“I HAVE NEVER BEEN so mortified in my life! My own daughter, falling asleep in the middle of a performance, for all the world to see. Elizabeth, how could you! Mrs. Schermin was staring at you. I’m sure she must think I’ve raised you with no appreciation for the arts whatever.”
“I don’t care what she thinks. The opera was boring. If we’d gone to see the Castles the way I wanted, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep. It would have been more fun. I wasn’t tired, I was bored.”
Nola sniffed in disdain. “Vernon and Irene Castle are vulgar. Their dancing is vulgar, I don’t care how popular they are. Perhaps I did raise you with no appreciation for the arts.”
Elizabeth leaned back against the car seat. “I don’t want to argue, Mother. I’m sorry I embarrassed you. Maybe next time you should go with your friends and I’ll stay home with a good book.” Or go visit Max and his friends in Greenwich Village. She hadn’t seen any of them in a while. She missed the lively discussions. And she missed Max fiercely. She so seldom saw him these days. He was busy, and her mother certainly kept her busy.
A breeze caressed Elizabeth’s cheeks as Joseph drove homeward. She envied the young couples she saw strolling along Madison Avenue holding hands. Others rode by in horse-drawn hansom cabs. Elizabeth sighed. When had she last enjoyed a nice, romantic evening?
It shocked her to realize that the last truly romantic evening she’d shared with Max had been … on the Titanic. Although they had been together many times during the year since they’d returned to New York, they were seldom alone. Nola was always there, always present. Even when they were alone, however briefly, it just wasn’t the same. The terrible events of that night lay between them, a chasm neither one of them seemed able to leap across. Would it ever go away? Or, like the icebergs no doubt still floating treacherously in the North Atlantic, would it always be there?
It’s my fault, Elizabeth thought clearly. I’m the one who’s changed the most since we got back. On the ship, I had such plans, such dreams, and I was so determined to fulfill them. Max liked that, he applauded it. He wanted me to strike out on my own, though I had no idea how I would do that. He had done it, and he seemed so certain that I could, too, though he never understood just how difficult it would be. Still, he had faith in me, maybe more than I had in myself. Now, where are my plans? What have I done with them? Why don’t I have them anymore?
Perhaps they had sunk with the Titanic.
That thought disturbed Elizabeth. Because nothing that sank with the ship had been resurrected.
“We must begin making plans for Atlantic City,” Nola said, pulling Elizabeth away from her thoughts. She spoke as if she had completely dismissed the humiliation of a daughter who fell asleep at the opera. “You know how busy the Marlborough is in July. And we wouldn’t want to stay anywhere else.”
“I’m not going.” The words fell out of Elizabeth’s mouth. She hadn’t meant to say them, wasn’t even aware of having thought them, yet there they were.
“What did you say?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath, let it out. “I said, I’m not going to Atlantic City. Or to the Jersey Shore or to Long Island. I’m not. I have … I have other things to do this summer.”
Nola laughed, a harsh sound in the darkened interior of the car. “Such as, pray tell? You have no plans that I’m aware of.” The implication being that if Elizabeth did have plans, her mother would certainly know of them.
“Well, that’s the problem, Mother, right there. The idea that I shouldn’t have any plans that you don’t know about. Like I have no life of my own. You just admitted as much.” They were within two minutes of the Murray Hill house. It wasn’t likely that the discussion would continue when they got home. Nola would go to her room, and tomorrow morning she’d be talking about Atlantic City again as if Elizabeth had never opened her mouth. “Don’t you think that’s rather sad, that an eighteen-year-old young woman has no life of her own?” Stupid question. Of course Nola didn’t think it was sad. She thought it was the way things should be. She liked it this way.
“You have a very good life, Elizabeth. You might be more grateful.”
That’s right, make me feel guilty, Elizabeth thought angrily. That always works. Aloud, she said, “But it’s your life I’m living, Mother. Why would you want your eighteen-year-old daughter living like a matron? Why would any mother?” Sorry, Max, she apologized silently, I’m borrowing your words. But she knew he wouldn’t mind. They were true, after all.
True or not, Nola found them shocking. “Elizabeth! What a cruel thing to say! As if I haven’t always wanted the very best for you.” She shook her head and although Elizabeth couldn’t see them in the darkness, she was sure there were tears trembling on her mother’s lashes. “What has got into you suddenly? I thought you were quite content with our life. You seemed to be. It seems to me we’ve done very well, recovering from our horrible tragedy. Other women we know have not done nearly so well. Maxine Lewis never leaves her house, even though it’s been a year since she lost Gregory, and Trudy and Beth Winterthur have yet to return from Europe. They say they couldn’t bear to return to the house on Riverside Drive since their father’s death at sea. They have no intention of coming back to pick up the pieces as you and I have done.”
