Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye Page 18

Natalie laughed. "Well, I didn't realize it when I made the reservation. I chose it because it seemed to be fairly near to where you lived. But as soon as I saw it, I knew it wasn't your local small-town motel. But it doesn't matter, Julie. I have enough money."

"You have a sense of humor, too. That's terrific. I have a feeling we may both need to laugh a lot, to get through this."

"Julie?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for calling. I was so scared."

"I still am, Natalie. But you know, I'm really looking forward to seeing you. Whoops. I just thought of something."

"What?"

"How will I know you?"

Natalie was silent for a moment. Then she said, "Julie, I don't quite know how to tell you this, but—"

"But what?"

"I think I look just like you."

29

WHEN JULIE HUTCHINSON entered the Russian Tea Room, it was as if the curtain had been lifted and the actress was on stage, poised, acknowledging the hush that preceded the applause. Conversations stopped. Forks were lowered slowly to plates. Julie stood for a moment, half-smiling, at the front of the restaurant, aware of the sudden pause, the brief silence, and then the ripple of murmurs that moved from table to table.

Natalie watched her, from the table where she had been seated, with awe, and forgot for a moment that Julie was her mother.

Julie was incredibly beautiful. She was tall, like Natalie, and very thin; her dark hair was in a stark chignon; her eyes, pale blue, were heavily adorned with mascara and eye shadow, and her eyebrows were plucked into narrow curved arches and darkened to black. She had very little visible makeup on; but Natalie, studying her, knew that her cheekbones could not be so pronounced, her lips so artfully pink, without hours in front of a mirror. She stood like a model, her slender hands graceful at her waist, as she looked around the tables. When she saw Natalie, she smiled and waved.

As she made her way toward Natalie, she smiled and mouthed greetings to countless people who called "Julie!"; she waved toward the back at a tall man who blew her a kiss; and touched the shoulder of another as she passed.

This isn't the right place to be, thought Natalie suddenly, for this meeting.

"Natalie," said Julie softly, taking her hand.

They looked at each other. "You do," said Julie finally. "You look exactly as I did when I was your age. Looking at you is like having a mirror into the past."

Natalie had dressed carefully for the lunch. She had taken a long shower at the hotel, washed her hair, and combed it thick and straight down her back. She was wearing a yellow silk dress and small silver earrings to match the necklace that Nancy had given her for graduation. Now, beside Julie, she felt dowdy, unkempt, and inarticulate.

And she felt curiously angry at Julie, who made her feel that way.

Julie ordered for them both. The waiter called her Mrs. Hutchinson, with his heavy Slavic accent, and she told him her selections in Russian. Then she waved greetings to a shaggy-haired man in theatrical makeup who had joined a group at a nearby table.

"Now," she said, turning to Natalie. "We must talk and talk. There is so much to catch up on, isn't there? First I want to know how you found me."

It was hard to remember, suddenly. Natalie told her slowly about the trip to Simmons' Mills. About Anna Talbot. The librarian. Foster Goodwin, who was dead.

Julie made a face. "I hated Foster Goodwin," she said. "In fact, I hated that town and almost everything about it. My house—did you see my house?"

"Yes. I drove up Falls Road. The woman who lives there let me go up the driveway and see the front. I didn't go inside."

Julie frowned. "When I moved to Simmons' Mills, I loved that house. It was so sort of Gothic, mysterious, glamorous. I thought maybe it would be fun living there after all, even though I'd hated leaving Detroit. But then as it turned out, the house set me apart from the other kids in the town. Being up on the hill. I never, in the time I lived there—it was only for my sophomore year in high school—really felt part of the town. It was my fault as much as the town's, of course."

Lunch had come. Julie picked up her fork and touched the food on her plate absently. "So Foster Goodwin's dead. I remember the day he came to the hospital, with those papers. If I could have killed him myself, right then, I would have. But of course he was only doing what he had to do. He was right, of course. Doc Therrian had told me the same thing. Did you see him? Now there was a man I loved. Please don't tell me that he's gone, too."

"I was getting to that. It was Dr. Therrian who told me who you were, Julie. He's very sick. I went to the hospital to see him, and Julie, when I went in, he thought I was you."

"I'm not surprised. He and I were very close, and you look so much as I did, then."

Natalie told her of the phone calls that had led, finally, to Margaret Jeffries in Detroit. Julie smiled.

"Mother's so proud of me. And her grandchildren. Did she tell you I have two little boys?"

Natalie nodded. And me, she thought. You have me, too.

"Somehow," Julie said, "she finally managed to put that whole incident at Simmons' Mills out of her mind. I really think she's forgotten about it. It was very hard on her and Daddy. They were angry, and embarrassed. If it hadn't been for Doc Therrian, who was so terribly kind to me—well."

"Julie," said Natalie. "I'd really like it if you could tell me what happened. And what you were like, then. So I could understand it all better."

Julie nodded and took a bite of salad. Natalie noticed the way she ate, carefully, in tiny bites, so that she wouldn't mar the perfectly applied pink lipstick.

"I will. But first I want to hear about you, Natalie. Tell me about your life."

