But it wasn’t the courtesy she was remembering. It was the fire that had been in his eyes when he looked at her. Not a lust, but a burgeoning desire.
And if she was to be truthful with herself, the desire had reached her, had touched her. Was now becoming her own. She had wanted the dance to continue, but had nodded her acquiescence as he took leave of her in the silent room. The music had stopped and no one had said a word as he led her back to the table. Lawrence, still stunned, had not acknowledged the man further, except to turn away.
Unruffled, the stranger had not responded to the slight, but had walked through the berth made by quiet dancers and retrieved his coat and hat at the door.
Only then did the room began to move again. And uncomfortably the eyes had remained focused on her.
Lawrence stood then.
“We have to leave,” he had said with a finality that brooked no resistance. And she gave none. He took her hand, escorted her to the door.
Something had changed that night. Somehow life had become life again and not an endless existence of days to get through. She actually woke with a smile this morning.
She wasn’t foolish enough not to know that there would be consequences for her defiance. But she could live with that. Because now she knew that she could feel again.
If not love, then something else…something she didn’t want to put words to because it wouldn’t be decent. Yet it was this not-too-decent feeling that made her remember she was a woman and had known a man in her life. In the private moments of her bedroom.
Soon the scandal would die down, and she would have nothing more than a memory. And the ordinariness of her life would resume.
But, she also knew that the pain of losing George would eventually loosen its grip, would begin to ebb into something less intrusive, less acute.
And maybe, one day…not in the near future, but one day…she might let herself love again.
She picked up the monogrammed handkerchief she was mending for Lawrence. It had been a gift from Mother the first Christmas after Lawrence passed the New York bar. Much used, he was loath to throw it out.
The ringing bell caught her by surprise, made her prick herself. She quickly put the wounded finger in her mouth to suck the blood away, then walked to the foyer to open the door.
When she saw who was standing outside, her heart nearly stopped. It was as though she had summoned him with her thoughts. But how had he found her?
Her eyes scanned the surrounding street to see who might be witness to this unusual scene. But there was no one walking about. Lord knew there would be further scandal if anyone saw him standing on the stoop. And even more if she actually allowed him inside.
Still, she stood aside to let him enter. And Joseph Luce smiled.
Tyne woke up to the dark room, tried to remember the dream. But unlike other nights and other dreams, she found it hard to hold on to the tenuous impressions. The only thing she was sure of was that in the dream David had been smiling at her. And she had waited for him not with dread, but with a quiet anticipation.
Chapter 17
T he retiring sunlight skirted along the waves in long beacons of burnt gold. Because of their late start, David was avoiding the Kennedy, which was sure to be bumper to bumper with rush hour commuters trying to get home. Instead they were taking Lake Shore Drive where the traffic was slightly better. To the right, Lake Michigan was points of fire at intervals, a mirror to the sky’s blazing orange.
The coming evening promised cooler temperatures, and in anticipation David had brought an extra blanket. In the backseat sat the basket packed with a bottle of chilled Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio, salami, ham, turkey, olives, prosciutto parma, Italian bread, smoked salmon, and cream cheese. For dessert, there were slices of apple pie and small berries known as frutti di bosca. Just in case she didn’t want liquor, he had made lemonade, the way his mother made it. Tyne was bound to like something, and he was very interested to know what she would choose—and whether he had chosen well. She sat next to him, her perfume a distraction to his driving. Light, floral, he had smelled it that day at lunch and would now remember the scent as something uniquely hers. He talked inanely of his workday, concentrating on the project he had just bid on, leaving out the friction between him and his partners. All the while he talked, he tried not to think of the alluring contour of her thigh apparent in the dark slacks she was wearing.
She hadn’t asked about the headliner, and he hadn’t offered the information, hoping to surprise her and hoping that the surprise would be welcome. She was trusting him for a good evening, and he would do everything to provide it.
“How long had you known you wanted to be an architect?” she asked.
The question took him by surprise. He thought about it for a second. He had never pinpointed the beginning of his desire to design buildings, yet he knew he hadn’t always wanted to be an architect. He remembered a childhood fantasy about one day becoming a fireman. But that was long before the summer of the fire, the summer when everything went to hell. “I guess after taking a couple of drafting classes back in high school. I seemed to have a knack for it, and the ambition grew from there.”
He stopped short as they hit a stall. He bit back a curse, looked at his watch. Almost seven-fifteen. He had hoped to be there about seven-thirty, but at this rate, they weren’t going to make it.
She noticed the motion and again apologized for keeping him waiting for almost twenty minutes. He understood. She had already explained about the rewrite that had taken longer than anticipated. Some story about pollution in a depressed neighborhood. Even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, he could feel her enthusiasm as she talked, knew her eyes were beaming.
“Next week, I’ve scheduled a couple more interviews. I really think this is going to be a good story.” He liked the excitement in her voice.
“I want to thank you for passing on my resume. I might not have ever gotten anything this good.”
“Well, Sherry seems very happy with your eagerness and drive.”
“So, you two been talking about me?” The tone was more amused than paranoid, but he answered carefully.
