Whispers

by Belva Plain

  “Never.” She shook her head decisively. “Robert and I are permanent.” She looked down at her little swollen belly and repeated, “Permanent.”

  Tom followed her glance. “I understand. And I’ve made my apology for my thoughts and intentions that night. I wanted to clear my own mind. So—” She remembered that he had that funny way of saying “so” when he changed the subject. “So. You’ll have a good time in Maine. Pete and Lizzie are easygoing, not formal at all. Paper-plate people like me. And it’s beautiful this time of year. Over near the New Hampshire line the mountains turn red and gold. I’ll be sorry to miss it.”

  She was surprised. “You’re not going?”

  “No. I’ve too much on the fire at the office.”

  She was not sure whether she was sorry or glad that he would not be there.

  Robert laid careful plans for the weekend. “We’ll need a house gift, you know.”

  “Wine?” she suggested. “Or I’ll find something suitable for the country, a rustic bowl for flowers or fruit or something like that.”

  “No, definitely not. That’s banal. Besides, they already have their own wine and no doubt a couple of dozen bowls or whatnots too.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “I’ll tell you what. An enormous box of your best cookies. Those almond things, you know the ones, and the lemon squares, and some chocolate brownies. Everybody loves them. That will be just the right gesture, friendly, simple, and elegant. As for clothes: sweaters, naturally, and heavy shoes. They’ll probably take us tramping through the woods. And raincoats, and don’t forget an umbrella. Something silk for the two nights in case they dress for dinner.”

  “They won’t dress for dinner up in the woods, and besides, I haven’t a thing that fits anymore. I never did show this early, but I do show now.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully. “You look like a woman who needs to lose a little weight around the middle, that’s all.”

  “That’s just it. My things don’t fit around the middle, and it’s too early for maternity clothes.”

  “Well, buy something. For myself, tweed jackets, not new. A relaxed, used look.” Robert unfolded his plans systematically. “We’ll start the afternoon before and stay overnight on the road. Then we’ll arrive rested and fresh before noon. And well take the station wagon. The Jaguar might look—I’m not sure, but it might look overdone. If the boss drives one, it certainly will. Yes, the station wagon.”

  In midmorning they arrived exactly as planned. A long log house set about with cleared fields lay on a rise above a small lake. At the side were two tennis courts. On a wide veranda looking down on a bathhouse and a dock was a row of Adirondack chairs. The driveway was a rutted dirt road with a worn, grassy circle for parking; half a dozen cars were already there, station wagons, plain American sedans, and not an import in sight.

  Lynn looked at Robert and had to laugh. “Are you ever wrong?” she inquired.

  “Ah, welcome, welcome,” cried Pete Monacco, descending the steps. “How was the trip?” His voice boomed, his handshake was painful, and his smile showed square teeth that looked as granite hard as the rest of his large body. “Beautiful scenery here in the East. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. California is home and we love it, but for color you’ve got to see New England. Just look out there! My wife, she’s Lizzie and I’m Pete, we’re all first-name folks when we’re up here, has taken everybody sailing, but they’ll be back for lunch. Here, let me give you a hand with the bags.”

  ‘Pete’! You wouldn’t guess he’s the same man as the one who flies in with an entourage like the President’s, gives a talk that’s part pep and part scolding, leaves his commands, shakes your hand in the reception line, and then flies back across the Mississippi. Well, here we are. Can you believe it?”

  He looked around the sparsely furnished room. A rag rug covered the floor, the walls were pine, the bed had Indian blankets and a huge comforter folded at the foot. The only ornament was the view that was framed by the single window.

  “There’s a sailboat coming in,” Lynn said.

  Robert peered over her shoulder. “Pretty sight, isn’t it? Yes, all you need is money. Well, and taste too,” he conceded. “Knowing how to use it.”

  “We ought to go down and meet everybody,” she said as Robert began to unpack.

  “No. Tidy up first. It’ll take five minutes, if that. Let’s get a move on.”

