by Stone, Jean
With his back still toward her, Eric Matthews whispered, “I walked away once because I loved you too much,” he said. “Now why don’t you just go back to your millionaire life and leave us poor folks alone to flip our hamburgs and slug our beers? I’m sure that’s what you’re thinking right about now.”
“You always had a bad habit of trying to tell me what I was thinking.”
“Maybe that’s because deep down I knew you better than you knew yourself.”
“Eric. Please. Look at me.”
He turned. His face was ashen, and suddenly she noticed his blond hair was streaked with gray, his once-square shoulders now slumped a little. But he was still Eric, the man she’d once loved. The man she’d both loved and hated at the same time, all these years. The emotion had surfaced now, from deep in her heart. And she could see his too, there in his eyes. Two worlds of pain; two worlds apart.
“Are you as angry as you seem?” she asked.
“At seeing you?”
“No. At life.”
“My life is just fine, thank you. At least it’s a lot more than yours. At least it’s honest.”
Zoe wasn’t sure what he meant, but she knew their meeting was over. She watched as he went into the back door of the diner. She didn’t try to stop him. All she wanted to do now was get home to Scott, to Marisol, and to Cedar Bluff, and put her guilt and her pain away. Because Zoe was, at last, safe in the knowledge that Eric Matthews and her past were, indeed, over and done with.
She found her way around to the front of the building, to her cheap rental car. As Zoe pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Minneapolis, toward her life, toward her future and whatever it held, she realized she’d left the turkey sandwich with the thick coat of mayonnaise sitting on the cash register. Where it belonged.
12
Meg and Steven were going to meet in Bermuda for a long weekend, where Steven had a friend with a yacht. The friend was discreet; the friend owed him a favor. Meg was to fly in Thursday evening; Steven had arranged a room for her at the Southampton Princess. He was going to arrive Friday morning; he would meet her there; they would go to the yacht. They would have until Sunday night together; they would be lovers for three days. And she would tell him about the abortion.
On Monday morning jury selection would begin for the state of New York v. Arnold Banks.
On the two-hour flight to the island, Meg’s excitement kept getting interrupted by thoughts of the upcoming trial. She should be home reviewing her opening argument; she should be finalizing her defense. But all she could focus on was Steven, and the three days that lay ahead. Beyond Sunday seemed outside of reality.
The limo pulled up the long, steep drive to the Southampton Princess. Even in the darkness Meg could see that the building was pink—Bermuda-pink, she thought, soft and lovely and romantic.
She went to the registration desk: there was a suite waiting for her, she was told. Their finest.
Their finest suite? Just for her? A spark of hope skipped through her. Was it possible that Steven was there? Was it possible he had come early to surprise her?
The bellman led the way around the curved, sweeping staircase, to the elevators. He was an older gentleman with a warm, friendly smile. Bermuda, Meg thought as the elevator lifted her to paradise, will be forever etched in my memory.
Inside the suite she was stunned by its lavishness. It was decorated in soft yellows and white, with thick butter-colored carpeting and elegant mahogany furnishings. In the center of the living room, on a large glass cocktail table, sat an abundant arrangement of fresh white flowers—lilies, orchids, delphiniums. She quickly snatched the card and read: “To love at its purest. Until tomorrow. Steven.”
She felt a twinge of disappointment—he wasn’t there—then she glanced at the card again: “love at its purest.” She smiled.
She tipped the bellman and said good night, eager to be alone, eager to savor her happiness. She walked over to a huge glass wall of windows and stared out into the night. Beyond the hotel the sea was black, illuminated by the glow of the quarter-moon, dotted with strings of golden lights that climbed the masts of sleeping cruise ships. Tomorrow night she would be out there, somewhere, with Steven. She hugged herself and smiled. He had not come early, and yet his presence was there. And tomorrow night his arms would be around her.
