Warm Hearts

by Barbara Delinsky

  “I’d be very happy to be out of business,” she said, “if it meant there was less unhappiness in the world, just as I’m sure an oncologist would be thrilled by a cure for cancer.”

  “Ah, so lofty.”

  “No. But I do mean what I say.”

  There was a long pause, then a quiet “Touché.”

  Caroline’s lips formed the reluctant beginnings of a smile. Ben had always been astute to the nuances of words. It was necessary in his work. Apparently he hadn’t lost his touch while he’d been in Spain.

  “You’re still angry at me,” he decided. If his perceptiveness was off just a hair, it was because he couldn’t see her indulgent expression.

  “No.” She’d grown a lot since she and Ben had broken up. “I’m not angry.”

  “But you haven’t forgotten.”

  “No woman forgets promises of undying love. That doesn’t mean she has to wither and die when the promises are broken.”

  “So you’ve moved on? That has to say something about the love you felt for me.”

  “I never said that I loved you. Not once.”

  In the lengthy silence that followed, Caroline tugged open a kitchen drawer, took out an elastic band and, balancing the phone between jaw and shoulder, scooped her hair into a high, makeshift ponytail. The ends were wet. Her neck was even wetter. She wanted that iced tea. She wanted the window seat. She wanted peace and quiet.

  “No, you never did say that, did you?” Ben asked, then went on before she could agree. “But, look, I didn’t call to rehash the past. I just thought it’d be fun to get together. How about a drink? For old times’ sake, if nothing else.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  “Uh, thanks, Ben, but I’m beat. Maybe another time.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  She shook her head. “Late meetings.”

  “Then Friday. I could meet you after work.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have other plans.” Opening the freezer, she dropped several ice cubes in her drink, holding one out to rub on her neck.

  “You really are seeing someone else?”

  “You could say that,” she said with a touch of humor. The ice felt good, though it was melting on contact.

  “Anyone I know?”

  “I hope not. That’d be pretty uncomfortable, comparing notes and all.”

  “Is he good?”

  “At what?”

  “You know.”

  She hesitated for only the short amount of time it took to straighten her spine. “And you don’t. Why don’t we leave it at that?”

  “You’re trying to make me jealous. It won’t work, Caroline. I know what we had, and it’d be pretty hard to beat.”

  Caroline heard his defensiveness and surprised herself by feeling remorse. Then again, she should have expected it. She was a softy at heart. Ben had always prided himself on his sexual prowess. Teasing him about finding a replacement was hitting below the belt in more ways than one.

  “I’m not denying what we had,” she conceded. “It was good while it lasted. But it’s over.”

  “So what’s the harm in going out for a drink?”

  “Maybe another time. Listen, I’m really glad you’re back. I hope things go well.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever you’re seeing.”

  She debated telling him to mind his own business, but she knew Ben too well for that. He was persistent. When he set his mind to something, he usually got it. He’d wanted her and he’d gotten her. He’d wanted out and he’d gotten out. If he wanted back in now, for whatever his reasons, she was going to have to close the door in his face.

  The problem was that she wasn’t naturally cruel or vengeful. She didn’t want to hurt him; she simply wanted to be free of him. And the best way to do that, she realized, was to paint herself as being unavailable.

  She could lie and say that she was wildly in love with another man, even engaged to be married, but she’d never been good at lying. On the other hand, she wasn’t opposed to presenting the facts and letting him jump to conclusions.

  “His name is Elliot Markham. He’s a builder. We’ve been seeing each other for nearly four months.”

  “Is it serious?”

  Certainly not, she reflected. But if Elliot was to serve as a buffer, she couldn’t be that blunt. So she said, “Give me a few more months, then ask me again. I’m being cautious this time around.”

  “I see. Well—” he sighed “—maybe I’ll call you another time and we’ll have that drink.”

