Too Close

by Hilary Norman

  Of course not, I said.

  The past was all forgotten, apparently. I thought I believed her. I wanted, I guess, to believe her. So when, a few months later, she came back begging to be allowed to stay a while and share the rent because she was having such a bitch of a time in her dorm, I swallowed my doubts. Big brother, she had said, hadn’t she, in her new, laid-back, grown-up way? She offered to sleep on the couch, but I told her if she found a fold-away bed she could sleep in my studio. She said that would be great, but if ever I was painting up a storm late at night she’d take the couch instead – and really, if we stopped to think about it, maybe this was fate pushing us together, and it would be almost like old times. Only almost, she added, and laughed.

  I told myself it would be okay. It might even be fun having her around again. And anyway, I still owed her, didn’t I?

  And for six whole months it was fine, because Holly had grown up big-time. We both had. I could not have wished for an easier lodger.

  I should, of course, have known better.

  Chapter Twenty

  On April 11th, 1987, a Saturday night, Holly and Nick brought a Chinese take-out back to the apartment, drank a bottle and a half of cheap Chardonnay while watching a TV rerun of Un Homme et Une Femme, and ended up in Nick’s bed.

  ‘Are you sure this is such a hot idea?’ Nick asked Holly, right after she had pulled her T-shirt up over her head, exposing her well-remembered pale, uptilted, pink-nippled breasts and the tender, sweet valley between them.

  ‘How can you ask me that?’ she answered.

  And after that, of course, it was too late.

  He knew, the instant he awoke to see the dark outline of her head on the pillow beside him, that he had made a bad mistake. And when Holly woke up just a moment later and saw the look in his eyes, Nick knew that he had just compounded that mistake by hurting her again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, quickly, lightly.

  ‘Holly—’ He started to sit up.

  ‘No, really, it’s okay.’ She turned her head away, but it was obvious she was close to tears.

  ‘God, Holly, I’m sorry.’ Her hurt, his guilt, dismayed him. ‘I mean it, I’m so sorry. I should never—’

  ‘I told you, it’s okay. It took two, remember?’ She was already out of bed.

  ‘But I should have—’

  ‘Leave it, Nick.’ She was pulling on her clothes. ‘I agree with you. It was dumb of us both. We’ve got a great friendship going here. We should forget it happened.’ She forced a smile. ‘See? I’ve forgotten it already.’

  The downhill slide began. Holly said one thing but did another. On one level, she was perfectly amenable, never failing to do her share of chores and immersing herself in her prelaw freshman studies – but at the same time, on a more insidious level, she became increasingly hard to live with, frequently turning on displays of possessiveness in front of Nick’s friends, and often actively insulting them in a clear attempt to push them away.

  ‘She’s more like a nagging, dominating wife than a room-mate,’ Jake Kolinsky, a fellow art student, commented once after a particularly unpleasant evening at home with them both. ‘Why don’t you ask her to move out, Nick?’

  ‘I’ve dropped hints,’ Nick told Jake. ‘I’ve suggested she might be happier living someplace she’d have more space to call her own, but she always says she’s perfectly happy with me and then changes the subject.’

  ‘I’m sure she is happy,’ Jake said, ‘but you’re not.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Nick agreed, ‘but I don’t really want to hurt her again.’

  Then his mother wrote to him. Generally, Kate wrote about once a month, warm, chatty letters written in a straightforward, easy style.

  This one was strained from the first line.

  Dear Nick,

  I’ll come straight to the point, because I’ve learned through the years that that’s the best way. Your father thinks we should mind our own business. But I’m afraid I disagree.

  Holly wrote to Eleanor and Richard about your new love affair, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that Eleanor, for one, is not pleased with the news. I think that the only thing preventing her from employing some sort of hit squad to wipe you off the face of her personal world is that Holly made it so clear that she’s happier than she’s ever been in her life.

  I’m not writing to try to put you off Holly. Far from it. It might, I suppose, have been to be expected if you and she had both stayed home. But with all the wealth of choice there must be in New York City, your father and I both feel that this has to mean there must be something very special between the two of you.

  Just so long as you’re not sticking together because one or both of you has been lonely. That would be a sad and foolish reason to embark on something that clearly means a great deal to Holly.

  So what I’m saying, Nick, is this. You’re both over eighteen, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still very young. Holly has had to get over losing you once. Be very careful that neither of you gets badly hurt again.

  Your father and I both send you special love.

  As always.

  Your mother.

  It was the last straw. The clincher. Holly telling her parents that they were in love, sleeping together and happily living together as a real couple. The other stuff had been irritating, difficult and uncomfortable, but Nick had felt guilty enough about sleeping with her again to put up with it. This was just plain weird.

  And there was only one cure.

  He told her that same night.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ he said. ‘I should never have let you stay in the first place.’

  ‘No,’ Holly said, quietly. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have.’

  He couldn’t believe it was so easy. She started packing right away, told him she’d be fine, that she had money and could go to a hotel until she found a new place, and Nick was on the brink of telling her that he hadn’t meant she should go instantly – but then he stopped himself. If he changed his mind now, who was to say he’d ever be rid of her?

