by Sally Quinn
“How’s Giselle?”
“I gave her sleeping pills.” He grinned.
“You didn’t! Isn’t that malpractice or something?”
“She asked for them.”
“What kind of a dose?”
“She ought to wake up in time for the Fourth of July.”
She choked with laughter.
“Don’t say it. I know I’m terrible.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“I like to make you laugh.”
“You’re pretty successful at it.”
He turned serious on her, the way he did so often. One minute the jester, the next so solemn.
“I’d like to make you cry, too.”
She pulled back in shock.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Just to know that I was capable of arousing such emotions in you.”
“Why would you want to hurt me?”
“I don’t. I just want to know that I could.”
“I never know whether to take you seriously or not. I think you’re putting me on but I’m not sure.”
“Good. I like it that way.”
“I’m going to have to think about that.”
They walked up the path, deliberately not touching each other, although their arms were swinging so closely together that their hands nearly met by accident several times.
The Sokolows were waiting for them at the table. They had been drinking champagne in the bar earlier and seemed well on their way toward having a good time. Was it her imagination or were they particularly pleased about her being there with Michael? She felt they were almost encouraging a romance, though she and Michael had both been very careful not to pay too much attention to each other in front of Sid and Judy.
Michael ordered a bottle of Sadie’s favorite champagne. Did he know it was her favorite? They all proceeded to get quite high.
Sadie brought up her idea of getting Blanche Osgood interested in an AIDS project, perhaps giving country music concerts as benefits.
“When I suggested that she get in touch with you to see if you had any ideas for her,” said Sadie, “she seemed to like the idea. So did Freddy. He’s even more desperate than she is for her to have a project. It’s awfully hard being cooped up in the White House when you’ve had your own career. I know only too well what it’s like and I didn’t even have a career.”
“Oh great,” said Michael. “Just what I need. To be the mentor for a country music-singing First Lady who’s desperate for a project and who’s being advised by a former First Lady who’s a sadist and wants to punish me. I think I’ll go back to my rats. There is nothing in it for an innocent country doctor but pain and anguish.”
They were all quite loose by now and Sadie began to tease Michael about Blanche. She predicted that Blanche would certainly fall in love with him, which would make it easier to deal with her.
Judy and Sid joined in making him the butt of their jokes as well. He seemed to revel in the attention, especially since the teasing, led by Sadie, had a rather intimate quality to it. After dinner they went into the Moroccan bar where dancing had already begun. Michael and Sadie settled into a dark corner while Sid asked Judy to dance to the schmaltzy music.
“I love this song,” said Sadie spontaneously. “You’re probably such a music snob you can’t stand it.”
“On any other occasion I would have said you were right. But not tonight. Tonight I wouldn’t want to hear anything else.”
“I wish I could dance. It’s driving me insane that I can’t. I just don’t think it’s appropriate, though, do you?”
“Just as well. I’m a terrible dancer. You’re probably great.”
“I am. And I don’t believe you’re terrible either.”
“It’s a WASP sport, dancing. I was always waiting tables at the country club and watching all the debutantes two-stepping with their horribly bland, boring boyfriends. I never have understood it, frankly. Why would you bother to dance? Why put your arms around a woman and hold her close unless you’re going to make love to her?”
“Maybe it’s better than nothing.”
He looked at her a long time. She had no place and nothing to hide when he looked at her like that. And she didn’t want to.
“Would you like to dance?”
“I’d love to… but not here.” Her voice was almost a whisper.
He looked at his watch.
“It’s almost midnight.”
“We’ve got to get out of here anyway. I don’t want to be here when the clock strikes twelve.”
“Let’s go.”
When Sid and Judy returned to the table, they embraced Sadie, saying their farewells, as they were leaving the next morning.
Sadie and Michael slipped out of the bar and down the stone stairway to the beach rather than take the more traveled path to the villas. Her agents, led by Toby, kept a discreet distance.
They had reached the bottom of the steps to the beach, which was hidden by bougainvillea and a small cluster of palm trees. Sadie kicked off her sandals. They could hear the words from a popular musical drifting down from the terrace.
“Say you love me… one love, one lifetime… that’s all I ask of you.”
“May I?” He held out his arms.
She went to him, put one arm gently around his neck, her hand in his. She moved in closer so that their bodies were barely touching. She put her head in the crook of his neck, her cheek softly grazing his. He began to move slightly, swaying to the music, though they were both standing in place.
“I take back what I said about dancing.”
She could feel his breath on her shoulder and she began to tremble.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” on the terrace they were counting down to midnight, “five, four, three, two, one… Happy New Year!”
“Auld Lang Syne” began to play. Michael stopped moving. He pulled back from her just slightly so that he could look down into her face. Then he slowly brought his mouth toward hers. They kissed so softly that for a moment she wasn’t even sure they were actually kissing.
