For All of Her Life

by Heather Graham

  His children would have been basket weavers.

  But there was a lot that was good about Judy, too. She was striking. She always had been. Always would be. Her features were elegant. All of that energy of hers, which she’d never had to put into a job or family, had been given over to the perfection of her skin. She’d never needed to work out, but she loved tennis and ate only organic food. She and California had been made for one another.

  And it had been the best place in the world for a man to find work writing advertising jingles.

  Derrick grabbed his towel and mopped the sweat from his face, stepping from his treadmill to walk over to the bay window area of their bedroom where Judy was sitting in her chair, sipping iced tea as she leafed through magazines. She looked up at him. “You are dripping ickily upon me.”

  “Ickily?”

  “Okay, you’re gross.”

  “I’m no more than a few pounds overweight.”

  She grinned. Lifted a hand. Waved it in the air.

  “You need a shower.”

  “I know. How about a sip of your tea first.”

  She sighed. Offered it to him. He swallowed it down. It was tart and strange. Bitter.

  “Yuck. There’s no sugar in it.”

  “You don’t need sugar.”

  “No, it’s fat you don’t need.”

  “Derrick, if you’ve just been on a treadmill for an hour, you don’t need fat or sugar. Trust me. And that tea is organic Oolong. It’s delicious. Give it back if you don’t like it.”

  “I’m too thirsty.”

  She shook her head, watching him. “You’re like a little kid, all excited about going back.”

  “Darned right. I’ll get to play again.”

  “You play the piano every day of your life.”

  “I write stupid lyrics and bubble-gum music. In Florida, I’ll get to play.”

  Judy shook her head, looking back to her magazine. “You guys will probably stink.”

  “Thanks, Jude.”

  “I just look at things—”

  “Realistically. I know.”

  She shrugged, then patted his hand, smiling up at him.

  That was another of Judy’s good qualities. She loved him. She wasn’t a bowlful of optimism or encouragement, but she loved him for what she saw him to be.

  He bent down and kissed her forehead despite the face she made at him. “Go take a shower!” she commanded.

  “Yep,” he said, turning and starting for the bath in their room. “And I am excited about going back! Aren’t you?”

  Judy set down her magazine. The bathroom door had already closed. He hadn’t really been expecting an answer.

  She looked outside and a shiver streaked down her spine. “Oh, yeah,” she said softly. “I’m exacted. I’m just so damned fucking excited I’m about to pee in my pants!”

  Jordan stood by the window in his room, looking out at the guest house.

  Eerie.

  It could have been another time; the new structure was so similar to the old.

  He heard her come to his room. Heard her slip through the doorway, come up behind him. Run a finger down his back. “Hey, old man!” she whispered softly. “I’ve got to leave soon.”

  “I know.”

  She leaned against him. He was still wearing cut-offs from the pool. The coolness of her face felt good against his skin.

  She slipped a hand inside the waistband of his cut-offs. “Want to fool around?”

  He wasn’t sure what his answer might have been except that her touch was darned persuasive. He turned, taking her into her arms, wondering if he was getting old, or worse, if he was losing his mind, becoming obsessed with the past, with his past...

  With a woman who had left him as if she were running from something evil, slamming an iron gate behind her.

  He told himself that Tara was perfection. That she was what every man wanted. Warm, giving. Sleek, curved, slim, musky, enticing. She all but purred. Her breath was hot mint, her fingers were nimble, she moved like a cat. Her heart thundered as their lips met, as they groped one another by the window. Her excitement was instantaneous, contagious. She knew how to arouse, how to tease. She gave back all she demanded.

  Her lips parted from his, her voice breathy as she spoke while he tore away the strings of her bikini.

  “Jordan... the floor... the floor.”

  “The bed.”

  “The floor. Here, now.”

  “The bed.” As passionate as she could make him feel, he felt like laughing. “My back can’t take the floor.”

  She was agreeable. Yet as she drew him down, he seemed to suddenly withdraw into himself.