Weary from her long day of waiting, Meg decided to take a leisurely shower. After she was dried and powdered, she slipped into one of her new lace nightgowns, then slid between the cool sheets on the king-size bed. She reached out her arms and tried to feel Steven’s touch. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow I will touch him.
The early sun awakened her. Meg stretched and luxuriated in the warmth of the bed. She checked the clock. Six thirty. Steven’s flight was due at ten.
She showered again, did her hair and makeup, applied a layer of “instant tan” to restore the tanning-lamp-bronze of the spa, and dressed in a short cotton tangerine sundress. When she looked in the mirror, even she could see her own radiance. It’s love, she thought. Only love can do this.
But it was only eight-twenty. She went to the wall of windows in the living area and tried to decide what to do. She could see the magnificent beach from there, down a sloping grassed hill, past lush greens and yellow hibiscus trees. She could go for a walk to the beach.
But what if he’d caught an earlier flight?
She decided to call room service. She picked up the phone and ordered coffee and croissants. She hung up the phone, then picked it up again and called back. “Make that order for two,” she said. Just in case.
She packed her toiletries in her vanity case while waiting for room service, so she’d be ready to leave for the yacht once he arrived. She went back to the window and watched as tourists on little red motorbikes made a wobbly descent down the hill. Off to one side a string of horses, laden with stiff-sitting, straw-hatted riders, clip-clopped along the beach. The island was awakening. Tourism, Meg thought, is such a happy industry. So unlike politics. So unlike criminal law.
Breakfast arrived. Meg took it to the window and sat, looking out, wondering if the other tourists were as happy as she. No, she decided, they couldn’t be. No one could be.
She drank two cups of coffee, nibbled on half a croissant, and thought about Steven.
Finally, it was ten o’clock.
Her gaze now moved to the driveway. Maybe she could see the limo when he arrived. She wished she’d made a note of how long it had taken her to get there from the airport: Was it twenty minutes? Half an hour?
Suddenly Meg realized that waiting for Steven resonated with familiarity. When they’d been together in Boston so long ago, waiting had become part of her life. Though Steven had been married, his wife and children had remained in New York, ensconced in grandeur at the home of his wife’s affluent, politically powerful parents. Steven had left Boston every Friday afternoon and returned on Sunday nights. On weekends Meg had waited for Monday in her tiny room filled with books. Weekdays she waited in the coffee shop.
Now she waited in hotel rooms.
She’d forgotten how lonely the waiting could be.
Zoe. In Washington, in another hotel room, Meg had phoned Zoe to pass the time. It was early in L.A., but Meg recalled that at the spa Zoe had been an early riser. Meg went to her bag and took out her small book of phone numbers. She wondered if Zoe had returned yet from Minnesota. She wondered if she had found Eric. She wondered if she would dare tell Zoe about Steven.
An answering machine clicked on. Zoe wasn’t home. Meg hung up. No use leaving a message; she wouldn’t be there much longer.
Alissa. She could call Alissa. But did she want to? Well, she wouldn’t have to mention where she was, what she was doing. She could ask if Alissa had heard from Danny about Jay. She could pretend she was at home, just calling to say hi.
She couldn’t do that. Alissa would ask if she’d “made any progress” in looking for her man. When it came to something personal—som
ething that mattered—Meg knew she was a lousy liar. Reshaping the truth for the benefit of a client was one thing, but she couldn’t lie about this. Besides, Alissa would keep her on the phone too long. And she didn’t want to be talking when Steven arrived.
Ten-fifteen.
She went back to her seat by the window and poured another cup of coffee.
From there Meg could see several boats moored. She wondered which was the one she and Steven would be on. The long white one with the tall mast? The sleek one with the black windows and aqua trim? She wondered if there would be a crew, or if Steven would operate the boat. Did he know how? She shuddered at all the things she didn’t know about Steven, about all the unshared details of his life. Still, she doubted that captaining a yacht was one of them. He probably had never had time to learn. Yes, she thought, there would have to be a crew. A crew, she assumed, that would be very discreet. Even though this was the nineties, adultery was still adultery. And politics was still politics.
