The Corolla looked much the same, save that now it was coated with a fine layer of dust. Well, to be perfectly honest, there was dust over the dirt that had been there when I parked it. Car washes hadn’t exactly been high on my list of priorities back then.
Maybe there was something I could have said. But Pieter remained cold and remote as a planet orbiting a distant star, and I didn’t know how I could begin a conversation about what had happened between us without it sounding unbelievably contrived. Instead, I reached into my purse and pulled out the car key, which had been shoved in the “catch-all” drawer in my kitchen ever since the day I’d parked the Toyota here in the warehouse.
I had just inserted the key in the lock when Pieter spoke. “Why did you go to the Bay Area?”
The question startled me so much that I stopped, one hand still resting on the car door. Then I turned around to face him. “Excuse me?”
“Why were you up north?”
My first instinct was to tell him it was none of his business. That would have been silly, though. I’d been hoping for a way to open a dialogue, and it looked as though Pieter had just given me that opening.
“I went to visit my brother,” I replied.
It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw the smallest easing in the tension of his jaw, the set of his mouth. “Your brother.”
“Yes,” I said. “I wanted to get out of L.A. for a few days. It seemed a logical place to go.”
“Of course.”
Had Pieter actually been worried about where I had gone? That was ridiculous, though. He’d told me to get out of his life. So why should he care where I was or what I was doing?
Because he did care, despite himself. In that instant, I was almost certain of it. Of course, getting him to make such an admission was easier said than done.
“Besides,” I added, “I thought I’d do a little scouting.”
“Scouting?”
I skirted a dangerous precipice, and I knew it. Maybe confessing to Pieter that I was thinking of pulling up stakes and getting out of L.A. permanently wasn’t such a good idea. On the other hand, maybe it would take the threat of me disappearing forever for him to finally realize that he’d made a huge mistake.
“The town,” I said. “The college. I might have to try for a second major before I can apply to the MFA program, but—”
A frown knitted his brow. “MFA program?”
“Art history. There wasn’t any real way for me to pursue it in Billings, and out here the cost of living was so high that I couldn’t do anything except work full time. But with the seed money you gave me—”
“Yes, that,” Pieter cut in. “You didn’t deposit the check.”
So he had noticed. Which meant he had been keeping close tabs on the situation, just as I had hoped. “I was assessing,” I said. My voice somehow managed to remain calm and matter-of-fact through this whole exchange. I might as well have been discussing my options with a college counselor.
“Assessing.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “You might not have realized this, Pieter, but being someone’s assistant wasn’t exactly my life goal. I just needed some time to figure out my next step.”
That taut look to his mouth was back. “Which is Berkeley.”
Of course I hadn’t made any such decision yet, but I wasn’t about to tell Pieter that. He looked upset—or at least as upset as he would allow himself to be. At the prospect of me leaving Southern California, maybe permanently?
“I hope so. I think Alex might be able to pull some strings for me.”
Now’s the time, Pieter, I thought. Here’s where you say you made a huge mistake, that you want me to stay here.
Of course he didn’t.
“It sounds like a good plan,” he said.
Wrong answer.
A sudden stinging in the back of my eyelids told me this interview had taken a sudden U-turn.
I managed to say, “I think so,” and returned my attention to the lock and the key that still rested in it. It opened easily enough, damn it, and I slid onto the worn upholstery. The interior of the car smelled stale and dusty, which I supposed made sense. However, the contrast to the immaculate C-class I now drove hit me at once. I coughed.
“Everything all right?” Pieter asked.
No, everything was not all right, but of course I couldn’t tell him that. It seemed I couldn’t tell him anything important. So much for my grand ideas about marching in here and somehow getting Pieter to declare his undying love for me. Those sorts of things were always so much easier in your imagination. In real life? Not so much.
“Hay fever,” I lied. I wasn’t about to admit that I was choking on a mixture of dust and unshed tears.
Then I put the key in the ignition. Part of me hoped the stupid car just wouldn’t start. Then Pieter would be stuck with me for a while longer. If I only had more time—
But after a brief hiccup, the Corolla started right up. It figured. Damn those Japanese engineers and their history of reliability.
“Let me get the doors,” Pieter said. He moved away from the car, toward the warehouse entrance.
As he went, he seemed to take any chance of continuing the conversation with him. The stinging in my eyes and the tightness in my throat threatened to turn into real tears.
Don’t you dare, I told myself. Don’t even think about it.
Still, my vision blurred as I put the car into reverse and began to slowly back out of the corner. I was probably lucky that I didn’t plow right into a crate or two. Part of me wanted to. It would have kept me there, and it sure would have gotten Pieter’s attention, but I couldn’t bring myself to deliberately damage his property. Okay, so he’d broken my heart, and somehow managed to keep doing so, but taking out my anguish on defenseless antiques didn’t seem like a very good idea.
I could see him out of the corner of my eye as I approached the warehouse entrance, but I didn’t stop or even acknowledge him. I could only keep driving out into the darkness, away from any chance at reconciliation.
