“If you were about to turn forty, this would be the perfect place for you,” the saleswoman said, laughter in her voice.
“But I—” Leslie began then stopped herself. There was a mirror to her left and she had to look at it to remind herself of what had happened. She wasn’t forty now. The truth was, that even under the harsh store lights, she looked wonderful.
With a beautiful smile on her face, Leslie turned to the saleswoman. “Could you help me?” Leslie asked in her nicest voice. “I’ve been invited to spend the break at the Formunds’ place, and—”
“The Halliwell Formunds?”
“Yes, that is their name,” Leslie said as innocently as she could manage.
The saleswoman narrowed her eyes. “I do believe they have a son about your age.”
“Could you help me with what to wear? I can’t very well show up in leotards, can I?”
“No,” the woman said slowly, and Leslie could almost hear the thoughts racing through the saleswoman’s head: If she was nice to Leslie and Leslie married a Formund, she might have a lifelong customer, and the commissions would be . . . “I’d love to help you, dear,” the saleswoman purred.
Twenty-five
Five minutes after she arrived, Leslie regretted her decision. What was she doing here? She had been put into a two-bedroom guesthouse with three other girls. At first they had asked her to join them in their activities, but when Leslie didn’t, they began to whisper about her. It had been a long time since Leslie had been this young, and she’d completely forgotten the sense of competition between young women.
It was on Leslie’s tongue to lecture them about how they didn’t need to cut each other to ribbons in their competition to get the best man to mate with. There were enough men to go around.
Leslie had given this lecture to her own daughter when Rebecca had been in a to-the-death fight with a girl who had once been her best friend. Of course it had been over a boy. Three months later Leslie had been glad to see the girls back together and the boy put on the “dregs” list, but Leslie knew that it could as easily have gone the other way.
“And where are you from?” one of the girls had asked Leslie. “And your major is what?”
Her tone was unmistakable: Leslie was not considered part of “the” crowd who usually frequented Hal’s parties.
The truth was, Leslie wondered why she’d been invited. But as she walked away from the girls and their insinuations, she knew what she would have told her daughter. Leslie had been invited for her dancer’s figure. Didn’t rich boys usually have flings with “unsuitable” girls before they settled down to marry some blue-blooded girl whose daddy owned Kansas or something?
“I’m too old for this,” Leslie said to herself as she left the guesthouse. On her bed had been a card with a printed list of activities that would be going on during the week, and as Leslie read them, she wished she’d stayed on campus and danced. Wouldn’t it be wonderful after all these years to once again have a body that could leap with ease? Pirouette without aching toes?
She left the guesthouse and began to wander about the estate. When she saw a Sussex trug on the ground and a pair of ladies’ gardening gloves and some clippers, it seemed natural to pick them up and start deadheading roses.
“Bored already?” asked a voice behind her.
Leslie turned to see an older woman standing on the path. She wore a skirt that had been washed many times and a sweater set that had to be twenty years old. But Leslie was willing to bet that the half-inch-diameter crystal at the end of the gold chain around her neck was a diamond. This woman owned the place.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie said, holding out the trug. “This must be yours. I didn’t mean—”
“That’s fine,” the woman said, smiling. “Why don’t I sit in the shade and let you do the work? Truthfully, I hate gardening. I only do it because my doctor said I have to have some form of exercise.”
“And gardening is so genteel,” Leslie said, laughing. “At least that’s what men think. Personally, I never thought there was anything romantic about cow manure.”
The woman laughed. “Nor do I. But I have been assigned the task, so I must make it look as though I’ve done it.”
Her hint was clear, so, smiling back at her, Leslie took the cutters and began removing the dead rose heads.
Mrs. Formund sat on a little iron bench under a nearby oak tree. “And which one are you?” she asked. “No, wait, you must be the dancer. No one else could move as you are doing without years of training.”
Leslie had to turn away to hide her blush. No one had said such a thing to her in a long while. “Do you have any idea why your son invited me?” she asked. She wasn’t going to pretend not to know who this woman was.
“I think the important question would be why you accepted.”
Leslie didn’t turn around, but she could hear the skepticism in the woman’s voice. No doubt she was inundated with girls who wanted to get near her rich son.
“To see the estate, of course,” Leslie said. “I’d heard of the gardens and I wanted to see them.” She paused with the cutters in midair. “And also, to get away from my boyfriend for a while. I wanted to see if there were any other men in the world besides him.”
“That’s wise of you,” Mrs. Formund said. “I had half a dozen marriage proposals before I married my husband.”