by Belva Plain
Pam’s eyes beamed straight toward his. “Let’s eat and then go change. Have you brought your riding stuff? On second thought, you won’t need it. We’ll ride Western, in jeans.”
“How come?”
“Somebody’s boarding a pair of pintos, and I thought it would be fun to ride along the beach tonight. They need exercising, anyway. Are you game?”
“Sure am.”
“There’s a moon, and it’ll be gorgeous.”
Night riding was one of the exhilarating pleasures she had taught him. The beach was usually deserted, and the quiet, except for the sound of waves and horses’ hooves slapping the hard sand or splashing in the shallows, was an amazement to a New Yorker’s ears.
“Okay, I’m for it,” he said.
This time, however, they were not to have the night all to themselves. In the paddock were two young men getting ready to mount.
“Hi, Pam, what’s up?” one called.
“We’re going to take the pintos out. These are my friends, Alex and Marty. They’re horse crazy like me. This is Eddy, Eddy Osborne.”
“Know how to put on a Western saddle?” inquired the man called Alex.
“I think I do,” Pam said.
“I think you don’t. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Don’t do us any favors. Eddy felt another twinge of anger. He despised the man’s very walk, the nonchalant sway of his shoulders.
The stable was fragrant with hay and the natural smell of clean, well-tended animals. In two stalls, facing each other, stood a pair of identical brown-and-white mares. Pam stroked their long cheeks.
“Aren’t they lovely? The owner’s starting a Western ranch upstate.”
“Take this one,” Alex advised. “She’s a might narrower in the seat.”
Standing behind Pam, he had laid a familiar hand on her shoulder, while Eddy watched. He watched while the other man adjusted the Western saddle on Pam’s animal and then copied him. They led the mares outside and mounted.
“There’s something funny about this stirrup. It doesn’t feel right,” Pam said.
Eddy moved to dismount and help her, but Marty, still on the ground, got there first. And again, Eddy watched a man’s familiar touch, this time on Pam’s leg.
Who the hell did they think they were? Damn their hands, damn both of them! But Eddy knew he had to smother his anger. The night was too wonderful, the opportunity too splendid, to ruin it. Later, later he would solve this, find out once and for all whether—
They rode. A wind came up, blowing the sounds of speech away off over the water, and they rode without talking. They rode in single file with Pam at the head. When she put the mare into a gallop, her hair flew out behind her. The total effect of girl and animal, both of them so lean and agile, was as graceful as any spectacular ballet at Lincoln Center. Pam’s strength and beauty fired Eddy. Then he tried self-analysis. He knew he was the most competitive of men; he knew he was affected by the rivalry, real or fancied, of every other male. But he had never before been so bothered, so possessed.
He said nothing until they were back home and having coffee in the kitchen. There, more abruptly than he had planned, his words came out.
“Have you ever slept—seriously and steadily, I mean—with anybody but me?”
What he wanted to ask and could not bring himself to ask was: Do you ever sleep with anybody now when I’m not here?
“What makes you ask such a question?”
He hesitated. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes I get the feeling that men are too intimate with you. Like tonight, for instance. The way those guys had their hands on you.”
“Oh, Eddy, that’s ridiculous.”
“No it isn’t. You’re a very, very sexy lady.”
“Putting a hand on a woman doesn’t mean anything.”
“That depends on how it’s done. It often means that the man wants a lot more from the woman.”
“Well, if I’m as sexy as you say I am, it’s not strange that men would want to. For goodness’ sake, Eddy, are you going to be jealous?”
“I don’t like to see men so intimate with you. Is that jealousy? I don’t know. I’ve never been jealous before. But I sense something when men are around you, that’s all. Frankly, I sense that you enjoy it.”
“I’ll be frank too. It’s fun to be admired, Eddy, especially when a whole week goes by sometimes without my seeing you.”
There was a pause before he brought forth another bold question. “How many men have you had besides me? If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll understand that I don’t matter to you, and that will be that.”
Pam stood up and laid her face against his. “You matter very much to me, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I’ve had two men, only a few times each, and they were before I met you. Of course, I was afraid of pregnancy and disease. But even if there were no such thing, I’d never be promiscuous. Why bring all this up now, Eddy?”
He felt that she was being truthful and, moved, reached up and took her hand.
“We’ve never talked seriously about things, have we? I just felt that the time had come for us to do so.”
She smiled. “I’ll talk about anything you want.”
He smiled back. “Later. I’d rather go upstairs. Shall we?”
“Just let me get ready. I’ll call you.”
He had never seen her room or even been upstairs in the house. When he heard her call to him, he entered a blue-and-white bedchamber, all summer sky and silk clouds. On a little couch at the foot of the canopy bed, Pam sat naked among white lace pillows. Her expression as she looked up at him was absolutely serious in a way that was different from anything he had ever seen upon her face before. Startling impressions and sensations raced across his mind in seconds. Even this room of hers was something he would not have imagined, it was so soft and womanly; it might well be the place where Lara slept with Davey. It was matrimonial. Our bedroom is the most important room in the house, Lara said when they moved into the new home. And a queer yearning ran now through Eddy’s veins and through his very bones at the recollection. He had never felt such a yearning. To come home every night to a lovely woman, to share this bed with her, to belong to each other in a total trust!
