A Captive in Time
Page 32
She felt the tears well up in her eyes and spill over. She put her face down on the pillow. “I love you, too, Billy,” she said in her heart. “I won’t forget.”
Something touched her hair, something like a warm breeze, stroking.
And suddenly the air in the room grew light, buoyant. Stoner found herself laughing, remembering Billy playing the adolescent boy, her James Dean pose, her gruffness. “Hey, Billy,” she said aloud. “I never got the chance to tell you, but as a boy, you were a great woman.”
She got to her feet and smoothed the bedspread. “Drop in on Gwen and me on Monday nights,” she said. “You’d love Designing Women.”
She locked the door behind her carefully.
“What’d you think?” Bea asked. “Is it haunted?”
“Not that I could tell.” She picked up the Manhattan that was slowly turning to water where she’d left it on the counter.
“Well,” said Bea, “it’s a harmless enough fancy, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” Stoner said. “Thanks for letting me see it.”
She left Bea to The Rich are Decadent and went back to the phone. This time it was answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
Her heart jumped. “Billy?”
“Stoner?” Gwen asked in a puzzled voice.
She shook her head. “Yeah, it’s me. Were you worried?”
“Why should I be worried about you?” Gwen asked with a smile in her velvet voice. “You’re an adult. Ask me if I missed you.”
“Did you miss me?”
“DESPERATELY!”
Stoner found herself grinning from ear to ear. “Gwen, what day is it?”
“You don’t know what day it is?”
“Well, yeah, sort of. I just wondered if it was the same there as it is here.”
There was a brief pause. “Are you out of the country?”
Stoner laughed. “I’m in Kansas.”
“Is there any reason why it would be a different day there than here?”
“Anything is possible,” Stoner said wryly. “Want to just tell me the day?”
“Monday.”
“Monday of this week? I mean, Monday of the week I was supposed to call you?”
“If it weren’t, dearest,” Gwen said, “there would be wall-to-wall F.B.I. agents out there. Do you want me to fly out?”
“What for?”
“If you don’t even know what day it is, you’re obviously not in your right mind, and a potential danger to yourself and others.”
“I’m fine. I need to know the date.”
“Hang on a minute.” Rustling papers. Gwen was pawing through the pile of clutter on her desk. “Got it. The 13th.”
“November?”
“Of course, November. Where are you, anyway?”
“Kansas.”
“Where in Kansas?”
“In a hotel in Topeka. The Whitley. I’ll be home...” She calculated rapidly. “Late Thursday.”
“You’ll miss China Beach.”
“Tape it for me, will you? We can watch it together.”
“That’s a great idea,” Gwen said. “Dana Delaney always turns you on.”
Stoner felt herself blush. “Gwen!”
“What’s wrong? Is someone listening in?”
“They might be.”
“You,” Gwen said, “are the silliest woman on the face of the earth, and I love you tremendously.”
“I love you, too.” She took a sip of her drink. “Listen,” she said, not wanting to go into it all but unable to hang up now that she could finally hear Gwen’s voice. “Was there ever a time when they didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving?”
“Not that I know of. Are we getting into patriarchal genocidal holidays now?”
“No, I just wondered...did they change the date?”
Gwen thought for a moment. “Yes, they did. Sometime in the ’40s or ’50s, I think. Want me to look it up?”
“1940s?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Stoner said. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why they didn’t have Thanksgiving where I was.”
“Stoner,” Gwen said carefully, “where were you?”
“In 1871.”
“That does it. I’m coming out there.”
Stoner laughed. “I know it sounds funny. I can explain it later.” Can I? Can I ever really explain it? “Listen, Gwen, do you ever have the feeling we’ve known each other before? Like in a past life or something?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“I think I might have met you. I mean, another you. In that other time.”
“Did you like me?”
“Very much.”
“Thank God.”
“Well, I almost… I mean, I…”
“Stoner,” Gwen said, “were you unfaithful to me?”
“No, but I… well, it was you, anyway.”
“If you didn’t do it, and it was me, anyway, you didn’t do it with, why do you sound so guilty?”
Stoner looked down at the ground. “I was tempted.”
“I forgive you,” Gwen said.
