“Oh, God, Teddy … I wish you weren't going.”
“So do I.”
And then, trying to be a brave sister she smiled gamely. “But be a good kid and wear your galoshes, write to me on Sundays.…” And then in a hoarse whisper, “Don't forget us.…”
“Oh, Serena … don't say that!” He pressed her tightly against him, and anyone watching would have thought that she was saying good-bye to her husband, not her husband's brother, as he wiped the tears from her cheeks, hugged her again, and then stood back to look at her for a last time.
“I'll be back. Soon too. So you take care of yourself and Vanessa for me.” She nodded, the tears streaming from her eyes, as others hurried past them to board the ship that was to sail in an hour. God, how he wanted to stay with her, he thought to himself as he looked at her. Yet he knew that he had to go. It was something that he had to do for himself and his brother, no matter what anyone said. His mother had flown out from New York in a fury, threatening to pull strings, use connections, and get him kicked out of the service. But he was so vehement about his decision that in the end even she capitulated. One had to respect his motives and his way of thinking. What was terrifying was the possibility that he might be killed.
Serena tried not to think about it as she reached out to touch him just one last time. They had an extraordinary bond between them, had had from the beginning, and it had strengthened when he had delivered Vanessa. But in the past two months there had been something more, being with Teddy was like holding on to a part of Brad. It allowed her to hold on to him in some distant, melancholy way. And now she was losing Teddy too. But hopefully not forever.
“Serena …” He started to say something, and then stopped as the boat horn sounded, blotting out everything else that anyone said. It bleated three more times, and a gong sounded. It was time to go, and Serena felt a rush of panic, as he grabbed her, pulled her toward him, and held her tight. “I'll be back. Just know that.”
“I love you.” Her eyes filled with tears and she shouted it in his ear as she clung to him. He nodded, picked up his bag, and moved onto the ship with the others. It was several minutes before she saw him again, standing high above her, on the deck, waving slowly, and she couldn't fight back the tears. They streamed down her face unrestrained, until at last the horns bleated again, in concert with the foghorns in the distance, and the ship began to pull out slowly. She felt as though it were pulling her heart with it, and when the ship was swallowed up entirely by the fog, she turned away slowly and went back to her car with her head down, and tears still pouring from her eyes.
When she returned to San Francisco, Vanessa was waiting with a baby-sitter and she wanted to know how soon Uncle Teddy was coming home. It took all of the strength that Serena could muster to explain to her again that Teddy would be gone for a long time, but he would come back to them as soon as he could. They had a lot of nice things to do together, Serena encouraged, like going to the zoo, and the rose gardens in the park, the Japanese tea garden, the circus when it came to town … but before she could finish, there were tears in her eyes again and she was holding her daughter and squeezing her tight.
“Will he be like Daddy and never come back?” Vanessa's eyes were huge in her grief-filled face and Serena shuddered at the thought.
“No! Uncle Teddy will be back! I told you that.” She wanted to shout at the child for voicing the terrors she was wrestling with herself. But Serena's voice trembled as she said it, and as she had a thousand times in the past weeks, she found herself longing to turn back the clock. If only she could close her eyes and go back to the days she had shared with Brad, of knowing that he would protect her, that he would be there for her… back to the golden days they had shared at the Presidio … or in Paris … or the first days in Rome. Weeks ago she had written to Marcella, to tell her the news. And the answer, dictated to one of the new maids who worked under her, had been desolate. She offered Serena her sympathy as well as her prayers. But she needed more than that now. She needed someone there to hold her hand, to reassure her that she would make it.
There were times in the ensuing months when she really wondered if she would survive. Months when she could barely pay the rent, when bills were overdue, when they ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or only eggs. She had never known this kind of poverty before. During the war the nuns had kept her safe, and at the palazzo in Rome after that, she and Marcella had been well provided for, but now there was no one to turn to, no one to help her, no one to lend her money when she only had two dollars left and wouldn't get paid for another three days. Time and again she thought of the agreement she had signed with Margaret Fullerton. If she had never been forced to sign that damned piece of paper, at least she and Vanessa would have been able to eat. Vanessa would have had pretty clothes to wear and more than just one beat-up pair of little shoes. Once, in desperation, she almost turned to them for help, but she couldn't, and in her heart of hearts she knew it wouldn't have done any good. Margaret Fullerton was so vehement and irrational in her hatred of Serena that there was nothing Serena could say or do to change her mind. It was a hatred so broad and deep that it even reached out to envelop Vanessa, her only grandchild. Margaret didn't give a damn if they did starve. Serena suspected that she probably hoped they would.
Only the joy of finding Vanessa at the end of a day kept her going. Only the letters from Teddy warmed her heart. Only the money from her modeling at the department store kept them alive. There were days when she thought she would drop from exhaustion and when she wanted to cry with despair. But day after day, six days a week, she went downtown to model, to wander around the floors in the latest creations, to hand out perfume samples, to stand near the front door in a striking fur coat, to model in the fashion shows when they had them. It wasn't until the second year that she was promoted to the designer salon. And then she modeled for special customers, or in the big shows. She wore only their finest designer dresses from New York or Paris, and she was rapidly learning the tricks of her trade, how to do her hair in half a dozen flattering styles, how to do her makeup to perfection, how to move, how to smile, how to sell the clothes just by weaving a kind of spell. And whereas she was beautiful before, with the new skills she was learning, she was even more remarkable looking than she had been before. People talked about her in the store, and often people stared at her. The women customers looked at her in envy, but more often with a kind of fascination, as though she were a work of art. Their husbands stared at Serena, utterly awed by her beauty, and it wasn't long before the store's advertising agency saw her, and they made her their main model for the store. Every week her photograph was in the papers, and by the end of her second year at the store people began to recognize her around town. Men asked her out. She got invited to parties by relative strangers, but her answer was always the same. Without exception she declined. Her only interest was in returning home to Vanessa, to play with the little golden-haired child who looked so much like B.J., to sing silly songs with her at the little piano Serena had bought at an auction, to read her stories, and to share their dreams. Serena told her that one day she would be a beautiful, famous lady.…
“Like you, Mommy?”
Serena smiled. “No, much prettier than I am, silly. Everyone will stop to stare at you in the street, and you will be successful and happy.” Serena would stare into space for a moment, thinking of her own dreams. Was that what she wanted? To be stared at? To be successful? For her, modeling had been the only answer, but it was a strange life, making her living by how she looked, and often she felt foolish and unimportant, like the mannequin she literally was. But none of that mattered—she couldn't afford to have doubts about it. She had to survive.