by Janet Dailey
Those who worked in Gino’s drugstore pharmacy were always related to him in some way, Sabrina had learned over the years. But she knew the information had been offered to gently apologize for the woman not knowing Sabrina was blind.
‘She has a very nice voice. I’m sure she’ll soon learn,’ she replied.
‘What is it that you need this day? Name it and I will get it for you.’
‘Some shampoo.’ Sabrina gave him the brand name she wanted.
While he went to get it, she carefully felt through the paper money in her wallet, marked by a certain fold to distinguish the denominations, for the amount she owed him.
As he was ringing up the sale on his old cash register, Gino Marchetti said, ‘I still have the picture you painted of me hanging on this wall. People come in all the time and say, ‘That looks just like you’ and I say, ‘Of course, it is me.’ I tell them that the girl who painted it has come to my store since she was a little thing and that you painted it from memory and gave it to me on the anniversary of my twenty-fifth year in business. Everyone thinks it is a very fine gift to have.’
‘I’m glad you like it, Gino,’ Sabrina smiled wanly.
She remembered vividly how proud he had been that day she had presented the portrait to him nearly two years ago. It was that ever-present aura of pride that she had tried to capture in his likeness. It was a loving, generous pride and she had been relatively satisfied with the result. Now she would never know that sense of creative accomplishment again.
‘Sabrina, I didn’t mean — ’
She heard the hint of regret and self-reproach in the elderly Italian’s voice and guessed that some of her sadness had tugged down the corners of her mouth. She determinedly curved it upward again and interrupted him.
‘It was really a very small gift, Gino,’ deliberately misinterpreting the statement of apology he had been about to make. ‘The painting was just a small way of saying thank you for all those peppermint sticks you gave me.’
The sensation of being watched tingled down her neck. Sabrina wasn’t surprised when Bay Cameron spoke. Her sensitive radar seemed to be tuned to his presence.
‘You did this painting?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes.’ She snipped off the end of the affirmation.
‘It is very good, isn’t it?’ Gino prompted. ‘I sold Sabrina her very first crayons. Then it was watercolors, then colored chalk. In my small way I helped her to become an artist, and she gave me this portrait as a present. She always comes to my store once, sometimes twice a week. That is, until her accident,’ his voice became sad. ‘Now she doesn’t come as often.’ Sabrina moved uneasily and Gino’s mood immediately changed to a gayer note. ‘Last week I saw her walk by my store and I wonder to myself where she is going. Then I see her walk into the barbershop next door and I say to myself ‘Oh no, she is going to have that beautiful crown of hair on top of her head cut off, but she had only walked into the wrong store. She was coming to see me.’
’do you know the very first time I saw her and that little knot of silky brown hair on top of her head, it reminded me of a crown, too.’ There was a caressive quality to Bay Cameron’s softly musing voice. Sabrina felt the rise of pink in her cheeks.
‘I’ve taken up enough of your time, Gino,’ she said hastily. ‘I know you have work to do and other customers waiting. I’ll see you next week.’
‘Be sure it is next week, Sabrina.’
‘I will. Ciao, Gino.’ She turned quickly, aware of Bay Cameron stepping out of her way and following, although there was no guiding hand at her elbow.
‘Addio, Sabrina,’ Gino responded, not showing the least surprise that the stranger was with her.
‘The cafe is to the left,’ Bay instructed her as they walked out of the store. ‘It’s around the corner and down a short flight of stairs.’
‘I think I know which one you mean. I haven’t been there in several years,’ Sabrina said stiffly.
They walked side by side down the sidewalk to the corner. He made no attempt to guide her, letting her make her own way without any assistance.
‘That was a very good painting,’ Bay ended the silence. ’did you have training as a child?’
‘I took lessons nearly all my life.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat and replied calmly. ‘It was my career. I was relatively successful.’
‘I can believe it,’ he agreed. ‘You were good.’
