A Ruling Passion

by Judith Michael

  He hesitated, but not for long. He knew she was right. "Yes. But I want you to take your own camera crew and director. We might as well do it right. And I'll be the one to call Nick; if s a change in plans that has to come from me."

  "It did come from you," Valerie said.

  "It's a phone call that ought to come from me," he said firmly.

  Reluctantly, she nodded. "I'd like to talk to him about arrangements, when you're through."

  "Good enough," he said. "I'll call you when we're ready."

  He went to his office. Valerie sat still, looking at the heavy clouds through the rain-streaked window. It would be sunny in Italy, she thought. It would be warm and beautiftil and wonderflil in Italy.

  She sat still, thinking about Italy, waiting for Les to finish talking to Nick. And then it would be her turn.

  Chapter 24

  ( M M he sun was shining in Florence; the air was warm

  ^^ U and still. Valerie opened wide the tall windows and

  ^ ^m shutters of her room in the Hotel Monna Lisa

  ^^^^ overlooking the courtyard garden, and unpacked,

  hanging her clothes in the antique armoire. She

  had not asked where Nick was staying. Knowing that E8cN would pay

  the bill, she made her own reservation, choosing a hotel she had never

  been in before: lower-priced than anything she would have chosen in

  her other life, but more expensive than she could afford on her own.

  Five centuries earlier, the Monna Lisa had been a palace for a Medici prince, and it still felt like one, with soaring ceilings, high leaded windows, polished stone floors and a winding stone staircase to the second floor where niches held ancient statues and urns. The courtyard was lush with roses, pomegranates, and lemon and olive trees; and the enormous leaded-glass doors of the dining room, where breakfast was served every day, opened onto it. It was a small, very private hotel, neither luxurious nor grand, but to Valerie, taking her first vacation since Carlton's death a year and a half earlier, it was one of the most beautiful places in the world.

  As soon as she unpacked, she telephoned Salvatore Scutigera.

  'TSIo, no; he is very ill," said his daughter, Rosanna. She was not friendly. "He refuses to talk to anyone, only me, and not even me, very much. He just reads and looks at his garden."

  "It's very important that I talk to him again," Valerie said. "I came to Italy just for this reason."

  "About what?"

  "Parts of his story we didn't have time for; there's so much we didn't talk about."

  "Well, you won't now either. You don't understand; he doesn't talk. And when he does, he talks only in Italian. It's like he's forgotten he was an American for most of his life."

  "He might talk to me; we became friends," said Valerie in Italian.

  "Ah!" cried Rosanna. "But, still... No, I'm sorry, I can't do it."

  "Rosanna," said Valerie urgently. She tried to think of the right words. This was her story, and she couldn't let it slip away. "I think your father might Uke to record for history what he's done with his life. If he doesn't want to, of course I won't intrude on him, but what if he does? We ought to give him that chance. He's done so much with world leaders who will be immortal on film and television tape, why shouldn't Sal be able to do the same? Would you ask him that?"

  There was a silence. "He always thought he was smarter than all those so-called leaders," Rosanna said at last.

  Valerie was silent; it was not a time to push.

  "I would be there, too?" Rosanna asked. "To protect him from the wrong questions," she added hastily.

  Valerie smiled. It had nothing to do with protecting her father; Rosanna wanted to be on television, too. "Of course you'd be there," she said.

  "Well, then. I think I could ask him. I don't know what he'll say, of course, but... in case he says yes, could you come at, say, ten o'clock the day after tomorrow?"

  "Yes, that would be fine."

  "But what shall I do if he reftises to have a camera there?" asked Rosanna, suddenly worried. "He doesn't like cameras."

  "Tell him we'll cancel the interview," Valerie said firmly, knowing she was safe: Rosanna was on her side. "Tell him I haven't figured out how to do a television interview without a camera."

  Rosanna laughed. "I'll tell him; he'll like that. Day after tomorrow, then..."

  Valerie put down the telephone and whirled around her small room.

  She was going to get her story. And if she was right, and she did find another side to Scutigera, she was going to put together a sixteen-minute report on him that no one could resist, and use it to move up fi-om reporting four-minute segments to being a full reporter on "Blow-Up."

  But that wasn't what she told Nick that evening, when he called from his room at the Excelsior Hotel. She told him only that she had an appointment, and her cameraman and director would arrive the next day.

  "That was quick," he said. "You were right; no one else should be doing this. Have you had dinner?"

  "No. But I made reservations, in case you got here in time."

  "So did I. Shall we toss a coin?"

  "You said you hadn't been here before."

  "I haven't. I hope you'll show me some of the sights. I called from Munich; a friend there recommended Sabatini."

  Valerie banished Enoteca Pinchiorri from her plans; they would go there another night. "It's very good," she said. "Vhat time?"

  "Eight. Is that all right? It gives you less than an hour."

  "Ifs fine. I'll see you there. Do you know where it is? The Via Panzini."

  "I'll find it. How long will it take me to walk there?"

  "Fifteen minutes."

  "I'll be waiting for you."

