Warm Hearts

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Those are things that I enjoy,” he said, thumping his chest self-righteously. “There are plenty of other times when I’m doing absolutely nothing. That’s when you choose to open your briefcase.”

  Sheila glared at the wall. “I see no reason why it always has to be me accommodating you, rather than the other way around.” She turned her glare on Caroline. “I have to time my getting up in the morning so that the steam from my shower will have gone by the time he reaches the bathroom.”

  “That’s not true. You need the extra time to fiddle with your makeup and try on three outfits before you finally decide what to wear.”

  “I have to look good at work. Clothes and makeup are important.”

  Sheila headed her own beauty-consulting service. Caroline had to admit that she always looked stunning. Not that Paul was a slouch. He was blond and good-looking, not overly tall but well built. He managed a large hotel not far from the Capitol, an enviable position for one so young.

  “See?” Paul asked. “It’s always work. When we finally manage to be free on the same evening, she doesn’t want to go anywhere. She says that she dresses up every day and needs a break.” He turned to his wife. “Well, I need a break, too. I need a wife who tries to please me for a change.”

  “You want to be doted on. Paul, that’s passé. I’m not your mother. And do you dote on me?”

  He snorted. “If I started, there’d be no end to it. Give you an inch and you’d take a mile. Look what happened with paying the bills. We agreed that we’d each take care of our own. Then one month you were too busy, so I gave you a hand. The month after that it was—” he affected a whiny soprano “—‘You’re so much better at it than I am, Paul,’ so I did it again. Since then you’ve just assumed I’d do it.”

  “I work, damn it. I face bills day in, day out.”

  “Well, damn it,” he yelled, throwing his hands in the air, “so do I!” He turned to Caroline. “She’s obsessed with her role as the working woman. I didn’t ask her to work. We don’t need the income.”

  “We do if we want that house in Silver Spring.”

  “You’re the one who wants it. I’d be just as happy to stay in the condo we have here and look for a house when we really need one. Like when we have kids. But that’s a whole other can of worms. When we were first married, we said we’d wait two or three years before having children. Then you felt that the opportunity to consult at Bloomingdale’s was too good to pass up, so we agreed to put off the kids a little longer. Then you started your own business—things were hot, you said, and you didn’t want to lose your contacts—so it was shoved off again. Why in the hell do we need a big house if we don’t have a family to fill it?”

  “A family’s a moot point when we can’t stand being near each other in bed.”

  “Speak for yourself. I reach for you and either your nails are still wet or you’ve just creamed your face or you have cramps—”

  On and on they went, while Caroline listened silently. At last, she held up her hands to signal a ceasefire. “You’re both angry, and that’s okay. It’s good that you can let go here. I only wish you could do it at home.”

  “He’d turn up the television.”

  “She’d lock herself in the bathroom.”

  Caroline raised a single hand this time. “I want you to sit back for a minute and think. You’re both bottlers. We’ve talked about it before. You hold things in until you’re ready to explode. It was my impression, though, that things had been getting a little better. I thought you were beginning to talk. Either I was mistaken or something happened this week to set you back.”

  “Nothing happened,” Paul said. “Nothing happened. That’s just the point. I want something to happen. I want a show of her feelings, one way or the other, but she says nothing.”

  Caroline looked at Sheila, inviting a response. What she got was a belligerent “Why do I have to take the first step?”

  “Why not?” Paul countered. “I take the lead in just about everything else. I was the one who suggested we come here. I was the one to compromise when you said you wanted a woman therapist.” He turned to Caroline. “But it’s not working. She doesn’t want therapy. I don’t think she ever had any intention of changing. These sessions are pointless.”

  “That’s the most intelligent deduction you’ve made in years,” Sheila decided. With that, she rose from her seat and left the office.

  Paul stared after her in disbelief, then shifted his disbelief to Caroline. “Why didn’t you say something? You could have stopped her.”

