Vivian's Return

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

“What were you burning, yesterday at the beach? What book was that?”

  If he had asked at any other time, she wouldn’t have been able to tell him. “My yearbook,” she said.

  “Why? Didn’t you like your photo?”

  It was a joke, she realized. But she didn’t smile. “No, I didn’t.”

  Paul frowned. “So you burned the book?”

  “I was burning memories.”

  “Of all your years at high school? Why?” He seemed appalled.

  “I hated high school. For five years I was the butt of jokes, the loner, the girl who never had a date.”

  “Never? Not once? Why for god’s sake?”

  “Because I’m ugly.” It was out before she could edit the words and she looked away.

  Paul remained silent and finally she looked back at him. He shook his head, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t understand. You’re not ugly.”

  “Red frizzy hair, white skin, braces, skinny legs and no breasts? I’m the girl the boys threatened each other with to keep the underlings in line. ‘Do it, or I’ll have Vivien Galloway kiss you!’” Sudden tears smarted in her eyes but she made no move to wipe them away. In the water, Paul would not notice them.

  But it appeared he saw more than she thought, for his frown deepened. “So you spent all your time at the beach.”

  “No. I studied a lot. I ended up in the top ten percent of the state, for all the good it does me. ‘Don’t blind them with science, Vivien!’ my mother used to say. She always told me guys hate brainy women.”

  “I don’t.”

  Vivien tried to smile but couldn’t. “Well, you’re different, somehow.”

  “So are you. Why do you think I asked you out in the first place?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Because you have a passion. You’re like me. You’re driven to prove yourself. I saw your face when we reached the top of the cliff. You were thrilled at having made it. You take risks. You challenge yourself.”

  “It takes my mind away from school. I figured if I was going to be the odd one at school, I may as well be good at it. I’m glad I did spend all that time on the beach, or we would never have met.”

  Paul shook his head. “We would have met, sooner or later. It was inevitable.”

  He touched his lips to hers, there in the water and under the salt touch of the water was a sweetness she had never suspected a kiss could carry. Her body thrummed with the sudden flow of....

  Excitement. This is arousal.

  Something, heavy and languid, making her forget to stay afloat. Quite unconsciously, they slipped below the surface, their mouths together.

  When she needed air, Vivien broke the kiss and pushed up to the surface. Paul appeared next to her.

  “Let’s pack up and go home. If we leave now there will be enough daylight left for you to take the controls of the plane for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “Logged hours, of course. For your pilot’s license.”

  Of course. She didn’t know when she had decided that she was going to get her pilot’s license. Sometime between yesterday and now she had subconsciously come to know that was the next step in her future. It was as inevitable as what was happening between Paul and her. It seemed right that Paul should know that, even without her telling him.

  * * * * *

  Vivien lay on her motel bed, her tears long dried, remembering that first date. The unspoken sensuousness had been a thread running through the entire day, as it had been even when she and Paul had been arguing by the pool tonight.

  How had they come to this?

  Vivien phoned Jack and canceled their date. Then she sat up in her bed, a pillow hugged to her chest and tried to think past her roiling guilt. She was amazed and appalled at what she had done to Paul and what he had done to her. What had happened out there by the pool? It seemed that two demons had caught hold of them and used them to play out one of the ugliest scenes she had ever witnessed between two people. Vivien had always believed she was stronger than the petty need for revenge.

  Well, the damage was done now. The best thing she could do was confront Paul, apologize and take it from there. Which really left her back at square one. If he was angry with her and wiped her off, then she had no one to blame but herself. At least she wasn’t operating under the mistaken belief that she didn’t love him anymore. At least she could understand what was motivating her.

  So does Paul. What a dumb thing to do, she told herself. Then she shrugged the accusation aside. She had never been one for hiding her feelings. Neither had Paul. She wouldn’t apologize for that. Let him deal with any attendant guilt the knowledge gave him as best he could.

  She would apologize. Tomorrow, she added, remembering Paul’s date. The recollection gave her a strong stab of jealousy but she suppressed it. Let Jenny enjoy what she, Vivien, could not. Perhaps Jenny would provide the house and hearth that she had not been able to.

  * * * * *

  Jack tapped on her door about twenty minutes later and Vivien stared at him, puzzled, trying to push aside her somnolent state and recall whether she had rung him to cancel their date, or not.

  “Jack,” she said simply.

  “I thought you would be sitting in your room sulking,” he said in his precise accent. “I came to take you out. You look like you need the company—or a distraction at the very least.”

  “I’m really not in the mood for light conversation, Jack. That’s why I canceled. I’m sorry—I’d rather be alone.”

  “If being alone makes you look like you look now, I’d say being alone is the last thing you need. Come to dinner with me. I don’t particularly care for animated chatter myself. I’d rather concentrate on my food and a decent bottle of red.” He grimaced. “It hasn’t been a good day for me, either.”

  Of course. Jack was the one who re-fueled the helicopter with the contaminated fuel. He would be feeling guilty too.

  Vivien nodded. “All right,” she told him. “Give me five minutes and I’ll change.” It might be a good chance to find out what happened today for her report to Canberra. What was she going to tell them?