  Persistence. There it was again. Or maybe it was pride. Ben didn’t like being refused. Of course, chances were that before “another time” rolled around, he’d find another woman. Knowing Ben, she mused wryly, he’d invite her for the drink anyway and then have his new lady friend pick him up afterward.

  “We’ll see. Take care, Ben.”

  “You, too, Caroline.”

  This time when she hung up the phone, she did switch on the answering machine. There was something deceitful about doing that, but she was just hot and tired enough to stoop to deceit. She’d about had it with phone calls.

  Ben. Of all people, she’d never expected to hear from him. Six months before, he’d made his plans without telling her, then hadn’t looked back when he’d left. She’d been stunned and deeply hurt. Anger had eventually set in, but relief had followed. Ben wasn’t right for her. She’d been too involved in the relationship to see it at the time, but it never would have worked. His phone call proved how thoroughly she was over him. And Elliot … well, she was grateful to have had him in the wings.

  The ice cube she’d held was nothing more than lingering streaks of wetness on her neck, forehead and cheeks. Taking the glass of tea from the counter, she settled on the window seat with her shoulder and head braced against the wooden jamb. She tried to concentrate on the small stirrings of air, but there were few. The night was a thick blanket of heat. Little moved or breathed.

  Unable to draw her mind into a total blank, she found herself thinking of life’s little complications. There was her work, for one thing. On the plus side was her love of it. She was in partnership with three other therapists; their offices were in newly renovated and comfortable quarters within walking distance of her apartment. When she’d first joined the practice, she’d assumed that her work would consist of references from her partners, who’d already established themselves in the area. And indeed, that was how she’d started. But one client had led to another, and to a consulting position at a local prep school, and to leadership of a group session, and to more clients. Her practice was full, evenly split between children and adults. She found it incredibly rewarding.

  There were days like today, though, when things just hadn’t worked. Her eight-o’clock appointment, a troubled high-school junior, had stood her up. Her eleven-o’clock appointment, a woman struggling to make her marriage work, had spent the hour evading issues of dependency by asking how Caroline could possibly understand what she was going through if she’d never been married herself. Her three-o’clock appointment, a ten-year-old girl, refused to talk. And her four-o’clock appointment, a divorced pair whose two children she was also counseling, skirted every pertinent issue by accusing her of a conflict of interest in working with the whole family. It didn’t matter that they’d been the ones to initially request it; when the therapist herself became a negative factor in the proceedings, the prognosis was poor. Though Caroline had promptly referred the parents to one of her partners, she’d been saddened by the loss of therapy time and effort.

  After swirling the ice cubes around in her glass, she took several sips of tea. The drink soothed her throat but did little to cool her thoughts. Frustration at work was part of the job. Even on the best of days, the intense concentration she gave her patients was draining. Still, when four setbacks occurred in an eight-hour span, she was discouraged.

  A trickle of sweat crept into
the hollow between her breasts. She dabbed at it lightly with her shift, then, prying the undersides of her thighs from the seat, drew up her knees into a more comfortable pose.

  It was the responsibility that was so awesome, she decided. Clients came to her with issues of mental health. When she let them down, she felt let down herself. Which was pretty much why, she mused as she cast a glance at the telephone, she felt guilty about the answering machine. She had a responsibility toward her family, too.

  Wishing she could be a little more selfish, she set down her tea, went to turn off the machine, then returned to her perch. How could she say no when they wanted to talk? She might not be the alarmist her mother was, but if her mother felt in a panic, then the panic was real. Likewise, she could remind her sister that no one had forced her to juggle a marriage, a law career, and a pregnancy, but still she was proud of Karen and had encouraged her from the start. And as for her brother, Carl, her sadness over his pending divorce was made all the worse by her fondness for his wife, Diane, and the knowledge that she’d been the one to originally bring the two together.