He felt a little catch in his throat, a little stab near his heart, and he held out his arms.
“Would you—” he almost stammered. “Could you make this permanent, do you think? What I mean is—marry me?”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh, yes, I could. Yes, yes, I will. I want to.”
She was laughing, she was crying. She was live and perfect. Almost as tall as he, she fitted into his arms. She was right for him.
Laughter, their familiar mood, took over again in the morning.
“Do you suppose you’d better clear out before my mother comes home?” asked Pam.
“Lord no, she knew I was going to stay here. She practically invited me. She’s probably figuring out the wedding date.”
Pam looked out over the lawn where sprinklers were showering drops as bright as sparks.
“Whenever I thought about it,” she said slowly, “and not being in a hurry, I never thought about it often, but whenever I did, I pictured a huge reception on that lawn. A dance floor under a marquee. The ceremony at St. John’s of Lattingtown. A marvelous dress, six bridesmaids, the works. You know.”
“Fine with me.”
“Darling, my mother couldn’t possibly afford it.”
“I’ll pay! What’s the difference?”
“A lot of difference. She wouldn’t hear of it, a matter of pride, much, much pride, darling.”
“I think it’s silly, if you want to know.”
“Maybe so, but that’s the way it is.”
“So what shall we do?”
“We could elope.”
Disappointed, Eddy replied, “That’s not very festive.”
“I know. Well, let me think a little.”
“Okay, think. But I want you to
meet me in the city this week. Somebody was telling me about a grand apartment for sale, twelve rooms, prewar with high ceilings, a beauty. Let’s take a look.”
“I can’t believe it! You talk as if money didn’t matter. Are you really that rich, Eddy?”
He grinned. “I do all right. Enough for you not to worry about money. Enough for you to have anything you want.”
Wonderingly, she said, “I don’t want a lot, Eddy. I never have. This seems so strange. I can’t get used to it.”
The grin turned into a laugh. “You will. You’ll love it too.”
Eddy’s plans developed as rapidly as a roll of film unwinds. The apartment was magnificent, with paneled walls, marble fireplaces that worked, a far view of the East River, and a near view of private gardens. Pam, looking down at this green enclave, found it hard to understand how anyone could part with a place like this one.
“Divorced,” Eddy told her.
She gave a small mock shudder. “I don’t like the omen.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Divorce isn’t contagious. Besides, I’ve seen the woman. She’s fat and homely, so no wonder.” He surveyed the long drawing room.
“They want to sell the furniture, but we surely don’t want it. It’s garbage. Expensive garbage. Now, I’d have a cabinet, a pair maybe, on either side of the fireplace to house my silver. The collection’s grown so that I’ve even got boxes under my bed.”
“That’s a handsome piano, though. I think it’s rosewood.”
“Hey, you’re right! You want to buy it?”
“I don’t play.”
“That doesn’t matter. It looks wonderful where it is. Enormous rooms need a piano. It’ll be a showpiece. Next to you. You’ll be the real showpiece.”
Sometime later he said thoughtfully, “You know, maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all for us to get married by ourselves. I’ve been thinking that a big wedding, even a small one, would be a problem for me too. I’ve told you about my sisters’ feud, and I don’t know how I could— It would be awkward, painful, to have them together. The whole thing hurts my heart, Pam. And they’re both such good people. You’ll see when you meet them. I want to fly out to Ohio with you soon to see Lara. You’ll fall in love with her. Everybody does.”
“Still, she’s being awfully stubborn, isn’t she?”
“Well, they both are. Neither one wants to give in or take back the rotten things she apparently said.” Eddy sighed. “Well, let’s get back to you and me. I just had a brainstorm. What about an elopement to Paris? Your mother’s pride is intact, my family problem is solved, and we have a great vacation. What do you say?”
“Why, I say yes,” Pam answered promptly. “Double yes.”
They were married at the American Church, attended by a young lawyer, a client of Eddy’s who with his wife happened to be in Paris that week. Afterward, they had dinner at the Grand Véfour and returned to their suite at the Hotel Ritz. In the morning they walked out onto the Place Vendôme and in wonderful, slow leisure, at Van Cleef & Arpels, bought the diamond ring that, in their general haste, they had not gotten around to buying at home.
Pam knew Paris rather well, having been there frequently with her parents during the good times before her father’s death, and she led Eddy easily to all the sights from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre. The fall season had begun, restoring the beautiful city after the summer lull to a thrilling life of concerts, theater, restaurants, gallery openings, and discotheques. Eddy and Pam were out every night at one or another of these.
Then they began to shop. She remembered where to look for antiques; they bought a Louis XVI cabinet, an ormolu clock, and some chairs. Eddy knew what he was buying, surprising the antiquarians in the shops and surprising himself also by the extent of his own knowledge, acquired in a relatively short few years. On the Île St. Louis at a small art gallery, they bought a Postimpressionist seascape of a beach at dusk with a group of young women sitting on the sand. It was Pam’s choice.
