by Laird Koenig
"I would have had to—as you say—‘ring up.' "
"You mustn’t. Ever. We’ve already decided that." She untied the belt of his robe and spread the collar from his shoulders.
"I would have come back anyway."
"I hoped you would."
"Except ..."
"My darling, I know."
"I mean after what happened—or didn’t happen the first time—you don’t know how that makes a guy feel. Jesus, I mean I was really scared it might be the same all over again."
Rynn kissed his white shoulder. "Wow," he said. "I mean I should have told my Uncle Ron what he was interrupting, right?"
Because the girl’s face was on his back, her voice was muffled.
"A gentleman," she said with an exaggerated English voice, "does not tell. Ever."
"Maybe in England guys don’t. Here guys never shut up about it."
She withdrew her face from his shoulder and watched as Mario pulled off the robe and dropped back on the pillow, a huge grin spreading across his face.
"I’ll bet half—hell, most of the guys on the football team are still only talking about it." His eyes met Rynn’s.. The light that filtered through the yellow lampshade made her eyes greener than he had ever seen them. He reached out and began counting her freckles with his forefinger.
"You know I won’t tell."
She poked his bare chest and her finger drew two lines.
"There. You just crossed your heart."
"I mean it, Rynn."
She smiled, but even as she did she felt hot tears spring into her eyes.
He said, "How can you even start to think I don’t trust you?" She had never seen his black eyes so solemn. "I mean most people don’t go through as much as we have—not even in a whole, entire lifetime."
Lightly, Rynn kissed Mario behind the ear.
"No one will know about us."
She moved, but only to draw the sheet and blanket up over their shoulders. She settled her chin on Mario’s chest so she could look up into his face.
"See how I need you?"
"Unless," he said, his voice an English accent again, "unless I return to England on business, doubtless we’ll be seeing one another."
At his words they pressed closer to each other.
"The thing is"—the girl’s voice was far away—one of those voices that hesitates to put the fear the speaker feels into words—"they’re bound to wonder about where you are."
"Who’s they?"
"You asked that before."
"You didn’t answer."
"Everyone. Your family for a start. Your uncle." She could barely bring herself to add, "Hallet."
Mario knew she had more to say.
"They already wonder why they hardly ever see me in the village." She was smiling to herself. "We can’t have them wondering about you."
"What are you smiling about?"
"You. Me."
"No. You were thinking about something else."
"Emily Dickinson."
"And how she never left her house unless she had to?"
"Unless emergency leads me by the hand."
"You think she had some stud hidden away up in her bedroom?"
"I hope so." She giggled, her soft lips on his.
"Still," she whispered, "we have to be careful."
"Right."
"Think ahead. Think ahead and be ready for them all the time."
"Rynn?"
"Mm?"
"You think we can?"
"Of course."
"Live your way, I mean. Remember when I asked you if it would be so awful if you did have to play their game?"
She lifted her lips from his face. Now it was her eyes that challenged him.
"If we played their game you’d be home right now eating your Mom’s terrible spaghetti and watching horrible TV. I’d be all alone."
Mario turned away and seemed to study the slant of the eaves.
"Mario?"
"Mm?"
"You do see, don’t you?"
"Sure."
"I mean that’s why you did everything you did. If we don’t go on we’ll be like the rest of them. You ever look at them? I mean really look? You don’t want to be like the rest of them, do you?"
"I guess not."
She raised herself on her elbow to stare down at the boy.
He did not look at her when he said very quietly, "You ever think maybe I’m playing your game?"
"You did it because you want to!"
"I did it because I love you."
She searched his face.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"You’re trying not to sneeze." She reached across him to the night table to pull up a handful of yellow tissues.
The boy grabbed the tissue before he exploded.
"You’re going to catch my cold," he said.
"I wouldn’t be without it." To prove how wholeheartedly she welcomed the idea, she kissed his mouth fiercely. It was true; his face, his forehead were burning,
"You’re really hot."
"Wonder why?"
They both giggled.
"Mario?"
"Mm?" The very English mm was something he had learned from Rynn.
"When I told you I don’t mind being alone, I lied."
More gently than she had done, Mario kissed Rynn’s face, and eyes, a place, until this minute, Rynn had never imagined could be kissed. She knew he was tasting the hot tears that squeezed through her closed lashes and ran down over her cheeks. Crying, laughing—all her feelings were changing so quickly she had no way, no time to think why, only time to feel—so much was happening.
"I do try to be brave, the way my father asked me to be, but sometimes everything frightens me so—"
"Sshh." The boy’s lips sealed hers.
"Dear, dear Mario, don’t ever go—Promise?"
From head to foot Mario’s hard young body fitted hers. As changeable as her laughter and tears, he was on fire one second, the next second, shaking with cold.
Giving and taking comfort in everything they could give and take, every part of them sought to make themselves one till it was impossible for either to know the comforter from the one being comforted.
