"Damn it, Karim, don't patronize me."
"Don't punish me for crimes I wasn't aware I'd committed."
They stared at each other. Beth's eyes filled with tears. She groped in her purse, only to find she had forgotten to replenish her supply of tissues. Karim silently handed her a giant-size one of his own.
"It's been a difficult day," she finally said.
Karim looked alarmed. "Don't tell me you and Jeremy Morley couldn't agree on a program—"
"No, no, our meeting went well. A little rushed, but we agreed on the essentials."
"Ah, I thought so. When he saw your grades—they were very good, you know."
"You needn't sound so surprised."
He paused. A flicker of embarrassment crossed his face. He cleared his throat. "As I was saying, we discussed the course offerings, and we decided—"
"You decided? Weren't you the one encouraging me to take charge of my life?"
"For heaven's sake, Beth, Jeremy's testy at best, and I knew he was itching to get back to the Cape. I really don't see the harm—"
"When I was a child, I took riding lessons," Beth broke in, "and whenever any of us got a difficult horse, the instructor insisted on leading it around the ring by the reins. She said she couldn't take the chance of our being hurt." Beth looked up into Karim's puzzled hazel eyes. "None of us learned much that summer." She reached across to grasp his hands. "Give me the damn reins, Karim."
He stared at her for a long moment, nodded, then smiled. "My oh my," he murmured. "What have I set in motion here?" She glowered at him. "Hey, they're yours," he added hastily, forestalling another outburst. "Reins, boots, spurs, whip—"
"Crop," she corrected.
"Whatever. So, after your meeting with Morley, then what happened?"
She told him about Reuben Gerber asking Georgina to marry him.
"Do you think she will?"
"I don't know; the fact she's even considering it is surprising enough for the time being." She hesitated. "Remember telling me about the trouble she's having devising a new approach to the college publicity?"
Karim nodded.
"I suggested she call Housa. I hope that's all right with you."
"It's Georgina's responsibility to carry through on what we discussed; how she does it is up to her." He grinned and spread his palms out. "See? No reins."
Beth laughed, relieved that Karim wasn't given to sulking. "You just couldn't resist that, could you?"
He smiled, then sobered. "What is it, Beth, your mother?"
"Among others, and today was full of others. Saying my goodbyes at the clinic and the hospice...but, yes, principally my mother. She didn't want to see me tonight. She said she wasn't feeling well, but.… Let's just say I wasn't convinced." Beth shook her head. "Speaking of family, you were going to tell me about Amity."
Just then, the waitress came for their drink order. Karim delayed her departure—to give himself more time? Beth wondered—by giving her their dinner order, too.
He looked down at the table, tracing the swirling pattern in the damask cloth with one brown finger. "The man she's been seeing, Nick Cuddon?" Beth nodded. "I ran into him by chance in New Haven outside the Yale Co-op, and we had coffee together. I knew he'd asked Amity to move in with him. He wasn't keen on talking about it, but he finally admitted they'd had an awful, ego-battering row about it."
"It seems so pointless to fight about something like that. When you come right down to it, there are only three ways to go: 'yes', 'no' or 'we'll see.' "
"With Amity, nothing is ever that simple. The thing is, I don't know how much of her negative emotionalism Nick is prepared to take. I told Amity that, but she insists Nick loves her, no matter what. She also insists that if I truly loved Val, I wouldn't have given up on her, either. Amity's words, not mine. She refuses to face the fact that love, like any growing thing, needs care and nourishment to survive."
"I thought you said you told her the decision was mutual."
"I did. More than once. But the closer the date of the final decree, the more bitter she becomes. Learning you were going with me to Turkey didn't help."
Beth wondered if that was what caused the angry departure Georgina had witnessed from her office window. "Amity and I can't be kept at arm's length forever, you know." Her lips quirked in a wry smile. "It isn't as if distance were lending enchantment."
"I realize that." He gave a profound sigh, as if dreading the prospect. "But in the meantime, should you see her coming your way, I advise you to head in the opposite direction as fast as you can."
