The Invitation

by Jude Deveraux

  “And when she couldn’t, that was it,” Kane said. “No one else in the family besides Mike attended my wedding. It was as though they’d dismissed her because of some stupid legend.”

  He didn’t say anything after that, so I said, “You liked her, though?” I was praying he wasn’t going to tell me that the legend had been right, that he’d fallen out of love with her two weeks after the wedding.

  “Yeah, I loved her. I loved her madly. We were perfectly suited. It was as though we were two halves of a whole. If she had a thought, I had it at the same time. We liked the same food, the same people, wanted to do the same things at the same time.”

  If I lived with somebody like that, I’d be crazy in a week. In fact, once I had a boyfriend like that. The girls in the dorm all said I was so lucky, but I thought I’d go out of my mind. One night I said I wanted Italian for dinner, and when he said he did too, I attacked. “What if I wanted Chinese? What if I wanted Peking cat?” I yelled at the poor guy. “Don’t you have any thoughts of your own? Don’t you ever want a good ol’-fashioned argument about where we’ll eat tonight?” Need I say that that particular young man never called me again?

  I’d learned long ago that most people aren’t like me, so maybe most people would enjoy living in complete peace and harmony. Personally, I’ve never experienced tranquillity, but my intuition tells me that it’s not something for which I have any natural talent.

  One minute Kane was telling me about his dead wife and the next, he was telling me about his brother’s wife, and for a while, from the tone of his voice, I thought he was in love with her. But he was explaining how his family had accepted Mike’s wife, Samantha, into the family but not his wife. There was anger in his voice, but I’m glad to say there was no jealousy.

  So now what do I do? I thought. Say, Hey, I can tell the twins apart? I’m not much of a believer in magic—magician shows put me to sleep—so I’m sure there are hundreds of women in America who can tell Kane from his very different brother. Next time Kane got married, he should pick one of them and make his family happy.

  He went on talking to me, telling me in detail about his paragon of a wife. I refrained from making snide remarks about how “perfect” the two of them sounded—how perfectly boring, that is. Perfect conversations, perfect sex, perfect children. If she’d lived, would they have had a perfect divorce? Maybe they wouldn’t have divorced and maybe I’m just being cynical, but every marriage where I’ve heard the wife say, “My husband is a darling. We never fight,” ends in divorce. The marriages that last have a wife who says, “My husband is a pain in the neck,” then elaborates on the subject. Maybe it has to do with telling yourself what you hope is the truth and facing what actually is.

  Kane went on to tell of his loneliness after her death and how he had not been allowed to grieve for her. Everyone in his family seemed to have the same attitude: Buck up and think of your sons. He’d wanted to sit in a dark room and cry for days, but his wife’s mother had been the one to cry while Kane had to be the strong one and listen to everyone else’s grief. How could they mourn her death, he wondered, when they’d never celebrated her life?

  In the end he didn’t get to cry. Everyone seemed to think that it was the boys who were important, who were going to need their mother. Kane wasn’t the type to shout that he needed her too, so he’d kept his tears inside and carried on as before, except that there was no longer anyone waiting for him at the end of the day. No one to laugh at his jokes and rub his tired shoulders, no one to bounce ideas off—no one to make love to.

  I don’t know why people tend to tell me their most intimate secrets. Maybe it’s because I’m interested, but then, maybe it’s because I’m an empath.

  I saw a “Star Trek” episode where a woman was an empath; she felt other people’s joys and miseries. That’s what I do. I think it has to do with my being a fixer and listening so hard that I try to solve people’s problems for them. If I want something, I go after it. I have tunnel vision. Nothing distracts me; nothing discourages me.

  It took a really rotten secretary to teach me that everyone isn’t like me. Hildy told me that what she wanted most in the world was to write children’s books. In fact, she had written one and now all she needed was a publisher.

