“Come in!” He opened the door even wider, but she still didn’t move.
“You followed me last night! I can’t believe you did that!” she said angrily. “You waited for me, and then you followed me!”
“Please come in,” he begged, gesturing into the darkness behind him. “And then we can at least talk.”
“No! The last time I was in there you hurt me.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he mumbled.
“No, but it’s my fault, and I accept that, but now it’s got to stop. You can’t be waiting when I go someplace and then follow me. It’s weird. It’s all just getting too strange.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shrugging. “But I had something for you. I was going to give it to you when you came out, that’s all. That’s why I waited.” He hung his head.
“But don’t you understand, you can’t be following me like that. It’s frightening.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise,” he said so morosely she was taken aback. After all, she had been the first pursuer. She tried to explain this, pointing out how overwhelmed he must have felt to have her forcing her way into his quiet life. “So I can see how things could get so out of whack,” she allowed, her mind racing, afraid to say what she really meant, that it was all so hopelessly twisted, only wanting what belonged to someone else, what she could not have, including Patrick, so naturally the lines had gotten blurred. “I confused you. I know I did, because I’m so—”
“You didn’t confuse me!” he interrupted. “You think I feel this way because I’m confused?” He stood so close now she was conscious of his chest rising and falling. “Because I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“But you saw things one way, and I wanted them to be my way. So I kept putting pressure on you,” she said softly to calm him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But I’m glad you did. You saved me,” he said with a slow smile. “I didn’t have anything before you. I was frozen, I was dead inside, and you saved me.”
“You just kept to yourself too much, that’s all,” she said, choosing her words carefully.
“I didn’t have much choice. Until now.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Do you know what the hardest part of a lie is?” he asked. “It’s always trying to remember the truth.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean you.”
She smiled, certain she understood, though to explain it right now would have been impossible.
“I’ve been alone a long time. I’m tired of being alone,” he said.
“I know, because you’re so isolated here. Sometimes it seems you don’t even like being here,” she said, pained by the misery glinting in his eyes. His mouth twitched as if he needed to speak, but couldn’t. “But you feel stuck, is that it?” she asked softly.
He kept looking at her. “I hate it here!” he finally cried. “You have no idea how much I hate it!”
“Then sell it, Patrick! You don’t have to stay here.” She told him about Stanley Masters’s interest in his property. “You should call him! At least hear him out,” she coaxed.
“And then what do I do?” He began to pace back and forth, his eyes darting between her and the road, as if Masters’s fleet of bagel trucks idled out there now awaiting her signal.
“Whatever you want!” she said. “Anything! Move into town! Go somewhere! Travel! You’re still young, Patrick. There’s so much you can do.”
He stopped suddenly. “Would you go with me?”
“Well . . . I don’t know. I . . . I mean . . . I could come visit you!” she said with a hopeful smile. “Why? Do you have a place picked out? Do you know where you’d go?” she asked, laughing a little.
“Alaska!” he declared, pacing again. He spun around. “But the thing is to not tell anyone. To just go! You know, just disappear.” He kept looking at her.
“Well I don’t know. I kind of have this prejudice against disappearing,” she said with an uneasy shrug, but knew the significance of her quip had eluded him.
“Will you think about it though?”
“Alright—if you’ll think about calling Stanley Masters.” She glanced at her watch and said she had to go. She had to straighten things out with Rudy, she thought, with the sickening realization that she had progressed from sleeping with her friend’s husband to seducing her cousin’s fiancé.
“What’s the big rush?” Patrick asked, insisting he owed her a dinner. He’d run out and buy two steaks, then do all the cooking while she relaxed and watched television. “Why?” he demanded, incensed when she said she couldn’t. “You have a date? You’re going to see that guy again, aren’t you? The one you were with last night.”
“I told you. I gave him a ride home. He’s Elizabeth’s fiancé.”
He leaned closer. “Yah, and I told you, it’s you he’s after. It’s you he wants, not your cousin,” he whispered in her face.
“Don’t say things like that,” she said, shaken. A bitter taste rose in her throat. She remembered Patrick grilling Larry about her.
“I can tell by the way he looks at you. His eyes, they get hot. They—”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, fumbling to button her jacket.
“You know what he wants, don’t you? A little something on the side, that’s what. A diversion,” he said, lifting hair from the side of her face. He held it at her temple and watched her. “I don’t imagine your skinny-rag cousin’s all that much . . . well, fun, if you know what I mean,” he said in a low, sibilant whisper. “She’s more like her mother, isn’t she? Finicky, I’ll bet—fussy about things. Certain things.” He paused for a moment. “And then he meets you and he knows whatever happens you’d never say anything. You’d never betray him. Because you love your cousin too much. You’d never want to hurt her.”
“That’s sick,” she said, cold with fear of Patrick and that it might be true.
“I’ll tell you what’s sick,” he growled, his brow at hers, his hand still clutching her hair. “Sleeping with every man who comes near you like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”
“What’re you talking about?” She could barely breathe.
