She rounded on him. "Stop it! Stop lumping me in with clinical hysterics! Stop it!"
She burst into tears, turned, and ran away from them on a narrow footpath toward Bellevue Avenue, leaving Ben standing alone and frustrated just a little way from where Liz had been conversing calmly with her ghost.
Liz jerked her head around: Christopher was gone. She turned back to Ben and greeted him, confident that he'd been too caught up in his own trauma to eavesdrop on hers.
"Hi," he said glumly, coming up to Liz. "Who were you talking to?"
Reddening, she said, "Just thinking aloud. This is a good place to do it." None of which, strictly speaking, was actually a lie.
Ben jerked his head in the direction of Victoria's flight. "I've pushed her too far again. Hell, what do I know?" he said remorsefully. "I repair bodies, not souls."
"Tori's not really crazy, you know," said Liz with a last glance where Christopher had been. "Any more than I am," she added. That was for Christopher's amusement, just in case he was still hanging around.
Ben, still upset by the argument, said, "I left my car at the beach. Are you going that way?"
He wanted to talk; they fell in together on the path. Ben rubbed his dark beard with a slender hand; his brown eyes settled into their usual thoughtful, slightly cynical expression.
"What a fey little creature she is," he said, hopelessly bewildered. "I remember the day they brought her into emergency. She was just a bundle of broken bones, so fragile, so near death. No one thought she'd make it. And yet look at her today: leading me on this merry damned chase."
Liz smiled and said, "You two do seem meant for each other. In your own strange way."
"I love her madly," Ben confessed. "But this fixation of hers: needless to say, we can't seem to get past it."
There were quiet for a bit as they strolled along the path, and then Liz said, "I have a question for you."
She had a personal reason for asking it. "What if Victoria never gets over her ... situation? What if she refuses to — or can't — be any different for the rest of her life? Can a man accept a woman like that completely on her terms?"
Ben thought about it. "Some men can. I can, if I have to," he said quietly. "Not that it matters," he added in a sad-sack voice. "She won't even listen to talk of marriage until she's done her fateful deed."
"Which would be—?"
"Sneaking the pin back into East Gate."
"There's a certain order? I didn't know that."
"Yeah," Ben said, plunging his hands into the pockets of his shorts. "She won't commit to me because she's afraid Victoria St. Onge may only be using Judy Maroney's body temporarily. It's something called a walk-in. After the deed is done, Victoria St. Onge supposedly returns to some plane — fifth or sixth, I don't remember," he said dryly. "Anyway, that's where Tori's a little fuzzy. Apparently this isn't a textbook walk-in. Tori assumes that she'll return to this plane of existence, leaving, well, the broken remains of Judy Maroney."
"Tori thinks she may die if she sneaks the pin back?" said Liz, shocked.
"She's convinced Judy Maroney's already dead — or if not dead, then just a heartbeat away from it. I guess that's because Judy and Victoria haven't been communicating in the usual way for a walk-in."
He laughed a pained, skeptical laugh. "I can't believe I listened carefully enough to repeat this stuff."
"Ben, is she in danger? I mean, judging from what you know about cases like these? If she really returns the pin ... if she really believes she's fulfilled some kind of karma—"
Ben stroked his beard nervously. "Stranger things have happened," he admitted in a hapless tone. "The mind is a powerful instrument."
"Yes," said Liz. She felt the blood drain from her face. Her mind — the small part of it that was still rational — was telling her that she was afraid. Afraid for Victoria. Afraid for herself. Afraid for all of them.
****
Christopher wasn't waiting for Liz when she returned home. She had to remind herself that he wasn't a homing pigeon but a form of energy: a ghost, an angel, or — for all she knew — a projection of her own theories about Ophelia and Christopher. Maybe Jack was right. After all, she'd learned virtually nothing from her encounter with Christopher on Cliff Walk that she didn't know or couldn't easily imagine.
