Precious Moments

by Suzanne Roberts

  She leaned against the wall and shut her eyes. Somewhere deep behind them, there were tears of outrage. Outrage? What on earth, she asked herself, standing there in that welcome, quiet sanctuary, is the matter with you? You have two wonderful, interesting, fascinating men pulling at you and here you are, looking for the ladies’ room so you can get away from both of them!

  She looked around her. The sleeping part of the huge, sprawling house was evidently here, in this wing. Some of the bedrooms’ doors were open, and as if by invitation, Jamie walked down the quiet, polished marble hallway toward the bedrooms. There, in the first one with an open door, she leaned in the doorway and surveyed the room. It was huge, with a wall of glass on one side, so that there was a magnificent view of the mountains and the town of Aspen. But there was a certain coldness about the room, not in the air temperature but in the expensive-looking furniture. It was like a showroom; one got the feeling that nobody had ever slept in this room.

  They treat me like a child, she thought suddenly, and she realized that was it; that was why she had left them both standing there, and that was why she had suddenly felt miserable and didn’t know why. Both David and Thorne had behaved as if she had no mind or will of her own, as if she had to make some kind of idiotic, childish choice between the two of them, as if the idea of whether or not she would go with Thorne or remain with David meant something so important that she could not possibly be expected to decide it for herself.

  She walked into the silent room and sat in front of the small, mirrored vanity. Her gold-green eyes met themselves in the mirror.

  Be very careful, she told herself silently. You must be very, very careful or else you’re going to get hurt. Thorne could do that to her; she sensed it. She had felt some kind of pain, not physical but hurting, when he’d gone over to those two pretty girls and put his arms around them.

  She let her breath out, tugged at her fluffy, short hair and stared at her reflection. Her face was pretty enough “for all normal purposes” as her mother used to say sagely. But she was no gloriously beautiful woman; there were many others at this very party who looked a lot lovelier than she did, and who were probably very rich as well.

  Why then, was the handsomest, possibly the richest and most certainly the hero of the hour so interested in her?

  She found David waiting for her at the end of the hallway.

  “Kindly don’t scold me,” he told her. “You upset me, you know, running off like that.”

  “I only went to the ladies’ room,” she told him. He held open for her the carved wooden door at the end of the hallway; she passed through, and then she was back in the huge room where the party was.

  “Nonsense,” David told her, taking her lightly by the arm, “you were furious. Come on—they’re all waiting for you.” He turned to look at her. “Jamie? Something wrong?”

  She swallowed. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I can’t—I’m afraid I don’t want to meet them. I mean I don’t want you taking me over there by the arm or hand or whatever—guiding me, pushing me over there so they can all look me over. As if,” she said, her voice wobbling a little, “I’m some kind—of lucky charm, and you want to wave me in front of them. David,” she said steadily, “I did not cause you to write again. You would have anyway. So kindly stop thinking of me as some kind of—magic!”

  He took his hand from her. “Then you don’t care to meet my friends?” The voice was controlled, low-pitched, but the brown eyes were frosty.

  “I didn’t know,” she said quietly, “that they were that—your friends. Not long ago you called them wild, spoiled, evil—and I think you said miserable.” She touched his wrist. “David, all I’m saying is that I’d like you to let me meet your friends by just—meeting them, the way everybody else seems to be meeting people at this party. I’m sorry,” she told him, “but I just don’t like having people talk about me as if I’ve cured you of something!”

  His eyes shut. He was silent for perhaps two heartbeats, then he looked at her with renewing warmth in his brown eyes.

  “Bless you, Jamie. You have the most amazing effect on me, do you know that?” He touched her cheek gently with one finger. “No, I don’t suppose you do know it. But it’s as if you can calm me, set my thinking straight again. My wife used to do that and so did my mother. I never—thought I’d find it in a woman again.”

