The Marriage Arrangement

by Patricia Ryan

  “Izzy,” Clay said, “the trip’s all planned.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ve promised these people I’ll be there.”

  “I understand.” She got off the bed. “Come on. Dinner’s getting cold.”

  He regarded her in silence for a moment, and then came to stand in front of her. “I know you’ve been worked over by experts—Prez, and those other clowns before him. I know you think I’m just like them, but I’m not. I want a chance to prove that to you. I want you to lower your defenses and see if we can be more to each other than just friends.”

  “But, Clay, the thing is, if I do that, everything will have changed. I mean, even more than it already has. Nothing will ever be the same between us.”

  Clay smiled as if she were slow-witted. “That’s kind of the point, you little idiot.” He kissed her quickly and took her hand. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. I hate spankings.”

  “You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right down.”

  After he left, she closed the door, turned on the light, and knelt in front of the chest at the foot of the bed. The dark wood was carved all over with a bas-relief of ducks in flight, and a tarnished brass plate on the front of the lid was inscribed T.G.—Thomas Granger.

  She lifted the lid, which took both hands; it was heavy. Inside she found bundles of old letters and postcards, a magnifying glass, some daguerreotypes, an original-looking bowie knife in a sheath, several bird feathers, a cigar box full of arrowheads, another containing small fossilized bones, three leather photo albums, an old needlepoint Christmas stocking, a set of woodcarving tools, something she took to be a dissecting kit, an ivory-handled shaving brush, a pair of binoculars...

  And, tucked between two tattered books—Treasure Island and A Taxonomy of Woody Plants—the little framed snapshot of Clay and Judith laughing in the snow. The glass over the photograph was cracked in one corner. Izzy ran a fingertip thoughtfully over the fracture...

  He was putting Judith behind him, she realized. Making way for her.

  “Izzy!” roared a chorus of voices from downstairs. “We’re hungry!”

  She slid the photograph back between the books, closed the lid of the chest, and sprinted out of the room and down the stairs. “Coming!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IZZY PRESSED A HAND to her belly to stifle the twinge of discomfort there, and felt something odd. Looking down, she saw the brass zipper.

  Breathless with anticipation, she pulled it down, groaning at the tug of pain that accompanied the opening of her belly.

  Something’s wrong. It’s not supposed to hurt.

  Ah, but there was the tissue-wrapped bundle, just where it should be.

  Izzy reached in to extract the bundle, and pain yanked on her from within. It’s not supposed to hurt! What’s wrong?

  With trembling fingers, she peeled off first one layer of tissue paper, and then another, and another... and another... and yet another. Layer after layer came off, scattered around her as she unwrapped the tissue with mounting urgency.

  Where is she? Where is she? Where’s my baby?

  Frantically she tore at the dwindling bundle, shredded tissue flying everywhere. Where’s my baby? Where’s my—

  Izzy awoke to the sound of her own anguished cry as another cramplike pain seized her.

  “Clay!” She reached over to his side of the bed, but it was empty. “Clay!” She sat up and turned on the light.

  I’m in the wrong room, she thought, taking in the blue walls, the striped curtains...

  “Clay!” she screamed.

  The door slammed open. Teddy ran in, hurriedly tying her robe. “Izzy! What’s the matter? It’s four o’clock in the—”

  “Where’s Clay?” Throwing the blankets aside, Izzy lowered her feet to the floor and stood—or tried to. She doubled over, holding her stomach.

  “He’s in North Carolina. Kitty Hawk, remember? Izzy, what’s the—” Teddy broke off, her gaze fixed on the bed.

  Izzy turned around and saw the blood on the sheet just as she felt Teddy’s hands on her upper arms, urging her to sit. “Easy, now. It’s all right, Izzy. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “No, it’s not.” Izzy sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around her middle, rocking slowly as she squeezed her eyes shut against another searing cramp. “No, it’s not.”

