by J. P. Lane
“But you’re dating Gordon,” he’d sputtered in defense.
“You have no respect for me!” he remembered her shrieking at the top of her lungs. “The body isn’t even cold and you’re seeing that bitch! You just couldn’t wait, could you?” She had slammed the phone down before he could come up with a response and that was the end of that.
He didn’t see Virginia much after. They would run into each other on occasion after she and Gordon were married. It wasn’t long after when he moved to New York. Mike thought about those times in New York, those days when he was venturing out on his journey along the path of Eros. It was the seventies and eighties when everybody was snorting cocaine and tumbling into bed with everyone else. Yes, he had to admit there was a time when he had screwed just about anything that moved, but he had never thought of those forays into eroticism as earth-shattering events so much as a seductive banquet laid out for the tasting. He searched within himself to find the thing that had brought him to that place. At what point do you become so numb your fingertips can no longer thrill to another’s touch? At what point does a person begin to need more and more to feel, and in the end be capable of feeling nothing more than an orgasm? It was a strange hell, that dwelling place of the phantoms of emotion, mere ghosts of what they had been before they died at the hands of too many meaningless liaisons and too much hurt to feel again.
But by some miracle he had not died – not completely. There were one or two women along the way who had ignited him, though never in the way Virginia had. Even now when he saw her, the old feeling awakened. They were older, they had taken different paths, but his love for her had never really died. It had simply been thrown into a closet that stored life’s impossibilities until they became buried and forgotten under the dust of time. Was it possible that people circled back to each other to complete their circle of life? Mike pushed the thought out of his mind guiltily. Gordon wasn’t even buried yet. Besides, to think Virginia would consider him again was a stretch. Though there had been times over the years when he had caught a fleeting look in her eyes – wistful, questioning. But it was always quickly replaced by a laugh or humorous comment that killed even a fading dream.
They had lived an enchanted life when they were young. It was one the younger generation would never experience. He doubted they could even begin to imagine what it was like back then for him, Logan, Virginia and their peers. They were as free as the wind, the island their playground. It was a life of privilege, which being young, they had not valued. They knew nothing else. There was nothing with which to compare, except with the lives of those less fortunate; and that there were less fortunate people was also something they took for granted. There were those who had, and those who didn’t. And for those who had, doors opened effortlessly. It was still the same to some degree, but it would never again be as before. The country had become more egalitarian, the gap between the haves and the have-nots lessened. Mike was not opposed to that. It had always been his belief that the chasm had been far too large and the privileges of the advantaged too often abused. It was too early to tell where the island was heading now Freeman was gone, but he fervently hoped Logan’s efforts, if he had indeed been involved, had not been in vain.
FORTY-SIX
The warm jet of water from the showerhead beat down on Lauren’s back until the bathroom filled with steam and the mirror over the sink became fogged. With closed eyes, she stood motionless under the shower, trying to empty her mind. It had been a harrowing week, the clincher being Gordon Matthews’ suicide. Rumors had reached her ears that Gary Matthews was blaming Gordon’s suicide on her news report. Doubtless she was now persona non grata at Vale Verde, though what did that matter now, she asked herself bitterly. She let the shower run a while longer then stepped out, at last feeling better than she had in days. But no sooner had she begun toweling off, than her mind began racing again. Shrugging on a sleep shirt, she headed for the living room. A stiff drink was in order. It was already well after midnight and she would never get to sleep at the rate her mind was going.
Lauren perused the meager contents of the liquor cabinet that seldom catered to guests and reached for a half-empty bottle of vodka. She was about to unscrew the top when she spied the bottle of Pinot Noir Logan had taken from his wine cellar and given her when she visited him in New York. Lauren contemplated the bottle hesitantly. She had planned on saving the wine for a time when she would be able to have Logan over for dinner. She pulled it from the shelf and scrutinized the label: 2005 Alain Hudelot-Noellat Nuits St. Georges Les Murgers. “What the hell,” she muttered picking up the corkscrew. “There’s no time like the present, especially when the future you envisaged isn’t about to happen.” She poured herself a glass, and not giving the wine even a second to breath, took a gulp. “Here’s to you Logan Armstrong,” she toasted the air with a flourish. “May your future be joyous – without me.”
She plopped herself in a chair near the window and put her feet up. Tears of anger and betrayal welled in her eyes. How could they have done such a thing? How could her aunt have done such a thing? Margaret had ruthlessly thrown her to the wolves by asking her to make the delivery to London. Knowing Lauren trusted her implicitly, Margaret had brought her into some insidious plot to get rid of Erick Freeman. And she, like a fool, had sacrificed her integrity as a journalist to protect an aunt who had suddenly become a monster she did not recognize. And Logan… the whole thing was sickening. Boogey men were appearing at every turn, manifesting themselves in people she thought she knew. She was desperate to give Logan the benefit of the doubt, and she would have clutched at any straw to believe he had not been involved. But her ears had not deceived her when she overheard Margaret on the phone that evening she had visited her. She reached for her glass and found it already empty.
