Eloquent Silence

by Sandra Brown

  When he fumbled with the snap on her jeans, she realized what was about to happen and was dismayed at her own abandon. She was struck with shyness and self-consciousness.

  "Drake, no," she gasped and squirmed away from him. "Not out here," she said primly, straightening her clothing under the blanket.

  "Why?" he asked, his eyes glinting mischievously. "It's fun in the woods, you know. Think of the Vikings, think of the Romans, think of Robin Hood and Lady Marian—"

  "Well, I'm not any of them. Besides, your daughter is lying right there." She indicated the sleeping Jennifer with an inclination of her head. She was still holding his hands away from her and dared not let them go.

  "She's asleep," he argued. "Come on, Lauri. Please." He was whining now and leaned over to brush her mouth with his mustache. It was a dangerous weapon, and he knew how to use it.

  "No. What if someone came by?"

  "They'd be embarrassed and look the other way."

  "I'd be mortified!" she cried. Then she softened her tone and left it full of promise. "Can't you wait until tonight?" she asked provocatively.

  "Well," he grumbled. "I guess I'll have to. You kiss me once and I'll kiss you and then we'll go home." She didn't see the gleam in his eyes, and it seemed like a reasonable request.

  She turned to face him and kissed him on the mouth. It was a passionless kiss, but conveyed all the love she felt for him. When at last they drew apart, he said, "Now my turn."

  "What are you doing?" She was shocked when he lifted the front of her sweater.

  "I'm getting my kiss. I didn't say what I was going to kiss."

  He raised the soft knit fabric and ducked his head under it. Leaving the peaks wet and aroused, he kissed first one breast then the other. When he looked at her again, he saw the auburn eyes swimming with tears of love. "One more, please," he said and closed his mouth over hers.

  Lauri was unerringly certain of one thing. He hadn't been thinking of Susan.

  * * *

  "I've got some errands to run in town," Drake said, peering around the corner of the classroom the next morning. "Why don't I go do those and then pick up some homemade tamales for lunch. I met a lady the other day who makes them in her own kitchen. I sampled them, and they are fantastic."

  Lauri laughed as he smacked his lips. "Well, if you like fat ladies, I guess I can eat tamales for lunch."

  "I like you," he said gruffly, and raked her body with lascivious eyes. "I'll see you later," he promised wickedly. "Good-bye, Jennifer," he said to his daughter, who was busy stacking building blocks that had been used for a counting lesson. She responded and he left.

  It was about a half hour before Drake was expected back when Lauri took Jennifer into the kitchen.

  "You're going to like this, Jennifer," she said and sat the little girl down at the kitchen table.

  "We're going to play a game to see if you can tell the difference between white milk and chocolate." As usual, Lauri was signing every word. Jennifer watched with interest. Food lessons were her favorite.

  "Okay," Lauri continued, "I'll fill two glasses. See? One has white milk and the other chocolate. Let me see you say them." When Jennifer had satisfactorily signed white milk and chocolate milk and pronounced them as well as she could, Lauri said, "Now I'm going to give you a straw. I'll put each glass in front of you, and you tell me which kind of milk it is. Do you understand?"

  Jennifer nodded, and the blond curls bounced around her head.

  "Cover your eyes so you can't see," Lauri directed. When she was certain that Jennifer wasn't cheating, Lauri placed the straw into the glass of white milk. Jennifer took a sip and then gave the correct sign. They repeated the exercise until Lauri was sure the child had a command of the words and could associate the taste with the name assigned it.

  They had just completed the exercise when Drake came through the back door carrying a sack of the delicious-smelling tamales.

  "What are you two doing?" he asked, setting the sack on the countertop and taking off his jacket.

  Let's see if Drake can do it Lauri addressed Jennifer, and the child clapped her hands happily. Lauri explained the rules of the game, and to Jennifer's delight Drake pretended to be unsure of his ability to do it correctly.

