And Be My Love

by Joyce C. Ware

  AND BE MY LOVE

  Joyce C. Ware

  Chapter One

  Beth Volmar gently eased her front door closed. As she leaned back against it, weary exasperation transformed its quiet joining into a satisfying mental slam.

  "... a clever decorator could do wonders," she had heard the determinedly perky realtor say as she clicked down the slate walk with her clients, a tautly conditioned thirtyish couple whose endless list of expectations the Volmar house had failed to meet.

  Relocated from Manhattan to one of the new corporate headquarters rising glitteringly out of the rural Connecticut countryside, they wanted— needed—a larger pool, higher ceilings, wider windows, better lighting. They pronounced the master bedroom's whirlpool spa acceptable, but the wine racks installed at great expense in the pantry were dismissed with an exaggerated rolling of eyes.

  Beth sighed. Sometimes she felt like Alice in Wonderland. The soft-spoken little couple brought—was it only yesterday?—by another realtor had been overwhelmed by the house's Georgian formality. As they wandered from room to room, they seemed to grow smaller, older and grayer. They were looking, the agent later admitted, for a cozy retirement haven, adding blandly that in her experience coziness meant very different things to different people.

  Beth walked through the spacious house, turning off lights. She had never thought of it as the showplace trumpeted in the real-estate ads. Must see to appreciate. As if, Beth thought, anyone would pay $1,600,000 sight unseen. Except for the betraying expression on the face of her irreverent friend Georgina DeLuca during the house-warming tour, Beth's fear that the house might be thought ostentatious appeared groundless. "Elegant" and "stately" were the terms the other guests had most often used to describe it. But one thing it was not, could never be, was cozy.

  Ralph had presented her with a ribbon-tied sheaf of the architect's plans seven years ago at the family dinner her mother had given to mark their twenty-fifth anniversary. Silver. Like the sleek, closely trimmed hair that capped her late husband's long, narrow, fine-boned face.

  “Happy anniversary, Beth.”

  She recalled looking up into his eyes, piercingly blue, untroubled as always. Cool. Sometimes astringently so, like a splash of witchhazel on sun-warmed skin. She recalled, too, her bewilderment as she unrolled the crisp sheets to reveal the finely drawn elevations.

  "What a wonderful surprise!" she had finally managed, alerted by the slight telltale compression of his lips. "Thank you, darling—it will be a beautiful house."

  And it was. Not what she would have chosen, but...

  Beth paused in the dining room to pluck a fading rose from the silver bowl on the Sheraton sideboard. A crackling fire on the hearth in winter; flowers year 'round, the realtors had advised her. She passed by the long dining table, her fingers trailing across the tops of the crested-back chairs, the pale reflection of her face floating on the table's gleaming mahogany surface like the moon on dark water.

  Her mother, disapproving of Beth's decision to sell the house, asked if she was going to sacrifice the beautiful furniture dear Ralph had bought her, too.

  "I wasn't planning to fuel a bonfire with it, Mother. I'll use what I can, and Dana and Andy can share what's left."

  If her mother had been hurt by her uncharacteristic asperity, Beth herself was startled by the little surge of guilty pleasure released by the thought of the furniture's dispersement.

  As construction of the house neared completion, Beth had been stricken with a debilitating bout of flu. She assured her exasperated husband she had indeed remembered to have her shot.

  "I gave it to Mom at the clinic myself," Andy had corroborated. "You know what a wimp she is about needles. It's hardly her fault the strain that hit her is resistant to the vaccine we're using this year."

  Ralph's warning that tracking down the antiques she wanted for the new dining room could cause a relapse made her protests about the glossy furniture catalogs he ordered seem those of a cranky child. She recalled the cosseting she received the night they looked through them together: cushions were plumped behind her back, a mohair throw tucked around her knees, and espresso served to her from the silver tray he favored, given him by a grateful patient. Its film of tarnish had, for once, gone unremarked.

  As they turned the catalogs' sumptuously illustrated pages, she realized he preferred the unmarred perfection of the pictured reproductions to the antique pieces she coveted.

