The Invitation

by Jude Deveraux

  Without exchanging a word, without so much as a raised eyebrow of communication, they turned toward the house. The door was barely closed before their clothes were on the floor and their hands were clutching at each other’s bodies. They didn’t leave the house again for two days.

  Their idyll ended on the eighth day when Mrs. Beasley, the town gossip, walked into the bedroom and saw Jackie and William in bed together.

  Chapter Ten

  William and Jackie were alone in the house, sitting together on the sofa in the living room. Or perhaps “together” wasn’t the right word, since Jackie was perched at one end, as far away from William as possible. This morning, the town snoop, who prided herself on having no idea what a closed door meant, had walked into their bedroom. No doubt she had felt it was her duty to see exactly what was going on way out there in that ghost town, so she’d put on her best hat and made up an excuse to borrow something from Jackie. Which of course was absurd since Mrs. Beasley lived much nearer the stores, as well as other neighbors, than Jackie did.

  But she’d seen what she’d hoped to see: something to satisfy her hunger for gossip. She had scurried out the door and sped away in her little car so fast William couldn’t get into his trousers and catch her before she left. It had always been a town joke that the fastest runner in the world was a Beasley girl with a hot piece of gossip.

  So now everything that Jackie had not wanted to happen in Chandler had. She had wanted to become respectable, to prove to the townspeople that she wasn’t fast or easy, that she deserved a place in their town. For once in her life, she’d wanted to conform, not be an outsider. But this morning Mrs. Beasley had ruined her one chance. Now she was going to have to go into town and see people’s eyes shift to one side when they saw her. She was going to know that they were repeating every story ever passed around about her.

  William didn’t want to leave, but Jackie begged him to go to Denver for a few days. “I need to face this alone,” she said, referring to the people of Chandler.

  “Face what alone, Jackie? What is there to face? Do you think we’re the first people in this town to have gone to bed together before marriage? Half the children of this town are politely called ‘premature’ because they were born six months after the wedding.”

  She wasn’t going to answer him, because he knew as well as she did that the two of them were not an ordinary couple.

  When she didn’t respond, he turned and left the room, moments later reappearing with his suitcases. He started to take her in his arms, but she held him away. With a hardened jaw, he picked up his luggage. “I’ll be back in three days,” he said, then left the house.

  Jackie didn’t have to wait long for the sky to open up. It opened in the form of Terri, her face angry, her body rigid as she stalked toward the house, ready to do battle.

  “Is it true?” she asked as soon as Jackie opened the door, not even bothering with conventional greetings.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jackie said, trying to keep her dignity. Why did people always think they should talk to you “for your own good”? “Would you like some tea?”

  “No, I don’t want any tea. What I want is to try to talk some sense into you. You aren’t thinking of marrying this…this child, are you?”

  Jackie gave a great sigh. “William is not a child. He is a full-grown man.”

  To her consternation, Terri collapsed on the sofa in tears. Jackie had not expected this. She had expected outrage and anger from her friend, but not tears. Jackie went to her, put her arm around her shoulders. “Talk to me.”

  “No,” Terri said, “you don’t want to talk. Do you know how much you mean to me, Jackie? Do you have any idea how important you are to my life?”

  Unfortunately, Jackie did have an idea how much she meant to Terri. She couldn’t be oblivious to those dreadful sons of hers; she’d heard talk of Terri’s husband, who couldn’t hold a job. A couple of times in town Jackie had seen Terri unaware, had seen the misery on her face; it was not a face that she showed to Jackie.

  “Yes,” Jackie said, handing Terri several tissues. “I think I know.”

  “You are my idol. You are the idol of lots of women in America. You aren’t just someone ordinary like me. You’re special.”

  Yes, Jackie thought, and that was one of the major problems of her life. She had wanted to fly airplanes, but she’d never wanted to be a celebrity.

  Terri looked at her. “Are you going to marry him?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Then he has asked you?”

  Jackie didn’t answer, which was all the answer Terri needed.

  “Have you thought this through?”

  “Yes, of course I have. I’ve thought about everything. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t run through my head a thousand times.”

  “Have you thought of always looking older than he does? Younger women will makes plays for him, and when they see you they’ll say, ‘Your wife is old.’ It’s better to be younger and prettier than the man.”

  It was as though Terri were parroting Jackie’s own thoughts. She had played devil’s advocate with herself a thousand times. “Age compatibility is not a guarantee of happiness,” she said tiredly, but her bored tone didn’t stop Terri from continuing, while blowing her nose in the tissues.

  “All your friends will treat him like a boy, not like a man. You’ll be talking about things that happened in your life that he won’t remember because they happened before he learned to walk.”

