A Tangled Web

by Judith Michael

  CHAPTER 14

  Stephanie heard a key turn, the front door open and close, the key locking it again, and she pictured Jacqueline walking into the coolness of the shop from the July heat on the cours Gambetta, adjusting a vase here, a lamp there as she approached the back room.

  “Good morning, did you have a pleasant weekend?” Her voice seemed preoccupied. “Did you and Max do something exciting?” She opened a closet in the corner and exchanged her walking shoes for high heels. “You’re very quiet, my dear. Is something bothering you?”

  “Yes.” This is not between you and Jacqueline; it is between Jacqueline and me. She heard Léon’s voice, felt his arms around her in the cool forest clearing where they had made love. But it had been four days since then, with a weekend in between, and she could not stand it any longer; she had to talk to Jacqueline. Because it is between us, she thought, and she and Léon must have been together this weekend, and I can’t go on pretending everything is the same, because nothing is.

  “Well, then, we must talk about it.” Jacqueline sat on the edge of the table and reached out to put her arm around Stephanie.

  “No, wait, please. I have to tell you . . . I thought, this weekend, you might have . . . you would have seen . . .”

  “I was not here. I was in Paris from Friday afternoon to late last night. What would I have seen if I had been here?”

  “Léon.”

  Jacqueline’s body stilled, as if poised to listen, perhaps to flee. “So.” Her voice was a murmur. “I did not guess it was you.”

  “What do you mean? You said you weren’t here; you didn’t talk to him.”

  “But he came to my house on Saturday and when he found I was gone he left flowers and a letter. I did not open the letter; it was late when I returned and I was tired and I left it for this evening. Because when a man leaves flowers and a letter, my dear, it means only one thing. Come now, don’t hide your face; let me look at you.”

  Stephanie met her eyes. “I didn’t know. And then he told me, but by then everything had changed.”

  “By then you were in love with him. And he with you, of course, since he has written me a letter.” She smiled faintly. “Léon and I once promised each other we would not linger, half in and half out of the door, if we met someone else.”

  “I’m sorry, Jacqueline, please believe that. I wouldn’t have—”

  “Of course you would have. It is clear that this was meant to be; you could not have fought it without destroying yourself. You must not even think that you would have turned away from it; that would have been wrong. And what are you sorry for? Loving Léon? There is no better man anywhere; why would you be sorry you love him?”

  “I’m not sorry I love him. I’m sorry that you must be hurt by it.”

  “Oh, well, hurt . . . we all are hurt now and then; otherwise we are dead. I am glad—” Her voice caught on the word, and she cleared her throat. “I am very glad for both of you, but for you especially, my dear Sabrina, because you are young and—”

  “So are you!”

  “Yes, but not as young as you. And not in so much need.”

  “We all need companionship and love, and someone to—” Stephanie broke into a nervous laugh. “Jacqueline, doesn’t it seem to you that this is a very odd conversation?”

  “Odd? I don’t think so. I would say civilized.”

  “But neither of us has said anything about my husband.”

  “Well, no, but we are talking about you, what you need, which does not necessarily have anything to do with you and Max.”

  “But I’m married.”

  “But that is a problem only if you wish to marry someone else and have children. But I suppose . . . well, I suppose you do. Is that it?”

  “We haven’t talked about marrying or having children. It’s just . . . loving him. Making love to him. Wanting to be with him even when I’m with Max, and I’m married to Max, I have responsibilities to him . . .”

  “Oh, my dear, you sound like an American.” Jacqueline paused. “Maybe you are; wouldn’t that be a surprise? No, really, you can’t be; no American speaks French as you do. But to have such ideas . . . Why can’t you love someone besides your husband, especially when your marriage is not what you would like it to be? Are you being less kind to Max? Are you hurting him?”

  “I will. Just as Léon hurt you.”

