Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  "Did I say that was wonderful?"

  "One of the best days you ever had."

  He smiled. "It was, in its way. But I wasn't with you, so it can't have been as wonderful as I thought. In fact, the memory is fading fast; I can barely remember it."

  She laughed. "Can you remember where we're eating dinner?"

  H*The King's Tavern at six-thirty. Are you hungry?" "Famished." "So am I. We'll be there in ten minutes. Maybe less."

  The King's Tavern was built on a small rise overlooking the main street of Gloucester and, beyond it, the crowded wharves where salt-encrusted fishing boats swayed and creaked in the hght breeze. At the back of each boat, rope as thick as a man's wrist and heavy nets stiff with ocean salt were wound on huge drums or coiled on the deck; gulls swooped in to strut on them and perch on the prows where names generations old were boldly lettered. Beside the harbor, the shops and restaurants on the main street were of wood darkened by the sea, making the small town seem rooted in earth and ocean and sky, tolerating the modem cars of tourists but unchanged by them.

  Laura savored it all, especially the sense of timelessness that reminded her of her favorite neighborhoods of Boston, and then Paul had parked at the King's Tavern and they were being shown to a small room at the back. Somehow he had arranged with the owners for a place where they could wash up and dress for dinner: a spare room at the back of the restaurant with two chairs and a tiny bathroom. Laura went first, carrying the overnight bag Allison had given her. "Dress simply," Paul had said, but she had agonized over what to take. In the tiny room at the King's Tavern she pulled off the jeans and khaki shirt that smelled of the sea, washed as well as she could in the small basin, and dressed in white polished cotton, full-skirted with long sleeves and a deep V neck. Around her

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  throat she fastened a turquoise necklace she had found in a small shop in Provincetown, on the Cape. There was nothing she could do about her hair: the damp air turned the loose waves into long chestnut ringlets that would not comb straight, and so she left them, even the tendrils that curved onto her cheeks and forehead. Not sleek and sophisticated, shci reflected, but there wasn't time to worry about it; she had to let Paul have his turn in the room. But she did pause when she: took a final look in the small mirror and saw her glowing face. I look too happy, she thought, too excited. He likes cool, clever women. He'll think I look like a Girl Scout. But she didn't know what to do about it, and after a moment, since no one was watching, she shrugged. This is me. He'll like me or he won't.

  He was waiting for her in the bar, looking out over the town and the wharf, where crews were unloading the square, white lobster pots they had just brought in. Laura watched him for a moment. His face was somber, almost severe, and for the first time she wondered about his secrets instead of worrying about her own.

  He turned and saw her and smiled, his eyes glad and admiring. "You're lovely and you put me to shame; I feel like a grubby rock climber. I ordered wine for you; I won't be long."

  She sat at the table where his half-finished drink still stood and gazed, as he had, at the purposeful activity of the sturdy men on the wharf. Gloucester. Cape Aim. A coast less than fifty miles north of Boston where one could climb on rocks and dine on fresh-caught lobster and still get back home before midnight. If one wanted to get back home. She pictured in her mind her overnight bag and felt again Paul's fingers touching the droplets of water in her hair, and his arm around her shoulders. If one wanted to get back.

  Happiness surged through her and she put her hand to her cheek: she thought she must be blushing, she felt so hot. This is silly, she thought; I'm acting like a virgin. But in a way she felt like one. The quick, furtive couplings in the back seats of cars when she was in high school and the brief affairs at the university had left her untouched; her body had moved in all the expected ways, but she hadn't ever been able to care about what she was doing or even feel it had anything to do with

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  her. It had been as if she stood apart, watching. She helped the panting, insistent boys who mounted her because that was what she was supposed to do. But each time she'd gone home to Beacon Hill feeling cheated and bewildered. Why did people go to so much trouble to do this?

  Now, sitting in the King's Tavem, filled with a happiness as heady as noon wine, more rare than sex, more difficult to find than passion, she began to understand. My sweet girl, you outshine everyone. Her body seemed to lift out of itself, toward whatever they would find together.

