Once in a Lifetime Read online

  "A lot of work. But I like it." His specialty was publishing and that intrigued her most of all. "You thinking about law school?"

  "Maybe." And then she shook her head. "No, not really. I did think about it. But I think maybe writing is more for me."

  "What kind of writing?"

  "I don't know. Short stories, articles." She blushed faintly in the summer sun, and lowered her eyes. She was embarrassed to admit to him what she really wanted to do. It might never happen. It was only now and then that she thought it would. "I'd like to write a book one day. A novel."

  "Then why don't you?"

  She laughed out loud as he passed her another glass of wine. "Simple as that, eh?"

  "Why not? You can do anything you want to."

  "I wish I were that sure. And what would I live on while I wrote my book?" She had used the last of the money her father had left her to go to school, and with one more year to go, she was already worrying that the meager funds might not hold out. Her mother couldn't help her. She was working in a dress shop in Atlanta, an elegant one, but nonetheless there was barely enough for Camilla Beaumont to feed herself.

  "You could marry a rich man." Jeffrey was smiling at her, but Daphne didn't look amused.

  "You sound like my mother."

  "Is that what she'd like?"

  "Of course."

  "And what do you have in mind when you finish school?"

  "A decent job, on a magazine, maybe a newspaper."

  "In New York?" She nodded, and he wasn't sure why, but he felt suddenly relieved. And then he looked at her with interest, his head tilted to one side. "Aren't you going home this summer, Daphne?"

  "No, I go to school in the summer too. That way I'll finish early." There wasn't enough money for her to take her time.

  "How old are you?" It was more like he was interviewing her than she him. She hadn't asked him a single question about the Bar Association meeting or his work as an attorney, they had only talked of themselves since they had shoved off from the dock in the little rented boat.

  "I'm nineteen." She said it with a sudden spark of defiance, as though she were used to being told that she was too young. "And in September I'll be twenty and a senior."

  "I'm impressed." His eyes were gentle as he smiled, and she blushed. "I mean it. Columbia's a tough school, you must have worked damn hard." She could tell by his tone of voice that he meant it and suddenly she was pleased. She liked him. Almost too much. Or maybe it was just the sunshine and the wine, but she knew as she looked at him that it was more than that. It was the curve of his mouth, the gentleness in his eyes, the graceful strength of his hands as he pulled lazily at the oars from time to time ... and the way he watched her, with intelligence and interest ... the sensitivity of the things he said.

  "Thank you. ..." Her voice drifted off and sounded very soft.

  "What's the rest of your life like?"

  She looked confused at the question. "What do you mean?"

  "What do you do with your spare time? I mean other than pretend to interview slightly drunk attorneys in Central Park."

  She laughed at him then and the sound echoed as they passed beneath a little bridge. "Are you drunk? It must be the sun as much as the wine."

  "No." He shook his head slowly as they came out into the light again. "I think it's you." He leaned over then and kissed her, and they had both played hooky for the rest of the afternoon. "They'll never know the difference," he assured her as they wandered south toward the zoo. They laughed at the hippopotamus, threw peanuts to the elephant, and ran all the way through the monkey house holding their noses and laughing. He wanted to put her on the pony ride as though she were a little girl, and laughing at him again, she refused. Instead they took a hansom cab ride through the park, and at last they strolled up Fifth Avenue beneath the trees, until they reached Ninety-fourth Street where she lived.

  "Do you want to come up for a minute?" She smiled innocently at him, holding the red balloon he had bought her at the zoo.

  "I'd love to. But would your mother approve?" He was twenty-seven years old, and in the three years since he had graduated from Harvard Law he hadn't once thought of anyone's mother or whether or not they would approve. It was a good thing too, since no one's mother would. He had been on an orgy of dating and free sex since he had left school.

  Daphne laughed at him as she stood on tiptoe and put her hands on his shoulders. "No, Mr. Jeffrey Fields, my mother would not approve."