“She just called to thank me for sending you over, that’s all. So there’s gratitude all around. Here, let’s have some music.” He reached over and turned on the radio. Al Hirt’s “Cotton Candy” was playing.
“Jazz man, are you?”
“I don’t think the word aficionado accurately describes my obsession. I probably have every jazz record, tape, and CD there is. I may start my day with Miles or end it with Goodman. Fall asleep to Coltrane, take a run with Jarreau. But jazz isn’t my only passion. There’s REO Speedwagon, Fleetwood Mac, ELO, EWF.”
“Earth, Wind and Fire? God, I love them! After the Love Is Gone, Love’s Holiday…”
“…The Way of the World,” he added enthusiastically, loving this meshing of the minds.
“I always liked the oldies, even as a teenager. I didn’t care too much for many of the groups out of the eighties. Anyway, I remember playing “After the Love” so many times following a breakup that my mother finally burst into my room and confiscated my CD player, told me she wasn’t having her daughter going crazy stupid over some slim-hipped jim who didn’t know how to treat me right anyway.”
“Yeah, I think we all had those types of breakups,” he chimed in. “Actually, mine happened in grammar school, and it wasn’t music but phone calls. I think I must’ve called her nearly seventy times, trying to make her take me back. Her mother finally called my mother and pleaded with her to make me stop. My mother disconnected the phone for a whole weekend and told me to get over myself, that if the girl didn’t want me, I better stop trying to force a thing that didn’t fit.”
They were finally on North Ridge Avenue, and the steady stream of cars had thinned a bit. He pressed down on the gas, and the speedometer moved up to sixty-five. Once they were on Green Bay Road, they would almost be there.
“Your mother sounds
a little like my mother,” she laughed. “They’d probably get along great.”
A bit of guilt flitted through his conscience and he mentally swatted it away. His mother hadn’t returned his message, and he imagined her sitting, watching her reality show, already hitting her second package of Camels. Inwardly cursing her wayward son. Or probably putting a curse on him. Another thought he quickly shook away. His mother was not a witch. But, hell, she was as close as they came.
Jennifer pulled up to the address Mrs. Carvelli had given her. The woman was already there, waiting on the porch.
Jennifer got out of the car, walked up the path. Rhododendrons grew in profusion on either side of the stairs. The house was a St. Anne Victorian with a wraparound porch and bay windows. Much more old-fashioned and elaborate than she would have attributed to a single man. Maybe he bought it with thoughts of a family in the future.
Carmen Carvelli looked upset as she waited for Jennifer to climb the steps.
“So how are we going to do this?” Jennifer asked. “I mean we can pick out one or two of his things and try to get an impression that way, but, of course, direct personal contact is always best—if he’ll let me touch him, that is. The visions will be much stronger and…”
“We’re doing this without him,” Mrs. Carvelli said definitively, her eyebrows fierce straight rods, her eyes thunderous.
Jennifer looked at the locked door, confused. “But…”
“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Carvelli said as she reached into her purse and pulled out a key. “I always keep a spare in case of emergencies. Despite my dense-headed son’s knack for avoiding the obvious, this is an emergency.”
She put the key in the lock, then after a couple of tugs on the knob, pushed open the heavy oak door. “He still hasn’t fixed that,” she said under her breath.
Then they were inside the foyer. Jennifer took in the cherry wood staircase, the large oriental throw rug, the antique table with phone and answering machine just past the door. Off to the left was the living room. Again, antique furniture, and an overall impression of dark woods. The whole effect was turn-of-the-century elegance.
Mrs. Carvelli headed for the stairs, then stopped and turned to Jennifer. “He built this, you know. Said it was for me, but he’s all through this house. I can’t explain it, but this house is him, and he doesn’t know it.” Then she started up the stairs and Jennifer didn’t have any other choice but to follow. She felt like a trespasser as she glimpsed the black-and-white photos lining the stairway wall. She recognized Babe Ruth, but not the others.
This was someone’s home, someone who didn’t believe in the paranormal, let alone psychics. She could only guess what his reaction would be if he knew that she was now approaching a door that opened on what looked like his bedroom. But his mother was leading like an advance scout of an infantry, marching steadily on with the fierce determination of battle heat. Jennifer began to wonder what she had gotten herself into.
She watched as Mrs. Carvelli beelined to a bureau, pulled out a drawer and searched through its contents before retrieving a navy-and-gold striped tie. The woman turned and held it out to Jennifer, a fire in her eyes. Jennifer fought an urge to step back, to shrink from the mania that had overtaken the woman. Instead she tentatively took the silky material in her left hand, closed her eyes. Let her mind go blank, tried to receive an impression. But seconds passed and there was still nothing.
“Are you getting anything?” Jennifer heard the voice through her haze. “That’s the tie he had on that evening at my house—when he turned into someone else. Or at least, that’s what I thought I saw.” Jennifer detected the uncertainty in the older woman’s voice, the first sign of withdrawal. Maybe the woman was only now realizing she had overstepped some invisible boundary, a trust broken between parent and child.