  It was only when they had hung up that Valerie wondered at the casual ease of their exchange. It had not even struck her that it was strange to make dinner plans with Nick for the first time in fourteen years, and to visualize him, a couple of miles away, in a hotel where she had stayed a dozen times.

  The Excelsior, she thought, lying back in the long bathtub. She lifted the hand-held shower from its stand and turned it on to wash her hair. Who would have predicted, all those years ago, that Nick would one day stay in the Excelsior?

  Or that Valerie Sterling would feel so much pleasure at the thought of dinner with him, after being the one to send him away because there were other things she wanted to do with her life?

  She wore a silk suit, and low-heeled shoes, the only kind that kept her feet and ankles from being mangled by Italian cobblestones, and walked through the crowded streets to Sabatini. Nick was waiting in the foyer. He was wearing a dark suit and a dark-red tie, and Valerie was briefly taken aback by his formality. At work he wore open-necked

  shirts, occasionally a sports jacket, and she wondered if tonight he were hiding behind formality, as he had seemed to do a few times before with her. But as their hands met, and held, she changed her mind, and thought how pleasant it was that he had dressed carefully for her.

  Without warning, desire swept through her. She felt dizzy, and then she worried that desire was in her eyes, or Nick could sense it from the clasp of her hand. She pulled back, turning with relief to the maitre d', who led them to a table in the far corner of the large room. Valerie sat on the banquette, her back to a floor-to-ceiling garden that ran the length of the restaurant, with espaliered trees, bushes and hanging plants behind a wall of glass. Nick took the chair opposite her.

  "That's well done," he said approvingly, looking at the garden.

  She nodded. "I used to come to Italy at least once a year. It gets in your blood, and then ifs hard to stay away."

  Nick studied her face, looking for regret. "You must miss it."

  She knew he did not mean just Italy. "Yes, I suppose I always will. But it's beginning to seem like a dream. I'm not sure anymore how much I'm exaggerating the good parts or conveniendy forgetting the ones that really weren't much fim." She smiled. "We edit our memories
the way I edit television scripts."

  "And cling to them," Nick said. He turned to the captain, to order wine, leaving Valerie to wonder what memories he had clung to through the years.

  "I never understood your marrying Sybille," she said when he turned back to her.

  He nodded slowly. "I'm sure you didn't."

  She bit back a retort. She had not expected Nick to put her in her place. "Or why you moved to Washington after all those years," she said, keeping her voice level.

  "It was time; I was ready to leave California." He was relaxed now; this was a subject he was willing to talk about. He was picking his way, trying to avoid reminiscing about the past. He would not do that until he was ready to try to recapture it, and he was not sure, even now, that he was prepared to plunge into the past before he knew what they were to each other in the present. "I'd done what I'd dreamed of doing, and for awhile I had everything I wanted—or almost everything—and then it began to change. I suppose that's the nature of dreams; they probably start to change the minute we get near them, because that means they're attainable and therefore different."

  "Goals," Valerie murmured. "Not dreams anymore."

  He smiled. "Yes. That's very good. And goals have schedules and routines and dollar signs, and other people with their own dreams or goals—" He watched the captain pour their wine, then lifted his glass and waited for Valerie to lift hers. "To dreams," he said.

  Their glasses touched. "But you never dreamed about owning a television network," Valerie said.

  "No; that was curiosity. And then the opportunity came at a good time. I was looking for something new."

  "You wanted something to happen," she said with a faint smile, and they both remembered when he had criticized her for that, a long time ago.

  There was a silence. Valerie turned slighdy in her seat to look at the garden behind her. She was feeling uncomfortable: not used to silence with a dinner companion, not sure how to break it. The truth was, she couldn't define their relationship. How should she behave with a former lover whom she had once broken off with, who was now her employer and far wealthier than she, and highly successftil in a field where she was just a beginner... and whom she once again found powerftilly attractive? One thing she certainly would not do, she thought, was begin reminiscing about the past; it would seem as if she were grabbing for romance before they had taken the trouble to build a foundation for... whatever they might build together now.

  Nick was perusing the menu, seeming not at all uncomfortable at their silence. "Have you some favorites?" he asked.

  "I like to start with prosciutto and melon," she said, picking up her own menu. "And if if s the same chef, he's very good with veal."

  The waiter arrived, and Valerie ordered in Italian. She had not planned it—she knew perfectly well the waiters at Sabatini were fluent in English—but suddenly she was asking questions about certain dishes and requesting changes in others in her excellent Italian. And as soon as she began, she knew why she was doing it: to help define her relationship with Nick. He might be her employer, but in Italy he was the tourist and she was the one who knew her way around.

  "I ordered for both of us," she said when the waiter left. "I hope you don't mind."

  He was watching her with amusement. "I don't mind; thank you. Are you planning to interview Scutigera in Italian?"

  "If I have to. I hope he'll consent to English. Otherwise, I'll do a voice-over translation on the tape; we don't want subtitles."

  "No, we don't. You seem sure we'll have a story."

  "I'm sure there's a story there, if we can just get it."

  He nodded, and another silence fell. Valerie repeated to herself the word "we" as they had used it; each time, it had given her a small jolt of excitement. He was talking to her as if she were already part of the "Blow-Up" team.