By eleven o’clock Meg wished she hadn’t dressed so early. Her freshness was fading, and the front of her sundress was getting wrinkled from sitting, from waiting.
Had it taken an hour to get in from the airport?
His plane must have been late.
She waited.
At noon the telephone rang. She bounced from the chair and grabbed the receiver.
“Ms. Cooper?” a female voice asked. “This is the desk. We were wondering what time you plan to check out.”
“Check out?”
“Checkout time is twelve noon. Will you be leaving soon?”
“Soon? Well, yes, I expect to …”
“Fine. Housekeeping needs to know when they can get in to do the room for our next reservation.”
Meg hung up the phone. Of course. Steven had booked this suite for only one night. Tonight they would be on the yacht. Soon, they would be on the yacht. Until then she might as well wait in the lobby.
She collected her things and rang for the bellman. But as she was leaving the room, Meg turned back and plucked a white orchid from the arrangement. She tucked it behind one ear. Danny would have been pleased she’d selected the orchid. She smiled. Danny would have been pleased if he’d known nothing more than where she was, what she was doing. She took a last look around the suite, sorry to have to leave. It would have been wonderful to have been there with Steven.
In the lobby Meg sat, her suitcases at her feet. She checked with the airline: the ten o’clock flight from Washington had arrived on time. Two others had arrived since then. But Steven had not come, and there was no message from him.
The waiting grew lonelier. The minutes bled into hours.
At six o’clock Meg dropped the wilting orchid from her ear into a wastebasket, then asked the valet to get her a cab. All she could do then was try to trade her Sunday-evening return ticket for another that night. There was, apparently, no longer any reason to wait.
Raggedy Man was glad to see her. For once he wasn’t aloof. It was almost as if he knew what had happened. It was almost as if he cared. She dropped her suitcases in the foyer, then went into the study: there was no flashing red light on her answering machine. He hadn’t phoned. Steven hadn’t even phoned. She fed the cat and went upstairs. Then Meg went to bed and crawled beneath the safety of covers, the warm cocoon of solitude, where no one could disturb her thoughts, where pain could not creep in.
She wished that she could fall asleep. She wished that it was tomorrow, so that she could begin the waiting again—waiting for his phone call, which would surely come tomorrow. Or the next day.
It did not.
On Sunday afternoon, as she turned onto her side for the thousandth time since Friday night, Meg thought about calling Zoe. She wondered again if Zoe was back from Minnesota, if she’d found Eric, what that had been like.
She pulled the comforter around her chin, bitterness swelling up in her at the thought of Zoe and Eric happily reunited.
Then again, Meg thought, maybe it hadn’t gone well with Eric. Maybe Zoe was in pain now, too, huddled in her bed, wishing she would die.
Meg glanced at the clock. Four-thirty. Then she realized that she was luckier than Zoe, because it was only one-thirty in L.A. And there were three fewer hours for Meg to wait until the day came to an end.
Still, she didn’t call, for the chance her friend was happy was a risk Meg couldn’t take.
She rolled onto her other side and stared at the telephone. She wondered if she stared at it long enough, studied it hard enough, would it ring? If she didn’t take her eyes from it, would Steven finally call?
Maybe it was out of order. She pulled an arm from under the covers and plucked the receiver. The dial tone droned loudly, mockingly. Meg quickly replaced it in its cradle in case Steven was at last trying to get through. She wouldn’t want him to get a busy signal.
She pulled the comforter higher, tighter, this time over her head. She lay there trying to suffocate her pain. Instead the tears began again. Suddenly she knew that Steven wasn’t going to call. He’d had cold feet. Second thoughts. End of story.
She pushed back the bedclothes, covered her eyes, and chastised herself for being surprised. Of course Steven wasn’t going to call. Why would he? She wasn’t the kind of person who had normal, happy relationships with men.