  Jackie hadn’t wanted to get involved in this, but already Terri was beginning to make her angry. “Why is age a consideration when the woman is older but not when the man is? Does a man who is in love with a younger woman worry that he’s going to be talking about things that happened before she was born? Or does he laugh and pat her on the fanny and say something like ‘Now, honey, you go on back to the kitchen and let us grown-up men do the talkin’?’ Are you saying that that sort of thing is good? That is to be encouraged?”

  Terri didn’t answer. She must have been formulating these questions for the past day and a half, ever since she’d heard about what Mrs. Beasley had seen. “How can he take care of you? You’re a grown woman.”

  “If he were marrying a twenty-four-year-old woman, no one would question a twenty-eight-year-old man’s ability to take care of her,” Jackie said. “No one would question that he was a man. Why is he reduced to being a child just because his wife is older than he is?” Jackie was beginning to warm to the subject. “And while we’re at it, I’d like to know what needs a twenty-four-year-old girl has that I don’t. Companionship? A man who takes responsibility for a wife and maybe children? Sex? Being there when I need him? What does a younger woman need that I don’t?”

  Terri gave her a look of pity. “It’s a matter of wisdom. In thirty-eight years, I hope you have learned more than he has. Think how stupid and immature you were at twenty-eight. Think what you’ve learned about life since then.”

  Jackie threw up her hands in exasperation. “You know what I’ve learned in my lifetime? I’ve learned that I don’t want to spend any more of my life with a man who sets himself up as some sort of demigod to me. Charley wasn’t just my husband; he was a dictator. He made all the rules; he knew everything.”

  “But that’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Terri practically shouted, frustrated and frightened. She knew very well how horrible marriage could be, and she wanted to save her friend from a misfortune she could foresee as clearly as though she had a crystal ball.

  “Who made that rule?” Jackie snapped back, but then tried to calm herself. She knew that Terri had nothing but the best intentions toward her. Terri thought that Jackie was making a horrible mistake, and she was trying to prevent that mistake. “Who says the husband has to be a teacher and instructor to the wife? Why can’t the two of them be equal? William and I are equal. He knows about home and family and stability. I know about excitement and impulsiveness and
living for the moment. If we were the same age or if he were like that perfect man you wanted me to marry, I would have to adapt to his ways. An older man would never bend to my ways. If William married a younger woman he’d bully her into organizing her hairpins. She would look up to him as though he had all the answers, and poor William would feel an obligation to supply them—as he knows them. But I know, because I’ve seen so much of the world, that there is no right way or wrong way of doing anything. I don’t expect William to tell me how to think, how to live, how to set my dressing table in order. I just want him to…to…”

  “To what?” Terri asked, her mouth set in a line that said she wasn’t going to believe anything Jackie had to say.

  But Jackie didn’t care that she was fighting a battle she was destined to lose. “To love me. I want him to be my friend. To care about me as I am. I don’t want to change him, and he doesn’t want to change me. I don’t put the unbearable weight on his shoulders of needing to have the answers for everything. We are equals.”

  “But, Jackie,” Terri said softly, as though explaining something that everyone else on earth knew, “a man needs to feel that he is the man. Maybe you and I know that there aren’t five men in the world who know half as much as any woman, but it’s important to a man to think he knows more than the woman he loves.”

  At that Jackie laughed. “Terri, if you think that William honestly believes I know more than he does because I’m older than he is, then you don’t know anything at all about men. How old were your sons when they decided they knew more about the world than you because you were a mere female?”

  In spite of her feeling of imminent disaster, Terri couldn’t help a smile. “Nine. No, eight years old.”

  “Right. I’m the one saying that William and I are equals, not him. We are equal because I do not look to him for all the answers. When I married Charley I thought that because he was older he knew everything there was to know. It was hard on both of us when I began to realize that he was human like all the rest of us. Both of us wanted to get back to the time when I had looked up at him with starry eyes filled with the belief that he could do anything, but once that belief is gone, it’s gone forever. With William I don’t expect him to know everything. I expect only what he’s good at: steadfastness, a calming presence in the storm of my life. I haven’t deified William; I see him for what he is, and I like what I see.”

  Jackie smiled. “You know, it must be a relief for him to be liked for what he is instead of having to try to be what some romantic girl thinks he is.”

  Jackie was beginning to feel better. As the words came out of her mouth she became more and more convinced of the truth of what she was saying. “Why is it that a man can be a child at fifty but not an adult at twenty-eight? It’s common for women to complain that their husbands take more care than a couple of two-year-olds, so why is it inconceivable that a man can be grown up at twenty-eight? William says—”

  Terri could see that she was losing Jackie, that, once again, Jackie was doing just what she wanted and the rest of the world be damned. “And we all know how much sense we had at twenty-eight.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. “At twenty-eight I was weighed down with three kids and a husband who couldn’t hold his job but could hold his liquor. And at twenty-eight you were flying planes through burning barns.”

