by Webb, Peggy
He knew his sister. Her natural curiosity bordered on nosiness. She’d be bound to extract every bit of information out of Virginia that she possibly could. Combine that with her spontaneity and knack for adventure, and he never knew what to expect. They could be off exploring one of the canyons, or Callie could have decided to take Virginia up in Bolton’s plane for an aerial tour of the million plus acres of tribal land.
He made himself listen to the murmur of the wind through the trees and the far-off call of a hawk. He made himself sit quietly beside the campfire and reach within himself for peace and assurance.
The sound of hooves brought him to his feet. A paint topped the rise, bearing a dark-haired rider. He strained his eyes for Virginia, but in his heart he knew she was not there. He’d heard the sound of only one horse. Besides, Callie would never have left Virginia so far behind, especially not in the dark.
“Bolton.” Callie was out of the saddle before the horse came to a complete stop. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Where’s Virginia?”
Callie pressed a piece of paper into his hand.
“Read it, and then I’ll try to explain.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “Just read it, Bolton!”
He sat beside the fire, using the flames to illuminate Virginia’s note.
“Dearest Bolton,” she’d written. “How can I say this without breaking your heart and mine? How can I tell you good-bye?”
He closed his eyes. Reading the note was anti-climactic. One hour after Virginia rode off, he knew she was not coming back. A sense of loss had swept over him.
With hearts and bodies so a-tuned, it was not unusual for the minds to be intertwined. Especially writers. Sensitive to a degree that most people never understand, they can read the mind with a single glance. They can probe the mind from a distance in ways that remain mysterious even to them.
Bolton knew these things. And yet he’d denied his instincts. Instead of leaping on his horse and racing down the mountain after her as his intuition told him to do, he’d stayed on the mountain telling himself he was being overly protective and foolish.
A cloud came over the moon, extinguishing all light. Bolton held the note closer to the fire.
“Please understand that I have no choice, that I only do what I think is best, what I know is best. Someday you will understand. Someday you will thank me for the decision I’ve made. Bolton, my dearest love... please forgive me.”
He folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket.
“What happened?” he said.
“I don’t really know. I waited at the paddock while she went inside to make the phone call. She was pale when she came out. I asked was anything wrong, and she said she couldn’t talk about it.”
Callie plopped beside the fire and hooked her arm through Bolton’s.
“She asked me to take her to the airport.”
“You took her to the airport!”
“Believe me, Bolton, I didn’t want to. I argued that she should talk to you first, that you’d be happy to take her, but she was adamant.” Callie blinked back tears. “What else could I do?”
“It’s okay, Callie.” Bolton stood up. “It’s not your fault.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find out why she left... and then I’m going after her.”
“But Bolton, what if she doesn’t want to see you? She doesn’t have to love you just because you love her. Women have that right, you know.”
“She loves me.”
“How do you know?” Callie’s question was prompted by more than sisterly concern; she was genuinely curious about a process that remained totally mysterious to her.
“My heart knows.”
“Impossible.” She put her hands on her hips and watched while her brother broke camp. “Hey, I don’t have anyplace to go for the next few days. Can I come along and watch?” His look told her what he thought of that idea. “Maybe I can do something to help out, hold the boxing gloves or count to ten and say ‘come out fighting.’ “
He rewarded her with a lopsided grin.
“Thanks anyway, Callie, but this is something I have to do alone.”
o0o
When he got home he called her cell phone and got no answer. Next he called the airport to check on Virginia’s flight. Her plane had not yet touched down in Tupelo. He called her house and left a message.
“Virginia, call me as soon as you get home. No matter what time it is, call me.”
Now there was nothing he could do except wait.
“How about a game of chess?” Callie said.
“I can’t concentrate on games.” He sat on the sofa and picked up Virginia’s picture. “It’s late, Callie. Go on home.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” A picture of Virginia in the kitchen brought back such erotic memories, he flung it away and stalked toward his darkroom. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to work.”
Bolton had done a shoot in Louisiana of a crayfish festival. He sorted through his digital shots, forcing himself to focus on each detail. The freedom he enjoyed of choosing the assignments he wanted was dependent on maintaining the high quality of his work. One by one he downloaded the photographs, spectacular shots interspersed with tightly focused, unusual, intimate shots—his hallmarks.
When he finished organizing the Louisiana photos, he saw the last group he’d shot in Mississippi. No use to torture himself. He tried to bypass the pictures, but couldn’t. Against his better judgment, he began sorting through the photos of Virginia.
She had a face that loved the camera. In close-ups, with lips slightly parted and eyes sparkling, she was vibrant, lush, provocative.
Bolton bent close and studied the photographs with a magnifying glass. He had captured every detail, even the barely discernible mole on the left side of her lips.
The camera didn’t lie. She had the look of a woman in love. Why did she leave? Why?
There was a knock, then Callie called through the door, “Are you all right in there?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Silence on the other side of the door, then Callie’s cheerful voice.