  "Hardly surprising," Georgina had commented dryly when Beth confided her disappointment. "He's a surgeon, isn't he?" But it wasn't until after the new furniture was delivered and set in place that Beth clicked on the connection her friend had hinted at between it and the sleek, sterile tools of her husband's trade.

  Beth returned to the living room. Dusk had grayed the silvery blue drapes; the burgundy red Kashan carpet, bereft of light, seemed almost black. There was no fire, crackling or otherwise, on the hearth. She shivered. The grandfather clock in the hall bonged six. Reminding herself to ask her son to disconnect the works controlling its sepulchral chime, she walked out into the tile-floored kitchen.

  Relieved of Ralph's demanding schedule, Beth found herself eating earlier and earlier, but the plastic bagged salad greens and the forlorn remains of the small chicken she had roasted the evening before did little to tempt her appetite. There were two eggs left in the carton, but the bacon she craved to go with it had long been banned. For God's sake, Beth, she could hear Ralph exclaiming, think of the cholesterol! She preferred not to think about the miles of clogged arteries he'd reamed out over the years. Well, there were still some baguettes of French bread in the freezer.…

  Beth sighed. The chicken would have to be pulled from its bones and creamed or added to one of those all-purpose oriental vegetable combinations she kept on hand these days. Last night, despite being twice washed, the lettuce had gritted between her teeth. She hated that. As for the bread, did she really want to risk another sesame seed wedging in that loose filling she'd been avoiding doing something about?

  The stainless steel refrigerator's barren interior rebuked her. The stock of expensive gourmet goodies, which in the past she routinely resupplied, was exhausted except for a can of asparagus, opened longer ago than she could recall. Her survey of the freezer was no more rewarding. Other than the bread and oriental vegetables, its shelves were largely occupied by boxes of assorted frozen-juice popsicles for her grandchildren. Poor little mutts, she thought tenderly. Condemned to a childhood of unrelenting good nutrition.

  A wave of frosty air raised goose bumps on her arms. To hell with it. Pulling out the chicken with one hand and the salad greens with the other, she consigned the former to the garbage and the latter to the disposal, which grindingly chattered its disapproval of her wastefulness. As she wiped her hands, she met her eyes in the mirror mounted to the right of the sink. The kitchen's fluorescent fixtures cast a cold blue-white light that, always unflattering, today seemed to lend her skin a grayish hue dismayingly familiar from her work at the hospice.

  Beth pinched her cheeks. Then, without thinking, she fluffed her hair and smoothed on the lipstick kept always at the ready, but her hand paused in mid-swipe, her ears registering the silence. There had been no click of the front door lock to activate the fluffing; no measured footsteps in the hall as accompaniment to the lipstick ritual: upper lip, lower lip, press together, blot.

  Suddenly, her blue eyes seemed as large and piteous as those in the photographs of the third-world children she could never resist, although she sometimes doubted the checks she sent each month accomplished what was claimed. Once, when Beth was in one of her periodic throes of mea culpa, her hard-headed daughter had told her of the latest scandal involving the pocketing of American relief funds by corrupt ban
ana republic officials. "If you must give away Daddy's money," Dana had added, "there are lots of worthy causes closer to home."

  Deciding that tonight she was worthier than most, Beth phoned Polly's Place. Assured of a table—Fridays were always busy at Polly's—she gathered up her purse, activated the security system, turned on the outside post light, and slipped into the cashmere Ralph Lauren coat she had bought the previous fall for ten times the price of a very similar coat she had worn in her teens. The turn of the wheel of fashion bored her. Petite and slim, wearing the impeccably tailored separates she felt most comfortable in, she looked, according to Georgina, the eternal college girl. Coming from Georgina, this was not meant as a compliment, but although Beth sometimes envied her younger friend's seductive fleshiness, she didn't covet it. At forty-nine, she felt more suited to Elderhostel than college. In her view, her role in life did not include providing her family, friends or community with rude surprises.

  As Beth backed her blue Saab down the driveway, she recalled the surprise she had given Ralph at the time of its purchase. Too mild to be considered rude, it had nevertheless rocked him back on his well-shod heels.

  "You want a what?"