  Little complications? She supposed. But they weighed her down. From the time she’d reached her teens, she’d been the Dear Abby of the family. Just as she couldn’t heal her father’s leg, erase her mother’s worries, ease the burden of pregnancy for Karen, or miraculously mend Carl’s marital wounds, she couldn’t turn a deaf ear to their pleas.

  She gave a great sigh, then a tiny moan. Her shift was quickly growing damp from perspiration. Leaning forward, she peeled the light fabric from her back, gave a lethargic twist, then returned to her position against the window frame. She straightened each leg in turn to wipe moisture from the creases behind her knees. Then, planting her feet flat and apart, she gathered the short hem of her shift and tucked it with some decorum between her legs.

  One part of her wished she’d taken Elliot up on his offer of air-conditioned solace, but the greater, saner part knew she’d made the right decision. She and Elliot were on their last leg as a couple. He wanted sex; she didn’t. If that little complication hadn’t cropped up, they might have continued a while longer in a pleasant relationship. But it was only a matter of time before he pushed the issue too far. She would be as tactful as possible, but there was no way she’d go to bed with him out of pity.

  Breaking off was going to be awkward. Elliot happened to be the brother of one of her partners. Another little complication. And now Ben had popped back into the Washington scene, apparently willing to pick up where he’d left off. So she needed Elliot a while longer. But she hated to use him that way. She hated it.

  With another soft moan, she shifted languidly on the window seat. Sweat trickled down her neck. She pushed it back up with a finger that tangled in loose tendrils of hair fallen from her ponytail. When the wisps fell right back down and clung damply to her nape, she left them alone. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head toward the night and raised the glass of tea to her neck in the hope that the condensation would cool her heated skin.

  Then she opened her eyes and saw him—a stranger, far across the courtyard. He was sprawled on the tiny fire escape just beyond his own third-floor window. The night was dark, but the pale golden glow from his apartment outlined his shape, and she couldn’t look away.

  His hair was thick, spiked damply on his brow. His legs were long, lean and firm, bent at the knees and spread much like hers. He had large shoulders, one slightly lower than the other as he propped his weight on a hand. The other hand dangled over his knee, fingers circling what she assumed to be a beer can. Other than a pair of brief shorts, his body was bare.

  Caroline had no idea who he was or where he’d come from. Though she knew her immediate neighbors, his row of town houses faced a different street. She wouldn’t have passed him coming or going, and since she didn’t own a car, she wouldn’t have bumped into him in the courtyard.

  She’d never seen anyone on the fire escape before, not that she’d done a lot of looking. Only the heat had brought her to her window tonight; she wondered if it had been the same for him.

  With fifty feet of night separating them, she couldn’t see his face. But she wanted to. She wanted to see his eyes, or at least his expression, which would be telling. She imagined that he was every bit as hot as she was, and every bit as tired. Was he as frustrated with the little complications in life? Was he feeling the brunt of a million demands? Was he, too, wishing he could escape from it all for a time?

  There were no answers to her questions, of course. He was an unknown, a man she had little likelihood of actually meeting. The pace of life in the capital kept people on the move and wasn’t at all conducive to leisurely run-ins.

  But he was at the right place at the right time. She needed an escape, an outlet for secret thoughts. Features softening in a shy and feminine way, she tipped her head a bit more and gave vent to her fantasies.

  He’d be tall. At five-seven, she needed a man who topped six feet. She liked feeling petite and protected, though she hadn’t had much experience in being either. She’d always been the protector, it seemed. Granted, it was a psychological distinction, but it wouldn’t hurt to set the stage right.

  He’d be dark. She fancied that their coloring would be similar. She rather liked the idea that people might take them for brother and sister, while they shared secret smiles at the truth. Her own hair was dark brown, often mistaken for black. His would be the same. And it would be on the long side. There was something rakish about a man with long hair. She could see that it was thick, because it capped his head well, but the shadows on his neck hid its length. Which was okay, because she was only dreaming.