Joseph brought the car to a halt in the circular driveway.
Elizabeth sighed again. “You have done well, Mother. You have picked up the pieces of your life. I, on the other hand, have picked up those very same pieces.” She sat forward on the seat. “But they aren’t mine. At least, they shouldn’t be. I should have my own. It’s time I started finding them, don’t you think?” She could have sworn she saw Joseph’s black chauffeur’s cap nodding agreement in the front seat. But she couldn’t have. He wouldn’t dare, not with Nola sitting right behind him. Joseph knew who signed his weekly paycheck. It wasn’t Elizabeth.
To her dismay, she was right about the discussion ending when they entered the house. Nola dropped her fur stole on a chair and went directly upstairs to bed without another word, not even a “good night.”
Instead of following her mother up the stairs, Elizabeth went into the drawing room and straight to the desk where the telephone sat. She perched on her father’s enormous mahogany desk while she dialed the number, then she crossed her legs and waited, one ear attuned to any sound of her mother returning downstairs, the other glued to the receiver, waiting for Max’s voice.
When it came, the knot in her stomach melted. His voice always did that, always had, from the first night on board the ship, after that humiliating encounter in the dining room, when he’d come up behind her on the Titanic to say teasingly, “Helped any more third-class passengers since I saw you last?”
“I had an argument with my mother tonight,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “About my future. I told her I’m not going to Atlantic City in July.” Max hadn’t wanted her to go away this summer. He wasn’t going to Atlantic City with his parents, though they’d thawed enough to invite him. He wanted Elizabeth to stay in the city with him. She had said she couldn’t do that. But … maybe she could. Maybe she should. Be proud of me, Max, Elizabeth pleaded silently. Understand how hard this is for me, because I keep hearing my father’s voice telling me to take care of my mother.
But when Max spoke, it was to ask, “Did you mean it? Are you going to stick to it? Or will she get round you, like she always does?”
Elizabeth sagged in disappointment. He didn’t trust her. He had no faith left in her. She needed his support now more than ever, and he wasn’t going to give it. Maybe she shouldn’t have expected him to, after all the times she’d disappointed him this past year. She forged on, “I meant it. I’m not going. I have to think of a way that I can go to college without breaking my promise to my father. There must be something … at any rate, I need the summer to think about it. So I can’t take any trips.”
This brought the reaction she’d hoped for. “Well, good for you! Is the old Elizabeth back then? About time.” Max laughed. “I’ve missed you.”
Elizabeth smiled, warmed by his enthusiasm. “Me too.”
“Tell you what. You can prove you mean it by meeting me on Saturday afternoon. We’ll picnic in Central Park. I’ll get all the food at the deli on the corner. All you have to do is show up. Have Joseph bring you to my place. I’ll drive on over to my parents’ house tomorrow afternoon and pick up a couple of bicycles. We’ll bike to the park.”
Elizabeth thought fast. Saturday afternoon … Saturday … Nola’s hairdresser was coming to the house at ten A.M. sharp, and after that there was a shopping trip to Lord & Taylor. But … that was for summer resort clothes. Since she wasn’t going to any resort this summer, what did she need with resort clothes? “Mother will be keeping Joseph busy. But I can take a taxi. I’ll be there.” If her voice quavered just a bit at the thought of openly defying her mother for the first time in a year, Max didn’t comment on it. “What if it rains?”
Max laughed again. “It wouldn’t dare.” His voice softened then. “Elizabeth, I’m glad you’re back. I’ve missed you a lot. We can have a great summer.”
It was nice to hear Max so excited. He’d seemed so unhappy lately. Or maybe “intense” was a better word. Not the carefree, confident Max she’d known on the ship. But then, she hadn’t been herself lately, either. She didn’t even know who her “self” was anymore.
That would all change now. If she just stuck to her guns and didn’t let Nola’s theatrics change her mind. Because Max was right. No matter what her father had asked of her on the Titanic on that last, terrible night, he would not demand that she live her mother’s life. That would be too cruel. Her father had not been cruel.
“I’ll see you on Saturday,” she said into the telephone. “And Max? I love you.”
“I love you, too, Elizabeth.” He sounded in better spirits than he had in a long time. In a year, perhaps.
Now all she had to do was show up on Saturday, in spite of her mother’s best efforts to drag her on yet another shopping foray.
Feeling more hopeful than she had in a very long time, Elizabeth went upstairs.