by Jane Gentry
She couldn’t dredge up much interest in philosophic detachment herself, she thought gloomily. Steve was right about one thing she wanted: it hadn’t taken any soul-searing kiss for her to acknowledge the liquid desire that melted her whenever she even thought about him. She knew all about desire, much more, really, than she’d ever wanted to find out. And if she was kept from realizing the desire?
She wished the possibility were unthinkable. Unfortunately, she could clearly see herself riding off into the sunset—alone.
The car hit the curb and lurched as she turned into her driveway. “Bah,” she said, much as Steve had earlier.
“There’s a big box on the porch,” said Cara, suddenly elated. “I bet it’s my birthday present from Daddy.”
Over a month late, as usual. Too much stuff, as usual. Chosen by the current girlfriend, as usual. Elizabeth could tell a lot about the women Robert dated by what was in the Christmas and birthday boxes.
Cara was out of the car almost before it stopped moving.
“It is from Daddy! Look how big it is!” she squealed.
She was ripping at the strapping tape before Elizabeth could unlock the door. When the house was finally open, Cara tugged the box into the foyer and tore into it.
“Oh, cool!” Cara grabbed the item on top and held it up. “Clothes.”
Oh, God, Elizabeth thought. The Tin Ear must have picked out that horror. It was a matched set, a thin knit T-shirt and leggings, like cheap long underwear (probably exactly its function in a previous incarnation), splattered with purple and pink dye and ripped artistically in strategic places. The second garment to emerge was a hot pink body suit to wear with the—thing—and meant to show through.
Manchester Park, read the label. Rodeo Drive. It must have cost a bloody fortune, and it wasn’t fit for a charity donation.
That was just the beginning. The box was full of the sort of clothes for the sort of woman Elizabeth had always thought you’d find on the street corners in bad districts of large cities.
And Cara would fight to wear them.
Robert had sent clothes before, and they were always awful. But these—these were definitely the worst yet. Stupid damn Robert—didn’t he ever look at what his money bought? Even he couldn’t have been idiot enough to sanction this shipment. She would like to take every piece back to California, thought Elizabeth, and poke each despicable thread down his throat until he was so permanently plugged up that he’d be constipated forever.
“I wish I didn’t have to wear a skirt and blazer every day,” Cara lamented. “Can’t I please go to a public school next year?”
“Don’t be silly,” Elizabeth snapped.
“I don’t see why not,” said Cara, in the mood for a fight.
“I ... will ... not ... argue ... with ... you ... about ... this. Take those clothes upstairs,” said Elizabeth, and silently added, then throw them out the attic window.
“Look at the card Daddy sent,” said Cara, for once deciding to retreat. She dumped the clothes into the box and hauled it upstairs.
Elizabeth read the card and with difficulty resisted the urge to claw it into confetti.
“Give all my bestest love to Mom,” it begged. In italic type. Even the signature was typed: “Dad.” Elizabeth said aloud for the first time the sort of word she had always thought would be said only by the sort of woman you’d find on the street corners. And found it very appropriate to the situation.
Robert had never said bestest in his life.
She went to the phone to call Steve, an innocent civilian who needed to be informed that the battle was rejoined. It rang before she could get it off the hook.
Joe Salvini. Cara picked up her bedroom extension and quickly replaced it.
“Are you calling to tell me her grades are awful?” asked Elizabeth, after Cara was safely off the line.
“No. Actually, her grades are much better,” said Joe. “She seems to be interested in what we’re doing. I’m preparing next semester’s lesson plans. You said you had some Civil War artifacts. Still want to share them?”
“Sure,” she said. “I have quite a few things, but the letters are the most interesting, I think. They really show what was going on, both at home and in the army. Lots of details of family life. When do you want it?”
“I’ll come look at it on Monday evening, if that’s okay.”
“I could bring it to school for you.”
“I have to be in Philadelphia all day. I’ll come by on my way home,” he said. “I want Cara to present this to the class herself. Will you have time to help her with it?”
