If it had, she would not have invited him to ride this morning.
"They're like dreams," Luke said, standing before the last easel. "That was what I thought when I first saw them. Nothing is quite what it seems." He glanced at her. "A lot of things are like that. And people, as well."
Acts of L
o V E ~ 189
Before she could respond, he looked at his watch. "Should we be checking the oven ?"
"Oh, Lord, I forgot."
"It's been just twenty minutes."
She was hurrying, furious at her clumsiness as her leg swung out with each step, and she knew Luke was just behind her. In the kitchen, she pulled down the oven door. "Oh, it's fine."
"I'll carry that if you can get the coffee," he said.
"You'll need a pot holder. In that drawer."
The large, irregular stones of the terrace, shading from buff to gray, shone almost white in the sunlight and long ripples in the bay glinted as they moved lazily toward the sliver of beach and Jessica's garden. Jessica had set the table in the speckled shade of a mimosa tree beside a small, slate-topped serving cart where Luke set the heavy black pan beside a serving knife and spoon. "I haven't had apple pancake for a long time," he said, sitting opposite Jessica. He watched her cut a wide wedge and put it on his plate, and the warm scent of apples and cinnamon rose in the sunlit air. "This is wonderful," he said, tasting it. "The cinnamon is different. Where is it from?"
"China. Most people wouldn't notice."
"It's spicier, somehow. More complex than the kind we usually get. Do you really find this on Lopez.'' Or Friday Harbor.?"
"No, I send for it. A small spice house in Wisconsin called Penzey's, where they grind it every week. I have a long list of things I send for; it's the only way I can shop for everything, since I don't leave the island."
"Except to go to Seattle."
"No, I—" Her fork suspended, she met his eyes in a startled look.
Luke put down his fork and Jessica saw his eyes change, as if he were taking a mental breath and plunging into a place he knew would be difficult. "You wrote Constance that you signed books for schoolchildren at Elliott Bay bookstore."
"You have an advantage over me," she said coldly. "You promised me an explanation."
"Yes, I owe you that." He looked out, at a small flat-topped island at the entrance to the bay and, beyond it. Mount Baker, snowcapped and serene, dominating the horizon. "The day I heard that Constance had died, I went to Italy. I arranged for her funeral, put her villa on the mar-
190 ~ Judith Michael
ket, and then went through her rooms, following the directions in her will when there were any, otherwise making my own decisions on what to keep and what to give away. She seemed to be everywhere, you know; her fragrance followed me, her voice stayed with me ... it was almost as if I were visiting and soon we'd have a quiet dinner—" His voice caught. As the silence stretched out, he deliberately took a bite of apple pancake, then another and another, and Jessica knew he was warding off ghosts. No, not ghosts, she thought; only the pain of knowing that a phantom is all we have left of someone so deeply loved.
She felt close to Luke now, relaxed and ready to listen. She ate some of her own pancake and, suddenly realizing how hungry she was, finished what was on her plate. Without asking, she served Luke another piece and took one for herself.
"Thank you," Luke said, and she knew he was thanking her mostly for listening. "The box of your letters was in the library, beside her favorite chair. I'd seen it on other visits and thought it was simply decorative, but when I opened it. . . well, I've told you about seeing your letters and reading one or two from curiosity. I read a few more, I think, and then the telephone rang, and it was a woman in New York to whom I'd once been married."
Jessica saw her own surprise mirrored on Luke's face, and she knew he had not expected to say that. But then he gave a small nod, as if acknowledging that this was what he wanted to do, and he settled back in his chair and told her the story of that entire week in Italy and his return to New York. The hum of bees and the sweet trills of birds wove through his deep voice, and Jessica knew that he was responding, as she always did, to the isolation of this small space, seeming entire unto itself as it looked across the open water, leaving the islands and the continent behind.
"I haven't told you about Claudia." Briefly he told her about his marriage and the swath that Claudia still cut through his life. "What I found myself doing was comparing Claudia to you. Not fair to Claudia, of course, but it became so obvious that I couldn't avoid it. She's a woman who is incapable of shaping a life for herself, of finding meaning and purpose in her days. And you'd built a new life, almost from nothing. I didn't understand why you'd had to do it—nothing in your letters said exactly why the train crash forced you to abandon everything—but I knew you'd done it, and evidently without leaning on others. So while Claudia was demanding that
I create a purpose and a direction for her, you'd had two careers, two ways of life, two purposes, two directions, and you'd done it by yourself. I didn't have to understand it to know how difficult that must have been, and I admired you enormously for it. I read a magazine interview you'd given, where you said you'd thought about other ways of living and you had hobbies, especially painting, that gave you great pleasure, but then you said, 'Nothing makes me feel fully alive and in touch with myself as the theater does. I think if I left it I would never feel whole again.' The reason I remember every word of that is because it's exactly the way I feel. So I think you must have gone through hell to get where you are." He paused, contemplating her. "And I think I'm beginning to understand it."
Jessica put her hands on the edge of the table as if to push back her chair and flee. "I don't want your admiration if it comes attached to a comparison with your wife—" "Ex-wife."