  He made a big production of closing his eyes, but finally took a sip out of a straw and said in sign, That's white milk. However when Lauri reached for the glass of chocolate, she saw that Jennifer had almost drained it.

  "Jennifer!" she admonished, but they were all laughing. Jennifer was pointing to her upper lip, which sported a dark brown chocolate mustache. She was comparing it to Drake's.

  You too, Lauri, she signed. You too.

  With much ado, Lauri protested, but Jennifer and Drake insisted. She picked up the glass of chocolate milk and took a big drink, making sure that some of it got on her upper lip. Jennifer let out a peal of laughter and jumped up and down. When they finally settled her down, Lauri instructed her, "Go upstairs and wash your face and hands while I fix our lunch." Jennifer skipped off happily.

  "Aren't you going to wash your face?" Drake asked with a mocking smile. "The mustache clashes with your hair."

  "Oh. I forgot all about it," she answered and turned toward the sink.

  "Allow me," he said, taking her by the shoulders. His velvet-rough tongue rid her of the milk mustache quickly, but as with all their kisses, the embrace was extended. Her arms went around him and they kissed for long minutes until both of them pulled away breathlessly.

  "If we keep this up, you'll never get your lunch," she mumbled as her lips teased his chin.

  "I may want to change the menu," he said thickly. He kissed her neck.

  "The tamales will get cold." She sighed deeply when he found a sensitive spot.

  "That's why they invented microwave ovens. Didn't you know that?" he muttered into her ear.

  She drew a resigned breath and gently extricated herself from his arms. "Let's behave. Jennifer will be in here in a minute demanding her lunch."

  "Where is that little scamp?" Drake asked. "I hope she hasn't run off again." His eyes warmed as they looked at Lauri. He was remembering, as she was, that the night Jennifer ran away, they were together for the first time.

  "I'll go check on her," Lauri said quickly. "If you don't mind setting the table." He shook his head, and Lauri darted out of the room before she submitted to another embrace.

  She climbed the stairs and was making her way to Jennifer's room when she saw movement in her own. Oh, please not another disaster, Lauri thought as she pushed the door open wider.

  Then her heart stopped.

  The first thing that caught her eye was the pair of pink satin ballet shoes. They would have fit dainty, slender feet with high arches. The shoes had no doubt been used a great deal for rehearsal, for the round, flat toes were well-worn, and the satin ribbons were wrinkled from frequent lacings.

  The shoes were lying among pictures, clothes, several theater programs, and a large, leather-bound scrapbook. Lauri's stunned eyes took in the open closet door from which the storage boxes had been taken.

  Jennifer sat on the floor staring at one of the pictures in solemn concentration. Slowly, on legs of lead, Lauri walked over to her and attracted her attention.

  Lauri, see? Pretty lady, she signed and indicated the picture in her hand.

  With a trembling hand Lauri reached for the picture and stared down at the woman immortalized in the photograph. She was beautiful. She was wearing practice clothes. The woolly leg warmers that are almost a part of a dancer's anatomy hugged the shapely calves and accented the perfection of her thighs. She was leaning against the barre as if at rest from pliés and tendus. She stared directly into the camera, unaffected and unposed, challenging the photographer's lens to detect a flaw. Her hair was dark, parted down the middle, and smoothed into a chignon at the base of her swanlike neck. The dark eyes were the largest and most arresting feature of her heart-shaped face.

  "Yes, she's pretty,"
Lauri said in a barely audible voice. Quite unconsciously she had dropped to the floor beside Jennifer. Her shoulders slumped dejectedly at her first sight of the woman who still possessed Drake's heart.

  "Hey, you two, I'm starving. What's going on up there?" Drake's happy bantering jolted Lauri out of her reverie, but before she could recover, he was standing in the doorway. His eyes and face were lighted up with a smile, but when he saw the disarray – the boxes with their contents strewn about without respect for their former owner, the child and the woman who had defiled the memory of his wife – his features hardened into a grim mask.

  Lauri turned away from the sight of it; she couldn't witness that terrible pain. She retrieved the ballet shoes from Jennifer, who was trying them on her own feet.