As for the ghost's stated purpose — to make sure that she and Jack didn't blow it the way he had with Ophelia — well, that could easily be chalked up to wishful thinking on her part. When you came right down to it, what the heck was he appearing to her for, anyway? Jack was the one who could use a swift little kick in the psyche.
Convinced that she was as deluded as Victoria and the Cambodian women Ben spoke of, Liz changed and drove to her office. It was time, past time, to focus on the task at hand, the benefit for Anne's Place. It wasn't that hard to throw a fund-raiser. The hard part was throwing a fund-raiser that actually raised funds.
Jack had promised to come up with a stellar honorary committee, which left Liz with the task of appointing the working committees. By nine o'clock she had roughed out the working-committee list:
Decorations: me
Entertainment: me
Ticket sales: Victoria'?
Publicity: me
Invitations: me
Food: Who?
Program book: Yowch.
Check-in: Mom and Dad?
There it was before her, in plain black and white: Elizabeth Coppersmith was in over her head. The committee for the program book alone would have to be substantial. Someone would have to be savvy enough to sell the ads, write the copy, look after the printing, and collect the money from the advertisers. The trouble was, she didn't know the someones who could do that. She simply did not move in that kind of circle.
Unless...? There was always Mikey. A fellow graduate at Rogers High, Mikey was an insurance agent nowadays; Liz had bought her house insurance through him and had thrown in her car for the extra discount. Mikey could sell sand to a Sultan.
It was a start. She got out her Rolodex.
****
Her office phone rang as soon as it was free. Jack, sounding pleasantly frantic, said, "Godamighty, I've been trying to call you for two and a half hours. Was your phone off the hook?"
Liz laughed and said in an intimate voice, "You could say that. It's been glued to my ear since I got in, and all because of your fund-raiser."
"Our fund-raiser."
"Whatever. I'm pleased to report that things are moving right along," she said in a gross exaggeration. "The director was thrilled that you're willing to underwrite the event, though she seemed skeptical that we could pull it off in time.''
"So she's in. Good. Make her head a committee."
"I already have: as it happens, Katherine is married to a computer wizard who's willing to produce something smart in an invitation and may even produce the program itself. He the equipment for it. Three cheers for geeks.
"Great. Nor have I been idle, m'dear. I've got Meredith Kinney to jump in and chair the honorary committee. In fact, she's damned enthusiastic about the idea."
He was waiting, apparently, for applause. "Oh, how very nice," said Liz. All she knew about Meredith Kinney was what she'd read in the social column: big house, big parties. Presumably, big guest list.
"It is nice," Jack said a little dryly. "She's a woman of some standing, and if she wants people to come — they'll come."
"Exactly what we need, then," Liz chirped, feigning enthusiasm. But would this social lioness stay out of Liz's way?
Jack dropped the subject of the honorary committee, and they chatted awhile about the search for worker bees to staff the real committees. After that, Jack seemed to hesitate before he said casually, "So what's new on the metaphysical front?"
Liz had absolutely no idea how — or even whether — to answer that. So she stalled by saying, "Oh, nothing that can't wait."
"Tonight, then. Same time, same place?" he said in a voice rich with meaning.
"Um ... I guess." And if Christopher decided to crash the party again?
"Gee, I was hoping for something like enthusiasm," said Jack, disappointed.
"I am — it's just that — anyway, don't compare me, please. I don't like being compared."
"To what? To whom, for chrissake? All I said was —"
"I am enthusiastic, Jack. I just show it differently from your ... Merediths."
"Aw, I knew it. I could hear it in your voice. Here we go again."
"No, you're misreading me," she said hurriedly. "I just — someone just walked in, that's all," she lied. "I'll see you later," she said, and rang off.
Okay, she thought. No need to panic. Tonight can't possibly resemble last night's train wreck. Christopher said he didn't speak unless he was spoken to. So: mum would be the word this evening. If he decided to show up and provoke her by acting goofy, well, she'd ignore him, that's all.
She could do that.
Chapter 19
Her first date with planned sex in over a decade: Liz had forgotten what it was like to feel single and sexy. She decided that she liked it. A lot. The feeling stayed with her as she rummaged through her drawer for a bra with a little more lace and a top with a little more plunge.
