The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  Richard began to whistle Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and by the time he arrived home, he had reached the end of the first movement. He couldn’t recall an evening he had enjoyed more. He fell asleep thinking about Jessie instead of Galbraith or Friedman. The next morning he traveled with his father down to Wall Street and spent a day in the Journal’s library, taking only a short break for lunch. In the evening, over dinner, he told his father about the research he had been doing on the stock exchange into reverse takeover bids and feared he might have sounded a little too enthusiastic.

  After dinner he went off to his room. He made sure that no one saw him slip out of the front door a few minutes before ten. Once he had reached the Blue Angel he checked his table and returned to the foyer to wait for Jessie.

  He could feel his heart beating and wondered why that had never happened with Mary Bigelow. When Jessie arrived, he kissed her on the cheek and led her into the lounge. Bobby Short’s voice was floating through the room: “‘Are you telling me the truth or am I just another lie?’”

  As Richard and Jessie walked in, Short raised his arm. Richard found himself acknowledging the wave although he had seen the artist only once before and had never been introduced to him.

  They were guided to a table in the center of the room and Jessie chose the seat with her back to the piano.

  Richard ordered a bottle of Chablis and asked Jessie about her day.

  “Richard, there is something I must—”

  “Hi, Richard.” He looked away.

  “Hi, Steve. May I introduce Jessie Kovats—Steve Mellon. Steve and I were at Harvard together.”

  “Seen the Yankees lately?” asked Steve.

  “No,” said Richard. “I only follow winners.”

  “Like Eisenhower. With his handicap you would have thought he had been to Yale.” They chatted on for a few minutes. Jessie made no effort to interrupt them. “Ah, she’s arrived at last,” said Steve, looking toward the door. “See you, Richard. Nice to have met you, Jessie.”

  During the evening Richard told Jessie about his plans to come to New York and work at Lester’s, his father’s bank. She was such an intent listener he only hoped he hadn’t been boring her. He enjoyed himself even more than the previous night and when they left he waved to Bobby Short as if they had grown up together. When they reached Jessie’s home he kissed her on the lips for the first time. For a moment she responded, but then she said “Good night” and disappeared into the old apartment building.

  The next morning he returned to Boston. As soon as he arrived back at the Red House he phoned Jessie: Was she free to go to a concert on Friday? She said she was, and for the first time in his life he crossed days off a calendar. Mary phoned him later in the week and he tried to explain to her as gently as he could why he was no longer available.

  When the weekend came it was memorable. The New York Philharmonic, Dial M for Murder—Jessie even seemed to enjoy the New York Knicks. Richard reluctantly returned to Harvard on Sunday night. The next four months were going to be long weeks and short weekends. He phoned Jessie every day and they were rarely apart on weekends. He began to dread Mondays.

  During the Monday morning lecture on the crash of 1929, Richard found he couldn’t concentrate. How was he going to explain to his father that he had fallen in love with a girl who worked behind the gloves, scarves and woolen hats counter at Bloomingdale’s? Even he couldn’t understand why such a bright, attractive girl could be so unambitious. If only Jessie had been given the opportunities he had had…He scribbled her name on the top of his class notes. His father was going to have to learn to live with it. He stared at what he had written: “Jessie Kane.”

  When Richard arrived back in New York that weekend, he made an excuse to his mother about running out of razor blades. His mother suggested that he use his father’s.

  “No, no, it’s all right,” said Richard. “I need some of my own. In any case, we don’t use the same brand.”

  Kate Kane thought this was strange because she knew they did.

  Richard almost ran the eight blocks to Bloomingdale’s. When he reached the glove counter, Jessie was nowhere to be seen. Maisie was standing in a corner filing her fingernails.

  “Is Jessie around?” he asked her breathlessly.

  “No, she’s already gone home—she left a few minutes ago. She can’t have gone far. Aren’t you…?”

  Richard ran out to Lexington Avenue. He searched for Jessie’s face among the figures hurrying along. He would have given up if he hadn’t recognized the flash of red, a scarf he had given her. She was on the other side of the street, turning toward Fifth Avenue. Her apartment was in the opposite direction; somewhat guiltily he decided to follow her. When she reached Scribner’s at Forty-eighth Street, he stopped and watched her go into the bookshop. If she wanted something to read, surely she could have picked it up at Bloomingdale’s? He was puzzled. He peered through the window as Jessie talked to a sales clerk, who left her for a few moments and then returned with two books. He could just make out their titles: The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith and Inside Russia Today by John Gunther. Jessie signed for them—which surprised Richard—and left as he ducked around the corner.

  “Who is she?” said Richard out loud as he watched her double back and enter Bendel’s. The doorman saluted respectfully, leaving a distinct impression of recognition. Once again Richard peered through the window to see saleswomen fluttering around Jessie with more than casual respect. An older lady appeared with a package, which Jessie had obviously been expecting. She opened it to reveal a full-length evening dress in red. Jessie smiled and nodded as the saleslady placed the dress in a brown and white box. Then mouthing the words “Thank you,” Jessie turned toward the door without even signing for her purchase. Richard barely managed to avoid colliding with her as she hastened out of the store to jump into a cab.

