God—if he called now! What would she do? Or say to him? Where in the past she had always prayed silently for David's call, now she found herself hoping fervently that he would not—not until she was safely gone.
Presently, Marti came in to help her pack, sorting out things she could send for later. Marti's magnolia-skinned face was paler than usual, and she wore a stunned, disbelieving look.
"I can't believe it!" Marti exploded, the minute she walked in. "Eve, are you sure you know what you're doing? I keep thinking that this is Brant, and he has to be playing some kind of cruel game. I— Oh, Eve baby, I'm just fond of you, you know that. I just don't want to see you cut to pieces by a—a barracuda!"
Eve shrugged helplessly.
"It's too late, Marti. I've committed myself, and we're going to be married in a few days. I even signed all kinds of papers this morning, and—it's as good as done, I suppose. Don't look that way, I can hardly believe it myself."
"You're making a mistake, Eve. I warned you about him, remember? But it's your life. Damn, I guess I feel almost protective—you don't need any more hurt. First David, and now—" Marti glanced toward the door.
"And what about David? What am I supposed to tell him if he calls again—or are you going to do that?"
"I don't want to talk about David! Oh, Marti, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap, but—something happened with us and—and it's over. David did it—I guess he opened my eyes for the last time."
"So you're marrying Brant to get even?"
"I don't know! I don't really know why I'm marrying Brant, except that he wants me to, and I—maybe I'm finally ready for marriage!"
"Huh!" Marti said sourly. She started folding Eve's clothes neatly in little piles on the bed, and she didn't say much more after that, although her disapproval was palpable.
In the end, Eve took just two cases with her. She left Marti a check for her share of the rent for the next two months, and the keys to the apartment. Somehow, that seemed to make everything so final; she felt as if she had put herself in Brant's custody, and the feeling made her quiet and withdrawn. She had the sudden impression of being on a roller-coaster that was out of control and racing toward destruction. Would he end up destroying her?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AT THE TOWN HOUSE, like a bad omen, Jerry Harmon was waiting, leaning up against the weathered brick exterior, his eyes watching them both. Somehow, just seeing him standing there made Eve sickly afraid— unreasoningly so, because, after all, it had been Brant and not Jerry who had started it all that night. Brant who...
She felt quite suddenly as if she couldn't get out of the car, didn't want to, but Brant's firm, strong fingers grasped both her hands, pulling her upward and onto her feet, moving her forward. Jerry ignored her, and she felt a kind of relief at that.
"Hey, Brant! I've been trying to get in touch all day, man—figured that if you'd gone sailing, you wouldn't lie out too late." His glance flicked over Eve at last, and she wanted to cringe under it.
"Partying all alone, huh? Well, how's about joining the crowd tonight at my place? Got some new faces coming in from the southland, man, and they all love lo ball. I came all the way up here just so I'd be sure to catch you."
Brant kept smiling his cold, polite smile, but he was shaking his head, and Eve felt relief flood through her. For a few horrible seconds, she had been afraid that he'd want to go and would force her to go along with him.
"Sorry, Jer. No more playing for me for a while, and I guess you might just as well pass the word around that I'm leaving town again tomorrow. Eve and I are getting married."
He'd said it easily, conversationally, but Eve could see Jerry's eyes bug, his mouth open and then close, as if he were having difficulty finding words.
Finally he said slowly, "Man, you have got to be kidding! This is all a big put-on. Go on, tell me that and I'll laugh. Because, Brant baby, it's not your bag, man. I mean, you're cool, sweetheart. Just a little crazy, maybe, like the rest of us, but not that crazy. Come on, now, tell old Jer you were fooling—the sun got to you, maybe "
Inexplicably, Eve found that she, too, was watching Brant, waiting for his laugh, waiting for him to shrug and tell Jerry that he wasn't serious at all, it was a put-on.
But instead, here he was telling Jerry something quite different.
