The tense standoff was broken by Jack’s amused, “You’re awake.”
Lush lips pursed in a disapproving moue. “When you called last night you were very specific about what time you expected to be here and also that you expected me to be awake and ready to go.”
“Yes, but forgive me if I never know exactly when you’re going to take me seriously.”
“I always take you seriously, Jack. I just don’t always choose to follow your directives.” She lazily fluffed lustrous Breck Girl-worthy hair as a small smile played about her mouth. Gaze fixed on examining for nonexistent split ends, she said, “Doesn’t do to let you think you’re the boss all the time, darling.”
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she turned and retreated into the house, leaving Jack and I staring at each other in mutual bemusement. As he put a hand to my back he took the opportunity to lean in and murmur, “I wish I could be reassured.”
So did I, but—and perhaps this was merely a product of overactive imagination and suspicion honed over the last several years—I could have sworn there was an odd glitter in those pale blue eyes during that intent inspection. I glanced at Jack, taking in the half smile and lowered brows that suggested he, too, was caught somewhere between hope and cautious suspicion.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything prepared. You know how terrible my coffee is and wanting to be sure that I was here to greet you, didn’t even risk running into town. There’s the most divine little bakery next door to the grocer—fabulous coffee and absolutely delectable French pastries, but perhaps another time.” Again, Jack and I were left staring at each other as we followed her into the light-filled kitchen, a futuristic confection of angles and curves, blindingly white with glossy laminate counters and cabinets, and sleek appliances that looked as if they’d been selected straight from the pages of House Beautiful. The showpiece of the kitchen however, was yet another an immense window. Facing the ocean, it invited light into the room, long, graceful bands undulating along the walls in an otherworldly dance.
“I’m impressed, Ava, you really do seem ready to give this an honest go.” With an obviously relieved smile, Jack placed the large reel-to-reel recorder he’d carried in from the car onto the round molded plastic table. “And if you’ll tell me where everything is, I’ll be happy to make coffee while you two get acquainted.”
“Let her make it.”
Half lost in wondering whether this would be the best place to work or if I should ask if there was a library or den, I barely heard the words. It was more Jack’s reaction, the sudden sharp inhale and subsequent lack of movement leaving him frozen in a tangle of wires and a white-knuckled grip on the small microphone that had my brain finally registering not simply the words, but the cool calculated tone in which they’d been delivered. I watched his throat move, his Adam’s apple shifting up, then down, with his hard swallow, every movement slow and sharply etched.
“Excuse me?”
Ignoring Jack’s tense query, Ava turned to me, the glitter more pronounced in those remarkable eyes. Stupidly, in that strange, suspended animation moment, I noted Ava herself reflected her surroundings: in the snowy white of her caftan highlighting the brilliant blue of her eyes, their unnerving glitter mirroring the way the sun played off the waves. Only the fall of red-gold hair and the cherry-red lips stood out, fiery beacons amidst the cool blues and whites.
“Make the coffee. Then throw in a load of laundry. Just towels and sheets. I don’t want you handling my clothes until I know your capabilities.”
“What the hell, Ava?”
“Well, it’s what these people do, no?” She studied her nails, perfectly manicured in cool silvery white. “I thought it be best to allow her to ease into this with simple tasks. Then we can progress to her English lessons. I refuse to have anyone working for me who can’t be understood. The Professor Higgins I retained should be here at noon, so she’d best get to work. Chop, chop.” She met my gaze, lips moving with exaggerated deliberation as she asked, “Do you understand?”
The sudden crash startled me from the trance of watching those red, red lips. From wondering how could such beautifully shaped lips make such ugly, twisted movements? Turning, I found Jack, hands flat against the table, the recorder on its side by his feet, spools spinning aimlessly.
“Jesus, Ava. You’ve pulled some embarrassing stunts, but I have never, until this moment, been ashamed of you.” Slowly, he straightened, his gaze never leaving his cousin’s face, slashes of red deepening along his cheekbones as he studied her mocking smile. His voice very quiet, he said, “Just as a refresher, cousin, our people were tradesmen. Hell, they may have been pirates and highwaymen for all I know. Our importance only grew along with this country’s rise and you should thank God for it. Whereas Natalia’s family can be traced back centuries and can claim scientists and explorers—men and women of arts and letters, not to mention, actual goddamned royalty. What our family has always pretended to be, with its airs and graces and faux gentility, hers actually is.”
“Didn’t stop her from becoming a whore.”
Into the deathly still silence, a drawer slid open with an ominous metallic hiss. “Is that why you chose her, Jack?” she asked while idly leafing through the folder she’d withdrawn from the drawer. “God knows, you never bothered much with any of the other writers beyond vetting and hiring and packing them off to me, yet from what I’ve been hearing, you can’t seem to get enough of her. And what I’m seeing appears to corroborate the rumors.” She tsked and shook her head. “Fucking the help, darling? How gauche.”
“Where did you get that?”
