Fire in the Wind

by Alexandra Sellers

  Did she want a green horseshoe for a trademark? Did she want a trademark emblem at all? A horseshoe was a western, a country symbol, and most of her clients would be city-bred women....Suddenly she had a vision of a black silky cocktail dress with long full sleeves and delicate cuffs, and on the left cuff, a small, diamanté horseshoe. Her heart beat a little more quickly, and she knew she was onto something. The horseshoe would not always have to say "number twenty-four," of course. Sometimes it could be stitch-work, sometimes an appliqué... sometimes you'd have to look hard to see it, sometimes there'd be a row of them down the sleeves—down the left sleeve....

  And in the fabric. Colin should redesign the fabric pattern with horseshoes.

  Abruptly Vanessa picked up the intercom and buzzed Robert's office.

  "Are you busy?" she asked. "There's something I'd like you to see."

  "Be right there," said Robert's voice, and within thirty seconds he was walking through her door.

  "Is this going to cost me?" he asked cheerfully, and she smiled. She and Robert had a lot of arguments over the running of the business, but they never descended to the level of the arguments she had had with Tom Marx, and neither she nor Robert carried a grudge, regardless of who won.

  "Yes," Vanessa said now, "but it's worth it."

  "It always is," Robert sighed resignedly.

  She showed him the sketches and began to outline what she had in mind. As she talked she became more and more enthused, and picking up one of the sketchbooks that was always handy she quickly sketched out a few of her ideas for him.

  "Once we have the fabric design I want, we can do it in a hundred different ways—in contrasting colours for sportswear, in gold thread for dressy blouses, canvas tote bags later on, some just stylized horseshoes, some reading 'number twenty-four'—"

  Robert interrupted. "Vanessa, this is a pretty expensive idea."

  "Robert, we can start small. I could use the fabric for only shorts, for example, and put the logo on them; and if we can get those T-shirts with the logo on the sleeve... we can go small or big with it depending on what the reaction is. I want the logo. The logo isn't the expensive part; it's the fabric that's expensive, and we can try that out slowly."

  "The logo may not be expensive, Vanessa, but it's one more step in the production process to get it on the garment, and that is going to cost. You've got to make up your mind what kind of operation you've got here and what kind of prices you're going to charge."

  The argument was familiar to both of them. It waged good-naturedly but seriously for half an hour and then finished without a decision having been made.

  Robert promised to have a look at the figures, and Vanessa promised to hold off asking Colin for a modification of his fabric design for a while.

  As a distraction from what was most pressing on her mind, Colin's envelope had been everything she could have wished, Vanessa thought. She was flushed and excited and filled with ideas for the summer line now.

  The moment she thought that, of course, all her worries roared back like a flash flood, and she found herself saying suddenly, "Robert, why is there a clause in the lease allowing Concorp to terminate the lease if we' re picketed by strikers?"

  Robert leaned back. "That was Jake's idea, and I must say I thought it a good one. What it means, in practical terms, is that if we are struck, we've got one extra bargaining tool against the union."

  "We'll be forced out of business if they don't settle quickly?"

  "Something like that. It could work."

  "It could backfire, too. Especially if Jake were bought out or something," Vanessa suggested gently.

  Robert blinked. "True," he said. "But it's a five-year lease, and that's not likely to happen in the next five years. If it hasn't proved to be of any value, get it taken out when you renew."

  The switch from "we" to "you" reminded her that Robert wasn't going to be at Number 24 over the long haul, and she felt a tiny pang. She enjoyed working with Robert: she understood Robert and he understood her.

  That his understanding didn't extend to Jake and his motives in this business wasn't really surprising: in his dealings with her it seemed that Jake was acting entirely out of character.

  * * *

  That evening, oddly, she suffered reaction for the first time. Vanessa walked home from the bus stop under the bright green umbrella she had learned to carry with her every day, possessed of the calm confidence she was used to. Her thoughts were on her determination to win every battle with Jake Conrad, to beat him at his own game. She felt no hint of any approach of melancholy.