  The scene on the dock had changed. Fishermen and their families were arriving with floats they were finishing for St. Peter's Fiesta, when the fishing boats would be blessed. It was a tradition that went back hundreds of years. I'd like to be here for the parade, Laura thought. But then I'd like to be everywhere: Europe, Africa, India, finding crinoids at Cape Ann, marching with the Portuguese fishermen of Gloucester, shopping with the women at the market in Avignon. I wasted so much time stealing and dreaming, and now I'm twenty-one and how will I ever have time to do everything I want to do?

  She felt Paul's hand on her shoulder and looked up, meeting his dark eyes. I have time for Paul, she thought.

  The words settled inside her as they sat at dinner in the soft light of ship's lanterns. Around them was the murmur of voices and the soft clatter of dishes on polished wood tables, while they spoke in low voices, their hands brushing as they turned to each other to share a smile, letting desire build. Only once was the spell broken, halfway through dinner. "You're the only woman I know," Paul said, "who can crack open a lobster without turning her plate into a disaster area. You'd make a good magician. Or a pickpocket. Would you like more wine? I'll order another bottle."

  "No. This is fine." She sat still, looking at the bright red tail and neatly split claws on the plate before her, the white lobster meat lying beside them in long smooth pieces. She hadn't even thought about it; her fingers, trained and sensitive, had done the job while she had talked to Paul and thought her thoughts.

  Paul, the joke already forgotten, was talking about visits to Cape Ann when he was a boy, staying for weekends with a

  Judith Michael

  school friend whose family had a home in Marblehead Neck. "The backyard sloped to the bay, and we'd have races to see who could roll fastest down the grass and into the water. After a while his parents got the idea it wasn't the safest playground for kids, and they put up a fence. It was one of my first experiences of someone telling me what was best for me."

  Laura laughed softly. Her happiness had returned, and she felt lighthearted and at ease. "Is that why you travel all the time—because you hate fences?"

  Surprised, he said, "I don't know. I'll have to think about it. You're right about my hating them; I always want to jump over instead of using the gate. Do you? You must be good at it, the way you climb rocks. Are you good at jumping fences?"

  "Yes," she said boldly, wanting to share it with him, "but I haven't done it for a long time."

  "Neither have I. We'll do it some day, shall we? Pretend we're kids and leap a fence?"

  "And convince ourselves we can't be kept out?"

  "And convince ourselves there's nothing we can't do."

  Laura smiled. "I like that."

  "Better yet, do you believe it?"

  "Yes," she said simply, and they smiled together, and then sat quietly, listening to the music tiiat drifted up to them from the wharves where people were dancing, and gazing through the huge windows that encircled the room. The moon had risen, turning the fishing boats to ghostly shapes gently swaying in the harbor. Paul took her hand in his. "I'll take you back to Boston, if that's what you'd like. Unless you'd rather stay up here."

  "I'd rather stay."

  He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. "My friend's house is empty. He only uses it on weekends."

  She nodded, not asking how often he had used it when it was empty, not caring. Each of t
hem had a past they would never share with the other.

  The house was at the end of Marblehead Neck—a cluster of gray shingled mansions strung on a narrow curve of land jutting into Marblehead Bay. Across the water Laura could see the lights of the town of Marblehead, but in front of them

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  everything was daiic as Paul turned into the driveway. "I didn't call ahead; there won't be anyone here to pamper you and fix breakfast."

  Laura smiled in the darkness. *'I was counting on you for that."

  "Trusting woman. How do you know I can cook?"

  "It doesn't matter if you know how to pamper."

  He chuckled and shd out of the car, reaching into the back seat for their bags. "Hold on while I find the key. It's here somewhere ... on top of the lamp post as I recall ..."

  He hasn't been here in a while, Laura thought, then remembered she didn't care when he'd been here last.

