Precious Moments

by Suzanne Roberts

  “My wife looked in on you,” Bud said. “Lisa, don’t pull at the lady’s hair that way. Touch it if she doesn’t mind, but don’t pull.”

  “It’s soft,” the little girl said, and she turned her flower face up toward Jamie’s. “Your hair is soft.”

  The child’s eyes were pale gray and sightless. Suddenly, Jamie felt tears come to her own eyes. What kind of man is this? she thought, looking at Thorne. He was busy holding two small boys, one on each knee. Many of the children there were Indian, black-haired and brown-skinned and beautiful. They had been bought new shoes the day before, all of them, and it took quite a while for all of them to come to Jamie to show off the shoes they could not see but were proud of nonetheless.

  There was lunch at noon in the dining room, a cheerful, blue and white room with pots of flowers everywhere.

  “The kids like to touch them,” Della explained. She was thin, not pretty but glowing. It was easy to see that she was a girl who was totally satisfied with her man and her life-style.

  “Have you been here long, at your school?”

  Della smiled. “It isn’t our school—Bud gets very upset when people say that. It’s God’s school. He was the one who brought us here.” She handed another sandwich to the little girl on her lap, a child who wore glasses so thick that her eyes looked grotesque. “He laid a burden on us, as they say. Bud and I were happy as clams in the suburbs of Santa Barbara, California, when we suddenly weren’t so happy. We’d taken a trip out here and visited a reservation where there were about ten blind children. It haunted Bud and me but we didn’t want to admit it.”

  She poured milk for the child. “Now, here we are and here’s the school, thanks to Thorne.”

  “Thorne!”

  “Of course. He financed this place. Bud used to race boats and cars before he went into the ministry, and he’d met Thorne. He wrote a letter, got a phone call and—here we are, bless him.”

  But it wasn’t just Thorne’s money that had built the place; it was love. When she and Thorne left that afternoon, Jamie felt soothed, warmed, as if she’d been to some magic place, or had drunk some kind of magic wine.

  “They loved you,” he told her. “You were a smash hit.”

  They had taken a cab back to the edge of town, but from there, they had walked slowly, getting a ride in a pickup truck at one point, then walking again.

  Now, they sat across from each other in a busy, brightly lit, all-night cafe. There were slot machines lined up against the wall and near the windows. People played them with a dedicated kind of intensity, as if they were spellbound by the machine.

  It was a different world from what they had just left at the school.

  “Do you suppose,” she said, sipping her coffee, “Bud and Della would be happy doing anything else?”

  “You mean like doing a song-and-dance act at one of the local clubs?”

  “I mean anything else at all. She said God laid a burden on them.”

  “It’s possible.” He seemed somehow remote, as if a part of himself had left, departed. “Do me a favor, will you, when you get back to the hotel?”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I’m going back to Aspen. That makes more sense than staying here, now that I’ve seen the kids.” He was, she realized, going, going, gone, leaving her as surely as if he had already got up from the table.

  There was no use talking to him about Silverlode. He was determined to keep his date with destiny.

  As she’d known he would be, David was up and all over the hotel, in the cafe, in the coffee shop, in the lobby, in the casino, looking for her. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, when finally he spotted her in the lobby.

  He hurried up to her, grabbing her arm.

  “Are you okay, Jamie?”

  “Of course I’m okay.”

  “You said you were going to be early. And you weren’t in your room.” He sounded accusing.

  “I’m fine,” she said, suddenly tired, weary, washed out. She had been so happy only such a short time before, with the blind children, with Thorne. Now that was all over. “I’d like to go to bed, if you don’t need me.”

  “I’ll see you at dinner, then.” He stuck his head in the elevator door as she got on. “You were with him, weren’t you?”