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me: I believe what people tell me. Hildy said she wanted a publisher, so I called in some favors and arranged for her story to be read by one of the top children’s book editors in New York. I then spent three days on the phone trying to reach Hildy. When I finally got her, late on a Sunday night, she told me angrily that since I hadn’t called her as I said I would, she’d mailed her manuscript in to the slush pile at another house. Of course she received a rejection, and she felt that it was my fault.

  It took me a long time to figure out that what Hildy really wanted was to tell people that someday she wanted to write children’s books.

  Since I listen to people so intently, following their angst-ridden sighs with offers of help—all of which I carry out—I figure that’s why people talk to me about their problems.

  But I didn’t know what to offer Kane in the way of help. Maybe I could gather his family together and bawl them out. Maybe I could take his boys for a year or so and let him go away and grieve. Somehow, though, I didn’t think he’d let me have them. Maybe I could say, “Kane, I can tell you and your brother apart. Therefore I must be more suitable for you than your perfect wife was.”

  Yeah, right. A big good-looking cowboy whose idea of a good time was scraping horses’ hooves, and a smart-mouthed city girl. Was I supposed to marry him, move onto a ranch, and show sheep at the state fair? Or maybe Kane would move to New York, become Mr. Cale Anderson, and fetch me cold drinks at autograph parties.

  On the other hand, if we got down to hard, cold truth, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live with me. Not to make a melodrama out of it, but if your own parents don’t like you, you never actually believe that anyone likes you.

  Chapter Ten

  To say that it was awkward between Kane and me after the sex and the talk is this century’s understatement. I don’t know how long we would have stayed there, safe, holding each other, if Sandy hadn’t arrived with the boys. The moment we heard voices, the spell was broken, and we suddenly looked at each other in horror, then in embarrassment. As quickly as possible I pulled on my clothes, wincing because my knees were raw. When I tried to put my boots on, I found the laces had been slashed. So that was how he got them off, I thought, then had to clump down the loft ladder in loose boots.

  Sandy, standing behind the boys, took one look at the two of us and I knew he knew what had happened. I couldn’t meet his eyes or Kane’s, so I concentrated on the boys.

  Sandy had brought horses, so I got to ride back, which was good considering the state of my boots. When we were back at camp, I didn’t look at Kane, and when he held out a ball of heavy cotton twine and said he was going to tie my boots for me, I snatched the ball away from him and said I’d do it myself. I knew he stood there for a moment looking at me, but I wouldn’t look at him.

  The night before, I’d slept outside, near the men and boys, while the other women slept inside the old house, but that night I went inside with the women. What had happened between me and the dumb cowboy was an accident, and I didn’t plan to add to the mistake. Tomorrow I’d start back to Chandler if I had to walk.

  Thinking of accidents made me wonder if I had just gotten myself pregnant. I didn’t seem to remember any form of birth control being used.

  “I can get an abortion,” I said into the darkness.

  Like hell I would kill my own child. I hadn’t thought much about children in my life, but right now I could imagine myself sitting in a rocking chair at three A.M., a black-haired baby at my breast, writing notes for my next book. I could imagine bandaging a three-year-old’s knee and kissing away baby tears. I could imagine a maid washing dirty diapers and cleaning strained carrots off the kitchen wall. (Hey, I’m a r
ealist!)

  I didn’t get to sleep for hours, and when I awoke, no one else was in the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day I didn’t see Kane much. In fact I saw him practically not at all, which suited me, since I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. He went off with Ruth into the woods and left me to take care of his darling boys. Actually he left them with Sandy, but I sort of took them and we had a great time looking into each and every old house in Eternity and making up stories about who had lived there and how they’d died. In the afternoon they put their heads in my lap, one on either side, and I told them stories until they fell asleep.

  It was about three when we went back to camp, but only Sandy was there, napping in the shade. The boys immediately jumped on him, and I could tell that he wanted to see them, so I reluctantly gave them up and went down the road leading out of town where I saw a pickup truck and knew without a doubt that it was the truck that was to take me back to Chandler. I braced myself, but then I saw that Mike was standing by the side of the pickup, and again I marveled at how much he didn’t look like Kane. Mike had short, stubby eyelashes, lips that bordered on thin, and a body that was about to run to fat. Also, the pitch of his voice was higher than Kane’s deep bass rumble.

