Wintergreen

by Jennifer Greene

  “I understand,” Lorna said compassionately.

  He nodded, smiling wryly. “But now that she’s done with the manuscript, she’s intent on getting it published. Frankly, Lorna, I haven’t the least idea if it’s excellent or terrible-I can’t read a word of Russian. To please her, I’m willing to have it translated. I didn’t want to discuss the fees with you on the phone because I wanted to explain. What I had in mind was a flat five thousand. If by some chance the story proves to be worth something, I’d be willing to add to that. I’m trying to be honest with you, though, there’s no counting on more. And just as frankly, I couldn’t care less about the financial success of the venture. I have only my mother’s happiness on my mind. And maybe preserving the story of her past for posterity.”

  Lorna leaned forward, touched by his attitude toward his mother. “Please understand, I’m grateful for the chance to work on this. I’ve written sewing-machine instructions in four languages, composed travel brochures, described computers and electronics component systems, but I’ve never translated literature, and frankly, I may not even be qualified. I am enthusiastic about the project, though, because I was raised on Russian folklore and the Russian feeling for life. Through my father. And I’d like to tell you I would put your mother’s book before everything else. But as I said on the phone, I do have regular commitments.”

  And Matthew’s nest egg was bothering her, though obviously she couldn’t tell Stan Valicheck that. In principle that was money due Johnny, but emotionally, Lorna still felt unhappy about it, guilty that she hadn’t been able to salt away any savings on her own. Security mattered; she never knew how much until her father died, until she was alone with no one to turn to when Johnny needed something she couldn’t provide. With this job, even if she had to work nights to fit it in with her other commitments, she could either put her earnings in the bank or begin to pay back Matthew.

  They talked a few more minutes before Stan stood up, smiling warmly at her. “Time to take you up to meet Mother, then.” He hesitated. “You’re an awfully pretty lady for someone who spends hours buried behind foreign-language dictionaries. Are you married, Lorna?”

  “Divorced. With a nine-year-old son,” she answered, setting down her cup and gathering up her briefcase to follow him.

  “I know you’ll be working at your home, but Mother will be counting on you to report in from time to time. You’re welcome to bring the boy. We have horses in back-”

  “I noticed.” Lorna felt something chafe at her nerve endings. Stan obviously liked children; he was a kind man, not bad looking. She didn’t know his profession, but the house hadn’t been put together on a shoestring. A father for Johnny. The thought clicked automatically in her head; it was the same thought that had colored her judgment of men for years. Until she’d met Matthew again. Last night’s lovemaking lingered in her head, yet she brought herself sharply back to the present, forcing the memory away. One of the thousand things she seemed to have forgotten last night was that Matthew, up to this point, could barely tolerate hearing Johnny’s name mentioned. “I’d like to bring my son,” she admitted slowly, and glanced at Stan. “But I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. For one thing, your mother might not even like me, and as I just told you I’ve never had the chance to do this kind of work before.”

  “She’ll love you,” Stan assured her, as if he couldn’t imagine anyone who didn’t.

  Anna Valicheck was in her late sixties, but she looked ninety. Her son had not inherited her heavy features. Her stark white hair was drawn back in a severe bun; her legs were covered with a blanket to hide arthritic limbs. The two women drank tea from a samovar, chatted in Russian of history and literature and Lorna’s father. The thick, handwritten manuscript was in Lorna’s lap, and though she was itching to look at it, there was no time. Anna was lonely for the ease and comfort of being able to talk in her own tongue; Lorna couldn’t deny her.

  Lorna loved her. The woman had grown up in Siberia, where her father had been exiled for political activism, both a sad and dramatic story that was the basis for her “diary,” as she called it. She evinced no self-pity. She had an acerbic tongue, and a dramatic way of speaking that was uniquely Russian. Lorna, raised on Eastern fairy tales, could appreciate Anna’s collection of enameled and jeweled eggs more than someone who never knew their origins. They both forgot the time as they talked, until Lorna looked up in surprise to find Stan in the doorway, smiling with humorous affection at both of them.