“Well, it might have been you, but you then isn’t the same as you now. But I was the same me, even if you weren’t the same you. So it doesn’t really matter who it really was, you or not you, because it was completely me being tempted...”
“People are often tempted, Stoner. It’s part of life. I just hope she was nice to you.”
“She was. You were. The problem is, I nearly did it.”
“Well, you didn’t.”
“You don’t understand. I might have... I mean, there were circumstances. I was lonely and frightened, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. Or anyone, for that matter. But that’s no excuse.” She knew she was blithering, but couldn’t seem to stop. “I mean, an excuse is just an excuse. No matter how cold it was. It doesn’t matter that he was going to kill us.” She took a deep breath. “Gwen, I wanted to make love to Billy.”
“Is that the mystery woman’s name? Billy?”
“Gwen, are you listening to me?”
“Look, whatever happened or didn’t happen, it’s all right. If you want to discuss monogamy, we’ll discuss monogamy, but let’s not make AT&T rich while we do it.”
Stoner rubbed her hand over her face. “I feel awful about this, Gwen.”
“Just tell me one thing,” Gwen said. “How much of a threat is this Billy?”
“Huh?”
“Is she going to move to Boston and try to steal you away from me? Is she going to come slithering into our life like a snake in the grass and cast her evil spell over you while I stand helplessly by, wringing my handkerchief and sobbing?”
Stoner laughed. “Of course not. She’s been dead for fifty-nine years.”
“Stoner McTavish,” Gwen said, “that’s disgusting.”
“That’s not what I mean. Damn, I can’t explain it.”
“I think I’d better catch the next plane out there,” Gwen said. “Where did you say you’re staying?”
“At the Whitley. Her hotel.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re staying in a hotel with a fifty-nine-year-old corpse that you’re sexually attracted to?”
“She wasn’t dead when I…”
“I’ll be there tomorrow noon at the latest. I’ll let you know the time.”
“Gwen, you don’t understand.”
“I understand one thing, Dearest. I don’t care what you’ve done, or who you’ve done it with. I love you and miss you, and I can’t wait three days to see you.”
Stoner felt her insides turn to mush. “I love you, too, Gwen.” Something in her chest gave way. “Damn it, I’ve been having adventures again.” She began to cry. “I think I’m too young for adventures.”
“It’s okay, hon,” Gwen said softly. “I’ll be there before you know it.”
“What about your job?”
“Watertown�
�s adolescents can wait. The day my job is more important to me than holding the woman I love, I’m being tested for testosterone poisoning.”
Stoner smiled shakily. “You always know what to say.”
“And I hope I always will. Now, let me go and call Marylou for tickets.”
“I tried her. I got her machine.”
“I’ll call her beeper number.”
She couldn’t believe it. “Marylou has a beeper?”
“It’s her new toy. The Carharts gave it to her.”
“The Carharts? The Carharts aren’t speaking to us.”
“They are now. She went over to their house, cooked them dinner, and spent the entire evening looking at their slides. Do you realize they’ve gone to St. Croix every year for ten years? And every year they take at least six rolls of slides? And they never leave the grounds of the Pirate’s Cove?”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Serves her right, hanging around with Yuppies.”
“I’m going now, Stoner. I’ll call you later.”
“I love you, Gwen.”
“I love you, too.”
“I mean it. I really love you.”
“I know. I’ll call you…”
“I’ve never known anyone like you. Ever.”
“Fine. I’ll call you when…”
“I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Gwen said. “Especially with-out airline tickets.”
“If I ever do anything you don’t like, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“Yes. Now get off the…”
“Even if you think it’d hurt my feelings, you’d tell me?”
“Yes. Time to go now.”
“Because I wouldn’t want to…”
“Stoner, do you want me to come out there?”
“Of course I do.”
“THEN GET OFF THE COTTON-PICKING PHONE.”
“Oh,” Stoner said with a little laugh. “Yeah. Right.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll rip your clothes off, and you rip my clothes off, and we’ll rub all over each other’s bodies.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Gwen! Someone might be listening!”
“Who? Your friend Billy?”
“You never know.”
As she hung up the phone she glanced at the picture over the bar. She could have sworn Billy winked at her.