‘“Were” being the operative word,’ she inserted with faint bitterness. Then she took a shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
’don’t apologize,’ he seemed to shrug. ‘It must have been a doubly cruel blow as an artist to lose your sight. There’s bound to be a feeling of injustice, otherwise you wouldn’t be human.’ There was a light touch on her arm to attract her attention. ‘The iron banister of the stairs is on your left. You can follow it to the stairwell,’ he instructed.
When her left hand encountered the railing, his own hand returned to his side. He had accepted the pain she felt at the loss of her career as a natural thing, hardly needing an explanation. There had been no empty words as others had offered that some day she would get over it. That Sabrina had never been able to believe.
At the base of the stairs, Bay reached past her to open the cafe door. A hand rested firmly on the side of her waist and remained there as a hostess showed them to a small booth.
‘Let me take your cane,’ he offered. ‘I’ll hang it on the post beside your seat so it will be out of the way.’
Sabrina handed it to him and slid into the booth, her fingers resting nervously on the table top. In the past she had avoided public eating establishments, too self-conscious to be at ease. She touched the edge of a menu and pushed it aside.
Their waitress had evidently appeared at the table because she heard Bay ask for two coffees before he addressed a question to her. ‘They make their own pastries here. They’re very good. Would you like any, Sabrina?’
‘No.’ In her nervousness she was too abrupt and she quickly added, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Would you like a cigarette?’ he offered.
‘Please.’ She accepted almost with a sigh of relief.
The waitress arrived with their coffee just as Bay placed a lit cigarette between her fingers and slid the ashtray in front of her discreetly searching hand. Sabrina drew deeply on the filter tip of the cigarette, slightly amazed that she could feel the warmth of his mouth on the cigarette.
’do you take anything in your coffee?’ Bay asked.
‘Nothing, thank you.’ Sabrina exhaled the smoke from her mouth, blowing away some of her tension at the same time.
The heat from the coffee made the cup easy to find. The fingers of one hand closed around its warmth. A silence followed, one that Sabrina was pleasantly surprised to discover as comfortable. Her first meeting with Bay Cameron had been tainted by his apparent arrogance. It still existed, proved by the very fact that he had maneuvered her into this cafe, but it had somehow been tempered by his understanding.
In spite of that disturbing argument about the white cane, he seemed to approve of her desire for independence. The assistance he had given her had been unobtrusive. That coupled with his matter-of-fact comment about her loss of career made Sabrina wonder if she shouldn’t re-assess her opinion of him. Bay Cameron seemed to be an unusual man. Sabrina wished she had met him before she lost her sight. He might have made an interesting portrait study. Then she sighed.
‘What was that for?’ he chided mockingly.
‘Wishing,’ Sabrina shrugged.
‘A common pastime?’
‘Only when I have nothing to distract me. Sometimes,’ she ran a finger around the rim of her cup, ‘I wonder when I’m alone if I wasn’t given the gift of seeing people, places and things in minute detail early in life so I could store up a treasure of beautiful scenes to remember.’
’do you believe in fate, then?’ Bay asked quietly.
‘Sometimes it seems the only explanation. D
o you?’ Sabrina countered.
‘I believe we were given certain talents and abilities. What we do with them is the mark of our own character. I can’t accept that I might not be the master of my own destiny.’ His reply was laced with self-directed humor.
‘I doubt there’s very little you’ve wanted that you haven’t obtained,’ she agreed with a faint smile.
‘Perhaps. And perhaps I’ve just been careful about what I wanted.’ The smile faded from his voice. ‘Tell me, Sabrina, how long has it been since you lost your sight?’
She was beginning to learn that Bay Cameron had a habit of coming straight to the point. Most of the people she knew or had met took special care to avoid any reference to her blindness and took pains that the conversation didn’t contain words that referred to sight.
‘Almost eight months.’ She inhaled the smoke from the cigarette, wondering why his frankness didn’t disconcert her. Maybe it was because he didn’t seem embarrassed or self-conscious about her blindness.
