“To Guenevere and Lancelot,” I said, raising a flute when the waiter had filled them. Olivia raised her own, and we each took a sip.
“I have something else to celebrate, too, Ted,” said Olivia. “You know that call I made back at Carnegie Hall? That’s when I found out I’m finished shooting. I have to stay in New York for a few more days in case we need to redo a scene or shoot extra footage, but for all practical purposes, I’m done.”
“To finished films, then,” I said, and we drank again.
“And there’s something else,” said Olivia, pausing to look me square in the eyes. “When I go back to L.A., my husband and I will be announcing our formal separation. If everything goes smoothly, our divorce should be final by the end of the year.”
I didn’t know what to say. We just sat there staring at each other for a minute or two.
“Jay and I haven’t really lived together for almost three years now,” said Olivia. “We’ve been keeping up appearances to keep the tabloids at bay, mostly for Teddie’s sake—”
“Teddy?”
“Oh!” Olivia said, blushing. “My daughter, Theodora. We call her Teddie.” Olivia’s cheeks were hot with color now. Damn! Had she really given her daughter my nickname? I was shocked. I was flattered. I was—damn! What was happening?
Olivia opened her shoulder bag and extracted a small photo album bound in glove leather. Opening it to the first page, she turned it toward me. There, smiling in a pink leotard and tutu, was Teddie. Her dark hair was tied into two ponytails with lavender ribbons, and she was missing her two front teeth.
“This picture’s almost a year old now,” Olivia said, “but that’s Teddie. She says she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up.”
“She’s beautiful, Olivia,” I said. “She looks just like you. And if she is like you, I have no doubt we’ll see her name in lights one of these days.”
“Did you know I never graduated from Haviland?” Olivia asked suddenly. It seemed like a change of subject, but perhaps thinking of her daughter’s future had reminded her of her own past. My look of surprise was enough to give Olivia my answer.
“I left when you did,” she said quietly. “Moved to L.A.”
“Why?” I asked with astonishment.
“Because of you, Ted.”
Chapter 21
Fortunately, Baccala really was a restaurant for night owls, because Olivia’s four-word answer began a conversation that lasted through dinner and launched us on a second bottle of champagne.
“After you left, I just couldn’t stand being at Haviland any longer.” She paused a moment before continuing. “I decided that if you could stand up to your parents and do what you really wanted, I could, too. I wanted to be an actress. Except for being with you, it was all I ever wanted. Once you were gone, it was all I had left.”
She looked up, and our eyes met. Before I could respond, Olivia went on.
“My mother and I fought for weeks, but I finally convinced her to let me go and live with her parents in Van Nuys. I promised her I’d finish high school. I got my first job in a commercial just before I turned seventeen.” Olivia fell silent, her fingers playing with the stem of her champagne flute. I just watched her, and at last she spoke again.
“Remember when we went to your parents’ house that weekend?” Olivia continued.
My mind traveled back to the day we drove there, and that night! I’d never let myself think about those few ecstatic moments when we had held each other. The feelings flooded back to me as I remembered the bliss of our bodies touching, bringing at last into three dimensions the sweet connection we shared.
“I don’t want to make it sound as though your parents treated me badly, but—”
“What did they do?” I asked, suddenly annoyed. “What did they say?”
Olivia took both my hands in hers.
“Teddy, it’s okay. It was a long time ago.” She paused. “I don’t think your father realized how horrible I felt about my mother’s leaky old station wagon. He told me it had permanently stained the flagstones on your driveway.”
“He told you that?” I said, anger rising. “If I had known—”
Olivia touched my hand. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said, “but at the time it made the chasm between us so obvious. I tried to deny it, but you were a privileged rich kid, and I was the cleaning lady’s daughter. I don’t think your dad had any idea, but pointing out those oil spots did a better job of putting me in my place than any direct criticism ever could have.”
“He knew exactly what he was doing,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had known.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Olivia said, “and your mother was really very kind. She asked me what my dreams were, what I wanted more than anything. I said I wanted to be an actress, and she said there was no reason I couldn’t be a fabulous one as long as I didn’t get distracted. Then she asked me if I was an only child.”
“What? Why?”
“She said that only children have special challenges because they don’t have any siblings to take the spotlight off them and they have to carry the burden of their parents’ expectations alone. She said she knew what she was talking about because she was an only child. And so are you, and so was your dad.” Olivia paused. “She was right. Only children do have more to live up to.”
“She was right about your acting ability. You’re terrific.”
Olivia sighed. “My acting was never better than during those last few weeks of school that year. After I told you things were over between us, pretending that they really were over took every molecule of acting ability I possessed. And your father—”
“My father did something else?” I asked, anger again rising inside me.
“Do you remember in the morning how he asked me if I wanted to see his gem collection? He showed me all the stones, and then he singled out one diamond. He said you had already picked that one out for—”
“What? I—” But Olivia went on.