The feeling went away when her parents called and she spoke to Susy, who was tired and cranky and getting more homesick by the minute.
The feeling came right back when she heard the crazy brr-r-ring of her hand-cranked doorbell.
She opened the door, and there was Jack, tucked behind a huge bouquet of rich pink roses. No box, no tissue; just big cupped blooms with a heavenly fragrance.
"Bourbons, Netta tells me," Jack said, handing them over in a smiling, awkward gesture. "Watch for thorns. I don't usually go rummaging through our garden. But these looked especially fine this year."
Touched by the hominess in his gesture, Liz said, "Maybe it was our wet spring."
"Netta says it was the deer we had last year," Jack said as he came inside. "It ate the rosebuds as fast as they formed. Netta has this theory that the plants finished up the year with energy left over."
"You had a deer on your property? In the middle of Newport? I don't believe it," Liz said flatly. But even as she said it, she was flashing back to the first time she saw the grounds at East Gate through the barbed-wire fence: a deer park, she had mused, only without the deer. She'd been closer to the truth than she knew.
Hands in his pockets, Jack strolled into the kitchen after her, seeming to take pleasure in her pleasure at arranging the roses in a simple glass vase. "Oh, we had a deer, all right," he said, smiling at the recollection. "A beautiful young doe, all legs and ears. We figure it swam across the Bay from Jamestown or even Little Compton. It must've wandered straight up Bellevue Avenue early one morning; I doubt that it could've come up from the harbor through your dense neighborhood.
"Anyway, for three weeks we more or less stayed inside and walked around on tiptoe, praying it would leave and give us back our lives, yet hoping it would stay."
"In Newport?" Liz asked incredulously. "How could it possibly?"
"I know, I know," Jack said, sighing. "For three weeks I listened with the deer's ears to the summer noise of this city: to the the groundskeepers' machines — which never seem to stop — and to the garbage trucks, recycle trucks, fire trucks, rescue wagons, Harley-Davisons, planes buzzing the harbor, helicopters delivering VIP's; to the Fourth of July fireworks, the marauding drunks, the noisy parties, the loud music, the police sirens, the dogs barking nonstop at all of it — it was stressful to me, a rational human being; I can't imagine what it must've sounded like to a lost and disoriented wild animal."
Jack seemed to want to talk about the experience. In an oddly emotional voice, he said, "We all had trouble sleeping at night. We jumped at every loud noise, putting ourselves in the deer's place, wondering which corner of the property she was cowering in as she waited for each dawn; waited for peace and quiet."
Moved and distressed by his story, Liz said, "I never read about a deer in the paper."
Jack shook his head. "None of us said a word; we didn't want kids — or worse, some drunken yahoos — chasing her down."
"Couldn't you get someone to tranquilize her? To relocate her?"
"No. We called everywhere; no one was set up for it. Maybe by now they are. We were told to open our gates and leave her alone, that eventually she would make her way."
"And did she?" whispered Liz, almost afraid to ask.
Jack said pensively, "One day she was gone. We never heard anything more." He shrugged off his seriousness and added, "I've convinced myself that either she's happily munching rosebuds on one of the bigger estates to the south, or she got so fed up with the summer scene here that she swam back to wherever she came from."
He went up to Liz's long kitchen windows, with their old wobbly-glassed panes, and stared out at the deer park — his deer park — that no longer had a deer in it. "I wonder," he said softly, "where she is now."
Liz jerked her head up. Something about his voice, something about the very question, reminded her ....
Of Christopher, wondering about Ophelia. It shouldn't have surprised Liz, this dizzying sense of déjà vu that she seemed to experience almost daily now. The forces at play were far, far beyond the reckoning of a simple mortal like her. Did the doe have a significance that Liz couldn't understand? Or was this just another tale of a wild creature caught in a hostile world?
Liz said softly, "I've lived in Newport all my life. I think that if I ever saw a deer in my backyard, I'd feel truly blessed."