  But inexplicably during that short walk her resolve began to slip away from her, as though the wind were pulling off a protective cloak or the rain dissolving the marrow of her bones. By the time she had mounted the suddenly endless stairs and gained the comfort of her home, Vanessa felt sodden, sick, empty—and helpless. What was the use? Why bother to try to fight, to care about anything? Jake had the upper hand. She was a fool if she thought anything else.

  Everything that she had not allowed herself to feel after the numbing blows of the past days swamped her now. Vanessa sank down on the couch more hurt and discouraged than she had ever felt in all her life.

  She had never before, not once, been able to understand the tragic despair that drove people to suicide. Even in her lowest moments, even when life was at its rottenest, something inside her had been unquenchable, had made her think, but life isn't really like this; life is good, it's just my life that's bad for the moment, and my life will get better.

  Always before, there had been hope, and she understood now with an absolute clarity that it was hope that gave one courage to face life's horrors. If you looked around the globe, life itself was not always good. For some people—for lots of people—it must seem more of a burden than a gift.

  It was hope that made life seem good even through the bad patches. Hope that tomorrow would be better.

  But tomorrow would never be better for Vanessa. Not any more. Not... not in a world where Jake did not love her.

  It's hate, isn't it? You hate me, she heard herself saying; and Jake's answer, That's what it is. And then suddenly her head and her ears were full of every ugly, brutal, hating thing Jake had said to her, a cacophony of torment. You really are an accomplished hypocrite....I am already tired of you....You owe me and you're going to pay.

  I pledged Marigold—oh, God, how that one ripped, though she had scarcely heard it at the time! I want to take it away from you, piece by piece....You shouldn't have come back, Vanessa.

  It's hate, isn't it?

  That's what it is... that's what it is... that's what it is....

  She screamed aloud in protest, plugging her ears to make the voices stop; and abruptly, as though a television set had been shut off, there was a deafening silence all around her. In the grey gloom of her sitting room, as the soft rain, falling harder now, was whipped against the windows, Vanessa let the tears come.

  She was appalled at herself. She was a cheerful, intelligent, hard-working person. She couldn't believe that the lack of one person's love—that one man's hatred could take all the joy out of life, could rob her of her reason for living. It simply wasn't possible. But it felt possible, and her tears did not stop.

  Eventually she knew that this was more than just the pain of a few days or weeks: these were the tears of ten long years, and the hope that was dying now was the hope that had sustained her during all that time.

  She had lied to herself. She had never forgotten Jace. She hadn't wanted him to be happily married and proud of her success in a brotherly way, the way she had let herself believe.

  My God, he was right, she was a hypocrite! If he had let her, she would have ripped Jace Conrad away from anyone or anything that held him.

  Vanessa shuddered, looking into the blackest parts of her heart for the first time in her life. She would not have been sweet and understanding with whatever spineless creature she had found clinging to Jace. She would hav
e destroyed the world if it meant she could have him, and smiled at him in its smoking ruins.

  Chapter 15

  On a Friday evening late in September Vanessa made sure her make-up and clothes were perfect, brushed her shining just-washed russet hair out over her shoulders and left Number 24 early. By four-fifteen she was ensconced in the lobby of Jake's hotel in a comfortable stuffed chair that had a good view of the front door and, through the large windows, of the wide driveway.

  Vanessa held an open copy of the national edition of The Globe and Mail, but she didn't even pretend to read it. She simply sat there, watching for Jake Conrad.

  Her watch said five past six when she saw him arrive. He came through the door, around to the little nook where she was sitting and right up to her chair without any break in his stride, as though he had known she was there. Vanessa was so surprised she hardly had time to blink.

  A curl of dark hair was falling forward over his brow, and his eyes looked distant, black and hooded as he stood over her.

