Then she decided he had taken unfair advantage of her and would not see him again. She developed an affection for another boy, and for a few weeks they were intimate on the couch in her family living room — assured of their privacy by the despised blackout curtains. Twice they even did it on the roof while Piper Cubs checking the completeness of the Florida Atlantic Coast blackout flew overhead not more than two hundred feet above them. The darkened houses that did not silhouette ships for German submarines leaked no light to afford the pilots a clue as to what was happening on that roof.
4
In May 1944 she graduated from Seaview Academy, first in her class.
Her mother wanted her to go to Rollins College; her father's first choice was Emory University; and her stepmother urged her to apply to Radcliffe. She applied to all three, and others, and she was accepted at every college she applied to. She chose Radcliffe.
The photos she sent with her applications showed that she was an exceptionally pretty girl. She had by then lost the baby fat around her face. She wore her hair in a loose, careless style that obviously took only an occasional whip or two of the brush to control it. She was pretty but no contrived glamour puss.
The second Mrs. Maxim was active in Democratic politics. She was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1944. She saw to it that Antonia met as many as possible of the prominent Democrats who came to south Florida, and so Antonia was introduced to Senator Harry Truman, the peppery little man running for Vice President with President Roosevelt. He said he had a daughter her age — in fact, Margaret Truman was two years older than Antonia Maxim — and told her he hoped she would be as loyal a Democrat as his daughter was.
In the fall of 1944 she arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and within no more than a day she developed a troubling, even frightening sense that she was hopelessly narrow and provincial, inexperienced, naive, and ill-educated. After a month or so she amended her initial pessimistic judgment and decided she was provincial and inexperienced, not narrow or naive or ill educated. Before the semester ended she realized she was not provincial either, no more provincial anyway than the other girls in the college. No one, she observed, was more provincial than New Yorkers, followed by New Englanders. She learned that she could compete very handily with them.
Only when they spoke of their travels was she at a disadvantage. She had never seen Paris or London, or even Texas or California, but they had and could talk with brittle gaiety about this hotel and that restaurant and about how they hoped these places would survive the war. When they told stories of how they abandoned their virginity, Toni conveniently forgot the back seat of the Packard and said she had given up hers on a flat roof during a blackout, with low-flying planes buzzing overhead. None of them topped that story.
She was an excellent student. She majored in history, with minors in political science and languages. Her mother wrote her a letter suggesting she make an appointment with a Boston cosmetician recommended by a friend and have herself done over. She was so beautiful, her mother said, that she should make the most of herself and consider a career in modeling and maybe even acting.
She made few male friends. The boys who hadn't been in service were ... well, boys. Many of the returned GIs were married. Others were moody, and some were aggressive. She dated two of them and allowed one to be intimate, but they drifted apart, finding no great attraction in each other.
Her stepmother arranged to meet her in Washington during the spring break of her junior year, to take her around and introduce her to senators and congressmen. She also took her to the offices of The Washington Post, where she introduced her to the publisher and editors. In their hotel room, Morgana and Toni talked about what she would do after she graduated. Was there a marriage in sight? No. Was she interested in government? Yes. Did she like Washington? Yes. Well then — maybe she could come to Washington as a congressional aide. Morgana would inquire around.
5
For the fall semester of her senior year she enrolled in a class at Harvard in abnormal psychology, just to round out her education, just because it was something she thought she ought to know something about. It was an eight-o'clock class, and people came in carrying paper cups of coffee, smoking their first morning cigarettes. Toni put her coffee on the writing arm of her chair and snapped her Zippo to light a cigarette. She was wearing blue jeans rolled up to mid-calf and a man's white shirt, tail out and collar open, also brown-and-white saddle shoes with white cotton socks. Of the eight young women in the class, only two were dressed otherwise than in this uniform.
By his first words the professor announced that smoking would be allowed in his classroom only so long as the weather permitted them to keep the windows open. After that, no smoking would be the rule.
"Why wait till then?" asked a voice from behind Toni.
She turned around and saw a tall, handsome man, looking at her with intimidating bright-blue eyes. He too wore a white shirt, but his shirttail was tucked into khaki corduroy pants. She had meant to look at him defiantly, maybe even to blow smoke in his face; but she decided not to. They stared at each other with eyes equally steady. He was smiling faintly, very faintly.
"I like the idea, Mr. —"
"Batista."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Batista. I like your idea, but I guess we'll stick with my original plan, to postpone the onset of nicotine fits."
Toni had heard of Jonas Cord y Batista, who was nicknamed Bat. He was known in Cambridge. The story about him was that he was an illegitimate son of the rapacious tycoon Jonas Cord and was somehow related to the former and perhaps future president of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista. He was of course one of the returning GIs, and the rest of the story about him said that he had been wounded and decorated. He had been in Cambridge for a whole year, but this was the first time she had seen him.
She stopped outside the classroom later and said to him, "I hope my smoke didn't drift up your nose."
"I hope my suggestion didn't spoil your pleasure," he said dryly.
She grinned. "I'm Antonia Maxim, and I'm usually called Toni."
"I'm usually called Bat," he said. "Because a lot of people are uneasy with my name — which is Jonas. Do you have a nine-o'clock?"
"No."
"Neither do I. Let's go across the street and have some doughnuts."
Two nights later he took her to dinner and a movie.
Two months later word circulated among her friends and his that Toni Maxim and Bat Batista were in love and planned to be married. Some noted scornfully that she had stopped smoking and wearing blue jeans with her shirttail out.
When his mother, Señora Sonja Escalante, came to Boston for one of the only two visits she would make to the States to see her son while he was at Harvard, she stayed at the Copley; and Toni Maxim was her guest for dinner two of the five nights she was in town.
6
Some other friends could not imagine Toni could fall in love with Jonas Cord y Batista. Oh yes, he was handsome, and apparently he was rich, but he was a queer duck. He took courses that had no apparent aim — lots of history and government, some economics, chemistry, physics, psychology, philosophy, literature, and art. He was seen on the Yard during the day, sometimes in the library at night, but he lived as far away as Lexington, as though he made a conscious effort not to associate himself with the college any more than necessary. He didn't seem to care about much of anything — about anything, that is, that other people cared about. He didn't go to football games. He didn't go down to the river to watch the rowing. It was as if he went out of his way to make it clear he was not in awe of Harvard and didn't think himself privileged to have been admitted.