Rapture

by Thomas Tessier

  "Sorry ... I hope I didn't bother you."

  "Of course you didn't."

  "Do you want some coffee, or a drink?"

  "Not coffee, but a nightcap would be nice." He was flying back to Los Angeles the next day. He had no intention of saying good-bye to her at this point.

  The house was chilly again. Jeff went to mix the drinks in the kitchen while Georgianne turned up the heat. He knew what it was-she wasn't yet used to looking after every little thing about the house by herself. One winter alone here would do it for her, he thought. A house required a good deal of regular maintenance. As Sean had said, there were always chores and repairs to be done. And the snowConnecticut winters were no fun. He was convinced that by spring Georgianne would feel different about this house.

  "Thanks for a wonderful day," she said after he'd brought the drinks into the living room.

  "It was nice, wasn't it."

  "I shouldn't have fallen asleep like that."

  "Why not? It was a long day, and we did quite a bit of walking. Besides, I enjoyed driving you home that way."

  They were sitting together on the couch.

  "Do you want anything?" she asked. "If you're hungry..."

  Jeff shook his head. "No thanks. Tomorrow I have to fly back to California and my job. So right now all I want is to sit here and get quietly drunk with you."

  "I haven't been drunk in ages." Georgianne smiled at the thought, but then became very still. A moment later she asked, "What was your wife like, Jeff?"

  "I don't remember," he answered. Her question didn't surprise him, but seemed a natural expression of her growing interest in his life. "I know that sounds strange," he went on, "but I can remember people I haven't seen in twenty years better than I can Audrey. She was just a brief period in my life that's now a blank spot, more or less."

  "Oh, but you know what she looked like."

  "Well, yeah, I guess," he said. "Her hair was dirty blond, about medium length, like yours. After we got married, she went from being the right weight for her build to being fashionably skinny. And she cut her hair short, so that she looked more like a boy. Maybe that was part of the problem."

  "Did she remarry?"

  "Yes, thank God." He laughed. "Saved me a lot of money. Best thing she ever did for me."

  "But you never did. Marry again."

  A couple of small statements, like coins clicking faintly in an empty pocket.

  "No," Jeff replied. She seemed to be waiting for more, but he had anticipated this question many times. He couldn't be flip. It was important. Yet he still didn't have a good answer. "I just buried myself in my work, and it was probably the right thing to do at the time. But I'm getting away from that now. I can see that I let work become a kind of mania for me, and I don't want to live that way now. I let it go on for far too long. There are more important things in life." Then, softly, "I would, you know. Marry again. If it was right ..."

  "You should," Georgianne said distantly. She had been listening to him and taking in his words, but she was lost in her own thoughts as well. He'd been through a bad marriage; he was entitled to a good one, and he could still look and hope for it. But she'd had a good marriage already, a very good one, and now she thought she had no right to hope for anything.

  Jeff took their glasses into the kitchen for refilling. He made Georgianne's drink a little stronger, his own weaker. She wasn't yet thinking in terms of a possible relationship between the two of them-he understood that. And he knew it wasn't something he could rush. But he felt disconcerted. He thought about all the time and effort and energy he had expended, the months of planning and work, the extraordinary risks he had taken-all culminating in these two weeks alone with her. Now he was about to return to California, a separation that would only make things harder. At the very least, he had to make sure he had planted the idea in her mind, even if he had to jolt her a little bit to do so. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he left here thinking he'd been too hesitant and fearful again.

  When he returned to the living room, he found Georgianne looking more cheerful. She was standing, smiling at him, and she held something behind her back.

  "Uh ... would you just sit down there, please," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  He set their drinks on the coasters on the coffee table, and then took his place on the couch.

  "This is for you," she said. She handed him a large, framed pen-and-ink sketch. As he took it and looked at it, she came around to sit beside him.

  "It's-beautiful." His throat was constricted with emotion. "Thank you. I love it."

  It was a drawing of an old country stone wall. There were weeds and field grass along the foot of it, some brambles curling over the top at one side, a few stones missing or fallen off, but the wall itself was the overwhelming heart of the picture, an immense and powerful presence.