He pulled back again and looked at her with sadness. He reached out, touching the hair at her temple, stroking the side of her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Where have you been?”
“You break my heart, Sadie Grey,” he said finally.
They held hands as they made their way back through the palm trees. There were several people on the beach. It was too risky for them to walk down to the end tonight. Besides, they had Toby trailing them.
When they got to her villa, they turned to each other as they had each night before.
“I’ll… I guess I should”—he cleared his throat—“I should say goodnight here. Or goodbye. We’re taking the early flight in the morning.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
He looked at her for a moment as though he were torn, then reached out and grabbed one of her hands. He squeezed it, then let it go as quickly as he had taken it.
“I have to,” he said.
Before she could reply, he was gone.
* * *
The next morning as she was having breakfast there was a knock on the door. It was one of her agents with a small package. She took it out to the terrace and carefully opened it. Inside was a beautiful conical seashell. It was ridged on the exterior in pink gradually turning to seafoam as it swirled to the mother-of-pearl pointed top. It was rubbed silky smooth from the sand and the sea.
There was a note inside.
Dear Sadie,
I found this shell on the beach this morning. It reminded me of you. Also, it’s an unusual shell in that if you hold it up to your ear you can hear the sound of a man’s heart beating. You are a kind and thoughtful friend and you have given me a perfect and unforgettable week.
M.D.L.
When she got back to Washington she wrote two letters.
Dear M.D.L.,
I’m
returning the shell to you. You found it. It’s your talisman. I held it to my ear but I couldn’t hear the sound of a man’s heart beating. Perhaps because the sound of my own was so loud.
Love, S.G.
Dear Des,
The mitt was wonderful, a huge success. It is removed from his pudgy little hand only for baths and meals and then amidst great protest. Thank you for remembering.
Dearest Des, I want to release you from what I know must be almost unendurable torment and guilt about me. I know you will always feel it about Willie as will I. There is nothing either of us can do about that.
I now know that you are right about one thing. Willie must always believe he is Rosey’s son. It would be too devastating for him, for you and me, for our families, for everyone, to reveal the truth.
That is not to say that you won’t always have a certain obligation to him. You will. As his “special friend.”
The point of this note is to tell you that you needn’t feel that obligation to me anymore.
I have met someone else. I’m not sure yet what it is that he and I feel for each other, but it is enough to make me realize that I have the strength to let you go.
You will always own a piece of my heart. I love you.
Sadie.
10
It was a gray and drizzling January day. Allison was tempted to have lunch downstairs in the cafeteria and skip her exercise class. The luncheon in the boardroom for the President of Argentina had been canceled and she had a rare free hour in the middle of the day.
She was so depressed all she wanted to do was curl up somewhere with a fashion magazine and eat brownies. Instead, she was going to have another unpleasant session with Sprague Tyson over the drug story. God forbid it should be over lunch. She was still annoyed about that. He was as good professionally as advertised and also, as advertised, a prick. Tyson was working on an important and dangerous story about the Medellin cartel infiltrating the Justice Department. Half the time she thought she might kill him if the Colombians didn’t. But nobody on the staff could touch him as an investigative reporter, and she figured he was probably a pretty good bet to win the Pulitzer. She would just have to put up with his arrogance and hostility.
That was not, however, why she was so depressed. She was depressed because of Des.
* * *
Since she had come back Des had been remote and distracted, just generally not himself.
He had barely made love to her. Maybe four or five times in the two months since they’d been together. He refused to discuss their relationship or marriage, not that she had pressed him. She felt it was important for her to get a handle on her new job before she went off and got married, but it would have been nice if he had mentioned it, since that was one of the reasons she had come back in the first place. She wanted the editorship, certainly, but she was in love with Des. She had no doubt about that. She had always been in love with him. For her sins, she always would be. But she wanted to be capable of having a life without him. That was pretty much what she had had these last two months. Des had insisted that they keep their respective houses. Even though they spent most nights together, he would often disappear over to his house in the evening and on weekends—to be alone, he said.
She had gone through several stages of emotions. At first she was so absorbed by her job that she didn’t really have time to concentrate fully on the fact that Des was on another planet. The fact was she was relieved that he didn’t pressure her to be with him every minute. She was spending twelve to fourteen hours a day at work and still feeling overwhelmed. When she came home at night she was so exhausted all she wanted was a couple of glasses of wine, a good meal, and a hot bath. Usually they went around the corner to Nora’s if they were at his house or the Bistro Français if they were at her house in Georgetown. They rarely cooked. Des was better at it than she was but he wasn’t interested in shopping or cleaning up. Besides, it was easier to go out. Their conversations were mostly about the news—news-related subjects, people in the news, or people who reported the news. They managed to avoid anything remotely intimate.
