The Awakening

by Jude Deveraux

  At the end of the silent meal, Amanda went with Dr. Montgomery to his car. She didn’t even bother to ask him to go in the limousine. He started in on her at once. “Are you hungry?” “Do you want to stop somewhere and eat?” “Would you rather go swimming than to the museum?” “Did Driscoll give you a test this morning?” “Did Driscoll buy that dress for you?” “Would you like to pick out some new clothes for yourself?”

  On and on the man went, but Amanda refused to get angry. He was a foolish, egotistic, overbearing man who liked to believe he knew everything about everyone else’s life and he wasn’t worth getting angry over.

  He drove slowly to Terrill City, and Amanda used the time to watch the way he shifted gears. By the time they arrived at the museum she was able to anticipate when he was going to make a gear change. At least she was learning something, she thought, rather than wasting her time with this frivolous man.

  At the Pioneers’ Museum he was rude and impatient. She was telling him about the tragedy of the Donner Party that was represented in the museum. “It was then that the rescuers found the remains of the others,” she said, hinting at the cannibalism but not wanting to speak directly of it.

  “I guess it beat shoe leather,” he said irreverently. “Look, I have to make a phone call to arrange for this afternoon. Wait here for me.”

  He doesn’t like others ordering me about but he is perfectly free to give me orders, she thought. Defiantly, she left the museum to stand outside in the cool shade of the porch. Brilliant fuchsia-colored blooms hung from a bougainvillea vine that draped one side of the porch. Suddenly she felt a wave of homesickness to be back at her desk with her books. What awful thing was this man planning for this afternoon?

  “There you are,” he said from behind her. “Have you seen enough of this place? Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry.”

  “That seems to be the usual state with you. Tell me, Dr. Montgomery, how did you earn your Ph.D.? From out-eating the other students?”

  He gave her a hostile look. “I impregnated all the female students and they gave me a doctorate to get rid of me.” He took her arm as she got in the car, then when he was seated he turned to her. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that you don’t ever talk about anything besides what’s in books. There’s a whole world out there,” he said, gesturing, “and I think you ought to see some of it.”

  “I don’t know why you assume I’m stupid, Dr. Montgomery. I have seen enough of the world to know what it’s like. It is a dirty, angry place full of dirty, angry people.”

  “And who told you that?”

  “Taylor said—” she said, but stopped. “It is my own observation.”

  “Right, and I’m Christopher Columbus,” he said, putting the car in gear. “You haven’t been outside that house long enough to know what the world is like.”

  She knew that if the world was composed of people like him she most certainly didn’t want to see any more of it.

  He stopped in front of a restaurant and came out a minute later laden with a big cardboard box that he strapped onto the back of the car between the spare tires and the gas tank.

  “We’re going on a picnic,” he said, as if he dared her to contradict him, then slammed the car into gear and took off.

  Another waste of time, she thought. She was going to be so far behind in her studies that Taylor was never going to marry her.

  He drove through the countryside, toward the Sierra Nevada mountains, past farmhouses and orchards and planted fields toward a dense grove of trees. There was a pretty pond in the center of the trees and he parked the car in the shade nearby. It was an isolated place, made private by the circle of trees, only a cow path leading into it.

  Amanda looked around and began trying to identify the wild flowers and the birds. If Taylor asked her what she had been studying, she could tell him.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Hank asked, removing the box from the back of the car. “They told me about it at the restaurant. Here, take the end of this.”

  Amanda took the opposite end of the cloth he held. It hadn’t crossed her mind that the place was pretty, but it was. The grass was greener here than in the full sun and the water was blue and the buzz of the insects was pleasant and—She pulled herself together. She was going to act as if Taylor was with her, remember?

  “Are we to sit on the damp ground?” she asked.

  “No, on the dry cloth. A little dampness won’t hurt you. That’s what skin is for—to protect you.” He began to unload containers of food.

  Amanda swore to herself that no matter what he brought out of that box she would not eat it. If she kept eating meals with him she’d get fat in a week, and Taylor would despise her. It took a great deal of self-control to watch the food being spread before her. There were strips of chicken breast in a golden sauce, cold roasted guinea hen, bread sticks, a grapefruit and endive salad, cold, seasoned boiled potatoes, sautéed eggplant, strawberries and tapioca, pretty little meringues, and candied almonds on top of a gorgeous chocolate cake. He poured glasses of lemonade from a big, frosty jar.

  Amanda swallowed but turned her head away.

  “Where do you want to start?” Hank asked, holding out a plate to her.

  She took the plate, then put on it a small helping of potatoes and began to eat in tiny bites. She didn’t even take the lemonade because she knew it had sugar in it.

  “That’s it?” Hank snapped at her.

  She ignored his words and his tone. “Dr. Montgomery, could we discuss something less personal than my eating habits? Why don’t you tell me what has made you believe that there is any good to come of unions? Were your parents, perhaps, migrant workers?”

  “No, they weren’t. Are you going to carry this subjugation of yours to the point where you don’t eat?”