  CLAY STRODE ACROSS the Kitty Hawk tarmac, in flight suit and harness, squinting at the flock of small planes silhouetted against the rising sun. A dozen figures moved around between them—pilots and parachutists making last-minute checks of their gear and equipment. They gestured with excited, staccato movements, all jazzed up and ready to free-fall.

  Clay didn’t share that heart-pumping adrenaline rush, hadn’t felt it in ages. Correction: he’d felt it that night in South Ozone Park, when he thought he was actually going to make love to Izzy.

  But he sure as hell hadn’t felt it during any of these pointless stunts...

  He shook his head wryly. Stunts.

  All he felt lately was a desire to get the whole ordeal over with as expediently as possible. And, of course, to come out of it in one piece.

  And get home to Izzy. He pictured her in his mind, asleep in bed in her flannel nightgown, her ridiculous hair all over the pillow, and smiled. He’d give anything to be in her warm bed with her right now instead of on this airstrip with a bunch of hyped-up sky divers, getting ready to jump out of an airplane.

  Clay turned around. “You coming, or what?”

  Harry, suited up like Clay, but wearing sunglasses in deference to his hangover, was following along at a snail’s pace as he fiddled with his camera equipment. “Chill. You want pictures of this stupid stunt or not?”

  Stunt. There was that word again.

  From the hangar behind Harry came the jangling ring of a landline phone. A pause, and then one of the ground crew came running out, both hands cupped around his mouth. “There’s a call for you, Mr. Granger.”

  “Who is it?” Clay called out.

  The young man shrugged. “Some woman.”

  Harry grinned. “I’ll be it’s that hot flight attendant who was eye-fucking you last night. Probably wondering why you didn’t show up at her hotel room after she slipped you the key.”

  Which he’d promptly stuffed into the seat pocket and forgotten about. Fuck me sideways, I don’t need this. “Take a message.” Clay turned around and continued toward the planes.

  “She says it’s important!”

  Clay sighed and turned around again. Harry waved him on. “I’ll burn her off. I’ll tell her you and I are engaged to be engaged.”

  “Fine, but make it snappy,” Clay yelled as Harry sprinted back toward the hangar. “I want to get this fucking stunt over and done with!” There’s that word again. On a sigh, Clay muttered, “Christ, what the fuck am I doing?”

  Clay got to the planes and exchanged a round of high-fives with his fellow jumpers. Amid the clamor of greetings and back-slaps, he heard his name being called.

  Turning, he saw Harry running toward him from the hangar, cameras bouncing on his chest. His Yankees cap flew off. He glanced behind him, but didn’t stop to retrieve it.

  That was when Clay knew something was wrong.

  SHE’S IN THERE, Mr. Granger,” said the nurse, pointing to one of several curtained-off recovery alcoves.

  As Clay crossed to the alcove, he felt every set of eyes at the central nurse’s station following him. He guessed it wasn’t every day a guy in a flight suit showed up in their ambulatory surgery unit.

  He pushed the curtain aside tentatively. The bed was empty, and at first he thought he had the wrong alcove. But then he saw Teddy, on a chair in the corner, reading a magazine. She looked up, and he was about to say hello, but she pressed a finger to her lips and nodded toward something outside his range of vision.

  Parting the curtain farther, he saw Izzy, propped up with pillows on a big cushioned vinyl chair, apparently asleep. His ches
t tightened at the sight of her. She was as pale as her white hospital gown, and IV tubing trailed from her arm to a plastic bag on a stand.

  “They had to do a D and C,” Teddy whispered as she stood and stretched her back. “She’ll be able to go home in about an hour.”

  Clay nodded and said softly, “Why don’t you go get some coffee? You look beat.”

  “Thanks, I think I will.” She started to leave, but then something seemed to occur to her. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I paid one of the pilots a thousand bucks to fly me to MacArthur Airport in Islip.”

  She seemed to notice his flight suit for the first time, and shook her head, smiling. Then, to his astonishment, she rose up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  After she left, Clay closed the curtain, sat cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor at Izzy’s feet, and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the arm of the chair. Damn, he wished this hadn’t happened.

