Starstruck

by Anne McAllister

  “Maybe. Nothing’s certain. You ought to know that!” His voice rose as he loomed over her. “I suppose you want me to propose,” he growled, his dark head bent over the plate in his hand.

  “I suppose I do,” she said quietly.

  Neither of them spoke; the silence stretched like a mine field between them, each step fraught with potential for disaster. Liv held her breath, her sunny day suddenly banked with thunderclouds. She heard a distant rumble and was surprised to realize that it was only a passing truck.

  “Marriage is a trap, a cage,” he said finally, each word driving a nail into her heart. “It’s a convention that has destroyed more relationships than I care to count.”

  “Lots of marriages last,” Liv argued. “My parents’ marriage has.”

  “So has my parents’,” Joe said heavily. “They’re the best example of what I’m talking about that I can think of.”

  Liv was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “My father married my mother because it was the thing to do; it was expected. They’ve rubbed along together for forty-six years, and neither one of them has done a spontaneous, interesting thing in the thirty-six years I’ve known them. Maybe they never have; I wouldn’t be surprised. Their marriage is dead, lifeless, a shell. Nothing like what I had with you last night.” He looked up from his plate and she could see the seriousness in his gaze, and she wanted to deny everything he was saying, but she, too, knew of marriages like that. And how could she convince him that a marriage between the two of them would be any different?

  “For years I avoided anything that remotely resembled what they had,” he went on. “I had plenty of affairs, as you well know, but I never once asked a woman to live with me, not even for two days.”

  Liv swallowed hard, her mouth tasting of burned toast. “I’m sorry,” she said into her napkin. “I still can’t do it. I love you too much.”

  It was Joe’s turn to stare. “Come again?”

  She twisted her napkin around her fingers. “It would hurt too much,” she began slowly, picking her way through the mine field. “I don’t want anything less than all of you, just as I would give you all of myself.”

  “I gave you all of me last night!”

  “Your body,” she corrected.

  “Yes, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. It’s just not enough. I want a commitment. I want you—as husband, as father. Till death do us part.”

  It sounded like a sentence, not a benediction, but Liv folded her hands and bowed her head, waiting for the storm to break.

  “The plane leaves in less than two hours,” Joe said, picking up his plate and carrying it out to the kitchen. “You’d better get packed.”

  All the way back to Madison she waited for a miracle— the smile that never came, the words that were so loudly unspoken that they reverberated in her head. But she waited in vain. The issue was decided; the case was closed. Joe was polite, attentive, and as distant as if she had left him standing in the Wien-Schwechat Airport instead of sitting with his pale blue, knife-creased sleeve brushing hers.

  She remembered the chasm that had opened at her feet the night that Tom had announced that he wanted a divorce and knew that it was nothing compared to the emotional Grand Canyon before her now. But there was nothing she could do to close it. He had made his offer, his compromise that was, she admitted, more than he had ever offered anyone else. But she could not accept it, would not accept it. And that was that She had the satisfaction, grim and useless though it was, of knowing at least that she had tried. She had loved him, had given him her all, and Joe Harrington could never say he hadn’t known. There were no sins of omission to be held over her head in this relationship. But sometimes, no matter what one did, it wasn’t enough.

  Liv shut her eyes and tipped her seat back, feigning sleep, wishing it would overtake her and obliterate the black fog of depression that surrounded her. Four more hours to O’Hare, a short hop to Madison. Home before nightfall. She squeezed her eyes tighter, refusing to let the threatening tears leak out. Home. But a home without Joe. And what kind of a home was that?

  A welcoming one, if nothing else. Frantic babbling, hugging, kissing, shouting greeted them at the airport. Blond heads and brown ones bobbed around Ellie, then broke loose as small bodies hurled themselves on both Liv and Joe, nearly knocking them to the ground.

  “Didja have fun?”

  “What did you bring home?”

  “How come you grew a beard, Joe?”

  “Wait’ll you see what Frances bought for your room, Ma!”

  None of them noticed her pale cheeks and haunted eyes. No one commented on Joe’s edginess and hunted look. Only Ellie stared—and stared—and knew. Liv could tell by her compressed lips, sad face and the resignation that had replaced her initial welcoming smile.