  Her room. They’d always made love in her room. Or... elsewhere. Never in here. This had really become his private sanctuary. It held too much of the past. He could remember bringing the girls home as babies. They’d lain on the bed between him and Kathy while he and she marveled at the perfection they’d created.

  Tara crawled over him. Lips and hands touching, stroking. He responded. Held her. Touched her. Heard her excited little cries...

  She had a great body. Stomach flat, perfectly smooth. Kathy had two tiny little white lines that stretched from her pubis upward toward her belly button. They hadn’t distressed her terribly. She’d acquired one with each child. She’d teased him, saying that if they ever did decide they wanted more than the two children they’d agreed upon, they’d have to procreate in even numbers since she wanted even stretch marks. He’d told her he liked the slight imperfections of those marks, they were special, they were unique...

  They were. He’d always liked her body. A little bit heavier, a bit thinner. She was long, with just the right curves. Nice breasts, not too big, not miniscule. Nipples a dusky rose shade, darkened just a little after the kids. Her body had been a part of her. Like her face. The way the amber tints in her eyes could change. The way she could smile. The million ways she could laugh, whisper...

  Too bad she hadn’t decently decayed with time, he thought. Gained a hundred pounds, grown warts on her nose, turned to stone. Or married one of her writers, a publishing mogul...

  Her young Muscleman. With whom she was sleeping even now?

  Tara was good. Damned good.

  And despite it, he felt something within—and without—withering away.

  He pulled away from her suddenly, maybe just a little bit embarrassed.

  “Jordan?” she asked softly.

  Back to life, old man! he admonished himself. You can’t bring back the past! His wife had left him, he hadn’t left his wife.

  Maybe he could bring her back here, but it remained true that he couldn’t bring back the past. Their past.

  He looked out the window again. Twilight was falling. Nighttime. Darkness to wash away the reminders. Ten years had gone by. He’d kept on living. Hell, he’d lived well and heartily, many a day.

  And life would go on still, after the reunion, he reminded himself bleakly.

  But not here, not tonight. Too many ghosts were haunting this bed.

  He stood up, forgot that he would wreck his back, and swept Tara off the bed. Her brows shot up, her lips curled into a smile.

  “Yeah? Where are we going?”

  “I like your room better.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. With the scent of your perfume all around...”

  “Mmm...” she murmured, curling naked and sinuous, against him.

  Yet later he’d showered industriously, trying to rid himself of her scent. And when he’d said good-bye and she had left to fly away, he’d been glad to go back to his solitary vigil once again, staring out at the night.

  At the guest house.

  The back looked just exactly the same. Maybe, just maybe, he could bring the past back to life.

  Miles Reeves sat in the darkness of his back porch. Just this spring Megan had convinced him to screen it in for the coming summer. At the time, he had thought she was crazy. Boston—all of Massachusetts a
nd all of the Northeast, for that matter—had just endured one of the most brutal winters on record. But Megan had been right; summer was proving to be hot as all blazes, and at this time of night, or morning as it might be, the porch was beautiful.

  He picked up his flute, absently, lovingly, running his fingers over the instrument. Funny to think back. Not that he didn’t think about Blue Heron often enough. They all thought about Blue Heron because radio and video stations played their old music regularly. But he’d gotten used to that. He could even listen and think with pride that they’d been good, damned good. They would endure. Years from now, radio and video stations would still be playing Blue Heron music, other groups would copy them, learn from them.

  Well, once around again for Blue Heron. It seemed a good idea. With or without Keith’s death, Miles thought, the group would have split. Keith, dead or alive, was or would have been the cause. But now they were going back.

