Diana idly listened to the voices coming from the front door and suddenly sat up straight. A deep voice was talking back to Grace, the words unintelligible, but the tone unmistakable. Alex had come back with Owen. She made a deliberate attempt to relax and settle back in her chair, only to look down at her hands and start with surprise at her clenched fists. She loosened them as footsteps sounded near in the hall.
Alex was the first in the room, with Grace and Owen following. He slowed abruptly when he saw Diana in the armchair, and his nostrils flared as his head drew back. Then everything was almost too normal with Alex being too polite, and Diana, knowing it all to be a front, almost didn’t bother to respond. It really was a bit ridiculous, she thought, looking around. Everybody knew something was wrong, but everybody was trying their very best not to show that they knew it. She met Alex’s gaze, and they stared at one another for a long moment. She quickly stood up. “Grace, I really must be going,” she said with a smile. “The afternoon is almost gone and I hardly know where it went! Thank you for a lovely talk, and I promise to come again soon.” She turned to Alex and if her eyes didn’t quite meet his, nobody else could tell. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alex.”
His tone was sarcastic. “So long, Diana.” He made no attempt to move his long legs and she had to step over them on the way to the doorway.
“Oh, Diana,” Grace called, “don’t go! You need your coat.”
Alex was on his feet very quickly. “Sit down, Grace, I’ll get it for her. Is it in the front closet?” Diana turned reluctantly; she didn’t want to be alone with Alex, even for a few minutes in the hall. Alex brushed ahead of her and out to the hall and she followed, feet dragging.
He opened the closet door and looked in it briefly. Pulling out a coat, he held it up. “Yours?”
She nodded. “Yes.” Alex held open the coat and she turned to put her arms through the sleeves. There was a brief moment when his hands rested lightly on her shoulders, and then he was stepping back from her. She turned to thank him and her words faltered at the cold blaze in his eyes. He shook his head sharply when she had begun to speak.
“Don’t bother,” he said abruptly. “We both know that you didn’t need the help.”
Diana closed her eyes. “Dammit, why don’t you just leave me alone?” she whispered. “Why can’t you just shut up and leave me alone?”
He stared at her a minute, a dark flush on the line of his cheekbone. He took her face in his two hands. “I can’t,” he hissed between his clenched teeth. “The waste of any human being is a terrible thing to see.”
“But then, to listen to you, I’m not human, am I?” she said cynically. His hands dropped; he stepped away.
“That’s right. You’re not human.” He moved to the door. “I have to move my car so you can pull out. No sense in wasting time—come on.”
Diana followed him out of the house, stumbling over the doorstep a little as his words echoed in her mind. “No sense in wasting time.” He regarded her as a waste of time. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Nobody matters. Repeat it again, Diana. He doesn’t matter.
She was in her car and driving away, the words still echoing in her mind. “It doesn’t matter,” she gritted between her teeth.
Diana spent the evening at home in a very depressed mood. She tried to force herself to relax, but she couldn’t. She tried to concentrate on a book, and then some work in her briefcase, but she couldn’t. She tried to keep her mind off of Alex, but she couldn’t.
It had been such a brief encounter with him today, but it had upset her very much. She couldn’t help but think of the coming week when she was supposed to spend most of the day with him. “I can’t handle this,” she told her tired face in the mirror. “I really can’t handle this.” She wondered if she should ask for a transfer to somewhere else, but rejected the idea as soon as she had thought it. Alex would ask why, or worse, he would know why, and she couldn’t take that. No, she would have to stick it out. After all, as she had told him, she could take anything he could dish out. She ignored the little voice in her head that called her a liar, and climbed into bed. There was little rest for her that night.
Chapter Seven
“Alicia Payne is here!” Carrie hissed at Diana when she walked into the office the next morning. The door was closed leading to the inner room and Diana eyed it doubtfully.
Her face brightened as she said with a hopefulness evident in her voice, “Maybe Alex wants to talk to her alone and I should make myself scarce for a while.” But Carrie was shaking her head.
“Alex told me to tell you to go right on in whenever you arrived. He’ll want to introduce you to her. I think she’s here to try to convince him that she had nothing to do with that little fiasco a little while ago. The nerve of that girl! She’ll lie through her teeth, and always with the most innocent look in those baby blue eyes. At least Alex knows what she’s like. He can’t possibly be fooled by her now,” Carrie finished speaking with a grim smile of satisfaction.
Diana tapped on the door lightly before walking in. The little scene that she walked into left her a bit more doubtful than Carrie. A slightly built woman was half perched on the side of Alex’s big desk, her beautifully proportioned body posed to show the delightful curves to the fullest advantage. Her hair was a rare shade of reddish blonde that gave off rosy tints in the light. Her eyes, which turned briefly to the door, were indeed a very large and very limpid blue. Her face was heart-shaped and delicately boned, giving her an air of fragility that would arouse the most insensitive of men to a feeling of protectiveness. All in all, Diana thought wryly, she’s a vision of angelical innocence.