  “Shall we go, then?” Ellie asked and began to lead the way toward the baggage claim area, but Joe shook his head and hung back.

  “I have to go on,” he said.

  “What?” Liv’s and Ellie’s voices joined in chorus.

  “To L.A.,” he said hastily. “I have to get back to L.A.”

  “Now?” There was only Ellie’s voice, sharp and incredulous, this time.

  “Uh-huh,” he patted his jacket pocket which seemed to have a sheaf of paper in it. “Meeting Luther about a contract,” he explained, edging away.

  Ellie just stared.

  “But Joe,” Ben said, “You just got here!” All the kids looked crestfallen, Liv noticed. Damn, why couldn’t they just dislike him? It would be so much easier to believe that she was absolutely doing the right thing if she knew they didn’t like him, if she was sure they wouldn’t want her to live with him.

  Joe shrugged, looking decidedly uncomfortable under their stares. “I’m sorry,” he said to Ben. “I really do have to go.”

  “When are you cornin’ back?” Theo demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  Never, Liv could have answered for him. She almost offered to pack up his things at the house and send them along to him, but why make it any easier for him than it already was?

  “You gotta come to my game,” Noel told him. “We’re in the championships. It’s two weeks from Sunday.” Joe had attended more of Noel’s ball games than Tom ever had, Liv knew. It had thrilled the boy that someone as busy as Joe was so interested. And now he wouldn’t be there for that either. My fault, Liv thought, but knew she couldn’t change her mind now. Nor did she want to. But it didn’t seem fair that doing the right thing was always so hard!

  “I’ll try,” Joe promised, and Liv looked to see if he had his fingers crossed, but his hand was stuck in his pants pocket, so she couldn’t tell. Most likely they were. She doubted, once he’d got back aboard a plane, that they’d ever see Joe Harrington in Madison again. “If I don’t make it, send me a card and tell me the score,” Joe told Noel.

  “Come on,” Ellie said to the kids, hustling them toward the luggage turnaround. “Let’s get the suitcases and give your mother a chance to say good-bye to Joe.”

  Liv grimaced, wanting to turn and run, following her children away from the biggest heartbreak in her life. But she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, devouring him, soaking up last impressions like a thirsty daisy in the rain. His tie was crooked, and a tiny scab was peeling off by the outside corner of his left eye. He ran a finger beneath his collar, then stuck his hand back in his pocket and stared at her as well. Was there nothing left to say?

  She heard the last boarding call for the return flight to O’Hare and knew that he heard it, too, but neither of them moved. Eyes fenced, parried, memorized. Loved. Then she heard his voice, very low. “If you ever change your mind…”

  Her teeth sunk into her lower lip, drawing blood. “I won’t,” she told him, sadness piercing her. “Goodbye, Joe.”

  He nodded slowly, his hand coming up out of his pocket to brush lightly along the curve of her cheek, his eyes as sad as her own. His lip
s came down, touching hers briefly, and the pain of longing welled up inside her, overpowering her, consuming her. She blinked, and blinked again. And he was gone.

  What Frances had bought for her bedroom was a two-foot by three-foot poster of Steve Scott at his cocky handsomeness, and after Liv had finished exclaiming over it, listening to what had happened in her absence and telling abbreviated enthusiastic accounts of a week in an apartment with Joe and five hundred chicken pox, she thought there ought to be Academy Awards given for performances in real life.

  “It’s just jet lag,” she excused herself whenever she dropped the thread of the conversation, whenever the kids asked why she was staring off into space, chewing on her fingernail or wiping a stray tear from her eye.

  “Let your mother sleep,” Ellie counseled. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk to her in the morning. I’ll stay over tonight and ride herd on your crew,” she told Liv. “Then you can get some rest.” Before Liv could thank her, Ellie hustled everyone out of the bedroom, leaving Liv staring up at Joe on the wall, larger than life and twice as seductive. She pulled the pillow over her head and sobbed her heart out.

