Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

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  c T s Of Love ~ 181

  of sliced tomatoes, basil and bufalo mozzarelle, and Jessica set the table, choosing different place mats and china and silver, and placing them as Luke had, opposite each other. Following her directions, Luke found a bottle of fine burgundy in a small wine cooler near the kitchen, and then once again they sat down to eat, still talking, bringing the wide world of the New York and London theaters into that quiet house surrounded by darkness.

  "Do you ride?" Jessica asked as they finished their coffee and cognac.

  "Yes, as often as I can. I keep horses in New Jersey."

  "I go out very early, before breakfast. I have a horse I think you'd like, if that appeals to you."

  "Very much."

  That was what he remembered as he drove to her house in the clean-washed early-morning air. And what he saw in his memory was her brief nod, almost somber, when he told her, stepping from her car in front of the inn the night before, that he had never known a more wonderful day.

  She was waiting for him and they drove to her barn in his truck. Luke, occupied with following her directions, and then saddling the horse she chose for him, had only glanced at her, and so it was not until they were mounted and walking their horses from the paddock that he turned and contemplated her, and barely held in his surprise.

  She was a different Jessica. An expensive riding habit softened her thin figure; a helmet covered her hair, and large dark glasses hid the shadows beneath her eyes. At ease in the saddle, holding the reins lightly, she had only a hint of the stoop she had when walking; in fact, her clumsiness had vanished. For the first time since he had been with her, Luke saw in her pose confidence and authority and a relaxation that allowed her to move with some of her former grace, and once again he realized how little he knew about her, and how little he could predict.

  "Where would you like to ride?" she asked.

  "Wherever is your favorite."

  She led the way to a fork in the path and chose the left one that plunged into a dark forest, still dripping from the rain. The sun had not yet warmed the cold air, but the scent of wet pines and the leaves carpeting the path was so pure it gave Jessica the feeling of being at one with the earth. This was where she always began her ride. But this time her familiar solitude had been breached, and she felt tense and uncomfortable with the presence of another rider. But soon she became aware of how skilled Luke was.

  182 ~ Judith Michael

  matching his horse's rhythm to hers as they trotted side by side on the wide path, and she began to enjoy herself. In a tew minutes she turned at another fork in the path, and suddenly the rhythmic sound of matched steps was gone; she heard nothing but the soft trotting of her own horse and the piercing call of a bird. A feeling of aloneness descended on her and she almost stopped to turn around. But then Luke was beside her, once again in step, and she smiled, happy that he was there.

  They rode in silence and soon the forest thinned until they were in the open, at the edge of a sheer cliff that plummeted to a narrow strip of rock-strewn sand far below, washed by frothy waves. The sky arched pale blue and cloudless over forests and farms, rolling pastures, grazing herds, and fenced yards where farmers raised a hand in greeting. And in a chorus all around them, the roosters crowed.

  Luke drew in his breath. "Wonderful. It's more rural than I imagined. A perfect respite from—" He stopped.

  "New York," Jessica said evenly, wondering when he would just come out and ask her what he wanted to know. "Though not many come here from the East Coast."

  "How many people live here year-round?"

  "I'm not sure. Two thousand, perhaps. Robert would know."

  "And are they mostly farmers?"

  "I don't know."

  "I thought the solitude might attract writers and artists, sculptors, perhaps."

  She gave him a brief look. "I don't think it's any kind of an art colony, if that's what you mean. I've heard of one writer, of mysteries, I think, and I've met one sculptor."

  "Is there a school?"

  "A very small one."

  "Then most of the homes are vacation homes?"

  "Many of them. Or weekend places for people from Seattle. I really don't know enough to answer your questions; you should talk to Robert. He knows everything about the island."

  "But you've lived here for several years and you've worked with—"

  "I have very little to do with the people on the island. Talk to Robert."

  "He seems to be a good friend."

  "He's been very good to me."

  "And very protective of your privacy."

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  CTS of Love ~ 183

  "He's protective of everyone. Most people are here for privacy." She saw in his face that he thought she went beyond privacy to isolation, but she would not be drawn into a discussion of the way she lived. "Robert can give you facts and figures, if that's what you want. He won't give you gossip."

  "How did you find him.^'"

  "Someone in Arizona had stayed at his inn and recommended it." She paused. "I assume you know I was in Arizona for two years."

  "Yes."

  She took a breath. "You read all my letters?"

  "Not the last ones. I stopped reading when I knew I had to see you."

  She paused at that, then decided to ignore it. "But all the others."

  "Yes. You must understand—" Once again he stopped himself. "I'm not trying to avoid this; I do want to talk to you about it, but not here. It's complicated and I'd like us to be sitting still. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Or in between. If any of that suits you."

  Her eyebrows went up. He was planning their whole day and evening. But, then, why not? He had said he'd come here to get to know her, and how else would he do it? If she let him.

