Frank De Felitta: Audrey Rose

Bill watched Ivy tip the plate of cereal to gain the last mouthful. The satin hand-painted purse rested alongside her plate, where she could glance at it and lovingly contemplate its beauty between each spoonful. She obviously couldn’t let it out of her sight.

“Is it really what you always wanted?” Bill asked, launching on a little fishing expedition.

“Oh, yes,” Ivy said with a sincere smile.

“Or are you just saying that to please me?”

“Oh, no, Daddy. I’ve always wanted it, really.”

Bill paused, mentally phrasing his next question with care.

“To want it so badly, you must have seen it someplace.”

Ivy looked at Bill quizzically but made no reply.

“Did you see it in a store someplace?”

“No,” Ivy said. “I never saw it in a store.” Clearly, she was puzzled by this line of questioning and was seeking a clue to what answers Bill expected of her.

“Well, if you never saw it before, how did you know it was really what you wanted?” Bill demanded, his voice rising.

“I don’t know, Daddy. I just knew.”

“But to want something very badly has to mean that you know what it is you want. Which means that you have to have seen it someplace.” Bill’s voice had become strident.

Confused, Ivy observed him nervously.

“Well?” Bill shouted.

“Leave her alone, Bill.” Janice said quietly.

Bill looked up and saw Janice standing at the kitchen doorway. He didn’t know how long she had been standing there but long enough, obviously, to have taken in the gist of the interrogation.

“I didn’t see it anyplace, Daddy!” Ivy cried, tears spilling from her eyes. “I guess I just wanted it because … because—” she picked up the purse and fingered the painting with a delicate caress—“because it’s just like a part of our lives. It’s like we are, in this apartment … like the paintings in the ceiling.… It’s perfect, and I love it … and when I first saw it yesterday, I knew right away that I loved it … you know? Like you see something and it’s so perfect that you know you’ve always wanted it, even though you’ve never seen it before.…” Having noted the long, silent exchange between her mother and father, Ivy realized that somehow she was the cause of what was happening and that even if she didn’t understand it, there were fences to mend and she was expected to do it. “I loved it without knowing about it. Like you knew I would when you bought it for me.” She opened the purse and took out a dainty handkerchief. As she wiped the tears from her cheeks, she looked across at Bill with eyes that begged understanding and offered love. “I’m sorry, Daddy, if I’ve made you angry.”

Bill knocked the sugar bowl over in his eagerness to reach across the table to clasp her hand in his and assure his overwrought daughter that he was not angry at all, that he simply had a superanalytical mind that liked to dig and delve into the whys and wherefores of things.

His apologies humbly proffered, plus kisses, hugs, and a hundred tiny endearments, Bill excused himself and went upstairs to shower, shave, and dress, leaving a happy, fully restored Ivy to tussle over the morning’s program in TV Guide and a frightened, totally confused Janice to clean up the spilled sugar and clear the breakfast dishes.

Janice sat in her rocker, immobile. She had the fixed, intensely vacuous look of a person caught in a witch’s spell. Her eyes, unblinking, seemingly focused on a pinpoint of dust halfway across the room, were in reality turned inward, into the churning depths of her own stunned brain.

Bill had not bought the gift.

This single stunning thought was the sole subject of her entire concentration.

The sounds from above of smothered laughter and subdued girl talk between Ivy and Bettina Carew could not penetrate the tough shield of privacy she had built around herself. Not even Bill’s softly querulous admonition to the children to “keep it down a bit” so that he could grab a couple of hours before dinner, managed to pierce the vacuum of her seclusion.

Bill had not bought the gift.

Janice could have known immediately if she had allowed herself. The air had been humming with signs and hints—a thousand little giveaways. Bill’s odd, puzzled look when she showed him the gift. His eagerness to see what it contained as Ivy undid the wrappings. His strange, sullen behavior at dinner, hardly touching his steak. And pretending to be asleep when she crawled into bed beside him. He was in no mood for her, obviously. His mind was fully taken by other matters. Which kept him awake until almost dawn. And then the weird inquisition at breakfast, those paranoid questions, cruelly scaring the wits out of Ivy.

What she had considered abnormal behavior, totally alien to Bill’s nature, was in actuality completely normal when put in its proper context. He was simply reflecting the concerns of a sane and reasonable parent, seeking the source of an unsigned gift his daughter had received, worried about who the sender was and how it had got into his food parcel.

Janice hated herself for not having told Bill about the man. She could have spared him all this anguish. For as certain as she was that Bill hadn’t bought Ivy’s gift, she knew who had.

She must tell Bill about the man.

Now. As soon as he awakened. Before the Federicos arrived.

Russ Federico did the honors at the liquor cart, measuring out exact amounts of gin and vermouth in a twelve-to-one ratio, while Bill still slept upstairs.

Janice, camouflaging her mood in a gay and festive ruffly-sleeved peasant blouse and evening skirt with flower appliqué, was in the kitchen. She finished basting the huge sirloin roast, then carefully peeled back the foil from chicken segments of Ivy’s TV dinner to allow it to crisp. Ivy preferred dining in her room whenever the Federicos came, and Janice didn’t mind. Opera talk bored Ivy almost as much as the music did.

Bill awoke to a crisp, ice-cold dry martini, lovingly placed in his hand by Janice.

“A Federico special,” Janice said, kissing the tip of his nose.

Bill yawned deeply and took a sip of the drink.

“I’ll be right down.”

“Don’t bother getting dressed,” Janice advised as she left the room. “He’s wearing a jump suit.”

She would tell Bill about the man after the Federicos went home.

The dinner followed its usual familiar pattern. Like one of Russ’ records, the conversation held no surprises as they tracked across the same wearisome grounds of opera, bridge, the charm of the old Met, and its graceless replacement.

After dinner, they decided to forgo bridge for Rossini’s II Barbiere di Siviglia, a recent RCA recording featuring Robert Merrill as Figaro, in excellent voice. Janice sensed it would be an early evening and was happy about it. Russ and Carole left soon after ten.

Usually, Bill helped Janice collect the dishes while she arranged them in the dishwasher, but tonight he excused himself. It would have been a good time for them to have talked. By the time Janice loaded the dishes, looked in on Ivy, and entered their bedroom Bill was already asleep. Or pretended to be.

Janice sat on the edge of the bed beside him and softly touched his face.

“Bill,” she whispered, “I’ve got to talk to you. It’s important.”

His eyes remained closed.

“Dear,” she said, a bit louder.

The rhythm of his breathing remained even, uninterrupted.

He really was asleep.

Janice’s face was flushed and perspiring.

Eyes open, lips parted.

The dark silhouette of Bill’s head and shoulders moved rhythmically above her. Playing peekaboo with the painting on the ceiling. Lush, heady, fulsome nudes cavorting merrily in the sparkling woodland stream. Ripe breasts. Rosy nipples. Wet, sensuous lips forming an O of ecstasy. Appearing and disappearing in staccato motion. Gaining in rapidity as the crisis nears.