Catherine leaned forward. "Robin, you're pregnant!"

"Of course. How do you think I got the fool to marry me?" Robin laughed. "Oh, he would have eventually, this just helps speed things along. We're both delighted about the baby, really. Of course Mother's acting like I've escaped from a reform school, but Daddy's amazing, he's great about it. The only thing I really hate about it all is that I had my heart set on a spring wedding. Apple blossoms and a tent and all that. And I have a great collarbone. I wanted to show it off in a summery gown. G.o.d knows I can't show off anything else for a while."

Catherine looked at the Corot above the marble fireplace, the Faberge egg in its stand on the mantel, the Staffordshire hounds by the hearth, the heavy silk drapes at the French doors.

"You could have a spring wedding if you really wanted it," she said. "Indoors, with a rose trellis and trees in blossom and all that."

"You're kidding!" Robin said. "How?"

"It would take some work. It would be like setting a stage. Illusion. Of course it would cost the earth-"

"Oh, who cares what it costs, I'm their only daughter-Mum! Come here! Catherine's had the best idea!"

It was spitting sleet the late January afternoon when Catherine and Piet drove out to East Hampton in the florist van with a U-Haul trailer weaving drunkenly behind. At Everly, they discovered, the wind was even wilder, sweeping across the water and land in a frenzy.

Catherine was fairly frenzied herself. She had a clear idea in her head of what she wanted to do. She had made sketches and discussed it with Piet and Mr. Vanderveld, but the wedding was tomorrow evening. With these wedding flowers it was a do-or-die situation. There was no dress rehearsal for the flowers. She felt like a diver about to attempt her first triple somersault from a ten-meter board. If she did it perfectly, she'd be famous. If she made a mistake ... the results could be disastrous, and there was no second chance.

Earlier she had called her grandmother and received permission and directions to the part of her land where Catherine could cut some saplings. Piet parked the van on the edge of the forest. In boots and heavy jackets and gloves, they tromped around searching, yelling at each other over the wind. They found eight bare deciduous trees with trunks about three inches thick, about ten feet tall. Piet used a hatchet to cut them close to the ground.

Catherine helped Piet get them out of the forest and into the van and trailer. The wind tore the trees from their grips and flipped the small branches into their eyes. It was like wrestling witches.

But finally the trees were in the van, clattering against the metal walls. Catherine and Piet returned to a more protected part of the forest where the ivy had not been discolored by winter and carefully tore the vines away from the trees. Catherine had bought some from the wholesaler-but had she bought enough? She ripped at the vines, the wind shrieking, carrying the vines away from her like a kite's tail, until Piet gently led her away.

"Enough!" he said. "We have enough."

The drive back to the city was terrifying. The roads were covered with ice, and visibility was limited to a curtain of blowing sleet.

"It was a mistake to rent the U-Haul," Catherine said after they had skidded several times. "It's so high and light, it catches the wind."

"We'll make it," Piet said.

"I don't know, I don't know," Catherine said. "I wish we had done this yesterday. I was a fool to wait until now."

"We'll only lose about an hour's time," Piet said.

"We don't have an hour to lose," Catherine said grimly. "Oh, G.o.d! Watch out!"

Piet steadied the van, which seemed more to be floating above the road than actually touching it. With the trailer teetering behind, the van rocked back and forth like a sinking ship on a tossing sea.

"Oh, G.o.d," Catherine moaned.

"Close your eyes, Catherine," Piet said. "You have a busy day ahead. Save your energies. Rest."

"Oh, sure," Catherine snapped. "The one event that could make my fame and fortune, and I'm supposed to sleep."

Piet reached across the cab and put his hand on Catherine's neck. She jumped.

"Lie down," he said. "Use my leg as a pillow. Don't watch the road, it will only make you anxious. Rest."

She didn't resist the gentle force of his hand as he pulled her so that she lay on the seat, her head on his thigh. His leg was as hard as iron. How could he possibly think she could use it as a pillow? The heater was blowing, the air of the cab was warm, and Piet had unb.u.t.toned his navy pea coat, which was bunched up behind her head. She could feel the muscles of his body as he downshifted or turned. She could smell him-clove gum, fresh air, the hot denim smell of his jeans. She could not help but think of what her face would be nestling against if she were turned in the other direction, facing against the seat, and his body, and the fork of his legs.

