by Susan Wiggs
I think it bothers you a hell of a lot more than it bothers her, Glenny had observed.
Luz found the key, put her gear in the car, then searched under the visor for the parking card. Through the windshield, she glimpsed a familiar figure and blinked, certain she was hallucinating. But no, there across Alamo Plaza was her husband.
Reflexively she started to get out of the car and call out to him, to ask him what he was doing in San Antonio, talking at length to the bell captain of the Menger, San Antonio’s most romantic hotel.
But she didn’t get out of the car. While the blood chilled in her veins, Luz reached into her camera bag and fit a powerful telephoto lens onto the camera body. Peering through the viewfinder, she brought her husband into sharp focus. He looked wonderful in his best suit, yet his manner seemed a bit bashful, nothing like the crusading attorney known to intimidate sitting judges.
He reminded her of the man she had met in Gutman Library sixteen years earlier.
That memory, like so many others, was tainted now. She used to believe his face had lit up at their first meeting because he found her attractive. Now she wondered if his face lit up because she reminded him of his ex-lover—her sister, Jessie.
She focused on the parcel he held, a glossy black bag from Neiman Marcus. To her knowledge, Ian had never been to Neiman Marcus in his life.
Other lawyers’ wives had warned her repeatedly. Don’t call him in the middle of the night. Don’t follow him to out-of-town depositions. Don’t scratch the surface and look at the secrets that lay beneath.
Those warnings had never applied to Luz. She didn’t have a wandering husband. Ian would never succumb to the fleeting charms of eager young interns. And yet as he folded a generous tip into the bell captain’s hand and then was swallowed by the brass-and-glass revolving door, every warning and doubt Luz had ever had rang in her head.
With shaking hands, she thrust the camera away. This was it, then, the dark side of her deception, punishment for staying silent about Lila, for not seeing the truth even as it stared her in the face. Now she was reduced to peering at her wayward husband like a two-bit private eye.
When her cell phone chirped, she jumped, still unused to having the gadget. Ian had given it to her for Valentine’s Day, another wholly practical gift like the Christmas fax and modem line. It had not come in a glossy black bag.
She excavated the tiny phone. “Luz Ryder Benning.” She was growing more and more accustomed to her professional name, but it was still a mouthful and sounded made up, as though it belonged to a stranger.
“Mrs. Benning?” His deep, rich voice melted her bones.
“Yes?”
“I have a proposition to make you.”
Her heart sped up. “Yes?”
“Get your sweet little Texas ass over here and you’ll find out.”
The shit. He’d known she was there all along. Before she could reply, he hung up. Feeling both unnerved and foolish, she crossed the plaza to the hotel. The bell captain approached and handed her a key card, directing her to a room on the third floor.
Except “room” was an understatement. It was a suite with soaring ceilings, a canopy bed and bathroom with a marble tub, and an iron-railed balcony projecting out over a patio with a fountain. Ian was nowhere to be found. On the faux Queen Anne luggage rack stood the glossy black shopping bag, which contained a stunning bustier, matching skirt and black sandals. A bustier? She did a double take.
Propped against the pillow was a hand-lettered invitation; she was startled to recognize Lila’s curly calligraphy. “The pleasure of your company is requested—6:00 at the Rough Rider Bar.”
Luz phoned home, and Jessie picked up. “This had better not be my sister.”
“Jessie, what’s going on?”
“I swear, Luz, you are dumber than a box of hair. Don’t you dare call me again.” She hung up.
Luz stared at the phone in her hand for a long time. Then she switched the power off.
Two hours later, wearing the slim black skirt and daring bustier, of all things, Luz walked into the Menger Bar. A half-dozen heads swiveled in her direction as she stood in the doorway to let her eyes adjust to the dimness while piano music streamed from a smoky corner. A replica of the House of Lords Pub in London, the bar had a paneled ceiling of cherrywood, booths with French beveled mirrors and decorated glass cabinets.
