Paradise Read online

  At the end of the article, the writer had asked Cyril about his successors and, as Meredith thought about her grandfather’s reply, she felt a lump in her throat: “My son has already succeeded me to the presidency,” Cyril had said. “He has one child, and when the time comes for her to take over the presidency of Bancroft & Company, I have every faith Meredith will carry on admirably. I only wish I could be alive to see it.” Meredith knew that if her father had his way, she would never assume the presidency of Bancroft’s. Although he’d always discussed the operation of the store with her, just as his father had done with him, he was adamantly opposed to her ever working there. She made that discovery while they were having dinner soon after her grandfather’s funeral. In the past, she’d repeatedly mentioned her intention of following tradition and taking her place at Bancroft’s, but either he hadn’t listened or he hadn’t believed her. That night he did take her seriously, and he informed her with brutal frankness that he did not expect her to succeed him, nor did he want her to. That was a privilege he planned to reserve for a future grandson. Then he coldly acquainted Meredith with an entirely different tradition and one he intended she follow: Bancroft women did not work at the store, or anywhere else, for that matter. Their duty was to be exemplary wives and mothers, and to donate whatever additional talents and time they had to charitable and civic endeavors.

  Meredith wasn’t willing to accept that; she couldn’t, not now. It was too late. Long before she’d fallen in love with Parker—or thought she had—she had fallen in love with “her” store. By the time she was six, she was already on a first-name basis with all of the doormen and security clerks. At twelve she knew the names of every vice president and what his responsibilities were. At thirteen she’d asked to accompany her father to New York, where she’d spent an afternoon at Bloomingdale’s, being shown around the store, while her father attended a meeting in the auditorium. When they left New York, she’d already formed her own opinions—not all of them correct—about why Bancroft’s was superior to “Bloomie’s.”

  Now, at eighteen, she already had a general knowledge of things like workers compensation problems, profit margins, merchandising techniques, and product liability problems. Those were the things that fascinated her, the things she wanted to study, and she was not going to spend the next four years of her life taking classes in romance languages and Renaissance art!

  When she told him that, he had slammed his hand down on the table with a crash that made the dishes jump. “You are going to Maryville, where both your grandmothers have gone, and you will continue to live at home! At home!” he reiterated. “Is that clear? The subject is closed!” Then he’d shoved his chair back and left.

  As a child, Meredith had done everything to please him, and please him she had—with her grades, her manners, and her deportment. In fact, she’d been a model daughter. Now, however, she was finally realizing that the price of pleasing her father and maintaining the peace was becoming much higher: It required subjugating her individuality and surrendering all her dreams for her own future, not to mention sacrificing a social life!

  His absurd attitude toward her dating or going to parties wasn’t her main problem right now, but it had become a sharp point of contention and embarrassment for her this summer. Now that she was eighteen, he appeared to be tightening restrictions instead of loosening them. If Meredith had a date, he personally met the young man at the door and subjected him to a lengthy cross-examination while treating him with an insulting contempt that was intended to intimidate him into never asking her out again. Then he set a ridiculously early curfew of midnight. If she spent the night at Lisa’s, he invented a reason to call her and make certain she was there. If she went out for a drive in the evening, he wanted an itinerary of where she was going; when she came back home he wanted an accounting of every minute she’d been gone. After all those years in private schools with the strictest possible rules, she wanted a taste of complete freedom. She’d earned it. She deserved it. The idea of living at home for the next four years, under her father’s increasingly watchful eye, was unbearable and unnecessary.

  Until now she’d never openly rebelled, for rebellion only ignited his temper. He hated being opposed by anyone and, once riled, he could remain frigidly angry for weeks. But it wasn’t only fear of his anger that had made her acquiesce to him in the past. In the first place, part of her longed for his approval. In the second place, she could understand how humiliated he must have been by her mother’s behavior and the scandal that had followed. When Parker had told her about all that, he’d said her father’s overprotective attitude toward Meredith was probably due to the fear of losing her—for she was all he had—and partly to the fear that she might inadvertently do something to reawaken the talk about the scandal her mother had created. Meredith didn’t particularly like that last idea, but she’d accepted it, and so she’d spent five weeks of the summer trying to reason with him; when that failed, she’d resorted to arguing. Yesterday, however, the hostilities between them had erupted into their first raging battle. The bill for her tuition deposit had come from Northwestern University, and Meredith had taken it to him in his study. Calmly and quietly, she had said, “I am not going to go to Maryville. I’m going to Northwestern and getting a degree that’s worth something.”

  When she handed him the bill, he tossed it aside and regarded her with an expression that made her stomach cramp. “Really?” he jeered. “And just how do you plan to pay your tuition? I’ve told you I won’t pay it, and you can’t touch a cent of your inheritance until you’re thirty. It’s too late to try for a scholarship now, and you’ll never qualify for a student loan, so you can forget about it. You will live here at home and go to Maryville. Do you understand me, Meredith?”

  Years of suppressed resentment came spilling out, bursting past Meredith’s dam of control. “You’re completely irrational!” she cried. “Why can’t you understand—”

  He stood up slowly, deliberately, his gaze slicing over her with savage contempt. “I understand perfectly!” he sneered furiously. “I understand there are things you want to do—and people you want to do them with—that you know damned well I wouldn’t approve of. That’s why you want to go to a big university and live on campus! What appeals to you most, Meredith? Is it the opportunity to live in coed dorms with boys swarming through the halls and crawling into your bed? Or is it—”

  “You are sick!”

  “And you are just like your mother! You’ve had the best of everything and all you want is the chance to crawl into bed with the scum of the world—”

  “Damn you!” Meredith had blazed, stunned by the force of her own uncontrollable rage. “I’ll never forgive you for that. Never.” Pivoting on her heel, she had headed for the door.

  Behind her, his voice boomed like a thunderclap. “Where do you think you’re going!”

  “Out!” she had flung over her shoulder. “And another thing, I won’t be home by midnight. I’m through with curfews!”

  “Come back here!” he shouted. Meredith ignored him and walked down the hall and out the front door. Her fury only intensified as she flung herself into the white Porsche he’d given her on her sixteenth birthday. Her father was demented. He was sick! She spent the evening with Lisa and deliberately stayed out until almost three A.M. Her father was waiting up for her when she returned, pacing in the foyer. He roared and called her names that tore at her heart, but for the first time in her life Meredith wasn’t intimidated by his wrath. She endured his vicious verbal attack, and with every cruel word he said, her resolve to defy him increased.

  Protected from interlopers and sightseers by a tall iron fence and a guard at the gatehouse, the Glenmoor Country Club sprawled across acres of majestic lawns dotted with flowering shrubs and flower beds. A long, curving drive lit by ornamental gas lamps meandered through stately oak and maple trees to the front door of the club, then curved back again to the main road. The club itself, a rambling three-story white-brick s