[328] Quiet, except for the sound of water dripping off leaves onto the brick patio, a hollow and somehow heartless sound.
Rose sank down on a damp stone bench, and saw that she was still holding her empty champagne glass. Like a character suffering a bitter joke at the end of a Noel Coward play. She started to laugh, but the laughter turned into something else, emerging from her throat as a sob.
She lifted her empty glass to the headless cupid. “Here’s to us, Bri. May we rest in peace.”
Chapter 21
“Rose ... I’m sorry.”
Behind her, Brian’s voice, soft, and somehow shocking in the stillness. Rose felt her skin pull tight with gooseflesh. Her heart racing in giant uneven bounds, she jerked around to face him.
“Sorry for what?” she asked bitterly. “Sorry you came here tonight? Sorry I had the bad taste to say hello? Or just sorry you dumped me without a word all those years ago? You know something, Brian, it’s true what they say, that one picture is worth a thousand words. You have no idea just how true—” She trailed off brokenly.
She stared at him, searching his face for what she hoped to find. Hurt. Pain. Dear God, let him feel at least one tiny sliver of all I’ve suffered. But when she saw, in the watery light that filtered down from the upstairs windows, how pale he was, almost shockingly white, how drawn and miserable he looked, she wanted only to go to him, throw her arms around him and comfort him.
And in that instant Rose knew why it was she would never be free of him. Because she couldn’t decide whether to love him or hate him. God, why did he have to make it so hard? Why couldn’t hating him be a simple thing?
“It wasn’t like that,” he said with profound sadness. “And I’m not sorry you came tonight. Rose ... I ... I’ve thought about calling you, so many times. But—” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness that said everything and nothing.
Rose was aware of her hands clenching, nails digging into her palms. Her breath raking her throat in hot, dry gasps. Mother of God, why did she have to go through this all over again?
But she knew, deep inside her, that though she wanted to run away, she could not. This somehow was her destiny, as if she and [330] Brian had both been on a track, coming from opposite ends, and this meeting was the inevitable collision.
“If I’d known you were going to be here tonight,” she said, “I wouldn’t have come.” She brought her clenched hands to her face, so cold they were like lumps of ice. “Oh God, Brian, why? Why did you do it? All these years ... I just wish I’d known. That’s what killed me. Not knowing why. Why did you marry her?”
A long pause, and Brian said gently, “It wasn’t because I didn’t love you, Rose. I want you to know that. If it would have made a difference, I ... well, I did try to see you when I got back, but you ...”
“I hung up on you, right? About a dozen times if I remember. Do you think that changes anything? Do you honestly, Brian? Jesus, was I supposed to meet you somewhere for lunch, listen to your lousy explanations, let you tidy it all up into a neat little farewell package? So long, it’s been nice knowing you, and by the way do you want that corned beef sandwich with mustard or sauerkraut?” She was weeping now. “We were better than that, weren’t we, Brian? We were better than just a couple of kids from Brooklyn screwing up on the roof.”
“Rose ... Rosie ...” He put his hands out toward her, as if he wanted to console her, but didn’t know how. Those long hands, so pale in the darkness they seemed almost incandescent. She had loved them so dearly, and they had known her so tenderly, intimately. “I still wish there was some way to explain. It just ... what I wanted you to know ... it wasn’t simple. It wasn’t one decision, one day when I decided this was going to happen, this was how it was going to be.”
Rose watched Brian’s hands drop to his sides. He sagged onto the bench, staring sightlessly into the darkness. She thought helplessly, Oh Jesus, he breaks my heart just looking at him. Older, thinner, those bones jumping right out of his face like the stone ridges of a mountain, and—I still can’t believe it—that gray at his temples.
“A lot of people, they’ll try to tell you what it was like over there, in Nam,” he began, haltingly. “But no one, not me or anyone else, could ever make you believe it really happened that way. It was like ... well, like there, the war, the jungle, was the only thing there was or ever had been, and nothing else was real. Not home or my [331] family or even you. All of you ... imagining what you were doing ... it was like watching one of those old black and white TV shows where the reception is all snowy and you know, even while you’re buying it, all those dumb lines, you know they’re only actors getting paid to act as if they give a shit about each other. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself you were waiting for me, that you loved me, it just never ... seemed real. Then, when you didn’t write ...”
