Summer Storm

by Joan Wolf

  She put her wineglass down. “You shouldn’t have called me up. I shouldn’t have come with you.” There were tears in her eyes. “I’ll get a cab back to my dorm.”

  “No.” His long fingers shot out and closed over her wrist. “No, sit down, Mary.”

  Slowly she obeyed him and while she fished around in her purse for a tissue he began to talk. “I’m bound and determined to stick to acting. You know that. It’s what I want to do most in life. It’s what I think I can be good at. I have a job at present but the money stinks. I have no family to fall back on if I lose it. I’ve gone through school on scholarships and loans and my net worth is a debit account.”

  He looked at her and his flexible mouth was taut and grim. “You don’t know what it means to need money. You come from a comfortable New England home. Your father is a doctor and your mother belongs to all the right clubs and committees. Your sisters and brothers are pillars of the community. You have brains and beauty and integrity. You’re probably right to run like hell from me. You ought to marry a lawyer or an engineer. Someone like your brothers, who can give you a big house in a nice New England town where you can teach in the local college and raise your kids to play on the local little league team.”

  She sniffled into her tissue. “You seem to have my life all planned out for me.”

  He paid no attention to her interruption but went on, his face dark and intense. “My own future is uncertain, to say the least. I have no business asking any girl to tie herself to me—and especially not you.” She was looking at him now, her face as somber as his. “But I love you,” he said. “This last month has been hell.”

  “I know.” Her words were barely a whisper. “I love you too.” She looked down at his lean hard hand, which was clasped tensely about his wineglass. “Why especially not me?” she asked.

  “Because of all the things I’ve just said. You aren’t cut out to be an actor’s wife. And for you, marriage would be a serious business.”

  She kept her eyes on his hand. “Yes.” A strand of long black hair had fallen forward across her cheek and she pushed it back behind her ear with a slow, unconsciously seductive gesture.

  “So, given all that,” he said harshly, “will you marry me?”

  With almost palpable effort she dragged her eyes away from his hand and looked up at his face. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”

  Kit burst upon her quiet, conservative, academically oriented New England family rather like a bombshell. Her mother, obviously worried about the proposed marriage between her youngest daughter and this extraordinary boy, spent a good deal of time during the long weekend they stayed with her family trying to probe Mary’s feelings. Mary was certain she was regretting the nice woman’s college she had wanted her daughter to attend. Kit would not have come into her orbit if she had been safely cloistered at Mount Saint Mary’s.

  “You are so unalike, darling,” she said cautiously to Mary. “You are so intelligent. Learning has always mattered so much to you.”

  “Kit isn’t exactly stupid, mother,” Mary replied patiently. “He has a B.S. in mathematics from Penn State, you know.”

  “Mathematics?” Her mother looked astonished.

  “Yes. He got into acting when he joined a student production at Penn for a lark and he ended up deciding he liked it better than math. But he finished his degree. It took him six years to do it, because he had to work, but he finished. He does finish what he starts, and he is a very good actor. He’ll make it.”

  “Suppose he does, darling.” Her mother’s voice was troubled. “Will you like that sort of life? The publicity is ghastly. And I’m sure most of those people in Hollywood take drugs. And the divorce rate . ..”

  “I know all that. Mother, and believe me I’ve thought about it.” Mary smiled a little ruefully. “But I love him. What else can I do?”

  Her mother’s face relaxed a little. “Your father seems to like him,” she said hopefully.

  Mary grinned. “You know. Mother, I’ve decided the worst thing you can do is to decide on the sort of man you don’t want to marry and the sort of life you don’t want to lead. The minute you do that, God looks down on your smug little plans and says, ‘Ah-ha, I’ll fix her.’ And he did just that. He sent me Kit.”

  “He is—rather awesome.” For the first time there was the hint of laughter in her mother’s voice.

  “I don’t know what he is. I only know that there he is and I’ve got to be with him.”

