I want some … you get some too…I love you… we'll talk about it tomorrow… it's called living together… that's something good …” He was almost asleep.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, smiling to herself, too excited to go to sleep. She just lay there looking at him, as Adam rolled over, dead to the world, and snored.
19
CHARLIE PICKED CAROLE UP PROMPTLY AT NOON ON Friday and took her to lunch at La Goulue. It was a fashionable restaurant on Madison Avenue, with a good menu and a lively crowd. He felt less compelled to take her to simple down-to-earth restaurants, now that he knew who she was, and it was fun for both of them to go someplace nice. They had a delicious lunch, and then wandered up Madison Avenue, looking into the shops.
For the first time, she opened up with him about her early life. Gray had been right. Blue blood and fancy houses didn't necessarily make for a happy childhood. She talked about how cold and distant her parents had been, how chilly with each other, and emotionally and physically unavailable to her. She had been brought up by a nanny, never saw her parents, and she said her mother was a human block of ice. She had had no siblings to comfort her, she was an only child. She said she had gone weeks sometimes without seeing her parents, and they were deeply upset about the path she had chosen for her life. She had come to hate everything her world represented, the hypocrisy, the obsession with material possessions, the indifference to people's feelings, and lack of respect for anyone who hadn't been born into that life. It was obvious, listening to her, that she had been a lonely child. She had eventually gone from their icy indifference to her to the lavish abuses of the man she had married, who, as Gray had suspected, had married her because of who she was. When he left her finally, she had wanted to divorce herself not only from him, but from everything that had drawn him to her in the first place, and a set of values she had hated all her life.
“You can't do that, Carole,” Charlie said gently. There had been times when he wanted to do that himself, although not to the degree she had, but she had paid a higher price. “You have to accept who you are. You're doing wonderful things for the children you work with. You don't have to strip yourself of everything you are to do that. You can actually enjoy both worlds.”
“I never enjoyed my childhood,” she said honestly. “I hated everything about it from the time I was a little girl. People either wanted to play with me because of who I was, or didn't want to play with me because of who I was. I never knew which to expect, and it got to be too much work to figure it out.” He could see how that would happen, and it reminded him of something as they walked along. He hesitated to mention it to her so soon after they hadn't seen each other for so long. But it was as though they had never been apart. Her arm was tucked into his as they strolled up Madison Avenue, chatting as though he'd never left. He felt as though he belonged in her life, and she had exactly the same feeling.
“You're probably going to kill me for this,” he began cautiously as they crossed Seventy-second Street, heading north. The weather had turned cold, but it was crisp and clear. She was wearing a wool hat, and a cashmere scarf and gloves, and he had turned up the collar of his coat. “I go to an event every year that you probably don't want to go to, given everything you've said. But I always feel I have to, and this year two of my friends' daughters are coming out. I go to the Infirmary Ball every year, where they present the debutantes. Aside from the obvious social complications, it's always a nice party. Would you come with me, Carole?” he asked hopefully, and she laughed. After the speeches she'd been making him about how much she hated “their world,” she knew he was probably terrified to invite her to an event where blue-blooded young girls were presented to society and “came out.” It was an archaic, snobbish tradition, but certainly one she was familiar with, as she turned