****
That night Liz dreamed of Christopher Eastman. It wasn't a vision; there was nothing supernatural about it. It was a plain, ordinary, everyday dream. In it, Liz and Christopher were sitting on one of the ledges of Cliff Walk, high above the sea that crashed on the rocks below. They were drinking Cokes and eating Burger King Whoppers and sharing a large order of fries. Behind them on the Walk, Susy and a young playmate were laughing and running around. Liz — for once — had no fears for Susy's safety, because Susy had taken swimming lessons from Mickey Mouse at Disney World.
Liz was having trouble explaining to Christopher how it was now possible for a human heart to be transplanted from someone who had just died into someone whose heart still beat, only badly. Christopher was frankly astonished and had deep misgivings about surgeons who played God; he wanted to meet this Dr. Ben.
"Sure," said Liz, and she stood up. "Let's go. I'll take you home."
Suddenly someone in the dream — either Liz, or Christopher, or Susy, or her playmate — slipped on the rocky ledge and went hurtling down the side of the cliff, sending Liz bolting up from her pillow with a half-muffled scream.
After that she cried, on and off, until dawn.
****
The phone rang early, as Liz thought it might. It was Jack, sounding as haggard as she felt.
"I followed you last night."
"I asked you not to."
"But I lost you in the crowd."
"Easy to do."
"I went back for my car and drove to your house, but I saw Tori through the front window. I felt like a stalker, so I went home. Do you want to talk now?"
"No.''
"When?"
"I don't know when. This is way, way too painful for me, Jack. Can't you tell that? God!"
She shuddered, then sighed and said, "Please. Not now. Please."
"All right," he said soothingly. "Not now, then. I'll leave you some room."
But beneath the gentleness of his words, Liz thought she heard something else: the first faint sound of wariness.
The next few days were the longest of Liz's life. During the day she pretended to work, and during the night she pretended to sleep. But all she was doing, day and night, was waiting. It occurred to her that before she fell in love with Jack, the days flew by in a satisfying way. Now they crawled to a close, empty and meaningless.
This is what happens when you give up control, she realized.
She'd never do it again.
Eventually, finally, Tuesday rolled around. Liz waited, bleary-eyed, until three in the afternoon before putting in a call to the shipyard. But she needed the master list today, and she had no choice but to call and try to get it.
Cynthia, the shipyard secretary who'd baby-sat Susy briefly the first time Liz had gone there, was completely enthusiastic about the yard's sponsorship of the benefit; Liz had no trouble getting her cooperation.
"Mr. Eastman won't be in today," Cynthia volunteered. "He's in New York, wooing those investors of his."
He sure wasn't wooing Liz. "That's all right," Liz said in a voice of false cheer. "I didn't need to talk to him. Can I come by around five for the addresses?"
"Come by sooner if you like. All the stuff's in the computer; I just have to set them up to be collated. Nothing could be — oh. Here comes Mr. Eastman."
Liz felt her heart automatically slam up against her chest at the sound of his name. In a faltering voice she said, "He must've got through sooner than he expected in New York—"
"No, not that Mr. Eastman," said Cynthia, betraying her disappointment. "His father. Cornelius Eastman."
"I'll let you go, then," said Liz, somehow relieved that Jack still had an excuse for not calling her. She hung up, not at all surprised that Cynthia, married or not, had a little crush on Jack. Was there anyone in the world who didn't?
Liz had intended to go directly from her office to her parents' house to pick up Susy; but in between those two points was her sweet little cottage with its own little answering machine, its red light possibly blinking.
She had to know.
She left the car running as she ran inside and up the stairs to her bedroom, where she'd relocated the answering machine out of Susy's earshot. Considering the agony of the last few nights; considering that Liz was in the thick of planning a last-minute benefit; considering how much she plain wanted there to be a message — it didn't seem possible that the little red light wasn't doing a damned thing.
With a moan of disappointment Liz threw herself on her bed, face down and arms outstretched, like a tired butterfly basking in the summer sun that poured through the west windows. Hoping somehow to be recharged, she fell, instead, into a weary sleep.
****
"Elizabeth. Wake up."
"Uh!" she said, instantly alert.
He was sitting on the side of her bed, just the way Jack liked to do, watching her with a look that was more disappointed than bemused. "This isn't going very well, is it," he said, dispirited.
He was close enough to touch. She considered trying it, then backed away from the idea. He looked too young, too real, too altogether attractive in his loose-fitting shirt and tight-fitting pants.
"How come you're here?" she asked, lapsing back to a groggy state. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and said sleepily, "I thought I had to summon you."
"You did," he said, smiling. "In your dream just now."
"My dream? I'm never going to get the rules straight. What was I dreaming? I don't remember." She wanted to sit up, but her limbs felt extraordinarily heavy, as if she'd been drugged.
In a gentle rebuke, he said, "You took your time telling him, don't you think?"
