The Edge of Forever

by Bretton, Barbara

  He pulled a clump of tissues from the box on the arm of the sofa and handed it to Meg.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, wiping her red and swollen eyes. “Now I understand what all the commotion is about.”

  “It still holds up pretty damned well, doesn’t it?” he asked, noting how well she held up despite the tears.

  She looked at him, fixing him with those dark eyes. “Thank you for making me watch it. I had no idea what I’d been missing.”

  He handed her another tissue, which she took with a grateful smile. “You realize that you’ll never forget this afternoon,” He paused, enjoying the look of curiosity on her face. “The first time you see Casablanca is like the first time you make love—you never forget who you were with.”

  “I hate to interrupt you two—“ Huntington Kendall’s reedy voice surprised them both “—but pass the Kleenex over here, will you?” His skinny body was drooped over his sketch pad, and his great mournful eyes were wet with tears.

  Joe chuckled and tossed him the box. “When did you get here?” He’d been so swept away by the nearness of Meg and the intensity of the movie that he hadn’t even noticed the other man’s presence.

  Hunt caught the box of tissues and dabbed at his eyes. “I came in when Bergman says to Bogey, ‘Was that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?’”

  Next to him, Meg began to cry again, and Joe gently stroked her hair away from her face. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he said in an imitation of Bogart so bad that it made her laugh. “We’ll always have Paris.”

  “Don’t move!” Hunt shifted closer to them and started quickly sketching.

  “The light from the fire is hitting you both on the left side—“ Hunt paused. Quick scratching movements of charcoal on paper. “Ah! That’s it! Perfect.”

  “Are we being immortalized?” Joe asked.

  Hunt laughed, made a few more quick strokes, then handed the large sheet of paper to them. Here,” he said. “I call it Casablanca: Sunday Afternoon.”

  Joe looked over Meg’s shoulder at the sketch. The kid nailed it, he thought, looking at the spare but evocative drawing. In a couple of deft strokes with a vine of charcoal, Huntington Kendall IV had pinned Joe’s heart down on that white sheet of paper and laid it bare for Meg’s inspection.

  Love—or at least the beginning of it—was written all over his face.

  Meg laughed, and he felt his face flame. “Hunt!” she said, pulling the sketch closer. “I’m surprised at you. You made Joe’s chin much too long.”

  Hunt’s painfully thin body seemed to puff up with outrage. “I’m not a literalist like you, Meggie,” he said testily.”I interpret life. I don’t simply copy it.”

  Joe grabbed the sketch from her and took another look. Was it possible she was blind to what Hunt saw so clearly?

  “You definitely caught Meg,” he said honestly. “Especially her mouth.”

  “How could I miss?” Hunt said. “With Bergman staring at me from the screen and this beautiful replica in front of me, I’d deserve to have my artistic license revoked if I screwed up.”

  Hunt had said he wasn’t a literalist, but Joe didn’t believe it. Every angle and shadow on Meg’s face was faithfully reproduced in the black-and-white sketch. The high, lovely roundness of her cheekbones, the way the shadows deepened the hollows below, the tempting sensuality of her full lips, lips that made it hard for him to keep from taking in his arms—it was all there. However, those dark, intense eyes of hers were masked, the expression in them guarded. Precious little of the inner Meg Lindstrom was going to be captured, not even by a pro like Huntington.

  Meg was busy sifting through the pile of videocassette tapes they had yet to watch. Joe handed the sketch back to Hunt, and the other man’s eyes met his over the piece of paper. I know, Hunt’s look said. She doesn’t, but it’s only a matter of time.

  Joe stood and stretched, his nerves suddenly so tightly strung he thought he’d explode. “I’m starved,” he announced to no one in particular. “Why don’t we grab something to eat before the second part of our triple feature?”

  Meg looked up from the pile of movies. “There’s beef bourguignon, chicken curry, and four-alarm chili in the freezer.” She glanced at Joe. “Unless you plan to treat us to your gourmet cooking.”