  “Well, then, darling,” said her mother briskly, “shall we plan for a wedding in June?”

  Kit was rather startled to find that his nuptials were to be celebrated with as much pomp as Mrs. O’Connor clearly envisioned. But it wasn’t the trimmings he objected to so much as the delay.

  “June!” He groaned. “Are you going to make me wait until June?”

  Mary’s eyes always seemed to get at least two shades bluer whenever she looked at him. “Yes, I’m afraid I am.”

  “But what does it matter, since we’re going to be married anyway.” His voice had dropped to the husky note that always made her heart begin to race, “What difference can a wedding ring make?” he coaxed.

  “It isn’t the ring. It’s the sacrament,” she said patiently. “Oh, Kit, I’ve explained and explained...”

  “I know.” He had glowered at her dauntingly. “I can’t think clearly anymore. And it’s all your fault.”

  She had bit her lip and then giggled. “Darling, you look so funny . . .” And he had stalked off in high dudgeon.

  They were married the week after graduation in the church where Mary had been baptized, and there had been a reception for two hundred people on the lawn of the O’Connor family home. They were to go to Cape Cod for their honeymoon, but after they left the reception Kit got on the highway going west rather than east.

  “Hey,” said Mary in a startled voice. “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “No, I’m not,” he replied calmly. “We’re going to spend tonight in our own apartment. We can leave for the cape tomorrow.”

  “Good heavens, why did you decide to do that? We’re all booked into the cottage in Chatham.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance that emphasized the remarkable length of his lashes. “I have no intention of driving five hours on my wedding day,” he said. “I’m saving my strength for other things.”

  It took a minute for his words to register, but when they did she felt a strange shiver deep inside her. “Ah,” she got out, she hoped calmly, “I see.”

  Their apartment consisted of a bedroom, living room, and eat-in kitchen. It was sparsely furnished, mostly from the O’Connor-family attic. The bedroom, however, did boast a double bed with a beautiful maple headboard, and it was to this room that Kit steered her as soon as they were in the door. He put their suitcases down with a thump and went to pull down the shades. When he had performed this task to his satisfaction, he turned to look at his wife.

  She was wearing a blue seersucker shirt-dress and sandals. Her long hair, which reached halfway down her back, was tied loosely at the nape of her neck with a blue ribbon. She looked back at him, raised a black eyebrow and said, “Well? Are you going to show me what you’ve been making such a fuss about for the last six months?”

  He tackled her. She was standing next to the bed, and his rush toppled her backward so she was lying on the white Martha Washington bedspread with him on top of her. She began to laugh. He growled and bit her ear. She laughed harder. “I love your subtle technique,” she got out breathlessly through her mirth.

  “Oh, so you like subtlety?” He slowly pulled the ribbon out of her hair, dropped it on the floor, and bent his head to kiss her. Her mouth opened under his and her arms went up to circle his neck. Always before, she had put a barrier between them, always there had been the awareness that she would let him go so far and no farther. Today the barrier was gone.

  When he raised his head and spoke, his voice was husk
y and his breathing uneven. “And now,” he said, “let me see what I’ve got here.” He began to unbutton the front of her shirt-dress. She lay perfectly still, gazing up at him out of darkened eyes. In a minute he had skillfully bared the upper part of her body; her skin was flawless, her breasts perfect. “Almighty God,” he muttered. “You’re so beautiful.” Very gently, almost tentatively, he touched the single small beauty spot that lay near the nipple of her right breast. His light touch sent an electrifying sensation through her entire body.

  “Kit,” she whispered. “Darling.”

  He bent to kiss the beauty mark and his hands began to move caressingly on her body. “My princess,” he said. “My beautiful Irish witch.” He unbuttoned the rest of her dress and then his hands were tugging on the elastic of her half-slip and panties. Instinctively she stiffened and he began to murmur endearments again while his mouth and his hands touched and caressed her. There was extreme tenderness in his voice and in his hands, and sweet cajolery, and the hypnotic quality of rising passion. When Mary’s body arched up against his, he released his hold on her only long enough to tear off his own clothes.