  She nodded as the door closed. Why, she wondered, when she was once again in her hotel room, had she thought she could sleep? She wasn’t sleepy, just worn out from worry, from the gigantic changes that had taken place in her life since that day David Saunders had hired her to go to work for him. She took a shower and then went to the window and looked out. Las Vegas never seemed to sleep; there seemed to be no clearly defined line between day and night. There were always people on the street; nothing seemed to shut down for the night or day.

  It was a grown-up’s world, an adult world, no place for children.

  Suddenly she turned from the window. She hesitated for a moment, then she went to the phone and dialed the operator.

  “Room twelve sixteen, please.” She held her breath; Thorne might have gone straight to the airport to get a plane for Aspen.

  “Yes?” It was, thank God, his voice.

  “It’s Jamie. I—I’ve been thinking about the children.”

  “What about them?” He sounded tired, as tired as she had felt a little while ago. No, she thought; it isn’t fatigue. It’s sadness. That’s what I felt and that’s what he’s feeling now!

  “I was thinking—I read somewhere that blind kids can be taught to ski, using Popsicle sticks. I know it sounds strange, but they let their fingers pretend they’re legs, you see, to begin—”

  “I’ve a plane to catch, Jamie. Take care.”

  She swallowed, tears behind her eyes. It was over.

  “Yes,” she said faintly. “Well—good-bye, Thorne. Good luck.”

  She went over to the bed and lay down on it. She didn’t cry out loud, but tears came out of her eyes quietly, coursing down her cheeks. God bless you and keep you safe, my darling!

  David’s birthday party began at eight, with Rhonda wearing a beautiful, low-cut white gown covered with sequins, showing off her figure to perfection. Jamie, in her simple green silk, felt out of place, but when a toast was made to David, she raised her wineglass and smiled at him. She was surprised when Rhonda came up to her, as the party was leaving the main dining room of the hotel, heading for a casino in another hotel down the Strip.

  “Could I speak to you a moment?”

  It was a surprising question; Rhonda had been very cool to her during the entire trip. Now she seemed anxious to be friends.

  “Of course. Here?”

  “No, in my room. I’m just down the hall from you.”

  They went up on the elevator together, not talking. Rhonda’s room was like the others, large, impersonal, slightly gaudy in its furnishings. Her suitcase was on the bed; expensive clothes were everywhere, on chairs, even on the floor.

  “I know what you must think of me,” Rhonda said, lighting a cigarette. “You think I’m spoiled, selfish—”

  It was the time to be completely honest.

  “I think you’re a woman in love with a man who happens to be too isolated in his grief to respond to you. I wish I could help you, but I know I can’t.”

  The beautiful silvery eyes met hers. “Thank you. I talked to David last night, about you, about his feeling for you—about us.” She looked, Jamie thought, not like a lovely, sophisticated woman who had everything in the world, but instead, in that moment, she looked very much like a small, lonely girl, trying to be understood. “I’ve known David for a long time. I knew his wife, and I liked her. Everybody did. I guess—I thought that he’d get over her, but he hasn’t. He never will. You see,” she said softly, “I wanted to be the only love in his life.” She was silent for a second. Then she looked directly at Jamie. “I’ve never been loved,” she said, “not by anybody. Do you know what a terrible thing that is?”

  The phone rang. It sounded
like a scream, breaking the mood of sudden friendship that had come between them, somehow binding them.

  “It’s Freddie,” Rhonda said, hanging up the phone. “He says everybody wants us to hurry up to the casino down at the Sands Hotel. They’re all winning at blackjack.” She picked up her small silver purse. “Time to go and have fun, Jamie.”

  “Yes,” Jamie said, “time to go and have fun.”

  They waited silently for the elevator, both of them lost in their own lonely thoughts of the men they loved, men who did not seem to care about them enough to want to spend this evening with them.

  Aspen was more crowded than ever, that next day, when Rhonda’s private jet took them back there from Vegas. There was an air of anticipation about the place; people kept coming in on planes, in expensive sports cars, staying the weekend with friends or cousins, in order to be there when Thorne Gundersen made his daring try down Silverlode. Parties were being given; conversation at the coffee shop centered mostly on whether or not he would make it.