Beth thought it sad advice for a father to feel he had to give. "You had to tell her I was going, I suppose."
"It would have been worse if she found out from someone else."
"Yes. Of course it would. I'm sorry I even suggested—"
"Nothing to be sorry for, Beth. Frankly, I sometimes wish we could just fly up into the blue and leave both our families far behind."
Beth smiled up at the girl who brought their drinks, then leaned across the table. "Isn't that exactly what we're planning to do?" she whispered.
Karim's puzzled look relaxed into a conspiratorial smile. "Right you are. Three weeks from today I'll be meeting your plane at Ankara." He frowned. "And in only ten days I'll be leaving myself. Good Lord, when I think what needs to be done before the fall term begins.…"
He looked at her earnestly. "I'm afraid I won't have much time to spend with you before I leave, Beth. Even my evenings will be taken up with dinner meetings of various kinds: faculty, department heads—you know how it is."
She nodded, thinking of her own duties. She should notify the real-estate people— and her lawyer, too, in case there was any action on the house while she was away— and she had yet to decide what to take with her. "What kind of weather should I expect, Karim? Doris Kierznek—she's Andy's secretary—couldn't believe I hadn't even begun to think about what I was going to wear." She grinned. "I got the distinct impression that as far as she's concerned the only advantage travel has over staying home is the excuse it provides for shopping for new clothes."
"Think hot and think cotton. Air-conditioning is far from common, I'm afraid, but on the other hand, every hotel provides laundry services..."
They discussed the comparative prices of Turkish and American services over their crab salad, Turkish wines over dessert, and ayran, the chilled liquid yogurt that Karim insisted was a delicious accompaniment to Turkish food, over coffee.
"I wish we were leaving together tomorrow," Beth murmured after a lingering parting kiss in a shadowed corner of the parking lot.
"I wish you could at least come back with me tonight, but two of my student helpers insisted staying on to finish shelving my books. They mean well, but if left unsupervised for too long, I fear I'll end up with the volumes and papers dealing with the Middle East mixed in with those on the Middle Ages."
"Tsk, tsk, we can't have that, can we?" she teased.
"Now, Beth," he chided mildly. "I need to review some of that archaeological material before I leave. I first visited the Catal Hiiyiik site with my father in the late fifties and sixties, when the original exploration was being done. Little has been done since, but given the instability of that region of the world, it could be overrun and destroyed at any time. This may be my last chance."
Mine, too, Beth thought as she looked up at his solemn face. As they moved away from the heavily leafed maples, his strong features were thrown into sharp relief by the parking area illumination. "Go along then, my love. We'll catch up some other time."
Chapter Sixteen
When Beth woke Sunday morning, a distant sputter of firecrackers followed by a deeper throated boom reminded her it was the Fourth of July. She walked to the window and peered up at a lackluster sky hazed by a procession of increasingly humid days. Just looking at it made her eyes feel scratchy. Her head ached too, but not, she thought, as much as it would have if she'd attended the country club dance the night before.
Beth had refused. The excuses that came readily to mind were true enough. "Too many memories, Marilyn." The truest of the lot, that she just plain didn't want to go—never had wanted to—she was too kind to admit. "Besides, it's awkward being odd woman out."
"I know, I know," Marilyn crooned. "Remember those attractive bachelor members we could count on as dancing partners when we first joined the club? Now they're all either married or dead." After a short pause for lugubrious reflection, she suggested Beth bring Karim with her. "We'd all love to get to know him better. Howard would be delighted to take him in hand. You know—introduce him around?"
Beth, sure that neither Howard nor Karim would be in the least delighted, demurred. "He's leaving for Turkey for six weeks next Thursday, Marilyn, and I know he has a great deal to do at the college before he leaves." She forced a laugh. "You know those Fourth of July bashes—they usually wipe out the following day, too."
"Too true!” Marilyn admitted. "Six weeks, huh? I guess your summer will be pretty lonely."