  "You told me you especially liked the wall in the other sketch I gave you...."

  "Yes, I did." He gasped. "But this is so much better. It's fantastic ... the amount of detail." He turned to her. "Thank you. Very much. This will go up as soon as I get back. God, I love it."

  "It's like you," she said. "Solid and strong."

  He kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand while he continued to admire the drawing. Although he had asked for another sketch, he hadn't expected anything like this, and he was deeply moved.

  "I've got a carton for it," Georgianne said. "So you can carry it easily on the plane."

  He set the picture on the armchair, on the other side of the coffee table, and then sat down next to her again.

  "It's ... fantastic."

  "Do you really like it?"

  "I sure do. Can't you tell?"

  "Good, I'm glad." She smiled with pleasure. "I don't know what I'd have done if you didn't." She laughed, but then her face became serious. "You've been so kind and good to me these last two weeks, Jeff ... I just want to tell you how grateful I am to you."

  "I've enjoyed every minute of it."

  "I really mean it," she continued. "You gave me a lot of your time, and I appreciate it. I enjoyed it too, and you came at a time when I didn't think I could ever enjoy anything again. There are lots of more ex citing ways you could have spent your vacation than looking after someone coming out of ..."

  "Hey, forget it," he hushed her. "I've been here because I wanted to be, not because it was something I was obliged to do. You know, when I was here in May, I said I'd stay in touch, but I never did and I felt bad about it."

  "I didn't either."

  "Yeah, well, it was different for you. But I should have and I didn't, and I'm not going to let that happen again. There aren't that many good friendships in the course of a lifetime, and now that we've found ours again I don't want to lose it."

  "Neither do I."

  "I'll be on the phone to you every week."

  "Oh, Jeff, that's not-"

  "Never mind. I want to. What's a telephone for? And I hope you'll give some thought to visiting L.A. Bring Bonnie. I'd love to show you around; there's a lot to see and do out there. I know you want to go to Florida and Chicago, but think about L.A. too. You have a friend there. One who cares about you."

  "Maybe we will. Sometime."

  A silence overtook them. Jeff wondered if he'd said too much too quickly, his words creating a vacuum in their wake. But then, he didn't care. He felt instinctively that the right moment had come.

  He put an arm around Georgianne's shoulders and turned her face to his. They looked at each other for just a second or two, and then he kissed her on the lips. For him, it was a moment of great fear, and greater excitement. He was crossing an important line. He was kissing her the way a man kisses a woman, seriously, not like a brother or an old friend. She would remember it and think about it, and that, he hoped, would be enough.

  Georgianne didn't respond. She felt a tiny flicker within herself, but it died instantly. Her sexual orientation was still to Sean. Her body was numb to any other
man. It was too soon. And there, in that house which was hers and Sean's, it was wrong; it seemed, irrationally, almost incestuous. She felt confused and sad. She didn't want this to be happening, not now and especially not there. But she could hardly movethe situation had turned her into dead weight. Finally she moved her face slightly and rested her forehead on Jeffs shoulder.

  The only thing he could do was sit there and hold her for as long as was necessary. He knew that the moment had passed. No, that wasn't it. The moment had never really been there except in his imagination. All the same, he had at last kissed Georgianne properly, and he was happy about that. TTWenty years overdue, and all the sweeter for it.

  "I'm sorry I'm not better company," Georgianne said weakly after a while. She reached for her drink, disengaging herself a little from Jeff in the process. "It still gets to me, you know. It still gets to me."

  It: Sean, Jeff thought. The man was slow to die, but die he would, and his hold on Georgianne would disappear with him. It was just a matter of time. Meanwhile, Jeff had given her something to remember and think about....