"Yeah, it was like that. I have to admit, the doe did seem at ease here, as if she'd found a sanctuary. I don't suppose there are many more beautiful experiences than watching a deer graze peacefully in a patch of sunlight."
Jack gave Liz a self-conscious smile and said, "Funny what a void she left in our lives. Of course, it was nice to be able to have guests on the veranda again and not feel guilty if someone laughed out loud; but ...." His voice trailed off in a sigh.
"Maybe she'll come back," Liz said, profoundly hopeful.
"I still scan the thicket for her when I'm in my bathroom shaving," Jack confessed. "It's automatic. She was here for less than three weeks, and I've looked for her every day for a year. Go figure."
"Gosh," Liz said lightly. "I wish I could make an impression like that."
Jack's laugh was rueful. "Oh, lady. If only you knew."
He walked back to where she stood holding the vase of roses, took the flowers from her and placed them back on the counter, and cradled her face between his hands.
"The fact is, every morning before I scan the thicket looking for the doe, I scan the fence between us looking for you. When I see you puttering in your garden, or taking out the trash, my heart does this funny little tap dance of joy." He kissed her softly on her lips. "I don't remember my heart ever tap-dancing before," he said. "Not even for the doe."
Liz's heart was doing a little jig of its own as she smiled and said, "Ah, now you're making an impression on me."
"Darling, I sincerely hope so," he said, kissing her again, and then again, a little longer ... and then again.
His small, nibbling tastes turned to hard, devouring kisses that left Liz feeling wonderfully, wantonly in love. He slid his hands around her hips and pulled her toward him; her arms were around his neck, pulling him close. This is what she needed, this is what she wanted: the solid, warm, electric feel of him tight against her body. Yesterday's reticence was long gone. Tonight she wanted to be with him, under him, around him; tonight she wanted simply to be part of him.
She dragged her mouth away from his. "Upstairs ...," she whispered. "Do you ... want ... upstairs?"
"Do I," he said in a shaky voice. "Let me think ...."
His droll response made Liz laugh, a low, sexy sound that was filled with confidence: a lover's laugh.
They went upstairs to the tiny bedroom tucked under the house's eave, and there they
undressed each other with a kind of gleeful abandon, making up for all the hesitant twists and turns of the night before. Liz lay down on the bed first, expecting Jack to be right behind her.
He had one knee on the bed when he said, "Hold on," and got back out. "While I still have a smidgeon of reason left in my brain, I should—"
He plucked his pants from the pile of clothing on the floor and began groping for the back pocket.
"Hold on, yourself," said Liz. She reached lazily over to the small worktable that served as a nightstand and pulled open the top drawer: it was filled with an almost comical variety of condoms, from understated skin-toned latex to a perky glow-in-the-dark number guaranteed to scare the dickens out of anyone who wasn't a party to the proceedings.
"I didn't know what kind you liked," Liz said with an innocent smile.
Jack surprised her by putting his hands on his hips and whistling. "Wow. That's quite a commitment," he said in an odd voice.
God, she hadn't thought of it that way! She blushed and said, "You're under no obligation to stick around for them all. They were a joke."
They were also her own secret way of saying, I love you so much that I'm going along with your farcical idea that you're saving me from pregnancy. I love you so much that I'm terrified to tell you the truth.
Jack sat down on the bed next to her and smoothed her hair away from her face in a gesture that was as tender as it was unexpected.
"I'm sticking around," he said seriously. "But I'm not so sure about the condoms. For now, yes. But — you have to feel this, too, Liz, I know you do — they're a barrier between us. Between us and ... well, all that could be. Have you thought about it? Am I being wildly presumptuous? Am I jumping the gun?"
For one split second, Liz saw, or thought she saw, the image of Christopher Eastman hovering next to them with a "See? Told you!" look on his face.
Liz blinked away the vision and focused on Jack with a squinty look of concentration. "You're saying ...?" But who could tell what he was saying? The words baby and marriage weren't part of his vocabulary. Was that what he was talking about? What else could he be talking about?
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