  ‘Why did you do that?’ he asked, almost curiously, as she hurried to and fro in the apartment, assembling her belongings. ‘Why did you tell all those lies about us to your parents?’

  ‘I’m sorry if it caused you embarrassment,’ Holly said.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Holly,’ he said, and stopped.

  And she went on with her packing.

  JULY

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Nina is eight months gone now and beginning to admit to feeling it. Her back aches, she doesn’t sleep much at night, she gets cramps in her legs and has swollen ankles, but worst of all, from her point of view, she says she feels clumsy as a cow.

  To me, she’s lovelier than ever. She protests, but I try to sketch her whenever I get the chance, hungry to catch every change, every fragment of miracle. Her breasts, full and wondrous, ready to sustain our child. Her belly filled with the still unknown mysteries of ‘she-he,’ as Phoebe calls the baby. I try all I can to help, but I’m constantly aware of my uselessness. I can only rub her back and massage her legs to ease the cramps, and fight with her when she does too much around the house and in the office.

  ‘You should be letting Phoebe handle all the valuations and outside appointments from now on,’ I told her last week.

  ‘Phoebe’s busy enough,’ Nina said.

  ‘She wants to help,’ I reminded her.

  ‘She also knows that I hate sitting still in the office all day,’ Nina argued. ‘And you know it, too.’

  My wife is a stubborn lady.

  My heart feels a little, I imagine sometimes, like Nina’s belly: close to bursting, but with purest joy and anticipation. I dream of ‘she-he’ almost every night now. I never quite see the baby’s face, but I feel its essence, and the air in my dreams seems filled with my pride and love.

  Nina wanted so badly for us to make love last night, but I was too afraid of hurting her or the child.


  ‘I want to,’ she said. ‘One last time, while we’re still as we are.’

  I saw the yearning in her face, and wanted her more than ever, but nothing would sway me; nothing she nor any doctor might say would persuade me to take even one scrap of a risk with my beloved wife or my fragile daughter-son.

  ‘We’ll always be as we are,’ I told Nina.

  ‘Do you promise me that?’ she asked me.

  I promised her.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Holly has her practice. An average kind of office suite on the eighteenth floor of one of the steel and concrete giants on Figueroa Street: a neat waiting area where her secretary can double as receptionist, and two decent-sized rooms, one of which houses her law library, the other, with its limited downtown LA view, providing her own office. The discreet plaque on the outer door reads:

  TAYLOR, GRIFFIN

  ATTORNEYS AT LAW

  Griffin is a silent partner in this practice, because he or she does not exist, but Holly likes the ring of substance in the name, and the touch of anonymity it affords her. Taylor is not an uncommon name. No need to blare this particular achievement to the world.

  She has no permanent secretary yet, just a temp to answer the phone, take messages, write letters and open junk mail and bills. She also has no clients. That’s fine for now, because this is part of Holly’s learning curve. Holly has decided to be a fine defence lawyer. She doesn’t care if she never gets to be Clarence Darrow, but she wants to learn to be as good, manipulative, cunning and useful a defender as possible. Her library is what counts most in this office. And the telephone. And the television set and computer. Holly is currently in the business of discovering what’s going on in the world of small-time crime in western California. She reads every newspaper, watches every news bulletin, regularly downloads the contents of the news-database service the firm’s subscribing to, spends a lot of her time in court – observing, listening, studying – and what time there is left talking to those who know all about the things she wants to learn.

  Holly learns fast. She always has. And what she’s learning right now is how Charlotte Taylor, defence lawyer, can best persuade the legal network to spill its secrets for her. Cops are good sources, though she knows enough to pick those too new to have grown hostile to defence attorneys, or those old and ugly enough to be too grateful to give a shit. Assistants in the DA’s office are particularly fruitful, as, of course, are crime reporters. So long as they’re men and heterosexual, and have plenty to lose if they brag about laying a married lawyer.

  They love the tightness of her ass, the pertness of her breasts, the size and colour and perfection of her big, pregnant nipples, the softness of her still almost flat stomach. They love the way she uses her hair, grown longer since her marriage, the way she lets it down and trails it over them. So long as Holly shuts her eyes and pictures Nick beneath her, she can bring a man to climax using nothing more than her hair.

  Her mouth, of course, is even better.

  Jack thinks she was nuts to leave Zadok, Giulini. Holly knows he thinks she’s gone a little nuts, period. She also knows that he’ll go on indulging her because he’s still crazy about her. Here’s this brilliant, beautiful woman who does things to him no other woman has ever done, and she’s his wife, for God’s sake, his wife, which makes Jack Taylor, in his own eyes, one of the luckiest sonofabitches in greater Los Angeles. What does he care if she doesn’t bring in big bucks into the bargain? Jack didn’t marry Charlotte Bourne for her money or her talent as a lawyer. So, for the time being at least, he’ll go on being an easy-going husband, indulging this whim, maybe even patronizing her a little now and then.