  Jennifer, go wash your face and hands, Lauri said with as much poise as she could. Jennifer started to protest and reached for the shoes again, but Lauri said, "Go!" The force of the command brooked no argument, and Jennifer walked past her father, who was standing over a photograph and staring at it, oblivious to everything around him.

  When the child had left the room, Lauri said, "I'm sorry, Drake. She was meddling, I guess. I'll pick—"

  "No, you won't," he snapped. "Leave everything where it is. I'll clear it up and put it away.

  Lauri dropped the pink satin shoes as if they had burned her hand. "Very well," she said, and fled the room.

  Drake was still standing in the middle of the floor staring down at the scattered photographs.

  * * *

  Lauri fixed Jennifer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The child chattered to Bunny, who sat on the table beside her plate as she ate it. Lauri gave her anything she grunted at and pointed to. This habit was taboo at any other time, but at the moment Lauri was too drained of energy to care.

  When Jennifer had finished her lunch, Sam and Sally arrived at the back door to invite her to their house to play. Lauri wrapped her in a sweater – the one Drake had bought her on their trip to Albuquerque – and asked Sam to see that she got back in half an hour.

  "Sure. We have to take our nap then anyway," he said as he led Jennifer down the steps to the yard.

  Lauri watched them scamper across the yard, but she wasn't really seeing them. Imprinted on the back of her eyelids were the pictures of the ballerina who gazed into the camera with such self-assurance.

  What had caused her to die? Drake had never said. He avoided the subject of his wife completely. Lauri knew nothing about her except that she had been a dancer, a classical ballerina who had auditioned for the chorus of Grease and, at that audition, met the man she was to marry.

  Had she been killed in an accident? An airplane crash? Had she contracted a dreadful disease that had cost her her life? A stroke? Surely not in one so young. What had happened to her?

  Lauri cleared away the dishes Jennifer had used. She took the sack of tamales outside to the large trash barrel. The house was silent. She roamed the rooms, looking for something to do to fill the void in her soul, but there was nothing. She counted the minutes until Jennifer came back, and when she did, Lauri suggested that they look at a book. Jennifer went into the classroom and chose one on different types of transportation.

  They sat on the sofa and discussed the cars, buses, airplanes, and boats in the large picture-book. Drake had been upstairs for two hours before Lauri heard his tread on the stairs.

  She braced herself for anything. What would he be like now? How would he react to what had happened? When she faced him, she knew.

  He was wearing slacks, a sport coat, and a tie: rare attire for him since his coming to New Mexico. In his left hand he carried a valise. A trench coat was slung over his right shoulder.

  Lauri stood up at his approach and clasped her hands together at her waist. It had come.

  "Lauri, I'm going back to New York," he said succinctly.

  "Yes."

  He diverted his eyes away from her. "I've been here too long," he said. Was he convincing her or himself? "There are things I need to do. I can't stay here indefinitely."

  "No." If he wanted her approval, he was in for a disappointment. She wasn't about to make it easy for him. She had begged Paul to let her help him. Her offers had been spurned: one rejection was enough. She wouldn't let Drake rub salt in the wounds.

  "You'll explain my leaving to Jennifer?" he asked, not really expecting Lauri to reply. When she did, her answer surprised him.

  "No. You'll explain it to her." He recognized the proud, haughty tilt of her chin and knew it was useless to argue.

  He set his valise on the floor and knelt down in front of his daughter, who was still engrossed in the book. "Jennifer," Drake said. That's all Lauri heard. She went quickly to the front door and pressed her forehead against the hard cold wood. I can't stand this, she cried silently. I'll die when he leaves, she groaned. But when she heard his approaching footsteps, she righted herself and faced him with a bravado she was far from feeling.

  "She's upset. Please reassure and comfort her for me," he said. And who'll comfort me? Lauri wanted to ask him. She noticed that he wasn't looking too stable himself. If she didn't know better, she would think that the strange shine in his eyes was caused by tears. Was he that upset over leaving his daughter? Or was this just a poignant farewell scene he was aptly playing?

