“Well, I hate to bring up a touchy subject, but just let me remind you that last night your reaction to me wasn’t quite as exalted as all that.”
Anne’s face flamed. “You said yourself nothing happened. And even if it did, you took advantage of me in my weakened condition. Besides, what do you want me to do? Bleach my hair blond and grow a couple of inches so you can add me to your list of conquests?” She laughed harshly. “I’m not your type, Jerry. And you certainly aren’t mine.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, just sat there staring down at his plate. Finally he raised his head and looked at her, his face grave. “And just what do you actually know about my love life, Anne? Aside from office gossip, that is.”
Anne was startled at his dead serious tone, and suddenly curious. “To tell you the truth,” she said
slowly, “not much. I mean, do you have a family? A mother, a father, brothers, sisters? I don’t even know where you live, or what you do in your spare time. Aside from chasing blondes, that is,” she finished tartly. “Or,” she added with a smile, “warding them off, whichever the case may be.”
“See? That’s what I mean. Isn’t it possible that the reason you don’t know anything about me is because you just haven’t taken the trouble to find out?”
“Well, yes, I guess it could be. All right, then, tell me.”
“About my family or about the blondes?”
“Let’s start with your family,” she said in a dry tone. “I presume you haveor hadparents.”
“Oh, yes. Both. They have a farm in Yakima, east of the mountains from Seattle, mainly planted in orŹchardyou know, apples, pears, peaches.”
She goggled at him. “You grew up on a farm? I can hardly believe it!”
“See? You didn’t even realize that I was just a country boy at heart. I also have a younger brother who loves farming as much as I detest it. He and his wife and two children live in the old family house with my mother and father.”
“I know what you mean about farm life,” she said with feeling. “My father was hooked on it, too. In fact, sometimes I thought he cared more about his
sheep than he ever did about” She broke off
quickly. “But that’s another story. So, how did you escape?”
He laughed. “I just left. They were very understanding about it, especially since Jack wanted to stay. I got out of there as soon as I finished school and went east to college. Columbia has a marvelous school
of journalism. Then I worked on various newspapers and magazines in New York until I felt I knew the business well enough to strike out on my own. I used the money the family paid me for my interest in the farm to buy my first magazine.”
“You were very young to become such an entre-preneur. You had to be well under thirty.”
He shrugged. “It was a young magazine. In any event, it was a success, so I just went on from there. And when I bought the magazine in Seattle seven years ago, I decided I liked the place well enough to stay permanently.” He braced his hands on the arms of his chair, rose to his feet and started clearing the table. “And now that you know my life history, I think I’d better wash up.”
She carried her dishes to the counter and started putting food away. As they worked silently side by side, she mulled over the things he had told her about himself. They had revealed an entirely different Jerry Bannister from the one she thought she had known, and a much more likable one at that.
He rinsed off the dishes carefully, then ran water into the bowl and started washing them. She got out a tea towel and began to dry. The whole scene gave her an odd sense of unreality. Here they were, in the kitchen of her old home, the last place she’d ever exŹpected to be again at all, much less with her boss at her side up to his elbows in soapy water. She gave him a sideways glance, her curiosity about him still not satisfied.
“There is one thing I’ve often wondered,” she said, breaking the silence.
He turned to her. “What’s that?”
“Why you’ve never married. Haven’t you even been tempted?”
An expression of sheer horror crossed his face. “Lord, no,” he spluttered. “Women today don’t want to be wives and mothers. They’re all too busy with their careers and finding themselves.”
“You mean,” Anne replied sweetly, “the way men have always been?”
“All right, you’ve got a point. Women have a perfect right to compete in what used to be a man’s world. I have no problem with that. But that doesn’t change the facts. So long as women want the same thing men do, including sexual freedom, I see no point in settling down with just one of them. Take a look at the divorce statistics. Do you have any idea what that does to children?” He shook his head firmly. “I don’t want any part of it.”
She was searching her mind for a cogent rebuttal when there came a loud knocking at the front door. Anne’s heart plunged into her stomach.
“Oh, Lord,” she groaned. “Who could that be?”
Jerry started to dry his hands. “I’ll go.”
“No, you won’t,” she replied firmly. “You stay right where you are. Don’t even show your face.”
Tying her robe tighter, she ran out of the kitchen and through the living room to the front hall. At the door she paused a moment to run her fingers through her hair, then took a deep breath and pulled it open. There, standing on the other side, to her utter horror, was Ben Poole.
“Ben!” she said.
She stood there gaping at him, her mind racing, in an agony of indecision. On no account did she want
him to come in and find Jerry, but she couldn’t leave him standing out there on the porch.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so early, Anne,” he said. “And I can’t stay. I just got word that the road to the village is washed out completely and the telephone cable is broken. I came over to let you know and to see if you needed anything.”
