Mildred and Arthur Fontaine’s parties were the stuff of legend, celebrated as much for the outlandish themes, staged with meticulous detail, as for the elite guest lists. So why was it that Elyse Fontaine, who fancied herself a wild child, had retired with a barely contained yawn to the serenity of Uncle Arthur’s study before midnight?

“Not digging the scene?” her cousin, Walter, had asked. “Come on, I’ll teach you to do the Charleston.”

He’d grabbed her hand and led her toward the crowded dance floor, every square inch occupied by couples getting down in their roaring twenties finest. The band, called the Village People, was supposedly up and coming, chosen by Aunt Mildred, and the one glaring failure in the Prohibition Speakeasy theme.

The Village People apparently believed they were going to a regular costume party, or they chose to ignore the strict twenties theme, as they were dressed as a cop, a cowboy, an Indian, a biker, an army guy, and a construction worker. Perhaps if Mildred had hired a band that might have held any charm for Elyse, she would have stayed longer. As it was, the Village People seemed more intent on checking out Walter than even glancing in Elyse’s direction. Not even the promise of Mildred accosting them later and asking from which village they hailed had piqued Elyse’s interest.

“I’d rather die than disco. Wally, I need to get out of here.” She’d pulled her hand from his. 

“I scored some hash. We can go out to the stables and toke up.” No matter what he said, Walter had an unfortunate habit of sounding like a guest star on the Love Boat, a fifty-year-old has-been. No matter that Walter was only twenty-four, five years older than Elyse. Aunt Mildred’s sister’s son, Walter wasn’t her real cousin and seemed to believe that left them free to get it on.

The mere thought of doing the deed with Walter made Elyse want to throw up. Or maybe that was the gin. She’d consumed a few cupfuls scooped straight out of the bathtubs Arthur had installed in lieu of bars at every corner of the room, a nod to the speakeasy theme.

“No, thanks. I’m getting a migraine.” It was exactly what Juliet Mills had said to Dan Rowan on last week’s Love Boat. Elyse had heard her aunt use it on her uncle, too. I’m getting a migraine. Worked like magic. “See you later, Wally.”

She’d run straight out the side door, ignoring the guard dressed up like one of Al Capone’s henchmen right down to the Tommy gun. A fake, Elyse had assumed, but who knew with Uncle Arthur’s attention to detail. Guests were given a password to speak at the door, true to the Prohibition theme, and she’d seen some of Arthur’s best friends turned away for forgetting it. But who could blame them? The word was Bandit, for Aunt Mildred’s prized Bichon Frise.

Aunt Mildred had chosen this night for the party because it conflicted with the annual Caring Hands Charity Ball, which was run by her arch rival and next door neighbor, Edith Tate. It wasn’t that Mildred despised charity events, oh no. She always sent a sizable donation. But every year, Mildred and Edith pulled out all the stops to outdo each other, ignoring the obvious fact that most guests enjoyed both events, crossing back and forth between the parties all through the night.

Now, in the dimly lit calm of Arthur’s study, away from the noise, Elyse could finally catch her breath. She didn’t dare turn on lights, lest she attract Walter’s attention, and instead lit some candles and incense on Arthur’s desk, unconcerned if ash fell on his prized business papers that were scattered all across the desktop. Softly, very softly, she played Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven on her eight-track. Instantly calmed, she leaned back in Arthur’s chair, put her feet up, closed her eyes and let Robert Plant’s sultry tones slide over her.

 

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold,

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.

 

Elyse still wore her flapper shoes, she noticed with a smile. She hated the party, the people, the band, but she really didn’t mind the clothes at all. Her dress was a slip of a thing, pale pink silk with thin straps and a drop waist, with a bow that wrapped around and accented the slimness of her hips. The skirt, a swirl of pleats, fell to just above the knee. And the shoes! Pale leather tied with the pink netting of a ballerina’s tutu, just a little bit of a heel. Kitten heels, the designer had called them in the shop. She was sold on the spot. Those flappers had style!