  Holly doesn’t give a damn about being patronized, but she’s only just managing to hold it together with Jack. She’s always been a pretty fine actress, but there are limits, even for her. She can cope with sex in a good cause with men only too happy to find a gorgeous, classy woman prepared to fuck their heads off without any demand for commitment – but this constant nightly sham of not only loving but wanting her husband is starting to prove almost too much for her to bear. Sex with Jack was endurable for a while, but in the first place he kisses too wet for her realistically to go on pretending she’s kissing Nick; and in the second place Jack prides himself on being able to keep pumping away at her for so goddamned long that Holly’s been torn between throwing up from motion sickness or going to sleep. She could, of course, simply tell him that she’s having a baby and that she’s nervous about hurting it which is why they can’t have sex any more for a while, but, since – apart from her nipples – she doesn’t really show at all yet, she has no intention of telling Jack about the pregnancy. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, after all, and ignorance has to be a happier state for him than finding out that she’s having another man’s child.

  She’ll be gone before he notices anything, but in the meantime, she’s stuck with him, for better or worse. Though knowing what she wants out of life, and what she is, ultimately, going to achieve, makes things just about bearable for now. She wants what she’s always wanted.

  Plus ça change . . .

  Holly has her plan, after all.

  And it’s about time to make her first major move.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Phoebe was alone at the Ford Realty office on Union Street when the fax came in.

  To: N. Ford, Ford Realty

  From: G. Angelotti

  Confidential

  (Sent via Fax Modem, therefore unsigned)

  17 July 1996

  Dear Ms Ford,

  I’ve recently inherited a house at 2020 Catherine Street in Haight Ashbury which I wish to sell as soon as possible. Your services have been particularly recommended to me, which is why I’m giving you first opportunity. If you’re interested, please visit asap to value and prepare details. I’ve left the keys inside the large crack to the left of the porch, and I’d be grateful if you’d post them through the mailbox when finished.

  I’m out of town until next week, so would you please fax my secretary by return at the above number to let her know if you’re going to attend today.

  Yours sincerely,

  G. Angelotti

  Phoebe glanced at her watch. It was getting close to three-thirty. Not much time to get everything done and drive over to the Haight, and with Nina finally agreeing to take some rest, and Betty Hill – their office manager – and Harold, their secretary, both down with the flu, it was tempting to toss the fax to one side. G. Angelotti, whoever he or she was, certainly wasn’t allowing Ford Realty too much time.

  Phoebe ran a check on the computer and found no Angelotti, though of course the fax had mentioned a recommendation, not previous dealings. She considered calling Nina at home to check with her, but decided against it, since it had taken her and Nick a whole lot of time and energy to persuade her sister to stay put for once. And she certainly wasn’t going to trouble poor Betty, not when she was running a fever and aching from head to toe.

  She and Nina tended to avoid viewing unoccupied properties alone – but then again, Phoebe hadn’t seen anything worthwhile on Catherine Street in a very long time, and some of the Victorian houses in one section of that winding, rather characterful street did have great sales potential. She certainly hated the idea of letting those keys sit there where anyone might find them, and not taking a look today was tantamount to telling G. Angelotti to take the business to another realtor . . .

  She faxed back her reply, waited for confirmation that it had been sent, and then she switched on the answering machine, locked up the office and headed for Haight.

  2020 Catherine Street stood in a section of row houses that were clearly on the verge of being beyond help. Further down the hill, some of the well-kept, almost immaculate properties that Phoebe had remembered, only served to emphasize the sad contrast between them. 2020 was dingy and neglected, its paintwork flaking, its woodwork rotting, its once handsome stonework crumbling. No wonder G. Angelott
i was hoping to unload her or his inheritance as quickly as possible.

  Phoebe parked her Mazda the way all San Franciscans were taught to (by law and by necessity) on the steep hills – wheels to the kerb facing downhill, to the road when facing up, handbrake tight – and got out of the car, heaving her overladen canvas shoulder bag off the passenger seat.

  She checked over the house and its neighbours from where she stood. Most of them looked uninhabited, and the property two doors along from 2020 sported DANGER warning signs at the first-floor windows and across the front steps. At least the Angelotti house wasn’t quite in that category.

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ she said, softly. ‘Your new owner’s a bit of an optimist, thinking we can sell you as you are.’

  Phoebe often spoke to houses, particularly those that struck a chord in her. Which this one did, in its own dismal way. Maybe some client on Ford Realty’s lists might feel similarly, might be prepared to take on 2020 Catherine at the right price and nurse it back to health. She and Nina both loved these intricate Victorian houses with their pillars and arches and elaborate, complicated cornices and unexpected twists and turns. Both Ford sisters felt protective about the old properties and the history they represented, reasoned that if they had survived a century, a monster earthquake and a great fire, then no one had the right to allow them to crumble into decay.

  She took a few more moments looking around, trying to get a handle on the present residents of Catherine. Parked vehicles aside, there weren’t many clues. Four houses along from 2020, two casually-dressed young women stood chatting at the front door of one of the better properties, and on the other side of the street a middle-aged, too-thin man in shorts and sandals walked slowly and breathlessly up the hill. A black and white cat lay, sunbathing, on the fourth step of the house immediately opposite where Phoebe stood.