“He said you’d chosen it for an engagement ring, and that you had a girl already picked out, too: the daughter of two of the dinner guests I’d met the night before. Karen. She was your childhood sweetheart, he said, and she was going to college in the East, just like you.”
“Damn him!” I exclaimed a little too loudly. “And you know what makes me really angry? He did offer me that diamond to give to someone someday. But not to Karen! We were only friends because our parents were friends. I took her to a movie over Easter vacation because my parents practically ordered me to.”
“I didn’t believe him at first, but then—” Olivia bent her head down as she went on, speaking more softly. “But then you were just so—so happy after that, so excited about going to Juilliard. I couldn’t help wondering about what your father said, and whenever I made up my mind to ask you about it, you were always talking nonstop about how wonderful everything was going to be.”
Olivia looked into my eyes, and I saw the old pain there. She paused, then sighed deeply. “And then you lied to me.”
“What?” My mind was reeling. “I never lied to you.”
“You said you had to go home to have dinner with your aunt.”
Stunned, I stared at Olivia as I struggled to remember—damn! She had known I didn’t have an aunt. I had lied to her.
“I waited until Camelot was over so the show wouldn’t suffer.” She brushed a stray tendril of hair off her forehead, then continued. “I hoped against hope that you’d pursue me and insist that I take you back. I even would have felt better if you’d chased me down and cursed me, but—well, by the time graduation rolled around, I figured I was right. Your dad had told me the truth, and you were the liar.”
We both just sat there for a few minutes. I tried to let the fury toward my father subside. Damn him! How could he have been so devious? Suddenly, I remembered somethi
ng.
“I did lie about having an aunt, Olivia, but it wasn’t because I had another girlfriend.” I paused. “And what difference would it have made, anyway? You had another boyfriend.”
“What?” Olivia seemed genuinely astonished.
“It’s okay, Olivia. It was a long time ago.”
“But, Ted! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I saw you with him,” I said. “The day I came back from the senior trip. A week before graduation. In the secret garden. Olivia, I saw him kiss you.”
Olivia ran a hand through her hair as she thought back.
“Oh, my God, Ted,” she said at last. “You’re talking about Chuy! He and I went to the secret garden to talk. We wanted to get away from the grownups and little kids.”
I sat silently until she continued.
“Chuy’s my cousin. My dad’s sister’s son. He and his family were visiting from Mexico. I hadn’t seen them since I was little.” She laughed a little sad laugh. “It’s weird that you saw us, Teddy. I told him about you when we were sitting out there, and he tried to cheer me up. He told me my dad would have wanted him to look out for me. Chuy remembered my dad. He’s almost six years older than me.”
“Your cousin. If I had only known.”
“And you didn’t have another girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “Not that my parents didn’t want me to. My mom made me go home that weekend to go to Karen’s birthday party. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d think I was dating her.”
“I thought you were practically engaged.” Olivia smiled and sighed. “Kids are so stupid. Always jumping to terrible conclusions without enough to go on.”
I looked at her as I thought back to those last days before graduation. “Wait a second!” I said. “Didn’t you get my letter?”
Olivia didn’t reply. She just pulled her shoulder bag into her lap again, and opened it. She drew out an envelope and laid it on the table between us.
“You mean this letter, Ted?” she asked, and I stared at the familiar handwriting and stationary.
“Yes!” I said, astonished. Picking up the envelope, I slid the folded page out from inside it. There, written in blue ballpoint pen, was the message I had labored so hard to perfect so many years before.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the careful handwriting. It took me back to the day I wrote it, the day before I left for San Francisco on the senior trip. I remembered how I’d slipped into the mailroom and left it in Eleanor de la Vega’s mailbox. Olivia didn’t have her own pigeonhole because she didn’t live in the dorm.
“I got that letter yesterday,” said Olivia, yanking me back to the present.
“Yesterday?”
“My mother sent it. She’s the one who kept it all these years.” Olivia took a breath and continued. “She’s sorry now. She said she has regretted keeping that letter from me ever since I phoned her from Las Vegas to tell her that Jay and I had just gotten married. When I mentioned last week that I had seen the announcement of your concert in the New York Times, she told me she wanted to send me something. ‘Don’t hate me for this, Livie,’ she said, ‘I did it because I love you.’ Three days later, your letter arrived.”
God damn parents. Why can’t they love their children just a little less?
A peculiar combination of emotions rumbled through me. I was angry at my father and at Eleanor de la Vega, and I was disgusted with myself for having failed to see through their machinations. I could have—I should have—but then a wave of euphoria enveloped me. Olivia and I were sitting across a table from each other! I gazed at her, awed that the old connection between us was still so undeniably present. It was as though no time had passed, not even a minute.
“Teddy,” she said, “I would have been there.”
“So this is our meeting, then,” I said. “You got the letter, and we’re talking. A couple of decades late, but here we are.”
Our eyes met, and we both smiled. Nineteen years vanished as we sat entranced in the candlelight. How could that indescribable link still be there between us? How had I ever convinced myself that soul mates don’t exist? I sat there in awe, amazed at the current coursing between us. I wanted to touch her, but I just sat there transfixed, lost in the astonishing wonder of it all.