Before she knew it, they were pulling up in front of the Waldorf-Astoria. She hadn't slept, but she certainly had stopped worrying.

The Vandervelds were already there, along with Jesus and Manuel. Thousands of flowers had been brought in and were standing in buckets. Robin's wedding would take place in a small formal room used for c.o.c.ktails and meetings, then the wall, which was really two accordion part.i.tions, would be pushed back to open onto the main ballroom for the reception and dinner dance. Earlier Catherine had overseen the setting up of the trellised arbor where the vows would take place and the draping of the pink-and-white-striped tent top across the ceiling of the ballroom.

Now her workers anch.o.r.ed the eight trees in buckets of sand, which had been placed around the ballroom. Standing on light metal ladders, they began to fasten pink-rimmed white carnations to the bare limbs of the trees with precut snippets of florist wire. At Catherine's request, Jesus and Manuel had brought their girlfriends to help. The girls cut the carnation stems short and handed them up to the men, who tied them. There were buckets and buckets of carnations-over a thousand, a little over one hundred for each tree.

Catherine and Piet drove the van back to the flower shop to get the pedestal stands she had sprayed white, the pots of azaleas and gardenias, the small wicker picnic baskets, the bows, the roses, the tuberoses, the stephanotis, and the forced white lilacs.

"My Gott!" Henny Vanderveld had shrieked on seeing the white lilacs. "What have you done! How much did these cost? Too much!"

"Henny, the Terrys will pay for them," Catherine had said, controlling her temper.

"Foolish girl, spendthrift, you'll be the ruin of yourself and the shop, you'll see," Henny had muttered under her breath.

"Oh, disappear, you old witch," Catherine had muttered under hers.

Now the Vandervelds had gone home to sleep, thank G.o.d. Piet, Jesus, Manuel, and their girlfriends worked tirelessly. Catherine played the radio full volume on a rock and roll station. At three in the morning she sent out for hot pastrami sandwiches, coffee, and sweet rolls.

The tables had already been set up in the ballroom by the hotel. Catherine covered them in the pink-and-white-striped cotton that matched the tented ceiling. She placed a wicker basket with a pale green bow on the handle as the centerpiece on each table. Later, just before the wedding, she would bring around the lush pink roses and white daisy mums to place in the baskets.

The trees were finished earlier than Catherine had thought, about nine o'clock the morning of the wedding. Never having done such a thing before, she had thought it wiser to allow more than enough time to wire a thousand carnations to eight trees. Everyone went home for a quick nap, promising to return at four that afternoon for the final touches. The wedding was called for seven-thirty.

Catherine didn't nap. She showered and fixed her hair and packed a dress bag and suitcase. As Robin's friend, she was invited to the wedding, but she could hardly wear her evening dress to finish the flowers in. She forced herself to lie down on her bed, but her mind would not turn off in spite of the night without sleep. She kept going over details. Had they remembered ... had they done ...

She was back at the Waldorf-Astoria before anyone else. Good thing, for the Neanderthals bringing in the two fountains she had rented were there early. She had to tell them where to put them, at one end of the ballroom on each side of the bandstand. She draped the fountains and the area around them with ivy, then set buckets of azaleas here and there, so people would not trip on the electric cord that made the water cascade with a lovely summer splashing sound from tier to tier. Once the fountains were running, she took the water lilies that had been waiting in buckets and floated them in the lowest pool.

Then she started on the trellised arbor in the smaller room where the actual ceremony would take place. First she draped it all with variegated ivy. Then Mr. Vanderveld arrived to help her wire white and pink roses, gardenias, daisy mums, carnations, and the sinfully expensive lilacs to the trellis. Catherine rested for a few moments, sitting on a folding chair, sipping coffee, admiring Mr. Vanderveld. He was so a.s.sured of his skill that his movements with the flowers looked abrupt, even brutal. He didn't waste a twist of the wrist. His hands flew. Secretly Catherine despaired of ever learning his secrets-one swift motion, and a rose or a heavy spray of lilacs was anch.o.r.ed in the trellis, curving and pointing as naturally as if it had grown there, instead of hanging down stupidly the way it often did for Catherine.