  “I refuse to reduce a man to one characteristic: his age,” Jackie said angrily. “Ask me about his reliability, his ability to think in an emergency, his kindness, his sense of honor, his honesty, his sense of humor, the way he takes care of others. Why are these things worth nothing and his age is everything?”

  Terri opened her mouth to say something else, but she closed it. She could see that there was no use talking to Jackie; she had made up her mind. Terri stood up. “Obviously I am wasting my breath. When this boy breaks your heart, Jackie, I’ll help you put the pieces back together.”

  That statement made Jackie angry. “Is it a guarantee that because I am older in years, not in spirit, William and I are destined to fail?”

  Terri started toward the door, meaning not to say a word, but then she turned back. “You have all the answers, don’t you, Jackie? You’ve been everywhere, done everything, so of course you know it all. How could I know anything? I’ve lived in the same town all my life, my husband is in training to be the town drunk, and my children will no doubt spend their adult lives in prison. So how could someone as insignificant as I am know anything?”

  “Terri—” Jackie began, her hand out to touch her, but Terri moved away.

  “Jackie, I will be there if you need me,” Terri said and left the house.

  Jackie leaned against the door and began to cry. “Why can’t life be simple?” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. “Why can’t I be like other people?”

  There was no answer.

  Chapter Eleven

  Surprise!”

  Jackie stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the people standing in the doorway of her house, five men and two women, their faces alight and happy. Their expressions did not reflect what she was feeling inside.

  “Bet you didn’t expect us, huh, Jackie?”

  “No,” she said as politely as she could, but her heart had fallen to her feet. Only yesterday she’d had to deal with Terri, and in the hours that had passed since then, she hadn’t stepped outside her door, afraid of what the other people in Chandler were saying about her and William.

  Now there were seven people standing at her door, old friends of Charley’s, old drinking buddies of his. Men and women who had once been part of her life but who were no longer.

  As she looked at them, laughing, holding up bottles of wine, wanting to stay up all night to celebrate, she realized how much she had changed during her time in Chandler. In Chandler, if someone saw your light on at three A.M., they’d call you the next day, usually at six A.M., to ask what was wrong with you.

  “Come in,” she said, smiling, holding the door open wide. Once they were inside, she went to the kitchen, knowing they would be hungry and that later probably at least two of them would need cash.

  “Jackie, come in here and tell us what you’ve been doing these last two years. We saw a barn full of new planes out there. Where’d they come from?”

  At those words, Jackie’s hands froze as she was cutting the fourth sandwich. So that was why they were here: they’d somehow heard of her new business and wanted in on it.

  Suddenly she had an overwhelming desire for William to be there. He would politely but very firmly let these people know that they were hiring only reliable people, not old-timers whose best years had come and gone.

  At that thought, she shook her head to clear it. She was an old-timer. These were her people, her own age.

  “Come and get it,” she called as she carried a tray of sandwiches and pickles into the dining room where the table was already littered with beer and wine bottles. One of the men was carrying in suitcases.

  “Hope you don’t mind a little company for a few days, Jackie,” one man said. “We didn’t think you’d mind, what with this whole hotel to yourself. You must get lonely now and then and want a little company.”

  “No, of course not. Sure,” she said, trying to force a smile, and she was sent back in time to when she lived with Charley. He was a very generous man; what was his belonged to everyone else as well. He was considered generous, but it was Jackie who’d had to buy the food and cook the meals and do everyone’s laundry.

  So now they were here wanting jobs and food and free lodging. How was she going to tell them to get lost?

  “Hello.”

  She looked up and there stood William, so strong and tall and clean. The sunlight behind his head made him look like a rescuing angel. Dropping three empty bottles, Jackie rushed to him, and he opened his arms to her, pulling her against his chest, holding her close. Vaguely she was aware of the hush behind them, but she didn’t care what they thought. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how m
uch she had come to depend on William, on the strength of him.

  “Hey, Jackie, are you gonna introduce us?”

  One by one, Jackie introduced the people, only six of them in the room since one of them, Charley’s oldest friend, had stepped out for a moment. With enthusiasm, they said hello to William and invited him to join them.

  Jackie was holding her breath, as these were the first people she had introduced William to as “her” man, and she was waiting for their reaction. As far as she could tell, there was nothing unusual in the way they acted. Within minutes they were telling William lies about their exploits in airplanes and William was telling them about nice hotels in town where they could stay. Jackie had to hide her smile. She could relax now; William was here to take care of her. He wouldn’t allow these people to take over the house, nor would he give them jobs unless they were qualified.

  Five minutes later Charley’s friend Arnold returned to the room.

  Gladys, being much too friendly with William, clutched his arm to her bosom and said, “And this gorgeous young thing belongs to Jackie.”

  Arnold smiled and held out his hand. “I didn’t know Jackie and Charley had any kids,” he said.