Unsteadily, she hoisted herself from the chair and went to pour herself another glass. She took it back to the chair and sat, desperately trying to fight back the thoughts that had tormented her ever since her visit to Foster & Foster. She had buried herself in work, reaching the point of exhaustion where she had come home each night and thrown herself into bed comatose. But still, the thoughts had consumed her, held her in a vicious stranglehold from which she could not free herself, no matter how hard she tried.
The tears came at last, along with sobs that wracked her body as they ripped through her from the center of her being. “Why, why?” she cried. Margaret was like a mother to her; she was closer to Margaret than her own mother. Had love for her aunt blinded her to the woman she really was? There was no answer, only the aloneness of an endless night.
A terrible sense of loss swept over her as she thought of Logan. How long would her feelings for him take to fade away? How could she have come to love him so much in so short a time? And how could she still love him after all that had transpired? What was love? Was it some form of insanity that bonded you to someone against your will? Why could her love not be selective, sensible? Or was it some fatal flaw in her that made her still yearn for him? Hidden in all the madness there had to be an answer. If only she could find it.
She collapsed back into the chair, gazing into space. Love, she decided wistfully, was not accountable to anyone or any circumstances. Love, according to those words she’d listened to countless times at weddings, was simply what it was. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything.
She sat contemplating the meaning of the passage for a long time before she slowly got up and went to her desk. She rifled through a drawer and found a card. On the front of the card, was a reproduction of a watercolor painting of a Bluequit. Indecisively, Lauren studied the card, then fearing her nerve would fail her, she hurriedly grabbed a pen and began to write.
Dear Logan,
I was deeply shocked to hear of Gordon’s death and I wish to offer my deepest sympathy. I’m sure this must be a very difficult t
ime for you, Virginia and the rest of your family.
I want to take this opportunity to apologize for not calling you and to tell you why I haven’t. My lack of response to your messages was not because I was ignoring them. Neither was it because I was too busy to call. After giving it much thought, I realize there is nowhere for our relationship to go. I’m at fault in not having been brave enough to share my feelings before. I should have, because you are undeserving of the discourtesy I’ve shown.
Lauren paused, debating whether to say more. She decided it could do no harm.
Please forgive me for having acted in this way, Logan. I don’t want you to ever have the impression my feelings for you were not sincere, because they were, and still are.
All the best,
Lauren
Trevor pulled the Range Rover up to the kitchen door at Vale Verde and reached into the back for the suit, still hanging on the drycleaner’s hanger, and a suitcase. Whistling a catchy tune, he stepped inside the house as Clara opened the door for him. “What yuh got there, Trevor?” she asked eyeing the suitcase.
“Mr. Logan’s clothes for the funeral,” Trevor informed her officiously. He pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket. “I have something else for him. Where is he?”
Clara made to take the envelope from him, but Trevor held onto it firmly. “Stand back, woman,” he ordered fending her off. “I have to give it to him miself. Ivy seh mek sure a give it to im personally.”
“What happen? Yuh nuh trus me to give it to him, Trevor?” Clara asked meeting his gaze with a flirtatious laugh in her eyes.
Grinning, Trevor looked her up and down. “Is not dat I don’t trus you. Which man wouldn’t trus a luscious woman like you?”
“Oh stop, yuh old sweet mouth, yuh!” Clara admonished him with an indifferent flick of the wrist and a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. “Yuh talk nuttin but foolishness. Is where yuh wife?”
“I don’t have nuh wife. But I’m looking for one,” Trevor grinned.
Clara clicked her tongue dismissively and took the suitcase. “I’ll tell Mr. Logan you’re here. Get yourself something to drink if you’re thirsty. There’s lemonade in the fridge. I jus made it.”
“I hope it sweet like you,” Trevor laughed after her as she disappeared inside the house with the suitcase and Logan’s suit.
Logan found Trevor in the kitchen, head tilted upward as he downed the last of the glass of lemonade. “Clara says you have something for me?”
“Yes, Mr. Armstrong,” Trevor said quickly putting the glass down. He slid the envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Logan. “Ivy said to make sure I gave it to you personally.”
Logan barely glanced at the envelope as he asked, “You heading back to the cottage today?”
“I’m heading back after lunch if you don’t need me, sir.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll be okay for now. Did Ivy have any messages for me?”
“Yes, she wants to know when she is to come back for the funeral. She’s asking for you to call her when you have a chance.”
“I’ll call, but tell her she can come back any time she likes. I don’t know why she left in the first place.”