“Absolutely,” said Elizabeth. She’d look forward to it.
“Good,” said Joe. “It’ll be good for her to learn to speak to a group. See you Monday night, then.”
As soon as they disconnected, Cara exploded down the stairs.
“What did he want?” Dancing about, unable to stand still.
“The Civil War stuff,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh.” Deflation. “Do you want me to take it to school?”
“No. Mr. Salvini’s coming by to look at it.”
“Oh. He is?” Renewed hope. “Did you like talking to him?”
“Of course. He’s very nice.”
“He’s really good-looking, too, don’t you think?” asked Cara. “I mean, really.”
“Very nice, yes,” said Elizabeth, trying to turn Cara away from the subject of Mr. Salvini. “Have you started your homework?”
“I did it in detention today,” she said. “I want to show you something. Dad sent a dress.” She shot upstairs.
Detention. No wonder Cara’s grades were better, thought Elizabeth. That’s the one benefit to the feud that she hadn’t considered.
Cara clattered down the stairs again, clad in an outrageous blood red organdy and satin dress. It made Elizabeth’s head hurt to look at it.
“I’m going to wear this to the Thanksgiving Dance,” said Cara, spinning around.
“Darling, that’s really precious,” said her crafty mother. “It looks just like the kind of dress a little girl ought to wear.”
Cara looked thoughtful. Elizabeth pressed the assault.
“I think your father would love to have a picture of you in this. It’s adorable. You had a Sunday School dress very much like it when you were in first or second grade. Imagine his remembering that.” She walked around Cara, smiling. “You look very sweet and nice in it.”
Sweet and nice were two things Cara seldom wanted to be.
“Can I go shopping Saturday?” asked Cara. “Just in case I decide I don’t want to wear this?”
Elizabeth grabbed her daughter and hugged her fiercely. “I adore you,” she said. “Despite linguistic trials. Did you know that?”
Cara put her arms around her mother and snuggled into her shoulder. Elizabeth dropped a kiss on the curly soft hair.
“Yes,” said Cara. “Can I go by myself with just Gretchen and Megan and Sara Fane? I’m old enough to pick out what I want.”
“What about detentions?”
“I’m not gonna get one,” said Cara confidently. “I’m being really, really careful.”
Elizabeth laughed and gave Cara another squeeze before she let her go.
“Homework time,” she said.
“I know, Mom,” said Cara. “You don’t have to tell me.” She went into the kitchen. “I don’t have very much, anyway.”
Since Elizabeth had used that strategic ploy herself with her own mother, she knew it was not to be believed.
“Your book bag,” she said to Cara, with more than a touch of suspicion, “is bulging.”
“Library books,” said Cara. “Honest, Mom.” She went upstairs loaded with enough food to sustain her through a two-year famine.
Elizabeth settled herself in a chair by the fire and opened Kalik the Destroyer. Lot of nerve she had, telling Cara to do her homework, when waiting upstairs in her office was the accounting system of the McNulty Paper Box Company, wa
iting to be dragged into the twentieth century. She felt guilty for a nanosecond, then opened the book.
Steve’s picture on the inside cover told a story, all by itself. The jaunty boy shown on Fire in the Hole was gone; the young confident man pictured in The Hail Mary Margin and The Lion’s Whelp had vanished. This Steve was grim-faced and sad and weary. His lips were painfully compressed, his eyes were hooded; she could tell where the lines on his face would be when he was old.
Elizabeth knew from reading Steve’s other work just how emotionally autobiographical the books were, and the first few pages of Kalik the Destroyer were painful. Jord had failed, for the first time. He was fighting on in a disintegrating world to save its children, of whom there were only seven left. One of the seven was the link to the One Child’s future, but Jord didn’t know which one. And he was desperate to save them all. All the early optimism was gone: Jord was fighting just to stay alive.