Alicia had her small hands up to the tie at Alex’s throat and was smoothing it into place with an intimacy that caused Diana’s eyebrows and mouth to start to twitch. The female cat was establishing her claim to a territory in front of a strange adversary. Alex was watching Alicia with an enigmatic smile on his face. Diana watched the two of them and wished she was somewhere else.
Then Alicia was twisting off of the desk with a graceful move, and coming towards Diana with a warm smile. “You’ve got to be Diana,” she said lightly. “I’m Alicia Payne. You look every bit as pretty as I’ve heard everyone say.”
Diana smiled down at the charming face. “Hello, Alicia. It’s nice to meet you.” She looked up at Alex who had left his desk and had come around to stand by the two girls. “Should I come back a little bit later?”
Alicia protested. “Oh, don’t go, Diana! I wouldn’t want to be the one to send you out of your own office.” Now just what’s that supposed to mean? she wondered. “I was leaving soon anyway. I mainly wanted to come and invite you to a dinner party that I’m giving at the end of the week, Alex.” She turned to Diana. “You, of course, are invited too. It will be fairly small, but formal, and everyone is expected around seven for cocktails.” She looked from one to the other with a pleading smile on her face. “Oh, Diana, please say you’ll come! Alex? You wouldn’t let Diana go to a strange party all by herself, would you?”
He said lazily, “That’s blackmail, Alicia.” She gave a pretty pout. He turned to Diana, who raised her eyebrows enquiringly, but made no comment, leaving the decision to him. He asked Alicia, “What day is the party?”
“Saturday. That way nobody will have to leave early because of work the next day,” she grinned.
“Well, if Diana would like to go, then I’ll go, too.” Alex was watching her face.
“It sounds like fun,” she said, smiling and thinking no such thing. Alex’s mouth twitched slightly. She knew he guessed what she was thinking.
“Good,” said Alicia with satisfaction, and Diana suddenly felt uneasy at the smile she gave. It looked like a cat who had got away with something it shouldn’t have, and she wondered just what Alicia had planned for Saturday night. The girl was so charming that Diana had actually forgotten to keep up a wary guard around her. She watched Alicia talk to Alex excitedly about the party, and she made such a pr
etty and harmlessly friendly picture that Diana felt she was looking at a split personality. Alicia, when faced, was an enigma of contrasts. Diana felt a sudden revulsion towards the girl, almost as if she had been a snake.
She started to walk to her desk to set her briefcase down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alicia reach up with one hand to caress the side of Alex’s face gently. Diana felt a very strong urge to slap the hand away with a snarl, but managed to walk steadily to her desk and pretend to ignore it. She was amazed at herself; such a feeling of anger over something like that was new. She had never been possessive of anything or anyone in her life. She had always been the first to share or to give in school, and if someone had needed a loan of money, she never questioned, but gave what she could. To feel such a sudden wave of aggressive hostility towards someone else was startling to say the least.
Alicia was saying goodbye to Alex and she turned to Diana, saying with a friendly light in her eyes, “I’m looking forward to Saturday, and the chance to get to know you better, Diana.” I’ll bet! she thought, but she didn’t comment. Then Alicia was gone with a wave of her hand.
The rest of the morning passed with what had become unusual quietness. Alex seemed preoccupied and Diana, anxious to avoid any unnecessary confrontations, went out of her way to keep the peace intact. When she went out for her lunch break, she marvelled that the two of them had made it through a whole morning without any nasty scenes.
She was surprised to see the darkened office after her lunch break, for Alex usually stayed after she had left and came back before she did. She didn’t see the dark silent figure behind the desk for a moment until her eyes got used to the darker room. Then, just as she had her hand out to flick on the light, she went rigid.
“Alex?” She spoke quietly. The dark figure in the chair moved a little and his voice came back as quietly.
“Yes?”
She moved into the room without touching the light switch. The closed curtains gave the room a shadowy effect, blurring greys upon greys, with the one black figure behind the desk.
Diana stopped uncertainly in front of the desk. She could see Alex a little better. He was sitting with both elbows resting on the desk top, hands laced with chin and mouth covered. She felt uneasy, unable to grasp his mood without the benefit of seeing his face.
“Do you have a headache? Would you like the light off for a while longer?” she asked, concerned.
“No, I’m all right.” But still the figure didn’t move. She could only see dark shadows with a faint glitter where his eyes were supposed to be.
“Have you had any lunch yet?” she persisted.
“No.”
“I’d be glad to go down to the cafeteria to get you some sandwiches, if you like.”
“I’m not really hungry. Thank you anyway.”
Diana sat down in the chair that was pulled close to the front of Alex’s desk. This was not like Alex at all, and it worried her. He was usually so full of energy that he never wasted any part of the day, preferring instead to work right through his lunch hours and late into the evenings. She didn’t know what he liked to do for relaxation, but this she knew was not right. She thought for a moment.
“You are thinking some problem through, aren’t you?” she asked quietly. She could almost hear his smile.
“Something like that, yes,” he replied. There was such a lack of tension between them that Diana was unwilling to put on the harsh light or say anything to dispel the mood. This lack of strain had been how things were long ago. She felt a shock when she realised that only a week or two ago, this was how things had been between the two of them.