  "Why not?" He pretended to look hurt as a couple returning from work looked at them and smiled. They looked young and beautiful and perfectly matched, his hair a deeper gold than hers, his eyes a dazzling gray-green, his features as handsomely sculpted as her own, and his youthful strength in sharp contrast to her delicate size as he circled her with his arms. "Because I'm a Yankee?"

  "No ..." She tilted her head to one side and he felt his insides melt as his hands touched the tiny waist. "Because you're too old, and too good-looking...." She grinned and gently pulled free from his grasp. "And because you've probably kissed half the girls in town"--she laughed again--"including me.

  "You're right. My mother would be shocked too."

  "Well, then come on upstairs for a cup of tea, and I won't tell your mother, if you don't tell mine." Her roommate was gone for the summer, and the apartment was tiny and respectable; shabby but not ugly. She made him iced tea, which she served with mint and wonderful delicate lemon cookies. He sat beside her on the couch, and it was suddenly eight o'clock at night and he wasn't tired or bored. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, and he knew that he had finally met the woman of his dreams.

  "How about dinner?"

  "Aren't you tired of me yet?" Her feet were curled up under her and the hours had flown like minutes. The sun had just set over Central Park, and they had been together since before noon.

  "I don't think I'll ever get tired of you, Daff. Will you marry me?"

  She laughed at the question, watching his face, and she noticed something strangely serious in his eyes. "In addition to dinner or instead of?"

  "I'm serious, you know."

  "You're crazy."

  "No"--he looked at her matter-of-factly--"actually, I'm smart as hell. I graduated in the top five of my class, I have a damn good job, and one day I'm going to be a powerful and successful lawyer. You're going to write best-selling books, and"--he narrowed his eyes as though considering the matter further-- "we'll probably have three children. We should have two, but you're so damn young we'll probably sneak in a third before you're thirty. What do you say?"

  She couldn't stop laughing now. "I still say you're crazy."

  "All right, I concede. We'll make it two children. And a dog. A golden lab." She laughed and shook her head. "All right. A French poodle ... a Chihuahua?"

  "Will you stop?"

  "Why?" He looked suddenly like a little boy, and she felt the same leap in her heart she had felt all afternoon at his side. "Don't you like me?"

  "I think you're terrific. And definitely crazy. Is this the line you use on everyone, or only innocent students like me?"

  He looked totally serious and perfectly calm. "I haven't proposed to anyone before, Daphne. Ever." He leaned back against the couch. "When are we going to get married?"

  "When I'm thirty." She crossed her arms and looked at him with amusement as they sat looking at each other from opposite ends of the couch, but he solemnly shook his head.

  "When you're thirty, I'll be thirty-eight. I'll be too old."

  "And I'm too young. Call me in ten years." She looked suddenly womanly and sure of herself and very, very strong and he loved it, as he moved slowly toward her on the couch.

  "If I walked out of here right now, I would call you in ten minutes. If I could bring myself to wait that long. Now, will you marry me?"

  "No." But her insides turned to mush as he approached.

  "I love you, Daff. Even if you do think I'm crazy. But I'm not. And whether you believe me right now
, or not, we're going to get married."

  "I don't have a penny to my name." She felt a need to tell him that, almost as if what he was saying was serious, as though he really meant it. But the craziest thing of all was that she knew he did.

  "I don't have a dime either, Daff. But we will one day. Both of us. And in the meantime we can live on those fabulous cookies and iced tea."

  "Are you serious, Jeff?" She suddenly looked at him with something very fragile in her eyes. Suddenly she had to know. Maybe he was only playing with her. And she hoped not.

  But his voice was hoarse and powerful and kind as he touched her cheek with one hand and reached out for her hand with the other. "Yes, I am. I know right at this moment that whatever happens between us, it'll be all right, Daff. I feel that. I could marry you tonight, and I know it would be right for us for the rest of our lives. Something like this only happens once in a lifetime. And I'm not going to let it go. If you fight me, I'll pursue you until you listen to me. Because I'm right and I know it." And after a silent moment between them, "And I think you know it too."

