Chapter Three
CATHERINE
Greenwich, 1970
A week later, Gabriel called to ask me out on a date, and as the evening approached, my anticipation grew. My sister Colleen lent me her bright yellow minidress, which had a belt that sat low on the hips. The color was a little much with my blonde hair, but I thought he’d get a kick out of me dressing like sunlight.
At 7:00 p.m., I walked into my father’s office, gave him a kiss on the top of the head, and walked out. He was nose-deep in a vodka gimlet and the evening paper, and as far as he cared, any one of his five daughters could have breezed in and said goodbye.
At 7:15 p.m., the doorbell rang, causing the dogs to bark and run through the foyer with boundless excitement and curiosity. When I opened the door, Gabriel was standing there with a bouquet of yellow tulips. “For you,” he said and allowed our beagle trio to perform due diligence with their noses. One they were satisfied, they all bolted outside onto the driveway.
“These are my absolute favorite, thank you,” I said, taking the tulips.
“Your cousin Laura told me.”
I took the flowers from him just as Mother walked up behind me with a cigarette teetering on her bottom lip and a martini in her hand. She was silent at first.
“Mother, this is Gabriel, who I told you about. Tom Sheppard’s friend.”
He took a step forward onto the slate flooring in our entryway and went to shake her hand, but she did not offer it to him, just gave a nod. I took his hand instead and handed her the flowers. “Please put these in water for me.”
She forced a smile as I headed out the door and into the warm evening air.
“Lovely to see you again, Ann Marie,” he said to Mom, nearly knocking me off my platform sandals by using her first name.
Gabriel had the Corvette again that evening. “I apologize for the mess,” he said, referring to a pile of laundry in the tiny back seat.
“Please don’t bother. I adore the scent of damp beach towels.”
He drove a short distance to Steamboat Road, a popular little street that jutted out like a thumb into Greenwich Harbor, and pulled up in front of Manero’s Steakhouse.
“Have you been here before?”
I almost had to laugh. “Are you kidding? Nick Manero has been pinching my cheeks for decades. Hopefully, he’ll give me a reprieve since I’m on a date this time.”
“Hopefully not,” Gabriel said.
The restaurant was buzzing with activity, and we were greeted by a hostess and seated immediately. The place was located across the road from the water, and the interior was made up of wood-paneled walls with bright red vinyl chairs at each table and sawdust on the floor. Waiters flew around with crisp white dress shirts and long black aprons tied in the back as they served up hundreds of filet mignon dinners each week—including an appetizer, Gorgonzola salad, garlic bread, fried onions, dessert, and coffee, all for $12.95. Locals and visitors alike flocked to Manero’s for the filet dinner, and we were no exception. I’d been going there with my family for many years, but that night was the first time I remember enjoying myself so much.
Gabriel ordered us shrimp cocktails and manhattans to start.
“Sorry about my mother,” I said. “She’s a tough nut to crack.”
“I’m used to it.”
“She’s wary of everyone,” I added.
“Everyone who doesn’t look like a Downing.”
His comment caught me off guard, but I placed my napkin in my lap and maintained my composure. “Well, I see you’ve done all your research on me, but I’m a Clarke, not a Downing.”
“The Downings are your family, too,” he said as the drinks arrived.
“If you’re so taken with them, then what are you doing wasting time with me?” I took a sip and stared at him over the rim of the glass. “I have no shortage of Downing cousins I could introduce you to.”
He laughed. “Oh, I am quite taken with you. That’s why I bothered to do my research.”
My father, Albert Clarke, had two sisters, Hazel and Harriet.
Hazel had married a man named Patrick Fitzgibbon Downing, a.k.a. “Fitz,” who was a Connecticut senator and son of a well-known businessman. My father’s other sister, Harriet, had married Fitz’s brother, David. The Downing family had lived in the Belle Haven neighborhood for generations. Between them, Hazel and Harriet had nine children—my cousins—who received a great deal more attention than my four sisters and me because of their prominent last name.
“Laura, who you met today, for example. She’s a Downing, as you know.” I typically preferred to surround myself with people who were unequivocally unimpressed with my lineage, but they were increasingly harder and harder to find. I was mildly disenchanted when Gabriel admitted to knowing my parents because it meant he’d have preconceived notions about how I was raised and what my expectations were.
“I hear your uncle Fitz is thinking about running for president in a few years.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said and changed the subject. “How long will you be staying in Greenwich?”
“Just through the end of the summer. Only about two more months, and then I will be transferred.”
“To where?”
Gabriel lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke into the room, and shrugged. “I’m not certain yet, but it looks like Chicago, most likely.”
“What is it that you do?”