Rose felt as if he’d driven a knife into her heart. “Your letters. The ones Nonnie kept from me. Oh God. Didn’t you get my—”
“I got your letter. They forwarded it to me at the base. But not until after I was discharged. After Rachel and I ...” He trailed off. “So you see how it was.”
“Are you asking me to forgive you, Brian? Are you honestly asking me to believe you married her because you thought I’d stopped loving you?”
He turned his face up to her, and she saw that tears stood in his eyes. “I don’t know anymore, Rose. It’s been such a long time. I honestly don’t know anymore what I thought, exactly, at the time. I do know how I felt, and that it probably had nothing to do with you or what was real. Then ... after I was wounded ... it got worse, that feeling. It was as if I’d been asleep and had just woken up, and everything that had happened before that was just dreams. Some of those dreams I barely remembered.”
“Like me?”
“No. I remembered you, Rose. You just ... you were make-believe. The only thing real was that hospital, that bed I was lying in, the godawful pain. And Rachel. She saved my life, Rose. She ... she was real.”
Rose thought, This is real, too, the way I feel now. And I hate him for doing this, for trying to making me understand. For telling me all this, hurting me even more.
But a part of her did understand. He had been far away from home, and something terrible had happened ... and it was that something which had taken their lives and blown them apart.
She understood too, now, after all these years, that Brian hadn’t meant to hurt her. But then, hadn’t she known that all along—down in the deepest part of her heart where forgiveness lay buried?
[332] Rose saw in his face that he was telling the truth, as best as he knew it. His tear-filled eyes caught the light, and for an instant they shone bright and sharp as broken glass.
A final truth of her own dawned in her, too: that she loved him, even now, and that she would go on loving him no matter what.
“Brian ...” She choked.
Suddenly her knees felt weak. She sank onto the bench beside him, burying her hot face against the worn ribs of his corduroy jacket, clutching him the way she had, as a child, clutched at wonderful things in dreams, feeling that if she could just hang on hard enough, she would still have them when she awoke. ...
Rose felt his arms go around her, gently, as if he were comforting a lost child, and with a sick heart she found herself remembering all the times he’d held her like this. As if these were the roles they had been born into, and would carry all their lives.
“Kiss me, Bri,” she cried, pulling back a little way and twisting her face up to meet his. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me ask. Just ... for God’s sake ... kiss me.”
“Rose, I can’t …”
Damn him. She would make him kiss her. She had to know if there was some part of him, however deep down, that still loved her.
Then Rose was tightening her arms around his neck, dragging him toward her as if she were drowning and he’d swum out to rescue her. God ... oh God ... how many times had she ached for this? Dreamed of him
coming to her this way? Please, Brian, please let me have just this one thing ... this one kiss. ...
Then he was kissing her, opening his mouth, fierce and sweet, hungry for her, a strangled moan in his throat. You see ... oh Brian ... you do love me. ...
But something was wrong. He was pulling away, forcibly wrenching her from him, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders.
“No!” he cried. “No ... I can’t. We can’t. Rose, those things I just told you. They’re all true. But that was a long time ago. I love Rachel. She’s my wife. This ... this shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Weak laughter bubbled up in her. Sorry was for when [333] you stepped on someone’s toe, or when you knocked over a lamp. Not for when you crushed someone’s entire world.
Then Brian was rising, towering over her with an expression of infinite sadness. And she wanted to scream at him, tear at his face. Don’t feel sorry for me, you bastard. I don’t want your pity.
“I really am sorry, Rose.”
There was nothing left to say. He was walking away, taking with him everything she had ever wanted.
Oh God, it hurt, it hurt so damn much. ...
Rose, crying out with rage and pain, snatched up the empty champagne glass that stood on the end of the bench to hurl it at him, to hurt him just as much as he had hurt her.