  He’d be handsome. His features would be well-defined and boldly cut, giving him a distinctly aristocratic look. Mmm. An aristocratic look. She liked that. She’d never mingled with the aristocracy. Her parents were solidly upper middle-class, but aristocratic? Not quite. Not that she had aspirations of running with the hounds or boogying with the jet set. She’d be bored to death—not to mention the fact that she thought the hunt was cruel and discos gave her a headache. Still, it’d be nice to know that he could have had that and had opted out.

  But she was getting away from looks, and she hadn’t finished with handsome. His nose would be straight, his cheeks lean, his jaw firm and his lips expressive. She could read a lot in people’s lips—relaxed or tight set, chewed or sucked or pursed, curved up or down or drawn into straight lines. Not that she’d have to rely on his mouth to convey his feelings, because he’d have the deepest, most inviting and eloquent brown eyes.

  The last thought surprised her. She had brown eyes. She’d never thought them particularly gorgeous. But his would be, she knew, because of all that went along with them.

  Oh, and he’d have a heavy five-o’clock shadow. That was because he’d just come in from work or from running. She pictured him a runner. Of course, if he were coming to pick her up, he’d shower and shave first. He’d want to look his best for her. She’d have to tell him that he looked fantastic all grubby and sweaty.

  She brought the glass of tea to her cheek and rubbed wet against wet. Tall, dark and handsome. That was what he’d be. People would look at them when they passed, thinking what a stunning couple they made.

  She smiled in self-mockery. She wasn’t stunning. Attractive, yes. But with him, she’d be stunning. Or she’d feel it, and that would be all that mattered.

  Having dispensed with physical attributes, she moved on to other vital statistics. He’d be in his late thirties, just about right for her thirty-one years. She wanted someone older than she was, someone more experienced. If he was in his late thirties, even early forties, he’d be well established in his chosen field. He’d be successful, of course, but more important than that, he’d be confident. She needed a confident man, because she was, overall, a confident woman. She was also introspective and insightful, qualities that intimidated a man who was less sure of himself.

  She intimidated Elliot, who com
pensated by artificially inflating his strengths and successes. To some extent she’d intimidated Ben. At least, she’d assumed that was what she’d done, because she couldn’t find any other reason why he’d always felt the need to come on so forcefully. She was by nature a watcher and a listener; when she spoke, she had something pertinent to say. Some men found that to be a threat.

  He wouldn’t. He’d be a strong man but one who welcomed her opinions. He’d appreciate the fact that she thought about things, that she was fascinated by her own motives and those of others. He’d be able to listen without getting defensive. At the same time, he’d be able to offer his own opinions without insisting that they were law.

  Open-minded. She figured that summed it up. He’d be open-minded, thoughtful and intelligent. His career? She straightened one leg on the seat and flexed her toes while she thought about that for a minute. He’d have to be in a caring profession. A doctor? Perhaps. Maybe a psychiatrist. That way they’d be able to bounce cases off each other. Then again, many of the psychiatrists she knew were weird. Chalk psychiatrist and put in teacher. Mmm, that idea appealed to her. He’d be involved with kids. Maybe college kids. She had her share of clients from local colleges and found her work with them to be particularly rewarding. They wanted help. They could respond.

  She brushed her arm over her forehead, pushing back damp strands of hair. The stranger didn’t move, other than to occasionally take a drink from the can he held. It was a light beer, she decided. He wasn’t really a drinker, but he needed something to quench his thirst and beer was the best. Light beer, because he didn’t want to develop a beer belly, though he was more health-conscious than vain.

  Health-conscious was a good thing to be at his age. It was a good thing to be at any age, but if he was approaching his forties, it was all the more important.

  She paused for an instant as a new thought struck. If he was nearly forty, tall, dark, handsome, self-confident, successful and caring, there had to be a good reason why he wasn’t married. Because he wasn’t. She didn’t fool with married men. Besides, if his apartment mirrored hers, it wasn’t suitable for two.