The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “But how do you stop them thinking they have the right to jump into bed with you after one hamburger?”

  “Oh, I usually get three or four steaks before I let them try anything. And just occasionally I say yes.”

  “That’s all very well, but how did you handle it the first time?”

  “God knows,” said Wendy. “I can’t remember that far back.”

  Florentyna laughed again.

  “If you come to the tennis with me you might get lucky. After all, there’ll be five other men from Dartmouth, not to mention the six on the Harvard team.”

  “No, I can’t,” Florentyna said regretfully. “I still have an essay on Oedipus to finish by six o’clock.”

  “And we all know what happened to him,” said Wendy, grinning.

  Despite their different interests, the three girls became inseparable, and Florentyna and Wendy would always spend Saturday afternoons watching Bella play hockey. Wendy even learned to scream “Kill ’em,” from the sidelines, although it didn’t sound very convincing. It was a hectic first year and Florentyna enjoyed regaling her father with stories of Radcliffe, Bella and Wendy.

  She had to study hard as her advisor, Miss Rose, was quick to point out that the Woolson Scholarship came up for renewal every year and that it would do neither of their reputations any good if the prize were withdrawn. At the end of the year Florentyna’s grades were more than satisfactory and she had also found time to join the Debating Society and was made freshman representative for the Radcliffe Democratic Club. But she felt her greatest achievement was trouncing Bella on the Fresh Pond golf course by seven strokes.

  In the summer vacation of 1952, Florentyna only spent two weeks in New York with her father because she had applied to be a page at the Chicago convention.

  Once Florentyna had returned to her mother in Illinois she threw herself back into politics. The Republican Party convention had been held in the city two weeks earlier and the GOP had chosen Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon as their candidates. Florentyna couldn’t see how the Democrats would come up with anyone to challenge Eisenhower, the biggest national hero since Teddy Roosevelt. “I Like Ike” buttons were everywhere.

  When on July 21 the Democratic convention opened, Florentyna was given the job of showing VIPs to their seats on the speakers’ platform. During those four days she learned two things of value. The first was the importance of contacts, and the second the vanity of politicians. Twice during the four days she placed senators in the wrong seats and they could not have made more fuss if she had ushered them into the electric chair. The brightest moment of her week came when a good-looking young congressman from Massachusetts asked her where she was at college.

  “When I was at Harvard,” he said, “I spent far too much of my time at Radcliffe. They tell me now it’s the other way around.”

  Florentyna wanted to say something witty and bright that he would remember but nothing came out, and it was many years before she saw John Kennedy again.

  The climax of the convention came when she watched the delegates select Adlai Stevenson as their standard-bearer. She had greatly admired him when he was governor of Illinois, but Florentyna did not believe that such an academic man could hope to defeat Eisenhower on Election Day. Despite the shouting, cheering and singing of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” not everybody in that hall seemed to believe it either.

  Once the convention was over, Florentyna went back to Henry Osborne’s headquarters to try to help him retain his seat in Congress. This time she was put in charge of the switchboard inquiries, but the responsibility gave her little pleasure, for she had known for some time that the congressman was not respected by his party workers, let alone by his constituents. His reputation as a drinker and his second divorce were not helping him with the middle-class voters in his district.

  Florentyna found him all too casual and glib about the trust the voters had placed in him and she began to see why people had so little faith in their elected representatives. That faith took another blow when Eisenhower’s Vice Presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, addressed the nation on September 23 to explain away an $18,000 slush fund, which he claimed had been set up for him by a group of millionaire backers as “necessary political expenses” and for “exposing Communists.”

  On the day of the election, Florentyna and her fellow workers were halfhearted about both of their candidates, and those feelings were reflected at the polls. Eisenhower won the election by the largest popular vote in American history, 33,936,234 to 27,314,992. Among the casualties removed in the Republican landslide was Representative Osborne.

  Disenchanted with politics, Florentyna returned to Radcliffe for her sophomore year and put all her energy into her studies. Bella had been elected captain of hockey, the first sophomore to be so honored. Wendy claimed to have fallen in love with a Dartmouth tennis player named Roger and, taking fashion advice from Florentyna, started studying bridal gowns in Vogue. Although they now all had single rooms in Whitman, the three girls saw each other regularly. Florentyna never missed a hockey game, come rain or snow, both of which Cambridge frequently endured, while Wendy introduced her to several men who never quite seemed worthy of the third or fourth steak.

  It was halfway through the spring semester that Florentyna returned to her room to find Wendy sitting on the floor in tears.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Florentyna. “The midterms? You haven’t flunked them?”

  “No, it’s much worse than that.”

  “What could be worse than that?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” said Florentyna, kneeling down and putting an arm around her. “How can you be so sure?”

  “This is the second month I’ve missed my period.”

  “Well, that’s not conclusive, and if the worse comes to the worst, we know Roger wants to marry you.”

  “He may not be the father.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Florentyna. “Who is?”

  “I think it must have been Bob. The football player from Princeton. You met him, remember?”

  Florentyna didn’t. There had been quite a few during the year, and she wasn’t sure what to do next when Wendy couldn’t even be certain of the father’s name. All three girls sat up late into the night with Bella displaying a gentleness and understanding Florentyna would never have thought possible. It was decided that if Wendy missed her next period she would have to make an appointment to see the university gynecologist, Dr. MacLeod.

  Wendy did miss her next period, and asked Bella and Florentyna to accompany her when she went to Dr. MacLeod’s office on Brattle Street. The doctor informed Wendy’s class dean of her pregnancy that night and no one was surprised by her decision. Wendy’s father arrived the next day and thanked them both for all they had done before taking his daughter back to Nashville. It all happened so suddenly that neither of the two other girls could believe they wouldn’t see Wendy again. Florentyna felt helpless and wondered if she could have done more.

  At the end of her sophomore year, Florentyna began to believe she could win a coveted Phi Beta Kappa Key. She was fast losing her interest in university politics; a combination of McCarthy and Nixon was not inspiring, and she became even more disillusioned by an incident that occurred at the end of the summer vacation.

  Florentyna had returned to work for her father in New York. She had learned a lot since the “Jessie Kovats” incident. In fact, Abel was now happy to leave her in charge of various Baron shops when their managers were on vacation.

  During one lunch break she tried to avoid a smartly dressed middle-aged man who was passing through the hotel lobby at the same time, but he spotted her, and shouted:

  “Hi, Florentyna.”

  “Hello, Henry,” she said with little enthusiasm.

  He learned forward and gripped her on both arms before kissing her on the cheek.

  “It’s your lucky day, my dear,” he said.

  “Why?” asked Florentyna, ge