  “Hi, Mike,” I said. “How’re the new babies?”

  When Mike turned to look at me, I knew something was wrong, and it didn’t take the use of many brain cells to figure out what it was. Too late, I saw the pair of booted feet upside down in the truck.

  Why is it that men love to hang head-down from car seats and look at the wires under the dashboard? Is that what they do after their mothers have finally made them realize that it is socially unacceptable to lie on the floor and look up girls’ skirts?

  “You want this wrench?” Mike asked his brother, and for a moment both of us held our breath. Maybe Kane hadn’t heard me. Maybe Kane had his ears full of car wires and didn’t realize that I had just let him know of my betrayal.

  I have never been a lucky person.

  Kane made no pretense of not being angry. He was furious. Without looking at me or his brother, he twirled around in the seat and got out of the truck and started climbing the mountain nearest him. Straight up through brush and over rocks, eating ground with all the energy that fury gave him.

  I followed him because I thought he deserved an explanation.

  “What now?” he asked as soon as Cale reached him. “Should I propose marriage?”

  She ignored his sarcasm and didn’t pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Surely there are other people who can tell you from your brother.”

  “My mother, sometimes my father, my youngest sister…” His voice lowered. “And my brother’s wife.”

  “That’s it?” Her disbelief was evident in her tone.

  When he turned to look at her, he was no longer the sweet-faced cowboy she’d had a tumble with. He had one eyebrow raised and his nostrils flared. “No doubt to you we don’t look at all alike. Something to do with eyelashes and which of us is fatter, right?”

  She wasn’t going to answer that because he was too close to home. “You know, of course, that this invalidates the legend?”

  He continued to look at her, his expression unchanged. “How do you figure that?”

  “Your wife couldn’t tell you apart, yet you two were the love of the century. I can tell you from your brother, but you and I can’t abide each other.” She paused a moment. “Except for sex,” she said softly.

  He looked away. “Yeah, except for sex.”

  “You should marry somebody normal, somebody who wants to be a wife and mother, and wants to live on a ranch and ride horses and milk cows or whatever. Above all, you shouldn’t think of, shouldn’t even consider, marrying someone because of great…I mean, because of one very ordinary sexual encounter. These things happen. I bet this kind of thing happens with every group you take out—especially New York women.” She was warming to her subject. “There’s the disease scare in New York so the women don’t feel safe—not that I endorse one-night stands—but they feel safe with a big, clean cowboy who’s lived all his life in pure, innocent Colorado. I mean, what can you get from a cowboy? Hoof-and-mouth disease? Anthrax? Are they the same thing? So, anyway, it was just something that happened. The right time, the right place. I bet that if Ruth had been in that upstairs window it would have…been…Ruth that you…” She was slowing down, and, with horror, she recognized that what she was feeling was jealousy. If, she thought. If. If Ruth had been there, Kane would have pulled her from the window. Then Ruth and Kane would have…

  Getting up, she dusted off the seat of her jeans. “There are millions of women out there. Go meet them and find someone to fulfill your legend. I’m not the one. I’m not anyone’s princess in a tower.”

  All the way down that mountain, with every step I took, I hoped he’d come after me. Since my thoughts are my own, I figured I could indulge them—there was no one to tell them to and no one to laugh at me.

  I knew his coming after me was a stupid idea. I knew we were completely incompatible, since we’d barely said a civil word to each other. Except for one afternoon of wonderful, divine, heavenly sex followed by a beautiful man holding me in his arms and pouring his soul out to me, we’d always fought. We disliked each other a great deal. We had nothing in common. Except maybe two kids that I wanted. Wanted in the abstract, that is. What was I thinking of: moving those darling children out of the wilds of Colorado, out of the clean air of this mountainous state, and putting them in a penthouse in New York with nothing but a terrace to play on? Of course, being raised in Colorado was no assurance that a person would grow up happy. Maybe the kids would like big, dirty New York. Or maybe I could move to Colorado.