  Emma had tea waiting for them when they got back. David’s study had been cleaned; his book was finished and somehow the place looked very different.

  “Ready to go to work, Jamie?” He settled himself at his desk, taking off his coat. “Now that I’m a year older, it’s time to begin my next book. You can order paper, whatever you need, and we’ll start right away.” He looked at her in the dim light. “Unless, of course, you’d rather sit around and feel miserable. I’ve always found that work is a very good antidote—”

  “David, what about your lecture? You said you thought that might stop him.”

  He leaned back in the chair, there at his desk. “It’s scheduled for tomorrow night, and the press will be there. I told you I’d try, Jamie, and I will.” He took out some notes from his pocket. “Now—I thought we’d begin with—”

  “You think it’s useless, then?”

  “I don’t think I or anybody else can stop a man from killing himself if he has his mind set to do it. Or if he’s so hung up on proving what a hero he is that he’d die doing it.”

  She went to the window and looked out. A new snow was beginning to fall; the houses and streets looked clean and new. It was beautiful here, and in spite of what she’d seen at those parties and in Las Vegas, she’d never forget Aspen, with the Rocky Mountains framing it, presided over by the great Ajax.

  “I’m quitting my job, David,” she said quietly.

  “You can’t quit. I’m just starting another book and I need you.” He came over to her. “I really do need you in my life, Jamie.”

  “You only think you do.” She went over to her desk and began sorting out her things. “The truth is, David, you need a wife. I’ve told you that before. You need a wife, David.”

  His face was ashen, as if he couldn’t believe she would quit, leave his house forever.

  “I have a—”

  Their eyes met. “Had,” Jamie said gently. “Margo’s dead, David, and you’re just going to have to accept that. It doesn’t mean you have to stop loving her, or that she’d want you to be lonely for the rest of your time here. David—Rhonda loves you, and she desperately needs you.”

  He had gone quite pale. He took off his glasses, wiped them on the corner of his old coat sweater, then put them back on. There were, surprisingly, tears glistening in his eyes.

  “I’ve no desire to marry again,” he said rather shortly. “None at all.”

  “You asked me to marry you. Weren’t you serious?”

  “Of course I was serious. But that was different.”

  “You mean because you happen to be in love with Rhonda, so you can’t marry her. But since you aren’t in love with me, that makes it perfectly all right to marry me. That way, you wouldn’t be unfaithful to Margo.”

  “I’m asking you,” he said stolidly, “not to leave. How can you expect me to carry on and go on with my work if you decide to go back to Minnesota?”

  “Wisconsin.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and began pacing the room. “Why couldn’t you let things go on the way they were in the beginning? Why couldn’t you be a nice little girl and type for me and not—not go falling in love with an idiot who’s about to break his fool neck and not stand there telling me I ought to get married to Rhonda simply because I happen to love her very much!”

  There was a silence as he realized what he had just said.

  Their eyes met. “Go on,” Jamie said softly, “go to her, David. Don’t waste another single minute of your life without her.”

  “She’s spoiled and she gives too many stupid parties and most of her friends are boring and nasty—” He let his breath out. “Okay. I know, I know. She’s a little girl, really.” He smiled. “I’ve always known that she’s only a lonesome little girl.”

  “Aren’t you going to do something about making her happy?”

  He was lighting the gas jet at the fireplace. When he stood up, Jamie saw that his brown eyes were anxious.

  “If you leave here and go home, Jamie, what’s going to become of you?”

  “I’ll probably marry a very nice dairy farmer and have a lot of well-brought-up children. I’ll be fine, thank you.”

  “So you’re running out on him,” David said.

  She closed a desk drawer, neatly putting things on top.