“It’s nice,” Eddy agreed, “but it’s the kind of thing you put in a bedroom or some little sitting room to enjoy in private. Frankly, in public rooms like the drawing or dining room, I want important art, things of museum quality.”
In total companionship the two of them rollicked through three splendid weeks. They walked, danced, laughed, and thought in identical rhythms. And he was proud, swelling within, when men turned to glance at the healthy, tall young woman so unmistakably American, even in her new French clothes, with her long hair so casually worn, her confident, long stride, and her white, perfect teeth.
Occasionally, he caught the tail end of a question that trailed across his mind and as quickly vanished: Is this love, then? The thing they tell of? Till death do us part … I can’t live without you.… Well, yes, he decided, this must be it. But whatever it is, it’s wonderful.
He was supremely happy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Pam’s going to a bridal shower, so I thought I’d spend the evening with you,” said Eddy, and added as he looked around Connie’s library, “The place looks beautiful. That’s a new lamp.”
“I treated myself. Can I fix you a drink?”
“A cup of hot coffee. I fought a real wind walking over here.”
His eyes followed his sister across the hall toward the kitchen. She wore a dark red velvet housecoat embroidered in gold thread, along with a pair of magnificent “earrings. Greek, he knew, and handmade. There was no mistaking either the design or the dark gleam of twenty-two-karat gold. They were most likely another “treat,” and Eddy had to smile. Connie took good care of herself. But shouldn’t she, after all? Thanks to him the settlement that Richard had given to her was growing ten times over; it was no fortune, but certainly it was more than enough to maintain a little place like this one in good style, and to dress Connie in high style.
Pam would never think to buy a housecoat like that. She was most comfortable in a sweater and skirt. Any treasures Pam possessed had been brought home by him, as almost the entire contents of the new apartment had been. Pam’s two interests were horses and sex. Well, that was all right. He liked horses well enough, and as for sex, just let her keep on loving it the way she did, as long as she never used her wiles on anybody else. But ever since that conversation in her mother’s house, she had given him not one moment’s unquiet. Some other young wives indulged in mild, harmless flirting even when their husbands were present, but not Pam. All that sort of thing she saved for him. Eddy’s smile, broadening at certain recollections, turned into a rather joyous
“You look like a Cheshire cat,” said Connie, coming back with a tray. “What are you smirking at?”
“Thinking of my wife. Being happy. She leaves me at loose ends when she goes out.”
“For one night? Lucky you! Loose ends is where I am most nights.”
The disconsolate tone fitted ill with Connie’s physical brilliance, the sheen of hair and skin, the scarlet mouth, the scarlet tips of the long white fingers. But the fingers were tensely clasped together on her knee, Eddy saw, and there were two vertical trouble lines between her eyes.
“Where are all your friends?” he asked. “You had so many.”
“Bitsy and her crowd? They’d have lunch with me if I had time, which I don’t because I’m in the shop, but they’re all married, and they don’t want an extra woman around at night.”
“Not when she looks like you, that’s for sure. You’re a menace, you are.”
“Well, thank you. Oh, I’ve been going out some, you know that, but there’s really been nobody who amounts to anything. They all just want to sleep with you, and what I want, plainly speaking, is to be married.”
“It’s too bad—” Eddy began, and stopped before completing a remark that would be both tactless and pointless.
“Too bad about Richard, you meant to say? Yes, it was nice living with him. We really had everything except a good love life.” And with a candor she had never shown before, she said, “And if it hadn’
t been for the other thing—the men—I guess I could have put up with that too. The fact is, I’m not very passionate.”
In spite of himself Eddy was embarrassed. A pity! He wondered whether she knew, whether it was even possible for her to know, what she was missing.
“Yes,” she continued, “he was good to me, and I feel sorry for him. He still remembers my birthday. Isn’t that sort of sad? Birthday and Christmas cards. Never misses. And I do the same.”
“Well, that’s nice. Civilized. But there’s no reason not to be, is there?”
It occurred to him as always that it would also be civilized if she and Lara were to do something about their sorry situation, when Connie inquired whether he ever saw Richard.
“I handle his investments by telephone. But I did happen to run into him on Madison Avenue a week or two ago, and we had a quick lunch together. He looked the same as always.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He asked about you, and I told him you were doing very well. That’s all. Then we got onto money. I’m getting him eleven percent on his investments, four to one on his tax shelters, deductions, and taxes deferred to infinity. So naturally, he’s happy. He got a big bonus this year and handed me the whole thing to take care of.”
“It all sounds terribly complicated.”
“Not really. Someday, if you’re really interested, I’ll explain it to you.”
Connie laughed. “Except for the bottom line you know I’m not really interested.”
“I thought not.”
Her laugh was delightful, and the gesture that went with it, the uplifted chin, was charming. Really it was too bad that such a woman should still be alone. And suddenly, for no logical reason, he had an idea.
“Pam and I should have a housewarming,” he said. “A real party, a real smash. What do you think?”
“That’s up to Pam. It’s a lot of work, and you haven’t been there six months. Your living room isn’t even furnished except for the piano.”
