Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life)

by Marie Ferrarella

  Mary took her hand and pulled her down beside her on the sofa. “And just when did I promise that?”

  “The last time you visited us. You said the next time, you and I were on for a big shopping spree.”

  Mary looked over her niece’s head at Johanna. “Doesn’t forget a thing, does she?”

  “Only when it’s to her advantage to remember,” Johanna said fondly.

  “Okay.” Mary looked at Jocelyn. “I guess I could stretch myself and do that with you, kid.” She turned toward Johanna. She hoped to draw Johanna out. She felt Johanna needed to be distracted, to keep her mind off her problems once she had unburdened herself. She needed, as she had said, time to heal. Yet Mary didn’t want to strong-arm her. “Want to come along and learn a few things about the fine art of shopping?”

  Johanna laughed and shook her head. She stretched and shifted on the chair. She felt lethargic.

  “No, I’ve got a few things to catch up on.” Mary was already uncurling her slender frame from the sofa. Jocelyn was pulling her toward her room. “You two go and have a ball. Not too expensive a ball,” Johanna said over her shoulder. “We’re going to have to learn how to live on a budget soon.”

  “What does that mean?” Jocelyn asked Mary.

  “That means that old Aunt Mary is going to foot the bill for you today, kid.”

  When Mary grinned like that, Johanna thought, she didn’t look that much older than Jocelyn. “I can still afford to pay for what’s mine,” she said.

  “I like spoiling her,” Mary protested.

  And that, Johanna knew, was the end of that. There was no arguing with Mary. She breathed a sigh of relief. It would do Jocelyn good to have a totally carefree afternoon in the company of someone Johanna trusted completely. There had always been an uneasiness when she let her go with Megan. First because she didn’t know Megan very well, and then because she did.

  Johanna wanted to answer a few letters, get things in order and finally think through her options one more time. This was a major decision. Once done, she knew she was burning her bridges behind her. If she walked out on Harry, asked for the divorce, that would be the end of it. He was not a man who begged. At least not where his wife was concerned. His pride wouldn’t let him. She knew she had to be very, very sure before she took that final step. There would be no turning back.

  She also know she had to take that final step, frightening though it was. She couldn’t survive if she didn’t. It was an awful thing, Johanna though, to admit that you’ve made such a devastating mistake, that you’ve wasted so much of your life because of one decision. But it was an even worse thing to ride it out to the end because you were too much of a coward to cut your losses and go.

  “What’s the use bandying this about, Joey? You know you have to go. It’ll kill you if you don’t. Everyone else’s seen it. It’s time you took your head out of the sand,” she muttered to herself.

  There was a knock on the door and she debated ignoring it, but then thought it might be room service about the cart. Preoccupied with her dilemma, she threw open the door. “What can I do for yo—Tommy?” She was both bewildered and pleased at seeing him there. He wore a green cable knit sweater that brought out a greenish tint in his eyes and a pair of faded jeans that moved with him like another layer of skin. Johanna felt a quickening of her pulse and decided it was futile to deny it.

  Tommy looked at her bemused, pleased expression and judged correctly. “You forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  “Our date. For the gallery. Your way of saying thanks, remember?” He grinned at her.

  Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s just that my sister arrived unexpectedly last night and I guess everything else just flew out of my head.” She wondered if he’d give her a raincheck.

  Tommy wasn’t interested in rain. “No harm done, we can still go.”

  She looked down at her casual outfit. She was wearing an old sweatshirt and a pair of creased slacks that needed pressing. “But I’m not dressed.”

  “You’re wearing clothes,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but—“

  “There is no dress code for the gallery, luv, other than clothes of course.” He grinned and there was just the slightest hint of wickedness there. And just the slightest hint of a thrill passed through her body. “Personally, I think you look terrific.”

  “For the Tate Gallery?” she asked doubtfully.

  “For anything.”