Other workers from the hotel were in the room now, setting up the chairs for the guests at the ceremony and around the tables in the ballroom. The band members arrived and tuned up. Piet, Jesus, Manuel, and the two girls arrived. They put the pink roses and white daisy mums in the picnic baskets on the tables. Catherine had placed long, tapered pink candles on each side of the wicker baskets. Tiny, twining vinca minor vines were tied around the candlesticks and trailed down and over the sides of the table. The air was spicy with the clove fragrance of the thousand carnations, the white lilacs, and the old-fashioned grandmotherly scent of the tuberoses.

At six Robin's mother and father arrived, chattering nervously. By then Catherine had shut all the accordion part.i.tions to the ballroom. The Terrys were pleased with the flowered arbor and the potted azaleas set around the room, but when Catherine had the part.i.tions opened, revealing a ballroom with trees in full blossom, Robin's mother burst into tears.

"It's beautiful!" she cried. "It's magic!"

"It should be," Mr. Terry said gruffly. "I could have bought a house with the money I spent on the flowers."

"It's worth it!" Mrs. Terry said. "For Robin."

Mr. Vanderveld brought in Robin's bouquet, the bouquets for her matron and maids of honor, and the wicker basket full of rose petals for the flower girl. These were delivered to the rooms the Terrys had rented at the hotel for Robin and her party to dress in. Everyone took one last look to see that each flower was in place, each detail perfect. Then Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveld and the others went home.

"It's brilliant, Catherine," Piet said just before leaving.

"Thanks. Oh, Piet, I hope everyone else thinks so!"

"They will."

"Oh, Piet!" she said again, and impulsively hugged him to her. He responded by kissing her full on her mouth.

"That was for luck," he said, grinning, then grabbed up his coat and left.

Catherine went into the ladies' lounge off the ballroom and changed into the evening dress she would wear for the wedding and dance afterward. She was so tired by then, her vision was blurring, but she was still so anxious that her palms were sweating. The Terrys had been pleased with the way the ballroom looked, but she had drawn up sketches for them, so they were not surprised. What would the two hundred guests think? She would be able to mingle with them to overhear their reactions. They wouldn't know she was the one who had created it all.

The flowers had cost the Terrys a fortune. And Catherine had made a lot of money from this one affair. But it was the reaction from all the guests that really mattered. She was counting on the Terry wedding to make her name.

The flowered chamber where the ceremony took place filled with guests. Catherine, gloved, hatted, and shod in high heels, sat among them. The groom and his best man stood framed by the lilac-and-ivy arbor. Robin came down the aisle on her father's arm in a flowing off-the-shoulder ruffled dimity summer gown, fresh flowers anchoring a pearled and trailing veil in her upswept golden hair, a bouquet of cascading roses, gardenias, ivy, and lace in her hands. Robin's mother cried when her daughter stood under the flowered trellis and said, "I do." The married coupled kissed beneath the fragrant blossoms.

At last the ceremony was over. All the guests rose. The waiters pushed back the part.i.tion, and a spring flower garden in full bloom burst into view.

The room resounded with a collective gasp of surprise and delight.

The party drifted past Catherine into the ballroom, like children at a fairyland. They paused at the fountains, exclaimed over the apple blossoms, the roses, the lilies. "How clever!" "How charming! Delightful!" "It smells like springtime!" "It's a fantasyland!" everyone said.

Catherine began to cry.

At first tears ran down her face. Then she had to press her fist against her mouth to keep from sobbing. When she realized she was about to fall on the floor howling like a maniac, she hurried from the room.

She grabbed up her coat, raced down the hall to the elevator, and sped across the huge lobby and out to the street. The doorman got her a taxi. She cried all the way to Leslie's apartment.

Inside, she fell onto her bed, still wearing her evening dress and hose and high heels, and collapsed into sleep.

The phone woke her. It was Piet, saying he would pick her up and take her to the hotel to dismantle the decorations. It was six o'clock, the morning after the wedding, and they had to clear out the ballroom. The Waldorf-Astoria had another event scheduled for that evening. Last night might have been the climax of Catherine Eliot's twenty-one years, but this was New York City, and a new day.