  “Spare us, Meggie.” Hunt flipped to a fresh sheet of drawing paper and crouched down in front of her. “Joseph’s gourmet frankfurters last night are still haunting me.”

  “So let’s bring in pizza,” Joe said.

  “Sold,” Meg said. “Pepperoni.”

  Hunt threw a vine of charcoal at her., “Sausage, with extra cheese.”

  “Mushroom,” Joe said, ducking as they yelled their protests.

  They settled on one sausage with extra cheese, and one half-mushroom, half-pepperoni.

  Joe patted the pockets of his jeans, then remembered he had no car keys because he had no car with him. “The limo or one of Anna’s cars?” he asked Meg.

  “One of Anna’s,” she said. “Main Street’s too small to park a stretch.”

  “I’ll go,” Hunt said, putting down his sketchbook. “The van could use a run.”

  Joe took out his wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill that he handed to Huntington. Despite the number after his name and the Fortune 500 family, the younger man was forever broke. “It’s on me,” Joe said, meeting Hunt’s eyes. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Hunt’s wide mouth split into a smile as he looked from Joe to Meg then back again to Joe. “That it is,” he said softly. “Margarita’s something special. Don’t forget it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Joe said. “There’s no chance of that.”

  #

  Meg watched the exchange between the two men with a great deal of curiosity. She hadn’t been able to make out more than a few of the words spoken, but the knowing look on Hunt’s face and the oddly vulnerable look on Joe’s told her there was definitely something going on. Ever since the credits rolled on Casablanca, she’d had the feeling that something had changed, that some balance had tilted.

  The afternoon had been singularly splendid. How much did it take, really, to make a person happy? A wonderful movie, some Cointreau, a roaring fireplace—

  She stopped.

  And Joe.

  He was the reason a nice afternoon had turned into a golden one. She liked the way he saw beneath the surface of Rick and Ilsa to the deeper meanings of love; she liked the way he knew when silence was better than speech; and damn it, she loved the way he smelled of brandy and soap and the way his body felt strong and solid when she leaned against him.

  “What was that all about?” she asked as Hunt loped out of the room. “You’d better not have any clandestine plans for our pizza that include anchovies.”

  “Nothing so interesting.” Joe put out his hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. “I thanked him for volunteering to get the pizza.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed him but the fact that they were standing just inches apart from one another and that her hand was still in his overrode everything else.

  “Where are my shoes?” she asked, looking down at her feet in their red-and-white striped socks. “I thought I put them by the piano.”

  “They’re in the hall,” he said. “With mine.” That dazzling grin broke out. “I like you better without them.”

  “Of course you do, Alessio,” she said. “Otherwise I’m taller than you.”

  With shoes on, Meg clearly had the height advantage. Shoeless, her eyes were level with Joe’s.

  His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist and that, combined with who could remember how many glasses of Cointreau, was making it very hard for her to think.

  “How tall are you?” he asked.

  “Tall enough.” Memories of high-school dances spent holding up the wall were just within reach.

  “No matter,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll cut you down to size in no time.”

  “Didn’t Spencer Tracy
say that to Katharine Hepburn when they first met?”

  “I thought I made it up.”

  “Better be careful,” Meg warned. “You can get in trouble stealing lines.”

  “Don’t worry, Margarita,” he said softly, the sound of her name on his lips turning her blood to warm honey. “The important lines are all mine.”

  “You wanted Hunt to leave us alone, didn’t you?” Her words surprised them both. This was dangerous, uncharted territory, and well she knew it, but the fever was in her blood, and she couldn’t stop.

  “I didn’t think I was being that obvious.”

  “You weren’t,” she said softly. “It’s what I wanted too.”