  Before she could protest further or make any other excuses, Tommy captured her hand in his. She needed coaxing, he thought, coaxing to bring out the fire he knew was inside of her. She had been on the sidelines of life for so long that she had forgotten how to participate, how to enjoy the little pleasures. They had been robbed from her. Ever so gently, he rubbed his thumb over her hand.

  “I promise you, if anyone notices you at all, luv, it’ll be to envy me, not to criticize your lack of proper attire.”

  Tommy made her feel young and impetuous again. As young as Harry had made her feel old. For a moment, just for the barest moment, her common sense wrestled with her desire to spend a carefree afternoon, dressed for the occasion or not. What would it hurt? Nothing and no one. After all, she had said she would go when he had asked. Mary had Jocelyn for the day and there was nothing to keep her chained to her room but her own stubbornness. She decided she didn’t want to be stubborn.

  “All right, just let me get my purse.”

  He grinned over his victory and she felt like giggling. She told herself that thirty-four-year-old women didn’t feel like giggling unless they had had too much to drink. But she felt like giggling. And maybe, just maybe, she felt drunk as well, drunk on freedom.

  The Tate Gallery stood overlooking the south bank of the River Thames, majestically hiding the fact that it was on the site of the former Millbank Prison. Now the impressive building housed a wonderful national collection of British paintings from the sixteenth century to the present, a gift to the city from Sir Henry Tate, a man of vast wealth made on the sale of sugar cubes.

  Though she had never been here before, walking into the gallery was like being reunited with an old friend. She had missed being around works of art. She hadn’t realized just how much until this moment. Johanna felt charged with excitement. She clutched onto Tommy’s arm, her enthusiasm telegraphing itself to him. He grinned, pleased to be sharing this with her.

  It had been so very long since she had haunted art galleries or museums and gazed at paintings, getting herself lost in them. Her years with Harry had been years of perpetual motion. First she had found herself caught up in a social whirl and then she was living on the edge of a hurricane, desperately just trying to hang on. There had been no time to be herself, no time to follow her own dreams. Harry’s had been so much larger than hers. So large that they eventually blotted out hers completely.

  Now, standing within room number nine, gazing up at the wild, vivid colors that JMW Turner had splashed on the canvas over a century ago, she was back. She was home. Her breath was almost snatched away by the beauty of Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps. The pending snow storm looked like a giant wave about to dash over the army.

  “Do you know,” she said, words crowding back into her head, thoughts, themes, colors, all vying for a spotlight, “that when Turner painted The Slave Ship, he had himself lashed to a ship so that he could experience the feel of the water, the terror of the sea before he painted it? He had to feel it in order to have it flow from his fingers.”

  Tommy liked seeing the paintings through her eyes. She was drinking all this in like a parched woman who was finally allowed to sip life-giving water. “Sounds like a man who lived life to the fullest.”

  “Yes.” There was envy in her voice as she said it and they both heard it.

  “It’s never too late, Johanna,” Tommy said softly.

  She turned and looked up into his eyes, seeing a hundred different messages, all meant for her.
“No, I guess it’s not.”

  The man who stood a few feet away from them, jotting things down in his notebook, stopped writing.

  That voice.

  Was it her?

  It had been fifteen years since he had last heard her speak, and yet, he was sure it was her. He looked around, tracing the source. There were several women in the immediate area and the gallery was far from hushed. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe—

  And then he saw her, standing before the Turner painting, talking to a handsome looking man. She appeared to be with him. A spark of envy, dormant and old, filtered over him.

  This was ridiculous. It was probably just someone who sounded like her. And looked like her. A bit thinner, paler, but—

  It had to be her.

  “Johanna?”

  Another voice, deeply masculine and slightly unsure, intruded into the small world that she had spun only for a moment. She turned, vaguely recognizing the voice, wondering if another one of Harry’s hangers-on had surfaced. But no one she knew would ever find time for an art gallery. It wasn’t the proper place to arrange a seduction.