  The house smelled faintly musty when the door swung open and Paul walked through the living room, switching on lights and opening windows. "The kitchen is through that door. What would you like? Something to eat? Or drink?" Laura tried to think of something to say. She was nervous, trying to retrieve the pulsing happiness that had glowed within her at the restaurant. / want you to love me. I want you to tell me what to do. I want everything to be simple and wonderful.

  "We'll go upstairs," he said. His arm was aroimd her waist and they walked up the curved stairway with matching steps, into a long room diat was white with moonlight. When Paul turned her to face him, it was as natural to put her arms around him as it had been to walk into the house at his side, as if they belonged together. "Two weeks," he murmured, his lips brushing hers. "An eternity."

  "Not for me—^" she started to say, but his mouth was on hers, opening it, and she tasted the sharpness of cognac on his tongue. It was a long kiss; he held her mouth with his and her body in the tight clasp of his arms until she felt there was nothing but the two of them in a small enclosed place that roared with a pounding that was like the surf. It came from her own heart but it shook her with a force like the ocean's.

  Paul lifted his head and she took a tremulous breath. *l'd better sit down."

  He laughed softly. ^There's a bed." Holding her hand he led her the length of the room, along a silver ribbon q& moonlight, to a high four-poster bed hung with white curtains and covered wi& a worn patchworic quilt. A small mahogany stq> stool

  Judith Michael

  was beside it, and Paul kept Laura's hand in his as she climbed the three steps and he followed, bending over her as she lay back, his mouth covering hers again, his hands holding her face. "My lovely girl, my darling Laura ..."

  Laura was burning. She had never wanted anything the way she wanted Paul's mouth, his hands, his body joined to hers. When he pulled off his sport coat, her urgent fingers were unbuttoning his shirt, and then he was opening her dress, slipping it off her shoulders and lifting her to pull it down and toss it aside, and all the time her hands were touching him, curving, stroking, learning the feel of the hard muscles in his arms, the dark hairs on his chest, the yielding at his waist, until he drew back and tore off all his clothes and came back to lie on her.

  Moonlight flooded the room. The bed canopy and curtains glowed like sheltering nKX)nbeams, lightening his dark skin, turning Laura's pure white. "My God, you are so beautiful," he said, the words like a long flame against her breasts. Laura's body moved of its own accord; she couldn't lie still. "I'm sorry," she whispered, ashamed of her eagerness. "Don't!" he responded sharply, then said quickly, "I didn't mean to snap at you. But don't apologize. Ever. My darling girl, we do what we want because we want each other, because we have joy in each other . . ." "Yes," she said; it was no more than a long breath. "Yes, we do. Yes." With her hands in Paul's hair, she brought his mouth to hers, drinking him in, and felt his hardness between her legs. Yes, she thought, the word chiming within her. We have joy in each other. And she let herself become part of the joy; she let herself want everything: to do everything, feel everything, taste everything.

  Paul raised himself and slipped his hands beneath her underclothes, pulling them off, and as the cool air and his warm hands embraced her she gave a small cry that pierced the quiet room.

  He took her breast in his mouth; her nipple tightened beneath his lips and tongue, and a long sigh that was his name broke firom her at the pleasure radiating through her. As his mouth held her breast, his caressing hand slid along the curve of her waist and down h^ thighs, opening her flesh with his

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  fingers, sliding into the wet darkness within, and even as she cried out with longing her hands were following the harder curves of his body until she raised them and again took his head between her hands, fiercely kissing him, taking his lower lip between her teeth, then, still hungry, still moving, sucking and biting the smooth skin of his neck, tasting the fragrance of the soap they had used when they changed before dinner.

  Abruptly, Paul stopped caressing her and raised himself on his elbow, holding her still with one hand as he looked down at her. Until that moment, he had accepted her desire without questioning it. He was accustomed to having women desire him, and he had let his hands follow the skillful patterns he had used with so many of them for so many years. But Laura was not like any of them; she was sexual but almost clumsy, demanding but unsure, not a virgin but oddly inexperienced. An urgent woman and an unschooled girl. The fleeting thought came to him that he wasn't sure it was just a man she wanted, or him.

