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Nina grinned. “I’m guessing it wasn’t the onlything.”
Judith returned her smile with a small nod. “I had no idea what to do in his world. It was so glamorous, somoneyed.”
“But you’d been around all those celebrities in Hollywood.” Nina eyed the remaining sandwiches on the coffeetable.
“It wasn’t the same. Not at all. A lot of the people in California were people like me, people who came west because they didn’t fit in anywhere else. Back then wealth and celebrity didn’t negate one’s past like it does now. Most of us were no match for an East Coast blue blood like Samuel.” Judith smiled. “And please, dear, finish those sandwiches. They won’t get eatenotherwise.”
Nina laughed. “You don’t miss much, doyou?”
“Not much,no.”
Nina added two more sandwiches to her plate. “I’ve always had a large appetite. I suppose it’s not veryfeminine.”
“Only to those who are fond of defining such words within narrow parameters,” Judith said firmly. “Lucky for you, you live an an era where those parameters areexpanding.”
“Thank god. I’d be hoarding food and eating in my closet otherwise.” Nina took a bite and chewed before returning to the story. “So you fell in love with him. WithSamuel.”
Judith hesitated. “In a manner ofspeaking.”
Nina looked more closely at her. “In what manner ofspeaking?”
Judith’s gaze moving to something beyond Nina’s shoulder, her eyes glazing over like she was remembering. “I was so alone in California. I had friends, of course, and plenty of men to date. But there was no one to trust. No security, no ground under myfeet.”
“And Samuel gave you thosethings?”
“Oh, that makes him sound boring!” She laughed a little. “And he wasn’t. He was a fascinating man even then, a man who had traveled the world, who seemed to have read every book that had ever been written. He knew how to speak four languages and how to sail. He was equally at ease in a room with the riffraff as he was in a room with the President. Those things held an excitement of theirown.”
“Of course.” Nina tried to formulate her next question, her real question, without offending Judith. “I guess I’m just wondering if you were madly in love when you married him, if you knew for certain that you lovedhim.”
Judith considered the question. “I cared for him. But I think I was more afraid of being alone than I was inlove.”
Nina leaned forward. “And later? After you moved to New York and got married and became one ofthem?”
Judith’s smile was indulgent. “Well my dear, I quickly learned the most important truth ofall.”
“Whichis?”
“We’re always alone. And no one and nothing in the world can ever changeit.”