  “Then don’t be angry,” she said softly, and she turned and left him there. She walked straight toward the corner of the room where Thorne was. He was watching her approach him, the blue eyes taking on a look of surprise, then pleasure. Jamie was stopped three times on her way across that noisy, smoky room; each time it was by a young man who wanted to flirt with her.

  Thorne came forward, leaving the women who had been gathered around him, chattering.

  “Ready to leave now?”

  She smiled up at him. “I’m sure something good can come of this party. I’d like trying some of the food, please.”

  They moved toward the lavish buffet; his hand was on her arm.

  “I want to talk to you someplace. Alone, away from here.”

  She turned around to face him, a plate in her hand. His blue eyes were serious, not teasing, the way they’d been earlier.

  “I’m not at all sure I want to leave,” she told him, turning back to the row of silver dishes; chafing dishes kept warm by glowing fat candles; chilled, cut-glass bowls of salads with what seemed like endless dishes of sauces; vegetables cut in the shapes of flowers, leaves, animals; dishes and cups and saucers of foods that Jamie didn’t recognize, filled with wines and spices and herbs. “It’s rather like a Roman feast.”

  “Instead of dancing girls, we have—”

  “Groupies,” she said promptly, carefully spooning a dark brown, curry-laced sauce over wild rice. “Your faithful admirers.”

  She heard him chuckle. “I’m not sure about you,” he told her, beginning to fill a plate for himself, moving along with her from one gleaming, aromatic dish to the next; “I didn’t think you’d be so independent.”

  “Well, I am,” she said, and then she protested, laughing, as he loaded glops of bright colored wiggling gelatin onto her plate. “Not that,” she told him. “I know what that is. I only want to taste the things I haven’t tasted before.”

  They found a relatively quiet corner in the game room, which contained bookshelves lined with brightly jacketed novels and a pool table, and, as in the other room, a bar with a white-coated young man serving behind it.

  Thorne put his plate of food down on a low table in front of them; he seemed more interested in watching Jamie eat hers than in any of the food on his plate.

  “Have you ever driven down the mountainside this time of night?”

  “Of course. I have friends here in Aspen; I’m not exactly a stranger here.” She didn’t tell him that the only time she’d ridden in a car here at all had been with Donna, who drove an ancient wreck back and forth to work at the coffeehouse.

  “I was hoping you’d say no. I wanted to be the first to give you that pleasure.” His eyes met hers. “Please, let’s leave this place.”

  “And waste all this delicious food?” But heat had risen to her face; an excitement was generating inside her. This man had some kind of power over her; whenever he came near she began to feel quite differently from, say, the way she felt when David walked into a room where she was.

  “All right,” he said, “eat your salad or whatever it is. But I promise you, I don’t give up easily.” He settled back, watching her enjoy her food, his blue eyes looking at her as if he were enchanted.

  The doors to the room opened, and as they did loud music and talk came into the room. A fattish woman wearing very tight, bright green pants and a lot of jewelry swept in, spilling her drink on the young man with her. He looked at her angrily, then smiled and dabbed at his jacket with a napkin. Jamie suddenly remembered two of the characters in David’s current novel—an aging, willful woman and her paid-for lover, who secret
ly despised her.

  “What is it?” Thorne asked suddenly.

  “What?” She turned to look at him. “Nothing. I mean—I guess I thought I saw someone I knew.”

  So they sat there, eating their food, drinking aromatic coffee and, although not rudely, watching the people who walked, whisked or stumbled into the room. Everybody seemed very merry and friendly, as if they were all part of a large, strange family.

  “You’re disappointed in them, aren’t you?” He put down his cup.

  Jamie didn’t answer him. A man who had been playing pool with a blond girl suddenly slapped her across the face. There was a hush in the room, then, very quietly and steadily, the girl began to curse him.

  “Seen enough of the jet set for one evening? Come on,” he said, “let me take you down that mountain road I told you about.”

