“But we all do at one time or another,” Madeline reminded her.
“You’ll have to turn them upside down if you want to read them in order,” Charlotte pointed out. “The early ones are at the bottom, the later ones at the top.”
It may help me to know her better, Madeline thought defensively, and knew she was lying to herself. She wasn’t trying to know Starr better; she was simply prying, trying to ferret out evidence, almost the way a detective would have. She was uneasily aware there was a big difference between questioning Charlotte conversationally and reading Starr’s private letters, letters written to someone else. At least there was to her own mind, which was what counted. It was like seeing someone undressed.
She took them over beside a window and sat down there, to read them in more privacy. Charlotte remained where she’d been, silently looking down at the backs of her own hands, as if reliving in memory the time she’d first read them herself.
Madeline didn’t read each one through from start to finish; she didn’t have to. Her eyes would skim down the page and pick out a key phrase. Sometimes the whole gist of the letter, its importance to her purpose, was expressed in that key phrase.
...very tired from the trip. And of course a little homesick. Missed you and the town I grew up in. The first night in a new city you always feel strange...
...getting used to it now. Getting to feel at home...
...girl I work with insisted on dragging me to this party with her. I really didn’t want to go, but I gave in so that she wouldn’t think I was unfriendly and standoffish. There was a man named Herrick there. Seemed like a very nice person. Brought me home afterward, just to the door. Asked if he could give me a ring. I lied and said I had no phone. I don’t want to become involved with anyone yet, that can wait...
...I nearly fell over when I answered it and it turned out to be he. That girl where I work gave him my number, it seems. Wait’ll I get hold of her, I’ll give her a good talking to...
...the more I try to discourage him, the less I seem to succeed. The situation is becoming more than I can handle...
...It turns out he’s married. It’s true, he told it to me of his own free will, but that doesn’t make it any better. I said a firm goodbye to him, and told him not to try to see me anymore...
...It hurt more than I realized it would. I must have gotten in far deeper than I was aware of...
...when he said who it was, I wouldn’t open the door, so he slid a paper underneath it. I picked it up and looked at it, and it was a copy of the final divorce decree, his and hers. Uncontested. I thought it over for a while. Then I opened the door. Suddenly we were in each other’s arms. I’d never realized it until that minute, but I’d been in love with him for a long time past...
...We were married yesterday...
...The longer I know him, the more I love him. It’s like a dream come true. I love him so much that sometimes I’m afraid something will happen, some unkind fate will punish us for daring to be so happy. It seems too good to last...
...A year and a half yesterday. Eighteen months. Our yearly-and-a-half anniversary, is that how you say it? He gave me a gold charm bracelet. Each year you’re supposed to add another charm, until it’s all complete. The first one says “I love you” How can the ones that are to be added improve on that? I gave him a lighter with his initials on it. We had champagne cocktails in the apartment, just the two of us alone by ourselves. Then we went out and had a Chinese dinner. Then afterward we went to a big musical show. As we were working our way out through the crowded lobby after the curtain came down, he wanted to take me to one of these big nightclub places, for a windup. I said, “Vick, don’t use up all our money in one night. I know you love me. You don’t have to prove it this expensively.” All he said was — and he gave me that look that just melts my heart like a snowball in an oven — “Won’t you let me prove it? Just this one night. Won’t you let me prove it? Please, huh?” That little-boy look, that husband look, that lover look. I couldn’t hold out, I couldn’t. I threw my arms around him right there in all the crowd, and hung from his neck with my feet lifted clear of the ground, and kissed him about eighteen times. “There’s only one Vick, there’s only one you,” I said close to his ear. “And that,” he said, “is because there’s only one Starr...”
Madeline refolded the letter and closed her eyes.
That rings true, she reflected. That can’t be faked, that can’t be made up. The very ink it was written with still glows this long after. They were desperately in love, madly in love, truly in love.
It was the last of the letters. There were no more after that.
“But the first wife didn’t take it lying down. She was a singer. Worked in clubs. A roughneck, know what I mean? She did something to them that completely destroyed the marriage. Completely destroyed it.”
“What?”
“I never knew what. Starr wouldn’t say what.”
“Did Starr ever meet her? Did she know her at all?”
“I asked her that myself. She said, ‘I never set eyes on her in my life.’ Those were her words. ‘I never set eyes on her in my life.’ Then she said, ‘She called up just once. Just once, one o’clock one morning. Just one little phone call, but it wrecked my life, ruined my happiness, opened wide the gates of hell and pushed me through.’”
Madeline stared at her, intently, fearfully, wonderingly.
“As I stared at her,” Charlotte said, reading the look.
“Did she say anything else?”
“Only this. ‘I’d like to get even with her.’ She rounded her small fist, held it clenched like this — and brought it back against her own face, between her eyes. ‘I’d like to get even with her,’ she said. ‘But what could I ever do to her that could equal what she did to me? There can be only one of such a thing in this world, only one, never two.’”
Charlotte came to the door and her face lighted up when she saw Madeline. She was beginning to be fond of her, Madeline guessed. They kissed one another lightly on the cheeks.
“Come in,” Charlotte said. “I’ll fix you up a little lunch. It’s so nice to have someone to eat with, and not be alone.”
“No,” Madeline protested. “I came to take you out. It’s such a lovely day. Have you seen it yet?”
Charlotte nodded. “It really is. I could tell from the windows.”
“Let’s take a walk in that restful little park you have not far away from here—”
“Lakeside?”
“—and sit in the sun awhile and chat. Then I’ll buy you whatever you feel like having, in a restaurant or tearoom. You’ll see what an enjoyable way it will be to pass part of the day.”
“You’re spoiling me,” Charlotte said wistfully.
Madeline shook her head slightly to herself while she stood waiting, partly in and partly out of the doorway. She couldn’t help feeling a little disloyal, a little secretive. And yet, she told herself, there was nothing in this to harm Charlotte or be to her detriment. On the contrary, she was only trying to carry out her own daughter’s wishes, trying to fulfill them. That should make her approve, that should make her feel content, if she were to know.
Charlotte came back with simply a hat and a handbag added to her basic dress.
“Make sure it’s locked tight,” Madeline reminded her protectively as she pulled the door shut after her.
They walked down the sun-glowing street together, the girl and the older woman, like mother and daughter. Like Starr herself might have, in a day that was gone now.
Madeline sighed a little. Starr. Always Starr. Why was I born with such an oversensitized conscience, she thought. Those that aren’t, how much easier they have it.