As Christmas neared, however, Des withdrew even more. She knew him well enough, though they had been apart for those few years, to sense that it didn’t have anything to do with her. She began to probe about his work. She knew he was a bit discontented with the bureau chief job, that he missed writing; he felt bored and unchallenged. He admitted all of this, discussed it matter-of-factly without much emotion. Clearly, this was not what was causing his mood.
Even though Allison had hoped they wouldn’t get married at Christmas as they had originally discussed, she was annoyed that the holiday was approaching without so much as a word about their plans. It wasn’t that she was desperate to get married. She just wanted him to want to get married. What she really wanted was for him to get down on his knees and beg her. He had asked her once, at that dinner at Nora’s, formally. Now they were in some limbo and she was not liking it one bit.
She was more or less determined to say something to him if he didn’t bring it up by Christmas Day. How could he not? How could he let Christmas come and go without mentioning it? It was inconceivable. But he did.
Christmas was a nightmare. She had never liked Christmas anyway. Christmases had always been glum after her mother was killed in an automobile accident while on assignment in France when Allison was two. Her father would get terribly depressed around Christmastime. His mother, Nana, had lived with them, and it was only because of her that the holidays were bearable. Then her father, Sam, had been murdered by an intruder in their house in Georgetown. Since then, even though she celebrated Christmas, it made her sad.
Now all three were dead. The only family she had left were Uncle Rog and Aunt Molly, and Des. Uncle Rog and Aunt Molly were celebrating Christmas in Colorado, and though they had invited her out there neither one was in good enough health to really handle a visitor. Des was almost family. At least that was the idea. His daughter, Fiona, now in her early twenties, would be spending Christmas with her mother, Chessy, in her house in Barbados. Happily. Allison didn’t much like Fiona anyway. She was too much like her mother, a spoiled little rich brat. It was all Chessy’s money, so Des had no real control over Fiona. He saw her only occasionally and then there was no real warmth between them. Fiona had been a major disappointment in Des’s life. That was another reason she was puzzled by his attitude. They had never discussed children, but Allison thought Des wanted more. At least he wanted a son. Now was his chance to marry and have another child. Assuming that, at forty, she could still get pregnant. They didn’t have much time left. She hadn’t quite come to terms yet with how she felt about children, but her attitude had begun to change until Des started to disappear on her. She was afraid that if he didn’t bring it up soon she would start to withdraw. She knew herself. Then he would never be able to reach her until it was too late.
* * *
On Christmas morning Allison had pretended to be asleep when Des got up and went downstairs for breakfast. She kept putting off getting up herself. She didn’t want to face what she knew was going to be a disappointment when they finally did get around to opening presents.
Des had told her long ago how much he had always hated Christmas. It reminded him of his childhood, when his parents anguished over not being able to give their children nice presents. He knew how sad Christmas was for her. However, they each dealt with their sadness in different ways. Des’s way was to ignore it, Allison’s was to go overboard. The one thing she had liked about being in England was that the British really went in for it in a big way and she hadn’t had to cope with Des’s Scrooge act.
It was 11:00 A.M. She couldn’t put off any longer what they both had been dreading.
She put on her robe and slippers, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and trudged down to the tiny library on the second floor. They had put the tree there, in a small, raised altarlike cubicle surrounded by windows. She heard the fire crackling and peered in. Des
was reading the paper and sipping coffee. He was already dressed in jeans and a turtleneck.
“Hi,” she said, trying to sound cheery.
“Hi. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic.
“Are you going to get some breakfast?”
“Yeah. I thought I’d get a muffin and some tea.”
“Oh, good. Well, bring it up here.”
“I will.”
He sounded as miserable as she did.
When she was settled on the sofa in front of the fire, facing Des’s favorite chair and footstool, they looked at each other and smiled nervously. She was damned if she was going to be the one to suggest they open their presents. They could rot for all she cared. She had gotten him some great stuff, all things he would like, too, but if he hadn’t gotten her something comparable he would be embarrassed and their whole day would be ruined.
She picked up the paper and began to read. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, then cleared his throat.
“You want to, uh, open the presents?”
“Sure.”
She looked down at her claddagh ring, the one he had given her at Nora’s the night he asked her to marry him. It had been less than four months yet it seemed so long ago, that night when they had been so in love. There had been years when she had hoped to find a ring under the tree. Now she had his ring, but it didn’t seem to be doing her much good. At least he hadn’t asked her for it back, although she couldn’t be all that certain he wouldn’t.
It occurred to her that he had never bought her jewelry. He knew her favorite store in Washington was the Tiny Jewel Box. She had bought the few pieces that she owned there. She had always bought her own jewelry. She was not the kind of woman men bought jewelry for. She used to take pride in that. Now suddenly it upset her. She found herself wanting to be spoiled for once, to be loved and cherished as the vows said. Here was the man who had asked her to marry him, sitting across from her in almost total silence, having never mentioned “holy matrimony” since September.