"I don't want to be compared to her, or to anyone else. I don't want to be reminded, over and over, of what I was and what I said, as if you're rubbing my nose in the past." "I would never—"
"I just want to be left alone! I don't want to think about what's gone; I don't want to be dragged into places I've turned my back on. I don't want questions or advice. Or pity."
"I'm not pitying you. I'm not dragging you anywhere. I'm trying to tell you what your letters meant to me. And I haven't told you the most important reason I kept reading them." He was gazing outward agam, watching a ship appear in the distance, hazily oudined, as if it were a mirage. "I found myself looking forward to coming home to you. To your letters, of course, but that meant to your voice and your descriptions of people and your comments on the theater. And you brought Constance closer, but that wasn't the main thing. The main attraction was you." He turned back to her. "Your companionship."
Jessica sat very still. He had caught her unawares again, and this time his words flowed into her, warming her. But when he paused, a sneer within her said. Pretty dramatic stuff, but drama is easy, from a distance. Now that he's seen me . . . And that sent her upright, no longer relaxed. "That was a fantasy," she said flatly. "You never had my companionship. And you don't know me, no matter how many letters you've read."
192 ~ Judith Michael
"I know that. It's the reason I'm here. I don't like open-ended mysteries; I need answers and conclusions."
"That's because you're used to two acts and a final curtain."
"It's because I don't wear blinders," he snapped. "It's because I believe in understanding. Theater isn't all illusion; you of all people would know that the best of it tells the truth." He thought back. "A friend of mine, a director named Zelda Fichhandler, said something a long time ago; you know it because you quoted it in one of your letters. She said, 'Theater exposes our internal feehngs so we can see them instead of having them just be fluttering around inside us.' You knew that it meant exposing feelings aindfacing them; you knew it and you believed it and I'll bet you still do."
"Constance told me you confuse theater and life," Jessica said angrily. "You t
hought your marriage should be like the one in a play you were directing and when it wasn't—" She caught herself. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said that."
"It seems my grandmother told you far more about me than she told me about you." His voice was light, but Jessica saw that he was surprised and hurt. "I'm sorry she told you that; it was very personal."
"So were my letters," she shot back.
"Yes, and I was prying and I apologize. But now that I've read them it doesn't make sense to keep arguing that point."
"It does as long as you keep quoting them. You have no right to throw my words at me, as if you're trying to force me to explain them or retract them. . . ."
"You're right, I apologize again. It seems I have a lot to be sorry for. But you see, I don't understand you. How you could write one thing—"
"You don't have to understand me. Who asked you to.f""
"I want to. / want to. That's reason enough."
"Not for me." She stood up and reached for her cane. "I think you'd better go; we don't have anything more to talk about."
"We have Jessica Fontaine to talk about."
"Then you'll talk to yourself. I have no intention of indulging you."
She was at the French doors, the dog padding beside her, when Luke said, "Jessica. Please," and she stopped, her back to him. "I'm not trying to force you to do anything. I doubt that I could, in any event. But I want to know you better and I'm willing to meet you halfway on that. In fact, I have already; I've been honest with you in everything."
Acts of L
o V E ~ 193
She wheeled about. "Honest? You've Hved a he since the minute I opened my door to you."
"That's not true."
"Oh, yes, you're the expert on truth, aren't you-f* But you only use the parts of it that suit you. What are you really here for?"
"For Christ's sake." He was standing now and they faced each other across the terrace. "How many times do I have to say that I want to know you, who you are now—"
"Then how can you ignore what you see? Damn it, look at me! This is what I am now! Why do you ignore it? You treat me like a child, or a fool, sitting here for hours and talking about the theater, about Constance, about New York, as if you were just passing by and stopped in to chat and found everything exactly as you expected it. Is that truth, to you? Or honesty? Do you expect me to believe that it is?"
The terrace was silent. The birds were still, the waves barely whispered as they rolled onto the beach, not even a breeze stirred the air. Hope sat motionless beside Jessica, waiting for whatever came next. "No," Luke said at last. "If you think I've been living a lie, you'd have trouble believing anything I say. The problem was, I didn't know how to begin. I did know what to expect, you see, when I rang your doorbell, because I'd seen you the last time I was here."
"Seen me? You never came to the house."
"Partway. You were in the garden, cutting roses. I watched for a few minutes and then left. I assume Robert told you I'd come to see you."
"Yes." Slowly, she repeated it. "You watched for a few minutes and then left. Of course you did; why wouldn't you? You were appalled by what you saw. What you saw sent you scurrying. So that's what happened; Robert and I were wondering. You read my letters and thought, for a kick, you'd track me down, but then, when you did, you were so revolted you couldn't even come up to the front—"
"Stop it! I wasn't revolted; I was surprised. I have never been revolted by you. No one would be. Is that the certainty you've been living with all these years? It makes no sense."
"How do you know what makes sense? How can you have the faintest idea of what makes sense for me?"
"Well, exile doesn't."
"It does. For me."
194 ~ Judith Michael
"Because you're afraid of the look on people's faces when they see you."
She winced.