  She clung to him, swept along on the tide of rising desire. Her brain, that sharp, critical, well-trained arbiter of her life, was swamped by the purely physical sensations Kit’s touch aroused. He was murmuring to her and blindly she obeyed his instructions, needing him desperately to assuage the throbbing ache he had created within her. He loomed powerfully over her and she held him tightly, heedless of the pain, stunned by the unexpected searing intensity of the pleasure. He was saying her name over and over; dimly she heard him through the waves of sensation that were sweeping her body. “I love you,” she whispered as she felt them coming to rest. “I love you.”

  They lay still together for a long minute and she ran her hands over the strong muscles of his shoulders and back, feeling the light sheen of sweat that clung to him. His heart was hammering; she could feel the heavy strokes as she felt the heat of his body and the laboring of his breath. She was a little awestruck at the thought that she had been able to do this to him. And when she thought of what he had done to her....

  After a while she murmured, “Do you know, this is the first time I’ve ever understood Anna Karenina?”

  He laughed, a soft dark sound deep down in his throat, and raised his head to gaze into her face. The look he gave her was brilliant, full of amusement and triumph. “I hope you’re not planning to throw yourself under a train?”

  Her lips curved and she felt her heart turn over with love. “You know what I mean.” She traced the outline of his mouth. “I never understood what love of a man can do to a woman.”

  He kissed her fingers and then her throat. “You’re so generous, Princess. It’s one of the reasons I love you.”

  They lay quietly together, content and peaceful. Then Mary whispered, “I ate hardly anything at the reception and I’m starving.”

  He yawned and sat up. “Great minds think alike. I’ve just been contemplating calling out for a pizza.”

  “Yum.” She sat up as well. “With sausage.”

  “With sausage.” His eyes narrowed a little as he looked at her. “I warn you, though, the pizza is just an interlude. I haven’t finished with you by a long shot.”

  “Oh?” She opened her blue eyes very wide and looked limpidly back at him. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

  He leaned closer. “Shouldn’t I be?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, and more than a hint of confidence. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted and knew also that what he wanted he would get.

  It was unnerving, the reaction that look and voice produced in her. She waited a minute before she replied, very softly, “Go call for the pizza.”

  They left for the cape the following day and stayed for a week. It was a blissfully happy honeymoon followed by a equally happy summer spent in their small apartment, painting the walls and making the rounds of tag sales to find furniture. They were deeply in love and deeply happy.

  It was a happiness that lasted exactly seven months. They both worked hard and they had practically no money, but they had each other. “I’m going to write my doctoral dissertation on ‘One Thousand and One Ways to Cook Hamburger Meat,’“ she would say as she dished up another plate of their staple food.

  “What’s wrong with hamburger?” he would demand. “It’s nutritious, it’s tasty, and it’s cheap. The perfect food. You’re a genius to have discovered it.” And they would laugh and eat their dinner and fall into bed.

  The idyll ended on January 6 when she went to the doctor and found out she was pregnant.

  Chapter Three

  “But I can’t be pregnant,” she had protested to the doctor, a gynecologist who was a friend of her father’s. “I’m on the pill.” On some issues, Mary was not more Catholic than the pope and this was one of them. Both she and Kit had agreed that children were something to be put off for the future.

  The pill was not infallible. Dr. Murak told her gently, and she was most definitely pregnant. About three months along, actually. He told her not to worry, that he would be glad to take care of her. She was Bob’s girl, after all, and there would be no charge. He had known her family for years and did not make the mistake of mentioning an abortion.

  Kit was not so perceptive. After five minutes of incredulity, anger, and general agitation, he suggested that she get an abortion. Nothing in her entire life had ever shocked her more.