  “I’m not staying to see him die.” She looked at David. “You know it isn’t going to help, your lecture. And the petition—you found out they wouldn’t sign it, didn’t you, David? You just didn’t want to tell me.” He was looking very uncomfortable, she noticed. “You can’t stop him, can you?”

  “Jamie—there isn’t time! I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to have to know just yet. I’m giving my lecture and press conference, announcing the emergency proposed ban on skiing that particular run, due to its reputation. But it isn’t going to change anything, Jamie. He’s still going to try it. I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “Maybe if I hadn’t been sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I’d have done something about it long ago—gotten people involved in putting a damned fence around that run and a No Trespassing sign on it.”

  “Did your doctor friend Mel say anything about Thorne that might—”

  “It was a dinner party, Jamie, not an examining office. Tell you what—you go on up to bed and in the morning we’ll discuss your quitting.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I meant it, David. I won’t be here when Thorne goes down that mountain—I can’t. I want to thank you for a lovely job.” She went over and gently kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, David.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said softly, “she means it.”

  She did indeed. There was no problem in finding another place to stay for the night; the bakery had been sold to a couple who were friends of Jamie’s aunt and uncle. All it took was a visit to the baker, and over hot spice cake and coffee, she was invited to spend the night in her old room.

  The nightmares she’d once had in this room, right after her Cousin Kurt was killed, came back to her this night. She had dreamed of watching a beautiful bird die in flight, falling to the ground, but tonight her dream was much more real than that.

  She saw Thorne in her dream, poised, in the classic position for takeoff at the top of the ski run. He put one hand to his forehead suddenly, the way she had seen him do many times.

  For some reason, this gesture struck terror into her heart.

  She woke up bewildered, forgetting where she was, thinking she was in her cozy room at David’s house. Then, realizing what had happened, she groped for her robe from her suitcase on the floor.

  The room was chilly; she had forgotten that about it. She was trembling as she went to the window to shut it all the way. Then, suddenly, she found herself facing Ajax, in all its powerful beauty, standing there like some kind of reminder.

  She closed her eyes. It was almost—as if the mountain were speaking to her, whispering to her— />
  His eyes! In the dream, he had rubbed his forehead; he’d done that often, increasingly often. And the broken glass and the bruise on his hand—those things surely meant he had bumped into things, had walked into the patio door, had bumped into furniture—

  Oh, God, she thought, oh, my God—Thorne is going blind! The man who loves blind children so much is going blind himself!

  And he wanted a try at Silverlode before that happened.

  TWELVE

  It took quite a long time to rouse David; when he half stumbled down the stairs in his bathrobe, barefooted, he was scowling. He turned on the porch light and peered out. Then he yanked the door open, his face still angry.

  “I’m glad you came to your senses, Jamie. Now come on in before you freeze us both.” He led her into the hallway. “I’d have come to get you, you know. You didn’t have to—”

  “I didn’t come back for my job or to stay with you, David.” She was cold, cold and trembling. “I came back to ask you something, something you didn’t tell me before.” He was trying to get her damp coat off her, but she resisted. “David—when your friend Mel sat across from Thorne at that dinner party in Vegas, he saw something, didn’t he?”

  “I told you, dearest one, a doctor doesn’t make a diagnosis on the basis of sitting across from someone at a party! Is that what you came back here to ask me? Because if it is, I’m going to toss you right back into the snow!”

  “David,” she said almost desperately, “you’ve got to tell me what Mel found—he looked at him, didn’t he? I mean, he looked—”

  “Of course he looked at him; I told you, they sat across the table from each other. Come on; I’ll give you a brandy. It’s quarter-past two in the morning, did you know that?”

  They had reached his study, and as he began switching on lamps, causing the familiar room to fall into a soft glow, she put her hand on his arm, forcing him to pay attention to her.

  “Mel looked into Thorne’s eyes and they were red, weren’t they? I used to think it was only that he’d been on the slopes and had gotten too much glare, or that he’d had something to drink at someone’s party the night before. But that wasn’t it, was it?”