17
"THE SMELL of burning leaves in the air makes me think of London," Rynn was talking to Officer Miglioriti on Tuesday afternoon when the sun was bright, but the day was biting cold enough that she wore her duffle coat. "Isn’t it incredible. All these leaves—all the leaves in the world, actually, have to go so we can have a whole new world full of leaves next year."
Officer Miglioriti had not come to talk about autumn leaves, and though he was trying to make his presence seem unplanned, he was growing impatient.
Rynn had been cutting back the chrysanthemums, breaking off the dead zinnia stalks, raking the leaves into a heap where they smoldered red, and white smoke curled up.
Through the smoke she had seen the patrol car coming down the lane. Before the driver could see her screened by the underbrush, she had hurried into the house and lit a Gauloise to fill the parlor with the pungent smell of tobacco. Outside the window, beyond the drifting wood smoke, she watched the policeman stop his car. When she was satisfied the room was filled with the smell of the French cigarette she had hurried outside to throw the Gauloise into the fire before Miglioriti strode up the walk.
"Nice day," the officer had said.
"Lovely."
"The English," the girl said, "are mad about gardens."
They talked casually as she waited for Miglioriti to tell her why he had come. She rolled green acorns and brown horse chestnuts into the fire,. At last the policeman spoke:
"While the ground’s still damp, it might be a good time to have a look and see if you and your father have had any visitors."
"All right," she said.
"I don’t want to bother you."
“No bother. I’d love to look with you. I mean if you don’t mind: I adore detective stories.
You ever read Agatha Christie? Most of her murders take place in England, in the most super old country places—not that places like that actually exist, but they’re lovely to think about all the same…."
They walked side by side to the corner of the house.
"In England we always had a garden. Even in London, a charming little patch in the back all in dahlias"—she pronounced them daylias—"and snapdragons, gladioli, and deiphiniums. Or is it ‘delphiniae’?"
They were approaching the grape arbor.
"What are we looking for?" she asked with too much enthusiasm, as if she were joining in the detective charade. "Footprints?"
With his foot Miglioriti scraped leaves away from the soil. She saw at once that he could not overlook that the earth here had been freshly turned.
Much as the officer had she managed to sound very offhand when she explained this was a new tulip bed that her father and she had worked up. They had it in parrot tulips.
The officer studied the soil and the leaves that lay on it.
"You know parrot tulips?" She went chattering on, a typical English gardener showing a visitor the grounds. "All ragged edges, terribly brilliant. colors actually. That’s why they call them parrot tulips I expect."
She hurried through the crackling dry grass to lean inside the open window under the grape arbor.
"Father, it’s Officer Miglioriti."
She turned to the officer. "Do you want to come in?"
Miglioriti glanced around; he picked a cluster of shriveled grapes and tossed them away.
"It was you I came to see."
"That’s very flattering." She was bubbling with cheerfulness.
Miglioriti lifted an apple that still hung from the crucified tree pinned against the house.
"Take it if you like," she said.
But the officer let the apple drop back against the wall.
"I came to see you."
"So you said."
"I better tell you I don’t understand you at all." His black eyes searched her face until Rynn, sensing she must make some move, worked her white hands to tug her black sweater down over her hips.
"I mean what don’t you understand?"
The man’s heavy police shoes scraped leaves across the earth.
"Take a look" he said.
"Footprints?"
"See for yourself."
"They tell you anything?"
"Inconclusive," he said without investing the word with any meaning, a most usable word in his work, a word that explained nothing but ended matters.
His back was turned, and Rynn could not see his face, but she felt he was about to repeat that he did not understand her. She would have to be alert.
He spoke. "You haven’t asked about Mario."
A sob broke from her. Her eyes stung with tears. He had broken her guard which was exactly what he wanted.
"Since Saturday: Three whole days I haven’t heard ..."
"You didn’t know?"
"Know what?"
"He’s in the hospital."
She shut her eyes and waited.
"Pneumonia."
"I didn’t even know. How serious?"
"Without antibiotics he probably would have died."
"Nobody told me!"
"I’m sorry. I thought you knew."
"How would I know? You should have told me right away!"
The girl no longer fought to control herself. In her tears she had forgotten what lay beneath the earth on which they were standing.
"Out here in your lane you keep very much to yourself."
"I have to see him!"
"Can you go now?"
Rynn was already running for the lane and the police car. Miglioriti walked back to the smoldering pile of leaves and scattered the fire.
She was waiting at the car. "You’ve seen him?"
The officer nodded.
"How was he?"
"Delirious. Mumbling. Talking out loud."
Rynn felt herself go cold and empty. Her heart slammed in her throat.
"Talking wild."
"Yes?"
"About the two of you."
"Yes?"
"Saying how much he loves you."
Rynn’s face was wet and shining with tears. She fumbled in her pockets. She drew out a comb, ran it through her hair, dropped it. Her hands went back to her pockets.
"I need my wallet. I—" She turned and ran into the house.