  “But, Christ, Mary, we can’t afford a baby,” he stormed angrily. “I don’t have a dime to my name. I work crazy hours—and so do you. What’s going to happen to your fellowship if you have a baby? You’ll have to give it up.”

  “Then I’ll give it up,” she had replied grimly.

  “I don’t want you to give it up!” he shouted. “I didn’t marry you to make you give things up!”

  “Would you rather make me a murderer?” she shouted back.

  He thrust his hand through his thick hair, causing it to fall untidily over his forehead. “It isn’t murder,” he answered in a more controlled voice. “It’s a perfectly legal operation.”

  “Oh God,” she said, pressing shaking hands to her mouth and staring at him with horrified eyes. “How can you say this to me? You’re talking about our baby.” And she began to cry, harsh wracking sobs that hurt her throat and chest. After a minute he put his arms around her.

  “It isn’t that it’s not important to me,” he said, a note of quiet desperation in his voice. “It’s that it’s too important. A child needs security and he can’t have security if there’s no financial stability.”

  She was stiff within the circle of his arm, refusing the comfort of physical contact that he was offering. “Money isn’t that important.” She sobbed. “It’s love that matters.”

  “You can say that,” he answered grimly, “because you’ve never known what it’s like to need money and not to have it.” She was trying desperately to control her sobs and her body shook with the effort of containment. He held her for a minute and then said wearily, “All right, sweetheart, please don’t upset yourself like this. We’ll have the baby. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to manage it, but I will. Somehow, I will.”

  They had patched the quarrel up, but a bitter seed had been sown. And then in March he got an offer to test for a role in a new film being shot by one of Hollywood’s leading producers.

  “He was in New Haven three weeks ago and saw me in the Tennessee Williams revival we’re doing. He’s making the movie version of The Russian Experiment and he wants me to test for the role of Ivan.”

  “Oh, Kit, how marvelous!” The Russian Experiment had been the blockbuster novel of the previous year, and they had both read it. It was a sophisticated combination of suspense, intrigue, and political and metaphysical speculation. Ivan was a young anarchist whose brooding and bitter presence had been a thread woven throughout the entire fabric of the novel. It would be a fabulous part if Kit could get it.
/>
  He had gotten it. The producer had liked his test and, with much hullabaloo about “discovering a new Brando,” had signed him to a contract.

  He had gone to California to make the movie and she stayed in Connecticut. He didn’t want to take her away from her fellowship and then there was the baby. They both agreed it would be far more sensible for her to wait until the summer, until after the movie, after the baby, after the papers and finals, and then they would decide what they would do and where they would live. They closed up their apartment, stored their furniture in her mother’s attic, and she went back home to live.

  The female star of The Russian Experiment was Jessica Corbet, an actress of international repute. She was beautiful and talented, and at thirty-two had gone through two husbands and several highly publicized affairs. According to the papers, she began a new one with Kit.

  At first Mary didn’t believe it. She was sophisticated enough to know that ninety percent of the gossip blazoned across the headlines of movie scandal sheets was untrue. If Kit had been more faithful about calling her, if he had written with any regularity, perhaps she would not have begun to doubt.

  It was a terrible experience for her. She had been brought up in a close-knit, loving, and supportive family, and all her relationships had hitherto been deeply secure and unquestioned. When once the first trickle of doubt about Kit had been let in, it seemed as if the entire foundation of her marriage began to crumble. He hadn’t really, wanted to marry her, she thought. She had forced him into it by refusing to sleep with him. He didn’t really want a wife. And he certainly didn’t want a baby. He had made that very clear.

  There was never any mention in the scandal sheets or the gossip columns that she read so feverishly of the fact that Christopher Douglas had a wife. It didn’t occur to her that he might be trying to protect her. It did occur to her that he didn’t want her anymore, was embarrassed to admit that America’s hottest new sex symbol had a pregnant wife at home.