“No,” Jennifer answered simply. Mrs. Carvelli’s face fell a little, her determination petering out. But then a second wind came from somewhere and Mrs. Carvelli turned to the dresser. She opened a wooden box that sat on top, pulled out the first thing she touched. A diamond stud earring. Jennifer was confused for a second, until she realized the earring belonged to David. She knew men pierced their ears nowadays, but she hadn’t realized that Mrs. Carvelli’s son was one of them. Jennifer held out her hand, and Mrs. Carvelli dropped the delicate piece of jewelry into it.
Immediately, Jennifer got a flash of a woman. Auburn hair, blue eyes that glittered as she fastened the earring into the man’s ear.
The flash ended. It was something, but not what they needed. It didn’t tell them anything that might or might not stave off the impending storm that seemed to be hovering above them. She felt Mrs. Carvelli staring at her. Jennifer shook her head. But the woman only turned and looked over the canvas of the dresser, searching for something else.
Jennifer started toward the dresser to put the earring back in its place. Her nervousness made her legs quaky, and she accidentally brushed against the edge of the bed.
Mrs. Carvelli’s son, David—his face contorted in pain, sorrow—thrashed in his dreams. And then his face morphed back and forth into another’s. The face she had seen superimposed over his photo. He was murmuring something—a name—Ra…Rachel?
Mrs. Carvelli was shaking her. “What is it? What did you see?”
Jennifer shook off the remnant of the vision before telling the woman about the alternating faces.
The older woman nodded. “I bet you it’s the same man I saw. Did you see anything else? Hear anything?”
Jennifer hesitated, not sure of what she’d heard. “He seemed to call out a name. Someone named…I think, Rachel.”
Mrs. Carvelli pondered this before reaching inside the large, black handbag hanging from her shoulder. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, took one, lit it. Then through a curl of smoke, said, “Must be someone he knows…or knew. But at least we have more than we had before.”
Rachel. Jennifer wondered if that was the name of the girl Mrs. Carvelli had mentioned in their phone conversation the other evening. A young woman Mrs. Carvelli said she had a vision of a couple of nights ago. She’d said the girl was in her late teens, early twenties, reading through a bunch of letters. Mrs. Carvelli didn’t know how the girl figured into all of this, but that she was somehow a key to something missing.
Could she be Rachel?
And if not, then who?
Chapter 18
A slight breeze tickled her hair, sweeping a tendril into her eye. Tyne pushed it away. The smell of crushed grass joined the medley of deli aromas from hundreds of picnic baskets. From a full expanse, she could see hundreds of heads swaying to the rhythm of the saxophone as couples lay in various positions of repose. On the Pavilion stage, Wynton Marsalis fronted the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and their horns filled the evening with the strains of Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train.” She and David sat along the edge of the lawn, and were among the lucky few who could actually see part of the stage. Along the perimeters, a state-of-the-art sound system broadcast the concert to the rest of the listeners.
“How is it?” The sudden rush of words brushed her ear and a tingle vibrated down her spine. She turned and his face was so close, she found herself looking at the indentation in his chin. She scanned the slightly full lips, traveled up to the eyes, their color dark in the night. But they reflected the lights all around them. She had to bend in close to his ear to speak.
“It’s great. I really like Wynton Marsalis. How did you know?”
He shrugged to say he didn’t. They both turned back to the music, and the night. Even as she listened, her body throbbed with the music, with expectation. No, she wasn’t going to sleep with him. Not tonight. Yet, she had to admonish herself for peeking at the hard line of muscle visible through his jeans, the impression of pectorals through his shirt.
She knew that on occasion, throughout the performance, he peeked at her, too. She knew that his eyes searched her profile, sometimes traveled the length of her body, explored her c
urves. She was wearing slacks, so there wasn’t much to see. Yet, she felt as though he saw her bared and open.
After the first set, the orchestra segued into “Get Close.” A hand appeared, holding a small berry to her mouth. She was already stuffed from the various meats, cheeses, and breads he had packed. She had drunk glasses of both lemonade and a light wine, tasted a scrumptious slice of apple pie. She barely had room for anything else, but she opened her mouth to let him move the berry in. Her tongue brushed his finger, and she felt his body stiffen inches away.
There was an eclipse as his head blocked the light. He touched her lips lightly with his tongue, left a trail of moisture across them. He smelled of berries and wine. An accompanying moisture crept from the crevice of her other lips, and she resisted a compelling need to pull him to her. Instead, she moved her head back to break the spell of intimacy he was creating.
He moved back then, but his eyes bored into her, as though he needed to find some way to penetrate her. She wanted him to penetrate her—with tongue, fingers, penis. She wanted to feel his mouth discovering those curves he had only so far explored with his eyes.
Not tonight she told herself again, tried to tell him with her eyes. But they both knew she lied. Thank goodness she had packed a box of condoms. She bought them the other week on a whim she hadn’t wanted to explain to herself. That same whim had made her pack them into her purse only days before. It’d been so long, she no longer had a prescription for the pill. Strange how the subconscious makes the conscious self submit to its desire. How denial gives way to acquiescence, surrender.
He turned back to the music, and she let her eyes go to the stage. But she no longer saw the musicians, barely heard the music. Only felt his fingers close over hers. They stayed that way for the rest of the concert.
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