“I’m going to make us some hot chocolate.”
“I don’t want any hot chocolate.”
“It’ll be good for you.”
“Callie... stop trying to coddle me.”
“I’m not. I don’t get these domestic urges very often so you’d better take advantage while it lasts.”
Virginia dominated the room with her secret, seductive smile. Something inside Bolton snapped. He flung open the door.
“For Pete’s sake, Callie. If you’re all that hot to play nursemaid, why don’t you get married and have kids.”
She stepped backward as if he’d slapped her.
“That’s mean, Bolton!”
He’d regretted the words the minute they were out of his mouth. But it was far too late to take them back.
“I’m sorry, Callie. I didn’t mean that.”
Callie wasn’t so easily placated.
“You blame me for letting her leave. That’s it, isn’t it, Bolton? You blame me.”
“I don’t.” He reached for her, but she sidestepped. “I don’t blame you, Callie. I blame myself.”
“I blame myself.” Callie sat down on the sofa, her hunched shoulders evidence of her misery. “Why didn’t I take her back to you instead of to the airport?” She looked stricken. “Will you ever forgive me, Bolton?”
“Hey now...” He sat down and put his arm around her. “There’s nothing to forgive....” She sniffled, and he dug into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief.
“It’s going to be okay, Callie.” A glance at his watch told him Virginia should be home by now. “I’m going to call her right now, and she’ll explain everything.”
He dialed her number and got he
r machine.
“Virginia... this is Bolton. If you’re there, pick up. If not, call me the minute you get home. I don’t care what time it is, call me.”
“Maybe she’s not there yet,” Callie said.
“Maybe.” Bolton dialed the airport to request information on her flight.
“That flight arrived on time, sir. Forty minutes ago.”
Virginia would have been out of the small commuter airport no more than fifteen minutes after landing. Another fifteen minutes and she would have been home.
Bolton dialed her number again. Four rings, and her machine didn’t click in. His jaw tightened as he gripped the receiver and listened to the hollow ringing of the telephone.
o0o
“You want me to answer it?” Jane asked.
Her hair was sticking out in bright red tufts, her face was devoid of makeup, and her clothes looked as if she’d picked them out of the clothes hamper, which is exactly what she had done.
When Virginia had called her from the Tupelo airport, she nearly went beserk. She was wearing her pajama top with orange jogging pants, pink tennis shoes, and mismatched socks.
“No. There’s nothing else to say to him.” Virginia jumped off the sofa and kicked her luggage. “Why, Jane? Why?”
“It’s going to be all right, Virginia. I just know it is.”
That had been Virginia’s first reaction. Denial. This can’t be happening to me. Everything is all right. But on the long flight from Arizona, virtually captive in an uncomfortable seat with no one to talk to and nothing to do but think, Virginia had become angry. Now her rage bubbled over.
“You can say that. You’re not the one with a lump in your breast.”
Jane was crying when she got off the couch and put her arms around Virginia.
“Hold on to me, Virginia. Just hold on.”
“Oh, God, Jane. I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t.”
“It’s all right, Virginia. You have every right to be mad. Take it out on me. I’m tough, I can handle it.”
Virginia put her head on Jane’s shoulder, and the two of them sobbed. The phone started ringing once more, a reminder that there was a world outside the living room, a world where people didn’t know that Virginia had a time bomb ticking in her chest.
“Cancer, Jane... I can’t believe it.”
“You don’t know that. The doctor didn’t say that.”
“Ninety percent chance, that’s what he said.”
When she had called the number Callie gave her and heard the response, “Good afternoon, Women’s Clinic,” Virginia hadn’t panicked; she’d only been curious. Even when the nurse said to hold for Dr. Mason, she had never dreamed she would be hearing news that would rip her entire life apart.
“I’m afraid your mammogram was not good, Virginia,” Dr. Mason had said. “We found a lump growing near the rib cage.”
Virginia had felt as if she were watching a movie, listening to a make-believe doctor tell the awful news to an actress playing the role of a famous writer. The actress, of course, was brave and stalwart. She didn’t have shaking hands and sweaty armpits like Virginia.
“There must be some mistake,” she had said.
“There’s no mistake, Virginia. The radiologist spotted it right away. That’s why she took so many X rays.” A short pause. “The location is not good. There’s a ninety percent chance it’s cancer.”
Women who felt wonderful didn’t have cancer. Women who had just spent two days in the mountains making fabulous love to magnificent men didn’t have lumps in their breasts.
It couldn’t be happening to her. Not now. Not when she had finally decided to take the greatest risk of all.
“We’re going to hit this thing as soon as possible, Virginia,” Dr. Mason had told her. “I’ve already called a surgeon to arrange for a lumpectomy.”
Virginia felt as if she were caught up in a hurricane that was sucking her out of her house, out of her life, out of her skin. She wanted to rant and rave, to scream at Dr. Mason and the radiologist, to make them take it all back, to insist that they call her and tell her they’d made a horrible mistake. But she was helpless. Nothing she could say or do would change the facts: Something sinister was eating her flesh away; something ugly was destroying her life.