  "Breakfast will be fine," she said, and urged her horse to a gallop. Again Luke matched her and they raced along the cliff, the sea wind in their faces, the sun burning off the last traces of the rainstorm and the early-morning dew. Dogs barked and children waved as they flew by; a woman hanging out her laundry picked up a young boy who shouted, "Hi, Jessica!" his words carried away by the wind. Horses came to their fences to watch them pass; a colt nursing at his mother's side turned toward them, briefly distracted; and two bicyclists on a nearby paved road held up their hands in the formal greeting of fellow riders.

  Jessica took another trail, turning inland, and they slowed to a trot on a road between long fences guarding farmhouses fronted by vegetable and flower gardens. The fields stretching behind them were scored by perfectly straight rows of square hay bales turning golden brown beneath the blazing sun. A mechanic gave a small salute and said, "Nice day, isn't it, after all that rain," and a woman weeding her garden looked up to smile and ask, "Do you need fresh eggs, Jessica? I can drop some off this afternoon."

  "Yes, thank you," Jessica said, and soon after turned at a trail that led back to the forest where they had started.

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  They had not spoken since the exchange about breakfast. Now, behind her, Luke said, "All those people know you."

  "I ride this way almost every day and we say hello."

  "But you don't know anything about them? When I asked about the people who live here—"

  "I only see them when I ride past." Her words were brusque. Stop pushing me! she demanded silently. Leave me alone! She knew he was remembering her letters. She remembered them, too, word for word.

  I've already made so many friends—the island is so small I've gotten to know almost everyone — and I have my wor.

  She felt her face flush, and a wave of anger swept over her. What right did he have to read her letters.f^ What right did he have to come here and confront her with them? Damn him, she thought; damn him for barging in where he has no right to be.

  She rode ahead, her face taut with anger. When they reached the barn and had put the horses in their stalls, she walked to the truck in silence, n
ot looking back. Luke came up to her. "I'm sorry. I should have known there's no way we can talk about anything outside the theater and Constance until we talk about your letters." She stopped beside the truck, not looking at him. "You knew yesterday that I'd read them," he said, and she heard an edge of impatience in his voice. "We spent a lot of hours together and you didn't make it an issue."

  She looked down, absently drawing circles in the dirt with the tip of her cane. Finally, she nodded. "You're right. I didn't want to think about it and we had so many other things to talk about."

  And I was having a good time.

  But she could not say that aloud. "Shall we have breakfast?" she asked.

  "I'd like that very much."

  They drove to her house in silence. Hope's ecstatic greeting bridged the awkwardness of going in together, and Luke went back outside to throw a stick for her to retrieve, again and again, while Jessica went to the kitchen. She flicked the switch on the coffeemaker, took a pan from the refrigerator and put it in the oven, then went back to the front door. "I made something before we left, but it needs twenty minutes. Would you like fruit?"

  "Yes, can 1 fix it?"

  "It's all done." She took a bowl from the refrigerator and carried it to a planked table on the terrace, silvered from rain and sun and set with a pair of yellow place mats with small white flowers, and Provencal dishes

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  o V E ~ 185

  in bright yellow, green and blue. Luke and Hope went around the house and met her there and she watched Luke pick up one of the mugs. "I bought them in Roussillon."

  "The shop on the main square," he said. "On the corner. The place mats, too.'^"

  "Yes."

  "I bought a tablecloth for Constance there. And a length of Chantilly lace, very beautiful, and unusual because it was white and most Chantilly is black. I don't know what she did with it; I didn't find it when I closed up her villa."

  "She gave it to me."

  Surprised, he looked at her.

  "She said I could use it for a mantilla, or something more mundane: a tablecloth or curtains. If I couldn't think of anything, she said, I should put it in my hope chest."

  "Did you have one.''"

  "No."

  "And the lace?"

  "I had it made into curtains for my bedroom."

  "I must have been too wet to notice. May I look?"

  "Of course."

  He went through the French doors into the living room and across it to the bedroom. The delicate silk lace hung straight and softly billowing across the three large windows. Its flowers and leaves were woven of twisted silk and outlined by strands of flat silk, and they twined and trailed on a hexagonal mesh background that allowed light and the colors of the beach and the bay to stream through. The sun brushed the lace with pale gold.

  "Constance would have been very happy," he said, returning to the terrace. "It's very beautiful here; the light brings it to life."

  "I told her about it in a phone call and I sent her a photograph."

  "There were no photos," Luke said musingly. "I wonder what she did with them."

  "Probably destroyed them, as she should have done with the letters."

  Luke let it pass. "Would you show me the rest of your house? We have time, don't we, before breakfast is ready?"

  She smiled slightly. "It won't take long; you've already seen most ofit."

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  Leaning on her cane, with Hope at their heels, she led him toward a door at the far end of the living room. Lagging back a little, Luke contemplated the finely shaped outline of her head and her short, silvery-gray hair curling loosely just to the top of her neck. From that angle, one could almost believe that this was the Jessica Fontaine of the past... until the eyes moved from her lovely, long neck to her stooped shoulders and the tilt of her frail body as she leaned on her cane. Then, even the expensive riding habit could not disguise the fact that this was a different Jessica.