Robin Terry's wedding made Catherine moderately famous and her shop more successful than her wildest dreams. There were photographs and write-ups about it in The New York Times, Daily News, and Women's Wear Daily and, later, in Vogue and Glamour. The New York Metropolitan Bank hired Catherine to provide their lobbies and executive offices with weekly fresh flowers using terra-cotta molds of the treasure chest flower container she had designed. Dozens of engaged women who lived in New York or Connecticut wanted her to do their wedding flowers. Restaurants called her, corporations called her, wealthy fans infatuated with actresses pleaded with her for something original and magnificent to send their adored ones on opening nights. She was called months ahead of time so that the chairwomen of charity galas would be certain of her services.

Jesus and Manuel and their girlfriends, Lina and Maria, came to work full-time for Catherine. She rented the second floor for office s.p.a.ce for Mrs. Vanderveld, a consulting room for clients that doubled as a lounge for employees, and a private office for herself. She had her grandfather's mahogany desk moved up into her office.

Along the walls of her private office, filing cabinets grew as if self-propagating because every night Catherine sat making meticulous notes about her clients. She wrote down everything: their address, the period of their decor, the subject and colors of the art on the walls, the amount of money they had been willing to spend in the past, any private observations she had about what they might want in the future. Later, when she was finished with her notes, she turned on the lights in Mrs. Vanderveld's office and checked over the daily accounts.

Catherine was obsessed with Blooms. She lived for it. She thought of nothing else. Kit was a star twinkling at the back of her mind, but Blooms was sunlight, fresh air, real life. She never cooked for herself but grabbed sandwiches from the deli or pints of ice cream or Sara Lee cheesecakes. Occasionally she had dinner with her family at her parents' Park Avenue apartment, if Sh.e.l.ly or Ann were home from school.

Her parents couldn't seem to decide how to react to Blooms. Marjorie seemed more irritated than pleased by Catherine's success. It was as if Catherine had become successful only to spite Marjorie. Marjorie was wary around her daughter, as if all her life Catherine had been hiding secrets. But her father treated Catherine with a new respect. Certainly he should. Both parents knew Catherine was giving them the money for Sh.e.l.ly and Ann's schooling, but Drew was the one who actually took the checks from her. In the privacy of his den, he told Catherine how grateful he was. This year Sh.e.l.ly was applying to colleges. All his test scores and even his teachers indicated that Sh.e.l.ly was bright but undisciplined. "The boy needs a firm hand," Drew Eliot said, clutching his whiskey gla.s.s in his own trembling hand.

In her own way, Marjorie at last became helpful to her daughter when she agreed to let Catherine pick and choose what she liked from her back closets. Marjorie changed weight so often that she had suits and gowns and dresses in all sizes, and one entire bedroom had been changed into a dressing room/storage room for anything from the previous seasons. Marjorie had beautiful taste, and every year there were times when she dieted so strenuously, she was able to buy small sizes. Of course in each year she also gained back huge amounts of weight, leaving the smaller sizes almost unworn.

"Would you mind if I borrowed something from the back closet, Mother?" Catherine asked one day.

"Oh, go ahead," her mother replied.

"Actually, I have borrowed some of your things before," Catherine confessed. "I didn't know if you'd noticed. You weren't home when I needed to ask you about them."

"If it's from the back closet, you can borrow it any time. I've got more to do than keep track of old clothes," Marjorie said.

So Catherine left her parents' apartment each time with a dress bag full of clothes. For consultations with her wealthy clients, the right clothes were essential, and all the clothes Catherine wore were simple, expensive material cut and sewn well. There was a navy Chanel suit with gold chains that was especially successful. A deep green wool dress with a high neck and long sleeves. A clean white-and-brown wool checked dress that fell straight to the knees, then flounced out in pleats when she walked, and a matching coat that fell to the flounce. A pale blue knit with a matching coat. Catherine spent her clothing money on expensive shoes and handbags and gloves.

Most of the time she was in work clothes, covered with a smock, up to her arms in leaves or paperwork. But as the year progressed, she decided she needed to attend more of the parties she was invited to. She had achieved a minor celebrity in the city. The more people she met personally, the more orders Blooms received. She didn't enjoy the parties, because by the evening she was dreadfully exhausted, and there was always something else in the shop that needed to be done. Besides, most of her male escorts, men her own age or even slightly older, seemed frivolous to her. Puppies. And too often they were pleasant but patronizing. "You work with flowers? That's nice. My grandmother likes flowers." Or, "A florist, hm? Do you think you'd like to be an interior decorator someday?"