  Her damned confession had made a mess of more than her personal life.

  Chapter Five

  It’s not her fault, Paul reminded himself for the umpteenth time. Jenny was here by his casual invitation, a date set up over a week ago. It wasn’t her fault that he’d rather be anywhere else but here.

  “Here” was El Coronado, probably one of the best restaurants in Geraldton—and Geraldton had quite a few of them to cater to the tourist trade. The restaurant specialized in preparing and serving fresh locally caught fish in myriad ways, including its most famous specialty, paella, cooked with crayfish. It was Paul’s favorite restaurant and had been for years.

  The problem was, it had been Vivien’s favorite restaurant too and Paul had only remembered that when they had arrived tonight. By good fortune they had not been placed at the table that Paul and Vivien had always sat at, but responding civilly to Jenny was as much as Paul could manage with any semblance of politeness.

  Jenny was chattering away, taking the burden of conversation from him. She was animated, enthusiastic. Yet she waved the menu away with a disinterested hand and let Paul choose. Then he realized.

  Jenny was pleased to be here because of the people.

  Geraldton didn’t have a jet set but it did have local celebrities and high-flying entrepreneurs, and they were often found here at El Coronado. Paul saw Jenny glance toward the front bar and door whenever someone arrived, her eyes narrowing a little as she tried to identify them.

  Paul looked around. There was a fair assortment of high profile personalities here tonight. A couple of presenters and journalists from the local television station, one of the most successful footballers in town, even the mayor.

  Just people, to Paul. Yet every time someone recognizable arrived, Jenny’s chatter became more animated and more energetic. He knew most of the peop
le here quite well, but he always came here for the food.

  “Paul.”

  He snapped his attention back to Jenny. “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re distracted tonight,” she said gently.

  He nodded. “Close calls tend to do that to me,” he said.

  Jenny frowned. “I’m sorry. I’m being inconsiderate, aren’t I? I didn’t stop to think that you might be suffering any ill effects from today. Close calls are so much a part of your life, after all.”

  Paul frowned. It had been a clumsy lie and she had unerringly pointed out the one inconsistency.

  “While I’m at work I don’t let it get to me.”

  Jenny nodded. “I guess I’m not around after work often enough to know how you handle it after hours.”

  Their paella arrived then and Paul ate hungrily. Stress always made him hungry, which was why he’d switched to healthy food years ago. He didn’t need a heart attack in the middle of a crisis. It wouldn’t be helpful to those he was trying to pull out of trouble if he keeled over himself—or was too fat to move from his pilot’s seat.

  Jenny picked at her food, silent for a while.

  Paul found his mind going back to the same place, like a tongue worrying over a sore tooth. Vivien’s confession.

  She loved him.

  Well, that was no great surprise, surely? He’d known all along that she still loved him, didn’t he? That’s why she’d come back.

  But the moment she had confessed her love, surprise had shot through him. Genuine surprise. Mixed up with that was an uncomfortable feeling that he hadn’t been quite able to identify—no, that he didn’t want to identify. He didn’t want to know what that second emotion was because he sensed it would reveal something about himself that he wouldn’t like.

  Paul mentally braced himself and probed. What had that second reaction been? Horror, fear? Anger?

  No...it had been dismay.

  Dismay, because if Vivien really did still love him, then she must have left him because of something he had done, not because she had stopped loving him.

  In other words, her leaving had been his fault.

  He knew damned well what it was he had done. She’d said so, the first day she had come back. He’d stopped her flying. The reason just hadn’t meant anything then. It hadn’t registered properly in his mind.

  Now he’d rather be confused and surprised by her, to feel a bewildered, unexpected hurt, than grasp the truth and understand.

  My fault. I’m to blame.

  He’d so wanted to believe her when she said she no longer loved him. It meant that he was free of guilt and free of responsibility.

  Life isn’t like that, idiot. Haven’t you seen that over and over again?

  The people who survived an emergency were the ones who didn’t stop to rail at fate for being unfair. They accepted that it had happened and turned all their energies to survival, taking on the responsibility of making it through.

  You’re where you are because of choices you made.

  “Is it true that Vivien Galloway was once the Australian open windsurfing champion?” Jenny asked, startling Paul out of his thoughts once more.

  He blinked. Windsurfing? Then he remembered. Days sitting on the beach, watching her slipping up the front slope of waves at better than sixty miles an hour and flipping cartwheels as casually as a fly. At that speed, hitting the water was like hitting concrete. He’d spent the nights of the competition rubbing mentholated cream into her muscles and applying ice to injuries. He hadn’t said a word despite the cruel cramping of his guts every time she’d gone out there.

  “She was the Australian female champion,” he told Jenny. And hadn’t Vivien hated that! She’d wanted the competition to be completely open, so she could compete against the men too.

  “And she used to go swimming with sharks,” Jenny added.

  Paul laughed. “Where did you hear that?”

  Jenny shrugged. “Can’t remember. It isn’t true?”

  “Vivien used to snorkel a lot and she wasn’t afraid of sharks but she had a healthy respect for them. If there were sharks in the water, she wouldn’t go in.”