  Imperceptibly, Jacqueline’s face became harder, almost masklike. And Stephanie understood that for the past few minutes she had been playing a part, conversing animatedly about Stephanie and Léon as if they were characters on a stage and she could analyze them, even help write their script while all the time staying apart, coolly interested but uninvolved.

  But she was not uninvolved. That is a problem only if you wish to marry someone else and have children. She had not been able to say Léon’s name. Stephanie saw how carefully she held herself, her back straight, her head high, as if she might shatter like a piece of rare porcelain if she let one muscle relax or one emotion burst to the surface. There was a desolate pride in that straight back and high head and Stephanie thought of how she would feel if Léon had written her a letter and sent flowers, and tears came to her eyes.

  “Ah, you will not cry,” Jacqueline said. “Neither of us will cry. Instead we—” There was a knock at the front door. Jacqueline and Stephanie exchanged a glance: they knew who it was, and for just a moment they were two women sharing a secret and, because of that, closer to each other than they could be to any man. But then it was gone. Jacqueline sighed. “I’ll let him in.” But Stephanie stood with her and they walked together into the showroom.

  When the door swung open, Léon saw them both at the same time. “Good morning,” Jacqueline said formally and stood aside.

  He walked into the dimly lit shop and stopped beside a table where one of his smaller paintings stood on an easel. His voice was neutral as he greeted both of them. “It occurred to me,” he said to Jacqueline, “that you might not have read my letter.”

  She smiled faintly. “How well you know me, Léon.”

  Stephanie winced. “I should leave. I’ll be in back.”

  “I want you to stay,” Jacqueline said. “We are all friends, isn’t that so? And of course, Léon, you are right; I did not read the letter. I left it for tonight.”

  Léon looked at both of them. “It seems that by now it isn’t necessary.”

  “Of course it is necessary. I will have it as a memento. In that sense it is far better than a conversation on a Saturday morning, which would have left me only with echoes.”

  “I called again on Sunday,” he said quietly.

  “My maid told me. That was very thoughtful, to make sure I had not come home early and faced Sunday afternoon alone, with only flowers and a letter. It was very like you; you have always been the most thoughtful—” She took a few steps from them and stood with her back to them, one hand resting lightly on a gilded desk.

  Stephanie started toward her, but Léon put his hand on her arm, and at that moment Jacqueline turned. The mask was gone from her face, but Stephanie thought she looked almost austere, her bones chiseled and sharply shadowed. There might have been tears in her eyes, but it was hard to tell in the dim light; they had forgotten to turn on the lights in the shop when they came to answer the front door. She contemplated Stephanie and Léon, who stood close together, his hand still on her arm. “How lovely you are together. You make each other more beautiful. That is a gift that love brings . . . and its mystery, of course. It is so special, that part: sharing and enjoying the mystery of each other.”

  She put her hands lightly on their arms, an embrace, a blessing. “I like knowing that you have found each other; I like being reminded that there are mysteries and discoveries always waiting for us.” She kissed each of them on the cheek. “I love you both. I wish you much joy.”

  Stephanie breathed a sigh of gratitude and started to put her arms around Jacqueline, then hesitated.

  “Oh, come,�
� Jacqueline said. “We love each other, yes?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.” They held each other. “I do love you. You’ve been so wonderful to talk to. I want you to be happy. I want you to have everything you want.”

  Jacqueline gave a small laugh. “So do I. And we still will talk, yes? As often as before. I would miss it if we did not.”

  “Yes.” Stephanie concealed her doubt. She could talk to Jacqueline about Max, but never about Léon. There are always compartments and hidden places, she thought, where we allow some people in and keep others out; our lives are tangled webs of secrets and deceptions.

  A shudder ran through her. “What is it?” Jacqueline asked, feeling it in Stephanie’s body, but before Stephanie could answer, another knock came at the front door, and they saw a face peering in.

  “Oh, damn,” Jacqueline said crossly. “Ten o’clock. Why can’t people come late to do their shopping, the way they are always late for dinner parties?”

