The Last Mrs. Parrish(2)
Daphne nodded. “I started it right after grad school. In fact, my husband was my first benefactor.” Here she’d smiled, perhaps a bit embarrassed. “That’s how we met.”
“Aren’t you preparing for a big fund-raiser right now?”
“As a matter of fact we are. It’s a few months away, but still lots to do. Say . . . oh, never mind.”
“No, what?” Amber pressed.
“Well, I was just going to see if maybe you’d like to help. It would be nice to have someone who understands—”
“I’d love to help in any way,” Amber interrupted. “I don’t make a lot of money, but I definitely have time to donate. What you’re doing is so important. When I think of the difference it makes—” She bit her lip and blinked back tears.
Daphne smiled. “Wonderful.” She pulled out a card engraved with her name and address. “Here you are. Committee is meeting at my house Thursday morning at ten. Can you make it?”
Amber had given her a wide smile, still trying to look as though the disease was first in her mind. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Two
The rocking rhythm of the Saturday train from Bishops Harbor to New York lulled Amber into a soothing reverie far removed from the rigid discipline of her workday week. She sat by the window, resting her head against the seat back, occasionally opening her eyes to glance at the passing scenery. She thought back to the first time she’d ridden on a train, when she was seven years old. It was July in Missouri—the hottest, muggiest month of the summer—and the train’s air-conditioning had been on the blink. She could still picture her mother sitting across from her in a long-sleeved black dress, unsmiling, back erect, her knees squeezed together primly. Her light brown hair had been pulled back in its customary bun, but she had worn a pair of earrings—small pearl studs that she saved for special occasions. And Amber supposed the funeral of her mother’s mother counted as a special occasion.
When they’d gotten off the train at the grubby station in Warrensburg, the air outside was even more suffocating than the inside of the train had been. Uncle Frank, her mother’s brother, had been there to meet them, and they piled uncomfortably into his battered blue pickup truck. The smell is what she remembered most—a mixture of sweat and dirt and damp—and the cracked leather of the seat digging into her skin. They rode past endless fields of corn and small farmsteads with tired-looking wooden houses and yards filled with rusted machinery, old cars on cinder blocks, tires with no rims, and broken metal crates. It was even more depressing than where they lived, and Amber wished she’d been left at home, like her sisters. Her mother said they were too young for a funeral, but Amber was old enough to pay her respects. She’d blocked out most of that horrendous weekend, but the one thing she would never forget was the appalling shabbiness surrounding her—the drab living room of her grandparents’ home, all browns and rusty yellows; her grandfather’s stubby growth of beard as he sat in his overstuffed recliner, stern and dour in a worn undershirt and stained khaki pants. She saw the origin of her mother’s cheerless demeanor and poverty of imagination. It was then, at that tender age, that the dream of something different and better was born in Amber.
Opening her eyes now as the man opposite her rose, jostling her with his briefcase, she realized they’d arrived at Grand Central Terminal. She quickly gathered her handbag and jacket and stepped into the streaming mass of disembarking passengers. She never tired of the walk from the tracks into the magnificent main concourse—what a contrast to the dingy train depot of all those years ago. She took her time strolling past the shiny storefronts of the station, a perfect precursor to the sights and sounds of the city waiting outside, then exited the building and walked the few short blocks along Forty-Second Street to Fifth Avenue. This monthly pilgrimage had become so familiar that she could have done it blindfolded.
Her first stop was always the main reading room of the New York Public Library. She would sit at one of the long reading tables as the sun poured in through the tall windows and drink in the beauty of the ceiling frescoes. Today she felt especially comforted by the books that climbed the walls. They were a reminder that any knowledge she desired was hers for the asking. Here, she would sit and read and discover all the things that would give shape to her plans. She sat, still and silent, for twenty minutes, until she was ready to return to the street and begin the walk up Fifth Avenue.
She walked slowly but with purpose past the luxury stores that lined the street. Past Versace, Fendi, Armani, Louis Vuitton, Harry Winston, Tiffany & Co., Gucci, Prada, and Cartier—they went on and on, one after another of the world’s most prestigious and expensive boutiques. She had been in each of them, inhaled the aroma of supple leather and the scent of exotic perfumes, rubbed into her skin the velvety balms and costly ointments that sat tantalizingly in ornate testers.
She continued past Dior and Chanel and stopped to admire a slender gown of silver and black that clung to the mannequin in the window. She stared at the dress, picturing herself in it, her hair piled high on her head, her makeup perfect, entering a ballroom on her husband’s arm, the envy of every woman she passed. She continued north until she came to Bergdorf Goodman and the timeless Plaza Hotel. She was tempted to climb the red-carpeted steps to the grand lobby, but it was well past one o’clock, and she was feeling hungry. She’d carried a small lunch from home, since there was no way she could afford to spend her hard-earned money on both the museum and lunch in Manhattan. She crossed Fifty-Eighth Street to Central Park, sat on a bench facing the busy street, and unpacked a small apple and a baggie filled with raisins and nuts from her sack. She ate slowly as she watched people hurrying about and thought for the hundredth time how grateful she was to have escaped the dreary existence of her parents, the mundane conversations, the predictability of it all. Her mother had never understood Amber’s ambitions. She said she was trying to get too far above herself, that her kind of thinking would only land her in trouble. And then Amber had shown her and finally left it all—though maybe not the way she’d planned.