Once I was on the street, I let the tears come. God knows how I managed to get home. Maybe it would have been easier if I could have just wrapped the car around a light pole and gotten it over with, but there weren’t any such easy outs for me. No, it seemed pretty obvious that I was going to feel the pain of Pieter’s absence for the rest of my life.
Nineteen
I left the Corolla on the street. Glendale had a no-overnight-parking policy, and most likely I’d get a ticket, but at that point I really didn’t care. Maybe if I got enough tickets the cops would just tow the goddamn car away, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.
Right then I felt as if I had more than enough to worry about.
Somehow I did manage to get to sleep that night, but it was not the good kind of sleep—I tossed and turned, found more lumps in my mattress than I knew existed, had my eyes fly open at roughly three in the morning at some unknown sound. It took almost two hours for me to fall asleep after that, and even then it was back to more tossing and turning. I was actually glad when the sun started beating down on the mini-blinds in my bedroom, telling me I could give up this stupid charade once and for all.
I dragged myself out of bed and promptly tripped over my suitcase. Of course I’d just dropped it on the bedroom floor last night, too exhausted and soul-weary to even attempt unpacking my things. No, I didn’t fall, but my big toe was definitely not happy with me.
That was all right. I wasn’t too happy with myself.
As I made myself some coffee, I kept mentally replaying the conversation with Pieter of the evening before, trying to see if there was some point where I could have said something meaningful, made some insightful comment that would have turned the entire exchange around. I couldn’t really find one, though, which told me either he really was that difficult to talk to, or I was just completely stupid and not a good match for him anyway. Neither proposition was particularly appealing.
The coffee helped a little, as did the prolonged hot shower I took afterward. But neither of those panaceas was able to completely erase the hollow feeling I had inside, a sensation of emptiness so deep I was halfway tempted to start crying again. I didn’t, though. What would crying solve?
Leslie called halfway through the day, and I let the voicemail take her message. I didn’t feel up to relating to a real live human being at that point. She was just checking in—she’d seen the C-class in the carport this morning when she’d left for work and so knew I was back home. Did I want to go out for drinks tonight, just us girls?
Normally that would have sounded like fun. Right then, though, I only wanted to hide in my apartment and never come out. Maybe in a hundred years I’d be capable of dealing with social interactions. At the moment I thought my best course of action was extended hibernation.
At some point late in the day, after the TV had palled and I realized I couldn’t concentrate on a book to save my life, I wondered if maybe I should go out and catch a movie or something. I couldn’t stay in the apartment forever, and a movie sounded like a nice, safe way to be out in public without having to actually interact with anyone besides the clerk at the ticket window.
So I dug in my purse for my keys, which had escaped the pocket I usually kept them in. As I scrabbled around in the bottom of my bag, my fingers closed around a key, but not one that was attached to my regular key ring. I pulled it out, then frowned.
It was a heavy industrial key, with “do not duplicate” etched into its surface. For a second I couldn’t figure out what it was, and then I realized it was the spare key to the office that Pieter had given me a while back. I hadn’t put it on my key ring because I’d thought he would ask for it back at some point. I thought I’d shoved it into the purse pocket after the last time I had used it, but apparently it, too, had slipped out and gotten mixed in with my wallet and travel pack of Kleenex and mini cosmetics bag and all the other flotsam I had drifting around in there.
For a long second I sat still, staring down at the piece of dull brass that lay in my hand. Then my fingers closed around the key. I supposed I could have just forgotten it, put it away in a junk drawer along with everything else I couldn’t use but didn’t quite want to get rid of. But I knew I held in my hand maybe the last chance I had of getting in touch with Pieter. He should have his key back.
Silly rationalization? Maybe. It seemed the universe had given me one final opportunity, and I was damned if I was going to blow it this time. No matter what happened, I was going to tell Pieter the truth. I’d left too much unsaid. What did I have to lose? To all intents and purposes, he was already lost to me.
I murmured a prayer to God or whatever deity might preside over hopeless causes. Then I picked up the phone and dialed Pieter’s cell number.
The gate to Pieter’s property swung inward almost as soon as I approached, which meant he’d been waiting for me. I pointed the C-class down the curving drive, glad of the strategically placed lights along the way.
If possible, the house looked even more lovely at night, its stucco a pale blush color where the landscape lighting reflected against the walls. I got out of the car, and a faint, seductive perfume drifted toward me on the warm, dry air. Star jasmine and late-blooming gardenias from the flowerbeds near the front door, as far as I could guess.
A rectangle of yellow light showed as Pieter opened the door to meet me. On this, a Saturday night at home, he hadn’t bothered with a suit and tie. He wore a simple white shirt and dress slacks, so I felt a little bit better about my jeans and silky blouse. I figured it would be better if I weren’t too dressed up, or he would have known I was trying too hard.
For a second I wondered if he was going to make me hand over the key right there on the doorstep, but I should have known his manners would assert themselves despite the situation.
“Come in,” he said, and stepped out of the way so I could enter the foyer.