Natalie laughed. "My life? It's so ordinary, compared to yours. My parents went to Simmons' Mills, to Foster Goodwin's office, to get me when I was five days old. I suppose you were just leaving the hospital then."

Julie made a face. "I sure was. Back to Falls Road, where no one spoke about it at all. And then whisked off to boarding school a few weeks later. When I went to Miss Sheridan's, for my junior year, I arrived late, and the story was that I'd 'been traveling.' Some trip. To the Simmons' Mills delivery room."

She sounded bitter.

"Well," Natalie went on, after a moment, "my family lives in Branford, down near Portland. My dad's a doctor. Funny thing, after they adopted me, a few months later, my mother became pregnant. I guess that happens often; someone who can't have a baby suddenly has one after they adopt the first."

"I wouldn't know," said Julie. "Infertility has not been one of my problems."

Please don't, thought Natalie. Don't sound angry about me. None of this was my fault.

"So I have a sister," she said finally. "Nancy. She's terrific. What else can I tell you? I graduated from high school this spring, and next month I'll start at MacKenzie College. I'm going to be a doctor, like my dad."

Julie was looking at her with new interest. "Pull your hair back a minute, Natalie."

Natalie put down her fork, and held her hair behind her head.

"You know," said Julie, "you could be a model! I mean, really, Natalie, you have the same facial bones I have, and the same eyes. That's what made me successful. I've really gotten too old, now, or will soon. I'm thirty-three; imagine. But, Natalie, ten years ago, even five years ago, you wouldn't believe the money I was making. It was an incredible life. Hard work. But you're not afraid of hard work, are you?"

Natalie shook her head. "No, but—"

"If you'd let me take you to a salon where they'd restyle your hair. And then I could advise you on how to dress and use makeup. You know, with something black on, and some very elegant, clunky jewelry. Well, look, that necklace you're wearing; it's cute, you know, but, really—"

Natalie put her hand protectively around the silver necklace that was Nancy's gift. Don't, she thought.

Julie was talking on and on. "You can't imagine the feeling, Natalie, of having your face on the covers of magazines. Walking into parties and having everyone turn to look at you. They used to say 'Julie Jeffries' in whispers when I entered a room. They could do that to you. What's your last name? I've forgotten."

"Armstrong," said Natalie.

Julie frowned. "Well, I think you'd want to change that. The first name is nice. You could even call yourself Natalia; you know, make it a little more exotic, and then think up a last name with a little foreign flavor to it. Or maybe no last name at all! Just: Natalia."

Stop it, thought Natalie angrily. Don't take my name away from me. You did that once, already.

"Thank you, Julie," she said aloud. "But I really want to be a doctor. I guess I won't have as glamorous a life, or make as much money, but it's what I want."

"Oh," said Julie, surprised, her hand fluttering in a gesture. "I see. Well, if you should change your mind."

The waiter took their plates, and brought tea. Julie glanced at the platinum watch on her wrist.

"Darling, I'm going to have to dash. It's been such fun, seeing you. And I've brought you something. You asked what I was like, when I was your age. I'm not at all sure it's something I want to remember, but for some reason I've kept this all these years. It's the little diary I kept that year in Simmons' Mills. You read it if you want to, and I think it will answer all your questions. Then—when do you have to go back?"

"Tomorrow. My plane leaves at five."

"Well, then, why don't you come on over to the apartment around two? Phil will be gone for the afternoon. The children will be there, but their nurse keeps them out of the way. We'll have tea."

"All right. Thank you." Natalie took the small blue leather book that Julie had removed from her purse.

"I'm afraid you'll find it very immature and sad," Julie said, laughing lightly.

"I suppose you were," answered Natalie. "Immature and sad."

"What?" Julie looked startled. She wiped her lips carefully with her napkin and gathered her pocketbook and the bill for the lunch. "Oh. Yes. Goodness, I guess you're right. I certainly was. Bye, love. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

And she was gone, in a flurry of waves across the restaurant again. Natalie sat at the table alone for a moment, holding the small blue book on her lap.

Then she left the Russian Tea Room, disregarded Julie's advice about taxis, and walked all the way back to the hotel. The streets were clearly marked, and she had no trouble finding her way from the west side of Manhattan to the east, over to Fifth Avenue, and north to Central Park. The city crowds surged around her; occasionally someone glanced at her with an appraising admiration, and she was aware that she did have Julie's eyes, Julie's face; that she was, or could be, as beautiful as Julie.

Ahead of her she saw her hotel, familiar now, and felt some satisfaction that she had found the way alone. But at the same time she had never felt so completely, so painfully, lost.

30

THE HANDWRITING (Natalie smiled) was like Nancy's: round, cute, with circles instead of dots over the i's. Young.

The diary, with a page designated for each day, was like all such diaries, like those she had kept herself when she was younger; she remembered writing on an inside cover once: nancy Armstrong you rat you keep your nose out of this book. Julie's diary had no such admonitions; but there were the same blank pages, as when you didn't bother writing, or forgot. The days when you wrote in large handwriting, because nothing much had happened but you wanted to fill the page anyway; and the occasional day when so much had taken place that you ran over the page into the next day's date. The things that seemed so important and private when you were fourteen; and later, when you reread them, seemed no more than the secrets of all children.