The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine Page 11

  “I told you—a stable hand.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  Rubenstein clucked his tongue. Maybe it was my imagination, but he had chilled suddenly and without explanation.

  “It’s Friday night. You must have somewhere to go,” Rubenstein said.

  I did have someplace to go—someplace important. Behind Rubenstein, through the glass, Los Angeles was lit for the night, and as Rubenstein allowed his attention to roam to his computer I was once again swept back to that foggy hungover morning after the Blooms’ dinner party when I was last called into this very office.

  How life had changed, I thought. There was nothing in front of me but hope.

  Thirteen

  That Friday evening the Santa Ana winds rolled in, and they remained for the rest of autumn. The devil winds, the hot Santa Anas were called, because they often left fires and earthquakes in their wake. The heat lingered so intensely it seemed to have a voice of its own.

  Traffic was light, and I managed to arrive ten or so minutes ahead of schedule. I opened the unlocked door to the garden anyway, thinking it was possible Matilda would arrive early. She wasn’t there. I considered turning around, but then decided to wait.

  The garden was almost too quiet. The only sound was the trickle of water in the fountain and the occasional chirp of a bird. The roses were so pungent the smell had almost put me to sleep, when I saw someone coming toward me.

  My heart sank when I realized that it wasn’t Matilda, but Hector, her butler.

  “You’re early, aren’t you? By eight or nine minutes? But who’s counting?”

  The entire rest of my life flashed before me in an instant. I imagined David Duplaine standing beside a large chalkboard, erasing my life as I had known it. My job was gone, I was blacklisted in Los Angeles, and worse, I had no Matilda.

  I took a moment to wonder if it had been worth it, and then thought of that evening in the bowling alley.

  It had been.

  “You shouldn’t build castles in sandboxes that don’t belong to you, Mr. Cleary.”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t intentional,” I said, which was the truth. If I was going to fall in love again, this was certainly not the manner in which I wanted to do it. “It wasn’t as if I was snooping around trying to find...this.” I didn’t even know what this was. “It started as an accident. Lily invited me to a party for the governor and I didn’t realize it was at the Malibu house. I showed up here and—”

  “And at some point you must have realized that you had the wrong place?”

  “I rang the gate buzzer and no one answered. I was going to call Lily but I had no cell phone reception. I just wanted to use the phone.”

  The memory came rushing back: the beads of sweat, the lemonade, the smell of her.

  “Which then led to you climbing up an oak tree and trespassing on private grounds?”

  “What did Matilda tell you?”

  “Nothing at first. I sensed her behavior was odd—she was giddy, distracted in her courses, which isn’t like her. And then there was the dress she wore for bowling. I knew something was going on. I threatened to tell Mr. Duplaine, and that’s when she confessed.” Hector paused. “I’ve worked for this family a very long time—much longer than you’ve been alive, Mr. Cleary. And I’m putting my livelihood in jeopardy for this.”

  He paused. “We have rules here—very strict ones. And I’m breaking them because I want what’s best for Miss Duplaine. But you must play by the rules. If you don’t the consequences will be catastrophic for all of us—you, me and Miss Duplaine. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “You may never—under any circumstances — tell anyone about her. You’re only allowed on the estate when you’re specifically invited by Miss Duplaine via me. You’ll use this door—and this one only. No gate, no buzzer and certainly no oak tree—unless you’re informed ahead of time that that’s how you’ll be entering.”

  It was the first time I recognized the gravitas of the situation, that we were doing something very surreptitious with potentially life-changing consequences.

  “Thank you. I know this is a risk for you.” It was an understatement.

  “That’s putting it gently.”

  “Does Matilda know?”

  “Yes, I’ve already had this discussion with her and she understands.”

  A sense of relief rolled over me.

  “Oh, and one more thing—Miss Duplaine is never permitted to leave here. Ever. Should I hear that you are considering taking Miss Duplaine off the property, you will be banned and you will never see her again. Do I make myself clear?”

  I answered in the affirmative. Soon after, though, I realized the great oddity of what I had agreed to. My future with Matilda would be devoid of shared experiences outside these six acres. Was it even possible to date someone without taking her on a date? And why was Matilda never permitted to leave? Hector made it seem as if she was being held captive, and I wondered if I was signing myself up for the same fate.

  Hector paused again, plucking a dead leaf of ivy off the wall. The gesture reminded me of something Lily would have done.

  “Matilda has requested that I prepare the horseshoe pit. Come, follow me. She’s waiting for you on the croquet lawn.”

  * * *

  Matilda had dressed down this time. She wore a flowing dress, flat sandals and almost no makeup. Her long blond hair swirled in the strong Santa Ana winds, and she struggled to tame it. I longed to put it behind her ear and brush my hand against her cheekbone.

  In Los Angeles it’s extremely rare to own a piece of land where a walk is possible. David’s six-acre property was one of the biggest in the city. It felt more like a park than a residence and featured walking paths that wove through the entire estate. Matilda pointed to specific activities as we passed each one.

