Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02

by Witchlight (v2. 1)

  "Gee, thanks," Winter said mockingly. "And it isn't even mine."

  "You're stealing cars these days?" Ramsey shot back, never missing a beat.

  Ramsey's office bore a faint kinship with the place in Poughkeepsie that Winter had leased her car from: automotive calendars on the walls and clusters of tagged keys everywhere. Ramsey gestured, indicating she should sit where she liked, and Winter passed up the couch beneath the window in favor of one of the verging-on-antique chairs opposite the battered metal desk.

  "Soda?" Ramsey said. Winter nodded, and he went over to a small refrigerator. "Coke all right?"

  "Great." She'd never been one for sweets before—let alone soft drinks—but ever since these things had started happening, she couldn't keep away from the stuff. She'd developed a particular fondness for Classic Coke.

  Carbonated glucose in a can. I don't even want to know what's in it, but knowing that plumbers soak fittings in it to get the rust off is enough for me. Despite her flip and mordant thoughts, Winter popped the top on the deposit can and poured the paper cup full. She drank, and let the sugar rush flush the weariness from her body for a while.

  While Ramsey was getting his own drink, Winter took a surreptitious look around. The bright spring sunlight beat down on the cars outside in the lot, making the place look about as good as it ever would. Turning across four lanes of traffic she hadn't had much of a chance to look over Ramsey's place of business as she came in, but now Winter could see that none of the cars parked out there—with the exception of her leased Saturn—was less than five or six years old; almost obsolete by the standards of the market, and certainly not prime-quality preowned automotive goods.

  It was true that the lot was clean and well kept—as were the cars— and the fluttering pennants and the gaudy sign lent a certain liveliness to the place, but with her finely honed predator's instincts, Winter was willing to bet that business at Miller's Used Cars was not so hot.

  A used-car lot. Who would have thought it?

  "So," Ramsey said, sitting down on the side of the desk, club soda in hand. "How've you been? As for me, I am as you see me."

  "Pretty good, all things considered," Winter said, fencing cautiously. She might be willing to tell him about her inconvenient lapses of memory later, but at the moment, she wanted to feel her way into the conversation—and find out what had made Ramsey so cagey when she spoke to him on the phone.

  "I went into Wall Street," Winter admitted, expanding on her story. "I did a whole Bonfire of the Vanities thing. I survived the eighties. Now I'm . . . taking some time out," she finished lamely.

  "Don't worry about it; you'll get another job," Ramsey said with dismaying instinct. "Especially with your looks. You don't look a day older, you know."

  "Neither do you." If it was stretching the truth, the truth wasn't being stretched too far. And she liked Ramsey. She always had. Even if he did automatically assume she'd been fired. "So, what are you doing these days?" she asked. It was a pallid conversational gambit, but at the moment Winter was more interested in normalcy than drama.

  Ramsey nattered on about trivia, and Winter let the sound of his voice, his look, his gestures, carry her back to their shared days at Taghkanic. The tissue of evoked memory was too fragile to bear much weight, but even without being able to recall specific details, Winter could sense the time they'd spent together; the emotions they'd all felt for each other—all five of them.

  But if that's true, why didn't the others stay together, even if I left? What happened to all of them?

  More mysteries.

  "—so after Ellie left, I got this place, and, I don't know, I think it's worked out pretty well," Ramsey was saying. "Who can ever be sure how their life is going to turn out at eighteen or twenty?"

  "Ellie?" Truth was roused to a sense of her social responsibilities. "I never even asked—is there a Mrs. Miller? I don't want to come barging into your life like an old girlfriend." Which she'd never been—she and Ramsey had been that rarest of all male/female pairings: friends and nothing more.

  Ramsey laughed ruefully. "Mrs. Millers? Several, but none of them wants to know me any more. I'm divorced, Winter—I just took it for granted that you knew, but of course there's no way you could. Number Three just left about a month ago—that was Laura. Ellie was Number Two, and Marina was the first one, back in 'eighty-three."

  "Just out of college," Winter said. They'd all been Class of '82; Ramsey had graduated even if she hadn't. What had he gone on to do? She could almost remember. . . .