  Hot coffee and doughnuts were being served on the veranda when they came downstairs. Lizzie Monacco, in jeans and a heavy sweater, shook hands.

  “Excuse my freezing hands. There’s a real wind out there. But it’s great fun. Would you people like a ride around the lake this afternoon?” Like her husband she was voluble, with curly gray windblown hair and a candid expression. “My goodness, how young you are! Lynn, isn’t it? You are the youngest female here, and we shall all feel like old hags next to you.”

  “No, no.” Lynn smiled. “I have a daughter who’ll be going to college next year.”

  “For goodness’ sake, and you’re pregnant too. I hope it’s not a secret, but Tom told me, anyway. I hope you’re feeling well, but if you’re not, don’t feel you have to keep up with our crazy pace. Just take a book and relax.”

  Robert answered for her. “Lynn’s in good shape. She plays a great game of tennis too.”

  “You do? Good. We’re all tennis freaks here. So maybe after lunch and a hike—there’s a lookout place just down the lake where you can climb and see for miles, really splendid—maybe when we come back, we can play.”

  “This is what you love. Busy, busy, busy,” Lynn murmured later to Robert.

  “I know. It makes me feel like a kid. And the air, the pine smell. I feel great.”

  These men came from the company’s top echelon, chiefly from Texas and points west of Texas. If there were any women in the top echelon, they weren’t at this party; these women were all wives. They didn’t, Lynn noted, wear the same anxious look that she had so often seen on the women at the country club, whose husbands were still on the way up and always fearful of falling back down. These people seldom fell back or fell very hard if they did; there was always a golden parachute. She listened as the older women talked of volunteering, of the Red Cross and the United Way. Those slightly younger had gone to work in real estate or travel agencies and were pleased with themselves, since they did not have to work and yet did so.

  “Tom told me that you’re a fabulous cook,” said Lizzie Monacco, drawing Lynn into the conversation. “I took a look at that gorgeous box of cookies. We’re going to serve them at dinner tonight. It was darling of you.”

  Lynn was thinking: Tom has surely done a lot of talking. He had put effort into this weekend. Pete Monacco was not a man who was readily open to suggestion, that was obvious. So Tom must have been very, very persuasive.

  After the hike, tennis, and cocktails, they dressed for dinner. Lizzie had been most tactful.

  “We do change for dinner. But nothing fancy, just anything you’d wear to your club on a weekday night. Anything at all.” And she had given Lynn her candid smile.

  “You were right again,” Lynn said as she took a dark red silk dress off the hanger. She laid a string of pearls and the bracelet on the dresser.

  “Don’t wear that,” Robert cautioned.

  “Not? But you always want me to.”

  “Not here. It looks too rich. The pearls are enough. Modest. Sweet. I’m sorry you wore your ring, come to think of it. Ah, well, too late.”

  “You beat him at tennis. Should you have?” she asked.

  “That’s different. People respect a winner. They respect sports. It may seem silly, and I suppose it is when you really think about it, but the idea of excelling in a sport sort of stamps a man. He won’t forget me.” With his head tilted back he stood knotting his tie and exuding confidence. “That’s what I keep telling the girls. That’s what I shall tell him.” He pointed at her abdomen, laughed, and corrected himself. “Sorr
y, I don’t want to be sexist. But I don’t know why I’m sure it’s a him. Come on, you look lovely as always. Let’s go down. I’m starved.”

  In the long dining room on a pine sawbuck table, pewter plates were set on rough linen mats. The utensils were plain stainless steel. But the candles were lit, and the dinner was served by two maids in uniform. A pair of handsome golden retrievers lay patiently in a corner.

  “The great thing about the airplane,” Lizzie said contentedly, “is that you can bring your household across country, dogs and all.”

