Christmas Eve day, Paul and I made it over to the Fifth Avenue Skating Pond in Central Park. I loved to skate, having learned on Bird Pond near our house in Connecticut, but rarely practiced, since I avoided most activities that made me look taller than necessary. Plus, I’d never had anyone to skate with before. Betty would have rather swallowed live bees than be seen on skates. I vowed to take full advantage of Paul’s time in New York.
It was perfect skating weather that day, clear and sharp with a stiff wind, which overnight had made the ice smooth as the finish on a billiard ball. As a result, the flag atop Belvedere Castle was up, the red sphere on a white field every skater coveted. Word that the ice was ready passed from doorman to doorman along Fifth Avenue, and the pond became thick with skaters as a result.
The first tier of skaters was already there when Paul and I arrived. The men, near professionals, performed their genuflections and whirligig spins, icicles on their beards and noses. Then the ladies arrived, two or three at a time, their heavy coats like sails blowing them across the ice. With a little practice, Paul proved to be a serviceable skater, and arms linked, we glided throughout the network of adjoining ponds. My old self never would have skated in such a public place, but I tackled the ice with vigor, and we soon found a nice rhythm together. Suddenly I felt like trying every sort of new thing.
We sailed under arched bridges to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Waldteufel’s The Skaters’ Waltz, which couldn’t have sounded lovelier, even transmitted through the skate shack’s tinny speakers.
The ice grew more crowded, so we skated back toward the shack, the scent of warm chestnuts in the air. We were about to sit and change out of our skates when I heard my name.
“Caroline. Over here.”
It was David Stockwell. He skated to us and stopped with a sharp edge and a smile, posing like something out of a Brooks Brothers advertisement, drawing his jacket back with one gloved fist. How could David act as if nothing had ever happened between us, as if up and marrying an acquaintance after stringing me along for ten years was completely natural?
“Hey, who’s this guy, Caroline?” David said.
Was that a flash of jealousy? David did seem small by comparison. Would he think Paul and I were romantically engaged? Slim chance of that. Paul was keeping his distance and gave off only friend signals, not even standing close to me. What if he did show David I was his? Thinking about that made me wish it were true.
Paul extended his hand. “Paul Rodierre.”
David shook it. “David Stockwell. I’ve known Caroline since—”
“We really must be going,” I said.
“Sally is over there lacing up. She’d hate to miss you.”
I’d had advance warning about Sally from Betty, of course. Her new sister-in-law was a petite girl whom Mrs. Stockwell had showered with a haute couture wedding trousseau the cost of which could have fed half of New York for a year. I gave David my best “we really can’t stay” look.
He turned to Paul. “I’m with the State Department. Working to keep us out of the war. Heard about your speech at the gala. Seems you’re working to get us into it.”
“Just telling the truth,” Paul said.
“It was our most successful event ever,” I said.
Paul skated closer to me and linked my arm in his. “Yes, darling, overwhelming, wasn’t it?”
Darling?
David blinked, taken aback.
I moved closer to Paul. “Deafening applause. And the donations. Everyone’s behind France now.”
Sally Stockwell skated toward us through the crowd. It was hard to ignore the smallness of her, maybe five feet two inches tall. She was done up in full skating costume, boiled wool A-line skating skirt, a snug little quilted Tyrolean jacket, and white fur of some kind at the top of her skates. The yarn tassle on the knitted cap she wore, tied under her pretty chin, swayed as she neared.
“You must be Caroline,” Sally said. She stretched a white angora-mittened hand out to me, and I shook it.
Sally was more Olivia de Havilland than Bette Davis and impossible to dislike, with a disarming honesty that made even the most trivial conversation awkward.
“David’s told me everything about you. ‘Caroline helps French babies. Caroline and I starred in our first play together—’ ”
“I was Caroline’s first leading man,” David said. “Played Sebastian to her Olivia.”