  He grabbed a taxi that an old lady had originally thought was hers and told the driver to follow Jessie’s cab. “Like the movies, isn’t it?” said the driver. Richard didn’t reply. When the cab passed the small apartment house outside of which Richard and Jessie normally parted, he began to feel queasy. The taxi in front continued for another hundred yards and came to a halt outside a dazzling new apartment house complete with a uniformed doorman, who was quick to open the door for Jessie. With astonishment and anger Richard jumped out of his cab and started to make his way up to the door through which she had disappeared.

  “That’ll be ninety-five cents, fella,” said a voice behind him.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Richard. He thrust his hand into his pocket and took out a note, hurriedly pushing it at the cab driver, not thinking about the change.

  “Thanks, buddy,” said the driver, clutching on to the five-dollar bill. “Someone sure is happy today.”

  Richard hurried through the door of the building and managed to catch Jessie at the elevator. He followed her into the elevator. She stared at him but didn’t speak.

  “Who are you?” demanded Richard as the elevator door closed. The other two occupants stared in front of them with a look of studied indifference as the elevator glided up to the second floor.

  “Richard,” she stammered. “I was going to tell you everything this evening. I never seemed to find the right opportunity.”

  “Like hell you were going to tell me,” he said, following her out of the elevator toward an apartment. “Stringing me along with a pack of lies for nearly three months. Well, now the time has come for the truth.”

  He pushed his way past her brusquely as she opened the door. He looked beyond her into the apartment while she stood helplessly in the passageway. At the end of the entrance hall there was a large living room with a fine Oriental rug and a magnificent Georgian bureau. A handsome grandfather clock stood opposite a side table on which there was a bowl of fresh anemones. The room was impressive even by the standards of Richard’s own home.

  “Nice place you’ve got yourself for a salesgirl,” he
said sharply. “I wonder which of your lovers pays for this.”

  Jessie took a pace toward him and slapped him so hard that her own palm stung. “How dare you?” she said. “Get out of my home.”

  As she said the words, she started to cry. Richard took her in his arms.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a terrible thing to suggest. Please forgive me. It’s just that I love you so much and imagined I knew you so well, and now I find I don’t know a thing about you.”

  “Richard, I love you too and I’m sorry I hit you. I didn’t want to deceive you, but there’s no one else—I promise you that.” She touched his cheek.

  “It was the least I deserved,” he said as he kissed her.

  Clasped tightly in one another’s arms, they sank onto the sofa and for some moments remained almost motionless. Gently he stroked her hair until her tears subsided. Jessie slipped her fingers through the gap between his two top shirt buttons.

  “Do you want to sleep with me?” she asked quietly.

  “No,” he replied. “I want to stay awake with you all night.”

  Without speaking further, they undressed and made love, gently and shyly at first, afraid to hurt each other, desperately trying to please. Finally, with her head on his shoulder, they talked.

  “I love you,” said Richard. “I have since the first moment I saw you. Will you marry me? Because I don’t give a damn who you are, Jessie, or what you do, but I know I must spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “I want to marry you too, Richard, but first I have to tell you the truth.”

  She pulled Richard’s jacket over her naked body as he lay silent waiting for her to speak.

  “My name is Florentyna Rosnovski,” she began, and then told Richard everything about herself. Florentyna explained why she had taken the name of Jessie Kovats—so that she would be treated like any other salesgirl while she learned the trade, and not like the daughter of the Chicago Baron. Richard never spoke once during her revelation and remained silent when she came to the end.

  “Have you stopped loving me already?” she asked. “Now that you know who I really am?”

  “Darling,” said Richard very quietly. “My father hates your father.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that the only time I ever heard your father’s name mentioned in his presence, he flew completely off the handle, saying your father’s sole purpose in life seemed to be a desire to ruin the Kane family.”

  “What? Why?” said Florentyna, shocked. “I’ve never heard of your father. How do they even know each other? You must be mistaken.”

  “I wish I were,” said Richard, and he repeated the little his mother had once told him about the quarrel with her father.

  “Oh, my God. That must have been the ‘Judas’ my father referred to when he told how he changed banks after twenty years,” she said. “What shall we do?”

  “Tell them the truth,” said Richard. “That we met innocently, fell in love and now we’re going to be married. And that nothing they can do will stop us.”

  “Let’s wait for a few weeks,” said Florentyna.

  “Why?” asked Richard. “Do you think your father can talk you out of marrying me?”

  “No, Richard,” she said, touching him gently as she placed her head back on his shoulder. “Never, my darling. But let’s find out if we can do anything to break the news gently before we present them both with a fait accompli. Anyway, maybe they won’t feel as strongly as you imagine. After all, you said the problem with the Richmond Group was over twenty years ago.”

  “They still feel every bit as strongly, I promise you that. My father would be outraged if he saw us together, let alone thought we were considering marriage.”

  “All the more reason to leave it for a little before we break the news to them. That will give us time to decide the best way to go about it.”

  He kissed her again. “I love you, Jessie.”

  “Florentyna.”

  “That’s something else I’m going to have to get used to,” he said.