  Caroline was disturbed herself, but she was trained not to show it. “Not if she wanted to leave. She knows how I feel about our sessions. She knows that I think they’re helpful, even when they become free-for-alls.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We let her cool off.”

  “We?”

  “You. You give her a little time. Tomorrow or the next day, you can broach the subject of coming back.”

  “Tomorrow or the next day—that’s optimistic. When Sheila’s angry, she can go for a week without acknowledging my presence.”

  “And you?” Caroline asked gently but pointedly.

  He considered that for a minute, then shrugged.

  “What set things off this time, Paul?”

  He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Who knows? We had the big guns visiting the hotel this week, so I spent three nights there working late. Each time, she was in bed when I got home, and she’s never been a morning person.” The hand kept rubbing. He looked legitimately tired.

  “So you didn’t have a chance to talk. How about this week? Will your schedule be as bad?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you make a date with her?”

  “If she doesn’t want to talk, she’ll turn me down.”

  “You could try.”

  “I doubt it would work.”

  “What do you have to lose?”

  He looked Caroline in the eye and said, “Pride.”

  She had to credit him with honesty. Pride didn’t make her job any easier, but the client’s recognition of it was a first step. “Well, then,” she said, “what do you want to do?”

  “About these sessions?”

  She nodded.

  He dropped his hand to the armrest. “If Sheila and I don’t work something out, we might as well call it quits.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Deep down, no. But I can’t stand the way we are together. We share an apartment. That’s about it. Once in a while we share meals. But fun? Laughter? I want a wife who’s a friend. Right about now, I don’t like Sheila very much.”

  “Right about now, you’re angry and hurt.”

  “You’re right. So what do I do?”

  “Calm down. Wait for Sheila to do the same. Then talk. Quietly and sensibly. Tell her what you just told me. See what she says.”

  Caroline could see the argument forming on Paul’s lips. He paused, clamped his lips together and finally nodded. When he stood to leave, she accompanied him to the door.

  “If either of you wants to talk during the week, you have my number. Try to get her back here, Paul. Even if you decide to terminate, a final session would be wise. We’ve left too many things up in the air. If I can sum up a little, share my thoughts with you both, you’ll be in a better position to decide what to do from there.”

  He nodded, thanked her, then left. Returning to her desk, Caroline sat quietly for a bit. As always happened at times like these, she reviewed the session, wondering what she might have done differently. Unfortunately, as always happened at times like these, her next client arrived before she’d reached any conclusions.

  By the time that client, plus two others, had come and gone, it was six o’clock. Pushing aside mental exhaustion, she joined her partners for their regular Thursday-night meeting. At its conclusion, she returned to her office to find her sister-in-law, Diane, slouched in a chair.

  �
�I need to talk.”

  “Oh, Di,” Caroline whispered.

  “He’s impossible. I know he’s your brother, but I’m your friend. I have no idea how to handle him.”

  “And I do?”

  “If anybody does, it’s you. You know where he’s coming from, and besides, this is your specialty.”

  Caroline thought of the session with the Valentes and felt a heavy weight inside. She thought of the follow-up phone call she still had to put through to her father’s doctors, and the one to her mother. She thought of the folders piled on the corner of her desk, waiting for the addition of notes from the day.

  “Let’s go for drinks,” Diane suggested. “You look as discouraged as I feel.”

  At least she’d noticed, Caroline mused. There were times when she wondered whether anyone thought of her feelings. But Diane was a friend, a good friend. They went back a long way and she felt deeply for Diane’s present turmoil.

  “Okay,” she said as she began to load the folders into a briefcase to take home. “A drink. Just one. I can’t begin to tell you all I still have to do tonight.”

