She reminded me of Lourdes Johnston suddenly—everything had the potential to be a drama. She fed off making her life into theater, and unlike Lourdes she didn’t require that it be tasteful theater. She didn’t seem to require that the ending work out well for any of the characters, herself included.
But because she did it with style and was beautiful, men watched her drama and applauded. Not Mario, obviously. But Jack? He’d played Lourdes so well, and now I thought I knew where he’d started learning that skill. Marisa had been his first choice, she was the one he had asked to marry him all those years ago. He’d been learning how to manage her because he’d been planning to do it for the rest of his life. He hadn’t asked anyone else since she’d turned him down.
Marta rolled her eyes just a little, but not where Marisa could see her do it. “Marisa, of course you can stay here as long as you need to. We can discuss it after the children are asleep. Why don’t you go freshen up, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
Why she should be exhausted, I wasn’t sure. But it seemed to make sense to Marisa.
“I am exhausted,” she agreed. “In my bones, I’m so tired, Marta. You have no idea. You, who have this quiet little life with Mario.” Her condescension was not even thinly veiled, and I gaped at the boldness. “You’re so sweet together. So fortunate. And Eduardo is…ah!” She broke into another long diatribe in Portuguese, and raised her graceful fingers to her eyes as if to block out the very thought of her husband. I couldn’t tell what she was saying about him but it clearly wasn’t flattering. It was becoming evident that she was here because she was disenchanted with her husband, was perhaps even in the process of leaving him.
I wondered idly what he must be like. Why had she accepted him, when she had refused Jack? How could she have refused Jack? And how could she not regret that refusal? Well, obviously she did regret it. Her body language around Jack spoke volumes about that regret.
Silence had descended on the little group playing by the fireplace in the adjacent room. Antonio and Oscar had returned to their solitary handheld games, Gabriel was lounging moodily on the carpet in front of the TV, staring fixedly at his outstretched toes, and Jack had walked a sleepy-looking Silvia closer to the window to look at the rain.
“It’s her naptime.” Marta sounded as though she was relieved for any excuse to break the little tableau we’d all fallen into. She went to gather Silvia, whom I could hear whispering her protests, and carried her off down the hall, leaving Jack without a prop.
To my horror, he sighed as if shouldering a burden he’d been expecting and came into the kitchen to lead Marisa away too. She slipped her hand into his and he let it stay there, tugging her out of the room. Mario trailed behind them but it was clear I wasn’t invited along. I was left alone in the kitchen, the three young boys in the next room neither needing nor wanting my supervision.
I never knew where they all got off to. The house was too big and rambling to track them all down and the sound generally didn’t carry up and down the many levels. After a few minutes I went exploring and ended up on a long gallery overlooking an enormous room that apparently served as both the dining room and a more general venue for entertainment.
Finding the stairs that led there after a little more searching, I made my way down and spent some minutes staring out the giant windowed wall that offered an unimpeded view of the forest and hills beyond. The windows went from the floor to the top of the ceiling, which was probably over twenty feet high, and I could see why the family chose to spend their time in a cozier setting. This view was stunning, but I almost felt ready to tumble out of the room when I walked too close to the windows.
At the end of the space opposite the stairs, the glass wall had clearly been designed to slide open, granting access to a wide, flagged patio surrounded by a railing. Again, not nearly as comfortable as the terrace gardens and deck on the other end of the house, but I could imagine a party of truly grand scope being held here. A party such as one might see in movies, although I’d never actually attended one of those parties myself.
The room was enormous and could easily accommodate dozens, perhaps a hundred or more of the glitterati. In addition to the long dining table that dominated the raised area by the window wall, there was another larger, more formal sitting area I hadn’t seen from up on the gallery, as well as several smaller clusters of chairs grouped for conversation and, in one corner, a substantial wet bar that was better equipped than the kitchens had been in any of the three apartments I’d lived in during college. From there, the waiters at the party I was envisioning would issue forth with champagne and hors d’oeuvres on little trays, serving celebrities who were mingling with oil magnates, that sort of thing. There was even a conveniently located concert grand at which a piano player would be seated, providing tasteful background music. I could almost hear the babble of cultured voices, the ching of a bottleneck against crystal as another glass was poured, the subtle notes of jazz underneath it all.
Parties I would never attend. Parties for the likes of Marisa, who would no doubt have the perfect dress for such an occasion and be the envy of all the other socialites.
I realized I was now making myself feel inadequate over an event that had never actually taken place, and vowed to make myself stop. There were bookshelves, of course, lining the back of the room, the part that must run into the hillside itself. Finding a title in English, I opened the volume and sat on one of the long sofas to start reading, my eyes scanning the pages relentlessly but my brain never taking in a single word.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I had obviously fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I was aware of was a gentle nudge against my shoulder.
“Kate, it’s dinnertime. Katie?” Jack was sitting next to me on the couch, wearing an amused but weary look, and when I blinked up at him his smile deepened a little. “You fell asleep. What were you reading?”
“I don’t remember,” I admitted, looking at the book with that sense of mild confusion that comes with waking up in a strange place after an unexpected nap. “Um…A Tale of Two Cities.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve read it before.”