  Nick was looking at her thoughtfully. "Did you work when you were married?" he asked.

  "No," she replied. She was surprised; he had never asked her anything about her marriages. "Volunteer work," she added, "and the spots on television I'd always done."

  He smiled. "At one time you would have said that was real work."

  "It is," she said with asperity. "There are plenty of places—hospitals and museums and dozens of others—that couldn't function at all without volunteers. They do hard work, sometimes forty or more hours a week, and they don't get a lot of recognition or even, sometimes, gratitude."

  "I wasn't making light of it," he said mildly.

  "Weren't you? Then why talk about it as if it isn't real work?"

  "Because you did. You said you hadn't worked when you were married, and then you said you'd done volunteer work."

  A laugh broke from her. "You're right. I shouldn't have." She gazed at him reflectively. "The difference is the salary: the power behind it. Someone has the power to pay it, and the worker has the weakness to need it. Where wealth isn't involved in a relationship, there's no difference in power, and then it isn't thought of as work."

  'Tou mean ifs a cooperative effort. Or friendship."

  "Or marriage."

  He smiled. "Thafs always the hope, isn't it? But wealth isn't all there is; what about authority? Teachers have power over students; generals over corporals..."

  "You're right, but the principle is the same: ifs the power to give and take away from one who is needy and therefore weak. When I do volunteer work, I'm everyone's equal because they have nothing to take away fi-om me. I certainly wouldn't be afraid of losing a volunteer job if I happened to displease someone."

  "Could you lose it if you were incompetent?"

  She paused. "I suppose so. But most likely I wouldn't be fired; I'd be shifted to a different job."

  "Because of who you are?"

  "Because nonprofit organizations are always desperate for help."

  They laughed. Their appetizers were before them, and Nick tasted

  the prosciutto. He looked surprised, and took another bite. "Wonderful. Like nothing in America."

  "No, what they call prosciutto in America isn't good. I always wait until I'm in Italy to eat it."

  "But if you don't get to Italy often..."

  "Then I eat other foods. Isn't it worth waiting for the best?"

  "There are people who never get to Italy."

  "Then they won't eat prosciutto. They can eat American ham; we do that pretty well. There's no reason to compromise."

  "You've made no compromises since your husband's death?"

  "Of course I have, but only when there was no other choice."

  "For example."

  "My first apartment. The house I'm in now. I can take the same number of dollars and buy a kind of ham that's approximately as good as prosciutto, but I can't take the money I've budgeted for rent and find another kind of housing even close to my farm in Middleburg."

  He nodded. "What else cQd you compromise on, besides housing?"

  "Nothing. I don't buy clothes, because I can't afford the ones I'm used to, and I have enough to last for a long time. They're not in style—I suppose that's my compromise—but they're still what I expect clothes to be."

  Again, he nodded, his eyes somber. "This conversation would be incomprehensible to anyone who had always been poor."

  She looked at him with a slight frown. "You think I'm being insensitive."

  "I think you don't understand what it means not to have money. I'd guess that you think whatever has happened to you isn't quite real. You may feel that the past is like a dream, but, dream or not, you somehow expect to get back to it, even if you don't know how it will happen. If you had to put a date on it, I imagine you'd say before your clothes wear out."

  Valerie's color was high. "I don't remember you being crude. Is that because I was so naive in those days that even you struck me as admirable?"

  "I deserved that," Nick said abrupdy. "I apologize." Seeing the flash of her eyes, the proud lift of her head, he suddenly wanted her, and admitted to himself that he had wanted her s
ince they sat down together. It had added to the tension of the dinner, he thought, and wondered if it had added to Valerie's too. He looked at her, remembering her body in his arms, her mouth beneath his. The room blurred

  and receded; all he could see was Valerie's moudi; all he could feel was her body, as familiar as if it had been yesterday that she moved beneath him, drawing him in.

  Then, forcibly, he locked it away; once again, he denied it. It was too soon. He wasn't ready to say he wanted her again, not to her, not to himself. "I apologize," he said again, and there was only the slightest tremor in his voice. "My manners are usually better, even if my judgment isn't. I think I'm having trouble because I don't feel we're alone."

  Valerie raised her eyebrows.

  Nick gestured toward the empty table beside them. "Nick and Valerie, fourteen years younger, eating dinner and trying to bridge the differences between them."

  "They're not at that table," Valerie said. "They're inside us; we're the same people."

  "I don't think so. I know how much I've changed and I can see—"

  "You haven't changed at all."

  "—that you have, too. I think I've changed, and we can talk about that sometime, if you'd like. What bothered me a minute ago was that I thought you hadn't changed. But I was wrong; I've seen you at work and I know how different you are."

  She shook her head. "I don't think people change very much. I suppose we always wish they would, so the world would be orderly and predictable, but I don't believe any of us really becomes something else." Her look turned inward for a moment. 'What might happen, especially if there's some kind of shock, is that we'd discover parts of ourselves we didn't know about. Whatever I am now was always there; people just didn't see it."

  "Or you didn't use it."

  "Or I didn't use it," she repeated evenly. "Thank you for reminding me.