  "What is it?" Laura asked. Her breath trembled and she tried to see his eyes, but they were shadowed in the moonlight; his face was almost a mask. "Paul, I want you, I thought you wanted me, I thought you felt this, too—I never knew I could feel it—this wonderful wanting ... I never knew what it was like . . ."

  "My God," he said roughly and lay on his side, pulling her against him. He kissed her long, tangled curls, her smooth forehead, the delicate eyelids that hid her large clear eyes. His hands explored the curves of her body as if she were the first woman he had ever known, and he felt himself aroused and absorbed by her in a way that startled him. "So much a child, so much a woman . . ."he said, and then he was as urgent as she, almost savage in his need to be part of her. He turned, and turned her with him so she was spread beneath him. Laura's hunger flared again and again, flames fed by the flint of his body; she opened her legs wide and pulled him inside her, deep, thrusting, filling her. He raised himself on his hands and they watched his shaft, hard and ghstening in the moonlight, disappear deep inside her, then slide up and thrust down again, while her hands moved over his chest and down his hard stomach, and held him when he pulled out of her

  Judith Michael

  before thrusting down once more. Then his weight was upon her again, his hands raising her hips, his tongue meeting hers, and Laura felt an overwhelming sense of wonder—that need and desire and joy could merge and become one, in one instant, with one man. And the wonder buoyed her up as Paul's closeness buoyed her, his lips murmuring her name against her mouth, their bodies moving together, and within her the rhythmic thought that everything was perfect, and would be forever.

  Chapter 8

  IT took Clay a month to figure out what to do with the television remote control he'd found in Terry Levonio's locker, and then he waited another month to make sure he was right. It was so simple he was filled with admiration. Who'd have thought Terry the grinning bartender would have the brains to think it up?

  He finally tried it out one night in the quiet hour before dawn while the night staff sat staring fixedly at magazines or television in a desperate effort to stay awake. The lobby was empty, the restaurant closed, the bar dark and shuttered.

  "Going to the bathroom," Clay told the back of the night manager's head nodding in front of a John Wayne movie. Around the comer from the lobby, he unlocked a back entrance to the bar and slipped inside. The bottles were put away, the glasses washed, the bar wiped clean. Thorough, ca
reful Terry. Clay stood behind the bar, holding the remote control he'd taken from Terry's locker a few minutes earlier. Pointing it at the cash register, he pressed buttons at random until he heard, in the silent room, a distinct click.

  How about that. Clay marveled. If somebody planned to skim a nice living from a bar, he'd fix up a little electronic thingamajig that would temporarily disable his cash register when he wanted it to. He'd push his little button—out of sight, under the counter—and when he rang up the price of a drink, so that anybody watching could see him do it, it

  Judith Michael

  wouldn't register. Something like typing without a ribbon. And he pockets the money. And when he goes home, he'd have—how much? How much would he have in his pocket?

  He left the bar, locking the door behind him, and went downstairs to the employees' room where he replaced the volume control exactly as he'd found it in Terry's locker.

  At the end of his long hours he'd have skinmied maybe ten percent of the night's booze. We do sixteen, seventeen hundred bucks a night in that joint. At least that's what the cash register says. Which means we're probably doing closer to two thousand and friend Terry takes home a couple hundred each and every night. No wonder he drives a Porsche.

  "Everything quiet?" he asked the night manager when he returned.

  In response he heard a gentle snoring. Shit, Clay thought, this place needs a good shaking up.

  He sat on his high stool behind the reception desk, and thought. He could tell Terry what he'd found, and that would end it—no more danger that Clay Fairchild would be blamed if somebody else found out. But he ought to be able to do better than that. He ought to get a medal for saving thousands of dollars for the hotel. For the Salingers. He ought to get a promotion.

  Why not? he thought. Laura had gotten close to them, and look where she was. If he made a big thing of this so they'd think he was God's gift to the Philadelphia Salinger, he'd be in as solid with the Salingers as she was. Then wouldn't she be proud of him for really getting ahead!