  Several minutes passed, and then he felt the soft tickle of fingers in his hair. Looking up, he saw Izzy regarding him thoughtfully, her enormous eyes swollen and red-rimmed. She must have done some crying before she fell asleep.

  Her hair was all over the place. He reached up to brush it off her face, and she closed her eyes. He saw her throat move as she swallowed.

  When she opened her eyes, they were wet. “I lost—” Her voice sounded damp and hoarse. “I lost the—”

  “Shh, I know.” Dropping his head onto her lap, he encircled her with his arms. “I know, honey. I know. I’m sorry.”

  She started to say something, but her voice caught.

  “Shh,” he soothed. “Everything will be all right.”

  “No, it won’t. My baby... my baby...”

  “Oh, Izzy, I know. I know. I know how you must be hurting, and I don’t know what to say to make it better for you. I feel so helpless.”

  “Just don’t tell me I can have another baby, like that’s gonna make it all okay.”

  He looked up at her, struck by the pain in her eyes. “I wouldn’t. That’s dumb.”

  “One of the nurses said that. She kept going on about how I could start over, like it meant nothing that my baby was... that I’d lost... I’d lost...”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m sorry you had to go through this alone.”

  “Teddy was here,” she said, her voice raw and tremulous.

  “But I wasn’t. And I should have been. I’m your husband.”

  She grew still, and he knew with horrible certainty what she was thinking—that the reason for their sham marriage no longer existed. Izzy was no longer pregnant; she’d miscarried. A vague panic seized him as he realized that she would more than likely dissolve the marriage now that it no longer served its purported function.

  “I’m your husband,” he repeated, looking up to meet her gaze, “and I should have been home with you, not off jumping out of—”

  “Clay—”

  “I’m cutting back on that stuff,” he promised, panic rising at the look of sad resolution in her eyes. “I’ll think of other ways to boost circulation.”

  Izzy’s expression grew thoughtful. He raised a hand to her face and lightly caressed it.

  “Stay with me, Izzy.”

  A pause, and then she shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying I want you to stay with me and be my wife. I want to try and make a go of this.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “We can.” He took both of her hands in his; they were so cold. “I know it.”

  “But if we can’t, then we’ve blown it. Our friendship will never recover.”

  Clay knew what was at the core of the problem. The extreme sports, the women, she’d said, it’s all the same. It’s all part and parcel of who you are. It’s in your blood. She didn’t think he could change. He needed to prove that he could, but that would take time—time she didn’t seem to be willing to give him.

  “Look,” he said, meeting her gaze squarely. “Just don’t move out right away, that’s all I’m asking. Stay with me. You’ve got some healing to do. Let me take care of you. Let me see you through this.” A thought occurred to him, and he brightened. “You’ve got to stay long enough to finish redesigning the magazine, anyway. That’ll take another month or two, at least.”

  “Another three weeks should do it.”

  Stubborn little idiot. “Then you’ll stay at least that long?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  He kissed her hands. Yes.

  The curtain was swept aside. Clay turned to see Jim Cooper, in surgical scrubs, entering the alcove with a chart in his hand. “Clay—you’re here! Good.” He pulled up a stool and spent a couple of minutes questioning Izzy and checking her over.

  Addressing both of them, Jim said, “You can resume marital relations anytime Izzy feels up to it. But it wouldn’t be smart to try for another pregnancy until about two months have gone by. Until then, no leaving the condoms in the drawer.”

  Clay and Izzy exchanged an awkward glance.

  Rising, Jim told Izzy, “I’m going to send your nurse in here to remove this IV and give you your marching orders, and then you can get dressed and go home.” He shook Clay’s hand. “Take good care of her.”

  “I will.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HOLY SHIT.” It really is green.” Izzy stared into her glass of beer with a fair measure of repugnance.

  “Told you.” Harry chugged down a good portion of his own pint, then returned his attention to the bank of glowing TV screens over the bar, each one tuned to a different sporting event, but without the sound. Recorded Irish folk music provided a backdrop to the din of conversation that surrounded them.