Once again, that mocking smile graced her face as she spared him a glance from beneath the thick black fan of false lashes. “The young man who clerks for you was all too eager to take me at my word earlier this week when I assured him you were staying here and in desperate need of this file.” One shoulder rose beneath white voile. “Of course, the promise of an autographed photo didn’t hurt either. I think he might have delivered the files himself, had I wanted. Regardless, he had it sent immediately and my, what riveting reading it’s provided.” The sidelong glance slid my way. “Pity about your husband.”
My throat slammed shut, forcing out a gasp with a high-pitched whine. Oh no. Madre de Dios, pero que no. How could she? Even though I’d known, from the moment she withdrew the folder from the drawer and started rifling through it, what it had to have contained, a small, tiny part of me had hoped that she might have something approaching a shred of decency. And as much as I didn’t want to react, to do anything more than just turn and leave with what little dignity I still retained, I couldn’t. I stood frozen, unable to move or breathe or do anything other than curl my fingers, the nails cutting hard arcs into my palm.
Jack’s hand closed around my upper arm, tremors vibrating through fabric and skin and down to my bones as his grasp tightened. Was he trying to hold me up? Or himself?
“We’re going to leave now.” His voice was very quiet—almost gentle. Dangerously so. “Your behavior has gone from embarrassing to loathsome. One, I can and have excused—for too goddamned long. The other, I can’t.” I took in the tight, pale lines of his face. “You have forty-eight hours.”
“For what?” she retorted, the sneer as evident in her tone as it was in her face, yet Jack’s voice, as he responded, remained even and soft.
“You can either choose to treat this woman with dignity and respect or, if you find that too difficult, this is over. Period. I won’t contribute any further to this ridiculous exercise in vanity and I swear to God, if you try to do this on your own, I will throw up every conceivable roadblock and obstacles you can’t even being to imagine. In other words, I will make it impossible.” A surprising smile crossed his face. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but let me reassure you, I make a hell of an adversary.”
His hold shifted from my arm to my waist, urging me to go. I was grateful for the assist, for as much as I longed to escape, I rema
ined stunned into immobility.
“It’s okay, Natalia,” he murmured into my ear. “We can do this.”
One foot, then the other, taking each step in tandem until he drew up at the kitchen’s threshold. I followed his stare back to where Ava stood with her arms crossed, the sneer having given way to something caught somewhere between shock and bemusement. She would defy him—if only to see if he truly meant to carry out his threat.
Jack’s lips momentarily thinned, as if trying to hold something back—words he desperately wanted to say. The planes of his face hardened, bringing to mind that night in Greg and Constance’s library—the dark avenging angel. A shudder quaked through me, unbidden, at the memory. Oddly enough, it appeared that slight movement on my part was what ultimately broke his resolve. Almost as if he somehow shared my memory of that moment—reliving the terror as my past had been revealed.
“Natalia did the things she did to survive. What’s your excuse?” He urged me along past the kitchen’s threshold, down the airy hall and into the entryway. Almost there. Almost gone, thank God.
Just shy of a full escape, a sharp, brittle laugh startled us into pulling up short.
“Oh come on, Jack. Have you really becomes such a complete stick in the mud? What happened to that delicious sense of humor you used to have?”
No—Jack, please, don’t listen to her. Let’s go. Now.
Unable to hear my silent entreaties, he released me, turning slowly to face his cousin. As did I, against the better judgment that was urging me to go—to keep walking and leave. This was Jack’s family. The latest act in what was clearly a long-standing drama. Not mine. I wanted no part of it.
“And what part, exactly, was supposed to appeal to my sense of humor?” he asked.
“The whole thing was a joke. Just a joke.” She laughed again, the tail end of it edging ever higher, falling away in a breathy titter. “You understood that, right?” To my shock, she was directing the question at me. “You knew I was joking all along, didn’t you, right? It was harmless. I was nervous.”
My gaze met Jack’s wondering what, exactly, he wanted me to say to this. Understanding there was nothing to say, I turned and wordlessly descended the bleached wood steps to the driveway, reassured to sense Jack close behind, helping me into the car before sliding into the driver’s seat.
“Jack! Wait! I’m sorry! Jack!”
He glanced back to where she stood, clinging to the open door. “Maybe I should—”
“Do you honestly think she means it?”
“I—”
Whether protest or agreement, I’d never know, as his voice faded, lost beneath Ava’s increasingly desperate, “Jack, no …”
No.
That word reverberated through my skull before settling into an insistent, painful throbbing behind my eyes.
No.
Supplanted immediately by an equally insistent enough. Enough. I had finally had enough. And for the first time in a very long time, I put my needs before someone else’s.
“Please, Jack.” I touched his arm, prompting him to look at me—to completely shift the focus of his attention solely to me.
Afraid that whatever that searching gaze might be seeing wouldn’t be enough to convey how very much I wanted this, my fingers tightened on his forearm. Slipped on skin clammy with sweat. His or mine? I wasn’t sure. “I can’t stay here any longer. Please?”
His expression hardened as the car surged forward, the powerful engine roaring as if as desperate to get away as I was. As we turned onto the street, long past when I might have imagined we could possibly hear her, a shrill, “Dammit, Jack … come back! I said I was sorry… You come back here, right now!” echoed, sending shivers down my spine that I resolutely ignored.