  She ate a tiny piece of potato, hoping her body would ignore the tantalizing aroma of the food before her. “I think you have me confused with your migrant workers. I’m one of the rich tyrants, remember? It is people like me who give them jobs and thereby cause them enormous amounts of pain and misery.” She kept looking at that chocolate cake. The icing was only on the top and dripping fatly down the sides, exposing seven layers of cake sandwiched together with thick, rich, dark chocolate cream.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hank said. “Have you ever been in the fields during harvest time? Did you know that a lot of farmers sell drinking water to the workers? A hundred and ten degrees and they can’t even get water.”

  “I’m sure you must be exaggerating. Of course the workers could go elsewhere if they don’t like the way they’re treated. This is a free country, yet you make it sound as if they were slaves owned by their master.” She was looking at the cake, watching the way the light made the icing sparkle, and didn’t see Hank’s eyes turn dangerously dark. She was talking about the thing that meant most to him.

  “It’s people like you,” he said softly, “that make a union necessary. The workers are simple people. They don’t have the education and resources to fall back on so they can change jobs on a whim. They have kids to feed and clothe and they can’t afford to quit a job. So they work in the heat and save a dime by not buying water and they faint from heat exhaustion.”

  Amanda frowned at his words. She didn’t like to think of the picture he was painting. What would Taylor say? she asked herself. “I cannot be responsible for all the poverty in the world, Dr. Montgomery. My family merely offers jobs. If the workers do not like the conditions they can go to another ranch.”

  Rage filled Hank. “You pompous little prig,” he said under his breath. “You sit there in your silk dress surrounded by food and you’re too good—too superior—to even eat it while others are out there fighting to make enough to buy a loaf of bread. People like you make me so mad I could—” He broke off, so angry he could no longer speak. Without thinking what he was doing, he shoved his right hand into the cake she seemed so fascinated by and grabbed a quarte
r of it, then lunged across the food and slammed the cake in Amanda’s face. “There!” he yelled at her, grinding icing and cake and chocolate cream filling into her face. “You can eat and won’t. They want to but can’t.”

  He was trembling with rage. Amanda’s face and most of her hair were black with chocolate, her eyes wide in horror.

  “I’m going to wake you up, Amanda Caulden,” he yelled at her. “I’m going to pull you out of that cocoon of yours no matter how hard I have to fight.”

  It was very difficult to keep one’s dignity when one’s face was covered with chocolate cake, but Amanda did her best. “Did it ever occur to you that some of us are happy the way we are?” she said, her own rage making her tremble. “You set yourself up as a god and decide to change me, change the workers, yet maybe we like the way we are. If I’m asleep I’d rather stay asleep than participate in a world where men bombard women with food.” With that she got up and went to the pond to wash her face.

  She felt like crying; she felt like screaming. But most of all she felt as if she’d let Taylor down. He would be horrified beyond description if he saw her now. She turned when she heard Dr. Montgomery walking up behind her.

  “If you do another thing to me I shall press charges,” she said, cringing away from him.

  He winced, then held out a clean handkerchief. “I thought you could use this.”

  She snatched it from his hand and wiped her face. She thought she’d got most of it off but black smears came away on the cloth. Taylor was going to kill her. She’d have no supper for a month. How she wished the earth would open up and the flames of hell swallow Dr. Montgomery!

  “Here, let me,” Hank said, kneeling beside her.

  “Don’t you touch me,” she said, seething.

  He snatched the handkerchief from her and washed it in the pond. “Amanda, you are a mess. You have cake all over your face, your hair, even your clothes.”

  Amanda could feel the color draining from her face. She had never done anything to really, truly anger Taylor, but if she came home looking like this, what would he do?

  Hank’s face changed as he looked at her. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “Do they beat you?”

  “Of course no one beats me,” she said, but her tone showed her uncertainty.

  He stood, then took her hand and pulled her up. “All right, we’ll fix everything. We’ll wash your hair and your dress and everything will be dry by the time we return. You’ll be as good as new.”

  “Wash my dress?” she gasped, horrified. “My hair?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s either that or go home to your beloved Taylor looking like that.”

  For a moment she weighed the consequences and she decided that most anything would be better than having Taylor see her like this.

  Hank watched the emotions play across her face and he was reminded of the migrant workers, torn between wanting to cause no problems and wanting to join a union and protest. Was Amanda really that afraid of Driscoll?

  Hank made her decision for her as he slid his suspenders off, unbuttoned then removed his shirt and held it out to her. “Go into the trees there and take off your dress and put this on. We’ll wash the chocolate off and it’ll dry in no time.”

  Amanda looked up at him, standing there in an undershirt, exposing broad shoulders and muscular arms. Contrary to what she would have thought, he wasn’t repulsive-looking or frightening. In fact, he looked rather pleasant.

  “Go on,” he said, and his voice was a bit lower than usual.

  Amanda stood and walked around the pond and into the deep shade of the trees. She was wearing a severe, straight suit of boyish cut, and right now she wished it were two pieces so she could leave her skirt on, but it wasn’t. She removed it to expose an ankle-length slip of flesh-colored chiffon trimmed with wide borders of ecru Chantilly lace. It felt odd to be without long sleeves and a high collar but it also felt cool and unrestrictive. She glanced down at the skirt and frowned at the lace. The skirt was semi-transparent from her knees down, her black silk stockings peeping through. Once again she reminded herself of Taylor’s wrath if she appeared at home with a chocolate-encrusted suit and face.