She buried her face in the coverlet. "Like great-great-grandmother, like great-great-granddaughter," she said in a muffled voice. "With a twist, of course."
"I tell you, it doesn't matter about your condition."
"To Jack it does."
"It shouldn't."
She turned to face him. "Were you there when we were together last?" she asked Christopher. When he nodded reluctantly, she said, "Then you saw the look on his face."
"It should not matter," he repeated.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, suddenly aware of what a rotten job he was doing as intermediary. "Why aren't you convincing him? Why aren't you appearing to him?"
Christopher shrugged. "You need me more than he does."
"The hell I do! — ah, sorry," she said tiredly. "You probably don't like that kind of talk." She tried to raise herself up, but she was positively immobilized. "Okay, tell me why I need to be worked on more than he does," she said, sighing. "I'm curious."
Christopher was succinct: "You're afraid of him. Of his wealth. Of his position."
Defensive now, she managed to drag herself up on one elbow. "Afraid of him? I don't think so. I'm a working mother, mister. I'm not intimidated by Jack Eastman."
"Good. Go to him as his equal, then. Not with your head bent low in apology."
She fell back down on her nose. "Fine," she said, yawning and drifting off again. "Fine ... fine ... fine." She turned her face onto one cheek and gave him a dopey little smile. "Are you my guardian angel?"
"No, sweet one," he said in a voice that was low and oddly melancholy. "Not technically."
"Just a ghost, then. Well ... whatever."
"But do I care about your destiny?" His voice was rich with emotion as he added, "Oh, yes, dear lady. Be certain of it."
She watched him for a long time, puzzled by his tone and yet deeply stirred by it. Something was happening here, something she felt rather than understood. "Thank you for that night," she said, her eyelids beginning to droop once more. "You saved my life."
"Not so," he said softly. "You saved your own life. And you still can."
He stood up then and held his arms in the air over her prone body. Warm, golden light fell over her, engulfing her like a halo, wrapping her in a warm caress. "Now sleep, Elizabeth ... sl
eep."
****
When Liz woke up she felt terrific. Dream? Vision? Who could tell anymore? What was a vision, anyway, but a waking dream?
Whatever it was that he infused in me, she thought, I wish I could bottle it. She washed her face and combed her hair and went out to her car with a new spring in her step.
The van was still running.
Embarrassed by how thoroughly she was losing it, she jumped back in, drove down to her parents' house to gather up Susy, and then raced with her out to the shipyard before Cynthia closed up the office.
There were sawhorses blocking the front of the shipyard office — no doubt to keep the area free for moving a boat — so Liz was forced to park around the side of the building. Reluctant to leave her daughter alone, she hauled Susy inside with her.
The glass entry door was open, but Cynthia wasn't at her desk. Liz assumed that the secretary had stepped out; she motioned her daughter to take a seat while they waited for her to come back.
The next voice she heard was Cynthia's, high and agitated, at the far end of the aisle of cubicles. "He'll kill me if he finds out! I know he will! He gets so jealous—"
And then the one voice that Liz was not prepared to hear:
"He won't find out, Cyn. Don't worry."
Instantly Liz went over to Susy and yanked her out of her chair. "We're going," she said to her startled daughter.
"But, Mommy! I hear Cynthia—"
"Liz!''
The word went through Liz like a long, thin blade. She turned, proud that she wasn't staggering, and said in a flat tone, "Jack. How're you?"
Jack was clearly embarrassed and angry; Cynthia, embarrassed and scared. Between them they looked caught, as the church so delicately liked to put it, pretty damned in flagrante.
"Oh, you want your list," the young secretary said, rifling red-faced through a stack of papers on her desk. "I almost forgot."
Jack made himself smile at Susy and then said to Liz in a voice of pure steel, "How's the fund-raiser coming?"
"Wonderfully well," Liz said with a faint smile. "We've sold so many tickets, we may not even need this mailing list.''
They'd sold eleven, but who was counting?
Liz was saved from the impossible task of making chitchat by the arrival of Cornelius Eastman with his daughter Caroline and the child's lovely Irish nanny, Deirdre. Cornelius took one look at the assembly and broke into a wide, engaging grin.
"Well, for goodness' sake," he said, singling out Liz and Susy, "here's perfect timing. We were just about to take the Déjà Vu for an evening spin. Won't you join us?"
Liz said at once, "Thanks for the offer, but we haven't eat—"
Susy squeezed her hand in a signal that, roughly translated, meant: If you say no, I'll pout until I'm eighteen.
Meanwhile, Cornelius was pooh-poohing Liz's excuse with a hearty, "Oh, come on along. Netta's packed a cold supper for us — anything to get us out of her hair. What about it, Susy? Want to go for that boat ride at last?"