  “Drink it—it’s just food coloring,” said Clay, pressed up next to her in a red leather-upholstered booth at the Happy Fiddler, the North Moon Bay pub where Clay, Harry, Marie Tilton, and now Izzy, liked to unwind on Friday evenings. Although it wasn’t a Friday, the office had closed early in honor both of St. Patrick’s Day and of the completion of Izzy’s redesign of the magazine. The new look was in full production, and already getting rave advance reviews from industry insiders.

  “Drink it, Izzy,” urged Marie, her green plastic bowler tilted at a rakish angle.

  Izzy took a sip, her first taste of alcohol since her pregnancy, and wrinkled her nose. “Either that food coloring is really bitter, or I’ve lost my taste for beer.”

  “So, what’s it gonna be?” Marie asked. “Are you gonna stay on with us, or move on to bigger and better things?”

  Izzy hesitated.

  Clay slid an arm around her waist in that possessive gesture he’d been displaying more and more the closer she got to finishing her work on the magazine. “I’ve asked her to stay on. Begged her, actually,” he added with a significant look in her direction. “But she’s balky. Maybe if you guys start laying it on...”

  “Come on, Izzy,” Harry prodded.

  “We need you, Izzy,” Marie echoed.

  Izzy responded to their entreaties with a look of feigned forbearance. In reality, she was pleased to have been accepted with such open arms, not only by Harry and Marie, but by Clay’s entire staff. Despite her distaste for extreme sports, she might have seriously considered his offer to make her the permanent art director of The Rush, if only things were different. But they weren’t.

  Clay was the same old Clay, although he’d love for her to think otherwise. During the three weeks since the miscarriage, he’d turned down invitations to participate in hang gliding and extreme skateboarding events—but he hadn’t canceled Wolf Peak, which was scheduled for the coming weekend. If he had really changed, he wouldn’t go anywhere near there.

  To his credit, though, he’d been very thoughtful and supportive of her while she was getting back on her feet. Teddy had returned to her apartment in Brooklyn after the first week, and Clay had either taken her out to dinner or ordered in almost ev
ery night since then. He hadn’t kissed her or made any more sexual overtures, in apparent deference to what she’d been through. In truth, she felt fully recovered from the experience—physically, at least. She suspected that there would always be an empty place in her heart where her baby had been. As time passed, she knew the place would grow smaller, but she couldn’t ever see it disappearing entirely.

  “Hey, you guys!” Harry said. “Check it out. Olof Borg’s on TV. Look.”

  He pointed to one of the screens over the bar, where a red-haired woman reporter was interviewing a behemoth in a silver ski suit, his face square-jawed, suntanned and ruddy, golden blond hair brushing his shoulders. A snow-covered mountain loomed in the distance.

  “Jesus, look at him,” Marie said. “All he needs is a red cape and a big-ass war hammer.”

  “Hey, Mike!” Harry yelled to the bartender. “Turn the sound up on that one.”

  Conversation ebbed as Mike killed the Irish music and reached up to increase the volume on the TV. “Just two days to go, Olof,” the reporter said into her microphone. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Borg grinned with cocky assurance as she held the mike to his mouth. “They’ll have to rename that chute when I’m done with it,” he said in a thick Norwegian accent. “It will be Olof Borg’s Chute. I will conquer that chute. I will own it. It will be mine.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself,” the reporter observed.

  Harry snickered. “Olof was born thinking he was all that and a slab of Lutefisk.”

  “...as ready as anyone could ever be,” Borg was saying. “The last person to ski that chute was Clay Granger...”

  The crowd in the bar hushed each other; Clay just studied the screen, his face emotionless.

  “My goal is to beat Granger’s time,” Borg said. “I will claim that chute for my own.”

  “Granger is known for his speed on tricky runs,” the reporter said.

  Borg looked contemptuous. “I am tired of being compared to this man. He is a dilettante. I am Olof Borg...” The onlookers in the bar set up such a hue and cry that Izzy couldn’t hear the rest of Borg’s chest-thumping diatribe.