"Sorry, Jer, but I am serious—finally. Maybe everything just got to be a drag—you know? Anyhow, why don't I just let you think up some story wild enough to tell the gang. I'm going to be too damned busy to make any announcements myself."
Jerry stood there shaking his head for a long time after they had gone in the house—Eve still silent, and Brant explaining casually that they had a lot of packing to do.
"You're eloping?"
"Guess you could call it that. We haven't decided where yet, or when, exactly. Just soon. We're leaving in the morning, so be a sweetheart and keep everybody away, huh?"
Jerry had agreed, his expression still stunned, but now he found himself wondering if Brant weren't, after all, playing some monstrous kind of trick. On the girl, on him, on them all. Brant could be a kind of weirdo sometimes—he was as difficult as hell to figure out at all times.
But to marry Eve Mason, of all people? Everyone knew she was crazy about that lawyer guy, Francie's brother. And then there had been all die publicity about her going to New York to take Babs Barrie's place on the biggie morning show—what about that? Hell, he thought, only a week or so ago, Brant had invited everyone at his party to screw the broad—had even helped. To think that he, Jerry, had actually thought he knew Brant Newcomb better than most people did! That was a laugh because did you ever really get to know anyone as rich as Brant, or as self-contained as he was, even if you'd been stationed at the same base in 'Nam?
Brant Newcomb was a loner even when he was the center of a crowd, the laugh of the party. There'd always been women in his life, of course, and even an occasional man if it was an orgy scene with everyone doing it to everyone else. But Brant, unlike most guys, had never had a special friend (unless you could call him one, and Brant had sure as hell shown him different, hadn't he?) nor kept a mistress. Not even when he lived in Europe, where it added a certain cachet to a rich man's reputation as a lover to keep a well-known movie star or an opera singer.
Brant, with his looks and his millions, could have had his pick of the women; instead he would use them— fuck them and forget them. He genuinely didn't give a damn about anyone. Some jealous women, their vanity hurt when he'd picked them up and dropped them just as quickly, had even tried to start rumors that Brant was a closet queen, but nobody really believed that because Brant balled too many women—some of them too publicly—and took too much enjoyment in the doing of it. He was as horny and ready as often as an eighteen-year-old.
So what in hell did Brant think he had found in Eve Mason? She was beautiful, but beauty was cheap and easy to come by these days. She was a product of middle-class suburbia, nothing special, and had had the usual quota of men on the way up. What had Brant discovered that was so special—there had to be something, only Jerry hadn't figured it out yet. Oh, well, they said a leopard couldn't change its spots, and Brant couldn't change overnight. He was human, too, like everyone else, and he'd be back in circulation after a while, with or without his bride.
Jerry had been walking back to where he'd parked his car, deep in thought. Brant's sudden announcement had shaken him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. After all, they'd been buddies since Vietnam, and Brant hadn't even asked him in the house this time, the cold bastard!
Suddenly, as a thought struck him, Jerry's footsteps quickened. Hell, why hadn't he thought of it before? He had the juiciest piece of gossip in the city right now —he knew something no one else knew. City, hell! This piece of gossip was news—international, wire-service type. It was a goddam scoop, and if there was money to be made, Jerry baby was going to make it. Maybe his old pal Brant would let him take some pictures at the wedding? Al
l he had to do now was get on the phone to Evalyn Adams in Los Angeles, and she'd jump at the chance to be the first to run the story—she always paid well, too. Bread. He could use some. Parties were expensive.
Eve thought that the thing that frightened her most about Brant was his cruelty. It wasn't a conscious, considered cruelty most of the time, perhaps, but it was all the more frightening because it seemed instinctive and thoughtless. After seeing Jerry Harmon, the fear that had returned to haunt her hadn't gone away yet, and since they'd been back, she felt they were farther apart than ever.