‘No days or hours?’ There was the impression of a brow raised mockingly in her direction.
‘I stopped trying to keep an exact count after the fourth specialist told my father and me that I would never see again.’ Sabrina tried to sound nonchalant, but there was a faint catch to her voice.
‘What happened?’
‘A car crash. It was late at night. I was driving home from Sacramento and fell asleep at the wheel. I don’t know what happened.’ Her fingers fluttered uncertainly in the air, then returned to grip the coffee cup. ‘I came to in a hospital. There weren’t any witnesses. A passing motorist saw my wrecked car in the ditch, the authorities estimate several hours after the accident.’
Sabrina waited for the supposedly bolstering comments that usually followed when she related the details of the accident, the it-could-have-been-worse and the you’re-lucky-you-weren’t-paralyzed-or-maimed sentences. But none of those trite words were spoken.
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know.’ She didn’t have the answer to that problem. She took a sip of her coffee. ‘I’ve just been taking one day at a time, learning over again how to do all the things I used to take for granted. I was so positive that I was going to have a career in art that I never studied anything else but reading, writing and arithmetic. I’m going to have to make a decision about my future pretty soon, though,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t keep being a burden for my father.’
‘I doubt if he thinks of you that way.’
‘I know he doesn’t.’ Unconsciously she put qualifying emphasis on the masculine pronoun.
Bay Cameron was much too observant to miss it. ‘But someone else does, is that it?’ he questioned. ‘Is it your father’s fiancée?’
Sabrina opened her mouth to deny it, then nodded reluctantly that he was right. ‘I don’t blame Deborah. She wants Dad to herself — ’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I do like her. As a matter of fact, I’m the one who introduced her to him. She has a small antique shop here in San Francisco. It’s just that we both know it would never work for the two of us to live in the same house. She wants me to go to some school she heard about where blind people are taught new skills, not basket-weaving or anything as humbling as that, but legitimate skills. They have a job placement program, too, when you’ve completed the term.’
‘What does your father think of the idea?’
‘I don’t believe she’s mentioned it to him yet.’ A wry smile pulled her mouth into a crooked line. ‘I think she wants to weigh me down with guilt so I’ll be in favor of it when Dad brings up the subject.’
’do you feel guilty?’ Bay asked as she carefully stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.
‘I suppose so. It’s only natural, isn’t it?’ Sabrina spread out the fingers of her hands on the table top, looking at them as if she could see them. ‘Everyone wants to think of himself as useful.’
‘And you don’t do anything that you consider useful?’
‘I take care of the house and do most of the cooking. I could hardly keep doing that after Dad and Deborah are married. After all, it would be her house then.’ She continued staring sightlessly at her long fingers. ‘I know I could learn something.’ She shook her head wearily, closing her hands around the coffee cup again. ‘I’m still filled with too much pride, too much self-importance. My hands have always held an artist’s brush. I guess it’s just a case of not wanting to let go of that. Which is probably why I keep putting off the day when they’ll have to do something else.’
‘What does your boyfriend say to all this?’
‘Boyfriend? I haven’t got a boyfriend. A lot of men who are friends, but no boyfriends,’ Sabrina denied firmly.
‘You’re a very attractive girl. I find it hard to believe that you didn’t have a romantic attachment for someone,’ Bay commented in a doubting voice.
‘I always had my career,’ she shrugged. ‘I dated, quite often, as a matter of fact. I simply steered clear of any romantic involvement. Love and marriage were always something that would come somewhere in the future. I’m glad now that I did,’ she added frankly. ‘How many men would want to be saddled with a blind wife?’
‘Isn’t that a somewhat cynical view of the male sex?’ he chuckled.
‘Not really,’ she smiled. ‘It’s not even a cynical view of love. It’s just realistic. Being blind tends to make other people awkward and self-conscious. They’re always trying to be so careful that they don’t hurt your feelings by pointing out that there are some things blind people simply can’t participate in, and that makes an uncomfortable relationship.’