  "A convertible, Ralph. Morgan Motors has this marvelous little bright yellow Mazda Miata trade-in with only 4000 miles on it. Ed Morgan says it was bought on impulse by a young man with three children and a very pregnant wife who—"

  "Being more sensible than mine, told him to get rid of it," Ralph completed.

  "Well, yes, but—”

  "No, Beth. If you'd seen what I've seen.…"

  He shook his head as if to clear it, and it was then that she remembered his harrowing tales about his emergency room stints as an intern. So she settled for the Saab. Safe, sensible and, except for one recent occasion, no rude surprises.

  * * * *

  The early evening light washed the gently rolling landscape with blue. Once past the newer houses that clustered, widely spaced, behind the lichen-encrusted stone walls that stretched beyond the Eastbury Historic District, Beth became aware of the rural odors wafting in through the ventilating system. Earth, newly plowed, and skunk, newly dead, vied with field dressings of well-seasoned manure. April odors. May would bring the sweet, sharp scent of the first cuttings of lawn grass, and in early June the thorny, rampant shrub roses that arched along the fence lines, a scourge to Connecticut farmers, would redeem themselves for two wonderfully perfumed weeks.

  Lost in her pleasant anticipation of future natural events, Beth almost missed the driveway into Polly's Place. As she braked abruptly to turn into the crowded parking lot, the car behind her beeped. It was the kind of maneuver that would have elicited a pained "for God's sake, Beth!" from Ralph. Beth, unable to take seriously a car that sounded like an overwrought terrier, shrugged her shoulders at its driver in an exaggerated gesture of apology.

  The restaurant was very crowded. A clutch of disgruntled couples all but filled the small waiting area. Beth surveyed the two dining rooms, a task hampered by the suspended baskets of trailing plants that, along with the specials-of-the-day chalk boards, had become clichés of country restaurant decor. The steady hum of conversation was punctuated by laughter and the clink of silverplate against china, and young waitresses maneuvered through an unbroken sea of diners heads.

  Beth's worst fears were confirmed when Polly herself approached her apologetically, earning glares from the other standees. "I know you called for a reservation, Mrs. Volmar, but as you can see.…"

  Beth saw. Short of shoe-horning a seated patron out of a chair, there was little Polly could do. Beth smiled what she hoped was an understanding smile. Long minutes ticked by. The cool evening air sliding in under the door behind her chilled her feet; the shrill complaints directed at the oafish man behind her by his pug-nosed wife depressed her spirits further. She retrieved her leather gloves from the pocket of her coat, but before she could put them on, she heard a voice at her shoulder.

  "Excuse me. Mrs. Volmar?"

  It was a man's voice, so deep and resonant she fancied she could feel its vibration against her skin.

  She turned to face the speaker, a well-built man of medium height, with an olive-skinned, squarish face, and crisp, dark, graying hair.

  "I'm sorry, perhaps you don't remember….”

  Her brow puckered. Those greenish hazel eyes--and then it clicked. She put out a staying hand as he ducked his head and stepped back.

  "Forgive me, Mr. Donovan. I never thanked you properly for starting my car that day you came to look at my house," she blurted.

  He smiled. "All the more reason for joining me at my table. I saw you standing here and I thought.… But maybe you're waiting for someone."

  "No, I'm not."

  She turned to follow him through the smaller of the dining rooms, acknowledging the nodded greetings of acquaintances. She slowed, thinking of the inevitable exchange of whispered speculations.

  He stopped at a table for two overlooking a small, reed edged pond rippled by the wakes of a pair of paddling mallards. He pulled out a chair. "Mrs. Volmar? Is anything wrong?"

  She moved forward, smiling. "Beth, please. Actually, this is my favorite table. I was just mentally remarking on it," she added. "A classic example of...oh, dear, the word escapes me. It means finding agreeable things without looking for them." She looked up at him hopefully as he pushed her chair in under her.

  He sat down opposite her. "Serendipity?"

  Beth beamed. "A lovely word, don't you think?"

  He looked at her face, framed in tousled silvered blonde hair and softly lit by the votive candle on the table, "Yes, lovely."

  "Another drink, sir?" a voice inquired.