  "I was working at the Chicago Daily Sentinel then, back in the good old days when I was going to have matched Pulitzers for my mantelpiece. But you don't want to hear about that." His tone was definite, and now Winter remembered clearly. Ramsey had been a journalism major; he'd been the one who was going to find the truth and change the world. "How long are you staying?" he added.

  "What?" The question startled Winter out of her reverie; for a moment the world around her became hyperreal; from the slanting bars of sunlight across the dusty goldenrod rug to the dents and scratches in the old metal desk. Ramsey's office. The office of a used-car salesman, a stage-set in some horrible alternate reality to the future he should have had.

  "Staying," Ramsey repeated patiently, "in Dayton. I admit it's not the garden spot of the universe, but its a nice little town; a person could do worse. Look, it's pretty dead here on the lot; I usually stick around until nine or so, but people don't buy used cars in the spring, and if anyone decides to buck the statistics, Mike can have the commission. Why don't you come on back to the house? You can have your pick of the bedrooms, although I admit they don't all still have beds in them."

  When Winter reached Ramsey's house, carefully tailing his blue Subaru out into the Dayton suburbs, she found out he'd said nothing more than the truth.

  Ramsey Miller lived in a development of the sort that realtors liked to call "better homes." The houses were good-sized, and some care had been taken by the architect and the landscaper to give each one a little individuality. Ramsey signaled and turned into the driveway, the automatic garage-door opener in his car raising the door of his attached two-car garage as he did. He pulled in on the left side with the ease of long practice. Winter pulled her car up beside his.

  "All the comforts of darkest suburbia," Ramsey said with slightly forced cheer. There had been a blue-and-white realtor's For Sale sign stuck into the lawn, and the sense of failure, of abandonment, was strong.

  "Ramsey, if this isn't a good time . . ." Winter said doubtfully.

  He met her gaze directly, with the honesty that had always made him a good friend. "It's just as good a time as any other, Winter. Believe me. It wasn't a noisy divorce, and it's over. Laura has the kids and the bank accounts and she's moved back in with her family in Cleveland for a while. I've got the house—at least until it sells—and it's probably not going to sell in the next week, alas. You're welcome to stay here."

  He pointed the control wand at the garage door and the door descended, shutting them into darkness once more. Moving through the dark with the ease of long habit, Ramsey made his way over to the wall and flipped a switch. The overhead light went on, throwing the walls and accumulated domestic debris into sharp relief. Winter could see the pale shadows on the walls where bicycles had hung.

  Ramsey opened the kitchen door. "Come on. I'll give you the fifty-cent tour oiCbez Miller."

  The garage entrance led into a spacious yellow-and-white kitchen several steps up the social scale from Janelle's. It seemed oddly empty, and after a moment Winter realized why: The normal kitchen-counter clutter, from canisters on the counter to microwave, was absent.

  "This," said Ramsey unnecessarily, "is the kitchen. I'll show you over the rest of the house and then we can decide what to do about dinner."

  When Laura Miller had taken the kids and gone to Cleveland, Winter discovered a few minutes later, she'd also taken practically everything that wasn't nailed down. The four-bedroom ranch ho
use was nearly empty—the dining room was bare, the living room held only a few pieces of furniture, and what—judging from the wallpaper—had been the kids' bedrooms were empty to the walls. Winter was only surprised that the woman hadn't taken the wallpaper, too.

  "She seems to have been very thorough," Winter commented in what she hoped were neutral tones.

  "Laura always was efficient," Ramsey said with a trace of pride. "I came home and the place was like this; she got the movers in while I was at work. Called me from Cleveland and let me know she was leaving me."

  "Didn't you mind?" Winter asked disbelievingly. If anyone had done something equivalent to her, she would have hunted them down with a scalping knife, not recounted their exploits with this sort of fond proprietary delight.

  "I guess I wasn't surprised; she put up with a lot before she called it quits. And it wasn't the first time I've been left. She played fair, though—left me the bedroom set and some of the living room furniture, and there's a fold-out couch in the guest room you can use. It was her office—Laura was a CPA; she kept up her business after we got married."