  “Now, I told Lorna we would take an hour of her time, and here it is five o’clock,” he scolded his mother.

  “But you cannot leave,” Anna told Lorna. “You will stay for dinner.”

  Lorna stood up, smiling. Truthfully, she would have loved to stay for dinner. She felt a spontaneous warmth toward both Anna and Stan, as if they were old friends rather than potential clients. But she shook her head regretfully. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m sorry-I really can’t.”

  “Of course you can,” Stan insisted.

  She shook her head again, not explaining that she had left Johnny with a sitter the night before and that she never did that two evenings in a row. She got to her feet, shifting the heavy manuscript in her arms.

  “I promise to come back and see you, though, if I may,” she told Anna.

  Stan walked her to the car, carrying the manuscript and her briefcase. “I haven’t seen my mother so animated in years. She’s usually extremely reticent with strangers.”

  “So am I,” Lorna admitted with a little laugh. “You two were so nice… I don’t know what I expected when you called. I think I was afraid you would take one look at me and decide you needed an older, more professorial type to translate the story. And I was desperately afraid the manuscript would be in Ukrainian. I really would have had a hard time handling that…”

  “I doubt you could have a hard time handling anything.” He opened the door for her, and she slid in behind the steering wheel.

  “I’ll need a chance to read it through before I can really commit myself to this or give you an estimate of how long it will take me to do it,” she said seriously, increasingly aware his brown eyes grew warmer the longer he looked at her.

  “And that will take you how long?”

  Unconsciously, she bit her lip, thinking. “I should be able to look it over by next Wednesday.”

  “Would it be better if I called at your house late Wednesday afternoon, then?” He added smoothly, “If you should find problems, I would rather discuss them with you first, without my mother knowing.”

  In terms of business, his suggestion was reasonable, though Lorna knew he was creating the opportunity simply to see her again. She didn’t know what to say for a minute, and then decided her hesitation was ridiculous. This was no heavy-handed man-on-the-make; she had a perfectly legitimate reason for seeing him, and he was nice. He’d gone out of his way to boost her morale from the moment she’d walked in the door, in an easy, inoffensive way. “All right,” she agreed, but there was no stopping the niggling guilt in the back of her mind. She refused to put Matthew’s name on it.

  She closed the door and waved goodbye as Stan stepped back and then turned toward the house. Putting the car in gear, she backed up, and sighed as she drove the winding curves of Pontiac Trail again. It was the most pleasant, carefree afternoon she had had in weeks. Mentally, she gave herself a pat on the back.

  She had only thought of Matthew 597 times.

  When Lorna got home, she made dinner for Johnny, who for the next two hours harangued her with reasons why she could no longer buy Finnish, Russian or Japanese goods; it seemed those three countries persisted in hunting whales that were on the endangered species list. Her son’s commitment to the cause made her smile, although Lorna knew better than to treat the subject lightly. She did point out to him that the economies of those countries were heavily dependent on fishing, but Johnny was not to be discouraged. Nor could he be dissuaded from packing up a near fortune in matchb
ox cars that happened to have been made in Japan.

  A little later, Lorna called Freda. “Thanks for taking him,” she said, with a touch of irony in her voice.

  Freda laughed into the phone. “Has he bashed in the record player yet, or are all its parts American-made? I tried to explain to him that there was another side to the story, that those people might have to fish to live and you just couldn’t take away their livelihood-”

  “I did, too.” Lorna added thoughtfully, “He said there had to be an answer for that. And just because the answer was hard was no excuse to do something wrong-as in killing the animals, upsetting the balance of nature.”

  “He’s something, your son.”

  Lorna agreed, hung up a short time later and went into the living room where Johnny was sprawled with both legs over the arm of the chair and a book in his hands. “Bedtime, Johnny.” Amid his groans and protests, she herded him into the other room, bullied him into picking up his clothes and harassed him until he washed his hands and face. When he was lying in his bed and looking like a perfect angel, he informed her that he was going to have power when he grew up. Power enough to right all the injustices in the world.