  He wouldn’t let her.

  “But....”

  “But what?”

  “I heard about one time she played with a Gray Nurse.”

  “We came across one, one day. We almost bumped nose to nose at the top of a reef. I don’t know who was more startled, the shark or us but Vivien nearly levitated out of the water and I wasn’t far behind.”

  He’d stayed to make sure the shark really had bugged out of the area before surfacing and following Vivien into shore. It had taken them more than a week to go back into the water, which had been a source of amusement for both of them.

  “She sounds...interesting.” Jenny put her cup down.

  Paul saw the small downturn of her mouth which gave lie to her words and recognized the phenomenon that had always baffled him. Vivien seemed to intimidate people, women in particular. He had made the mistake of at first thinking it was an extension of the “outsider” curse she had suffered throughout high school but later learned it was different.

  Vivien was just good at things. Physically, she was a superb sportsman, agile, quick, fast thinking and strong for a woman. She was also intelligent and no man’s fool. As her list of achievements had grown, the resentment seemed to grow right along with it. It didn’t help when her “skinny” girlhood departed and thanks to her physical lifestyle, she grew into a sexy, well-toned, sleek woman who turned any man’s head for a second look.

  It wasn’t simply envy, for Vivien never so much as looked at other men. She’d never learned how to flirt, or had the opportunity to practice it. She was oblivious to their gender and dealt with men with the same impartiality she did women.

  Yet women seemed to resent her. Just as Jenny did now.

  Paul sighed.

  It’s not Jenny’s fault. Yet he was sitting here, denigrating her for not being Vivien. For not understanding.

  Trying to make amends, he put down his fork and smiled at Jenny. “Would you like to meet the mayor?”

  The incandescent smile she rewarded him with was answer enough. As he walked her over to the table where the mayor was dining, Paul committed himself to giving Jenny a pleasant night out.

  Tomorrow was Saturday. He could get away and think all he wanted to, then.

  * * * * *

  The next day was more unsettling than Vivien had expected. She went looking for Paul first thing the next morning, determined not to let herself procrastinate over apologizing.

  It was a Saturday, which meant the office would be closed. Instead, Vivien picked up the local phone book and went in search of addresses and there she got her first unsettling surprise.

  Paul’s phone number was unlisted, or else he didn’t have a phone. Either possibility seemed unlikely. Paul had always liked being able to pick up the phone and talk to anyone and he didn’t mind the phone ringing even at the most inopportune times—the endless possibilities that could eventuate from answering a call fascinated him. Just finding out who was calling him was a game in itself. To have his phone de-listed seemed very out of character.

  Next, she tried Morris’ name and with better luck. Morris still lived at the same address he had when she used to live here. She could ask him for Paul’s phone number.

  She drove around to Morris’ little house, one of an old group of State Housing Commission houses left over from the second world war. The weatherboard dwellings were rundown and neglected, except Morris’, for he was a keen gardener and domestic. The long lawn in front of the house looked like emerald velvet.

  She tapped on his door and waited. A response was a long time coming and Vivien realized why when the door cracked open a few inches and through the flywire door, Vivien saw Morris belting a robe, his hair askew.

  She glanced at her watch, startled. It wasn’t too early an hour. “I’m sorry...did I wake you?”

  “No, no,
I was awake. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. No, there’s nothing wrong,” she hastened to assure him, realizing that her unannounced arrival might seem extraordinary. “I’m trying to track down Paul but he’s not in the phone book.”

  “Oh.” It was Morris’ turn to look surprised. Over his shoulder a slender hand appeared, with long painted nails.

  “Coffee?” she heard murmured behind him.

  “Mmm, yes, thanks,” Morris said, turning his chin a little.

  Morris had company. Company that was obviously familiar with the layout of Morris’ kitchen and was comfortable with making coffee in it.

  Vivien could feel herself blushing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling totally foolish. “It never occurred to me...I mean, not that I thought you were a confirmed single man...but....” She winced. “I just never stopped to think that you might have company.” Her embarrassment was complete. She wished the verandah would open up and swallow her.

  Morris smiled. “She’s just a friend. We’ve had a casual thing going for a few years now. Nothing intense. Don’t worry about it.” He tugged at the belt of his robe again and she knew that he was embarrassed for her too. If she’d been casual and relaxed about it, he wouldn’t have turned a hair. “Paul’s number is unlisted. I’ll get it for you,” he said and disappeared inside.

  Vivien sat down on the rocking chair on the verandah, a little winded. Morris was one fixture that she had not expected to change. He had always been the reticent office manager, the whiz with figures, who moved around in the background quietly working while the egocentric pilots boasted emptily. Morris was the man who got things done, who preferred a quiet weekend at home with his garden than a night out on the town.

  Morris came out onto the verandah, a piece of paper in his hands.

  “Here. Don’t lose it. I’d let you phone from here but it’s probably a waste of a phone call. It’s Saturday morning.”

  “That’s significant?” Vivien queried.

  “Absolutely. Every Saturday Paul goes gliding. The only way you’ll catch up with him is to go out to the airport and stake out his car. Eventually he’ll come back down to solid earth.”