  The airplane? No, the private company jet, thought Lynn, and was amused. A variety of conversations crossed the table, and she tried to catch some of them. There was talk of travel, not to London or Paris, but to the Fiji Islands and Madagascar. One couple had been on an expedition to the South Pole. It was like peering through a crack in the door, to a new world. Robert wanted to push the door open and walk into that world. It seemed to her as she overheard him at the other end of the table that he had already gotten one foot through the crack.

  His rich voice and his eager expression were very attractive. At any rate, three or four of the men were paying attention, leaning to catch his remarks, which were addressed, of course, to Monacco.

  “—we should, I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and we should train our own people in languages before we send them over. We should do our own public relations. Our outside PR in one office alone costs twenty-five thousand a month, minimum, and it won’t be any less over there. I’ve been getting some figures together. Seems to me we know our own product best and should be able to do our own PR.”

  Then Monacco asked something that Lynn, caught in the crossfire of conversations, could not hear. But he had asked a question; that meant he was listening carefully.

  “—met a German banker recently from Stuttgart. He’s just the man to give us the answer to that. He travels all through the new republics. Yes, he’s a good friend of mine. I can get in touch with him as soon as I get back to the office.”

  “Oh, that house where the light’s on?” Lizzie was saying. “Across the lake, you mean. That’s the caretaker’s light.” Through the autumn dusk there sparked one point of fire; it danced in the black water. “They left, and the place is for sale. We had a real scandal around here,” she explained to Lynn. “This perfectly wonderful couple—we’ve known them for years and their place is really beautiful—well, she left him. It seems he knocked her around once too often. All those years it had been going on and none of us ever had the faintest suspicion. Isn’t that amazing?”

  Lynn’s neighbor, with eager eyes and voice, supplemented the story. “They were a stunning couple. How could we have guessed? He had the best sense of humor too. He absolutely made a party. You’d never think to talk to him that he could do things like that.”

  “Well, it goes to show, doesn’t it? You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”

  “No,” said Lynn.

  Her heart had leapt as though a gun had sounded. Now, just calm down, she said to herself. Just stop it. That business is all past. It ended months ago on the island. It’s finished, remember? Finished.

  Robert’s voice sounded again over the chatter. “Of course, advertising’s cheapest during the first quarter of the year, we know that. Television and radio are hungry then. I think we should find out how that works abroad before we make any definite commitments.”

  Almost unconsciously, Lynn glanced toward him, and at that very instant he glanced toward her, so that she caught his familiar, endearing smile. Things are going well, it declared.

  “Oh, here come your marvelous cookies,” cried Lizzie.

  “You didn’t make these yourself?” asked Lynn’s neighbor.

  “Yes, she did. I know all about her. She’s professional.”

  Lynn corrected her. “No, no, I’d only like to be.”

  “Well, why don’t you? I have a friend whose daughter—she must be about your age—makes the most exquisite desserts for people, bombes and—”

  “Lynn’s pregnant,” Lizzie interrupted. “She’ll have other things to do.”

  “Really? Congratulations! You have a daughter ready for college and you’re having another. That’s marvelous.”

  All eyes were on her. An earnest woman said, “You set an example, starting again just at the age when practically everybody’s breaking up. Your baby’s lucky.”

  “I hope so.”

  “One thing’s sure, between you and that handsome husband of yours, it’ll be good looking.”

  Presently, everyone got up and went into the living room for drinks. A vigorous fire flared under the great stone mantel, drawing Lynn to stand and gaze at it.

  “You’re looking thoughtful,” said Pete Monacco.

  “No, just hypnotized. Fountains and fires do that, don’t they? And this has been such a lovely day.”

  He raised his glass to her as if making a toast. “We’re glad you came. Robert’s got interesting ideas. I’m glad he was brought to my attention. Unfortunately, some very bright guys get lost in the crowd—not often, but it can happen. He’ll be making his mark in the firm. Hell, he has made it.”

  “I think I’ve left an impression,” Robert said later. They were in bed under the quilt. “He asked me to put some of my ideas in writing and send them to him. What was he saying to you?”

  “Nice things. That you were going to make your mark on the firm.”