Beth hesitated, wondering how to respond to Marilyn's baited hook. Should she admit she was planning to join him? Tell her she was going back to school when they returned? She decided to pass.
"We're just friends, Marilyn. Besides, I have a lot to do myself. I've hardly started packing, and if the house should sell.…"
The conversation immediately detoured from her personal life to Marilyn's view of the local real estate market, a pessimistic monologue which only added to Beth's concern about the advisability of realtors' bringing clients to look at the house in dank weather like this. It would be like touring a mausoleum. The day before, in desperation, Beth lit some scented candles she found in the back of the hall table's drawer. Bought two years ago at the church's Autumn Harvest Fair, their synthetic attempt at a woodsy aroma reminded Beth why she had pushed them to the rear in the first place. Georgina, who stopped by to give her half of the box of Godiva chocolates Reuben had brought her, had pulled up short in the entrance hall. "My God! Why do I feel as if I'm entering one of those ghastly open-all-year Christmas specialty shops?"
Beth turned away from the window. Better Christmas than crypt, she decided. As she dressed, she heard a succession of low rumbles. An hour later, while she was washing her breakfast dishes, a searing flash of lightning followed by a doomsday crack of thunder ushered in a power outage that lasted the rest of the morning. As she dutifully made the rounds of the house, resetting electric clocks that blinked peremptorily out of the gloom from each room she entered, the phone rang. It was her mother. Beth crossed her fingers, guiltily hoping that maybe the supper with Dana was being called off again.
"Beth? Is your power out?"
"It just came back on. If yours didn't we can postpone—"
"No, it never went off here. It's just that...well, after hearing the storm warnings Dana called to check on me, so I thought maybe I'd better give you a ring."
Dana called, but I didn't. "Supper's still on, then?"
"Any reason it shouldn't be?"
"Of course not, Mother. Can I bring anything? I have some of those Godiva chocolate truffles you like so much."
"I've already made a dessert, Elizabeth."
"As a treat, Mother. Just for you."
"Oh. Well. Thank you, Beth. What a sweet thought."
Beth knew better than to admit it was at best a second thought, courtesy of Georgina DeLuca.
As soon as they said goodbye, she slipped six of the foil-wrapped confections into a pretty little floral-printed sack, and left it together with her keys on the table in the entrance hall. Catching an unplanned sight of herself in the gold-framed mirror above it, she winced at the lines etched across her forehead and the despondent droop of the corners of her mouth. She smoothed away the puffiness under listless eyes with her fingertips, frowning as it reappeared. Even a cat would hesitate before dragging me in, she muttered, but she knew Karim would, someday. In Turkey, perhaps ? After a long day of sightseeing, walking in the heat and dust? What then?
Deciding it was time to take more than just her wardrobe in hand, Beth ran back upstairs. When she left for her mother's house three hours later, the hall mirror reflected brighter eyes and a face both rosier and softer, thanks to the application of steaming face cloths followed by a variety of widely advertised creams and lotions that claimed to melt away the years. She picked up the chocolates and her car keys, then took a second, harder look. Maybe not younger, she admitted, but definitely better. She closed the door behind her with a defiant slam. If he'd wanted younger, damn it, he wouldn't have chosen me.
As Beth walked the few steps to the garage, she exulted in the dryer, cooler air delivered by the freshening breeze that tousled her newly washed hair. The sky had cleared; puffy white clouds out of a child's storybook crowded the horizon. The only remnants of the storm were a scattering of wind-pruned branches and the puddles shining like small blue windows along the shoulders of the road. That means the firework display will be on tonight at the town park after all. Jamie was too young to do more than cry at the noise, and Clara would probably clap her pudgy hands over her ears, but Beth was sure Daisy would ooh and ah with the best of them. As she slowed for the turn into her mother's driveway, Beth found herself regretting that her dread of the post-display traffic jams now outweighed the thrill of the spectacle. What was that old song Daddy used to sing? Something about growing too old to dream.