Back at the apartment I had turned on the air conditioning to combat the hot, dry winds the locals called the Santa Anas, but Pieter seemed to have eschewed such nods to modern technology. All the windows were open, and that same delicious breeze moved through the house. Here the warmth didn’t seem oppressive, but gentle and comforting, like a favorite pair of slippers or a bath at the end of a long day.
He pointed toward the elegant living room off to the right. “The salon?”
I moved in the direction he had indicated and said, “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“It’s best not to leave loose ends.”
Was that how he thought of me? A loose end, one to be tied up as quickly as possible?
I couldn’t come up with an adequate reply, so instead I sat down on one of the two brocade-covered sofas that faced each other across a low table of some warm fruitwood. At the same time I was beginning to think coming here had been a serious miscalculation. I hadn’t prepared any arguments, any persuasive statements to convince Pieter he really did need me in his life. No, I’d just run off half-cocked, trusting fate to give me the ammunition I needed to get him back.
Not that I’d ever really had him.
To cover the awkward silence, I scrabbled in my purse for the key and then set it down on the coffee table.
He didn’t sit down with me. Instead, he walked across the room to stand by one of the open French doors. Half-visible through the shifting leaves of a row of trees were the lights of Hollywood. A dull reddish glow marked the last remnants of sunset.
The filmy curtains at the door rustled with the breeze, almost touching a low table placed a bit off to one side. I noticed that a snifter with an inch or so of amber-colored liquid at the bottom sat on that table.
Pieter must have seen my gaze fall on it, because he said, “Perhaps I should have hidden the evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Of drinking alone.”
“Oh,” I replied. His comment disconcerted me, and yet at the same time gave me a flicker of hope. Had he been sitting here and drinking because he was upset with himself for how he had dealt with me? I summoned a smile and said, “Well, if you get me one, then you won’t be drinking alone anymore.”
He didn’t return the smile, but the somber set of his mouth relaxed ever so slightly. “An astute observation. Would you like some cognac?”
Would I? I had no idea, since I’d never tried it. However, a few tastes of some cheap brandy back in college had sort of put me off the strong stuff. Not that Pieter would be drinking anything cheap, but—
“You choose,” I said.
At that he did smile, just the tiniest bit. He went to a cabinet on the other side of the room, selected a decanter, and then poured something for me, not in a snifter like he had, but a fragile little crystal cordial glass.
“Try this,” he said, and came over and handed it to me.
It tasted warm and golden, just like the early fall evening outside. “What is it?”
“Madeira.”
I’d heard of it, but of course had never tried it before. “It’s very good.”
He nodded, and then sat at last on the sofa across from me. Leaning down, he picked up the key to the office with his free hand, turning it over in his fingers in a thoughtful way. “You’re being quite civilized about all this.”
Was that supposed to be a compliment? I sipped at my Madeira again, then replied, “What, you weren’t expecting a girl from Montana to have proper manners?”
“The ones from Los Angeles didn’t.”
I wondered then how much he’d had to drink before I called. It would explain a lot. Maybe a fully sober Pieter wouldn’t have allowed me to come over at all. He could have just had Rafe handle the transaction or something if he didn’t want to get his hands dirty.
“Well, I’m sorry you’ve had some bad experiences,” I said lightly. Would he catch on to the fact that I was referring to a lot more than just his secretaries?
It seemed he wasn’
t too far gone. His expression darkened, and he looked away from me.
Maybe it was the Madeira. Or maybe it had just dawned on me that this was most likely my last chance to get any answers. I lifted my chin and stared across the table at him, over the top of the delicate orchid that drooped elegantly at its center. “Why did you kiss me, Pieter?”
He was silent for a long moment, a silence so lengthy I thought for sure he wasn’t going to reply. “At the time it seemed like the right thing to do.”
“But not for long.”
Again no immediate answer. He swirled the cognac in its snifter, then drank. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Oh, God, did I hate it when people said things like that. It wasn’t so much that they thought I wouldn’t understand, but more that they just couldn’t be bothered to explain themselves. “Try me,” I said. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”
At my remark he gave me a sudden, swift glance, those blue eyes hard and bright even in the softly lit room. “You don’t look dumb at all, and I think you know that very well.”
So he thought that much of me at least. Was it too early to feel a twinge of hope? “All right, now that we have that out of the way, maybe we can move on. Is it because of her? That woman back in the Netherlands?”
He went very still. I thought I saw the knuckles of his fingers whiten as he tightened them around the snifter he held. “Who told you about that?”
“Actually, Jonah Freeman at first. And then Max let a few things drop.”
“So my personal life is the topic of casual conversation?”
Any other time I probably would have abandoned the subject, given the bitter anger I heard in Pieter’s voice as he asked that question. But you know what they say about people who don’t have anything to lose.
It makes them reckless.
“I wouldn’t say it was casual,” I replied. “But yes, it did come up. So I’m curious. What happened? What did she do that made you avoid even a hint of anything like a relationship?”
Fringe Benefits Page 26