  "What do you want?" he demanded in a brusque emotionless voice.

  She had been depending on taking him by surprise—following him to his suite and pushing her way through the door before he knew what was happening. Now he would probably throw her out.

  "How did you see me?" she demanded, unaccountably assailed by a desire to hit him.

  "Don't be a fool," he said, as if everybody knew he had second sight. "Answer my question."

  Vanessa stood up. In her high heels her eyes were not so far below his, and she suddenly remembered that ten years ago she had been wearing then-fashionable platform shoes, which had made her almost as tall as Jace. That was why Jake had seemed taller than the Jace she remembered. She wondered how much that small detail had thrown her off the scent, because she ought to have known. She was a fool not to have known. If nothing else, she ought to have known him by the urgency deep inside herself, as though there was a line attached to the deepest part of her being and he was pulling on it.

  "I want to talk to you," she said, her voice hoarse, almost inaudible with the tension of her frightened need.

  He turned without a word, was halfway across the lobby to the elevators before she knew it. Her heels clicking on the marble flooring with an urgency that made heads turn, Vanessa ran after him. He did not speak to her, did not look at her again as they waited by the elevators, as they took the long journey upward together.

  Inside his penthouse suite, she sank into one of the chairs by the window, her body trembling.

  "Drink?" Jake asked brusquely, and she could use some Dutch courage right now.

  "Brandy, please, Jake," she said softly; and he silently reached and poured.

  "Please sit down," she said nervously to his back after he handed her a glass and went and stood looking out the window. "You make me nervous like that."

  "If you have something to say, say it," he said tiredly, not moving even to look at her.

  "Jake." She swallowed some of the brandy, suddenly frightened that she would cry. "Please, can I tell you why I married Larry?"

  His body became, if possible, more still. "You've already told me, I believe," he said in an expressionless voice.

  "No, that... that wasn't the real reason. I was lying, you must have known I was lying."

  "Must I?"

  She began quickly before he could say no, "Jake, I don't know if I ever told you about the Standishes. They—my father went to work for them when I was ten. They were always good to us. Mrs. Standish was—was like a mother to me. Mommy died when I was only three and—she helped me, growing up. She didn't have any daughters, and she told me all the things I always imagined that a mother does tell a daughter....

  "When Daddy died I was only sixteen, and then they really adopted me, right into the family. And Larry was the first boy I dated and everybody was so happy and thought it was so right."

  There were tears trickling down her cheeks, but she ignored them, trying to keep the sound of them out of her voice. "I spent Christmases with them; after you left on Christmas Eve that's where I went, that's where I always went for Christmas. And that night when the men were all in the next room playing cards or some game or something... Daniella—Mrs. Standish—told me that... that Larry had cancer of the spinal column and the doctors had told her he could only live for six to eight months."

  Jake did not move, but Vanessa had almost forgotten his presence. Her eyes were not seeing the room in front of her. "I looked through the French doors at all the Standish men around a table, laughing and squabbling like children, and Larry's eyes were so bright and full of life I just couldn't believe it. He didn't know, Daniella said. The doctor was a family friend. Everybody but Larry knew....

  "She told me she knew about you. Told me they'd all noticed, except Larry; they'd guessed I was in love with someone else. And she asked me about you and I told her—told her you... you wanted me to go at Easter....

  "She said Larry would be dead by the summer, that if we could just wait a couple of months, you and I, I could... I could marry Larry and make the last months of his life happy, that he'd told her he was going to propose to me over Christmas, that he loved me very much. And if I turned him down it would destroy him, and it was only for a few months, and if you loved me you'd understand."

  Vanessa closed her eyes, remembering that tortured, terrible moment, remembering the soft pleading eyes, asking for her whole happiness and making it seem such a little thing to ask....

  "Larry asked me to marry him at midnight. She hadn't told me he would ask me that night. I was so confused I couldn't think, I felt... I wanted to speak to you, ask you....I'd planned to try to phone you the next day; but I had to say yes or no....