Seventeen
Noisy silence was a state I was well accustomed to. After all, New York was never truly silent. And back in the days of my childhood, silences had been filled with the waves and wind whispering their secrets, sharing them with the rustling palm fronds and shells crackling underfoot. With the slip of skin against skin as the innocent grasp of a boy’s hand evolved from a young man’s chaste kiss to a lover’s possessive embrace. So very much said within those silences.
There were other noisy silences. Disappointment and recrimination gave silence sharp edges, and anger often simmered ominously. Bitterness tended toward a static finish, while suspicion and weariness brought with them heavy, basso overtones.
A truly still silence was rare. There was always something there. But from Jack, nothing save a void of quiet. Even the car’s engine had subsided to little more than a docile hum, as if in deference.
It wasn’t until we paused outside the door to my room that the first glimmer of emotion emerged. For all its quiet resignation, the sadness reflecting from within those faun’s eyes was still powerful enough to strike a chord of recognition deep within me. But before I could say or do anything, he brushed the knuckles of one hand across my cheek and silently moved past me to disappear into his suite.
A touch that lingered long after his door had closed quietly behind him. That teased with unspoken questions and answers as I moved back and forth across my room, methodically repacking all that had been so recently unpacked and neatly arranged, calling the airline and filling in what had been an open return date on my ticket.
He’d known. It was at least part of what he’d acknowledged with that look and its accompanying fleeting touch. He’d known I would go. That there was no longer any possible way I could stay—no apology or bribe that could entice me to remain, not knowing what cruelties that capricious bitch might conceive of for her own personal amusement. It was too similar to what I’d endured at Concord—always anticipating, never knowing, foolishly hoping. And above all else, that damnable feeling of helplessness. He knew there was no way I would ever willingly subject myself to that again.
So it would be a return to New York where the first thing on my agenda would be to confess to Greg Barnes face to face. I hated disappointing him and could only hope that he might understand. I suspected he would. I was also not above asking for another chance. Not with this project, obviously, but to ask if he had any openings as a proofreader or copyeditor or something. That it would mean starting at the bottom of the totem pole didn’t matter. That it wouldn’t necessarily be writing didn’t matter. The world of books and publishing—so long dismissed as an innocent young girl’s dream—was once again a possibility. Only a fool would dismiss such an opportunity.
Which left the question of Mercier’s. My job was waiting there—that was a given. What was not a given was that without the cushion of time and distance on which I’d been counting, would I be able to return and behave as if all were normal? Could I possibly face Remy every day and live with the possibilities and might-have-beens swirling about us? I knew all too well what it felt like to have loved and lost, but to desire love—to have the promise of it dangled then snatched away—was a new sensation, leaving my silence throughout that night filled with a cacophony of questions and regrets.
Morning, however, brought a surprising respite to the noise in my head. But then again, solitary walks, with their particular brand of silence, had always had a calming effect. And with an endless stretch of beach at my disposal … I’d been quietly elated by Jack’s decision to move our base of operations to this inn. Immediately, I’d begun weaving dreams of beginning each day with long walks, alone with nothing but the thoughts in my head. A vastly different tableau from the bridges or rain-slicked sidewalks lit by scrolled-iron lampposts of which I’d once dreamed, but the endless expanses of beach and water were nevertheless familiar—and soothing.
For the first time in years, I’d felt ready to face the thoughts in my head and heart. To look toward the future rather than simply exist. So foolish. One might think I would have known better, but it had seemed so … possible.
Nevertheless, on this one day, it would be. I would walk barefoot for miles, feeling the cool, damp grittine
ss of the sand between my toes. Watch the waves build and swell and crash against the shore, the foam leaving behind abstract patterns, like some ethereal road map. I could sit on a large boulder and observe the early-morning surfers and the floppy-eared dogs splashing in the water as their owners laughed and tossed sticks and smiled and nodded as they walked by, inviting me, if only for that brief moment, to share in the beauty of the day with them.
As I walked, the warmth of the rising sun beckoned me to shed my sweater and leave my arms bare. So foreign yet so familiar at the same time—that prickle of heat and the breeze bathing my arms and shoulders, sharpening all my senses in turn. On impulse, I yanked my blouse free from my skirt, loosening several of the lower buttons and tying the fabric up under my breasts, leaving my back and abdomen bare. With each bit of skin revealed, I felt more weight fall away, each step growing lighter. I skipped along the sand and splashed in the shallows and laughed out loud, simply because I could. Finally out of breath, I sank down onto a giant, misshapen driftwood log, my fingers playing over the ridges and bumps of the ancient wood as I tilted my head toward the sun and allowed my mind to drift, weaving stories about the inhabitants of the houses perched on the dunes and hillsides. I was feeling so thoroughly lazy and content, I even allowed self-indulgence to extend to a leisurely breakfast at a thatch-roofed open air café, where the impossibly young waiters wore Hawaiian shirts with their tans and blindingly white smiles and obviously didn’t care if you had sand grains dusting a bare midriff or carried the scent of the sea in your hair.
Between Here and Gone Page 19