  Her eyes bore into his then, and he could see that there were tears hovering on her lashes. "I have to think about this ... I'm not sure I understand what happened."

  "I do. We fell in love. Simple as that. We could have waited another five years to find each other, or ten, but we didn't. I found you today, at that goddamn boring meeting, and sooner or later you're going to be my wife." He kissed her gently then, and stood up, still holding tightly to her hand. "And now I'm going to say good night, before I do something truly crazy, like attack you." She laughed at him then, and felt perfectly safe. There were others she would never have let into her apartment, but instinctively with Jeff she had known that she was safe. It was one of the things she instantly loved about him. She felt safe and happy and protected. She felt it just wandering at his side as they walked from the boat pond to the zoo. It was an essence of power he exuded, and quiet strength, at the same time mixed with something gentle. "I'll call you tomorrow."

  "I'll be at school."

  "What time do you leave in the morning?"

  "Eight o'clock."

  "Then I'll call you before that. Can you meet me for lunch?" She nodded, feeling suddenly awed and a little dazed.

  "Is this for real?"

  "Very much so." He kissed her in the doorway and she felt stirrings she had never felt before, and that night as she lay in bed thinking of him, trying to sort out her thoughts, she felt a longing she had never known.

  But he had meant everything he said to her on that first evening. He called her the next morning at seven o'clock, and he appeared outside the school of journalism on schedule at noon. His jacket was slung over his shoulder, his tie was in his pocket, and his golden hair shone in the sun as she came hesitantly down the steps, feeling shy for the first time. This was different from the day before. There wasn't the hubbub of the Bar Association meeting around them, there was no wine, no boat, no sunset peeking through her windows. There was only this extraordinary golden man standing in the noonday sun, smiling proudly down at her as though he owned her. And in her heart she knew he did, and always would.

  They hailed a cab and went to the Metropolitan Museum for lunch, and sat by the pool as they toyed with their food, and by the time he took her back to school, she felt entirely comfortable with him again. He had a remarkable way about him, and once again she felt the same strength and safety she had felt at his side the day before.

  She made dinner for him at her apartment that night, and once again he left early. And that weekend he had taken her to Connecticut to visit friends, play tennis, and sail, and they had come home golden brown from the sun, and this time he took her to his place in the East Fifties and he made dinner. It was there that he finally took her in his arms and slid his hands carefully over her silky golden flesh and made her absolutely ache for him. She spent the night wrapped in his arms, and it was only the next morning that he made love to her, with all the tenderness and caution and solemnly bridled passion of a man very much in love with a virgin. He made it beautiful for her, and that night they made love in her apartment, and this time it was she who took the lead and surprised not him, but herself, with the force of her desire and passion.

  They had spent the rest of the summer in and out of bed, working their schedules around those of their roommates, hers having returned in late August, until finally Jeff could stand it no longer and during the Easter vacation of her senior year, he flew to Tennessee with her, and they got married. It was a quiet ceremony attended by her mother and a dozen friends. She wore a long white organdy dress and a big hat, and carried a big bunch of wild flowers and daisies, and her mother cried, as much from relief as from the delight of seeing her daughter married.

  Camilla was dying from leukemia, but she had not told Daphne yet. Before they flew north again, she told Jeffrey. He promised her that he would take good care of Daphne forever and always. Three months later she was dead and Daphne was pregnant with their first child. Jeff flew to Atlanta with her for the funeral, and he handled everything and held her as she cried. She had no one left now except Jeffrey and the baby that was due in March.