As she crossed the room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind the famous carved bar, reputed to bear the bullet holes of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, recruited here for the Spanish-American war. She barely recognized her reflection. She was a glamorous stranger with gleaming hair in a French twist, an exotic outfit, a little beaded evening bag.
Ian stood as she approached the richly upholstered booth where he waited. “Wow,” he said. “It’s amazing what a little hotel shampoo can do.”
“Along with a personal shopper.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Blair LaBorde helped.” He laid a slim velvet box in a distinctive color of blue on the table. “I picked this out myself.”
A little thrill rolled through her. She could feel every bone of the bustier pressing against her ribs. Judging by the size of the box, it wasn’t the usual electronic gizmo or power tool. But this was Ian, she reminded herself. Mr. Apron-And-Barbecue Tools for our anniversary.
Picking up the Tiffany box, she sat down next him at the table and peeked inside. It was a shining gold chain with a trillium-cut emerald pendant.
She snapped the box shut. “You’re having an affair.”
“What?”
“You’re having an affair, and this is a sop for your guilt.”
“Very funny, Mrs. Benning.” He opened the box and lifted out the necklace. “Here, let me put this on you.”
As his fingers clasped the chain around her throat, she felt a flush rise through her. “I’m sorry, Ian. That was petty of me. I’m just…so surprised by all this.”
“You’re supposed to be.” Taking her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “I do want to have an affair, Luz. With my incredible wife. My God, you are gorgeous.” He wasn’t speaking in the usual way, but with the rare intensity she used to glimpse in him when they had first met.
But old habits died hard. He leaned forward to kiss her and she ended it abruptly, pulling back to say, “So who’s watching the kids?”
His jaw twitched. “I think between your mother and Stuart, Jessie and Lila, they can manage. If they need to call in the big guns, there’s always Dusty Matlock.”
“The only one even remotely qualified is Arnufo, and he’s staying with his daughter in San Antonio.”
He grinned. “You really believe that.”
“It’s really true.”
The grin disappeared. “Only because you’ve made it that way by always taking charge. Just let go, Luz. Maybe they’re not going to do everything exactly your way, but I think we can safely assume they’re all going to be fed and eventually put to bed.”
She shut her eyes, thinking about how she always gave Owen a fresh glass of water on the bedside table and how Scottie needed three particular stuffed animals wedged around him just so….
“Luz.” His urgent tone startled her, and she opened her eyes. “I need for you to be with me.”
She studied his face, the years etched there by laughing and loving and caring. And finally she understood. “All right,” she said.
Their love affair had been carefully planned and orchestrated. After drinks, he took her for dinner at the Anaqua Grill, where she ate things that cost more than a week’s worth of groceries at the Country Boy. Amid couples leaning intimately toward each other across linen-draped tables, they dined in a setting of lush gardens, fountains and strolling pheasants. When the small ensemble struck up “Blue Bayou,” Ian held out his hand.
“Let’s dance.”
“You don’t dance.”
“And you don’t—” he leaned forward and whispered a suggestion i
nto her ear “—but there’s a first time for everything.” After all these years, he could still make her blush. He was a terrible dancer but she felt wonderful in his arms. “This is nice,” she said.
“Yeah.”
His tone made her laugh. “You hate this.”
“All guys hate dancing. We do it so women will have sex with us later.”
She lifted her face to look at him. “It’s working.”
They had planned to take a water taxi back to the Menger, but didn’t want to compete with the groups of loud tourists hurrying to the next mariachi-and-margarita stop. Instead they strolled along the Riverwalk, San Antonio’s breathtaking thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants hung with twinkling lights. Luz took off the designer sandals and went barefoot, leaning her cheek against Ian as he walked with his arm around her. Passersby smiled when they saw them, and that made Luz smile, too. “People think we’re newlyweds.”
“Let’s be, for tonight. I’d planned to stop at La Fogada for cappuccino, but hell, Luz. How bad do you need a cappuccino?”