  “This is the horseshoe pit,” she said, but not in a boastful manner. I thought of my apartment, how I could never show it to her. The horseshoes were polished brightly and shone as if they belonged in a window at Tiffany’s. “Do you play horseshoes?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll teach you. It’s a remarkably simple game to learn,” Matilda said. “The pit’s prepared so we can play later. Night horseshoes is magnificent.”

  Matilda pointed at a distant place to the northwest. “Now follow me, this way.”

  We continued onward, through walking paths filled with pea gravel. We passed a sculpture garden that featured the real-life version of the marble bench I had received with the invitation—it was a Jenny Holzer, Matilda explained, with slight officiousness—and then a small stream Matilda said she used for fishing. I wondered if David flew in salmon or tuna and dumped them in the stream late at night when Matilda had gone to bed.

  “This is the golf course,” Matilda said, pointing to her left at a single golf hole complete with a mini fairway, water hazard—even with turtles submerged for the night—sand trap and a flag that said Hole 1.

  I started to correct her and point out that a golf course and golf hole were two very different things, but then I caught myself. By this point it was clear to me that Matilda’s version of the world and mine were very different.

  Our hands brushed together accidentally as we walked. I allowed it to happen, accidentally, again.

  We walked past the pristine tennis court, and I was whisked back to that night we first met, in all its splendor. The oak tree canopied above it, as if protecting it from something.

  “And this, of course, is the glorious spot where we met. Did you like me when you met me? That first minute?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I responded with candor.

  “How about the first thirty seconds?” Matilda asked.

  “Two seconds. Flat.”

 
Matilda threw her head back and giggled. “Not one?”

  “Don’t press it.” I paused, because in recent years I had been afraid of asking questions I didn’t want the answers to. “What about you?” I asked. “Did you like me, too?”

  “I didn’t realize it at the time, as this was the first time something like this has happened to me, but I did—like you, that is.” Matilda bit her lip in contemplation. “When you like someone, does it mean you think of them long after they’ve gone? Like they’ve left a bit of themselves behind that stays with you even though they’re not there anymore?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking of how Matilda never strayed far from my thoughts, even in all those days we were forced to spend apart.

  We ended our tour at the outskirts of the property, a densely forested part where ficus and oaks sheltered a large octagonal swimming pool with two diving boards at different heights. The bright moon reflected on the pool, making it look like ice.

  Matilda looked at me seriously, in the eyes. “The evening we first met—I felt you near me even though you were gone. I could smell you, hear you breathing. I found every distraction not to sleep because not sleeping meant that I could think of you.”

  I wasn’t sure when I fell in love with her. I would like to say that it was the moment we met, but I knew for sure, at this moment, that I loved her.

  “I thought we’d take a swim before tossing horseshoes,” Matilda said, bringing me back to the present. “If that’s okay with you, then I’ll be right back. I need to change into my bathing suit.”

  Before I could explain I hadn’t brought swim trunks, Matilda had disappeared into a pool house. It was a smaller version of the main house, a neoclassical structure with sturdy columns.

  Matilda emerged a few minutes later in a silver one-piece swimming suit with rosettes at the top. She looked like a pinup girl who had stepped out of a ’50s Vogue magazine. It was the most of her I had seen, and I suddenly felt as if I had to look away, to somewhere less dangerous.

  “Do you like my new bathing suit?” she asked. “I got it when the winds changed.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” I said. “Very fashiony.”

  “Fashiony? Is that a word I should know?” Matilda asked curiously.

  “Technically it’s not a word.”

  “Oh, then I need not memorize it. What is it like being a journalist?” Matilda asked.

  “It involves living in everyone else’s life but your own,” I said. “Which isn’t always a bad thing,” I added.

  “Not at all. I would love to step into someone else’s life.” Matilda paused, in contemplation. “Like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina—when she goes to France to cooking school and comes back not only knowing how to cook but a totally new person. I wish I could reinvent myself sometimes. Did you always want to be a journalist?” she asked.

  “I did. What do you want to do when you grow up?” I asked. “‘Grow up’ sounds silly, right? We’re grown-up now.”

  “Learn Italian, maybe. It’s such a pretty language. I just saw Fellini’s 8 ½ yesterday evening,” Matilda said. “‘Could you walk out on everything and start all over again? Could you choose one single thing and be faithful to it? Could you make it the one thing that gives your life meaning...just because you believe in it? Could you do that?’ That was from the movie. It’s beautiful in English, but it shines like gold in Italian.”

  Matilda paused and caught her breath. “I left a pair of Daddy’s bathing trunks for you in the pool house.”

  I walked over to the pool pavilion, where David’s brightly flowered bathing trunks rested on a chair upholstered in green-and-white-striped linen. I had sneaked onto David’s estate, stumbled upon his biggest secret and now was falling heavily in love with his daughter. But somehow wearing his bathing trunks seemed more wrong than all of it. I reached over to pick them up, but didn’t.