  She pulled the pins out of her hair and let it hang loose to her waist, then shook it and smiled. Sometimes her hair was pulled back so tightly it hurt her head.

  When her hair was free, she picked up Dr. Montgomery’s shirt and for a moment she held it out and looked at it. To her knowledge, she’d never held a man’s shirt before and she was surprised at how large it was. She wondered if Taylor’s shirt would be so large.

  Ridiculous! she told herself and hastily put the shirt on. Next she’d be comparing Taylor and Dr. Montgomery. The shirt only reached to her knees, and below that were several inches of lace that played peek-a-boo with her black, silk-clad legs.

  Hesitantly, she walked into the clearing, her suit over her arm.

  Dr. Montgomery was stretched out on the tablecloth, still wearing only his undershirt and trousers. He was gazing up at the trees, looking to be half asleep. Lazy, she thought. The man was lazy. But she didn’t think of it angrily.

  “Ready?” he said and turned toward her.

  He had an expression on his face that she’d never seen a man wear before. Taylor had certainly never looked at her like that. She didn’t understand his look but it was making her blush.

  “I think the chocolate will…will come out easily,” she said hesitantly, for the man was gaping at her. He sat up, then slowly turned toward her, his eyes barely blinking as he looked at her.

  “Amanda, you are beautiful,” he whispered.

  “Beauty isn’t important. It is one’s mind that matters,” she said, then felt a little absurd to be standing there in her underwear and lecturing him. But she conquered her feeling. His looks might make her blush but he was a man who’d just slammed a cake in her face.

  She turned on her heel away from him and went to the pond to try to wash the cake off her suit and out of her hair. The suit was easy, and she felt many pounds lighter when the cake stains blended with the brown twill of the suit. Her hair was another matter. She needed a mirror to see what needed washing.

  “Allow me,” Hank said from behind her, making Amanda jump.

  She didn’t trust him. “If I don’t agree with you, do I get the tapioca poured over my head?”

  He knelt beside her and used his handkerchief to wash cake from her hair. “It wasn’t that you disagreed with me, it was—”

  “Yes?” she asked. “What did make you do this despicable thing?”

  He had his hand on her jaw and he stopped washing and looked down at her mouth, then moved his thumb along the curve of her lower lip.

  Amanda’s heart began to beat faster. You shouldn’t allow him to do this, she thought, but she didn’t move. “Unions,” she whispered as he watched her mouth.

  He looked back at her eyes and seemed to recover himself. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just parroting your father and that man you think you love.”

  “Do love, Dr. Montgomery.”

  He took his hands from her face and rinsed out the cloth. “You know nothing about love.”

  She snatched the cloth from him. “You have no idea what I know about. I happen to know a great deal about love, as I have been in love with Taylor since I was fourteen. It is an abiding, enduring love.”

  “I’ve seen the two of you together. He’s your teacher, not your lover. How many times has he told you you’re beautiful? How many times has he been so overcome with passion that you’ve had to shove him out of your room?”

  “Taylor is a gentleman. Of course I’ve never had to shove him out of my room. I don’t want a man who is so…so…”

  “Passionate?” Hank asked. “Here, let me do that.” He started to use the cloth to get the now-drying cake from her hair but it didn’t work. “It’s in there pretty good. Here, stretch out there, put your head on the rock and I’ll have
to rinse it.”

  Amanda didn’t like the idea but she obeyed. Hank went to empty one of the glass food dishes and when he returned she was lying on the grass in the shade, her head on a rock, hair spread out around her. He groaned aloud, making her look up at him in surprise.

  “I assure you that I can wash my own hair,” she said, starting to rise.

  “No!” he said quickly. He filled the container with water, then knelt by her and poured water through her hair. There was part of him that didn’t believe what he was doing. In the past, if he’d found himself alone with a young woman who was wearing her underwear and silk stockings on long, beautiful legs, it would have been because he had removed her clothes to make love to her. But here he was, innocently washing her hair.

  “What were we talking about?” he asked. Maybe talking would make him stop looking at her.

  “You were insulting me, as usual,” she said, but there was no anger in her voice. She closed her eyes and felt his hands on her hair and head. This whole day had been awful, of course, an absolute waste of time. Dr. Montgomery hadn’t cared about the museum and had rudely let her know it. Then he’d yelled at her and hit her in the face with cake—really an awful day, but right now she didn’t want to be anywhere else but right here in the drowsy heat with the warm water pouring over her hair.

  It seemed the most natural thing in the world when Dr. Montgomery kissed her. She didn’t open her eyes but just enjoyed the sensation of his warm lips on hers. She put her hand to the back of his head. Just the tip of his tongue touched hers and it was very sweet. She might have lain there forever if he hadn’t put his hand on her breast.

  The sensation was so startling, her eyes flew open. She pushed him away and sat up, wet hair clinging to the shoulders of his shirt. “How dare you!” she gasped.