Elizabeth put the book down. She couldn’t stand any more. It was obvious to her that Steve had written Kalik as his marriage was breaking up. All his pain and fury and helplessness was condensed and magnified through Jord Varic, and Elizabeth could feel his despair as intensely as if it had been distilled and fed into her veins.
It was a terrifying book.
She was too emotionally uncomfortable to keep reading. McNulty and his boxes would be a distraction from Kalik and his hatefulness.
Besides. The One Child was in grave danger. Elizabeth knew it was stupid, but the book had really shaken her. She wanted to see if Cara was all right.
She stopped at Cara’s door and tapped lightly.
No answer.
“Cara—get started on your homework.”
No answer.
Elizabeth tapped again. No answer. She pushed the door open and peeked in.
Cara was sitting cross-legged on her bed, with her nose in a book. It didn’t look like a textbook.
“What are you reading?”
Cara looked up, startled. “Dragonflight. It’s really good. I’m going to read all the books she wrote.”
“Who?”
“Anne McCaffrey.” She dipped her head again and said absently, “You ought to read this, Mom.”
“Well, I might. I find that I’m becoming a science fiction fan myself.” Elizabeth withdrew quietly and went to her office to turn on her computer.
Cara read until it was time for bed, came home with a new set of books on Friday, read until Elizabeth made her quit and got up early on Saturday so she could finish her book before she had to go shopping.
Her book bag had been crammed every night, all week. Elizabeth investigated: most of it was science fiction. If she hadn’t known how competitive Cara was, Elizabeth would have worried about her grades. But the grades stayed up. Cara worked more efficiently—her words—so she’d have more time to read.
Saturday morning she saw Cara out the door with a credit card and a headful of admonitions: don’t buy anything tight, don’t buy anything black, don’t buy elbow-length gloves; don’t buy lipsticks, you have them; don’t leave the mall; stay in a group; meet Dr. Fane exactly at three in the Food Court and don’t keep her waiting.
“You forgot to tell me not to talk to strangers,” said Cara, grinning.
“I forgot to tell you to have fun,” said Elizabeth, kissing her. Cara sprinted to the Fanes’ car, all elbows and angles. She looked two inches taller than she had a month ago and leggy as a young colt.
Almost all grown up. It was such a short time from diapers to dances, from dances to graduation. Be lonely here, Elizabeth thought, with Cara gone and away from home for good.
Be nice to be able to share the big house with Steve, to have Cara and Melody whirling in and out as they went through college, to sit around the table with them and listen to them talk about their careers and their husbands and their babies.
They’d be more likely to catapult peas at each other with soup spoons. Elizabeth went to her computer with a heavy heart. She couldn’t see that the girls were any less hostile than they’d ever been.
She clicked the mouse to bring up a spreadsheet and concentrated on its symmetric form. Steve and Sammy were coming for lunch, after Steve dropped Melody and her friends off at the mall. If she could forget about everything except Wilson-Markam Industrial Consulting for two and a half hours, she’d have a good start on next week’s work.
She was through Wilson-Markam and well into Reddy, Mann and Steegle, Attys. at Law, when she heard Sammy barking outside. She closed the file with satisfaction and bounded down the stairs with Cara’s energy.
“Hi,” she said, beaming at Steve, but reaching for Sammy, as she opened the door. She put her arms around his fuzzy neck, and he nuzzled at her happily.
“I wish you’d pet me like that,” said Steve.
He unleashed Sammy, then opened his arms to Elizabeth.
“I’ve missed you for the past few days,” he said, kissing her.
She circled his waist with her arms. “A telephone conversation simply can’t compete with a good, long, wet kiss.”
“Certainly can’t,” he agreed. “Let’s do it again.”
A second later she said, “What in the world is banging against my shoulder blades?”
Steve withdrew an arm. “This,” he said, holding up a bottle of wine.
“Why in the world did you bring that here?” she asked.
“If I’m going to drink that nectar of yours,” he said, taking off his coat, “I want to be able to pay proper attention to it. This is commiserating wine.”
“What are we commiserating about?”