She had asked for extra netting to wrap around her short blond curls and tie in a bow, and she was right that it completed the look. Her pixie cut, a bold move and quite the change from her usual waist-long curtain, had been a smash at school, but now that she’d made an impact, and graduated, she was growing her hair back out and it was still in that awkward in-between stage, a chin length bob perhaps more suited for the twenties than for the seventies.

Most of the girls from Miss Porter’s had gone on to Barnard, Vassar, Smith, or Mount Holyoke after graduation. The last thing Elyse wanted was to sit for more schooling. Instead, she had come back to live with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Mildred in their dusty old Connecticut estate until she could decide where she would travel to “find herself,” as Aunt Mildred had said to explain Walter’s need to go to Europe on Uncle Arthur’s dime the previous summer.

Elyse had never been lost in her life. She knew exactly who she was, if not exactly where she wanted to go next. No matter what, she would never have to stop and ask directions. Once she made a decision, it was full steam ahead. She didn’t regret it for a moment until Aunt Mildred started saying a girl Elyse’s age ought to be married and stop sponging off her relatives. Sponging, that’s what she had said! Elyse had been outraged. Her parents had died in a tragic accident, but they’d left her a fortune. She had her own money, but no way to touch it until she turned twenty-one, or married, and neither idea held much appeal until Elyse met Frederik Ludvig of Norway and decided that she indeed wanted to become a woman, at Frederik’s legendary skilled hands.

“Elyse!” said the gray-haired man sternly. He stood in the doorway.

“Keep it down. I have a headache,” Elyse answered her uncle, as she leaned forward to click off the music.

“Is that your excuse this time? A headache? Well, it won’t work. I insist you come back to the party.”

“Insist?” She raised a pale brow, not that he could see it in the candle’s glow. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Arty Boy?” She used her best Brock Pierce impression. Brock, her uncle’s business partner, was always saying “Arty Boy” this and “Arty Boy” that.  He also used the word “groovy” entirely too often for a grown man.

“Insist is perhaps too strong a word.” Arthur cleared his throat, quite possibly remembering what had happened the last time he had insisted with Elyse.

He’d insisted she clean up her room. She’d hired a clean-up crew to clear out everything, every last piece of furniture Mildred had chosen for her. Then, she’d had them steam off the ridiculous orange and purple paisley wallpaper, and paint the place—ceilings and floors and everything in between—a bold, stark white. Only after a week had passed with her pretending to live happily in white space, sleeping on the floor, did she “allow” them to move furniture back in. But she kept to the white theme, out of principal.

“I’m asking you to return to the party.” Arthur stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, a small blessing. The last thing she wanted was Walter catching up to her.

“Give me one good reason why I should.”

“Brock Pierce has brought his son Jackson all the way from New York to meet you and he’s invited several other young people. I know your Aunt Mildred’s parties bore you, with so many older people, but I thought perhaps with some people your age coming around, it might be more your scene.”

“My scene? Groovy!” She jumped out of the chair. “Sounds like Brock Pierce scripted that one for you, Arty Boy.”

“Scripted? Why, no, but—please, darling. Won’t you consider it? For me?”

Ha! It had been many years since she had been Uncle Arthur’s darling.  For a while, after her parents had died and before Arthur had met one Mildred Plasse of New Orleans, the two of them had been thick as thieves. She’d been his darling girl. Nothing had been off limits. When she’d wanted to see a movie, he’d rented the entire theater. When she’d wanted a pony, he’d brought in a small herd, circus-trained, and let her have her pick. Then, Arthur had married Mildred after a whirlwind courtship and everything had changed.

“No,” said Elyse shortly, “I won’t. I have no interest in Jackson Pierce or in being polite to any guests he’s brought along. I’m going up to bed just as soon as I take something to knock out this headache. Then I’ll dream of real men.”

“One in particular perhaps? Frederik Ludvig? He’s no good for you, Elyse. He’s after one thing—”

“My virtue?” She batted her lashes.

“Make that two things,” Arthur corrected. “Your virtue and your money. And once he gets them, he will be on to the next victim.”