There was nothing for her to do here—every thing was being taken care of, even her final packing. If she needed anything else, all she had to do was ring for Jamison and tell him, and he'd see to it. She wondered nervously what Jamison thought of all this, his employer's latest whim—did he think at all, or was he merely a robot? Was that what you had to be to survive around the man who was going to be her husband?
She'd paced around the rooms on the first floor of the house until Brant, looking up from the telephone, had offered her a tranquilizer. She'd refused, and he'd shrugged and gone back to his telephone calls. Now Eve wondered whom he was calling—he'd been on the phone for what seemed like hours, making one call after another.
"I have to take care of a few things before we leave tomorrow," he'd said. Well, of course she wasn't his wife yet and she didn't have the right to ask questions, but would she ever feel secure enough with him to do so?
At last, Eve came upstairs to lie on the big bed and flick the switches that would bring her music again. Bach—cool, measured, soothing sounds. But they couldn't stop her thoughts. She wondered if she should have taken the tranquilizer—it might have helped, after all.
Oh, God. What's going to happen to me in the end? Do I really want this? I'll have the money, of course, but he'll have me. I'm afraid of him. And everything's moving so damned fast! When he's making love to mo, he's all there and it's good, and for a little while then I'm not afraid. But the rest of the time, he's too controlled, too carefully remote. I can't read Mm; I can't understand him.
She had closed her eyes, but his voice cut sharply through her thoughts.
"Eve, don't go to sleep yet—we have to call your mother, remember?"
She remembered. And wondered all over again what she was going to say. Her mother would be shocked, of course. She was old-fashioned enough to jump to the conclusion that Eve was pregnant. But Mom wouldn't ask that question. Poor Mom!
"Brant, can I cop out and have you talk to her first? She's going to think—"
"That you're pregnant. Well, baby, maybe we ought to get you that way in a hurry."
"Brant!"
"You sounded just like a wife when you said that. Better watch it."
He sat on the bed beside her and smiled at her, and she realized suddenly that he very seldom smiled at all.
"I wonder if I'll ever understand you?" The words slipped out quite accidentally; she had only meant to think them.
He raised his eyebrows at her, his face composed again.
"That's hard for me to say. Sometimes I don't even understand myself, but that could be because I gave up wondering a long time ago. The only thing I learned from three years of analysis was to accept myself as I am."
His hand touched her unconsciously clenched fist, which lay between them.
"Relax, Eve. You're going to have to learn to stop being so scared and tense around me."
"Brant—"
"Yes, I know. You have reason to be."
"It's not just that." She sat upright, so that she faced him. "It's just that I have this feeling that being cruel is an instinctive thing with you—that you don't really care about people unless—unless they're necessary to you, for whatever purpose you have in mind."
After she'd said it, she wondered nervously if she'd gone too far, but he merely looked thoughtful, as if he were considering her impulsive speech.
"I suppose you're right," he said at last. "Ever since— well, ever since I was young, I've known that there was no one but me to watch out for me. And I figured that everyone else could learn the same thing for themselves. If you play a game, you'd better know the rules. I learned that, too. So if I'm cruel, or someone gets hurt, I never gave it a second thought. Guess I've never really thought of other people as people, if you know what I mean. Just convenient adjuncts to the way of life I'd chosen."
"You mean the kicks circuit? But why that? You could have become a—a monk and thought about it all in some monastery or ashram, or—or done anything else you wanted to that the world has to offer!"
He laughed suddenly, a short, mirthless sound.
"A monk! Yes, funnily enough, I did think about that once, but it seemed too much of a drag, living by rules— all that crap about obedience and chastity, with no real reasons why. And at the time I didn't want to be alone too much. I had my reasons. But you want to know why the life I lead now, don't you? The theory behind it— sensualism, hedonism as the pure flame, consume the body with excesses rather than fasting in order to set the mind free. Something like the old ascetic monks believed in, the desert-livers, the hermits who insisted on seeking their own path to salvation—only my way offers much more scope. I've turned on with pot and coke and acid and speed—you name it, I've tried it at least once. Sometimes drugs help intensify the feeling of feeling, you know? But then after a while nothing's new, and sometimes the walls close in on you and you're alone and so damned scared because you're not in control any longer. Having a crowd around helps, but only at first. After a while..."