“Did you know that you said Melody is an awful liar and nobody can trust anything she says?”
“I think,” said Elizabeth, considering, “that I may kill Cara.”
“There are laws against infanticide.”
“I know why they come as babies. Because if you couldn’t remember how sweet they were when they were little, you couldn’t survive their adolescence.”
“The English have the right idea. They ship ‘em off to boarding school as soon as they get obnoxious.”
“I couldn’t send her to boarding school. She’d think I had abandoned her. Besides—” there was the vision of the empty house, with Cara grown and gone “—I’d be lonesome.”
That was Steve’s greatest fear. He knew she was lonely. And if Cara and Melody didn’t somehow make peace, that loneliness would sooner or later drive her right into the arms of another man. Of Joe Salvini, perhaps. Melody, with self-important virtue, had repeated a “conversation” with Cara over lunch: Salvini, said Cara, had been calling Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was really glad to hear from him, and they talked on the phone a long time.
Steve could practically hear Cara’s voice ringing in his ears. And while he knew intellectually that there was more—or less—to the phone calls than he understood, emotionally, he wanted to build a moat around Elizabeth’s house and fill it with sharks.
He wished he could chalk it up to paranoia.
Unfortunately what he feared was possible. More than possible.
He watched while Elizabeth expertly uncorked the wine. As she stretched for the glasses, her shirt separated from her jeans, and he was filled with a physical passion so great that it made him dizzy.
All he had to bind her with was to create in her a real, sustained and irresistible physical desire so great that she wouldn’t want any other man, ever. Beginning now.
Quietly and deliberately, he took her glass from her hand and set it beside his. Then, with her luminous eyes looking deeply into his, he put his hands at her slender waist and pulled her into his arms.
She could feel every inch of his long, hard body, feel her effect on him, feel his quickened heartbeat and uneven breathing as he put his lips to the soft crescent of her ear. The pressure of his palms flirted with her breasts as his hands wandered from her hips to her shoulders, to lift her arms and loop them around his neck.
She clung to him, fighting
the urge to arch her burning body into his, and yielded to his searching touch. His lean fingers continued their long, slow progress, trailing up her arms, grazing the sides of her full breasts, dipping into the hollow of her tender throat, brushing the high cheekbones, heating the throbbing pulse at her temples and threading into her hair. His hands tangled roughly in the slick, black silk of it, and he pulled her head back to look into her face.
Her lips, red and wet with wine, parted to meet his. For a short second she gazed into his heavy-lidded eyes, then her thick, black lashes fluttered and dipped in surrender as he covered her mouth with his.
His hungry demanding mouth moved slowly across hers, pulling the sweetness from her, tasting her, knowing her. Ravenous herself, she pressed against him. His hands moved from her hair to her hips, pulling her into his loins, and the adamant, vital, essential maleness of him, uncompromised against her belly, flooded her with passion.
He slipped his hands underneath her flannel shirt, dipped into the waistband of her jeans and rubbed at the dimples on her bottom.
Her thoughts frothed like a storm-whipped sea. Oh, he was splendidly hard against her, and his heart pounded and his hot breath rasped against her ear. And oh, she was covetously, selfishly, voraciously desiring. Her own pounding heart and hungry mouth and clinging form had made that very clear.
She had forgotten. She had forgotten what it was like, the delight of physical passion, the complete immersion of intellect in emotion, the perfect and wonderful triumph of her heart.
Breathless, she pulled her lips from his and buried her face in his shoulder. He relaxed against the door and held her to him gently. She put her arms around his waist and squeezed.
“Meltdown,” he said, with a low breathy chuckle.
“Dangerous radiation,” said Elizabeth, her voice muffled by his shirt.
What now? asked her intrusive reason. What...now that she admitted her heart’s desire. The decision she made would affect the rest of her life and Cara’s, too. Would give her either happiness or misery, and God help her, she couldn’t possibly say which side happiness lay on. She had always been able to call home for help—but she couldn’t ask her mother about this one.