“You know.” He stared at her for a moment. “Don’t you care? I mean, your friend’s husband. She just had a baby. How could you do that? And now your cousin’s fiancé?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“You’re hurting me!” she warned as his fist tightened in her hair. “Is that what you want? You want to hurt me? Because I look like her? Is that why? Am I like her? Am I?”
His eyes closed as if against some vile yet mesmerizing sight. His grip loosened, but he didn’t let go.
“You hurt my mother like this,” she said as quietly as she could. He seemed to be nodding. “You did, didn’t you? You cut her hair. You chopped it off, didn’t you?”
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“Yes you did. You know you did. You scared her. You made her run away.” She pushed his hand from her hair. “You stand back now. Don’t,” she warned as he reached out. “Don’t touch me again. I have to go!”
“No! You wait! You listen to me!” He grabbed her arm. “You keep asking me about your mother. Why? You want to be more like her? With no self-respect? Ruining everything she ever touched? Is that what you want?”
“I said, I’m going now,” she said, straining back.
“Well you’re not!” he said, pulling her closer. He touched her cheek, then drew his fingers around her mouth. “You’re not like her. She was too stupid and trusting. And you’re not.” He smiled. “She was spoiled rotten. Whatever she wanted she got. So she thought things would always be that way. But how could they? They couldn’t.” He sighed and let go of her arm. “Not the way she wanted.”
“What did she want? What things? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to talk an
ymore.” He looked at her and shook his head. “I can’t. So you go. Go ahead. Just go. Wait!” he called as she opened the door. He reached into his pocket. “Here.” He took her hand and in her palm placed a small gold locket. “You keep it.”
The ornately filigreed locket was engraved with the initials DRS. “What is it?” Fiona asked, still frightened, but confused and painfully touched that he would give her his mother’s locket. Opening it, she saw two miniature baby pictures inside. She stepped under the light. Details of the plump little faces were almost lost beneath webs of tiny cracks.
“It was your mother’s,” he said, and her head shot up. “You want it?”
“Oh! Yes,” she said, closing it. “Thank you.”
“She used to wear it.” He pointed to her neck with an awkward gesture.
“DRS,” she said, examining it more closely. Of course. Diana Skillings Range, her grandmother’s name. The locket must have been hers before it was handed down to her daugher, Natalie. She peered at the tiny mottled faces that had to be pictures of her mother and Aunt Arlene. It was probably all he had that had been Natalie’s. “Did she give this to you?” she asked, holding it out. His eyes widened, and though he did not move it almost seemed that he had jumped back away from her. “I mean, you don’t want it?”
He shook his head. “I want you to have it. That’s why I was waiting last night. So I could give it to you. Don’t be mad at me, Fiona. Please, don’t be mad,” he said, starting toward her.
“All right, but I have to go now.” She opened the door and edged slowly back. She wondered if he could hear the pounding in her chest.
Still in her uniform, she was slipping one of her own chains through the locket when Rudy came. When she opened the door, he just stood there grinning. The sport jacket he wore over his green scrubs was the same one he’d had on last night. She tried to smile, but Patrick’s words rang in her head. Sleeping with every man who comes near you, that’s what’s sick.
“You look even more beautiful than you did last night,” he said, closing the door.
“Damn it,” she muttered, trying to snap the clasp into place.
“I’ll do it,” he said, standing behind her. He fastened the clasp on his first attempt, then kissed her neck. She stared at herself in the mirror. Patrick was right. They both needed the same thing and knew neither would betray the other to Elizabeth.
“I’ve been calling you all day,” he whispered, turning her to face him. “I thought you said you had the day off.” He kissed her brow, her eyes and nose, the space above her mouth, and now his lips moved against hers. “I got worried. So I came right over from the hospital. I was starting to think you were avoiding my calls.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” she murmured against his mouth. His hands were kneading her back. They sat on the couch. If she closed her eyes she would sink into a deep sleep.
“You wouldn’t?”
“If I don’t want to see someone, I tell them straight out.”
“That’s good,” he whispered, kissing her. “That’s so good.”
Her eyes closed heavily. She was skidding down a sandy embankment, now sinking, falling through a great watery depth. She held on to the back of his head, his mouth so hungrily at hers their teeth kept scraping. They had slipped from the edge of the couch to their knees. They were trembling. So sensitive was she to his touch that her skin ached, her eyes burned, and her ears throbbed with growing pressure. She dug her nails into his arms. She wanted to hurt him. She fell back and pulled him down.
“Not here,” he groaned. “Let’s go in on the bed.”
“No!” she cried so angrily that he tried to laugh, but could only moan with her demand that he help her, chanting it over and over, begging him to help her now, as she began to cry. “Please, please, please help me, help me, help me, help me,” she sobbed, and was filled with such loathing for needing this, for wanting it so much that she wanted to die, to just die, and never have to feel anything again.
“I will! I will! You know I will!” He kept assuring her that he was trying, that he would. He would. He would do his best. Whatever she wanted, he would do. Anything. Anything. Anything, because he loved her. “I love you! I love you!” he panted, then collapsed onto his side. He stared at her. “Did you hear what I said? I love you,” he whispered, touching her face.