“Oh, thank you, Ben, but I don’t think” She
broke off then when she saw his eyes shift and move past her, a puzzled look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I didn’t know you had company.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FEARING the worst, Anne turned around slowly to see Jerry strolling toward them. She tried to signal him with her eyes to back off, but he kept on coming, a broad grin on his face, making straight for Ben, his hand outstretched in greeting, looking for all the world like a benign host.
“Mr. Poole?” he said. “What a pleasure it is to meet you at last.”
Ben gave Anne a bewildered look, then took Jerry’s hand and allowed him to pump it vigorously. “How do you do, Mr.?”
“Bannister,” Jerry supplied immediately. “Jerry Bannister.”
“Mr. Bannister. I just came over to tell Anne that the road was washed out and see if she needed anyŹthing.” He turned to her. “If not, then I guess I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh, don’t run off,” Jerry said, opening the door wider and beckoning Ben inside. “At least have a cup of coffee before you go. We were just finishing breakfast and I have a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.”
Ben hesitated, glancing from Jerry to Anne and back to Jerry again. “I don’t know…”
By now Anne was in an agony of embarrassment over Ben’s catching her with her bathrobe still on, but, what was worse, what he’d think about Jerry’s unexplained presence in the house. She was also ready
to crown Jerry for the way he was choreographing the whole scenario. It was time she took charge.
She stepped between the two men. “I’m sure Ben has things to take care of at home. Don’t you, Ben?”
Jerry nudged her aside. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, Mr. Poole. How about just one quick cup? You look as though you could use it, and I’d be grateful for a chance to discuss your work with you.”
Ben’s ears had perked up at the mention of Jerry’s interest in his work, which Anne knew was a total fabrication. “Well, all right,”
he said. “One cup.”
He stepped inside and Jerry closed the door after him. As he led Ben past Anne over to the sofa, he gave her a look full of meaning. “Maybe you’d better go check on the coffee, Anne,” he suggested. “We don’t want it to boil over.”
“No,” she said through her teeth. “We wouldn’t want that.”
It was hopeless. Unless she wanted to create a scene, she’d just have to go along with his little charade. Clearly he wasn’t going to budge an inch. In the kitchen, as she’d suspected, there wasn’t the slightest sign that Jerry had even begun to make a pot of coffee. With a sigh, she emptied the used grounds, filled the pot and set it on the stove.
Still seething, she marched down the hall to her room to get dressed. Of all things to happen! What must Ben think? She’d have to find a way to set him straight. That dratted Jerry! Just when she was beŹginning to like him, he had to pull a dirty trick like this. When she was dressed, her hair combed more carefully, a dash of powder and lipstick applied, she
went back to the kitchen, where the coffee was just about to boil over.
From the living room she could hear the low murmur of voices. She filled the mugs, set them on a tray, and carried it over to the door, then stood there quietly for a second, straining to make out what they were saying. It was Jerry’s low baritone she heard first, and she almost dropped the tray, hardly able to beŹlieve her ears.
“What impresses me most about your work, Ben,” he was saying in low earnest tones, “is that in my opinion, at least, you’ve somehow succeeded in making that leap from the nineteenth-century Impressionists to the modern age that the abstract painters have ignored. You’re the bridge between Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, and, say, Klee or Picasso.”
“It’s odd that you should say that, Jerry,” Ben reŹplied. “That was exactly my intention, my original inspiration.”
She’d heard enough. What Jerry knew about painting she could put in her eye. Now it looked as though he was well on the way to soft-soaping Ben into an interview she herself had failed to get, and all her reporter’s instincts were aroused.
She carried the tray into the living room and set it down on the table. Jerry was busily feeding the fire, and Ben was sitting on the sofa, leaning forward in concentration, his blue eyes alight with the pleasure of discussing his work with someone who seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Here we are,” she said pleasantly. She handed the two men their mugs, then sat down next to Ben. “Ben, I suppose Jerry has already mentioned the fact that he’s my boss.”
“Why, no,” Ben said in surprise.
“Oh, yes,” she went on. “He’s the head man at the magazine I work for.” She laughed lightly. “You know, the slave driver I told you about yesterday. He’s the one who sent me up here to try to get the interview with you, remember?”
“I see,” Ben said slowly. “Somehow I had the imŹpression he had something to do with a gallery or museum, or was an art critic.”
“I wonder what gave you that idea?” she asked with her most innocent air.
She could feel Ben tense beside her, saw the sharp look he darted at Jerry. “If this is about the interŹview …”
Jerry waved a hand in the air. “Of course it’s not about the interview. When Anne told me she’d asked you and you’d turned her down, I understood perŹfectly.” He flashed a boyish grin. “And I can’t say I blame you. I only wanted the chance to meet you, to discuss your work with you. That’s all.”
Although Ben still eyed him warily, he did seem to relax a little. “As I told Anne yesterday, there’s nothing personal in my refusal. It’s just that I’ve made it a rule never to talk to reporters. All they want is gossip about my personal life, and since my wife died..