Her mother, trim in a white, gold trimmed two-piece dress, waved to her from the side door. "Beth! Come along, dear, Dana's waiting on the porch. The lawn chairs are still damp from the rain. My, how pretty you look."
Beth received her mother's cool kiss on her cheek, and accepted a glass of sherry from the tray her daughter offered. Having eaten only a small banana for lunch, she wished she could commandeer the small dish of peanuts for herself. Instead, she munched her modest handful one at a time as Dana told them about the flooding the storm had caused south of New Haven, and her mother lamented the loss of her delphiniums—"those new Pacific Coast hybrids I bought on that day we went to the White Flower Farm?"—just short of the peak of their glory.
"If you would just give in and stake them," Beth began.
"The stakes are so ugly, Beth. I had hoped that maybe this year.…"
"Hoping for a July without a thunderstorm is like looking for Elvis in the supermarket, Mother."
"What on earth are you talking about, Elizabeth?"
Dana suppressed a smile. "She's talking about miracles, Murry, and the unfortunate lack of them."
"Oh." Her huffiness subsided. A bell rang distantly in the kitchen. "My quiche! Come along, girls, everything's ready, but I'll need your help to bring it and our salads to the table."
The Swiss cheese quiche, densely stuffed with mushrooms, was superb. "Heavy cream is the secret," Muriel confessed. "I know Ralph wouldn't have approved," she added, with a guilty sidelong glance at Dana, "but occasionally, as a treat.…"
Dana leaned forward and patted her grandmother's hand. "Well, we just won't tell, will we?"
Seeing her mother's faded eyes brighten as she returned Dana's fond glance, Beth felt left out, as she had so many times before. She finished her quiche in silence. As she passed her glass for a refill of iced coffee from her mother's crystal pitcher, she saw a conspiratorial glance pass between them. She felt her heart skip a beat.
"Well, now, Beth, what's this about your going back to college this fall?" Muriel began.
Andy must have told mother, Beth thought, looking warily from one face to the other, both alight with curiosity. The question is, what else did he tell them?
Her mother laughed at her expression. "Dana certainly got more than she bargained for when she pulled into Ben Gibson's for gas this afternoon."
"It's a big step, Mother," Dana said. "When did you decide to take it?"
Beth had expected hostility. Instead, they seemed pleased by the news. She relaxed. "When I have a smaller place to look after, I'll have time to do more than volunteer work. I love the counseling I did at the clinic, but without a master's degree, I've reached a dead end there." She told them about the state's requirements for funding that had forced Andy to replace her. "It seemed the logical thing to do."
"All the more reason for you to move in with Murry," Dana said. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth caught her mother's quickly suppressed look of distress. "How long is it going to take you, four years?"
"Three. I'll be doing an accelerated program. But I really don't think moving in with—”
"Look," Dana broke in, "you're going to have to pack up the things in Daddy's house sooner or later—you said so yourself—so why not get that behind you this summer? The course work will be more demanding than you realize, Living here, you and Murry could share housekeeping duties." She smiled fondly at her mother and grandmother. "Why, it'll be just like old times."
Her choice of tense indicated the arrangement was a fait accompli in her mind.
Oh God. Beth took a deep breath. "The packing will have to wait. I'm going to Turkey this summer for four weeks. With Karim Donovan."
The glass Muriel Tomlinson was holding slipped out of her hand onto the table. Beth hurried to the kitchen for a wad of paper toweling. When she returned, Dana had moved the embroidered linen place mats away from the spreading ooze and regained her seat at the head of the table. Ralph's seat. And it was Ralph's cool gaze that looked at her from her daughter's pale face.
Beth took her napkin from her lap, placed it on the table beside her and folded it, carefully pressing the creases back into the linen with the edge of her thumbnail. Since the napkins would have to be washed it was a pointless gesture, but it allowed her to avoid for a moment longer the reckoning awaiting her. Her mother's indrawn breath, indicating she was about to speak, told her she could wait no longer.
And Be My Love Page 21