One night she went to a charity ball at the Plaza with the brother of a cla.s.smate at Miss Brill's. It was March. She had been so busy, she hadn't had time to buy a serious evening gown, and as healed as she had thought her heart was, she still could not bear to put on the turquoise gown she had worn when she met Kit. Just looking at it made a sob rise in her throat. Just touching it made her want to sink to her knees, bury her head in the foamy hem, and weep like an abandoned child.

The only other real evening gown she had in her closet was the low-cut green work of art Helen Norton had given her not even a year ago. Catherine slipped into it. She had lost weight the past few months, worrying and working, but the gown fit all right, even if it did reveal more than she would have chosen. To cover the plunge between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she fastened in an orchid, then pinned a matching one in her hair. She looked fine, she didn't care, she really only wanted to sleep.

It was amazing to her how little she had to say or do at a dance in order to seem even conscious. For many of the guests, these events were the high point of the week. Many of the women had stayed in bed all afternoon, resting for the party that night, or had spent the day having their hair and nails and faces done.

So that night at the dance, while the flower-decked, bejeweled, beribboned, adorned and spangled, frosted and iced, painted and garnished women whirled and laughed and called, "Darling, divine!" Catherine just drifted, nodding, smiling in reply to the compliments. She was bone-tired from hard work and deeply contented. She was really half-asleep even as she walked and talked and danced.

But she found herself jerked out of her lazy daze, like a fish caught on a hook and pulled to the surface of a frightening reality, when she found herself face-to-face with P. J. Willington. Her date was introducing them.

The old man stood before her, tall and respectable, his white starched tuxedo shirt as stiff and pure as truth itself.

"Mr. Willington, sir, I'd like you to meet Catherine Eliot. She's the owner of Blooms, the flower shop on-"

"The shop that provided the flowers for this evening," Catherine interrupted breathlessly. Mr. Willington would make no a.s.sociations with the name Blooms, but the address of the shop where he'd gone so often to send flowers and baubles to the woman who eventually blackmailed him might ring an unwelcome bell.

"Oh, yes. I believe I recognize you from somewhere," the old man said, scrutinizing Catherine.

Recognize the dress? Catherine wanted to say hysterically. I got it from an old friend of yours.

But she didn't speak. She couldn't. Her breath was stuck, frozen inside her throat. How could he fail to connect her, a woman whose face he had seen dozens of times before when she wrote down his order for flowers for Helen Norton, with this gown, the very gown that Helen Norton had worn with him? Christ, P. J. Willington had paid for this gown!

"Yes," P. J. Willington was saying. "Of course. I know your grandmother, Kathryn Eliot. She owns Everly. My wife and I spent a very pleasant Christmas night there a few years ago. Charming woman, charming. No wonder you're a florist. She's a real gardener, the real thing. Knew your grandfather, too. He was quite the rakeh.e.l.l in his day, you know. Would you care to dance?"

Catherine swallowed. What she really wanted to do was toss her champagne and canapes on P. J. Willington's snowy shirtfront. What she did was to nod, smile, and slide into the old goat's arms.

He whirled her onto the dance floor. The emerald gown swirled around her. Blooms' flowers glittered from every table and pedestal stand and niche like jewels. It had been six months since P. J. Willington had been blackmailed, and here he was, hale and happy. The old pirate liked her looks, she could tell. Catherine relaxed. She waltzed in P. J. Willington's arms.

Chapter 7.

New York, 1968 April in New York. Catherine in blossom.

A wealthy Texan whose wife wanted to be part of the New York art scene hired Catherine to do the flowers for an extravagant c.o.c.ktail party they were giving at their new home on Washington Square. Their interior decorator had painted the walls of the huge room that served both as living and dining areas chalk white. The furniture was either teak or polished black enamel. The Texans wanted something "futuristic." They said they had invited "everyone who was anyone."

The husband had taken Catherine aside to tell her that this was the most important event in his wife's life.

The wife had taken Catherine aside to tell her that this was the most important event in her life.