  He let go of her hand and drew her closer to him so she could feel every muscle, every degree of heat that desire was generating. Her arms were pinned at her sides, and there was no escaping the way he grew hard against her hipbone. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and a shiver rippled through her. An answering tremor rocketed through his body, and she smiled, resting her soft cheek against his roughened one so that he couldn’t see the look in her eyes. She chuckled low. Obviously, Joseph Alessio had taught Angelique Moreau everything she knew.

  He turned her toward him with his left hand, his fingers gentle against her chin and jawbone. “Private joke?”

  Oh God, she thought, looking at the open and vulnerable expression in his eyes. The thought of such naked emotion so fearlessly displayed was almost enough to make her run.

  Almost, but not quite.

  “Margarita?” His eyes never left her face. They devoured her.

  She was going to make light of it, tell him how she’d been thinking about his alter ego, how she understood now where the sensuality in his stories came from, but desire burned inside her with a heat so quick and intense that she feared she’d go up in flames.

  His hands slid up her hips, fingers splayed against the bare flesh beneath her sweater, destroying her sanity inch by marvelous inch. She slid the tip of her tongue across his bottom lip—teasing, taunting—until he suddenly her closer than she’d imagined possible and opened his mouth over hers to stake his claim.

  She fought to keep her balance in a world that was defying the laws of gravity. His tongue slid over her teeth, exploring the moist and dark recesses of her mouth, making her hips arch toward him in a movement as fluid and natural as breathing.

  He found her breasts beneath the loose confines of her sweater, and the sensation of his warm hands against her bare skin made her moan into his mouth. She slid her own hands beneath his sweater and quickly drew it up over his chest so his skin was bared and she could revel in the sensation of her own hands moving over him. It was probably the first truly dangerous thing she’d ever done in her life.

  Joe broke the kiss. Meg opened her eyes and gasped softly at the look of unbridled passion on his face. She didn’t dare think about what she looked like to him. She fought the instinctive urge to cover herself as his hot gaze seared its way across her body. He had that right, for she was finding it impossible to ignore the taut planes of his stomach, the incredible musculature of his chest. He drew his right hand through his tousled hair and fixed her with a look so filled with desire that her heart seemed to be pushing its way through her breastbone.

  “He’ll be back soon,” Joe said.

  Meg nodded. “I know.” She reached out and gently ran a finger across his belly, relishing the tremor her touch set off.

  Again that lopsided grin that took her breath away. “I couldn’t wait for him to leave.”

  “I wish we’d ordered a seven-course meal,” Meg said. Actually she wished they’d ordered Italian food from Rome or Chinese from Beijing. Anything to give them more time to explore the miracle they’d just discovered.

  “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this.”

  She looked at him but said nothing. His sweater had slipped back down to its normal position, covering the beauty of his body. She suddenly felt terribly exposed and vulnerable, and as if he could read her mind, he gently pulled her sweater back down, his fingers leaving fire where they slid across her skin,

  “I’ve been making love to you every night since we met.”

  “Oh, Joe, please—“

  He put two fingers over her mouth to silence her. She touched him with her tongue, savoring the taste of his skin.

  “Just listen.” His voice was smoky with urgency.

  He told her how he’d imagined her naked across his body, her long fine hair like strands of moonlight against his stomach. He told her how her eyes would widen when he entered her, how she would move beneath him as she welcomed him deeper inside. Her legs went weak and she leaned against the back of the couch to keep from melting to the floor.

  But he was relentless. “Do you remember Friday night when I found you in the study hours after we said good-night?”

  They’d worked long and hard on the index of musicians and had retired to their individual rooms early. Meg had heard the intermittent sound of his typewriter until around midnight, when it stopped.

  “I thought you’d fallen asleep,” she said. “I went down to do a little more work.”

  “That’s why I came downstairs. I was watching you before you even knew I was there.”

  She’d been sitting on the rug near the fire, the pale gold caftan she’d purchased in Morocco draped lightly over her body. A stack of typewritten notes was spread on the floor in front of her, and as she bent forward to examine them, the V of the caftan’s neckline dipped. She’d felt his presence before she saw him, She delayed acknowledging him because the feel of his eyes roaming her body was too exquisite to give up.