  "I have to take the car, but I'll arrange for someone to drive it back to you tomorrow."

  She nodded.

  "Well, good-bye, then. I'll be in touch." He acted as if there were more he wanted to say. Or— No, he couldn't have wanted to kiss her, though she thought his head had dipped slightly lower in a tentative attempt.

  "Good-bye, Drake," she said flatly, and opened the front door for him.

  The lines around his mouth tightened into a frown, and the thick brows lowered ominously. He sighed in exasperation before he shoved past her. She closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Appropriately enough, gray clouds scuttled over the mountaintops and hung over the village of Whispers. They sifted down the first snow of the season. Somehow the pristine blanket of white did nothing to relieve the gloom that permeated the house.

  Jennifer was disinclined to participate in any activity, and Lauri allowed her to watch television for the rest of the day.

  When bedtime finally came, the little girl hugged Bunny to her and repeated over and over in her sweet but almost incoherent voice, "Dau-dy." Tears flowed down her rosy cheeks. It was too much for Lauri's shattered emotions. She lay down beside Jennifer and clasped her tight.

  They cried themselves to sleep.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  «^»

  Time dulled the heartache that Lauri and Jennifer suffered over Drake's leaving, though it was still prevalent if they were reminded of him. With the resilience of a child, Jennifer awoke the next morning chattering, excited over the snow, and eager to start a new day. As much for her own peace of mind as for Jennifer's, Lauri launched them into several projects that would be exhausting and fill the long hours of the day. They seemed to have multiplied since Drake left.

  "I can't believe that he left you so soon after your wedding," Betty observed from her position on the kitchen stool. Lauri was supervising the making of popcorn balls. The children were sticky from their fingertips to their elbows and stuffing the gooey mess in their mouths before the hot syrup had time to cool.

  Lauri parried the remark, shrugging her shoulders negligently and saying, "He has a job, Betty. He had to get back."

  "I know, but you've got to admit, it's strange behavior for a man on his honeymoon."

  But Drake's not really on his honeymoon, Lauri thought to herself as Betty reread The Scoop Sheet for the third time.

  She had purchased the magazine that morning while grocery shopping and rushed it over to Lauri. The laughing couple captured on the front page in glorious color was to Lauri an obscene mockery. She hadn't wanted to know what the article said, but Betty had read it aloud to her,
missing the tears that slid from Lauri's eyes and rolled down her face. What had Drake thought of the false story? Had he even seen it?

  For some reason she couldn't name, Lauri didn't want to disclose that she and Drake weren't actually married. Betty would never understand the complexities of the situation and barrage her with questions too painful to answer. Like her parents, Betty would have to stay ignorant of the true state of affairs a while longer.

  Sooner or later they would all know the truth. Lauri would feel like an absolute fool, but no more than she already did. In the days following their mock wedding she had almost convinced herself that Drake was as much in love with her as she with him. He couldn't have been more loving, more devoted to making her happy.

  She should have remembered his occupation. He was paid a tremendous amount of money to convey emotions every day. His role bad demanded that he act like a loving newlywed, and he had played the part well. He had also been paid. Each night he had been paid in full on the king-size bed upstairs. That's all he had wanted from her in the first place.

  Now she blushed furiously with anger and shame. He had told her at the beginning of their relationship what she could expect. Yet, she had deluded herself into thinking that she could change his need for her, could transform it into something deeper than physical longing.

  It wasn't her aim to make him forget Susan. He would never forget, nor should he. Lauri only wanted him to be able to love again – to love her. She had thought she was about to succeed. Then she had seen his face as he looked down at the photographs of his first wife. The clothes strewn about the bedroom floor must have been vivid reminders of the woman who had worn them and danced in the satin shoes. His agony had been plain to see. Did he feel that he had betrayed Susan by sleeping with Lauri? Is that why he left?