  To begin, Richard allocated one afternoon a week to researching the feud between the two fathers, but after a time it became an obsession, biting heavily into his attendance at lectures. The Chicago Baron’s attempt to get Richard’s father removed from his own board would have made a good case study for the Harvard Business School. The more he discovered, the more Richard realized that his father and Florentyna’s were formidable rivals. Richard’s mother spoke of the feud as if she had needed to discuss it with someone for years.

  “Why are you taking such an interest in Mr. Rosnovski?” she said.

  “I came across his name when I was going through some back copies of The Wall Street Journal.” The truth, he thought, but a lie.

  Florentyna took a day off from Bloomingdale’s and flew to Chicago to tell her mother what had happened. When Florentyna pressed her as to what she knew of the row she spoke for almost an hour without interruption. Florentyna hoped her mother was exaggerating, but a few carefully worded questions over dinner with George Novak made it painfully obvious that she hadn’t been.

  Every weekend the two lovers exchanged their knowledge, which only added to the catalogue of hate.

  “It all seems so petty,” said Florentyna. “Why don’t they just meet and talk it over? I think they would get on rather well together.”

  “I agree,” said Richard. “But which one of us is going to try telling them that?”

  “Both of us are going to have to, sooner or later.”

  As the weeks passed, Richard could not have been more attentive and kind. Although he tried to take Florentyna’s mind off “sooner or later” with regular visits to the theater, the New York Philharmonic and long walks through the park, their conversation always drifted back to their parents.

  Even during a cello recital that Richard gave her in her flat, Florentyna’s mind was occupied by her father: how could he be so obdurate? As the Brahms sonata came to an end Richard put down his bow and stared into her gray eyes.

  “We have got to tell them soon,” he said, taking her in his arms.

  “I know we must. I just don’t want to hurt my father.”

  “I know.”

  She looked down at the floor. “Next Friday, Papa will be back from Washington.”

  “Then it’s next Friday,” said Richard quietly, not letting her go.

  As Florentyna watched Richard drive away that night she wondered if she would be strong enough to keep her resolve.

  On the Friday they both dreaded, Richard ducked his morning lecture and traveled down to New York in time to spend the rest of the day with Florentyna.

  They spent that afternoon going over what they would say when they respectively faced their parents. At seven o’clock the two stepped out of Florentyna’s apartment onto the pavement of Fifty-seventh Street. They walked without talking. When they reached Park Avenue they stopped at the light.

  “Will you marry me?”

  It was the last question on Florentyna’s mind as she braced herself to meet her father. A tear trickled down her cheek, a tear that she felt had no right to be there at the happiest moment of her life. Richard took a ring out of a little red box—a sapphire set in diamonds. He placed it on the third finger of her left hand. He tried to stop the tears by kissing her. He and Florentyna broke and stared at each other for a moment. Then he turned and strode away.

  They had agreed to meet again at the apartment as soon as their ordeal was over. She stared at the ring on her finger, and at the antique ring on her right hand, her favorite of the past.

  As Richard walked up Park Avenue he went over the sentences he had so carefully composed in his mind and found himself on Sixty-eighth Street long before he felt he had completed the rehearsal.

  He found his father in the drawing room drinking the usual Teacher’s and soda before changing for dinner. His mother was complaining that his sister didn’t eat enough. “I think Virginia
plans to be the thinnest thing in New York.” Richard wanted to laugh.

  “Hello, Richard, I was expecting you earlier.”

  “Yes,” said Richard. “I had to see someone before I came home.”

  “Who?” said his mother, not sounding particularly interested.

  “The woman I am going to marry.”

  They both looked at him astonished; it certainly wasn’t the opening sentence Richard had planned so carefully.

  His father was the first to recover. “Don’t you think you’re a bit young? I feel sure you and Mary can afford to wait a little longer.”

  “It’s not Mary I intend to marry.”

  “Not Mary?” said his mother.

  “No,” said Richard. “Her name is Florentyna Rosnovski.”

  Kate Kane turned white.

  “The daughter of Abel Rosnovski?” William Kane said without expression.

  “Yes, Father,” said Richard firmly.

  “Is this some sort of joke, Richard?”

  “No, Father. We met in unusual circumstances and fell in love without either of us realizing there was a misunderstanding between our parents.”

  “Misunderstanding? Misunderstanding?” he repeated. “Don’t you realize that jumped-up Polish immigrant spends most of his life trying to get me thrown off my own board—and once nearly succeeded? And you describe that as a ‘misunderstanding.’ Richard, you will never see the daughter of that crook again if you hope to sit on the board of Lester’s Bank. Have you thought about that?”

  “Yes, Father, I have, and it will make no difference to my decision. I have met the woman with whom I intend to spend the rest of my life and I am proud that she would even consider being my wife.”

  “She has tricked and ensnared you so that she and her father can finally take the bank away from me. Can’t you see through their plan?”

  “Even you can’t believe something as preposterous as that, Father.”

  “Preposterous? He once accused me of being responsible for killing his partner, Davis Leroy, when I—”

  “Father, Florentyna knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding your quarrel until she met me. How can you be so irrational?”