  “I’ll turn on the lights,” Stephanie said, and went to the back room to flick on all the switches and bring the shop to life.

  “And I will go to work,” Léon said, joining her. “Are you all right? For a minute you looked faint.”

  “I’m fine. It was that feeling I’ve had before. But it goes away.”

  In a corner of the room they embraced and kissed, and Stephanie let herself flow into him, part of him as he was part of her. “I love you. I’m glad you came this morning.”

  He kissed her eyes and the corners of her mouth. “I adore you, I want you, I want to be inside you and next to you and across the table from you, and running through fields of lavender with you, and bicycling with you to every spring that is the source of every river, of life, of love . . . My God, I am running on like a drunken amateur poet. My love, we have many things to talk about.”

  “Yes.” She was so happy she thought she could not contain it all inside her. “I’ll call you, is that all right? I don’t know when I can—”

  “Yes, yes, call me. At my studio or at home. Anytime. Midnight, dawn, noon, I’ll be awake, thinking about you, wanting you, most likely painting you. Call me. I love you.”

  Stephanie watched him walk through the shop. He stopped to speak briefly to Jacqueline and kiss her cheek, and then he was gone. She stayed where she was, giving herself another minute before going to work, holding on to his voice and his touch and the look in his eyes.

  “Sabrina,” Jacqueline called, her low voice carrying through the shop, “would you please bring the Terre d’Homme pitchers that came in this morning?”

  And at that moment, Stephanie thought of Max, and her exhilaration vanished. I have to tell him, she thought. Tonight. Whatever Jacqueline says, what I’m doing is wrong, and I have to tell him . . . tell him I want to move out of his house, get a divorce, be free to . . . to do whatever I decide to do. My love, we have many things to talk about.

  She carried the box of pitchers into the shop. Several customers were there, and then more came, and Stephanie thought of Max again only when she was driving out of Cavaillon and up the hill to their small enclave at the top. Her hands were tight on the wheel; she was rehearsing.

  I’m sorry, Max; you gave me a life, but now I have to make my own.

  I’m sorry, Max; I like you and I’m grateful to you, but I’ve fallen in love with—

  I’m sorry, Max, but I think it’s time I lived alone.

  I’m sorry, Max; I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ve met someone else and I have to be with—

  I’m sorry, Max, but I can’t live with you any longer because I don’t love you and I think you’re keeping things from me; you’re not honest with me; I think you don’t even want me to remember who I am, or anything about my past . . .

  That was it, she thought as she drove into the garage. That was the reason she wanted to leave. She turned off the engine. It was all true, but it wasn’t why she was leaving. She was leaving so she could be in Léon’s bed, and spend her days and nights with him, and love him. She didn’t love Max or trust him, and that had been true from the beginning, in the hospital, but she had stayed with him, because it had been secure. She felt a wave of despair. I haven’t grown up at all. I’m going from one safe haven to another, just the way I did when I went from my father to school to Garth.

  Garth.

  The name echoed within her. Garth, Garth, Garth. Stephanie concentrated on it, trying to hold it still, trying to connect it to something else. But there was nothing; it meant nothing to her. Garth, Garth, Garth. Not a name she heard in Cavaillon; not an ordinary name. Was I married to him? Maybe I just lived with him. Who was he? Who was I?

  “Damn it!” she cried, and hammered the steering wheel with her fists. One fist struck the horn and the sound blasted through the garage. In an instant the door opened and Madame Besset ran to her.

  “Madame, madame, what is it?” She opened the car door. “Oh, how pale you are. You are ill, you have hurt yourself . . . Here, let me help you . . .”

  “No, no, it’s all right.”

  “It is not all right, madame, you are trembling. My God, what has happened? Come, take my arm . . .”

  Stephanie held on to Madame Besset’s ample arm and stepped out of the car. When she looked up, Max was there. “I’ll take her, Madame Besset; please bring us something cold to drink.” He put an arm around Stephanie’s shoulders and led her into the house and into the living room, cool and shaded from the afternoon heat. “Sit down. Now tell me what happened.”