She gripped Jane’s pajama top so hard, her knuckles turned white.
“I’ll be disfigured, Jane.”
“A lumpectomy is not disfiguring. They don’t take any more than necessary.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Myrtle had one three years ago. Don’t you remember?”
Myrtle. Jane’s cousin in Memphis.
“Didn’t she die?” Virginia said.
“God, I’m sorry. I never should have mentioned her. But she was sixty-nine. You’re young, Virginia. You’ll lick this.”
The specter of death had crept into the room. Virginia stalked to the piano and grabbed a crystal vase. “I’m not going to die!”
Virginia heaved the vase against the fireplace, and then sank to the carpet among the shattered glass.
Bolton had traced her breasts as the sun shone on them. “So beautiful,” he’d whispered.
Had it been only that morning? It seemed a thousand years ago.
Who would want a woman with chunks carved out of her breast? Worse yet, what if the lump turned out to be cancer and they had to do a radical mastectomy? Who would want a woman with only one breast? Who would want a woman who was going to die?
Tears ran down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth, and she never even noticed their salty taste.
“What if they have to take my whole breast?” Virginia lifted a ravaged face to her friend. “Please don’t let them do that to me.”
“I won’t, I promise I won’t,” Jane said, and then she crumpled.
They sat among the broken shards and clung to each other, crying, best friends who had never lied to each other before.
Chapter Fifteen
Callie slept on Bolton’s couch, and he didn’t sleep at all. He stared at pictures of Virginia until he thought he would go mad. Then he called his dog and the two of them raced along the foot trails through his property. When he was so exhausted he could barely stand, he came back inside and made a pot of strong coffee.
The sky held only a hint of pink, but it was already morning in Mississippi. Would Virginia be up? He didn’t want to wake her. On the other hand, he didn’t want to wait until she was already gone. She was an early riser. Sometimes she took her Arabian on a long morning ride, and sometimes she went outside to watch the sunrise over her lake. If she really wanted to get away from everybody, she packed a picnic lunch and carried her laptop to her favorite spot in the woods.
Bolton was good at his job, and that job had been to interview the famous novelist Virginia Haven. He probably knew more about her than her ex-husband.
He picked up the phone and dialed. Her machine was back on.
“Virginia... if you’re there, please pick up.... Talk to me, Virginia... tell me what’s going on...”
Virginia sat on the edge of her bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, listening to the sound of his voice. She’d hardly slept at all, and every nerve ending in her body was screaming. She longed to pick up the receiver; she longed to cry on his shoulder.
“Oh, Bolton,” she whispered. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I know you love me, Virginia. Why did you run?”
She clenched her hands into fists and tightened her grip on her knees.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I love you, Bolton.”
“Are you there?... Don’t do this to us.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and rocked back and forth on her bed.
“Oh... God... I love you....”
“I don’t believe your note, Virginia... You always have a choice... I’m—”
The answering machine beeped, cutting Bolton off in midsentence. What was he saying? I’m... what? Angry? Hurt? Coming
?
For one heady moment she imagined that he would come again and everything would be exactly as it had been before. They would race through the woods on the Arabians and devour each other in the kitchen and cuddle close in her double bed. Time would stand still.
There would be no yesterdays and no tomorrows. Only the moment.
The phone rang again.
“I’m not going to let it end like this, Virginia. I’m coming, and I’m not going to leave until I get some answers.”
There was a click as he hung up. Bolton always did what he said he was going to do. He was coming to Mississippi. But it wouldn’t be the way it had been the first time. Instead of discovering a successful, vital woman he would discover a total wreck. She was on the brink of losing her breast, her mind, her very life. Even her career was in jeopardy. What publisher in his right mind would risk signing a multiple book contract with a woman who might never even make the first deadline?
Virginia went into the bathroom and vomited. Jane appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed and frazzled.
“I heard you up,” she said. She wrung out a washcloth and held it to Virginia’s forehead. “Was that the phone?”
“Yes... Bolton.”
“Do you want me to call him?”
“No... yes... God, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
“It must have been the same train that hit me.”
Virginia managed a pale grin. Then she saw herself in the mirror.
“Tell me that old woman is not me,” she said.
“That old woman is not you. I promise.”
“He said he was coming.” Jane rolled her eyes. “I can’t let that happen, Jane. What am I going to do?”
“Look, Virginia. I know I said some things about the age difference and all that, but who am I to make that kind of judgment? Miss Old Maid of the Century. Maybe that was envy talking, or jealousy.”
“Hush, Jane.”
“I think he really loves you, Virginia.”
“What difference does that make now?”
“It might be a very good thing if he comes. You need all the support you can get right now.”
“I have you and I have Candace. No... he can’t come.”
For a few blessed moments, Virginia forgot about the thing growing in her breast as she pawed in her bedside table drawer for pen and paper.