  The next morning, before he checked out of the ho tel, Jeff called Georgianne, and they had an easy, cheerful conversation for nearly half an hour. No harm had been done, it seemed, although neither of them alluded to that moment the night before. By tacit agreement, it had been placed in a special container and set aside for an indefinite period.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jeffs long-distance pursuit of Georgianne began the following week. He fell into a routine of calling her on Tuesdays and Fridays. His preparations for each telephone encounter were as ritualistic as those of a baseball player setting himself in the batter's box before the next pitch. He would come home from work early in the evening, remove his shoes, unknot his tie, and unbutton his shirt. He would pour a large measure of malt Scotch into a crystal tumbler and add a splash of bottled water. The drink would be placed on a tweed coaster on the coffee table, next to a clean crystal ashtray, a fresh pack of cigarettes, and a book of matches. Then he would stretch out on the couch, propping himself up at one end with a pillow. He would light the first smoke, take a sip of whiskey, and pick up the telephone. He even developed a certain rhythm for tapping out the sequence of numbers that would bring him Georgianne's voice.

  Once in a while, she had something planned for a Friday night, and would tell Jeff on the Tuesday before; then he would call on Thursday or Saturday, and the routine went on.

  He liked to think of her taking all his calls in her bedroom: half-dressed, in a pajama top perhaps, or some girlish nightie. The mental image was sometimes so distracting that he lost the thread of the conversation. But it was always easy, reminding him of the many hours he had spent on the phone with his various girlfriends in high school. Two people could often say more to each other on the phone than they ever did face to face. And the connection was usually so clear Jeff had no difficulty imagining that he and Georgianne were in the same town.

  At first, he had to make the greater effort. Georgianne found it hard to accept the fact that Jeff really didn't mind piling up large telephone bills. She felt uncomfortable, as if she could hear the meter ticking, but after a couple of weeks she relaxed about it. The telephone had become an important part of her life since Sean's death. She talked to Bonnie every night, her mother once a week, and now she had Jeff on the line every Tuesday and Friday night.

  He talked about anything that came to mind. He knew that, for a while at least, the mere fact that they were in constant communication was more important than what they actually said. So he told her about all sorts of things-Los Angeles, the weather, systems analysis, the people he worked with, his aquarium of tropical fish, the bars and restaurants he knew in the area, even defense spending. He managed to give her a better idea of some of the things being done in mo lecular biology, and how Bonnie's field of interest might interface with the work he did. The whole high-tech future was a minor but recurrent motif in his conversation.

  Georgianne was a good listener. At appropriate moments she always came up with a reasonable question or comment. There were no awkward pauses or stifled yawns.

  For her part, Georgianne talked about Bonnie most frequently. She was still doing well at Harvard and she liked the school and the whole Cambridge environment. Jeff was also given odd bits of news about Georgianne's mother, and her two brothers and their families. It was boring, and Jeff couldn't have cared less, but he always listened patiently. She also told him regularly about her job at the nursery school. She liked working there. The kids were endlessly energetic, and she always went home feeling worn out, but she thought that was good for her and she hadn't regretted a day of it yet. Besides, some of the children were really wonderful. Jeff had to agree that it was a good thing for Georgianne to be doing.

  The house soon became a factor. This pleased Jeff. Every time he called, it seemed, he heard about one thing or another Georgianne had to take care of-the storm windows, leaves clogging a gutter pipe, a leak in the dishwasher, loose tiles in the bathroom-never anything serious, just the usual household nuisances. Georgianne was far from helpless, and she coped well. She paid a neighbor's son to mow the lawn, rake the leaves, and when it snowed, to clear the driveway. She was proud of the fact that she could handle prob lems one way or another, but as the weeks went by, Jeff was sure that the whole business of maintaining a house was beginning to get to her.

  With time, too, he and Georgianne were able to talk about more personal matters. The telephone seemed to make it safer and easier. She hinted at, then admitted to, being lonely, as if she were somehow to blame for it. He told her it was the most natural thing in the world. She told him about the increasingly open advice she was getting from her friends-she should start to date, she couldn't deny herself that right, she couldn't hide herself away and become old before her time, and so on. She found this predictable and even a little amusing, but it was clear she was also considering it seriously. Jeff tried to remain neutral. If, one evening, she told him that she was going out to dinner or to a movie with another man, he would deal with it then. But he sensed that Georgianne had real reservations about becoming a dating woman again after all these years, and he believed that his reassuring presence on the phone twice a week helped somewhat to lessen her need for male companionship.