  None of this thinking did me any good, because the cowboy didn’t come after me, didn’t fall on his knees before me and tell me he couldn’t live without me. In fact, he stayed on top of the mountain while I went down it.

  Mike was waiting at the bottom. Not that I thought he was waiting for me, but he gave a good imitation of concern. I was so depressed I didn’t even suggest that he should visit a gym now and then. After Kane, Mike was a pale second best.

  “I want to go home,” I said.

  “Home?”

  Mike sounded as dumb as I’d once thought Kane was. But Kane wasn’t dumb. He was smart and funny and kind, and…and I wished he believed that stupid ol’ legend. My fantasies started going on me, and I imagined a father with a shotgun forcing us to marry because we fulfilled the prophecy. Where were fathers with shotguns when you really needed them?

  “Yes, home,” I said. “Home to New York.”

  Mike looked up the mountain, but I knew he wasn’t going to see his brother.

  “We said our good-byes up there.”

  “But…”

  It was obvious Mike didn’t know what else to say. No doubt he’d done the expected thing and hauled his wife before the family tribunal before he even considered marrying her. Oh, well, it was a good thing nothing was going to come of Kane and me, because I’m not good with families, and I think I could come to hate his.

  “Mike,” I said slowly and as though I meant it, “I want you to drive me to Chandler so I can leave this state. I want to go back to a place where they just cut your heart out.” Not break it as they did in Colorado.

  I had to look away because I was giving in to my flair for drama. Just once I wanted to make an unflamboyant exit. No fits, no tantrums. I wanted to keep my pride and just walk out.

  Mike helped me get my gear together, but he took forever doing it. I know he was trying to give his brother time to make up his mind. But Kane had made up his mind, and he was right to be so sensible. I would make a rotten wife. I’d be involved in a book and forget about food for days at a time. If I didn’t have a nanny for the kids, I’d probably forget about them too. And heaven help the man if he crossed me! I’d dig my heels in and do whatever he didn’t want me to do just
because he wanted me to do it. All in all, it was better for somebody like me to live alone. To be free. Yes, that’s it. Freedom. Freedom to come and go as I please. Freedom to…to have no one to laugh at my jokes, to rub my keyboard-tightened shoulders, no one to listen to my latest plot idea. No one to make love to.

  Mike managed to dawdle until sundown, then began to find reasons why we shouldn’t leave until morning.

  “Colorado’s so backward they don’t have headlights on the cars yet?” I asked, with my most belligerent New York attitude.

  Mike gave in to me and drove me back to the tiny town of Chandler. He wanted to take me to his parents’ house. And what? Tuck me in Kane’s bed and hope his brother would come home during the night and stumble into bed with me?

  I made him take me to a motel, and at ten o’clock the next morning he drove me to the airport where I took a tiny airplane to Denver. From there I flew to New York.

  My editor wasn’t very happy with me. In the six weeks since I’d been back from Colorado, I hadn’t killed anybody. I mean on paper, of course. Since my publishing house sent me all that lovely money for killing people, they weren’t too happy with me either.

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t writing. I was writing ten to fourteen hours a day, but I kept writing about things like mail-order brides and shotgun weddings. I never finished any of the stories, I just wrote proposals and sent them to my editor.

  At the beginning of the seventh week, my editor came to my apartment to have a talk with me.

  “It isn’t that we mind your changing genres,” she said patiently. (All editors deliver bad news to their best-selling authors with extreme patience and tact, rather like you’d talk to a crazy man who was holding a machete: “It’s not that you’re wrong to want to mutilate and maim…”) “After all,” she said, “romances make a fortune.” (Thank God I wasn’t trying to write something that would make no money—there’d be mass hysteria in the corridors of my publishing house.)