  In the morning she thought, I've been here before; I know the terrain. I can make it through again. It was not unlike the feeling she had had after Tom left. The same emptiness, the pain, the moving about as though she had lead weights on her feet and a sack over her head. But, before, she had had anger and the near-hatred of Tom for his faithlessness to sustain her. Now she felt no hatred, no anger, only weariness and a bone-deep sadness as she contemplated months, years, a whole lifetime, without Joe.

  One day at a time, she told herself as she got out of bed, rejecting her oldest, most comfortable pair of jeans and a T-shirt as being a cop-out. If she let herself dress like a slob she would feel like a slob. And heaven knew she didn’t need that. She took pains with her hair, twisting it up on the back of her head and braiding it so that she looked sophisticated and proper. If anyone had a right to look proper, she did! She stared hard at the Steve Scott poster and reconsidered her first impulse, which had been to tear it down, rip it to shreds and feed it to the rabbit. There would be the problem of explaining her actions to the children, of course, but more than that, if she left it up she would get desensitized sooner. Like being innoculated against allergies. Exposure to the allergy-causing substance over time, in controlled dosage, was supposed to cure. Well, she thought, bending to tie her tennis shoes, I hope it works because if anyone needs a cure now, it’s me.

  “Skunk, isn’t he?” Ellie said flatly as she scrambled some eggs for Liv and thrust them in front of her, commanding, “Eat. I will not allow you to pine away because of that miserable bastard.”

  “Ellie!” Liv said, shocked, “He’s your brother!”

  “And getting heavier by the minute,” Ellie retorted. “I think I’ll trade him in.” She poured Liv a cup of coffee and refilled her own cup. “Dare I ask what happened?”

  “Only if you promise not to put it in a play.”

  “I promise. I don’t write tragedies anyway. And by the look of you, that’s what this one is.”

  “He did offer to let me move in with him,” Liv said, wondering why she was defending him, for heaven’s sake.

  “Big of him,” Ellie snorted. “I suppose he’d let you iron his shirts if you asked him nicely.”

  “Well, maybe,” Liv said, a smile twitching her lips. She felt as though her face might crack, as though it had been years since she had smiled although it was really only yesterday. “He’s afraid of marriage, I think,” she said slowly. She didn’t say, “He doesn’t love me,” because, even though he hadn’t actually said it, she thought he really did. He just didn’t think in those terms. Or hadn’t for years, anyway.

  “He needs his head examined,” Ellie muttered. She jumped up and rummaged under the sink, dragging out a pail and filling it with water.

  “What are you doing?” Liv asked through a mouthful of surprisingly tasty eggs.

  “Washing the floor,” Ellie spat, tossing one of Joe’s old undershirts into the hot, foamy water. “I need to do something strenuous, like wringing his neck. And since he isn’t here, this is my only alternative. I’ll pretend I’m drowning him instead.”

  Panic.

  “’S too bright!”

  Fear.

  “Shut the light off!”

  Flight.

  “It’s the sun, you idiot! Sit up and drink this.” Mike McPherson’s voice grated in Joe’s ear, and an arm came around his shoulders, hauling him to a sitting position. There were storm troopers on maneuvers in his head. A glass was thrust under his nose against his lips and tipped. Obediently he opened his mouth, swallowed, gagged, choked, spat.

  “What is that?” he croaked, coughing. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Don’t ask,” Mike said dryly. “As for killing you, I think you’re doing quite a good enough job trying to kill yourself.” He tipped the glass again and wouldn’t stop until Joe had drained half the liquid in it. Then Mike let him slide back down against the crumpled sheets, where he lay moaning, eyes screwed tightly shut. “There, that should do it.’

  “Do what?” Joe wasn’t sure he wanted to know. His consciousness was like a shattered mirror, pieces reflecting tiny impressions, sensations, a glimmering of reality, nothing more. And, like the jagged edges of a broken mirror, they hurt, each one cutting into his brain like a knife.

  “Turn you into a reasonable facsimile of yourself,” Mike replied. “And when you can open your eyes, I think I’d like some answers.”