His impatience caused her smile to widen, and then she startled herself by sharing that impatience. “I don’t.”
“Me, neither.”
The hotel room was set for seduction in every sense of the word—dim lighting and a luxurious bed, a bottle of Cristal Rose ’95 in a chrome bucket, soft music drifting from unseen stereo speakers. But Luz balked. She had to get to the bottom of this. “Ian Benning, you are genetically incapable of planning an evening like this. Who helped you?”
“Jessie. Your mom and Lila. Blair, too. My Lord, that woman knows how to spend.”
Luz dropped the beaded bag on a tapestried chair. “So how about you tell me why.”
He looked baffled as he loosened his tie. She saw that it was the Hermès knockoff she’d given him one Christmas. “Because they all love you, Luz.”
His matter-of-fact certainty hit her with unexpected force. She often dwelled on how much she loved the people in her life, but it was rare to consider how much they loved her.
“Then what’s the occasion?”
Leaving the tie hanging, he went to the armoire and took out a large clasped envelope. “Well, for one thing, this.”
She was stunned to see a letter from the University of Texas’s Dean of Arts and Sciences, along with a sheaf of forms to fill out. “It says here that, based on my practical experience in the field, they’re granting me my degree.” Her hand shook a little as she set down the envelope. “Wonders never cease. I finally finished something.”
“I’m proud of you, Luz. We all are. But you’ve never needed an international award or a college degree to make me proud.” Crossing the room to her, he took her in his arms. “And I did not arrange this whole thing just because you got a letter.”
“Then why?”
“Because we need to find each other again, Luz, and I want tonight to be the beginning of that.”
Dear God. She and Ian didn’t speak of things like this. Foreboding slipped over her like a phantom chill. “What do you mean?”
An ominous tic tightened his jaw. “You know what I mean. This marriage has been on autopilot for too long. Even the sex—you’ve been phoning it in, Luz. We need to figure ourselves out again.”
She had no reply. His assessment was stunningly, devastatingly accurate.
“I share the blame for this,” he admitted. “Hell, maybe it’s all my fault we’re losing each other.”
Pressing her hands to her too-warm face, she knew then that she hadn’t begun to deal with Jessie’s disclosure. When Jessie told the truth about Lila, Luz and Ian were already in trouble. There were little cracks and fissures in the foundation, and they’d been ignoring them. It was hard, so hard to speak her heart, but she knew she had to. “I feel…threatened,” she admitted. “I know I can’t control who you knew or didn’t know before we met. But the fact you kept it from me—”
“That’s the thing that pisses you off, isn’t it? That there’s a part of me you can’t control. Yeah, I kept it from you. So did Jess. And then I forgot about it. Hell, Luz, I was so crazy in love with you that I didn’t think of anyone else, and that’s the truth. I swear it.”
She gathered a deep breath to speak the unspeakable. He deserved the truth about her, finally, and she deserved whatever his reaction was. “The fact is, Ian, I’m jealous.”
“No way. Jessie and I—”
“Not that,” she said. “I’m talking about Lila. When we didn’t know who fathered her, we were both equally her parents. But when Jessie said it was you…the balance shifted, Ian. And I know it’s ugly and I know it doesn’t make sense but I started resenting you. Lila was yours but not mine. Or at least more yours than mine, and it’s been making me nuts.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Shit. You want to go for that cappuccino?”
She sent him a wry smile. “Look, I don’t mean to break the spell, Ian, and I love everything you’re trying to do here, but a romantic date is not going to magically erase these issues.”
“I don’t want to erase them. I want to get them all out on the table so we can figure out the next step.”
“This is why I don’t talk things out with you, Ian. When you say things like that, it makes me think you want to leave—”
“If that was what I wanted, you’d be the first to know, Luz. Even the problems are part of what we are together, and that’s precious to me. I don’t lie to you. I never have, and I don’t think you lie to me.”