“Did you play your violin outside one night, Ted?” Olivia asked suddenly. “The same piece you played at the folk music festival—and as your encore tonight?”
She knew I had played it for her!
I nodded. “Yeah, I did. In the secret garden. I had the crazy idea you might come to find me.”
“But you stopped,” she said. “Later, I thought I must have dreamed it.”
I shrugged. “Mr. Gillespie found me and sent me back to the dorm,” I said. I looked at her as I thought back to that night and how desperate I had felt. “He knew why I was there, Olivia. I still remember what he said.”
“What?”
Our eyes locked, and I smiled.
“If it’s real, it will survive.”
As I looked at her, Olivia smiled, too. I hadn’t believed the old guy all those years before, but damned if he wasn’t right. The connection between Olivia and me was real. Through nineteen years of my unrelenting denial, it had survived.
Just then, a busboy began to mop the floor near our table.
“Olivia, this place is getting ready to shut down,” I said. “Would you like to continue our conversation at my hotel? We can have a nightcap in the bar there.”
The maître d’ summoned a taxi for us, and we were soon walking into the Warwick.
“Couldn’t we just go to your room, Ted?” Olivia asked. “I’ll be able to relax better. The last thing I need right now is to have a picture of us together show up in a tabloid. Jay and I are on fairly good terms, and I want to keep it that way for Teddie’s sake.”
And just like that—like magic, really—Olivia and I were alone in my room on the thirty-second floor. The evening maid had visited, which meant the bed had been neatly turned down and a foil-wrapped chocolate rested on each pillow. The radio was tuned to a classical music station, filling the room with the strains of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. I set my violin case on the coffee table and opened the drapes so we could admire the city lights below. Olivia joined me at the window as she took off her scarf, and for a few minutes we just stood there silently.
“You always said that someday we’d be in New York together,” she said at last. “If I had believed you, maybe it would have happened sooner.”
“It’s happening now, and that’s all that matters,” I replied. “Nobody ever gets to know what might have been. Just like Schubert. We’ll never know what he really had in mind for this symphony.”
We moved closer together, and our shoulders touched. I moved my arm around Olivia’s waist and rested my hand on her hip. The soft fabric of her dress slipped against her skin. I felt the warmth of her body against my fingertips.
How can I describe touching her again? It was so natural, so familiar. It was a feeling I knew by heart, and at the same moment so thrillingly new. Olivia reached her arm around my back and put her hand on my own hip. We stood there, our arms crossed over like two school chums.
“Schubert’s gone, Teddy,” Olivia said, “and you’re right. We’ll never know. But us—aren’t we still a work in progress?”
Almost involuntarily, my arm tightened around her waist, and I felt my pulse quicken.
“We had a great overture—” I began, and the music seemed to envelop us. I turned at the same moment Olivia did. Her head was tipped a little forward, and I kissed her forehead. Then she looked up, smiling.
“We had a fantastic overture,” she said, gazing into my eyes. “I’m dying to know how the rest of the symphony turns out.”
Nineteen years vanished like a two-beat rest. I wrapped
Olivia in my arms, and the first crescendo began.
Chapter 22
The night was a night of perfect timing, harmony, and splendor, like one of those rare performances when an orchestra plays with an inspiration like divine fire. Even our undressing seemed choreographed, an achingly beautiful ballet. I gazed at Olivia’s supple form naked in the half-light, and no rush of self-consciousness rose within me as her eyes washed over my own body.
She shimmered golden, her dark hair falling to her breasts. I wanted to rush to her, to clasp her to me, to possess her, but the moment itself held me back. The energy between us was like a pure, clear note, and it gained in intensity as we stood there transfixed. Then, slowly, glidingly, she came to me, her hands touching my face, her nipples brushing my chest. Olivia was my Guenevere, and I was Lancelot again, her perfect knight.
I took her face in my hands, and my words seemed to come without my bidding. “I love you, Olivia,” I said. “I always have. I always will.” My lips on hers forbade her answer, but her body provided response enough.
We lay in each other’s arms, exploring and discovering. I was hot with desire, but the symphony we were creating together was too ecstatic in its slow unfolding to rush to a conclusion. Her touch was electric, and my fingers, too, fairly sparked as I traced each contour of her body. She sighed as I touched and tasted and caressed, a sweet keening that echoed my longing and catapulted us both to a high wave of undulating joy.
At last we came together. At first, we moved gently, overwhelmed with the surging rapture of that long-awaited contact. And then it was all too much. We were wild together, lion and lioness, impatient in our hunger, voracious in our desire. At last, breathless and exhausted, we lay once again in each other’s embrace.
I was still coasting drowsily in that intoxicating delirium when Olivia said something I couldn’t quite hear.
“What?” I asked gently, stroking her hair. I loved the way it was spread out on my chest.
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