  “So would I,” Joe mumbled. I’d even like some questions. At the moment his universe didn’t extend beyond the confines of his own throbbing head. His eyeballs seemed to have rusted. Moving them was an excruciating ordeal, as if he hadn’t used them in years. He lifted a heavy hand and touched the lids, wondering if he would have to pry them open. His hand brushed against the softness of his bearded cheek, and his forehead wrinkled, perplexed. A beard? Then a bit of the mirror came into focus and he groaned, remembering.

  “I’d leave you to your misery,” Mike said, “but your darling niece is having a swimming party here this afternoon, and I don’t want you wandering out into the middle of it. I don’t think you’re up to it.” Joe could tell he was grinning just from the sound of his voice. “And I doubt if her guests are either.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” Joe said plaintively as he experimentally wiggled an eyebrow. Even that hurt. “I can’t remember a thing about it.”

  “I know. I brought you.”

  “What… how…” He struggled, trying to fit the pieces together, but they wouldn’t come.

  “First I want some answers,” Mike said, and Joe got one eye open long enough to see concern on his brother-in-law’s face. “I’ll tell you how you got here when you tell me how you ended up out cold on Linda Lucas’s living-room floor, while I thought you were still in Vienna—or at least Madison—with a very respectable lady.”

  It all came back with a crash. The lying awake all night, Liv’s body curled warmly into his own, her “I love you” echoing in his ears for hours, her kisses, his scabs, his offer, her rejection. Then more hours on an airplane than he believed possible, followed by booze he didn’t need, a phone call to Linda Lucas and… His mind reeled. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to cry.

  “That bad?” Mike asked, his voice gentler than Joe had ever heard it, no doubt in response to the emotions he saw on Joe’s face.

  Bad? Worse. Worst. Joe nodded infinitesimally, shutting his eyes again, wishing for more of the blessed oblivion he’d just emerged from. Painful as it was, it couldn’t hurt more than this.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Can’t.” How could he tell anyone what had happened, explain his panic, his fears, the feelings that knowing she loved him had aroused in him. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t reasonable, he didn’t suppose. But it was real. He’d felt it.

  Mike thrust the g
lass at him. “Finish this and get dressed. I’m taking you down to the boat. That way no one will stumble over you here by mistake.”

  “Boat?” The very thought nauseated him.

  “Docked,” Mike promised with a grin. “As a refuge, not for a sail. Don’t panic.”

  But Joe knew the advice had come too late. He already had panicked, and now he had to live with it. He struggled up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed as though he were a hundred-year-old man. He held his head in his hands. Mike pressed his glasses on him and Joe scowled up at him.

  “You look like an owl,” Mike told him. “The beard does wonders. I couldn’t imagine it when Linda called, but I think I kind of like it.”

  “She called you?” Joe was beginning to get an idea of how he’d got here now. He remembered going to Linda’s drunk, done in from jet lag, chicken pox, and the thought of a future without Liv. But then everything went blank.

  “Oh yes,” Mike agreed. “Most interesting phone call of the day. Frantic female voice squealing, ‘Joe Harrington’s full of hair and scabs, and he’s just passed out on my living-room floor!’ ” Mike laughed. “Talk about intriguing. Hurry up, will you? I’ll wait in the kitchen. Don’t take forever.”

  Why not, Joe wondered as he hauled himself to his feet, weaving unsteadily as he tried to stick one foot into his pants. What else did he have to do with his forever? What good was a forever without Liv?

  Liv thought she could write a book just filled with the clichés she was collecting that were supposed to help her get over her affair with Joe Harrington. The most often heard was “Time heals all,” and if she heard it one more time she thought that nothing would heal the person she murdered for having said it. People tiptoed around her at work as though she was the bereaved widow of a fifty-year marriage. They all cast her sympathetic glances when they thought she wasn’t looking and began talking loudly about their geraniums or grandchildren or how the Brewers were doing and the Cubs weren’t, so that they wouldn’t inadvertently say anything that would upset her more. She thought she would go insane. But short of calling a press conference and announcing that it was no big deal, that Joe Harrington habitually walked out of women’s lives and she had had no right to expect him not to walk out of hers, she didn’t know what to do.