  Jamie felt as if she were suspended, as if her Self had slid out of her body and she stood watching, seeing herself—a slender girl with short dark hair and a rather wistful face, sitting with a plate of food on her lap, looking into the incredibly blue eyes of that big-shouldered young man.

  “Yes,” she said finally, “I’m ready to go now.”

  His car was parked far down the road; he told her at the door that he couldn’t find her coat; there was no time; if they were to get away without being noticed, it would have to be quickly.

  He had put his own sweater on her, a very large, warm thing, and now, hurrying down the road under his arm, she suddenly stopped and looked up at him. She felt almost giddy, almost as if she’d had some kind of wild wine that had made her feet light and her heart joyous.

  “Thorne—what on earth are we running from? I mean—we’ve a perfect right to leave the party if we want to! So why—”

  Lights went off in two of the upstairs bedrooms. “Because if we don’t,” he said darkly, his voice mocking, “they’ll catch us and we might never be able to find this night again. So let’s go.”

  They ran. His little sports car, the silver color of the snow around them, seemed ready to tip over the mountainside; but Thorne, after telling Jamie to wait by the road, got in it, started it and, back tires spinning, urged it onto the road and then to Jamie.

  He reached over and held the car door open for her. “I think we’re going to make it.” The car shot forward, made a dizzingly quick U turn and shot down the mountain.

  Jamie didn’t speak. The first feelings of fear that had risen up in her as they rounded the mountain curves got lost in a new sense of danger and excitement. At any given second, they could easily go off that dangerous, slippery road, and yet she felt absolutely certain they would not. She sensed that this man handled cars as well as he handled himself when he swept down mountainsides like some kind of beautiful, avenging angel.

  But halfway down he suddenly began to feather the brakes instead of swooping around the curves hell-bent. Jamie, sitting silently beside him, felt a vast sense of relief as the small car assumed a more normal speed.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her when the lights of Aspen were just ahead of them, “I shouldn’t do that—drive that fast. It isn’t fair to whoever happens to be riding with me.”

  “It’s all right,” she told him. “In fact, I have to confess I enjoyed it.” She turned to look at him. He seemed to be hunched forward in his seat; his eyes were squinting against the reflection of the brightly lit, moonswept snow. “Is something wrong?”

  “What’s wrong,” he told her easily, “is that it isn’t fair for me to do my test-driving thing when I have a passenger.” He glanced fully at her as the car stopped at a cross section leading directly into town. “Especially such a lovely one.”

  There was something in his mock-serious tone that reminded her of David’s way of talking to her. Was there something wrong with her, that men didn’t seem to want to take her seriously, but instead treated her as if she were a very charming but gullible child?

  They were driving through the town of Aspen; lights were mostly off in the downtown, and instead of its daytime look of activity, there was a certain loneliness about it at this hour. Except for the sandwich shops that stayed open late, there would be few places that did any business at all. People entertained in their own lavish homes, leased or bought outright; some young people who worked at the Lodge sometimes sat over weary cups of coffee in town cafes, but not many.

  It was a town where, as David had said to her, if you took the very rich away, there would be nothing left. The pulse beat of the places was geared to them, their wants, their buying power. There was a place called the Silver Queen, farther down, Topsy’s, then Satisfaction and the Quick Bite. The darkened shops showed goods made by Indians: turquoise and silver, tooled leather and rugs and blankets, little drums for children and lovely sepia prints. Antique shops with tiny lights in their windows displayed everything from Victorian lamps and old photographs to aging skis once used by the local Indians.

  But all of it spelled money, just as David had said over and over in his books.

  Thorne’s little car came to a sedate stop at one of the town’s red lights. He turned to look down at her; his eyes held a look she didn’t understand. Moments before, they had been rushing down a mountainside—there had been a certain closeness between them, brought from the party, still there as they sat side by side, speeding away from the others, down the mountain toward someplace where they would be alone.