But somehow, instead, her hand convulsed about the glass. There was a snapping sound, and a savage, blossoming pain. Rose looked down and saw blood, dark and thick, and wicked thorns of glass sticking up from her palm. God, what have I done? What have I done?
Rose sat there, clutching her wrist, staring in hypnotized horror as the blood spread, formed a lake in the cup of her palm, spilling down her wrist and spattering onto her lap, staining the beautiful rubbed velvet gown.
“Rose ... oh Jesus, what ...” Brian. Hadn’t he gone? No. Because here he was, right here beside her, holding her, cradling her injured hand, bright drops of blood staining the front of his white shirt like tiny red flowers.
“It looks deep,” he was saying, voice choked. “You may need stitches. Oh God, Rose ...” Then he was crying, all hunched over, an awful sound, like some animal in pain, a sound not meant for human ears.
A feeling of twisted triumph came over her. For Rose knew then, in some part of her mind that floated free from the pain, that he was hers. That whatever happened, however they hurt themselves, or each other, Brian would always be hers.
As Brian led her upstairs, her bloody hand wrapped in his handkerchief, Rose felt oddly detached. She thought: None of this is [334] really happening to me. I’m watching a movie of myself. One of those BBC dramas they show on Masterpiece Theatre.
The crowd grew still, and moved back in waves, as if it had been rehearsed that way. The parting of the Red Sea, Take One, she thought, part of her now hearing an imaginary laugh track.
The stark, tidy room seemed to come apart, then rearrange itself in a bizarre collage. Little things jumped out at her, jarring, distorted. A cigarette burned down to a tube of ash in the hand of a tall blond woman who stood watching her, frozen in horror. A white Persian cat snaking its way stealthily among the forest of legs. A pattern of overlapping wet rings on the surface of the glass coffee table, like ripples on a pond.
Then, like a mirage appearing out of nowhere, there she was. Rachel. Shouldering her way through the crowd, striding forward, seeming to rip right through the haze of red ... everything blue now, the blue of her eyes, the blue of dreams and smoke and vanished promises. ...
My twin, Rose thought, yes, that’s what you are. My Siamese twin. You don’t know me. But I’ve lived with you for years. Tied to you. Hating you. Wondering why he chose you instead of me ...
“Let me help you,” Rachel was saying, coolly. Rose couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But then those slim strong fingers were clasping her wrist. “I’m a doctor.”
This is a movie, Rose told herself. Things like this don’t happen in real- life.
Rose drew away, shrinking from Rachel’s touch, hating her gentleness, her competence, more than if she had been rough, hurtful. “No ... no ... I’ll be okay. It’s ... I don’t think it’s deep ... thank you, but I’ll manage—”
“Don’t be silly.” Rachel took hold of her wrist again, firmly, an adult shepherding a stubborn child across a dangerous street. “You’re still bleeding. It must be deep. How did it happen?” Her eyes cut away to Brian. Just for an instant, but Rose saw the question mark in them.
She felt again that stealthy glow of triumph that had come over her in the garden. This time she did not draw away. A compelling fascination took hold of her. Suddenly, she wanted to know this woman. And getting close to her might be a little like getting inside [335] of Brian, mightn’t it? Seeing Rachel through Brian’s eyes, maybe finding out what in her had made him fall in love with her.
Know thy enemy. Isn’t that what the Bible said? Maybe she could discover Rachel’s weaknesses. Places where a wedge might be driven in.
“A champagne glass,” she said. “It broke in my hand. I must have been holding it too tightly.”
“Let me see.” Rachel started to unwrap the bloody handkerchief, then glanced up, her steel-blue gaze taking in the rubbernecking crowd. “Not here. In the bathroom.”
Rose felt herself being propelled forward, a steadying hand on her elbow. She looked up, saw a familiar figure burst from the crowd. Max. He looked disheveled, upset.
“Rose. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you—” He stopped, stared, and his stolid face seemed to crumple, turn old before her eyes. Softly, he said, “Oh Rose, oh baby.”