He took a sip of his cocktail and leaned in. His eyes narrowed a bit before he began to speak. He was handsome, for sure, and there was a fascinating contrast between the darkness in his eyes and the lightness in his smile. But there was something precarious about him that captivated me most of all. The deep, loud tone of his voice and the way he threw his hands in the air as he was telling a story. The way he held his shoulders back and his chin up, and the way he smiled at me and no one else. And the way he came into my life as a bit of a mystery. I knew very little about his past and what had led him to the beach that day at Tod’s Point, but I couldn’t wait to uncover everything there was to know.
“I work as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company based in Beirut. I come to the States when new drugs are introduced in my category, every couple of years or so. Once the physicians and hospitals are acclimated, and the training teams in place, I head back to Lebanon.”
“So, you’re only in the States for a short time?”
“I expect to be in Chicago for at least two years, maybe longer.”
“I see.” I looked away.
The waiter brought our appetizers, and I lifted my head to peer out the open windows. It was my favorite time of the day, when the faint chatter of seagulls accompanied the setting sun.
After dinner, we drove to Tod’s Point, where we’d met a week earlier. We sat talking in the car for a while until the sun was fully retired. Then he grabbed a towel from the back seat, and we went for a walk on the sand. He was a little too boisterous and crass at times, and his manners were somewhat lacking, but he captivated me with stories about growing up in a much different place. He mentioned a home in the mountains of Lebanon, a younger brother who struggled with learning disabilities, and a father who had left them at an early age. From what I could tell, he didn’t see his mother or brother much, but he and Serine, who had moved to America as a college student and never looked back, supported them both financially.
His figure was lean yet protective, with wide shoulders and strong arms. His legs were muscular and scarred, not riddled with tan lines from tennis socks. I could barely contain my smile as I sat with him, fretting over saying the wrong things or sounding horribly boring by talking about my relatives and Greenwich all evening. He’d traveled the world, spoke three languages, had two degrees, and all I’d ever accomplished was being born into the right family.
When we finally picked a place to sit, he took the towel that had been draped around his neck and laid it down. Once we were both off our feet, he didn’t hesitate to kiss me. His approach was bold yet tender, and I lost myself completely with him. My limbs loosened, my lips parted, and I used every inch of my body to prove to him that we were a match. That I was his equal. That he should adore me and treasure me while he had the chance because he would miss me when he left, and he may never have a third chance to meet Catherine Clarke in one lifetime.
The flame from Gabriel’s lighter illuminated his face as he lit a cigarette and then exhaled the first drag. He blew smoke from his lungs and ran a hand through his thick hair. It was already an hour past my curfew, but what twenty-one-year-old college graduate should have a curfew, anyway? I couldn’t tell him it was time for me to go home. I simply wouldn’t. He could sleep on the beach all night if he wanted. He wouldn’t have to go to church the next morning and serve cheese sandwiches to the parishioners afterward. He could walk up and down Greenwich Avenue the next morning and sleep on a park bench and drink manhattans all along the one-mile stretch if he chose, because he had that freedom. Freedom to talk three octaves above everyone else in the restaurant and be indifferent to their stares, freedom to live where and how he wanted, and freedom to do as he pleased and not simply what was expected of him. Freedoms that I longed for.
“What about you, Catherine?” He looked directly at me when I spoke and focused on my lips as I answered him. “What will you do with yourself once the summer is over?”
I crossed my ankles and brushed some sand off my lap. “I may decide to go to graduate school.”
“More school means you don’t have a plan.”
I tilted my head and sighed, enjoying the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks for a moment. “My plan is to be a reporter for a magazine or a newspaper. I have an English major, but I was thinking that another degree in journalism . . .”
“Another degree won’t help you. You need experience. School cannot replace real-world experiences. While you’ll be wasting time with more classes and football games, your more ambitious colleagues will be starting their careers and leaving you behind.”
I huffed a little at him chastising me, although he was probably right. “I asked my father about talking to the editor of the Greenwich Times, and he said to send him some test articles.”
Gabriel shook his head. “A real professional who is committed to her trade doesn’t send her father in first. You should go to the editor yourself,” he scolded, waving his hands as he spoke. “Is he hiring you or your father?”
I was silent for a minute and then kissed him square on the lips. “You’re right. I’ve been guilty of wasting these weeks since graduation.”
He dragged his hands through the ends of my hair as I pulled away.
“Thank you for being so blunt with me,” I whispered, elated that he hadn’t scoffed at my choice. “Mother thinks it’s a useless career, reporting about other people’s business, although that’s precisely what she does at the club all afternoon.”
He lowered his gaze. “Promise me you’ll go in and talk with the editor in person.” He paused. “If that’s what you really want.”
I crossed my heart with my finger. “I promise.”
Gabriel and I held hands and kissed our way back to his car. Looking back, it might seem as though things were moving fast, but when I was knee-deep in it, time stood still for me. I’d never felt so grounded and comfortable with someone before. He made me believe I could be a writer if I wanted. He made me believe there was more to life than the prestigious Belle Haven bubble I existed in, and he made me fearful of a future without him.
When I came home later that evening, the yellow tulips had been tossed onto my bedroom floor.