  * * *

  It was after nine when she finally reached the loft. She didn’t begrudge the time she’d spent with Diane, because it had been productive. Over glasses of wine, they’d discussed Diane’s resentment of Carl, who was having a tough time at work and had chosen to blame it on his marriage. Over chef’s salads, they’d discussed the effect of the separation on Amy, who was four years old and devoted to both her parents. Over raspberry sherbet, they’d discussed the tug-of-war that the divorce settlement was becoming. And over lingering cups of coffee, they’d discussed the fact that, when all was said and done, Diane still loved her husband.

  Caroline had every intention of telling that to Carl, but not tonight. Not tonight. There was too much else to do. She was bone tired and mentally saturated.

  And hot. The loft was as bad as it had been the night before. As she’d done then, she flipped on the fan, opened the French windows, then stood in the semidarkness and played back the answering machine.

  Her mother had called, bless her impatient soul. And Ben, no doubt checking to make sure she hadn’t lied about late meetings. And one of her clients, who was sick and wanted to cancel her next day’s leadoff appointment. Caroline didn’t stop to wonder whether the sickness was real; she was too grateful to have the extra time to make up for the work that she suspected she might not get done tonight.

  There was no return call from either of the doctors. She phoned their number and left her name as a reminder, then phoned her mother to relate the non-news. Dripping with sweat by this point, she peeled off her clothes, took a quick shower to wake herself up, pulled on a sleeveless nightshirt and, bending forward, secured her hair in a barrette at her crown. Then, pushing aside the small plant that was normally her centerpiece, she sat down at the round kitchen table with a low lamp, a tall glass of iced water and her briefcase.

  Concentration didn’t come easily. That morning seemed so far away that she had to struggle to recall the contents of those early sessions. Her mind wandered to the Valentes, to her parents, to Carl and Diane, while her eye wandered to the window.

  His apartment was dark. She wondered whether he was out on a date or simply working late. Propping her chin on her palm, she closed her eyes and pictured herself out with him. They wouldn’t go to the symphony, or the theater, or a movie. They’d go to an intimate restaurant where the ambience would more than make up for the lack of conversation. Even without that ambience, they wouldn’t have to talk. He’d understand her exhaustion. He’d know that it was the quiet companionship that mattered.

  Opening her eyes with some effort, she trained them on the folder marked Meecham, Nicole. She squared a pad of paper before her, lifted her pen and began to write. Client initiated discussion of her superior at work. She resents what she sees as condescension on his part, and this fuels the anger she feels toward her parents. Independence is becoming a central issue in therapy, as is self-worth.

  She dropped the pen and took a cool drink. Independence. In some ways she’d always been independent, in others never. What was independence, anyway? Was it a state of mind or a physical state? And self-worth? Oh, she had a sense of that, all right. The people in her world wouldn’t let her forget that she was their mainstay. She wished they would, once in a while. There were times when she wanted to lean on someone else.

  What she needed, she decided, dropping her head back with a tired sigh, was a vacation. Not the kind she usually took—visiting her parents and her sister—but a real, honest-to-goodness vacation. A remote spot. No telephone. No responsibility. Total anonymity.

  Well, almost total. Her gaze crept out the window and across the courtyard. She’d take a vacation with him. He’d pick the spot, a sparsely populated island in the Caribbean.… No, no, a remote cabin in northernmost Maine, where the nights were blessedly cool. He’d drive her there in his Jaguar. It’d be a long drive, but she’d sleep most of the way. She wouldn’t have to keep an eagle’s eye on the road as she did with Elliot, who, she was convinced, had done his driver training at Macy’s. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome would be a careful driver. She’d be able to relax and rest.

  Without conscious thought, she rose from the table and went to the window. Tucking one leg beneath her, she perched on the end of the seat with her arms wrapped around her waist and her shoulder braced against the frame.

  He’d wake her when they reached their remote cabin, but he’d do it gently, and the first thing he’d do after he unlocked the door would be to pull back the sheets of the bed. They’d be crisp cotton sheets, smelling of the fresh outdoors in a way no dryer could simulate. She’d stretch out and soon be asleep, but when she awoke in the morning, he’d be with her.