  The window was low. When she raised her head, she had a clear view far down to the lake, where the diamond point of light still glistened from the vacant house that belonged to “the perfectly wonderful couple.”

  Robert stroked her stomach. “It won’t be long before this fellow will be kicking you.”

  “Who is he? What will he be?” she wondered. She had also begun to think of the baby as “he.” “It’s all so mysterious. When I look back upon where we’ve been and then look ahead, even only as far as a year from now … Yes, it’s all so mysterious.”

  It had grown very cold outside, and the wind had risen, sounding a melancholy wail through the trees. Even under the quilt it was cold, and Robert drew her close.

  “Listen to that wind,” he whispered. “It’s a great night for sleeping, all snug in here. And it’s been a great day. Things are really looking up for us, Mrs. Ferguson.” He sighed with pleasure. “I love you, Mrs. Ferguson. I take it you’re aware of that?” He chuckled, drawing her even closer.

  “I am,” she answered, thought following swiftly: It is absurd to let a piece of gossip affect me. What have Robert and I to do with those people? I know nothing about them, anyway. I am I and Robert is Robert.

  He yawned. “Can’t keep my eyes open. Let’s sleep. Tomorrow’ll take care of itself.”

  That was certain. They unfold, those unknown tomorrows, with their secrets curled like the tree that lies curled within the small, dry seed.

  They started home right after dawn on Sunday. That way, Robert said, they’d be back before dinner with some time left over to be with the girls.

  The house was deserted when they arrived. There wasn’t even a light on.

  “Ah, poor Juliet! They left her in the dark,” said Lynn as the dog came forward into the dark hall. “They’re probably over with Bruce and Josie. I guess they didn’t expect us back this early.”

  “I never asked you what Josie said about our going up to Monacco’s place.”

  “She didn’t say much.”

  “I wonder what they really thought. You can’t tell me there isn’t some sort of envy, in a nice way at least.”

  “I don’t think so. You know Josie is the last person to disguise her feelings, especially to me. So I’d know if there were.”

  “Did you know we’ve been invited to Monacco’s in Maine?” Lynn had asked her, wanting no cat-and-mouse game between them, no dishonesty posing as tact.

  And Josie had replied that yes, Robert had told Bruce, and she had said, “Don’t feel uncomfortable on account
of Bruce. I know you.” She had smiled. “Bruce wasn’t made to shine or sparkle. He knows himself.”

  That was true. You could see that Bruce knew who he was and didn’t need to measure his worth by other people’s accomplishments.

  “Robert’s exceptional,” Josie had said. “He works like a demon and deserves whatever he may get.”

  Robert said now, “I did feel a little sorry, a little uncomfortable, when I told him.”

  “Well, you needn’t have. Josie told me you deserve whatever you get.”

  Robert laughed. “One can take that in two ways.”

  “They mean it in one way only.”

  “Of course. Just a joke.” He started upstairs with the two suitcases. “Come on, let’s unpack before they all come home.”

  “I’ll do it in the morning.”

  “You always say that. Who wants to wake up and find suitcases staring you in the face? Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. That’s my motto.”

  She followed him. The first room at the top of the stairs was the new nursery, and she couldn’t pass it without peering in. The furniture had arrived, the crib and dresser in light yellow, the walls matched; there were large Mother Goose pictures in maple frames and spring-green gingham curtains, a refreshing change from pink and blue. A large, soft polar bear sat in one corner of the crib. At the window there was a rocking chair, where she would sit to nurse the baby. The thought of doing this again brought a renewal of youth, an affirmation of womanhood. None of the theories that one read, with all their political or psychological verbiage, could come within miles of describing the real sweetness of the fuzzy head and the minuscule splayed fingers against the breast.

  In the bedroom, where Robert had already begun to unpack, the telephone rang. He was standing by the bed holding the phone when she came in.

  “What? What?” he said. A dreadful look passed over his face. “What are you saying, is she—”