  She turned from Tommy, still feeling a little shaken at what she saw within his eyes, shaken and frightened, wanting to reach out yet telling herself not to.

  “Yes?” At first, she didn’t see who was addressing her.

  “Johanna Lindsey, is that you?”

  She blinked, refocused and really looked at the man who called her by her maiden name. “Yes, but I—“ She was about to deny any knowledge of the man before her when she stopped.

  “Joshua?” she cried. “Joshua MacKenzie?” Johanna’s eyes opened wide. Delight, surprise and confusion all registered on her face at once.

  Both men thought that they had never seen such a truly desirable woman in their lives.

  She took both of Joshua’s hands in hers and allowed herself to stare in fascination for a moment. The man who had called out to her was tall, though not as tall as Tommy, and just as casually dressed, although his hair was neater but only a little shorter.

  “My God, the last time I saw you, you had long hair—“

  “The suffering artist,” he filled in, grinning, absolutely amazed that he should see her here after all these years. Amazed and delighted.

  So many memories came crowding back into her mind. Joshua had been her friend and confidante in the days when she had dreamed of being an artist. They had attended college together. “And a lot less clothes on.”

  “Ouch.” He pretended to wince. “My days of modeling to get by. You would remind me of that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She turned to Tommy, suddenly realizing how rude she must have sounded. “Tommy Reed, this is a very old friend of mine, Joshua Mackenzie. Joshua and I went to school together.”

  The two men shook hands, nodding at one another. Within moments, they had sized one another up and decided that they liked what they saw.

  “What are you doing here?” Johanna asked.

  “I’m on a little buying trip. I own a gallery in Soho.”

  “London?”

  “New York,” he corrected.

  “What about your painting career?”

  “I decided that eating was a habit that was hard to give up. I’m on the other side of the easel now. Here.” He dug into his pocket. “Here’s my card. If you’re ever in the area, I’d love to spring for a cup of coffee.”

  Johanna tucked the card into her purse. “Will you be staying in London long?”

  He shook his head. “My last night.”

  “Oh.” She felt a twinge of disappointment. “Are you free for lunch?”

  He had someone to meet, but that could be postponed with a phone call until later. “At your service.”

  Johanna turned to Tommy hopefully. It had been so long since she had seen Joshua and there were of many things to catch up on. “Tommy, would you mind if we made it a threesome?”

  “Not at all. This way 1 can find out the truth about your past without prying.” Tommy laughed easily.

  “It may be a long lunch,” Joshua promised Tommy. “C’mon, it’s my treat.”

  With Johanna between them, they went to the gallery’s restaurant.

  Chapter Twenty

  “And he proposed a day in the country?” Mary’s voice went up an octave and swelled until it filled the suite. Her deep pleasure was evident in her expression as well as in her voice. But she detected a pensive look on Johanna’s face. “Well, I don’t see what the problem is. Go. I’ll stay here with Jocelyn.”

  Johanna hadn’t been able to sit still. She fiddled with the drapes, rearranged the throw pillows, moved a small pile of magazines from one side of the coffee table to another. Nothing seemed quite right. Like it didn’t fit. Like she didn’t fit. “The problem is I’m still a married woman.”

  Mary held up a hand to stop her before she went any further. “Jo, you’re a mistreated, about-to-be-divorced woman,” she reminded Johanna. “Stop this nonsense and go out and have some fun. You don’t have to go to bed with him, although,” a sexy smile slid over her lips, “that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing from where I sit.”

  Everything that Mary said was true. Johanna knew it far better than she did. She had lived through it. Maybe she was just using her status as an excuse. No, there was no maybe about it. The truth was that she was afraid, Johanna thought. Afraid of testing waters again, afraid of what she might find, or not find within herself.

  “Besides, the glimpse I caught of the two of you when he left you at the door, well, I’d say you were doing pretty well for yourself.”