  “Max, who is Garth?”

  “Garth? I have no idea.”

  “I never talked about him?”

  “No. Does he have a last name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what happened in the car just now? You thought of a name?”

  “Yes, and it was so clear . . . I never mentioned him? You’re sure?”

  “Sabrina, I’ve never heard that name. I would have remembered if I had; it’s not a common one. You think you knew someone named Garth? Have you any idea who it might have been?”

  Stephanie searched his face. His arm was around her, and his eyes were close and steady. She knew he was telling the truth. Often she was not sure; there was a flicker in his eyes or a slight tightening of his mouth that she thought meant he was lying or hiding something, but now there was none of that. The name meant no more to him than it did to her.

  “I think I was married to him. Or lived with him.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, my dear Sabrina, you would have told me. That much we did talk about.”

  Madame Besset brought a tray with bottled water, a small ice bucket, and a bowl of fruit. “Lunch is ready, monsieur, but I did not know if madame would be hungry.”

  “Shall we have lunch?” Max asked. “I have something to talk to you about, but I won’t until you feel ready.”

  Stephanie felt a chill. “Is something wrong?”

  “Something might be, but it is manageable. Come; shall we have lunch?”

  Subdued, Stephanie followed him onto the terrace, where the table had been moved to a corner shaded by a plane tree. They looked out on their small grove of cherry trees, stepping down the hill and, far below, the roofs of Cavaillon and the green valley beyond, shimmering in the heat. Climbing roses covered the wall behind them, white and pale pink, flickering with butterflies. “Such a beautiful spot,” Stephanie murmured.

  Max served them from platters of cold sliced pheasant and marinated vegetables. “There are thousands of beautiful spots in the world. So many places you haven’t seen that I’d like to show you.”

  “You mean you want to travel? Why? We haven’t been here very long.” Her eyes widened. “Because of something that’s gone wrong? You want to run away, is that it? Max, tell me what’s happening.”

  He saw the fear in her eyes and backed off from what he had planned to say. She was already confused about this name that had popped up. And who the hell was
Garth? Max Stuyvesant and Sabrina Longworth had moved in the same social circles in London and nowhere in those circles was there anyone named Garth. Well, probably someone from her childhood. He wondered if it was a good sign or a bad one that she would retrieve a memory from that far back. Did that mean less chance or more that she would remember everything? But it had been eight months; surely if amnesia lasted this long, it was unlikely—

  “Max, tell me what is happening!”

  “Nothing that you have to worry about.” He filled their wineglasses and made his voice casual, almost indifferent. He’d have to prepare her: lay some groundwork. He could wait a couple of weeks before telling her they were leaving Cavaillon, and he would use that time to make sure everything was organized for him to operate from another place. “I told you, I can manage it. We don’t have to talk about it today; it can wait.”

  “What can wait?”

  “Talking about what we’re going to do. It’s not urgent; I want you to forget I said anything.”

  “I don’t forget anymore. And if you’re in trouble I should know about it.”

  “I’m not in trouble.”

  “You said something might be wrong.”

  “Well, it might be. But nothing has happened that you need to know about or worry about.” He took her hand between his. “I’m touched by your concern. It means a great deal to me.”

  I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I’m leaving you.

  She looked away, trying to find a way to begin.

  You think, because I’m worried about you, I must love you. But I don’t. I’m concerned because you’ve been good to me and I don’t want you to be in danger, but I don’t love you. I love someone else and I want to be with him, so I’m leaving you.

  She could not say it. If Max was in trouble or in danger she would not walk out on him. And there had been something in his voice today that she had not heard before, something in his face she had not seen, just a flicker, but it was so startling to see even that tiny flare of anxiety in Max’s eyes and to hear it in his voice that she could not say she was leaving, or even let him know that she was thinking about it.