  She bent down to kiss him, brushing back the cowlick. “I love you, Johnny,” she said quietly, turned out the light and left the room. He sounded so much like a Whitaker that she could have cried. Justice, right and wrong; at nine years old he was already struggling to do the right thing…as he perceived it.

  Lorna took a bath, did a little cleaning up, then sat in the darkened living room for a long time. She was exhausted, and every hour since she had left Matthew had added to the confusion and guilt in her mind. She felt resentful, unsettled as a butterfly and unsure-as she seemed to have felt unsure her entire life-as to what the right and wrong of certain decisions were. Johnny, like Matthew, found the issues so easy to deal with. At the moment, the only conclusion she could come to was that it would be better not to see Matthew for a while. Even if he called.

  He called. She heard the phone and ran for it, not wanting Johnny to wake up. “Misha?”

  She heard the low, husky baritone, and her stomach flipped over. She caught her breath, feeling like a perfect fool. “It’s me, Matthew,” she confirmed. She knew her voice sounded cool and distant, disguising the anxiety that had plagued her all day. Her heart, by contrast, was soaring at the simple sound of his voice.

  “You’ve been upset, haven’t you?” he asked quietly, but it was not really a question. “Misha, it was too soon. I know that. I didn’t intend…” He hesitated, as if waiting for her to say something she couldn’t seem to say. “I didn’t take you out to rush you into bed. I just wanted to see you again. To be with you…” He hesitated again, and still she didn’t answer. “I called to tell you I was sorry I rushed things, but on the other hand I can’t quite seem to do that. I loved last night…Misha…” He paused again, and a thread of humor suddenly entered his voice. “You wouldn’t like to help me with this conversation, would you?”

  Helplessly, she heard a low throaty chuckle escape her throat, matched by his.

  “Say ‘hello, Matthew,’” he ordered into the phone.

  “Hello, Matthew,” she obeyed softly.

  “I’m going to come and see you when I can get free next week. We’ll walk, Misha. Out in the snow. Nowhere near carpets and firelight. Do you hear me?”

  She heard him. And she dreamed all night of making love on the carpet in front of the fire.

  Chapter 7

  The oak office chair had never quite felt comfortable to Lorna; she usually padded it with a pillow. Two if she was typing. At the moment, she was sitting on it crosswise, her legs slung over one arm, a blue pencil between her teeth and a red one stuck behind her ear.

  It had been snowing outside since early that morning, though she’d barely noticed. Yellow legal-pad pages had been skimming off her lap and onto the gnarled walnut desk since first light. At one, she’d stopped reluctantly to eat a sandwich; it was now a little after two.

  By working Sunday and the past three nights on her regular work, she’d made time for Anna’s manuscript. She was in love with it. With the red pencil she kept track of grammatical problems she would have to resolve in translating from Russian to English, while she used the blue pencil to mark passages where she had questions about the meaning. She would have to ask Anna Valicheck to explain those to her. There were dozens of marks, red and blue, throughout the yellow pages.

  Lorna stopped her reading, shoved her reading glasses to the top of her head and rubbed her tired eyes. She badly needed a break but was too engrossed in the story to take one. Blinking hard, she stared restlessly out at the huge flakes of snow falling on the windowsill, then just as absently focused her gaze on the small hole in her thick gray socks. The matching gray wool slacks were old, baggy and maybe a little too well loved over the years. The oversized red flannel shirt fit loosely over her breasts. It was her favorite outfit for a dig-in winter workday. She stretched lazily to get the kinks out of her taut muscles, and heard the doorbell ring.

  Frowning impatiently at the interruption, she padded around the desk to the front hall. Opening the door, she had to blink hard against the sudden brilliant glare of snow brightness, and felt the sharp edge of a cardboard box jab into her stomach for her trouble.

  “It’s falling, Misha, watch it!”