“But we keep things from each other,” she pointed out.
“Maybe we should change that.”
Would he still love her if he knew her secret fears? She thought of the cold panic that had swept over her when she’d spied him in front of the hotel earlier today. “I’ll never be as smart or as cute as your interns. You get new ones every year, and they’re all twenty-three, and every year I get older. And each morning, you dash off to work as though you can’t wait to see them.”
“Ah, Luz, if I seem like a workaholic, it doesn’t have anything to do with interns.”
“Then why, Ian?” The question was a pained plea. She felt the magic of the evening slipping away, but they’d started this and now she had to know.
His next words stunned her. “I’ve never been the man you want me to be, Luz, and now you’ve got this photography career going. I’ve never made enough money, never gave you enough—”
She stopped him by pressing her fingers to his lips. “Oh, Ian Benning, you incredible fool. Where in the world did you get that idea?”
He kissed her fingers, never taking his gaze from hers. “It’s in your eyes, every time I look at you. I see you reading travel books about exotic places, collecting pictures of houses we could never afford to own. Jesus Christ, Luz, I want to give you those things, to take you places and show you the world you want to see.”
She took her hand away and sank down on the end of the bed. He was right. She’d never said a word, but he saw her clearly. She had spent years dreaming of things beyond her grasp rather than cherishing the life she had. “Oh, Ian. How can you stand me?”
“I can’t live without you, Luz. This marriage means too much to me. You mean too much to me. But we need to fix this.”
“Okay.”
“Starting now.”
“Yes.”
“Just so you’re clear on this,” he said, lowering himself to his knees so he was eye to eye with her. “I want you to understand what beautiful is to me, Luz. It’s you. You’re like a work of art. Every single part of you. The lines around your eyes because you smile so much. Your sweet soft ass and belly that isn’t perfectly flat because you bore my children. It’s the way your hair smells and the way you look when you get out of the shower. It’s the smile on your face when I come home from a long day at work. I miss that, Luz. I want us to find that again. Just tell me what to do. Should I take you to the Taj Mahal or to Paris or—”
“You know what to do, I
an Charles Benning,” she said as her heart broke open. “You always have.”
She realized then that the carefully crafted romance of the evening was gone for sure. But in its place was something so much richer—a passion heated by honesty, a commitment deepened by a love so sharp and true that she felt pierced by it, a yearning so stark that she could not even put her need into words. What she found so sexy, in spite of everything, was the honesty. She stood, drawing him up with her, and their lovemaking began slowly, with unveiling and exploration. Luz felt slightly absurd in the stiff-spined bustier, but Ian clearly found it a turn-on as he enjoyed the novelty of unfastening the cord down the back.
Luz sighed as her clothes slipped to the floor and she lay back on the downy bed, bringing Ian with her. Simply slowing down yielded a world of remembered delights. She had nearly forgotten the sheer pleasure of weaving her fingers through her husband’s hair, gliding her hands over his chest, down his hips. It had been far too long since she’d savored his gasp of lust when she became the aggressor, mounting him and opening herself so he would have access to every part of her.
He could still set her on fire, could still bring her to tears with his exquisite tenderness and generosity. He always could. He wasn’t a perfect husband or perfect father any more than she was a perfect wife, but in the bedroom, they reached perfection. This was where he took her away, where she forgave him and he accepted her with all her flaws, where she was so thankful she’d married him, where she acknowledged that she was only half alive without him.
Over the long, dark hours of the flower-scented night, they found the love they’d fallen into sixteen years before, and they fell all over again. Luz felt as though she’d been plunged into a new world; she seemed like a new person. And she knew that she was. Ian had made her see herself in ways she’d been willfully blind to, and it was so simple, really. Her fulfillment always had and always would come from the people in her life, not distant places and risky adventures. It was time, she realized, past time to let go of tired old dreams and begin to cherish newer, truer ones. And she discovered that the real dream had never really left her.