A Marriage of Convenience

by Doreen Owens Malek

  "I can't help it." She hiccuped. "I don't understand how you can be so good and patient when you give me lessons, and then do things like this."

  That gave him pause. "Good and patient?" he said, unable to relate those attributes to himself.

  She nodded, rubbing her face against his shirt. "You never yell at me, and I know I make a lot of mistakes. You just help me do it over until I get it right, and you don't make me feel stupid about it."

  Sharon couldn't see his expression but she felt his grip tighten. He was listening intently. "Why would I make you feel stupid?" he asked, stroking her hair.

  She shook her head as if disagreeing with something he had said. "You don't know. I'm not good at physical things. I was hopeless in gym, I almost failed last semester and it would have kept me from graduating. I had to make up extra credits doing routines on the gymnastics equipment. I fell off the sawhorse and hurt my foot, and then I couldn't do the balance beam, so I had to learn the parallel bars, and Miss Masters was so mean about it. She can do everything, She climbs the rope like a snake, and I couldn't make it to the top. She said I had no strength in my arms." She started to cry again, remembering it.

  "You have strength where it counts," he said quietly, putting his cheek against her hair. It smelled sweet and clean. He closed his eyes.

  Sharon sensed the change in him, felt the tension growing in his body. His lips moved in her hair and she sighed, pressing closer.

  She was wearing only a thin summer nightgown and seemed almost naked in his arms. Tay felt a surge of longing so intense he was nearly dizzy with it. He wanted to comfort her and protect her and keep her with him. He wanted this clean, sweet girl to change his life and make it right, and for that moment he believed she could do it.

  Then he remembered who she was and how old she was, and he stiffened, pulling back. He gripped her upper arms and set her firmly away from him.

  Sharon looked up, examining his face, but it was unreadable.

  "Go back to the house," he said, not meeting her gaze. "I'm all right now."

  Sharon stood flat footed, bewildered. What had happened?

  "Go on," he urged, turning away. "I just have to sleep this off, I'll be fine in the morning."

  Her expression registered her confusion.

  He lay back down on the cot, sighing deeply and closing his eyes.

  "Good night, and thanks a lot," he murmured, feigning exhaustion.

  Sharon remained a moment longer, and then, aware that Tay certainly needed to rest, put the basin back in the bathroom and slipped quietly from the cabin.

  Tay's eyes opened as the door closed behind her. He sat up again, putting his feet on the floor and clasping his hands between his knees. He was shaking.

  Thank God, she had listened to him and left. He was no model of control under most circumstances, and where women were concerned his self restraint was especially slim.

  Well, now he would have to deal with it. He had been telling himself that it wasn't happening, that she was a kid and his fondness for her was merely brotherly. After this evening that pretense was ludicrous.

  He was in a hell of a mess, which was certainly nothing new, but this particular mess was far worse than usual. He was falling for Sharon in a big way. It had crept up on him gradually during the long summer hours he had spent with her, getting to know her and like her. It had happened when he wasn't looking or when he'd been pretending not to look, because he'd been subliminally aware of his feelings for some time. They had driven him to more and more nights in bars, not even admitting to himself that he was trying to forget about her with other women.

  He stared at the worn wooden floor, his cuts throbbing, his fat lip stinging, and wondered despairingly what to do. He couldn't betray her father's trust. Dan Philips had let him stay at the ranch when Tay needed a home and had given him a job when he needed a salary. Dan let him spend so much time with Sharon because he obviously thought his daughter was too young to interest Tay in that way, but he was wrong. Dan was a parent and he saw his child, a girl not out of her teens. Tay, in recent days and especially tonight, had seen a woman.

  Tay thought about it and resolved to do two things.

  First, he would clean up his act for Sharon's sake. He hadn't realized how much his carousing was upsetting her. Second, he would limit his time with her to insure that what had happened tonight would not happen again.

  He lay back down, feeling a little better.