“No you don’t,” she said, removing his hand.
He laughed and buried his face in her hair and told her again that he loved her.
“No. You’re just so grateful, you’d say anything,” she said.
“What do you mean, grateful?” He propped his head on his hand and watched her sit up.
“Twice in twenty-four hours? When’s the last time you scored like that?” she asked as she stood up. She grabbed her clothes and hurried into the bathroom. When she came out she was irritated to find him still sitting in the dark. She turned on the light and began straightening up the room. He watched for a few minutes without saying anything, then suggested they go out to dinner. He’d worked straight through today, so he could be with her tonight. “All night,” he said, watching her gather another armload of clothes. He picked up a dropped sock and held it out, but she pretended not to see it.
“I don’t think so,” she said, carrying everything into the bedroom. “I’m pretty tired.”
“Then we’ll stay in,” he said from the doorway, watching her put away her clothes. “I’m a pretty good cook,” he continued, swinging the sock. “All right, I’m being modest. I’m an excellent cook. How about Mexican? Do you like—”
“Actually, what I really need is to be alone,” she said, her back to him. She froze, wincing. She could tell he hadn’t moved, he was watching her. “I’m sorry,” she said. She turned and met his gaze. “I am.”
He tossed the sock onto the bed. “Boy, I really missed something here, didn’t I? Something really big, and now I’m feeling like an absolute dolt because I don’t have a clue what it is.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head.
“Well here’s a hint. It’s called fucking my cousin’s fiancé,” she said.
His mouth dropped open. “But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing between us,” he insisted. “You know that!”
“Well, let’s see. You’re engaged. I’d call that something. A little bit of a relationship, anyway.”
Not really, he said, then tried to explain that he hadn’t broken it off before because he’d been so rattled and confused, as much by Elizabeth’s mixed signals as by his immediate and powerful attraction to Fiona. But now it was so clear. Now he knew what he had to do, he said, pacing back and forth. “And you’re right. You’re absolutely right!” he declared. “It’s not fair to do this to you, to put you in the middle like this.” He would do what had to be done. He would go there right now and tell Elizabeth it was over, that he loved Fiona. “So you just wait. You wait right here,” he said, starting to open the door.
“No!” She grabbed his arm. “Please don’t. Please.”
He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, assuring her it would be all right. “I’ve spent my whole life looking for you,” he whispered, and she pulled angrily away.
“But you found Elizabeth first,” she said.
“And then I found you!” he said as if it were all so perfectly logical.
She laughed. “Found me! Found me? Like that’s some rare achievement? Do you know how many men have ‘found’ me? I don’t think you realize how easy I am to find. A few beers, a sweet guy, that’s all it takes.” She laughed again. “I mean, you saw me yourself, right there in that very bed with George Grimshaw. And all that took was a cup of coffee!”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Fiona—the hard shell, the wise mouth. But it won’t work.” He shook his head with an indulgent smile.
She threw down the sweater she’d been folding. “Oh! I forgot! Your mother. You’ve had so much experience with screwed-up women, that what, yo
u’ll put up with anything, right?” He flinched, and she hated herself.
“I love you. I love everything about you. Everything!” He stared at her. “It’s that simple.”
“Simple!” She threw up her hands. “Jesus Christ, things couldn’t get more complicated.”
“But that’s why I know this is right. I love you, and with that as the standard, everything is simple. Nothing else matters and that’s all there is to it.”
She had been shaking her head. “No, that’s just the problem here. I’ve been so damn screwed up for so long that I keep messing up everyone’s life, and I’ve got to stop. I can’t do that anymore.”
“Fine! But why not just kill the fleas? You don’t have to get rid of the damn dog too, do you?” He tried to put his hands on her shoulders, but she wiggled free.
“I can’t! I can’t have them looking at me the way they do. Like I’ve just confirmed their worst fears. I can’t do that to my aunt and uncle. They’ve been too good to me. But most of all I can’t do it to Elizabeth.”
“You won’t have to. I’m going over there now to tell her.” He started for the door.
She spun around. “To tell her? To tell her what?”
“What she and I both know. That it’s over.”
“You do whatever you want, Rudy. Whatever you have to do. But not because of me. Don’t fool yourself about what happened. There’s no mystery here. You were lonely and I was there.”
“No. I loved you, and you were there.”
She laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? I’m always there! Always! For anyone who wants it.” She stepped closer. “Can I make it any clearer? How’s this? Rudy, I don’t love you.”
He studied her for a moment, as if she were one of his more vexing patients. “You don’t want to love me, that’s what you mean.” He stepped into the hallway and closed the door quietly.
She buried her face in her hands, then suddenly fearing what was about to happen, ran down the hallway, to the top of the stairs. “Rudy!” she called, leaning over the railing, and he looked up from the lobby, his smile fading with her caustic warning. “Don’t you mention my name! Don’t! I’m warning you—because if you do, I’ll hate you! I’ll hate you forever!”
Fiona Range Page 36