‘That’s funny,’ he mused mockingly. ‘I don’t feel the least bit uncomfortable, awkward or self-conscious, and I’m sitting here with you.’
For a moment, Sabrina was flustered by his observation. Mostly because it was true. There were no undercurrents of tension flowing around her.
‘Actually I wasn’t thinking about you,’ she admitted. ‘I was referring to some of my other friends, male and female. They all still keep in touch, the ones that count. They call or stop by to see me or invite me out, but it’s not quite the same. With some of them our common link was art, so I understand why they don’t like to bring up that subject in front of me. The others — there’s just a vague uneasiness on both sides. With you,’ Sabrina tilted her head to a curious angle, ‘I don’t really understand. I’m talking to you about things you couldn’t possibly be interested in and I don’t know why. Are you some kind of amateur psychiatrist?’ A little frown of bewildered amusement puckered her brows.
‘No.’ Sabrina sensed his smile. ‘And I wasn’t at all bored. I imagine all of this has been building up inside you for some time. It’s always easier to talk to strangers who don’t have preconceived opinions. I happened to be an available stranger.’
‘In that case, what wise advice do you have to offer me?’ she asked with a pertly challenging smile.
‘Strangers don’t give advice. They only listen.’ The laughter was obvious in his low voice as he dodged her question expertly.
Hurried footsteps approached their booth. ‘Would you like some more coffee?’ the waitress inquired.
‘No more for me, thank you,’ Sabrina refused. Her fingers touched the braille face of her watch, ‘I have to be getting home.’
‘Our check, please,’ Bay requested.
By the time Sabrina had slid out of the booth seat, Bay was at her side, handing her the oak cane. His hand again rested lightly on the back of her waist, guiding her discreetly past the row of booths and tables to the cafe door. She waited there while he paid the check.
Once outside and up the stairs to the sidewalk, Bay asked, ’did you say you only lived a few blocks from here?’
‘Yes.’ Sabrina turned her head toward him, the smile coming more easily and more often to her mouth. ‘And it’s uphill all the way.’
‘Well, there’s one consolation about the hills in San Francisco
. When you get tired of walking up them, you can always lean against them.’ Sabrina laughed at his amusingly accurate description. ‘That’s a nice sound,’ Bay said lowly. ‘I was beginning to think you’d lost the ability to laugh along with your sight. I’m glad you didn’t.’
Her heart seemed to skip a beat for a few seconds. Sabrina discovered that she wanted to believe that was a personal comment and not a casual observation. That put her on dangerous ground, so she kept silent.
‘My car is just around the corner,’ Bay said as if he hadn’t expected her to reply. ‘Let me give you a ride home.’
It was past the hour Sabrina had told Peggy Collins she would be gone. That was why she agreed to his offer, giving him the address of the narrow Victorian house in the Pacific Heights section. The rush hour traffic had begun, so there was very little conversation between them in the car. Using the traffic at the intersections as a guide, Sabrina was able to judge when Bay turned on to the block where she lived.
‘Our house is the dark gold one with the brown and white trim,’ she told him. ‘The number is difficult to see sometimes.’
A few seconds later, he was turning the wheels into the curb, setting the emergency brake and shutting off the motor. He had just walked around the car and opened her door when Sabrina heard her neighbor call out.
‘Sabrina, are you all right?’ The question was followed immediately by the sound of the redwood gate opening and Peggy Collins’ footsteps hurrying toward them. ‘I was just coming to see if you’d come home and forgotten to let me know.’
‘I was longer than I expected to be,’ Sabrina said, explaining the obvious.
‘So I see.’ The curious tone of voice also said that her neighbor saw the man Sabrina was with and was waiting to be introduced.
‘Peggy, this is Bay Cameron. Peggy Collins is my neighbor,’ she submitted to the invisible arm-twisting.
There was a polite exchange of greetings before Bay turned to Sabrina. ‘It’s my turn to say I’ll have to be going, Sabrina.’