When she came down the stairs she found Miglioriti in the sitting room folding the cardboard lid back on the jelly glasses.
She waited in the hall.
"I’m ready."
But the policeman took another moment with the carton.
"She never did come by?"
"Who?"
"Mrs. Hallet."
"No."
"She told her son she was coming by."
"Never did. Can we go to the hospital now?"
"She won’t be needing them." He added quickly, "That’s only my opinion, you understand?"
Rynn kept her voice steady, but inside her pockets she felt cold sweat on her hands.
"You’ve ... found her?"
"Not yet."
"But, you said ..."
He tapped the carton with his foot. The glasses clinked. He strode past the gateleg table, across the braided rug.
"Again—and it’s only my opinion—which, if you repeat, I’ll have to deny—but I don’t think we ever will find her."
"No?" She ached to ask the officer why, what reason he had, that made him believe that no one would ever find the woman.
"I saw Hallet this morning. He was driving her Bentley."
In her most matter-of-fact voice Rynn asked, "Why shouldn’t he?"
"Come on. We can talk about it in the car. Ready?"
Rynn ran to the study door and knocked.
"Father, I’m going to the hospital with Officer Miglioriti. To see Mario. I’ll call from there and let you know when I’ll be home. Bye." Rynn locked the front door, switched on the spotlight, and raced through the smoke to the lane.
In the police car the radio crackled: A woman at the Safeway had locked herself out of her car."
What do you say we let her frozen food melt," said Miglioriti, "while I get you to the hospital first?"
Rynn had never been in a police car before. She sat in silence waiting for the radio to crackle back to life.
"About Mario," Miglioriti said, "you can relax. He’s getting everything he needs."
"That’s easy for you to say."
The officer did not look at her, but he smiled. "I hope that under the same circumstances that big blonde of mine would talk that way."
The car turned from the lane onto the road that led to the highway.
"Back at your house we were talking about Frank Hallet driving his mother’s car. You asked how he got the keys."
"No," said the girl. "What I asked was, why shouldn’t he?"
Rynn prayed the radio would come to life, interrupt with something more than a stranded woman in a supermarket parking lot, something that would demand Miglioriti’s full attention.
"Mario didn’t tell you Mrs. Hallet wouldn’t let her own son drive her car?"
"I guess he may have."
"You didn’t know that since she’s been gone the car’s been locked?"
Rynn realized each question could be the one to trap her. And now that the questions were coming faster than she could think, her only defense was to make no reply.
"Or that we had to tow it from in front of her office to Mario’s dad’s garage?" Miglioriti slowed for a car backing out of a driveway.
The thought of Mario lying in the hospital never left her. She was sick with worry, unable to think about what the man was saying, yet she knew she must stay alert for the policeman. Right now, was he questioning her or simply talking out his thoughts?
The officer waited for the girl to ask how Hallet had managed to open the car and when she did not, he supplied the quest
ion.
"How do you suppose he got in?"
"Called a locksmith?"
"Yeah." Miglioriti seemed disappointed that the girl’s logic had so thoroughly dispelled his mystery.
"I mean, isn’t that what you’d do?" she asked. "I know I would."
"If I never expected to see my mother again."
"Have you asked him?"
"With the Hallets you don’t ask. You talk, but you talk very politely and even then you don’t press. Frank Hallet is a rich man now. We’ll be seeing a lot of Hallet—driving around in that Bentley."
"You don’t like him, do you?"
"Let’s just say I hope all of you see the day that son of a bitch makes the wrong move. Till that day you’ll have to watch him—driving around in her car."
He stopped at a light. He reached out and buttoned the top of Rynn’s coat. "No. I don’t like him.”
They drove on in silence.
"What do you want to bet he even shows up at the police raffle tonight?"
Miglioriti turned the car onto the highway, but in the direction that led away from the village. He must have felt her confusion.
"Mario’s not in the village. The doctor wanted him in the hospital in town."
That made Mario’s condition sound even worse.
"You got money for the bus, so you can get home?"
Rynn nodded.
The car windows began to cloud. till the officer turned on the windshield defroster. In the streets the traffic grew heavy. Miglioriti lowered his head to see the light at an intersection change from red to green.
"There’s the hospital on the right." He pulled the car to the curb.
Rynn wiped the mist from the side window to look at the giant gray building. Somewhere in there lay Mario. Her hand went to the door handle.
"Before you go, I’ve got something I have to tell you."
She scanned the huge building.
"Did you notice when I said what I did about Hallet that I said I hoped all of you would see the day when he makes his wrong move and gets caught up with? I said that because I won’t be here. You won’t be seeing me any more."
It was a moment before Rynn, deep in worry over Mario, realized what the man was saying.
"I’m going out to California."
"But you work here!"
"Not any more.” He pulled his cap off. "I finally did it, I quit."
A cold lump of fear strangled any attempt to speak, but she managed to gasp, "Can you? I mean quit—just like that."