excuse. There was a new sweetness to the touch.
“You know, Miss Broad…” he began. Then he put his fist to his mouth and coughed embarrassedly. “You aren’t like other ladies.”
“No?” she whispered. He’d said it like it was a good thing, but the phrase made her nervous even so.
“Not at all.” He shook his head and smiled as though he’d stumbled on some stroke of good fortune he could scarcely believe. “I feel so comfortable around you. Maybe it’s because you’re not from New York and you don’t care so much for all those silly, frilly things, but I find that I’m happier around you than I’ve been in some time.”
A few rays of golden light came through the window then, and Carolina’s smile broke wide and relieved across her freckled face. “Oh, me too!” she gasped, and took a firmer hold of his hand. “I feel just exactly that way.”
Twenty Two
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY
TO: Diana Holland
ARRIVED AT: The Royal Poinciana,
Palm Beach, Florida
4:00 p.m., Saturday, February 17, 1900
Great news — Your column huge success — Payment awaits in NY — Keep up the good work
— D.B.
“AND TO OUR SPECIAL GUESTS, THE HENRY Schoonmakers, who make such a lovely couple!”
The throng — in their tuxedos and laces, their well-oiled hair shining rosily under the many warm-colored electric lights, which were strung across the ceiling of the pergolalike dance floor of the hotel — twittered and clapped, but Diana Holland couldn’t listen anymore. Henry had tried to meet her eyes at dinner, but even of that she could not be sure. Today she had seen him on the beach, and at tea, and playing cards in the garden, all the while with Penelope. Diana felt miffed and more than a little stung by Henry’s near complete indifference to her since their arrival in Florida, but had tried to keep within his view at all times that day. It was he who had encouraged her to travel all this way, after all, and it was not in her nature to be forgotten so easily.
She had even enlisted Grayson, who was always at her shoulder anyway, in making Henry jealous. She hadn’t gone so far as to let Grayson in on the plan, but when he’d flirted with her she had flirted back, and she’d allowed him to feed her bites of cake at tea and had loudly complimented his croquet skills. That had garnered a few furtive glances from Henry, but it had also been many hours ago, and for Diana hours were beginning to feel like years. Now she was alone. Her sister and Teddy had been wrapped up in each other’s conversation all night, and even Grayson abandoned her sometime after dessert and before dancing.
Through the thicket of broad, black-clad shoulders, Diana could see the couple that was now the toast of Palm Beach in profile. They were tall and slim and dark-haired, and though Diana could not discern what was in their faces, it seemed the piece she’d planted in the paper had done nothing to stain them. Perhaps they hadn’t seen it; perhaps it would forever escape their notice. She felt a little jittery and depleted by it all, disoriented by doubt, and she stuffed her hand into the pocket of her peach silk dress and crumpled Barnard’s telegram. Then she lit out across the lawn unnoticed, ruining a pair of high-heeled slippers her family already couldn’t afford in the damp grass.
If that morning, holding her column in the Imperial in her hands, she had felt the lift of having played a good hand, she was now experiencing the deflation of any gambler after a spree. She started off walking across the lawn, but soon broke into a run. The dress — which she had chosen so carefully to show off her strong, fine clavicles — now flapped against her legs as she dashed through the humid air. She had pushed her sister, who was in a rare, bright mood, to do her hair elaborately, but all that began to fall apart now, too, and the ribbons that had adorned it trailed behind her as she went.
Was she running from Henry? He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tried to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time. This was as good a reason to keep running as any, and if she had been a less impulsive sort of girl, she might have considered that this was not the first time in recent days she had gone on a restless ramble. But already she’d traveled some distance, lost her shoes, felt the sand in between her toes, and reached the water.
The full moon left a trail of silver across the dark, rippling water, which for a moment looked so inviting that she might have believed she could climb up it. Then a wave came on suddenly, crashing against her legs and soaking her dress, bringing spray all the way to her ears. The sea was not particularly cold or rough, but she was so surprised by it that she burst into tears. As it drew away she began to lose her balance, and for a moment she wondered if she wouldn’t drown that night. But then she felt familiar arms around her chest, and was pulled back up to the dry sand.
“Oh,” she whimpered, drawing her fingers across her face and trying to uncrumple her features. The tears were still wet on her cheeks, but her whole lower half was drenched by salt water now, too, and anyway she supposed it didn’t matter after everything if Henry saw her cry now. He was standing there in his black jacket and white shirt, and he was looking at her with what she would have named concern and sincerity if she didn’t know better. “What do you want?”
“To be with you. Just for a minute.”
Diana’s chest billowed and heaved. The silk skirt, and all the cotton underskirts, clung to her thighs. Henry was finally right there in front of her, on an abandoned beach late at night, but all the confusions of the day were like a chasm between them. The moonlight was bright, and she could see his whole figure perfectly. “A few minutes? You wanted me to come all this way so that we could have a few minutes?”
Henry’s jaw shifted and he glanced away. Somehow he had escaped a full soaking, and she resented him for still looking so put together. “That’s all it can be. Penelope, she’s so frightful, if she found out I was with you now, if she knew I told you why we married, if she knew how badly I want to kiss you—”
He stepped forward and cupped the back of her head with his palm and put his mouth to hers. A moment ago this would have seemed like a very bad idea, but then Diana closed her eyes and returned his kisses again and again as though they might give her some oxygen she had been sorely deprived of. His other hand had found its way to the small of her back, and despite the state of her gown, he pressed his whole body against hers, ruining both of their evening wear.
“Oh,” she said, more softly this time, when he drew back.
His lips were still parted, and the moon was reflected like white disks in his eyes.
Her mouth fell open a little wider. She felt the expectation of another kiss, the way one feels the rain just before it begins to fall. But moments passed, their exhalations mingling in the sea air, and none came.