  But now, the closeness seemed to be gone. Jamie realized this, looking into those blue eyes that seemed to have chilled.

  “I think,” he said carefully, “we’ve made a rather bad mistake.”

  It was foolish, she told herself, to let his words have such a strange effect on her. It wasn’t only humiliation at his sudden change of heart, it was thinking about how rude of her it had been even to consider leaving the party in the first place.

  She stared at her hands there in her lap. “Yes,” she said, “David was kind enough to take me and here I am—some kind of would-be runaway.” She let her breath out. “I don’t know what made me decide to leave that way. My boss especially wanted me to go and I—”

  The light had changed, but the car didn’t thrust forward. Thorne stared out the windshield, his profile outlined in the soft light from outside.

  “I don’t really want to take you back there,” he said.

  “But you just said—”

  “Will you come and have coffee with me at my house, Jamie?” He had turned to her; his eyes were no longer cold but almost pleading. “Okay, so I shouldn’t have taken you away from the party and okay, so I drive too fast for the wrong reason and yes, I know you had no right to leave that place because David just might get so angry at both of us that he’ll fire you.” He leaned closer to her. “But if he does, please come straight to me.”

  His lips lightly brushed hers, sending a thrilling feeling of excitement surging through her like a shot. When they were again driving on through town, she realized she was trembling. This man excited her more than any other ever had, and yet, there was something, some silent, intangible thing, wrong, and she knew it. One minute, she could almost believe he was falling in love with her, and the next minute, he would suddenly seem disinterested.

  Take his asking her to come with him tonight, for instance.

  “The house has a very nice view,” he told her, and now he was being very, very charming, smiling into her eyes, a dimple suddenly creasing his cheek. “And I have some very beautiful music,” he said, bending forward, closer to her mouth once again. “I’d love to dance with you, Jamie.”

  “Coffee sounds great,” she said, her breath coming a bit fast. “But I’m not at all sure you won’t change your mind again, before we get to your house.”

  “Look,” he said earnestly, “my mind didn’t change.” He turned left, leaving the town’s main street behind them, heading once again toward the mountain range on the far side, toward Ajax. “I was trying to think of you, honestly. It isn’t often I do that—think totally about w
hat’s best for someone else besides myself.” His hand, warm and without a glove, reached for hers there on the seat. She felt another burst of some unnamed emotion that was very pleasurable rush through her as his flesh touched hers and his fingers encircled her own protectively. “You do that to me,” he told her quietly, the car gaining speed, but not that wild, reckless kind of speed he’d shown her before. “It’s a totally new experience,” he said. He passed a truck, gauging the distance, suddenly silent as his car shot around in front, then slowed again. His hand refound hers. “I’m not sure,” he told her, “if you’re very good or very bad for me.”

  Thorne’s house sat at very nearly the top of one of the lesser mountains, directly facing Ajax. To sit in his living room on the low, beige-colored sofa was to face that great mountain directly. It was as if one could not avoid the face of it in that place; it was simply there, looming, beyond the glass walls of the front of the house. To escape, to get away, it was necessary to turn a chair around, lie the wrong way on a bed or simply turn one’s back to the great mountain.

  Jamie had done this as she stood at the portable bar preparing to pour brandy for both of them. Thorne crouched by the enormous stone fireplace, getting a glow at first, then finally a roaring, blazing fire going. The whole room took on a golden look, soft and seductive.

  “Try the peach,” he told her. “It comes from Chateau Lemoine in the Bordeaux region. It’s very good.”

  She picked up the bottle and looked at it. It bore Thorne’s family name, written in red, on one side of the label. He suddenly looked a little embarrassed.

  “My father’s place. He died last year, so I suppose it’s mine now.” He took the glass she held out to him. “I haven’t been there, but I suppose it’s very beautiful.”

  “You haven’t been there!” She sat down beside him on the rug. “Do you mean to tell me you own a vineyard with a house and everything on it and you haven’t even looked at it?”