  "The same, please. Bourbon, ice, no water. Beth?"

  Ralph always ordered martinis, straight up, two onions; she always had wine. "Ah.… I'll have an old-fashioned, please."

  They fell silent, strangers suddenly at a loss.

  "You're sure I'm not interrupting?" Beth asked, noticing a notebook, its pages marked with a pencil, lying near the window sill.

  "Not at all. In fact, I was stood up." He grinned at Beth's startled expression. "My daughter, Amity. She's taking some graduate-level science courses at Peabody. We were going to review her program in terms of her needs. I'm dean of students as well as her father," he added. "Not an ideal situation, but..." He shrugged.

  "I went to Peabody," Beth offered, sensing uneasy ground. "I didn't graduate, but my daughter more than made up for it. She went on to Harvard Business School. Dana's with Merrill Lynch in New Haven now."

  "It must be useful having a stockbroker in the family."

  "It's even more useful having a doctor."

  It was Karim Donovan's turn to look startled. "But I thought..."

  "I was referring to my son, Andrew. He has a geriatric practice here in Eastbury." She smiled up at the waitress and took a sip of the drink placed before her.

  "Hardly useful for you, then."

  Beth drew a deep breath. "I'm forty-nine, Mr. Donovan.

  "Karim, please.”

  She smiled. “And I’m Beth”

  “It's hard to believe that next year you’ll qualify for membership in AARP, Beth, but it's even harder to believe you'd add years on without having a good reason for it. Maybe you do?" he asked lightly.

  As she shook her head, he spread blunt-fingered hands wide to indicate his unwilling acceptance. "I took the AARP plunge five years ago. It's not so bad. The discounts are almost worth senior citizenship." He laughed at her grimace. "The important thing is to keep moving."

  She regarded him over her tented hands. "Moving? How do you mean?"

  "Well, take you, for example. For most women in your position, familiarity breeds content. But you chose to move on, in the literal as well as figurative sense... that's how it seems to me, anyway," he added, as if suddenly aware of perhaps overstepping the bounds of their brief acquaintanceship.

  "My daughter tells me I'm trying to escape respon
sibility," Beth said with a rueful smile. "Dana may be right. I've no plans; I don't even know where I'll go when our...my house sells—assuming it ever will, given this market."

  Karim leaned forward. His hazel eyes seemed suddenly darker; the grooves extending from nostrils to mouth deepened. "You shouldn’t allow your children to define you."

  Beth's eyes flicked down. She focused her attention on the fruit in her drink, mashing oranges and cherries into coral pulp. Sensing her discomfort, Karim beckoned for the waitress, and the ritual of ordering—Beth chose sweetbreads, Karim the sea scallops en brochette—soon eased the awkward moment by.

  "I'm sure your house will sell, Beth. It's way beyond my price range, as the agent knew before she brought me, but it seems fairly priced for the kind of place it is. I'm just sorry I wasted your time."

  "Oh, but you didn't! You had the good sense not to waste yours—at least, you tried not to. I usually leave when realtors bring clients to see the house—it's easier for all concerned—and that day I was overdue for my stint at the hospice. If you hadn't had jumper cables in your car..."

  "Glad to be of service."

  "My knight in tweed armor." Beth’s grateful eyes met his."Have you and your wife found anything that suits you yet?"

  "My wife and I have separated." He paused, frowning. "I've rented a condo apartment in Hemlock Woods. It's close to the college, and since my life is a bit unsettled just now, I decided to delay further house hunting until I'm more familiar with the lay of the land here."

  Separated. Not knowing quite how to deal with that bit of information, or even whether it was worth trying, Beth abandoned the effort and retreated to safer ground.

  "A good friend of mine lives at Hemlock Woods—she says the maintenance services are terrific, and she's not easily satisfied. Georgina heads up development projects at the college...maybe you know her?"

  Karim's dark eyebrows shot up."Georgina DeLuca? She's a good friend of yours?"

  Beth laughed."I know. No one can make sense of it; we don't even understand it ourselves. We worked together some years ago on a fund-raising drive for the Eastbury Library, and we've been friends ever since."