"That's it, isn't it?"
"Part of it."
"And the rest?"
She was silent.
"Let me guess. You imagined every director saying no when your name came up for a new play. You imagined every producer turning thumbs down. You imagined playwrights sending plays to all the top actors' agents except yours, and all your colleagues refusing to share a stage with you. And you didn't even trust Constance enough to share those terrors with her."
"It wasn't a question of trust," she cried, stung. "Her heart wasn't strong, and she already worried about me; why would I make her worry more.'^ I'd written a couple of letters telling her how awful things were—" She saw Luke's face change. "But of course you know that. You read them."
"I couldn't get them out of my mind. Your despair was so devastating—"
"And that's what happened to Constance. She couldn't get those letters out of her mind. She lay awake at night worrying about me. She called me and wrote me—she thought I was about to kill myself—"
"She had reason to think that."
"I know, I know that. I should never have let myself go, but she was all I had and I loved her—"
"And you were sick and lonely and you needed her. You shouldn't be ashamed of being honest with her; if love is about anything, it's about that."
"Except that she was sick, too, and weak. And I couldn't bear the thought of her working herself into a panic over me. Even when I stopped writing about my injuries and therapy, she still worried. She worried about my being alone, and being unhappy, and leaving the stage, and coming here to live. I wanted to make her believe there was nothing to worry about."
"And so—" Luke walked toward her. "You made up a life."
"No. I wrote about the life I have: a home and a garden, a job, friends, a dog."
"And going to a bookstore in Seattle. But you never went there. You made it up."
She met his eyes with a fierce challenge. "Those letters were for Constance, no one else. I was talking only to her; it was between us."
"How could it be between you when you were keeping the truth from her? You made up a life for yourself; you created your own fantasy. It was for yourself, not for her."
"That is not true!"
"Then tell me what is true. You didn't go to Seattle, to that bookstore."
Her eyes did not waver as she flung her answers at him. "No."
"You didn't make friends all over the island."
"No."
"And helping to direct Pygmalion?"
"A little. I made notes on the director's script and we talked on the phone almost every day."
"But you never went to the theater in Friday Harbor?"
"Twice. I sat in the audience and made notes. And I went to opening night."
"How did you know about everything that happened backstage?"
"The director told me, when it was all over."
"And the sculptor? The man you met digging clams?"
"My God, don't you forget anything?"
"Not much, when it's important."
She gave a small shrug. "Richard is a friend. We've visited each other's studios."
"How often do you see him?"
"Not often. But we're friends."
"Did he take you to rehearsals in Friday Harbor in his boat?"
"Yes, those two times I asked him, and he took the time to do it. And we went to opening night together. Some of his sculptures are in my studio; if you're interested, I'll show them to you. Have you had enough?"
"Not quite, but first I think we should sit down." He touched her arm. "Please."
She shrugged his hand away, but she turned and walked back to the table. Hope padded between them and lay at Jessica's feet, looking up now and then to make sure that the loud voices would remain subdued.
"I'm trying to understand this," Luke said. "I'm not attacking you and
196 ~ Judith Michael
I don't want to hurt you—my God, I would never hurt you—but I need to make sense of it."
"Why? What difference does it make? Why do you care?"
He started to say somethin
g, then stopped. "I'll answer that another time. I promise I will answer it, but right now I want to finish this. Why did you do it? Why go to all that trouble? You could have convinced Constance that there was nothing to worry about without those elaborate scenarios ... by the way, was she convinced?"
"Not completely. She was very smart." Their eyes met in one of those moments when they were in perfect harmony, understanding Constance, loving her, longing for her to be with them again. Uncomfortable with that harmony, Jessica turned away to reach for her glass. The water was tepid and she thought of getting up to add ice to the pitcher, but she did not move. The air was electric with their intensity, charged with tension as they ricocheted from clashes to closeness and back again, and she felt pinned in place by it, and by the turmoil within her. Just as she and Luke swung wildly from one set of emotions to the other, so did her thoughts. On one side, it was very peculiar to be with someone who was almost a stranger yet knew so much about her; it was peculiar and distasteful, and whenever he quoted her or showed how much he knew and remembered, she wanted to tell him to take his prying eyes and get out.
But on the other side, she was beginning to feel at ease with him. At some point in the past twenty-four hours something within her had relaxed, like a knot abruptly coming apart so that all the taut cords sprang free, and she found herself settling into the comfort of talking about things that no one else knew, things she had thought were forever locked inside her, never to be shared.
"I had to write to her," she said slowly. "I loved her so and she was my connection with the world. I waited for her letters as if they were treasures—well, they were treasures—and I read each one over and over, until the next one came, and in between I wrote to her, and when I did that I was filling the silence of my house with our conversation. And then of course we had the telephone. She was always part of my life. The trouble with that was, that by keeping her with me, I kept my past alive. She was my past; we were so intertwined that sometimes I had trouble keeping us separate in my thoughts. So while I was trying to bury my past, every time I wrote a letter, or read one of hers, I resurrected it. So I tried to fill my letters with things that were different from anything we'd ever shared, and
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