His eyes had looked blank and opaque while he'd been talking, but suddenly, for one fleeting moment, they looked directly into hers, and Eve thought she could actually see in them. Something that was almost pity made her reach out to him and touch him.
"Don't—I didn't mean to pry, I just want to understand, you see."
"Understanding takes time, baby. Lots of time and learning to care, which is something I'm not used to. You'll have to help me. I'm a moody bastard sometimes, and I'm going to have to learn to give instead of taking all the time. But dammit—"
"Be careful," she said shakily, "you're letting too much of yourself show. And I might—I might end up liking you, you know—would that bore you?"
He put both his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching her face.
"Maybe that's what I need—to have to work at persuading someone to like me. And maybe you interest me enough to dig deeper under your soft-seeming sex-kitten surface, just to see what I'll discover."
She half-expected him to push her backward onto the bed, but instead he kissed her chastely on the forehead.
"Okay, enough soul-searching. Why don't we call your mother right now, before Jamison announces dinner.
Eve found herself agreeing meekly. Brant kept surprising her, damn him, often enough to make her curious. Perhaps that was what he had meant about wanting to dig deeper.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
BRANT SURPRISED EVE all over again when he seemed to genuinely like her mother. She had expected that after the initial shock her mother would like him—or at least like the idea that her daughter was finally getting married—and how many women could boast of having a millionaire son-in-law?
Her mother, as usual, fussed first and then hugged and kissed. The younger children stared from a safe distance to begin with and then slowly came closer, to tag at Brant's heels.
"Hey, are you really going to marry Eve? She told us she was never going to get married."
And shyly, from her little sister, Pat:
"Wow! You're gorgeous. Wish I'd seen you first!"
She hadn't quite remembered how enveloping, how smothering and personal her family could be, and she expected Brant to withdraw behind his polite smile. Instead, he seemed to become really human for the first time, kissing her mother back and telling her he could see where Eve had got her looks, promising her brother, Steve, that he'd play ball with him, even whispering to
Pat that he wished he'd seen her first, too.
It had been Brant's idea that they be married from her home—her real home—and helplessly, more than ever unable to fathom him, Eve let herself be taken over and swept forward by what was happening.
She didn't ask how, but Brant had arranged for their blood tests and their immediate results, and he had arranged for a special license. The wedding was to be held the next day, in church, and the neighbors and family friends had been told already, with explanations preferred as to the unexpected swiftness of the whole affair.
Eve listened to her mother make some of the last-minute telephone calls.
"Well, Minnie, you know how young people are these days; they keep saying they don't want fuss. They were going to elope, you see, but Eve's young man wanted a church wedding in the end. What did you say? Oh, but their reservations had already been made months ahead for their honeymoon, and there was no way they could cancel them and make new ones unless they wanted to wait another month, and of course they didn't want to do that"
White lies! Why did there always have to be explanations for other people? Eve was suddenly tired, tired—when she went up to bed that first night, her face ached from smiling. Still, once she was lying there, gazing up at the familiar low ceiling, she found she could not sleep immediately. She moved and twisted uneasily for what seemed like hours, listening to the voices that still floated up from the living room. Was she the only one in the house who wanted to sleep? Try closing your eyes and letting your body go limp, Eve. Try not thinking about David.
It was morning—Eve realized, surprised, that she had actually slept. She lay there, inert, hoping she'd go back to sleep, but the thoughts of last night still clung to the fringes of her mind. Strange droughts to be having on her wedding day. Wedding to a stranger. But at least with this particular stranger there would be no need for pretense between them. No love, but no lies, either.
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