‘Nine o’clock tomorrow night, then.’ He bent forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Good night, Jessie,’ he said, and disappeared into the night.
Once he was out of sight, Florentyna walked slowly to her apartment, wishing she hadn’t told so many white lies. Still, it might all be over in a few days, even if she hoped it wouldn’t be.
Florentyna left Bloomingdale’s the moment the store closed, the first time in nearly two years that she’d left before Maisie. She had a long bath, put on the prettiest dress she thought she could get away with and strolled to the Blue Angel. When she arrived, Richard was waiting for her outside the cloakroom. He held her hand as they walked into the lounge, where the voice of Bobby Short came floating through the smoke-filled air: ‘Are you telling me the truth, or is it just another lie?’
Short raised a hand to Florentyna in acknowledgement. Florentyna pretended not to notice. He had been a guest performer at the Baron on two or three occasions, and it had never occurred to her that he might remember her. Richard had noticed the gesture, and looked around to see who Short was greeting. When they took their table in the dimly lit room, Florentyna sat with her back to the piano to make sure it couldn’t happen again.
Richard ordered a bottle of wine without letting go of her hand, then asked about her day. She didn’t want to tell him about her day; she wanted to tell him the truth. ‘Richard, there’s something I must—’
‘Hi, Richard.’ A tall, handsome man was standing beside the table.
‘Hi, Steve. May I introduce Jessie Kovats - Steve Mellon. Steve and I were at Harvard together.’
Florentyna listened to them chat about the New York Yankees, Eisenhower’s golf handicap and why Yale was going from bad to worse. Steve eventually left with a gracious, ‘Nice to have met you, Jessie.’
Florentyna’s moment had passed.
Richard began to tell her of his plans once he had left business school. He hoped to come to New York and join his father’s bank, Lester’s. She’d heard that name somewhere before, but couldn’t remember in what connection. For some reason, it worried her.
They spent a long evening together, laughing, eating, talking, and just sitting holding hands while they listened to Bobby Short. When they walked home together, Richard stopped on the corner of Fifty-Seventh and kissed her for the first time. She couldn’t recall another occasion when she was so aware of a first kiss. When he left her in the shadows of Fifty-Seventh Street, she realized that this time he had not mentioned tomorrow. She felt slightly wistful about the whole non-affair.
Maisie was delighted when a large bunch of roses was delivered to the store the next morning, but was disappointed to find that the card was addressed to Jessie Kovats, with an invitation to join Richard for dinner. She pretended not to be interested.
Florentyna and Richard spent most of the weekend together: a concert, a film - even the New York Knicks did not escape them. When the weekend was over, Florentyna was uncomfortably aware that she had told so many lies about herself that Richard must surely be puzzled by their many inconsistencies. It was becoming more and more difficult to tell him another entirely different, albeit true, story.
When Richard returned to Harvard on Sunday night to start the new term she persuaded herself that her deception was unimportant, as their relationship had come to a natural end. After all, he’d probably meet a nice Radcliffe girl. But he phoned her every day of the week, and came back to New York to see her that weekend. After another month, Florentyna knew it wasn’t going to end quite as easily as she had thought. In fact, she knew she was falling in love with him. Once she had admitted this to herself, she decided it couldn’t wait any longer. This weekend she would tell him the truth.
49
RICHARD DAYDREAMED through the morning lecture.
He was so much in love with the girl that he could not even concentrate on the Bretton Woods Agreement. How could he tell his father that he intended to marry a Polish girl who worked behind the scarf, glove and woolly hats counter at Bloomingdale’s? He was unable to fathom why Jessie was so unambitious when she was clearly very bright; he was certain that if she’d had the same chances as him, she wouldn’t have ended up in Blooming-dale’s. Richard decided that his parents would have to learn to live with his decision, because that weekend he was going to ask Jessie to be his wife.
Whenever Richard arrived at his parents’ home in New York on a Friday evening, he would always go out and pick up something from Bloomingdale’s, normally some unwanted item, simply so that Jessie knew that he was back in town (over the past ten weeks he had given a pair of gloves to every distant relative, some of whom he hadn’t seen for years). That Friday he told his mother he was going out to buy some razor blades.
‘Don’t bother, darling, you can use your father’s,’ she said.
‘No, no, it’s all right. I need some of my own. We don’t use the same brand, in any case,’ he added feebly.