Immediately, Rose felt better, a great glassy wave of calm sweeping over her. Max was here. Max would stop these crazy red thoughts flapping inside her head. Max would make her sane again.
“Max ... I’m okay,” she said, meaning it. “Just a little accident. Wait for me. I’ll be a few minutes. Then please ... please just take me back to the hotel.”
“I’ll wait,” Max said, and in that instant Rose caught something in his voice, his eyes, that made her wonder if ...
Then Rupert Everest, wringing his hands, was ushering her into a bathroom, an Art Deco fantasy. Black marble tiles and flamingo-pink porcelain, a huge sunken tub with fixtures in the shape of bronze water nymphs. Mirrors on every wall, shaded in soft pink light, multiplying every angle, turning it into a fun show.
Rose sank down on the cushioned chair beside a glass étagère filled with French bath salts.
Rachel shut the door.
They were alone.
Rose, for just an instant, felt as if reality were holding its breath, leaving her—the two of them—in a sort of surreal vacuum. A place where nothing ... and everything ... made sense.
Like this feeling she had that, somehow, she’d seen Rachel before. It couldn’t have been that news photo. So blurry, and her [336] face mostly hidden behind Brian. No, it was something more. Something truly familiar ... that was what was so creepy about it. Rachel reminded her of someone she knew well ... only she couldn’t think who. The image kept slipping away just when she thought she had it.
Just my imagination, she told herself.
Rachel slid back one of the mirror panels over the sink, and rummaged inside for first-aid supplies. Then she knelt on the thick pink rug in front of Rose, and peeled back the handkerchief, examining the wound: a long gash running diagonally across her palm like a sneering mouth, but no more than a fraction of an inch deep.
Rose felt relieved. It wasn’t as bad as she had thought. Even the pain had subsided to a dull throbbing ache. She stared at the top of Rachel’s head, at the pale pink line of scalp that looked as if it had been drawn with a ruler, at the waves of shimmering amber hair falling over her face. She thought about taking the Art Deco statuette of a discus thrower that stood on the marble counter, and bringing it down hard against that perfect pink line.
Then as Rachel drew a long sliver of glass from the wo
und with a pair of tweezers, she flinched. Fresh waves of pain blotted out her sinful thoughts.
Rachel glanced up, grimacing in sympathy.
“Ouch. Bet that hurts. But you won’t need stitches. I’ll just clean you up, and put a bandage around it.”
“Thank you,” Rose gasped. “Really, I feel so stupid about the whole thing. It was such a stupid accident.”
“Accidents happen. It wasn’t your fault.” But again, that question mark flashing in her eyes. What happened between you and Brian out there? Rose read in her clouded gaze.
I’ll let you figure that out for yourself, Rose answered silently.
She remained quiet, watching Rachel swab the cut with sharp-smelling antiseptic, then wrap it in gauze. Secretly admiring the graceful, efficient movement of her hands, Rose imagined those hands on Brian’s body, making love to him, dancing over him with butterfly touches. ...
Stop. Stop it right now, she commanded. This is crazy. You’re acting craz—
Rachel, standing now, was turning the tap on to wash her hands. [337] “Leave the bandage on for a day or two.” Her voice rose over the running water. Now she was drying her hands on one of the fluffy pink towels lined up on the towel rack, now turning back to Rose. Her gaze dropped, and she shook her head. “A shame about the dress, though. It’s lovely. I hope it’s not ruined.”
Her dress? She hadn’t thought about it, and now she felt a twinge of dismay. Well, it could be cleaned. If only her life could be restored to her as easily, the life she would have had with Brian ...
But that was like wishing Vietnam had never happened. Or the fire that killed her mother.
Rose, overcome, began to gasp with soundless, helpless sobs, leaning her forehead against the cool marble tiles.
“Look,” Rachel was saying, her voice helpful, professional, “you’ve had a shock. Go back to your hotel, take a couple of aspirin, get some rest.”
Rose, struggling to contain her emotion, focused on Rachel through the tears standing in her eyes. “Brian didn’t tell me,” she said, “where you’re staying. Your hotel. So I can send you a check for your services.”
Garden of Lies Page 38