  And then … And then they’d make long, sweet, passionate love.

  She drew in a wispy breath at the thought, then held that breath in her lungs when the light in his apartment came on. His window was already wide open. Either he’d been home earlier or he was more trusting than she. Whatever the case, she could easily follow his movements, which she did with more fascination than guilt.

  He wore a body-molding tank top, a pair of running shorts and sneakers, and his skin glistened with sweat. He was tall indeed, she discovered with pleasure. His head well exceeded the top of the refrigerator, from which he was taking a drink. His back muscles flexed with the action; they weren’t at all bunchy but were nicely formed and well toned. As he straightened, held the can to his mouth and tipped his head back for a drink, she saw that his shoulders were broad without being inflated and his torso tapered to wonderfully narrow hips.

  The tingles were off and running. She was a little appalled, because she’d never been one to sit ogling men. But those tingles felt so good and healthy that she gave them free rein. More than that, she encouraged them as she mentally transferred the body in her sights to that cabin in Maine … to that bed … to that exquisitely gentle but fiercely satisfying lovemaking.

  When Tall-Dark-and-Handsome turned toward the window, she held her breath. She knew she should move away, but she couldn’t. The best she could do was avert her eyes for a minute, but, with a will of its own, that gaze quickly returned to watch while he flipped a newspaper open on the table and stood reading.

  The Wall Street Journal. She couldn’t possibly see, of course, but she knew it was that. No stuffy journals dealing with medicine or education or psychology for him. He’d be one to broaden himself.

  But she didn’t really want to think of his mind at the moment, when his body was hers for the looking. Gorgeous. That was all there was to it. He was gorgeous. His hair wasn’t as long as she’d hoped, but it was well mussed and clearly sweaty. His chin—only one, not even a hint of a double—was tucked neatly to his chest, which was hugged so snugly by his tank top that she wondered at its purpose. It had to be to absorb sweat, she decided, because if he’d worn it for propriety’s sake, he’d failed. There was no
thing remotely proper about the way he looked in the thing, or the way it met his low-riding shorts … or the way those shorts cupped his sex.

  When a shiver coursed from her shoulders to her knees, she wondered if she’d gone too far. Shivers—in the heat? But, oh, Lord, he was combing a handful of fingers through his hair now, and the way he raised his arm, the shadow beneath, the delineation of his collarbone, the prominent veins on the inside of his forearm—more shivers, delicious ones, frustrating ones.

  Tearing herself from the window, she made a beeline for the table, sat back down and clutched her pen. Only after the fact did it occur to her that she should have been more subtle. If the abrupt movement had attracted his attention, he’d be watching her now. She cast a glance at the lamp. To turn it off would defeat her purpose; she really had to work. It didn’t light much of the room, which had suited her fine in terms of the heat, but it did light her, and if he was looking across the courtyard as she’d been doing seconds before, he’d have a clear view.

  Donning an expression of intense concentration, she began to write. Client is deeply into fantasizing. It’s a rather new experience for her. Either she’s been too busy to do it before or she didn’t have the need. I suspect that it’s a combination of both. Then again, she may have repressed the need. Or she may feel herself above it. Counselors do that sometimes.

  Slowly setting down the pen, she carefully tore the sheet of paper from its pad, folded it in half, then in quarters, and tucked it into the space between the small clay pot that held her creeping Charlie and the slightly larger and more brightly colored pot in which the clay one sat.

  With that touch of self-analysis out of the way, she settled down to work in earnest. Discipline had always been her strong suit, and she called on it now to guide her through the reports that she wanted to have done by morning. From time to time she paused for a drink, or to brush dots of moisture from her nose, or to massage the muscles of her lower back.

  By eleven, she was ready for a break. Unfolding herself from the chair, she arched her back and stretched, then raised both hands to the top of her head. When the phone rang, she slowly looked its way.