He almost ran the eight blocks to Bloomingdale’s, and managed to rush in just as the doors were closing. He knew he would be seeing Jessie at seven-thirty, but he could never resist a chance just to look at her. Steve Mellon had told him that love was for poor suckers, and Richard had written on his steamed-up shaving mirror that morning, ‘I must be penniless.’
But this evening Jessie was nowhere to be seen. Maisie was sitting in a corner filing her fingernails, and Richard asked her if Jessie was still around. Maisie looked up as if she had been interrupted in the most important task of her day.
‘No, she’s already gone home. She only left a few moments ago, so she can’t have got that far.’
Richard ran out onto Lexington Avenue. He searched for Jessie among the faces of people hurrying home, and spotted her on the other side of the street, walking towards Fifth Avenue. She obviously wasn’t heading back to her apartment. When she reached Scribner’s bookstore on Forty-Eighth Street, he stopped and watched her go inside. Richard was puzzled. If she wanted something to read, surely she could have got it at Bloomingdale’s. He peered through the window as Jessie chatted to a sales clerk, who left her for a few moments and then returned with two books. He could just make out their titles: The Great Crash, 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith and Behind the Curtain by John Gunther. Jessie signed for them - which surprised Richard even more: why would a salesgirl have an account at Scribner’s? - and as she left he ducked behind a pillar.
‘Who is she?’ he said out loud as he watched her enter Bendel’s. The doorman saluted respectfully, giving Richard the distinct impression he knew who she was. Once again Richard peered through the window, while transfixed sales assistants fluttered around her with more than casual respect. An older woman appeared with a package, which Jessie had obviously been expecting. She opened it, to reveal a simple yet stunning evening dress. Jessie smiled and nodded as the saleslady placed the dress in a brown and white box, then mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ and turned towards the door without even signing for her purchase. Richard was so mesmerized by the scene that he barely managed to avoid colliding with her as she stepped out onto the sidewalk and jumped into a cab.
He grabbed one himself, telling the driver to follow her taxi. When they passed the small apartment house outside which they normally parted, he began to feel sick. No wonder she had never invited him in. Jessie’s cab continued for another hundred yards, and stopped in front of a smart modern apartment house complete with a uniformed doorman, who stepped forward, saluted and opened the door for her. Richard was no longer puzzled, he was now angry. He jumped out of his cab and started to march up to the door she had disappeared through.
‘That’ll be ninety-five cents, fella,’ said a voice behind him.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Richard, and thrust five dollars at the cab driver, not waiting for his change.
‘Thanks, buddy,’ said the driver. ‘Someone sure is happy today.’
Richard brushed past the protesting doorman and managed to catch up with Florentyna as she stepped into the elevator. She stared blankly at him, unable to speak.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Richard as the elevator door closed.
‘Richard,’ she stammered. ‘I was going to tell you everything, but I never seemed to find the right opportunity.’
‘Like hell you were going to tell me everything,’ he said, following her out of the elevator to the door of her apartment. ‘Stringing me along with a pack of lies for nearly three months. Well, now the time has come for the truth.’
Florentyna had never seen Richard angry before, and suspected it was very rare. He pushed his way brusquely past her as she opened the door, and looked around the apartment. At the end of the entrance hall there was a large living room with a fine Oriental rug and stylish furniture. A superb grandfather clock stood opposite a side table on which there was a bowl of fresh flowers. The room was beautiful, even by the standards of Richard’s own home.
‘Nice place you’ve got yourself for a salesgirl,’ he said. ‘I wonder which of your lovers pays for it.’
Florentyna swung round to face him and slapped him so hard the palm of her hand stung. ‘How dare you!’ she said. ‘Get out of my home.’
As she heard herself saying the words, she started to cry. She didn’t want him to leave - ever. Richard took her in his arms.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was a terrible thing to say. Please forgive me. It’s just that I love you so much and thought I knew you so well, and now I find I don’t know anything about you.’
‘Richard, I love you too, and I’m sorry I hit you. I didn’t mean to deceive you. There’s no one else - I can promise you that.’ Her voice cracked.
‘I deserved it,’ he said, and kissed her on the forehead.
They held onto each other for some time without speaking, then sank onto the couch and remained motionless. Gently, he began to stroke her hair until her tears subsided. She slipped her fingers through the gap between his two top shirt buttons. Richard seemed unwilling to make the next move.
‘Do you want to sleep with me?’ she asked quietly.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I want to stay awake with you.’