  The former office was a small room about ten by twelve with a window that overlooked the house next door. It contained no furniture except the couch, and Winter wondered why that item had been spared. There was a couch in the living room, too. Perhaps the former Mrs. Miller didn't like couches?

  But it would be a place to stay, at least for the night. And she wanted the chance to spend more time with Ramsey than she could over a piece of pie in some very public diner.

  "It looks fine. If you're sure I'm not putting you out . . ." Winter said in a last token protest.

  "How could you ever do that?" Ramsey said fondly. "One for all and all for one, remember?"

  "Whoever is my brother or sister in the Art, let them be my brother or sister in all things." Winter shook her head, trying to dislodge the intrusive voice. "Were you Sealed to the Circle?" she remembered Truth saying. She and Ramsey had shared stronger bonds than blood or love once, so she was told.

  "Okay," Winter said, capitulating gracefully. "You've sold me. Now, what about dinner?"

  Either Laura Miller had taken all of the food with her, too—an idea Winter was not prepared to rule out—or Ramsey was no different than any other bachelor. Both the cupboards and the refrigerator were nearly bare. Ramsey volunteered that there was a supermarket not far from the house, and Winter proposed an expedition to it. Like most busy professionals— male or female, single or married—she wasn't much of a cook, but she could make an omelette and a salad providing she had the ingredients.

  The grocery store seemed immense by East Coast standards—vast and gleaming and containing every item known to modern man, from potted plants to motor oil. In Ohio something called a "package store"—a liquor store—was attached to the supermarket, and Winter picked out several bottles of wine. White for tonight, red for some future meal. Maybe spaghetti; that was supposed to be easy, and maybe Ramsey was a better cook than she was. Winter filled the cart with whatever caught her fancy as she and Ramsey chatted, but some part of her knew the real talking would come later.

  The Blackburn Work. Venus Afflicted was still in her suitcase, that biography of the magician whose "work" Truth said the five of them had repeated up at Nuclear Lake. What connection did their adolescent dabblings in whatever it had been have with what was happening to the members of the group today? She needed to talk to Ramsey . . . about that and so many other things.

  By the time they got back to the house and had put their purchases away, the sky was growing dark and there were cars in the other driveways along the street. Winter opened one of the bottles of wine while Ramsey washed and diced ingredients for the omelette.

  "But what about you?" Ramsey said, after a while. "It looks like I've been doing all the talking—you know about my wives, my kids, my gambling debts. . . ."

  "Gambling debts!" Winter tried and failed to keep the shock out of her voice. What can there possibly be to bet on in Ohio?

  "Oh, yes." Ramsey's voice was without regret. "I was quite the lad. In fact, when the house finally sells the money's going to be split between Household Finance and Laura; after I settle my debts there isn't going to be a lot left. No thanks," he said, as Winter offered him a glass of white wine. "I'm on the wagon these days." He sighed. "After Marina left and I lost my job—in no particular order, those two—I just felt numb. Placing a bet was a way of feeling something, and I told myself that at least I wasn't sniffing coke. Only they had to be big bets, and you could write the rest of this story in your sleep. So there's my dark secret; what's yours?"

  "I had a nervous breakdown," Winter said quickly before she could censor herself. "Only I'm not really sure that's what it was. And . . . I'm trying to find out. That's all." She sipped her wine.

  "That's the short version, anyway," Ramsey said. "But—other than that—are you okay? How are you fixed for cash? I don't have much, but a few thousand won't make any difference one way or the other."

  "No, I'm fine," Winter said quickly. And to think I expected him to hit ME up for money. "At least I'm fine that way." For now.

  Ramsey laughed sympathetically. "'Partially fine, says former Wall street broker,'" he quipped. "Well, it'll do. But let's move on to the big questions of life—do you still like onions?"

  Now that her biggest secret was out in the open Winter felt more at ease. Ramsey was happy to talk about old times—he'd been Grey's roommate at Taghkanic, something she'd forgotten.

  "Everybody's an eccentric in college, but I've never met anyone like Grey—then or since," Ramsey said, waving a fluffy forkful of omelette. The built-in breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen was one of the few parts of the house that had escaped unscathed, and when the food was ready, Winter and Ramsey had taken their plates and the bottle of wine there to eat.