  He broodingly looked up from his flute. Though he sat in the darkness, the street lights from his busy Boston suburb filtered in enough light to create some vision, some shadow. The hutch at the far wall of the porch held a large mirror, and he could see himself as he sat in his wicker rocker, next to the wicker table on which he had rested his flute, where his fingers still played idly over his favorite instrument. He hadn’t changed. In the darkness, he might have been the same man. Medium height, medium build. Freckled face, hazel eyes, headful of red hair. By the light of day, there was some gray interwoven with the red, but now, in this sweet, dim shadow, he looked just the same as he had the day he had met Jordan, Keith, and Kathy; the day they had graduated from Juilliard, the day they had finally hit the charts with their first Blue Heron single.

  He smiled suddenly. He didn’t miss the notoriety of the band. He and Kathy had always been the shyest, okay on stage, moving to the background when fans came too close or the media converged. What a strange group they’d been. He and Kathy the peacemakers, Jordan the undisputed leader, Keith the undisputed genius. Shelley always ready to tear into anyone over Keith, Judy the one with the complaints. Derrick obedient to his wife, Larry impatient with them all.

  And all of them with their secrets. Strange little secrets. Like dominos, one secret bared and the whole row begins to topple.

  He didn’t miss the wild applause in a concert hall. He liked what he did now, loved it, in fact. He was with a small group of players calling themselves The Molly Maguires, and they worked well and frequently in Boston and the surrounding areas. They had a set gig at Tim O’Malley’s Fine Dining and Pub from Thursdays to Sundays, but they were also able to play special performances elsewhere because O’Malley—who really did own his “fine dining and pub”—was willing to give newcomers a chance to fill in for The Molly Maguires.

  Miles was also going to be able to leave for Florida because The Molly Maguires was a group of six and they could all fill in for one another when the occasion arose.

  And oddly enough, as much as he dreaded it, he was anxious to go back. He wanted to play with Jordan again. Miles’s mother being Brenda O’Casey of the O’Caseys of Cork, he did love his Irish music. But with Jordan, he could play anything. They were the two who had always loved the flute and guitar above all else, the two who had most enjoyed adding elements of Gaelic, classical, folk, and other musical forms to their rock. He did miss playing with Jordan. Missed talking with him and Kathy. Missed... Shelley.

  How strange. He had been in love with Shelley all of his life. She hadn’t been in love with him. Or maybe she had, just a little bit, at the end. It hadn’t mattered. She had always been his best friend. Strange, though, once they’d left Blue Heron for the last time, they’d never seen one another again. Never called.

  Because there were just too many damned secrets among those who had been in Blue Heron. And one knew just who knew whose secrets...

  He looked out into the shadows of his tree-lined yard and closed his eyes. He should go in to bed. If Megan woke, she would worry. He didn’t want that. Megan played with The Molly Maguires as well. She was a flutist, and had a beautiful, soft, pure soprano. Perfect for their work. He’d lived with her for a little more than five years now. He cared for her a great deal; she was one of the nicest, sweetest, most compassionate women he had ever known. She had just turned forty last May, and though she never said a word to him, he knew that she wanted marriage and a chance at a family before it became too late even with today’s reproductive capabilities. He wanted to fall in love with her, wanted to marry her, wanted to make her happy.

  But always held back.

  Because of the secrets that still haunted Blue Heron? Because of Shelley?

  He didn’t know. Life could seem so insane. People lost people, people went on. As they all had. He loved Megan.

  Jordan had acquired a succession of lovers.

  Shelley had always had a succession of lovers.

  He had Megan, and Kathy, well... Kathy had always been quiet and discreet, the best keeper of secrets.

  Was Jordan pulling Blue Heron back together again to attempt to retrieve his lost wife? If rumor had it right, he was involved with a glamorous young model/actress, more model than actress, but then Clint Eastwood hadn’t started off an Olivier.

  Jordan was an unusual man. His thoughts—feelings, ideas, emotions, music—were passionate and deep. Maybe he was still in love with Kathy. Just as Miles had been in love with a distant ghost, Shelley Thompson, all these years.

  What did it matter? They were going back. Miles, too. He couldn’t have refused if he’d wanted to. He felt like a lead slug being pulled by a magnet.