  But not much.

  * * * *

  Things changed after that night. Tay's drinking and fighting tailed off to nothing, so much so that Dan remarked on it, but Sharon couldn't enjoy the new pattern. Tay had told her that she was riding well enough now to go out on her own, and he restricted the lessons to once a week in the area of the ranch where they were always observed.

  Sharon, of course, was in love. Tay had unwittingly done the one thing that was guaranteed to intensify her feeling for him—expose her to his personality, which in nonthreatening circumstances was his old, winning one, without the physical involvement, for which she was not ready. Her life became their rides together, the intervals between them a time of waiting.

  Sharon was amazed at Tay's tenacity. He had made up his mind about their relationship and he stuck to his resolution. Before she met Tay, honor had been an abstract concept, but his behavior with her gave new meaning to the word. She knew intuitively that underneath his distant exterior he wanted to carry things further between them, but it was clear that he never would.

  Which gave her the idea that she might have to take matters into her own hands.

  One evening at the end of August, Sharon talked Tay into a ride up into the foothills just as the sun was setting. She knew that he gave in because she was leaving in just a few days, but she planned to make the most of their time together.

  Tay had been grooming horses all day and he was tired. He led the way up the scrubby path they had followed before to a small mesa where they stopped to rest. They tethered the horses to a locust tree and sat admiring the view. The whole valley was spread out like a carpet at their feet, the crimson sky fading as stars appeared and lights blinked on below them.

  "I never get tired of this sight," Tay said with satisfaction, lying back with his arms folded beneath his head.

  "I know what you mean. There's nothing like it back in Philadelphia, that I can tell you." Sharon glanced over at him. "Have you always lived in California?"

  He nodded. "Except for the time in the Army."

  That was a subject he never seemed disposed to discuss. He skirted it deftly, like a field runner avoiding a tackle, which only whetted Sharon's curiosity all the more.

  "How long were you in?" she asked casually.

  "I was in the Army for three years, a prisoner for two," he replied shortly.

  "How did you get away?" she asked.

  "I escaped." He looked over at her. "Killed a guard."

  "Oh," she said, swallowing.

  "I wasn't discharged right away after that," he went on. "They had me in a hospital for a while. In Thailand."

  "What's it like there?" she asked, seeking to shift the subject to somewhat safer territory.

  "Thailand?" He rolled over, propping himself up on his elbow with his palm cupping his ear. "Hot. Very hot. Strange people, strange food. They have all these gods and goddesses like the Chinese, and they eat dogs, cats, everything. They're so poor they see all forms of life as food, I guess."

  “Dogs, uh," Sharon said.

  He nodded. "I had this Thai doctor, little guy about five feet tall, couldn't understand a word he said. He thought he was speaking English, by the way, but his accent was so thick it could have been Farsi. He invited me home for dinner when I was discharged, and they were having roasted dog. It's a delicacy.''

  "What did you do?" Sharon asked, horrified.

  "Oh, I pretended to eat it, threw it away when they weren't looking. His wife's name was Lar Park Sing. She had never cut her hair all h
er life. It hung to the back of her knees."

  He was half smiling at the recollection, and Sharon was emboldened to say, "How did you get captured?"

  The smile faded. "Six of us were on patrol and we were ambushed. There were about fifteen VC and they were just waiting for us. It was as if they knew we were coming. Four guys were killed. Wilson and I were captured." He shrugged. "Lots of times later I thought it would have been better off if we had been killed, too."

  “Oh, don't say that," Sharon whispered.

  "Do you know that the whole country is communist now anyway?" he asked Sharon, his tone amazed. "What I went through, my friends who died, all for nothing. The Khmer Rouge took over when we pulled out, killed all the American sympathizers, anybody who helped us, and accomplished in a few months what we were over there for years trying to prevent."

  “I know it's hard," Sharon said inadequately, restricting her comments to keep him talking. He had never been so voluble on the subject and she drank in every word. It might be her last opportunity to learn about him.