“Okay.”
Waking a fraction farther, I heard soft clinking noises and Gabriel’s whispered voice. He was instructing his two cousins as they helped him set one end of the long dining table. It could probably have seated twenty or so. The nine places the boys set only occupied about half its length, and it looked strangely undressed when they were through. Although that might have been the lack of napkins, since they’d forgotten to bring any, as Marta pointed out with wry patience when she came to inspect their work.
“Back to the kitchen, back to work with you,” she said briskly to her young charges when she saw me and Jack on the couch, and as she ushered the boys from the room through a door I hadn’t noticed before, she gave us a cheeky little wave. Perhaps, I considered, Gabriel didn’t get it all from his father.
Jack waved back, then scratched uneasily at the back of his head and spoke without really looking at me. “I’m really sorry about today. It’s been sort of a write-off for you.”
I tried not to place too much meaning in his choice of words, not wanting to face yet that I may have been written off. “I probably needed a day to just do nothing and clear my head before we get back home anyway.”
“Yeah. She’s really something, isn’t she?”
The fact that he didn’t think it necessary to explain who he was talking about, and that he thought I needed the time to clear my head, made the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach harden and congeal, a nasty lump of sick and sorry. I didn’t know how I would ever be rid of it.
“I guess,” I said softly, trying to smile. Jack wasn’t really paying attention, he was too distracted by his own thoughts. Thoughts of Marisa, I supposed. I wondered what they’d been talking about while I read and napped, then realized I really didn’t want to know because it simply didn’t matter. What was d
one was done. If it was going to end, it was better that it should happen now, I tried to tell myself, than after making a fool of myself back home and finding out one day that it was all over because Marisa had crooked her little finger and Jack had trotted back to her.
Which was a very reasonable way to look at things, but it didn’t stop my eyes from pricking with unshed tears as I excused myself to freshen up before dinner. I couldn’t see Jack through the tears and I was down the hall before he could follow me. I ignored him when he called my name, because I thought that the only way I could possibly feel worse about the situation was to hear him try to explain or apologize.
Splashing cold water on my face and working my courage up did wonders. Dinner, although certainly a little painful, was bearable. I think I put on a good front—the polite guest, the good employee. I complimented Marta on the food which, although I’m sure was wonderful, I could hardly remember tasting afterward. There was a pavlova for dessert, all crunchy meringue and seasonal fruit, and it was good enough to cut through the fog in my brain. But for the most part, all I tasted were the bitter tears I had swallowed earlier and all I could do was try to ignore the fact that although Jack sat next to me, he also sat next to Marisa—and she talked to him constantly throughout dinner. About her husband, about something in Portuguese that sounded like it had to do with the water rights of local farmers, about her boys—she spoke about them in a fairly unflattering way, as if they weren’t seated directly opposite her, listening to every word. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I felt even sorrier for the twins than I felt for myself.
Marta tried to carry the table with topics of general interest, Mario playing along gamely and gallantly, but Marisa kept Jack’s attention with whatever she was talking about. One of the twins, I couldn’t tell which, had snuck his game player into the room and attempted to play it with the sound off during the meal. Marisa didn’t notice, but Marta did. Even I did. It was Mario who stood up silently, his mouth firm, and tapped the boy on the shoulder, gesturing for the game. The boy gave it up with an insolent shrug, sharing a look with his brother who was in the process of hiding all his vegetables in his napkin one faked bite at a time.
To Gabriel’s credit, he seemed a bit scornful of his cousins’ attempted naughtiness. He resumed his “young prince” mode, complimenting his mother fulsomely on each dish and trying to make grownup conversation with his father about the state of the roads following the rains. I suspected there might be an ulterior motive in it, or perhaps just a somewhat manipulative approach to interacting with grownups, but at least it was preferable to watching the twin cousins make ugly faces at all assembled.
When dinner was over, and each of our places littered generously with the snow of meringue crumbs the pavlova had left behind, another mini-drama of differing parenting styles unfolded.
Reminding her own children that it was time to prepare for bed—a routine with which they were clearly familiar—Marta saw that her twin nephews evidently intended to remain encamped in the snug, playing their video games. She gently recommended that they too get ready for bed and was met with blank stares. I expected Marisa to chime in at any moment, for some reason. Surely bedtime was universal? But evidently not. Marta finally just insisted, escorting the boys out of the room and down the hallway to wherever the children were staying.
If there was no bedtime, I thought, how could there be bedtime stories? Who made sure that these children brushed their teeth each and every night? Their father? A nanny? Why had she brought them with her then?
If I had been less wrung out by the events of the week, or simply more confident about my welcome, I might have gone and wrapped my arm around Jack’s waist as he sat on the couch in the snug, still listening to Marisa and occasionally glancing my way with more forced smiles. I could have taken his hand or played with his hair or done something else to at least try to stake a claim.
I pictured myself doing all those things and more at least a hundred times that evening, if I pictured them once. After an hour or so, having partaken of too much wine with dinner and far too much afterward, I finally gave up even picturing it since I knew I would never work up the nerve. And in truth, Jack looked more than a bit grumpy and unapproachable. He kept giving Mario questioning looks I couldn’t begin to interpret, and had said hardly a word since dinner. He’d been matching drinks with his friend and was as close to noticeably drunk as I’d ever seen him. All in all, it wasn’t a welcoming scene.