  Afterwards I wanted to change my mind. Then Lou—Larry's brother—got mad at his mother, told her she didn't have the right, and suddenly I was siding against Lou, I was saying I did love Larry, and it was true, I was fond of Larry, in a warm way. I suppose I'd have been happy with that, too, if you hadn't taught me... taught me the difference...."

  She broke off, because that thought made the tears stronger so that they threatened to choke her.

  "They announced the engagement at a big New Year's Eve party. Everyone was there, and everyone was so happy for us, said it was so right. And Larry was—so happy and laughing. He'd pleased everyone at once, even himself. He always wanted to please.

  "That was the night I wrote you, when I knew it was too late to ask you any more. Mrs. Standish surprised us by saying the wedding would be in two weeks, and I knew I couldn't do it myself, stop the preparations, kill everyone's happiness, and it was only for six months and I could make him happy before he died."

  "But he didn't die."

  He still had his back to her, unmoving, and his voice sounded hoarse and strained, breaking into the flow of her memory.

  "No, he didn't die." Vanessa took a deep breath, feeling as though it was the first oxygen she'd had since she began this story. "He—he didn't have cancer of the spinal column after all. He had a disease called neurofibromatosis. It's a different kind of disease, it causes a slow breakdown....We didn't find out about it till two years later, and that's when Larry learned his mother had had the cancer diagnosis two years before but that we'd all kept it from him.

  "That's when he understood why I had refused to leave college, had insisted on working after we were married. And why I refused to have a baby. He wanted children, but I—I'd kept saying no.

  "He knew then why I'd married him." Vanessa bowed her head and felt the tears come rushing down her cheeks. "He—he looked at me as if he hated me. He said if I'd left him alone he might have found a woman who really loved him, who'd have wanted his baby even though he was going to die—because he was going to die.

  "I offered to have a baby then. There was no telling then how long he would live, how long it would be before he became physically disabled. He could have had a child and watched it grow. But he refused. He—he made sure I couldn't. He
said I'd already given up too much for him. After that he never asked me to quit work. He knew why I wouldn't want to live on Standish money afterwards, why I had to have a career. He was very understanding after that. He never complained when... it got bad.

  "But his soul was gone. He hated his mother, and if he didn't hate me, he—he despised himself for loving me. I knew he wanted to make me leave him, but he couldn't make himself do it. He needed me. And that... destroyed him. He despised himself.

  "At the end he needed me more than ever. He forgot what he knew about why I'd married him. He'd never known about you. He never knew what I'd given up. If he'd known he would have made me leave him, but I never told him. I knew it was too late for you and me; I'd known that when you didn't answer my letter."

  She was crying openly now, her head bowed, her hair hiding her face. But Jake wasn't looking at her. He was still there, staring out the window at the mountains. Vanessa swallowed and breathed deeply to calm herself.

  She said, "I just wanted you to know," and got up and walked to the door and slipped from the room. Imprinted on her mind was the sight of the tall still figure by the window, unrelenting, unforgiving, and she thought she would carry that image to her grave.

  * * *

  There was a letter from Lou Standish on the mat when she got home, a friendly, brotherly letter asking how she was and if she needed any help, legal or otherwise. Vanessa felt a pang of guilt, realizing that she hadn't once written the Standish family since leaving New York.

  But now her heart rebelled against the instinctive feeling of guilt, and what she felt was, they had me for ten years, but now I belong to me. She missed other friends in New York, but oddly, she never consciously missed the Standishes. Perhaps, when she put her life right—if she put her life right—it might be safe for her to speak to Daniella Standish again.

  She put the letter away. In any case, she couldn't answer it this weekend. She would be too busy this weekend.

  She would be busy waiting for Jake to call, or to come. When he had absorbed what she had told him, he would have to begin to forgive. And if he could forgive her, then he must stop hating her.