She brushed her tears away and waited, once again, for sleep to come.
Monday morning was even worse. She had to shower. She had to dress. She had to be in court at nine o’clock and become Counselor-at-Law, Meg Cooper. She had to be ready to grill prospective jurors, to select those most likely to find Arnold Banks not guilty. She had to act as though she gave a shit.
But first she had to get out of bed.
Somehow, she did. She drank half a cup of tea and ate three tablespoons of cornflakes. She pulled a dress from her closet, not caring which. She did not bother with jewelry.
Before leaving Meg checked herself in the mirror. She leaned close to it, appalled at the dark circles beneath her eyes, at the flesh around them that had seemed to loosen in the night. I cannot cry, she thought. I cannot cry right now, because I have to go out and act as though nothing is wrong. I have to think, I have to work, I have to go on.
I cannot cry.
An ache formed behind her eyes, the ache of tears dammed up. She quickly turned and headed toward the door, past the suitcases that stood there still, waiting, and unopened.
Outside her brownstone the bright sun assaulted her. She hailed a cab. This was no morning to walk to the courthouse: her legs would never hold her upright that long.
She rode to the courthouse, paid the driver, got out of the cab, crossed the sidewalk, and walked up the stairs, moving hypnotically, propelled by pain. At last she stood in the large rotunda, staring at the directory, examining the courtroom assignments. Her hearing was scheduled for the third floor, room 8.
“Yo, counselor!” The familiar voice snapped her out of her trance. Meg spun around. The movement made her dizzy.
Danny held out an arm and steadied her. “Hey, you okay?”
Meg nodded. “Fine. Hi, Danny.” She adjusted the shoulder strap of her briefcase and tossed back her hair with a small surprise that she hadn’t put it up this morning. “What are you doing here?”
Danny half smiled. “I hang out around these parts, remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Pretrial motion today on the insider case.”
“Oh. How’s that going?”
He looked at Meg. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“Nothing. I asked, ‘How’s that going?’ ”
“That’s not what I mean. You look like shit.”
“Thank you. I know I can always count on you to make my day.”
He leaned closer to her. “What’s wrong, Meg? You sure you’re all right?”
She stepped back. “I’m fine. Really.”
He smiled. “PMS?”
Meg turned away from him. She wanted
to say “Grow up,” but decided silence would be more effective.
He put his arm on her shoulder. “Hey. Sorry. It was a joke. It’s just that you seem a million miles away.”
A million miles away. She stared across the rotunda. How far was it to Bermuda? Five hundred miles? A thousand? A lifetime?
“I’m fine, Danny. I have a headache this morning, that’s all.”
He slipped his arm around her waist. “Well, come on, then, counselor. Let me escort you to your room. And how, by the way, is your friend Mr. Banks doing these days?”
She smiled through her pain, through the growing sickness in her stomach. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with Danny? Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with an available man?
“Jury selection this morning.”
Danny whistled. “If there are any blind-and-deaf candidates, pick them. They might be the only ones to believe his story.”
Meg’s insides churned.
“Sorry,” Danny said quickly. “That wasn’t fair.”
Meg shook her head. “It’s okay. Now, are you going to escort me or what?”
“Lead the way.”
They crossed the marble rotunda to the elevators. Meg was glad to have Danny’s company. Maybe his chatter would help take her mind off the fact that her body felt as if it had been run over by a truck. A big one. A semi. A tandem.
They stepped out on the third floor. As they walked down the hall toward room 8, Danny suggested they have lunch.
“We can celebrate your victory,” he said.
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“It will. I know you.”
Meg smiled again.
“Hey, look at it this way, once this is done, you’ll be free for the Riley case. No doubt Larson, Bascomb, and friends will get it.”
Meg stopped walking.
“The what case?”
“The Riley case. Assuming it makes the docket before anyone gets paid off. Although,” he continued with a shudder, “it’ll be pretty gruesome, I’m sure. The tabloids ought to love it. What with the senator …”