  “I knew you were there,” she said. “I knew all along.”

  “Do you know what I was thinking?”

  She shook her head. Tell me. Tell me all.

  “By firelight your skin was the color of a ripe peach. I could see the tops of your breasts, and I wondered if you were the same color all over.”

  The thought of being naked before those incredible green eyes excited her more than she’d imagined mere thought could.

  “I knew you were watching me.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I wanted you to watch me.”

  In the fireplace a log shifted, and the sudden leap of flame was reflected in Joe’s eyes. “I wanted more. I wanted to push aside that caftan and let your breasts rest warm and smooth in my hands.”

  “You should have.” Her voice was husky. “I wanted to know how your skin would feel against mine.”

  His laugh was rough with desire. “Beautiful Margarita, you have no idea how close you came to knowing. If our eccentric friend hadn’t suddenly showed up. . . “

  Meg’s body tingled; vivid, detailed fantasies of Joe’s body beneath her hands made breathing difficult. “Hunt keeps bizarre hours,” she said instead., “I hear him walking the halls some nights till three or four.”

  “He showers at midnight,” Joe said. “I can hear him bellowing his version of Pagliacci until I feel like washing his mouth out with soap.”

  “You never know where he’ll turn up.”

  “Or when.” Joe moved closer, so close she could feel the heat of desire rising around the two of them. “He won’t always be here,” he whispered, touching the curve of her ear with his lips.

  Her breath caught at the unexpected sensation, then slipped out in a soft exhalation, “He leaves on Saturday.”

  Joe cupped her face with his large, warm hands. “Should we give him an extension?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “Waiting isn’t easy.” His hands slid down her neck until his thumbs rested in the pulse at the base of her throat. “I want to make love to you, Margarita.”

  “No,” she said. “That’s not enough.” She slipped her hands beneath his sweater once again and ran her palms up the rippling muscles of his back. “I want to find out how it feels when I—“

  “Doesn’t anyone around here answer a doorbell?” They bo
th jumped at Huntington Kendall IV’s reedy voice from the doorway.

  It was probably the closest Joe had ever come to contemplating murder. When Huntington popped up in the doorway, his skinny arms wrapped around two white pizza boxes, the thought of wringing his neck was uppermost in Joe’s mind.

  “Don’t just look at me, people! Give me a hand. This things are hot as hell.”

  Next to him, Meg immediately shifted into gear. She hurried over to the temperamental artist, took the two steaming boxes from him, then laid them down atop the worktable on a bed of newspapers.

  Joe was still suspended somewhere between desire and frustration.

  “We could use some glasses for the wine,” Meg murmured as she brushed past him, trying to snap him out of his daze before Hunt noticed what had been—or almost been—going on.

  #

  It was near eleven o’clock when the final frame of Jimmy Stewart’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life faded from the TV screen. Although it was considered a Christmas movie and they were still two months away from the Yuletide season, its corny but powerful depiction of one person’s value to his family and community was painfully on target.

  “I wish it were that simple.” Joe pushed the rewind button on the remote control. “Family happiness isn’t that easy to come by.”

  Hunt, who had been sketching Meg and Joe during the movie, said, “Tell me about it. My family cut me off without a cent when I decided to ditch law school and become an artist.”

  Meg, curled up in a corner of the couch, took a long sip of brandy. “My family doesn’t even know I’m an artist.” She shook her head “Can you imagine? They never even noticed when I won my first award.”

  Joe, who had been stretched out on the couch next to her, his shaggy head resting on her hip, sat up. That sparkle in the eye peculiar to writers was present, and she wondered what she’d said to cause it.

  “You’re full of surprises today, Lindstrom,” he said. “So you finally admit you’re an artist and not a cab driver.”