Without speaking further, they slowly undressed each other and made love for the first time, gently and shyly, afraid to hurt each other, desperately trying to please. Finally, Florentyna’s head sank onto his shoulder.
‘I love you,’ said Richard. ‘I have since the first moment I saw you. Will you marry me? I don’t give a damn who you are, Jessie, or what you do, but I know I must spend the rest of my life with you.’
‘I want to marry you too, Richard, but first I have to tell you the truth.’
She pulled his jacket over their naked bodies and began to tell him all about herself, ending by explaining why she was working at Bloomingdale’s. When she had completed her story, he did not speak.
‘Have you stopped loving me already?’ she said. ‘Now that you know who I really am?’
‘Darling,’ said Richard very quietly, ‘I have to tell you something. My father detests your father.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The only time I ever heard your father’s name mentioned in our home, he flew into a rage, and said Abel Rosnovski’s sole purpose in life was to destroy the Kane family.’
‘What? But why?’ said Florentyna, shocked. ‘I’ve never heard of your father. How do they even know each other? You must be mistaken.’
It was Richard’s turn to tell Florentyna everything his mother had told him over the years about the feud between their fathers.
‘Oh my God. That must have been the “Judas” my father referred to when he changed banks after twenty-five years,’ she said. ‘What shall we do?’
‘Tell them both the truth,’ said Richard. ‘That we met by accident, fell in love and are going to be married, and that there’s nothing they can do to charge our minds.’
‘Let’s wait for a few days,’ said Florentyna.
‘Why?’ asked Richard. ‘Do you think your father can talk you out of marrying me?’
‘Never, my darling,’ she said, resting her head back on his shoulder. ‘But let’s find out if there’s anything we can do to break it to them gently, without presenting them with a fait accompli. Anyway, perhaps they don’t feel as strongly as you imagine. After all, you said the affair with the airline company was several years ago.’
‘They feel every bit as strongly, I can promise you that. My father would be livid if he saw us together, let alone thought we were going to be married.’
‘All the more reason to leave it for a little while before we break the news to them. That will give us time to decide the best way to go about it.’
He kissed her again. ‘I love you, Jessie.’
‘Florentyna.’
‘That’s something else I’m going to have to get used to,’ he said. ‘I love you, Florentyna.’
During the next four weeks, Florentyna and Richard found out as much as they could about their fathers’ feud: Florentyna by flying to Chicago to ask her mother, who was surprisingly forthcoming on the subject, and then quizzing her godfather with a set of carefully worded questions that revealed George’s despair over what he described as ‘your father’s obsession’; Richard from his father’s filing cabinet and a long talk with his mother, who made it very clear that the hatred was mutual. It became more obvious with each discovery that there was going to be no gentle way to break the news of their love.
Richard went to great lengths to take Florentyna’s mind off the problem they knew would eventually have to be faced. They went to the theatre, spent an afternoon skating and on Sundays took long walks through Central Park, always ending up in bed long before it was dark. Florentyna accompanied Richard to a New York Yankees game, which she ‘still couldn’t fathom’, and to a concert by the New York Philharmonic, which she ‘adored’. She refused to believe he could play the cello until he gave her a private recital in her apartment. She applauded enthusiastically when he had finished his favourite Bach suite.
‘We’ll have to tell them soon,’ he said, placing his bow on a table and taking her into his arms.
‘I know. I just don’t want to hurt my father.’
‘Me too,’ he said.
She avoided his eyes. ‘Next Friday, Papa will be back from Memphis.’
‘Then it’s Friday,’ said Richard, holding her so close she could hardly breathe.
Richard returned to Harvard on Monday morning and they spoke to each other on the phone every night, remaining resolute, determined that nothing would stop them now.
On Friday, Richard came back to New York earlier than usual and spent the afternoon alone with Florentyna, at her apartment. At the corner of Fifty-Seventh and Park, they stopped at the flashing ‘Don’t Walk’ sign, when Richard turned to Florentyna and asked her once again if she would marry him. He took a small red leather box out of his pocket, opened it and placed a ring on the third finger of her left hand, a sapphire set in a circle of diamonds, so beautiful that tears came to Florentyna’s eyes. It was a perfect fit. Passersby looked at them strangely as they stood on the corner, clinging to each other, ignoring the green ‘Walk’ sign. When eventually they did observe its command, they kissed before parting, and walked in opposite directions to confront their parents. They had agreed to meet at Florentyna’s apartment as soon as the ordeal was over.