There was nobody around when Logan sat down on the verandah to see what the envelope held. He immediately noticed it was not addressed. Curiously, he pulled out the card, his eyes rounding in surprise as he saw the Bluequit. It was the very bird he had glimpsed in the garden a few days before. Wondering who the card was from, he opened it and began to read. A shadow passed across Logan’s face. What was Lauren telling him that she had omitted to say in her nicely coined phrases? He decided if he were to have any peace of mind, he would have to find out.
FORTY-SEVEN
Lauren frowned in puzzlement as she pulled into her driveway and saw the midnight blue Benz sitting in it. She could not identify the driver because the windows were so heavily tinted. She got out of her car and walked tentatively up to the strange car. The driver’s window rolled down.
“Since you still insist on not returning my calls, I decided I had no choice but to come and see you.” The hazel eyes looked up at her with a neutral expression.
Lauren inhaled sharply. “Logan!”
“Yes. Logan. Remember him? As the saying goes, if Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.”
Lauren’s heart began thundering. “This is a surprise…” she stuttered. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“I hope that will change quickly, because you and I need to talk. Well, are you going to invite me in or just stand there gawking at me as if I’m some alien from outer space?”
“This is a nice place you have here,” he said, taking in the living area furnished in dark-stained rattan with coverings of bright tropical prints.
“Thanks,” Lauren replied uncomfortably. “Everything is made locally. I believe in supporting local craft.”
“Was this made here too?” he asked touching a dark mahogany side table with contrasting natural cane inserts.
“Yes,” she answered distractedly as she spied the empty Pinot Noir bottle on her way to the liquor cabinet. The cabinet was as sadly under-stocked as it had been two nights before. “Logan, I’m embarrassed to say I have nothing to offer you,” she apologized while hurriedly placing the wine bottle out of sight.
“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered, absorbed by her art collection. “Coffee is fine if you have any.”
After a few minutes, Lauren came out of the kitchen with a coffeepot and two mugs on a tray and set them on the coffee table. She looked at Logan uncertainly. “Well, have a seat,” she said awkwardly.
Her hand shook slightly as she began to pour. “You take yours black, don’t you?”
“Yes, black’s good, thank you,” he replied taking his mug. He waited for her to fill hers before getting to his point. “I’m sorry I intruded on you like this, but I had to see you.”
She put her mug down. Her hand was now shaking so much she was afraid he would notice.
“I got your note.”
Not wishing to meet his, she lowered her eyes. “Well then, there’s nothing further to say is there?”
“Why don’t you want to see me anymore?”
Lauren steadied her voice with difficulty. “I thought I made that clear in my note.”
“You said you didn’t think our relationship could go anywhere. That didn’t tell me much. In fact, it didn’t tell me anything. There has to have been a reason for your decision.”
“Logan, please, I don’t want to talk about this.”
He leaned towards her earnestly. “I know we haven’t known each other that long, but don’t you think I deserve to know?”
“Logan, please leave it alone. It’s too upsetting to talk about.”
“What is it that you find so upsetting you can’t talk about it?”
Lauren looked down at her hands.
“Don’t you think this warrants some discussion?” Logan pressed.
“Logan, I think you’d better leave,” she said getting up to usher him out.
“Okay, if that’s what you want, I suppose there’s nothing more to say,” he said rising to leave.
She wavered as he reached the door, “Logan… maybe.”
He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob.
“Maybe we should talk,” she said with resignation.
Logan was silent for a long time after she finished speaking. His fear that she believed he was involved in the assassination had been realized. He wondered if this was why she no longer wished to see him, though it didn’t make sense considering she had been involved too. Wishing to be sure of her reason, he asked, “Is this why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“I can’t have any kind of relationship with someone who would do such a thing,” she said near to tears. “What made you to do it, Logan? Didn’t you already have enough? How much could a person need for heaven’s sake?”
“What are you talking a
bout?” he asked in bewilderment.
She bit her lip. “I’m talking about you and Frank Sterling.”
Logan’s mouth flew open. “Frank Sterling? Why would you think I have anything to do with Frank Sterling?”
He stopped abruptly and stared at her in disbelief. “Sweet Jesus, Lauren! Are you telling me you think I’m involved in drug trafficking? Is that how little you think of me?”
Reeling from the unbelievable affront, he got up and walked away from her. She was right. It was impossible for them to have a relationship with so little respect and trust, but the least he could do for himself was set her straight. If nothing else, he had to find out how much she knew. His face was taut as he turned to face her. “I would like to know what brought you to that conclusion, not to mention condemn me without even so much as a discussion.”
Lauren’s throat tightened with fear.
With stony eyes Logan persisted, “I want an answer from you.”
“Lauren, I don’t take an accusation like that lightly. You owe me an explanation.”
“Everything points to it, Logan,” she said, her voice trembling.
“What exactly is everything?”
He waited for her to answer, but she went no further.
Logan exhaled as he sat again and faced her. “Look, you need to tell me what this is all about.”