“Victim? Frederik’s descended from royalty. He doesn’t need my money. He could have any woman he wanted, but he chose me. Now why do you think that is?”

“Your genetic good looks, and your enormous bank account. Yes, he put the word out that he’s royalty, but Elyse.” He paused as if about to deliver an uncomfortable truth. “Lots of men are not what they say they are. Having some royal blood isn’t the same as being a prince in fairy tales. I’ve heard stories of this Ludvig fellow. He’s loved many women and he’ll love many more. Not long ago, he was involved in a notorious affair with that actress, what’s her name, the kooky one from Laugh In. Now he’s connected to that hippie dippy Marnie Bellows, the senator’s niece. You read the gossip rags. He promised to give her his family’s greatest treasure.”

“The Brisingamen necklace.” Crafted by dwarves for the goddess Freya, the necklace was thought to be mythical, but Frederik promised it was real. “Rest assured, he won’t be giving it to the Bellows girl. He has promised it to me, when we elope.”

Tomorrow night, he would place it on her neck and it would bind them together for eternity. Like him, she would be immortal. Uncle Arthur, Aunt Mildred, Walter, Brock Pierce, his son Jackson, and the senator’s hippie niece, the whole lot of them would rot and die while Elyse stayed young, beautiful, and quite alive by Frederik’s side. If they had to live off her fortune, so be it. She had plenty of money, enough for two lifetimes at least. And Frederik would be giving her a greater gift, after all. Eternity.

Uncle Arthur sighed. “Why on earth would you run away with him, Elyse?”

“I can’t say, exactly.” He’d promised her to secrecy. Immortality? No one would believe them. But she had seen the miniatures, pictures of him painted hundreds of years ago, by Rembrandt. She’d studied art history at Miss Porter’s. The resemblance was uncanny, and Elyse couldn’t believe he could find such clever fakes. He’d even shot himself to prove his endurance, and he healed instantly, right before her eyes. “He’s one of a kind, nothing like all those college boys who follow me and hang on every word I say.”

Her uncle crossed to the desk, leaned down over the candles, and spoke gently. “Brock Pierce is just back from the Caring Hands ball.”

“Those stuffy old charity affairs.” She shuddered. “Frederik hates them as much as I do.”

“He said Ludvig was there, with Marnie Bellows. She was wearing a necklace, gold with teardrop diamonds.”

“He’s making that up! Or you are.” She narrowed her eyes. Frederik had broken it off with the senator’s niece. He’d promised. They were trying to lure her to this Jackson fellow. “If I marry Pierce’s son, you can combine the business and family fortunes, is that it? I don’t know what your scheme is, but I’m sure it’s all to benefit your bottom line.”

“Is it the man or the necklace that fascinates you?” She hated the look in his eyes, the same look he’d had when she’d come down with fever as a child.

“I thought so,” he said, when it took her a minute to answer.

“You don’t know a thing about me.” She reached under the papers littering the desk for something with a barely exposed sharp edge that caught the candle’s glow. She meant to throw it at Uncle Arthur, until she saw that it was her mother’s mirror. Here. On Uncle Arthur’s desk. As if he, too, still thought of her, still missed her. She softened then, remembering.

She picked up the jewel-framed mirror pendant and caught a glimpse of herself, so much younger than she felt inside. Still a child really, wasn’t she? Is that what Uncle Arthur saw? “Oh, leave me alone, Arthur. Just go away. Please.”  

“I am going back to my guests,” he said quietly. “The party will be going on for hours. Take some time to—to get rid of your headache. But please, come back down and join us. I think you’ll really enjoy yourself, in the way that someone your age should. Give it another try. It’s all I ask. Then, you can run off to Norway, or wherever it is you say you want to go with this Ludvig of yours and I will leave you alone.”

“I’ll think about it. If my headache goes away. But it won’t change anything, you know. I want to be with Frederik. I’ve made up my mind.”

“We’ll see.” Arthur Fontaine cast one last shrewd glance at his niece and, turning, left the room.

 

 

Grave Expectations by Charles Dickens and Sherri Browning Erwin