  Jeff was carefully ambiguous about his personal life. He let Georgianne know that he socialized to a certain extent, insofar as it went with the job, but that he could take it or leave it. Once, she asked him if he was dating anyone special, and he replied immediately, "Yes-you, every Tuesday and Friday." Georgianne laughed at this, but warmly, like a confirmation, and he felt good about it. He always tried to strike a light tone. He didn't want to make any intense declarations over the telephone, at such a distance. If she clammed up or otherwise failed to respond, everything would be in jeopardy. So he would kid her, joke with her, and sympathize with her when necessary. His role was to be there, safe, solid, reassuring, the complete friend. They were, thanks to the telephone, two disembodied souls moving slowly closer together. One day, Jeff was sure, Georgianne would answer his call and he would hear something new in her voice. Understanding. She would realize that he was the man in her life and she would be ecstatic about it....

  Late in November, she told Jeff that Bobbie Maddox had introduced her to a single man at a cocktail party. It had been a terrifying experience. Georgianne still felt too close to Sean, and she had hardly been able to talk coherently to the stranger. The man didn't interest her in any way, but she was disturbed by her reactions, her inability to handle a perfectly ordinary situation.

  Jeff soothed her and told her that she hadn't done anything wrong, that she had no social obligation to feel comfortable with any stranger who happened to cross her path. The only timetable she had to follow was the one dictated by her own feelings; nothing else mattered. Georgianne sounded much better after talking to Jeff about that incident. Secretly, he was quite pleased. It was still too early for
her to have real feelings for another man, but she had never felt the least bit uncomfortable with him; just the opposite. It was a message to Jeff that he had the inside track and was far ahead of anyone else.

  The only worry, and it did bother him when he thought about it, was that Georgianne regarded him a little too casually. Sometimes he got the impression that she talked to him the same way she would to a close girlfriend. His greatest fear was that their relationship would solidify at a certain superficial level that included confiding, sharing, and affection, but nothing more. A sanitized, platonic, brotherly load of nonsense. But all he could safely do was to hint at his true feelings and occasionally, lightly, call her "my girlfriend."

  Georgianne spent the long Thanksgiving weekend in Boston. She stayed at a hotel and took Bonnie out to a restaurant for a turkey dinner. They went to a football game, a play, a couple of films, and a punk gig at a Cambridge club. They had a great time together, Georgianne said. Jeff wished he could have been there with them. It was just the kind of weekend away he wanted with Georgianne. But it would have been wrong to intrude, and he knew there would be many more Thanksgivings for them.

  Georgianne and Bonnie spent the Christmas holidays in Tampa, where the rest of the Slaton family had gathered. Georgianne later admitted feeling miserable, thinking of Sean on Christmas Eve. In a way, Jeff was glad to hear that. The holidays were drab and lonely for him in Santa Susana. He went to a couple of parties but was unable to get in the mood. In the past he had just continued working, but now he couldn't be bothered. He stayed in and drank or went out and drank, mostly alone. He called Georgianne in Tampa on Christmas morning, but their conversation was brief and limited to the usual season's greetings and best wishes. He could hear music and laughter in the background, and he knew it was the wrong time for a longer talk, so he got off the phone. He called her mother's number again on New Year's Eve, but Georgianne was out with her brothers and their wives, celebrating at some restaurant. That night he drove to Triffids and got drunk. He danced with, kissed, and groped a number of merry women. He woke up early the following afternoon, fully dressed but with his pants around his knees. Whoever had returned with him was gone. Considering the amount of liquor he had put away and the blank spot of twelve hours or so in his memory, he decided that unzipping his pants was all he had accomplished. He sat up and let his monster headache do its worst while he stared uncomprehendingly at Georgianne's drawing of the stone wall.