She decided to risk rejection, and asked carefully, “Would you like to talk about it?” She tilted her head back and leaned comfortably into her seat as she waited for his reply.
He hesitated. “No,” he said at last, and she felt somewhat disappointed. He continued, “But it would be nice just to talk. Maybe it will help to clear some of the cobwebs in my mind and I’ll be able to think about things with a fresh view.”
“All right,” she agreed. “Would you like the light on?”
“No!” he spoke a little sharply. Then, more quietly, “No, don’t turn the light on. It’s much too nice and relaxing like it is. I don’t want this mood destroyed.”
Diana nodded in agreement, then realised that he couldn’t see her. She said, “I know what you mean. What would you like to talk about?”
The chair squeaked as Alex shifted. “I don’t know. Anything. Everything. Life, death, betrayal, love, hate.” Through his voice and in the pauses, she could hear the desk clock’s tiny whir of electricity. “You, me, them, anyone. What do you want to talk about?”
She chuckled, “How about the latest weather updates?”
He gave a small groan. “Anything but that! Surely we can find something, some interest we have in common?”
“We could always start with the first on your list,” she said lightly. She folded her hands behind her neck and crossed her ankles. “How’s life been treating you?”
“I don’t know,” Alex spoke in a low voice. She frowned. It was a strange remark to make. “Do you ever feel as if everything is going your way and then something happens and nothing is ever the same again?”
She sat very still. She knew what he meant, too well. As soon as she had met Alex, everything in her life had taken a sudden shift and she couldn’t figure out just how it happened.
He was speaking. “It seems like that’s what happened to me and I don’t know what I want any more or where I’m going. What do you want to do with your life, Diana?”
The question was unexpected and the surprise of it sent her mind racing, groping for an answer. She felt a jumbled mixture of emotions and she was at a loss to explain just why until it dawned on her. She sat quite still, lost in herself and her own revelation, and was almost unaware that Alex was listening, for he was so quiet. Then she heard herself speak, and realised as she talked that she was not answering the question for Alex. She was answering the question for herself. “I think I want to do something worthwhile. I want to see something done and say, ‘Look, everyone, this is good. This is an achievement. I was able to do this thing.’” She shifted restlessly. “No, that isn’t right, I don’t know.” She stared at the ceiling. She tried to say that it didn’t matter, that she wouldn’t answer; she wanted to change the subject, but she couldn’t. She needed the question answered. “I want to fill an emptiness inside me with something good and worthwhile. I try to find it in everything that I do and everything I dream. There’s something inside me that’s reaching out to a bright and shining ideal, only I can’t seem to see where to go or how to reach it.” She repeated quietly, “I don’t know,” and wished she hadn’t said anything. She felt naked.
Alex seemed to be listening intently to her little speech, and when she was through, he asked, trying to choose his words carefully, “So you’re searching for something but you don’t know where to look or what you want to find?”
She sighed. “Something like that, yes. It—it’s as if it won’t let me rest or stop trying to find it, I…” she faltered. “Like I said, I don’t know. Are you understanding any of this?”
He said very gently, “Yes, I think I am. Once I felt like you did, but now I think I’ve found my ideal. I just don’t know how to go about attaining it.”
“Oh,” she said eagerly, “what is it?” He remained silent for a moment and as he started to speak she interrupted. “No, don’t tell me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He told her quietly, “I won’t tell you now, Diana, but maybe someday, if I ever attain it, I will.”
“I’d like that,” she said hesitantly. Alex stood up and walked around the desk to her. He squatted down on his haunches in front of her chair and took her hands in between his. Twice he started to speak and stopped. Diana felt for some reason a little shaky and her heart was starting to pound.
“Diana,” he started, “I want
to apologise for the way I’ve treated you recently.” She started to speak, but he shushed her with a finger to her lips. “No, hear me out. I have, for some odd reason, taken all my frustrations out on you, and attacked you in the most abominable way. There’s no excuse for the way I’ve treated you, only the flimsy explanation that I can’t even explain properly. Forgive me—I don’t want to hurt anyone, and in spite of what you’ve said in the past, I feel I’ve hurt you.”
She couldn’t control herself and tears started to run down her cheeks. This Alex was gentle, and while she was able to stand all his cold and hurting attitude, she couldn’t stand this. She stayed silent, unable to speak.
Alex had to be able to feel the trembling in her hands as he gripped them, and his hands tightened fractionally. “Diana—” he began. “My dear, I hope you find your ideal. I want you to be happy, I want…” He took a deep breath. “I wish you all the luck. If I can help you in any way, let me know.” She nodded, forgetting again that he couldn’t see her, and he stood up, releasing her hands.
“I need to go and speak with Owen,” he said quietly. She knew he was giving her a bit of time to gather her control. “I’ll be back in half an hour, and I’ll tell Carrie to hold all my calls.” He bent slightly and she felt his lips brush her forehead, and then he was gone.
Diana stayed where she was in the dark for a long time. She couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand from where all of the pain and aching came. Everything was patched up between Alex and herself. Everything should be fine. Everything wasn’t fine, and she felt the tears trickle one by one, wetting her face and hands.
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