  Maybe he wanted a life when it was over. Maybe he wanted to exorcise Shelley, marry Megan.

  Yet...

  What if all the secrets were to come out?

  One thing was certain.

  Once again there would be an explosion.

  And they would, each man and woman, survive.

  Or they would burn.

  Eight

  PACKING TO GO TO Star Island was strange.

  Even getting on the plane Friday night was a bit rough. Though she wasn’t afraid of flying, Kathy found herself gripping her seat from the second she sat down.

  Her mother wasn’t coming down until Sunday or Monday, the girls had gone ahead to Florida on Wednesday night. Alex, though still in college, made her summer income by independent means. She’d never hesitated in attempting to sell her photographs to newspapers and magazines, and she already had a few major credits behind her. She was a lot like her father in that. Jordan had always known what he wanted and had gone straight for it. Bren wasn’t quite as assertive or as certain about her future, but she had talked about taking a summer job. Kathy assumed that meant the others had known about this reunion a long time ago.

  “You are tense!” Jeremy told her. He seemed as happy as could be. He loved the size of the seat, and the fact that he’d been plied with champagne since they’d boarded the plane. Jordan had sent them two first-class round-trip tickets despite her assurance that she’d come on her own. It was a business expense, he had told her, all wrapped up in the benefit performance.

  Though Jeremy was relaxed, as the flight came closer to Miami, Kathy’s apprehension grew. This was a mistake. She had flown away nearly a decade ago. She had lived with her decision, hadn’t ever tried to come back, because she hadn’t dared take a closer look at what she had done.

  She was flying straight into ten days of torture which would be sure to leave her miserable for the rest of her life.

  Dinner came and went. She felt fingers curl over hers on the plush chair and she turned to Jeremy. His eyes were warm, concerned. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Is it?”

  “I promise.”

  “I’m crazy. No woman in her right mind would do this.”

  “In my opinion, no woman in her right mind would work the hours you do, so we’re certainly agreed you’re halfway crazy at least.”

  She tried to smile.
The champagne should have helped, but she still felt frozen. As if she couldn’t talk or smile, move her head to the right or the left.

  The plane landed. She had forgotten how much she hated Miami International Airport. And it had gotten worse. On a Friday night, the place was a mad pool of people speaking various languages, bustling about, rudely brushing by one another, all in a hurry. Still, she had barely stepped from the plane and into the Friday-night melee when a handsome young man stepped up to her. “Kathy? Er... Ms. Connoly?”

  She knew him... and didn’t know him. She paused, half-smiling, staring at him. “Angel!” she gasped suddenly. She dropped her overnight case on the floor with surprise, hugging the man who smiled broadly, hugging her back with enthusiasm. Finally she pulled back, studying the boy. He had been twelve years old when she had seen him last. All dark eyes and floppy black hair. Now he was tall, lean, trim, and exceedingly handsome, with a very Latin flair despite his mother’s English background.

  “Ms. Connoly, it’s great to have you back,” Angel said.

  “Thank you. It’s wonderful to see you. My God, you’ve grown!”

  “Well, I should hope so, Ms. Connoly,” he said, flushing slightly.

  “Angel, you always called me Kathy. Please don’t stop now. And, of course, you’ve grown. I’m sorry, I—Jeremy, Angel Garcia. His folks run the Star Island estate. Angel, Jeremy Hunt, a very good friend.”

  The two shook hands. Angel reached for Kathy’s overnight bag. “Jordan had planned on coming to the airport himself, but there’s been a sudden surge in the press interest in all of this, and he’s trying to keep a low profile until the benefit. You know, he wants to keep his daughter’s birthday party as private as possible, and naturally he doesn’t want the media around while you all practice for the performance.”

  “Ummm. He didn’t leave much practice time, did he?” Kathy queried. “Think the media should hear us even when they’re supposed to?”

  Angel laughed. “I think you’ll all be great. It will be like riding a bicycle. One jam session together and you’ll be in perfect harmony.”