  "He really didn't care what other people thought of him, so long as he had a good opinion of himself. Oh, not arrogant, not exactly . . ." Ramsey said musingly.

  But he had a tongue like a whip and leu tolerance for human stupidity than anyone I ever knew, Winter finished silently. The one thing Grey had never understood was that people weren't being stupid on purpose—he'd really thought they could change if they were motivated enough. And Lord knew he'd done his best to motivate them. "There never was anyone like Grey," she agreed aloud.

  "Which is probably a good thing when you come to think about it," Ramsey said solemnly, "because Grey didn't exactly lend himself to the quiet life. But you'd know that best."

  / wish I did. "Do you keep in touch with him?" Winter asked with sudden hope.

  "Don't you?" Ramsey sounded surprised.

  She shook her head, surprised at the strength of her disappointment. "I was hoping you did."

  Ramsey shook his head. "For a couple of years, yes, but you know how Grey was—detail-oriented wasn't his style. I'm surprised you two didn't . . ."

  "Well, things never work out the way we expect," Winter said hastily. Why did everyone who remembered Hunter Greyson seem so surprised that the two of them weren't still together? "Who would have expected me to wind up on Wall Street?"

  "Considering your family and all, I'll admit I'm amazed," Ramsey said. He emptied the seltzer from his glass and filled it with wine from the half-empty bottle. Winter said nothing. "But by the time you figure out what you want in life, you've usually pretty well arranged things so you can't get it."

  It was so close to what Janelle had said that Winter was startled at the echo. She regarded Ramsey narrowly. "Are you saying we're all doomed to be failures?" Winter asked evenly.

  Ramsey glanced up at her and grinned engagingly. "Comforting if true, don't you think? But as a matter of fact, I'm not." He lifted his wineglass toward the light, studying it intently while the planes of his young-old face fell into somber lines.

  "The way I see it," Ramsey said, "—and this is the fruit of many hours of philosophical deliberation as the Steelers and the Buckeyes
ran off with my money—is that sooner or later we all turn into our parents. Well, I ask you: Who else did we spend all our time watching when we were kids? We live our parents' lives—I am, anyway."

  "But doesn't everyone become their parents? You make it sound awfully grim. As if it's some kind of trap." Something stirred beneath the surface of her memories. Winter pushed it away.

  "It is," Ramsey said seriously. "Because we don't become the best of our parents. We become them at their worst, and there's only a small window of opportunity for escape—to become someone else, someone unique. Anything you do in that golden time sets the patterns you'll live out for the rest of your life. Everyone gets a chance at it—back when we're all too young to understand what we're getting—but of all of us, Jannie and Cassilda and me, I always thought that only you and Grey really made it out. Well, you know what Morrison used to say: 'No one here gets out alive.'"

  But I didn't get away, Ramsey, and Jim Morrison's dead. And I'm still trapped, and I don't know how to get free.

  There were more questions to ask, but Winter didn't quite have the heart for them tonight. She helped Ramsey wash up after dinner, but after that she pleaded tiredness caused by the long drive.

  A short time later Winter was sitting alone in the guest room, a last glass of wine in her hand, staring down at the gaudy cover of Venus Afflicted. She could hear the sound of the living room television faintly through the door.

  Everybody grows up, Winter told herself sternly. There's no tragedy in becoming an adult.

  But there was tragedy in a wasted life—and Ramsey's life was a waste, Winter told herself with clinical detachment. It was on a—what was that buzzword?—on a downward economic spiral. That used-car lot could never have paid for this house; gambling debts aside, Ramsey must have been making more money once—money enough to afford everything that Laura Miller had taken with her, and this house as well.

  . . . And all who sail in her, Winter thought, raising her glass in a faintly tiddly salute. Laura-the-wife, and the children now in Cleveland. It didn't sound as if Ramsey was going to even try to sue for visitation or joint custody. What had he said at dinner? Something about a golden time, a window of opportunity when you had the chance to set the pattern of your life, where to fail was like a bad hand of solitaire that you would play out forever.