The last straw was the moment when she laughed at something he said and then leaned over and kissed his cheek, curling her fingers over his shoulder in a way that was far from platonic.
He didn’t object, didn’t walk away…just kept talking, seeming to take her gesture, her touch, in stride.
I gave up. I admit it. It couldn’t have been much later than nine or nine-thirty, but Marisa was called away reluctantly by Marta to check on the boys and I suddenly just wanted desperately to be gone before she got back to the room, to end the night not having seen her sitting closer and closer to Jack, fondling him more and more openly, ignoring Mario and continuing to talk in Portuguese despite the fact that Mario and Jack were both speaking in English. She hadn’t spared me a second glance since her arrival anyway, so it wasn’t as though my leaving before she got back could be construed as rude.
She was hardly through the door when I made my apologies to Mario and nodded in understanding as Jack said again that he was sorry, and that he planned to stay up and talk “just a little longer”.
His polite peck on the cheek was, I thought, a nice touch. Just the right amount of intimacy for the one who was already on her way out the door.
* * * * *
So strange, how such a few short hours could change things so drastically, could change everything. I had been on tenterhooks all morning because of an offhand comment Jack had made about my getting away with far too much the previous night, and his need to make sure I knew he wasn’t going soft. But then came lunch and the rest of the afternoon. Then came dinner and the end of any plans I had allowed myself to make for “back home”. And now…
I thought I would barely make it through the door before the tears took over, but all I felt as I brushed my teeth and washed my face was an icy disassociation with everything around me. Which was better, of course, because I still had the next day to get through, the long, long flight home next to Jack, during which my tears would be beyond unwelcome. Best if I held off entirely until back in the security of my own home.
Looking in the mirror, I tried to see myself as somebody else might, as Jack might. I saw my skin, paler than pale, a very faint haze of old freckles across the bridge of my nose. My hair, frizzing in the humidity despite being tied back in a ponytail. It surrounded my face with auburn fuzz, like a little kid, messy even in dress-up clothes.
Cute, I saw. That much I gave myself. But glamour? No. Nothing compelling. Nothing that would logically make a person—say, a person like Jack—choose me over somebody else. Somebody with not only beauty but glamour and charisma, with whom he shared a history. His best friend’s sister, who had turned him down all those years ago but now clearly thought she’d made the wrong choice. He said he knew they would have been miserable, but did he really think that or was that just his own attempt to come to terms with losing her?
The more I thought about it, the less my rational mind thought I could possibly stand a chance. He would go back to her, of course he would, how could he not? I had been trying not to think all week, but all my doubts and concerns came flooding in now, in a painful rush of reality.
Love. Love might have changed things. But he hadn’t said he loved me, nor had I said so to him. Perhaps it had just been caution on my part, but I had no way to know how Jack felt. It wasn’t as though I could ask him. All I knew was that he hadn’t said the words, the thing that would have mattered, the thing you can’t take back after you’ve said it. And without the words there was still room for doubt, and my hyperactive
imagination soon filled that space with more doubt than I could dismiss.
The whole week had been such a bizarre interlude anyway. The way we had discovered one another, the walks through town at night, the dinners and dancing and all those hours in Jack’s suite. Not wasted time, I thought, telling myself so with fierce determination. I had learned about myself, and that kind of learning is never wasted.
I had learned, above all else, to never try to worship close-up what I was already perfectly happy worshipping from afar. Things are never as good close-up. But because it had all been so out of character for me, so completely unexpected and unprecedented, maybe I could tell myself it was like a dream, a very strange and sometimes wonderful dream, from which I was now required to wake up.
I almost made it to bed safely. If I had gotten to sleep it would have been all right, I think I really might have made it through the night and through the trip home the next day without breaking down entirely. But there on the bed we’d shared the night before was the t-shirt Jack had tossed aside that morning, deciding to wear something else, and when I’d asked if I could have it to sleep in tonight since it looked so soft—smelled like Jack—he’d grinned down to his dimples and said “Sure” and given me a kiss like heaven. He had acted so thrilled that I wanted his old, soft shirt to sleep in.
Now I clutched the shirt to me, foolishly slipped it on and hugged it around my body, and the tears rolled and rolled as I sobbed my broken heart to sleep in a wet spot tainted with salt and poisonous regret.
* * * * *
If I hadn’t cried myself to sleep wanting to erase the week, I might have been in a more decisive or at least semi-lucid mindset when I woke a few hours later to the feel of Jack spooned alongside my back, stroking my body through the worn cotton of his own shirt and crooning nonsense in my ear.
As it was, I was far from lucid, mentally and physically exhausted from the week and from my earlier tears, my brain feeling blank and incapable of thought. If I thought of anything at all, it was that this was to be the last time. I’d been granted it, for whatever reason, and it shouldn’t be wasted. I felt empty and wanted only to be filled up, even if it couldn’t last, even if I knew deep down I would surely regret it later.
When in Rio Page 23