  “Come on,” Matilda shouted from the pool area. “The water’s eighty-seven degrees. My perfect temperature.”

  A strange thought drifted into my mind. Keeping that huge pool at eighty-seven degrees probably cost more than all of my monthly expenses. I grew up in a paycheck-to-paycheck family, and I appreciated what little we had because I knew it didn’t come easily. So the world of Matilda Duplaine was a foreign one to me. I would never have the means to support her lavish lifestyle. In fact, no one would. I imagined a time in the future when Matilda and I would live in that pool house with our children because we couldn’t afford to live anywhere else she’d be happy with. It scared me.

  I glanced at David’s trunks for another second before abandoning the idea of them completely.

  I walked out to the pool area, fully dressed. Matilda stood on the high dive, peering down at me.

  “Dive in,” I called out.

  She did as told, as if she was waiting for my “ready, set, go.” Her highly arched swan dive left a tiny ripple of a splash in its wake. She disappeared for what seemed like minutes, and when she resurfaced her face was dewy and shiny.

  “The water’s wonderful, Thomas. Get changed, come in.”

  I stripped down to my navy blue boxers. My dive off the low board was much less eloquent than Matilda’s high dive.

  I surfaced and swam in Matilda’s direction. She giggled, and her eyes were wet, creating the illusion of tears. I moved closer to her so my right leg brushed her left.

  She pulled her leg back, as if she was trying to figure out what to do with it. Soon I felt her knee on mine again, as if she had decided touching knees was all right.

  “Isn’t the water perfect?” she asked, smiling. “It’s ozone, so it doesn’t have that terrible chemical chlorine in it.”

  “More than perfect,” I said, grinning at her quirkiness.

  I looked around at the vast estate. I understood that Matilda’s life wasn’t normal. But before diving into her strange life headfirst, I needed to know why she spent so much time here, why she appeared to be hidden from the world, why she had been hiding me.

  “Matilda,” I began. “I don’t understand it. No one knows about you. No one’s ever seen you. Your father’s one of the most photographed men in the city, but you’ve never been in a single photo with him. According to the world, you don’t exist. I need to know what’s going on.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. I followed her eyes downward, toward an old mosaic on the pool’s floor. It was a star, but the water’s ripples distorted it.

  Finally, she said, “You’re putting me in a bad position. I have two choices. Lie or tell the truth to a reporter.”

  “I wouldn’t betray you, you know that.”

  Matilda swam to the edge of the pool, leaning back on the blue and pink tiles that were most likely imported from an eighteenth-century bathhouse in Europe or something of the sort. She drew figure eights with her index finger. Its pink-colored nail matched the tiles and I wondered if she had coordinated it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.

  “I’ve never left the estate,” she said.

  I had probably known—of course, I had known. But when she said it I still couldn’t believe it. It didn’t sink in then; it never really would.

  “Well, actually, my dad tells me I’ve always been here, but it can’t be true. I can’t remember much about when I was younger, but occasionally I will dream of a place so specific, so exact, that it must exist in the real world and I must have been there. I dream of the ocean, wide and gray during a storm. And I dream of salty air, of a woman—a woman who must have been my mother. But now she’s as filmy as a ghost. I can’t remember her hair, her eyes, her laugh, a single feature about her.”

  “Do you know who she is?” I asked.

  “No. Eventually I stopped asking my dad. My father says that if someone doesn’t want you, you shouldn’t want them.” She looked at the water sadly. “I
don’t want you to think less of me, Thomas. And I definitely don’t want you to think less of my father. You see, it was a terrible thing that grew bigger than it was meant to be.” She paused, to catch her breath. “At first my dad just kept me at home because my mother wanted me to be a secret. She hadn’t thought of the ramifications of it—of all that it would entail. When I was little I would beg to leave. But then by the time I was ten or eleven I decided I didn’t want to leave anymore, either. It became too scary, too unknown.”

  “So your father keeps you here? Captive?”

  “You mustn’t think that. It’s not his fault at all and, well, I don’t press it because I’m afraid the real world holds no appeal for me.”

  “You’re happy here? Not experiencing any part of the world?”

  “I have everything I need here. The best teachers, a movie theater, a tennis court and a yard bigger than most parks. The only part of the world I haven’t experienced is love, but now I’ve met you.”

  The future suddenly turned eerie, too dark to really contemplate. In the short time I had known her I had fallen in love with Matilda Duplaine, and I would have sacrificed almost anything for her. But there was no possibility of a future without freedom.

  “Matilda, you have to leave. You know that. Even if your father prohibits it, he has no right to keep you here, in captivity, as a prisoner.”

  “It’s easy for you to say, because you’ve had twenty-six years of learning that I haven’t had. I’ve never met a single person who doesn’t work for my father except for you.”

  It was a glorious night; the wind blew strong and warm, and it was beautiful here. David had made certain Matilda had every creature comfort. But as majestic as it was, it paled in comparison to the real world.

  “I want to take you away,” I said before realizing what that really meant. I recalled the haunting conversation I’d had with Hector earlier that night.