  Johanna knew that Mary was referring to the fact that Tommy had given her a simple kiss yesterday. No, it hadn’t been a simple kiss, not for her. It had been a reinitiation into the rites of womanhood. She hadn’t expected it, but something within her had hoped, had yearned for it to become reality. And when he had kissed her, it was light and sweet and wonderful. She still felt the gentle touch of his mouth on hers even as she sat here, talking to Mary. Yet she felt a need to deny what Mary was so obviously thinking. If she denied it, maybe nothing would happen. She wouldn’t have to put her feelings on the line again.

  The kiss had made her feel alive, feminine, desirable again. All the things Harry no longer did for her. Yet she was afraid of where this would lead. Actually, she was afraid of what it meant. It signaled the beginning of a new life for her. This was what it meant to be a single woman again. Still, as much as she wanted it, she felt anxious. It had been so good with Harry in the beginning. Why did that have to change? Why had he had to change?

  What she had was a kiss from a stranger tantalizing her, making her want things. Maybe it was just deprivation speaking.

  She wanted what she once had: Harry, a family, a home. She couldn’t let go so easily. Yet she knew she had to. Not to grow was to whither and die. And that was what she had been doing, living with Harry. Existing with Harry. She had been dying. Tommy represented the future, one single step beyond where she had been.

  She didn’t know if she was more afraid to take that step or not to take it. She saw Mary looking at her and realized that she had let the conversation lapse. “We’re only going to spend a day in the country.”

  Mary raised her eyebrows and let just a hint of a smile grace her lips. “Lots of things can happen when you get back to nature.”

  Johanna pulled the curtain cord through her hand so hard that it stung her palm. “But not to me.” She let the cord drop.

  Mary leaned back on the sofa, her arms outstretched easily on either side of her. She turned her head slightly to watch her pace. “Why not you?”

  Why not me? Johanna didn’t want to say those were the same thoughts that were racing through her head, had been racing through them ever since Tommy linked his hand with hers and drew her out the door yesterday afternoon. “Because,” she answered in frustration.

  “You’re going to have to come up with a better explanation than that, Jo.”

  She f
lopped down on the sofa next to her. “I don’t need to come up with an explanation. I’m tired of explaining things.” Mainly to myself.

  “No,” Mary agreed, nodding her head slowly. “You don’t need to explain. You just need your head examined if you don’t go.”

  She wanted to. Oh, she really wanted to. Her mouth softened. “You really think I should?”

  Leaning over, Mary patted her hand. “Trust me on this one. And Jo.”

  “What?”

  “Let yourself go for once.”

  “Go?” There was a hitch in her voice. Nerves. “Just how do you mean that?”

  “Just that. Go.” Mary gestured with her palms upward. “Like no one’s looking over your shoulder or judging you— least of all, you.”

  “You know me, don’t you?”

  “Only too well, big sister.” Mary rose and kissed Johanna’s temple. “Only too well. Now it’s all settled and I won’t take no for an answer. You’re going.”

  With that, Mary sauntered off to make plans for the following day with her niece. She moved with grace and ease, fluidly, as if her limbs were loosely jointed. Johanna had always envied her that grace.

  Alone in the room, Johanna sat and played with the telephone, picking up the receiver and then putting it down again several times before she finally made the call to Tommy.

  When a deep voice answered on the third ring, she almost hungup, then berated herself silently. Summoning courage, she asked for Tommy. Her voice cracked on the second syllable of his name. She licked her lips nervously. Her mouth felt like dust.

  “ ‘ey, Tom, it’s for you,” the man called out.

  Several seconds later, Johanna heard another voice, a more familiar one. “Hello?”

  Now or never, Joey. “Never” seemed tempting, but then she’d have to face Mary and that wasn’t tempting in the least. “Tommy, it’s Johanna. I didn’t want to interrupt, if you have company—“

  “Company? Oh no, that’s just me dad. He’s staying with me for a bit. Hurt his leg he did. He likes the company of having someone around to clear his table for him.”