  “Matthew!” The box tumbled to the floor while she was staring at him. Somewhere above several other white cardboard boxes were his disarming dark eyes and a special mischievous smile that took her breath away. Snow glinted in his hair, was already layered on the shoulders of his coat. “What on earth-”

  “We’re going for a walk. I told you,” he reminded her, coming inside and closing the door behind him, “but then, knowing you, I realized what a foolish idea that was. The snow’s six inches deep, and I’ve never seen you in anything but bare feet or ridiculously flimsy sandals.”

  He straightened up after setting the boxes on the carpet. For a moment, Lorna almost thought he was nervous, the way he was chattering, but being Matthew…well, he just couldn’t be. She was the one whipping the glasses off her head, groping to extricate the red pencil from her hair. And suddenly Matthew was laughing, finding the blue pencil still stuck in her ponytail, releasing her hair from the taut rubber band, running his hands through the chestnut waves. “Before we go for a walk,” he teased, “maybe I’d better see a birth certificate. I don’t want to be arrested for statutory rape.”

  “Matthew, I don’t want to tell you that you’re out of your mind,” she said, “but this is not exactly the day for a walk.”

  “No,” he agreed. Before she realized what was happening, he’d gently tugged her hair back, tilting her face up to his. His lips swept over hers roughly, their texture freezing-cold and unbelievably soft. Ever so tenderly his palms cupped her face, lingering there. “It’s a day for curling up on a carpet in front of a fire,” he said huskily, and then his voice hardened. “We’re going for a walk. Hustle up and open the boxes.”

  Inside she felt like melted butter, but she made a monumental effort not to show it. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Aren’t you supposed to be working?” She remembered, I’m supposed to be working. Only a few moments earlier, she recalled, she’d been delightfully, wholeheartedly absorbed in Anna’s memoirs.

  “See?” He bent down to toss the lid off one box, dredging up one heavily fur-lined boot. “I would have bought size six and a half, since that’s what you used to say you wore. But I got a seven and a half so there was a chance they’d fit.” He chuckled at the instant crimson flush on her cheeks, then trailed a soft white angora scarf around her neck, and reached in the third box for a matching angora hat. He put it on her head and tucked in her hair without the least concern for style.

  His fingers, Lorna realized, were trembling. She stood, frozen, as he fitted a pair of fur-lined gloves on her hands. The gifts bewildered her; Matthew’s whirlwind arrival bewildered he
r. Even more disconcerting was the way he kept avoiding her eyes. When he turned, she saw that his profile was dark and intense… Matthew was nervous. Did he honestly believe she would turn him away?

  “Matthew…”

  But there was no trace of anxiety on his face when he finally looked at her. Just a slash of a smile and a rather bossy chin. “Come on, Misha. Put on the boots so you can fib and tell me how big they are.”

  She did. “They’re huge,” she announced. Just the tiniest bit snug in one toe.

  “We’ll leave that,” he said dryly. “Now I suppose it’s too much to expect that you own a warm coat.”

  She was bundled up like a mummy before he was satisfied. They walked toward the university campus. Matthew kept his gloved hands in his pockets, never touching her. The snow continued to fall steadily, big pure flakes that coated their clothes and occasionally lingered on their eyelashes, their faces. Lorna could feel her cheeks turn crimson, and welcomed the crisp, cold air in her lungs.

  “Are you cold?” he asked her once.

  She shook her head, and they didn’t talk after that. The campus was crowded with kids milling around between classes, battling the snowy walks. They all looked alike, with their army jackets and jeans, ruddy cheeks and armloads of books. She and Matthew always appeared to be walking against the tide, no matter which direction they took. Everyone else seemed to be chattering and laughing, while she and Matthew just shared an occasional glance or spontaneous smile.

  In the corner of the campus was an arboretum. In spring and summer, the wooded glen was lush and green, with a long, sloping meadow where students usually had to reserve spots for their blankets. Matthew lifted her over a snowbank. Breathing in deeply, she looked around as he vaulted up behind her. The meadow was a long, low carpet of white diamonds, without a single footprint to mar the treasure of a landscape. Stark black tree trunks rose in little secluded coves… It was like entering another world. If there were cars only a block away, she couldn’t hear them. They were no longer part of the city; there were no people, no other sounds.