  She glanced back and saw his encompassing gaze, and her body tensed. Luke saw her visibly pull into herself as a frightened animal withdraws into a skin of protective coloration, and she flushed, deeply and painfully. "I'm sorry," he said automatically, because it had suddenly become obvious to him (and he cursed himself for being so slow) that a woman who had no mirrors in her house would surely resist being stared at, or even closely observed.

  Without responding, she opened the door and stood aside for Luke to go past her. As he did, involuntarily he gasped. He was in a greenhouse that was an explosion of color, a maze of long, two-tiered redwood tables almost hidden beneath a profusion of orchids, amaryllis, begonias, geraniums, cyclamen, tea roses and chrysanthemums. One table was given over to herbs; Luke recognized thyme, rosemary, basil and chives, then saw a plant he could not identify. "They look like bay leaves."

  "They are."

  "I've never seen them growing. And this?" larragon.

  "And this?"

  "A Meyer lemon tree. It has a lot of growing to do."

  But I have a lot of time.

  As if she had spoken aloud, Luke thought he could hear her words. We'll talk about that, he thought, but not yet. He walked to the table covered with orchids: white Phalaenopsis, lavender Cymbidium, purple-and-gold Brassavola, Oncidium with arching stems covered with dozens of tiny yellow-orange flowers, and other varieties he had never seen. On the next table were tall, heavy-stalked amaryllis with massive flowers up to eight inches across, from pure white ones to the salmon-and-white double-petaled Lady Jane that dominated the table. "This takes an enormous

  amount of work," he said, moving to the table of cyclamen and roses. "And you have the garden outside, too."

  Jessica said nothing, and he continued to move about the room, taking pleasure in the warm fresh scent of damp earth and leaves and flowers. A potting table stood near a door, its surface wiped clean, garden tools hung neatly on hooks mounted on the shelves above, where peat starter pots, plant food and bags of potting soil were carefully stacked. So this is her passion, Luke thought, though how it could replace the theater . . . But then he remembered her illustrations. They had not even mentioned those, yet.

  "And this is my studio," Jessica said, as if she had heard his thought. She opened a double door that had draperies drawn across it on the other side and pulled open the draperies. "I control the hght with these, but usually I leave them open; I like to look at the greenhouse when I work, especially in winter."

  It was a large room with a skylight and tall windows on the far wall. Books covered the other walls, surrounding a wide fireplace beneath a carved wooden mantel. One of the shelves held Constance's collection of plays, supported between two bookends in the shapes of theater masks, one tragic, one comedic. The room was crowded, with a deep couch and a matching armchair, two long worktables, several easels with paintings propped on them, and a drafting table tilted at an angle, with a high padded stool in front of it. The floor was covered with a southwestern rug, its earth tones repeated in dozens of glazed and unglazed pots that Luke thought were probably Zuni or Navaho, filling tables and shelves along the windows. "Totally different from the rest of the house," he said. "Almost like traveling to another part of the country."

  "Yes, that's just it." Her anger at his inspection of her seemed to be gone. "That's exactly what I wanted. Some people go to offices—"

  "You go to the southwest." They smiled together. Luke wandered from easel to easel. "I have all your books," he said casually, and from the corner of his eye saw the surprise on her face. "At least, I have twelve of them. The bookstore clerk thought that was the whole collection. I found them extraordinary, quite satisfactorily haunting."

  "Satisfactorily haunting?"

  "It's always satisfying to be haunted by something, don't you think? There's so much that's ordinary all around us, and it blurs into other

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  ordinary things and then it's gone, as it should be. Your paintings keep coming back to me
; they appear at odd moments in the middle of whatever I'm doing. They're very fine."

  "Thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about them. I feel that way about Constance. She refuses to disappear."

  "And she won't, for either of us, because we're holding on to her. I've always felt that one of our deepest fears is that what is beautiful and special will slip away because we haven't tried hard enough, or haven't been able, to hold on to it."

  Jessica gave him a quick look, wondering if he were trying to be clever. He had gazed at her often enough to make her uncomfortable and angry, but not once had he spoken about the way she looked. And when she had opened the door the day before, and they had seen each other for the first time, he had not even seemed surprised. It was as if he had known what to expect. But he could not have known. Robert had told her about Luke's first trip to the island, so short it made no sense: he had arrived after midnight, Robert had said, and he had left early the next morning, with no time to see anyone.

  It was much more likely that when she opened her door to him he was the Luke Cameron she had heard about so often: a man who masked his emotions and kept his thoughts to himself.

  Or when he rang her doorbell he was too wet and cold to think of anything but getting dry.

  He was examining the paintings on her easels with an absorbed, concentrated look and it pleased her that a quick once-over was not enough for him. He studied the world he lived in; he did not take it for granted or skim with indifferent eyes.

  Then why had he said nothing about her looks? Why didn't his face show surprise and revulsion, as she was sure everyone's would the minute she showed herself in places where she was known? For all of yesterday, that wonderful day, they had talked and talked, and not once had his face betrayed anything but interest in their conversation and pleasure at being there.