  "Hard," he said, snorting. "It's more than hard. It makes you wonder what anything is for, why we should try for a future, make any plans. Everything can be taken away, just like that, the way the South Vietnamese lost their country and their lives when the Red Army swept down from the north."

  "That's always been true of life, Tay. You can be killed in an accident or stricken with a fatal disease at any moment, but knowing that can't make us give up hope."

  "Is that the way you really feel?" he asked, staring at her.

  "Yes, it is."

  "I wonder if I could ever get that back again," he said, half to himself.

  "Will you miss me when I go back East?" she asked softly.

  "We all will," he replied noncommittally.

  "I wish I didn't have to go," she said.

  "You shouldn't bypass college."

  “There are plenty of colleges in California."

  "Your parents agreed that you would live with your mother for the first couple of years."

  "You seem to know a lot about it," Sharon commented.

  "Your father told me."

  "Have you two been discussing me?" Sharon asked suspiciously.

  "A bit."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that we're both concerned about you."

  "Well, don't be concerned about me," Sharon said huffily. He sounded like a guidance counselor.

  "You should be glad that people are interested in you."

  "I don't want people interested in me, I want you interested in me," she replied. There, she had said it.

  "I am."

  "You know what I mean."

  "It's getting late," he said, standing up. "We'd better head back."

  "Tay, I'm going to be gone next week. Can't you sit here for once and listen to me?''

  He sat. "I'm listening," he said.

  "Will you write to me when I leave?" she asked.

  "I don't think that's such a good idea, Sharon," he replied.

  "Why?"

  "The purpose behind going to college is to meet new people, guys your own age, and I think you should concentrate on that."

  "I thought the purpose behind going to college was to get an education."

  "That, too," he said, stretching out.

  "Are you telling me that I won't hear from you after I go?" she asked, disbelieving.

  "That's probably best."

  "Best for who? For you, because you want to get rid of the kid and go back to chasing people like Eloise Randall?"

  He looked at her, then away. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly.

  "You like her better than you like me. I'm sure she's mature and grown up and responsible, right? You won't be packing her off to college."

  "Shut up."

  Sharon stared at him, amazed. He was furious, and she felt like crying.

  "Why won't you write to me when I leave?" she said desperately.

  "Drop it."

  "Why are you always in charge?" she demanded. "Why do you make all the decisions?''

  He wouldn't answer, just sat looking out over the valley. The moon had risen and his clean profile was etched in silver as she watched him.

  "You were the last thing I expected to happen to me this summer," he finally said thoughtfully. "When I came here I was running away."

  "From that construction job in Arizona?" she asked, puzzled by the turn of the conversation.

  "From life, from the past. From the pictures in my head."

  "Pictures?"

  "Memories." He looked back at the view. "When I was locked up over there," he said softly, "there was a guy in the cage next to me, the one who taught me Italian. He had a daughter. He was older than I was, divorced, and he lived for that kid. We could talk sometimes at night when the guards were drunk or just busy. I figured it out, and his kid would have been about your age now. All that kept him going was the idea that he would get home and see that girl again."

  "Did he?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "He died there. They tortured him, well, they tortured all of us, but I guess he wasn't as young or as healthy, and his heart just gave out. Maybe the heat was too much, I don't know." He bent his head.

  "Oh, Tay," she murmured.

  "I used to encourage him, try to buck him up when I could," he said, "but it wasn't enough."

  Sharon nestled against him, and to her surprise he allowed her to remain. They sat still for a long time, and she inched closer, pressing into him. Finally he stirred, sighing, and nuzzled her neck. She leaned back and he bent his head, opening his mouth against her breasts, wet heat burning through the cloth that covered them in a gesture that was frankly sexual.

  Sharon gasped aloud and he pulled away.

  "Scared?" he said hoarsely.

  She couldn't answer.

