Kane and Abel Read online

  Florentyna left her apartment on East Fifty-Seventh Street a little before eight, but it was some time before she managed to hail a taxi.

  ‘Allen’s, please,’ she said to the taxi driver.

  ‘Sure thing, miss.’

  Florentyna arrived at the restaurant a few minutes late. Her eyes began to search for the young man. He was standing at the bar, waving. He had changed into a pair of grey flannel slacks and a blue blazer. Very Ivy League, thought Florentyna, although Maisie’s description of him as ‘dishy’ still fitted just as well.

  ‘I’m sorry to be late,’ began Florentyna.

  ‘It’s not important. What’s important is that you came.’

  ‘You thought I wouldn’t?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Jessie Kovats. And yours?’

  ‘Richard Kane,’ said the young man, thrusting out his hand.

  She took it, and he held on a little longer than she had expected.

  ‘And what do you do when you’re not buying gloves at Bloomingdale’s?’ she teased.

  ‘I’m at Harvard Business School.’

  ‘I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that most people only have two hands.’

  He laughed and smiled in such a relaxed and friendly way that she wished she could start again and tell him she was surprised they’d never met in Cambridge when she was at Radcliffe.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ he said, taking her arm and leading her to a table.

  Florentyna looked up at the menu on the blackboard.

  ‘Salisbury steak?’ she queried.

  ‘A hamburger by any other name,’ said Richard.

  They both laughed in the way two people do when they don’t know each other well, but want to. She could see he was surprised that she recognized his out-of-context quote.

  Florentyna had rarely enjoyed anyone’s company more. Richard chatted about New York, the theatre and music - which was obviously his first love - with such grace and charm that he quickly put her at ease. He might have thought she was a salesgirl, but he treated her as if she’d come from one of the oldest Boston families. When he asked, she told him nothing more than that she was Polish, lived in New York with her parents and that her father worked in a hotel. As the evening progressed she found the deception increasingly difficult. Still, she thought, we’re unlikely to see each other again.

  When neither of them could drink any more coffee, Richard called for the bill. He asked Florentyna which part of town she lived in.

  ‘East Fifty-Seventh Street,’ she said, not thinking.

  ‘Then I’ll walk you home,’ he said, taking her hand.

  They strolled up Fifth Avenue, looking into shop windows, laughing and chatting. When he asked about her plans for the future, she simply replied, ‘One day I’d like to work in a shop on Fifth Avenue.’ Neither of them noticed the empty taxis as they drifted past.

  It took them almost an hour to cover the sixteen blocks, and Florentyna nearly told him the truth about herself. When they reached Fifty-Seventh Street she stopped outside a small old apartment block, a hundred yards from her own building.

  ‘This is where my parents live,’ she said.

  Richard seemed to hesitate, then let go of her hand.

  ‘I hope we’ll see each other again,’ he said.

  ‘I’d like that,’ replied Florentyna in a polite, dismissive way.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Richard asked diffidently.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ repeated Florentyna.

  ‘Why don’t we go to the Blue Angel and see Bobby Short?’ He took her hand again. ‘It’s a little more romantic than Allen’s.’

  Florentyna was momentarily taken aback. Her plans for Richard had not included any tomorrows.

  ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ he added before she could recover.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’m having dinner with my father, so why don’t I pick you up around nine o’clock?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Florentyna, ‘I’ll meet you there. It’s only a couple of blocks away.’

  ‘Nine o’clock tomorrow night, then.’ He bent forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Good night, Jessie,’ he said, and disappeared into the night.

  Once he was out of sight, Florentyna walked slowly to her apartment, wishing she hadn’t told so many white lies. Still, it might all be over in a few days, even if she hoped it wouldn’t be.

  Florentyna left Bloomingdale’s the moment the store closed, the first time in nearly two years that she’d left before Maisie. She had a long bath, put on the prettiest dress she thought she could get away with and strolled to the Blue Angel. When she arrived, Richard was waiting for her outside the cloakroom. He held her hand as they walked into the lounge, where the voice of Bobby Short came floating through the smoke-filled air: ‘Are you telling me the truth, or is it just another lie?’

  Short raised a hand to Florentyna in acknowledgement. Florentyna pretended not to notice. He had been a guest performer at the Baron on two or three occasions, and it had never occurred to her that he might remember her. Richard had noticed the gesture, and looked around to see who Short was greeting. When they took their table in the dimly lit room, Florentyna sat with her back to the piano to make sure it couldn’t happen again.

  Richard ordered a bottle of wine without letting go of her hand, then asked about her day. She didn’t want to tell him about her day; she wanted to tell him the truth. ‘Richard, there’s something I must—’

  ‘Hi, Richard.’ A tall, handsome man was standing beside the table.

  ‘Hi, Steve. May I introduce Jessie Kovats - Steve Mellon. Steve and I were at Harvard together.’

  Florentyna listened to them chat about the New York Yankees, Eisenhower’s golf handicap and why Yale was going from bad to worse. Steve eventually left with a gracious, ‘Nice to have met you, Jessie.’

  Florentyna’s moment had passed.

  Richard began to tell her of his plans once he had left business school. He hoped to come to New York and join his father’s bank, Lester’s. She’d heard that name somewhere before, but couldn’t remember in what connection. For some reason, it worried her.

  They spent a long evening together, laughing, eating, talking, and just sitting holding hands while they listened to Bobby Short. When they walked home together, Richard stopped on the corner of Fifty-Seventh and kissed her for the first time. She couldn’t recall another occasion when she was so aware of a first kiss. When he left her in the shadows of Fifty-Seventh Street, she realized that this time he had not mentioned tomorrow. She felt slightly wistful about the whole non-affair.

  Maisie was delighted when a large bunch of roses was delivered to the store the next morning, but was disappointed to find that the card was addressed to Jessie Kovats, with an invitation to join Richard for dinner. She pretended not to be interested.

  Florentyna and Richard spent most of the weekend together: a concert, a film - even the New York Knicks did not escape them. When the weekend was over, Florentyna was uncomfortably aware that she had told so many lies about herself that Richard must surely be puzzled by their many inconsistencies. It was becoming more and more difficult to tell him another entirely different, albeit true, story.

  When Richard returned to Harvard on Sunday night to start the new term she persuaded herself that her deception was unimportant, as their relationship had come to a natural end. After all, he’d probably meet a nice Radcliffe girl. But he phoned her every day of the week, and came back to New York to see her that weekend. After another month, Florentyna knew it wasn’t going to end quite as easily as she had thought. In fact, she knew she was falling in love with him. Once she had admitted this to herself, she decided it couldn’t wait any longer. This weekend she would tell him the truth.

  49

  RICHARD DAYDREAMED through the morning lecture.

  He was so much in love with the girl that he could not even con