  Through the summer he watched her grieve for her mother as they furnished their new apartment with the few treasures they had shipped up from Atlanta. She had graduated from Columbia in June, and in September she got her first job, working at Collins Magazine, a highly respectable women's magazine. Jeffrey didn't think it made much sense to go to work since she was pregnant, but at last he agreed, and he had to admit that it did her a great deal of good. She took a leave of absence from the magazine after Christmas, and settled in for the remaining two months to wait for the baby. She was more excited every day, and finally he saw the grief of the previous summer leave her eyes. She insisted that if it was a boy she wanted to call him Jeffrey, but he wanted a little girl that looked like her. And late at night in their bed, he would touch her belly and feel the baby kick, with love and wonder in his eyes.

  "Doesn't it hurt?" He worried about her a great deal, but at twenty-one she was the picture of health, and she laughed at his concern.

  "No. It feels funny sometimes, but it doesn't hurt." She looked at him happily as she lay on her side, and he felt almost guilty as he reached out to touch her breasts. He always wanted her, even now, and they made love almost every night. "Don't you mind, Jeff?"

  "No. Of course not. You're beautiful, Daff. Even more beautiful than you were before." There was something so soft and luminous about her face as her golden hair fell around her shoulders like a shaft of wheat, and her eyes lit up with a kind of inner light he'd read about and never seen. She seemed filled with promise and a kind of magical joy.

  She called him at the office after the first few pains, and she sounded exuberant and almost high, and he rushed home to be with her, forgetting the client in his office, his coat behind the door, and carrying with him a law book he had had in his hand when she called, feeling more than a little frantic and more afraid than he would admit. But when he saw her waiting for him, sitting quietly in a chair, he knew that everything would be all right, as he had always known, and he caught her excitement and poured them each a glass of champagne.

  "To our daughter."

  "To your son!" Her eyes teased and laughed and then became suddenly glazed with the pain. He flinched for her for a moment, reaching quickly for her hand, forgetting the champagne, and then remembering all that they'd learned in the class they'd taken for two months, helping her through each pain, timing them with the stopwatch he'd bought, until four o'clock when he sensed before she did that it was time to go. The doctor met them at the hospital, and Daphne smiled, looking almost regal, her head held high, so excited and so proud, and then just as quickly vulnerable as she leaned against him, panting softly as he coached, but her eyes still dancing at what they shared, almost impervious to the increasing pain.

  "You're incredible, darling. And oh, God, how I love yo
u." He had helped her to the labor room, stood by and held her hand and breathed, donned a mask and gown and sped into the delivery room with her at nine o'clock that night, and -at ten nineteen, with Daphne pushing with all her might, and tears streaming from Jeffrey's eyes as he looked on with astonishment and awe, their baby girl was born. Aimee Camilla Fields poked her head into the world with a giant howl as her mother gave a shout of victory and glee. The doctor held her aloft and she was quickly put into Daphne's arms as Jeffrey looked down at both of them, laughing and crying, stroking Daphne's damp hair with one hand and holding the baby's tiny fingers with another.

  "Isn't she beautiful, Jeff?" Daphne was crying now, and smiling at the same time, looking up at him with all he felt as he bent to kiss her gently on the lips.

  "You've never looked more beautiful to me, Daff."

  "I love you." The nurses had stepped back, feeling, as they always did, never quite hardened to the miracles they saw each day, and the threesome stayed alone for as long as they could. And at last Daphne was brought back to her room, and when she slept, Jeffrey went home at midnight, to lie awake in their bed, thinking of their little girl, and his wife, and all that he had shared with her in two years.

  The next three years had flown past. Daphne had gone back to work at Collins when Aimee was a year old. She had stretched her leave as long as she could, and she hated to go, but as much as she loved Aimee, she wanted to work, too. She knew that she needed that for herself, to remain who she was, and Jeff knew that it was important to her to be not only mother and wife, but someone unto herself. He always understood. They had a sitter every day, a grandmotherly woman Daphne had found after the baby was born, and Jeff helped her take care of the baby at night, and on weekends they went to the park, or drove out into the country to see friends. There was a magical quality to their life, which touched everyone they knew.