The Beautiful American Read Online Free Page B

fresh shirt . . . and that green gown. What had I been thinking? Rubber boots and a fisherman’s sweater would have been more appropriate. Could I return the dress to Harrods? No. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. It had already become a promise that I would find my daughter, somehow.
    •   •   •
    A fter hanging my few things on wall pegs and splashing a little water on my face from the porcelain pitcher and basin, I found Lee outside on the side lawn, sitting and drinking with the other guests who had arrived before me, probably by car rather than bytrain. They sat on folding camp chairs in a circle, passing around cigarettes and a bottle of brandy.
    Scudding clouds in a crowded sky cast a greenish light over the scene. Shadows danced as the breeze muffled the sounds of conversation and laughter. I stood frozen outside their circle.
    “Everybody, this is my friend Nora.” Lee saw me and pulled me into the middle. “We met up in Paris years ago, before the world tried to self-destruct. And we’re both from Poughkeepsie, as I recall.”
    Lee had never remembered our childhood days. A convenient lapse, perhaps. Or a pretense. I had never decided which.
    One by one, she introduced me to the others, the Vogue model Lisa, instantly recognizable for the beauty mark at the corner of her crimson mouth, and the actress Carmen Delgado, whose name I had not yet heard but I would, Lee assured me. There was a writer, Lesley Blanch, with penciled, arched eyebrows over eyes that followed our every move, as if she was about to take out a notebook and start jotting down observations.
    “Features editor at British Vogue ,” Lee whispered.
    Pablo Picasso was there, wearing his trademark beret and striped sweater. I wondered if he would remember we had met years before, that he had once done me a great favor. If he did, he didn’t refer to it. He smiled and nodded and looked at me through narrowed eyes, framing and composing.
    “We never have less than six here for the weekend,” Lee explained. “It’s easier to stay warm in a crowd.”
    “Are you an artist or a writer?” Lisa asked me, leaning over Pablo as if she might fall into his lap with any encouragement. She was already tipsy and her words slurred a bit.
    “Neither,” I said.
    “A woman of mystery.” Roland, with his grave eyes andclose-cropped dark hair, had come out to join us, and again he pulled my arm protectively through his. “Make them guess,” he told me. “Let it take all weekend. We’ll make it a game.”
    “Sorry sort of game,” said Lesley Blanch, patting her short, tight curls. “Let the woman have her secrets, if she wants.” She winked at me.
    “Supper is ready, by the way,” Roland announced. “Grilled chicken and spring peas. But don’t ask for seconds. There aren’t any.”
    “But first, meet the heir to all this glory!” Lee rose stiffly from her chair, pressing her hand to her knee the way arthritics do. She’s not young anymore, I thought. I had somehow believed a woman like Lee Miller would be young forever.
    A nurse in a cap and apron came toward us from the house, carrying a squirming toddler, about two, I guessed. Lee hurried to her and scooped the boy up in her arms with a whoop. “Come meet Mummy’s friends,” she said.
    “No,” he said, pulling her hair and squirming. I felt a sudden pain to the heart, remembering Dahlia at that age, beautiful as an angel, cranky and fussy.
    “Oh, come on, precious.” Lee opened his fist and planted a smacking kiss on his palm. There was an opacity to Lee’s beauty, a thick pane of protective glass between her and the rest of the world. I wondered if anyone there, other than me, knew the source of that defensiveness. But with her child in her arms, all defenses were gone.
    “Nora,” she called. “Come meet Anthony.”
    Reluctantly, I rose from the folding chair Pablo had arranged for me next to him.
    The boy’s damp fingers closed around mine. As small as his starfish