Jerry sat himself down on the other side next of Ben. “I realize that’s a painful subject for you, Ben, but it is true, isn’t it, that it was after you lost your wife that your work changed so dramatically? In fact, she’s the subject of almost all your paintings since then, isn’t she?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, or my memories of her.”
“She must have been a very beautiful woman, inside as well as out,” Jerry said softly. “Your portraits of her leave one in no doubt that you loved her very much.”
Anne listened, dumbstruck, at this exchange. The blasted man was going to get that interview! Her inŹterview! How did he do it? He was a magician. Here he had poor Ben eating out of his hand. He seemed to know exactly what to say to him, how to draw him out, and all without rousing the least suspicion that that was what he was doing.
Finally, Ben finished his coffee and rose to go. The two men shook hands, still totally ignoring Anne, who could only stand by helplessly watching them as they walked together to the door. The crowning blow came as Ben stepped outside.
“By the way, Ben,” Jerry said in his most casual tone. “Would it be all right if I wrote up a short piece on our conversation today? Nothing about your perŹsonal life, I promise. Only the work itself, and you’ll have complete right of approval before it’s printed.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said slowly. Then he smiled. “Sure. Why not?” He looked past Jerry then to wave at Anne. “See you later, Anne. If you need anything, let me know.”
“Thanks, Ben,” she said in a tight voice. “I will.”
When he was gone, Jerry closed the door behind him and turned around to face her. At the sight of the smug, insufferable grin of self-satisfaction on his face she had to make a heroic effort not to pick up her mug and throw it at him.
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a withering look. “You’re some piece of work,” she said in a low voice throbbing with emotion.
He came walking jauntily toward her. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I got the story, didn’t I?”
She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You tricked him into giving it to you!” she cried. “Poor Ben never knew what hit him!”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why ‘poor Ben?’ Will Ben be hurt by it? In any conceivable way? All artists have an enormous streak of arrogance. They have to, or they wouldn’t be able to create at all. And they all crave recognitionit’s only human. I just provided Ben a painless way to get it.”
She had to admit he had a point, but she was still angry at the underhanded way he’d done it. “All that falderal about Van Gogh and Degas! You wouldn’t know a Michelangelo from a Peanuts cartoon.”
“Homework, my dear,” he intoned pedantically. “First rule of journalism. Always do your homework. While you were up here making cow eyes at the man, I was boning up on the art world.” He sat down. “Come on now, we have work to do. I want to get it all on paper while it’s still fresh in my mind.”
“Just tell me one thing. Did you really mean it when you told him you’d give him the right of approval before you printed it?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Of course I did. I said so, didn’t I? Listen, I want success as much as the next person, but I have to live with myself, and I always play fair with my subjects. I have nothing but contempt for reporters who gain a person’s confiŹdence, then betray it. Now let’s get busy. You find a notebook or something and I’ll dictate the gist of my conversation with him while it’s still fresh in my mind.
Then later you can fill in the background dope yourŹselfyou know, for color.”
There was no arguing with the man. With a sigh Anne went over to her father’s desk and began searching through the mess for something suitable to write on. As she pawed through all the old bills, bank statements, Christmas cards and letters, it occurred to her with a pang that she still had to clear all this debris away.
Finally she came upon the notebook where he’d kept all the records for his sheepvaccinations, breeding time, lambing. As she turned over the pages, covered with her father’s near-indecipherable scrawl, a strange feeling began to creep over herhalf sorrow, half angerand she was reminded once again that he was gone forever now.
Hastily she flipped through the used portion with unseeing eyes. There were still plenty of blank pages in the back. It would have to do. She found a ballŹpoint pen that worked, took the book over to the couch and sat down at the table in front of it.
She looked at Jerry, who was standing a few feet away, a familiar gleam in his deep brown eyes. It struck her then how much he loved his work, and felt herself being caught up in his contagious enthusiasm.
“Okay,” she said briskly. “Ready.”
He began pacing the room, not saying anything for some time, and frowning deeply as he gathered his thoughts. He finally began to speak, haltingly at first, then, as he warmed to his subject, so rapidly that she could scarcely keep up with him.
They broke briefly for a quick lunch, still discussing angles for the story. He questioned her about Ben personally. Since the subject was such an inŹ
timate aspect of her own early life, she had no trouble filling him in on his background. Jerry would listen carefully, then either nod his approval or frown when it didn’t quite fit what he wanted.
By midafternoon, Anne had almost filled the journal with her hastily scribbled notes. During a pause, she glanced out of the window to see that it had finally stopped raining and a pale sun was strugŹgling to break through the remaining wispy clouds.
She leaned back and flexed her fingers. “Jerry, I don’t think I can write another stroke. Aren’t we about through? We’ve covered every conceivable angle by now. Several times, in fact.”
He glanced down at her in surprise, his mind still a million miles away. “Well, we want to get it right, don’t we?” He thought a minute. “Yes,” he said at last. “You’re probably right. Do you think you can get it typed up this afternoon?”
“Jerry, have a heart!” she exclaimed. “I’m dead beat. Besides, I don’t have a typewriter.”
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