  "Isn't that what you wanted?" he demanded. "Don't play with me or you might get what you're asking for." He stood up.

  "Tay..."

  "No more," he said huskily. "Let's go."

  "Tay, wait..."

  "Sharon, I mean it. I'll leave you here if you don't get on that horse."

  She obeyed meekly, still stunned by the impact of those few seconds when he had responded to her.

  They rode back to the house in silence, and Tay went immediately to the stables, leading the horses on foot.

  * * * *

  Sharon knew that Tay would never lower his guard again, and she saw herself going back to Philadelphia and being cut off from him forever.

  She had to do something about it, but the opportunity didn't present itself until the night before she was to depart.

  Her bags were packed and sitting on the floor in her room. Her father was planning to drive her to the airport in the morning, and they all had a family dinner at the house to say farewell.

  Tay was very quiet during the meal, and anyone could see that he wasn't happy. Sharon allowed this to encourage her in her plans, and when he took her aside after dinner she played along.

  "Well, I guess this is it," he said. "You'll be leaving tomorrow."

  She nodded.

  "I'll see you in the morning.''

  "Okay," she agreed.

  He looked at her closely, as if surprised by her acquiescence. He was wearing a yellow shirt that set off his dark good looks, and a recent haircut had left him looking less rakish than usual.

  "See ya," he said and left by the kitchen door.

  "Where's Tay?" his mother asked as she entered from the living room with Dan.

  "He just went back to the bunkhouse," Sharon said.

  "He doesn't look too good," Rosa offered as she cleared the plates.

  Rae and Dan exchanged glances.

  "Well, we're all going to miss Sharon around here," Rae said.

  Rosa looked at Sharon, then away.

  "Sharon, we're going down to the convenience store in Glendora," her father said. "Is there anything you need for yo
ur trip?"

  "No, thanks, Dad."

  "We'll be back in an hour or so," Rae said. "Sure you don't want to come?''

  "No, I'll stay and help Rosa clean up," Sharon said.

  They left, and Rosa inquired, "What are you going to do?"

  She didn't have to elaborate; Rosa was Sharon's confidante and had closely followed her developing relationship with Tay.

  "I don't know," Sharon said, rinsing cups in the sink.

  "You've got a plan?"

  "I'm thinking about trying something," Sharon replied.

  Rosa wiped her soapy hands on a dishcloth and took Sharon's chin in her fingers.

  "You listen to me, nina, be careful. I know how you feel, it wasn't so long ago for me. But you could make a mistake now that could ruin your whole future."

  "But, Rosa," Sharon said, "you saw how he was tonight. He's just going to let me go.''

  "And maybe that's for the best," Rosa said, nodding. "Sometimes in life the timing is just not right."

  Sharon didn't answer, and when her father returned she went up her room, saying she had some last minute packing to do.

  By midnight, the house was quiet. Rosa had gone home without further conversation, and Dan and Rae had retired early to prepare for the drive in the morning.

  Sharon took a shower and washed her hair, then dressed in her best nightgown and applied perfume to her wrists and throat. When she felt that she was ready she slipped out of her bedroom, pausing to listen in the hall, her heart pounding, before she hurried out of the house and down the lane to the cabin for the last time.

  The night was cool and breezy, with a full moon that illuminated Sharon's path as she walked. The fresh scent of the citrus trees hung in the air, and the dew on the grass soaked her ankles, dampening the hem of her gossamer gown. She ran lightly up the steps to the cabin and pushed in the door.

  Tay was asleep on his side in a shaft of moonlight, his bare torso visible above the muslin sheet drawn down below his waist. Sharon stood next to the cot and studied him, aware that this might be her only chance to do so.

  His skin was tanned so deeply that the sheet looked snowy by comparison. She could see the tracery of thick veins, developed from long hours of manual labor, running down his arms and across the backs of his hands. There was a dimple at the base of his spine, almost obscured by a patch of down, black and silky like the hair on his chest.