had bought her some pretty little dresses in Paris, and a new doll, which she loved. And she told them solemnly that they were never to go away without her again.
They closed the shop in August for a month’s vacation at Lake Tahoe, and when they got home, everything they had bought in Europe had arrived. It took them and Tim Avery days to unpack it all, and place it advantageously in the shop. Their storeroom on the third floor was full again, and they had to send some of the larger pieces to the barn in Tahoe, until they sold some of the new pieces in the shop.
Their regular customers leapt on the beautiful new things they’d brought back, and the business continued to thrive.
They hardly saw the time passing for the next dozen years. They made several more successful buying trips to Europe. The economies had improved there, although more slowly than in the States. But Europe proved to be their best resource for antiques, as one by one the great estates disappeared, and noble families gave up their homes, and Americans bought them and their contents and had the money to do so.
Alex and Eleanor no longer traveled by ship for their buying trips, but flew to save time. They had taken Camille with them on two occasions, once she was in her teens, but she had complained and been bored the entire time. She had no interest in her parents’ business, and thought it was depressing the way they sold relics from the past, and lived on the remnants of past grandeur. Her previously easy nature changed when she was about fifteen. She hated the schools they put her in, ridiculed their traditions, and was rebellious at every opportunity. They wanted her to attend college, and she flatly refused to consider it and said she had no interest in anything they would teach there. They had a major showdown with her when Eleanor talked to her about making her debut at the San Francisco Cotillion Debutante Ball when she turned eighteen. The grand balls of the past no longer existed in 1958, few people could afford them, nor had the homes for them, but a joint ball, the cotillion, had been established where roughly twenty young ladies of good families with aristocratic lineage were invited to “come out” and be presented to society, as had been the tradition in the past. Camille was outraged by the very idea, and tore up the letter inviting her to be one of them when it arrived.
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” she shouted at her mother. She was as beautiful as ever, tall and blond with blue eyes and a striking figure, but headstrong and difficult, and had been for the past three years. Her whole personality had changed, as both Alex and Eleanor struggled with her. She was due to graduate from high school in June, and was in her third school in four years. She was determined to be a rebel. Her teen years had been trying for Eleanor, although Alex had more patience with her, though not always better results. She was determined to reject everything they stood for, and thought they were dinosaurs left over from an antiquated world that was no longer relevant and was on its way out. She opposed everything that reeked of tradition, and making her debut was top of that list.
“There are no people of color at the cotillion, no Italians or Jews or anyone except people like you. Did you ever think of that?” she said with a look of disgust. And her father conceded that she had a point, but that might change one day, and he knew that although Camille’s motives in not making her debut sounded noble, mostly she just didn’t want to do what was expected of her, or anything that would please her parents. Her rejection of them was painful. She was in full rebellion, and her sweetness as a young child had disappeared. They had expected her teenage years to be challenging, but Camille was extreme.
Eleanor had lovingly shown Camille her own debut dress, carefully packed away thirty years before, and Camille ridiculed it.
“I’d look like a freak in that, you probably did too,” she said disparagingly of the beautiful gown by the House of Worth that Eleanor had been thrilled to wear. “Everything you and Dad do is so old fashioned. It’s all so yesterday. You’re living in