Little blond Caroline was giving Susy the same kind of look a cat gives a mouse. Susy knew it and — gutsy kid — said "Yes, please" anyway. Liz was working herself into a thorough snit over being put on the spot when Jack decided to put in his two cents.
"If Liz doesn't want to go, Dad, I don't think we should force her."
We? Since when was he part of the equation? And in any case, what right had he to disinvite her in his father's name? Liz remembered the first time she'd turned Jack down, certain she couldn't meet his standards. Well, to hell with his standards.
"Actually, Susy and I don't have anything special planned this evening. Thanks for the offer ... Neal," she said, passing over Jack with a sweet and vengeful smile.
"Excellent. Let's go, then. Catch you later, Jack."
Oh. Jack wasn't coming?
"Maybe I'll tag along with you, Dad," Jack said with a fairly grim smile of his own.
He was coming.
"Cynthia?" said Cornelius to Jack's secretary. "The more the merrier!"
Shit. She was coming?
"Oh, no, Mr. Eastman," Cynthia said, blushing probably down to her toes. "I have to get home, really. David will be waiting for his supper."
She wasn't coming. So. The sailing party consisted of a married philanderer, a single philanderer, a divorced chick, a single chick, and two kids. What could come of that combination, Liz had no idea.
They stopped at Cornelius's Lexus to take out a wicker basket which probably contained pâté and smoked salmon and other things Susy wouldn't eat, and then they boarded the superbly exquisite Déjà Vu. Liz had been in a fair number of mansions — all of them tourist attractions charging admission — but she'd never sailed aboard a real yacht, for money or for free.
She liked it. It was impossible not to feel like a Susy-in-Disney-World when Jack threw off the heavy nylon dock lines and his father began backing the boat expertly out of its slip. The low blub-blub of the engine echoed discreetly through the water, nothing at all like the ear-piercing high- speed boats she sometimes heard racing up and down the bay. By the time she had Susy strapped into her life jacket, the Déjà Vu was quietly threading its way past the docked boats heading down the bay.
Newport, her little City by the Sea, looked even more charming from the deck of a boat: a collection of white and stone steeples sprinkled among ancient trees and gambrel roofs. The scale was surprisingly intimate and cozy; it was hard to believe that a town so small could have been a major seaport during the Revolutionary era. It gave Liz great satisfaction to be living in what was basically the same colonial town — give or take a few awful condo projects — that had graced the side of the hill for centuries.
Liz had Susy next to her on the semicircle of cushioned seating on the afterdeck. "Look for our house, honey," she said, pointing up the hill. "See the big square steeple that looks like a castle? Look up behind it. Oops — too late; it's gone behind a tree."
Susy slipped out of her mother's reach and sidled up to the rail where Caroline, also in a life jacket, was standing. The two girls — one as dark as the other was fair — watched as the piers and condos fell away and the yacht, bearing right, began to steam out the channel.
Liz had to force herself not to tuck Susy somewhere safe in the middle of the boat, because she knew her daughter would never forgive the humiliation of it. But the Déjà Vu wasn't Disney World: there were no seat belts or safety bars here. Their only protection from all that water was a hundred-year-old wooden hull and the expertise of two men who were barely on speaking terms.
She looked for Deirdre and found the black-haired beauty draped over Cornelius's shoulder, pointing to various instruments and asking questions in her enchanting Irish accent. So much for the nanny, thought Liz. She resolved to keep an eye on Caroline, too. As for Jack — where was Jack?
She peeked around the starboard — or was it the port? — deck; but he surprised her by approaching her on the port — or was it the starboard? — side.
"Can I get you or the kids anything?" he asked in a depressingly polite tone.
"I think we're all set for now, thanks," she said, still without taking her eyes off Susy and Caroline.
Jack followed her gaze. "Don't worry, they're fine there. As soon as we hit the chop around Fort Adams and catch a little spray aft, they'll come running for cover."
He left her to go below deck. Liz wondered why — since he'd invited himself along — he was staying so removed from the party.
But in the meantime the boat was bobbing through the wake of a much-too-fast sport fisherman that passed them in the opposite direction. The Déjà Vu ended up taking some spray aboard and — Jack was right — the girls got washed with a fine mist of salt water. They squealed in surprise and ran back to Liz with hunched shoulders and arms pulled in tight. That lasted ten seconds. Then Susy went right back to the rail, and Caroline, not to be outdone, took up a position next to her. Clearly they were hoping for a hurricane.
&n
bsp; The varnish-framed cabin windows behind Liz were slid open, allowing her to hear some, but not all, of the exchanges between Deirdre and Cornelius in the wheelhouse. Their talk was innocent enough, but their flirty tone made Liz uncomfortable. Deirdre's laugh was just a little too eager, a little too shrill.
Cornelius began to turn the yacht north, up the calm water of Narragansett Bay.
Deirdre cried out gaily, "Beggin' your pardon, sir, not that way! The other way! Toward Ireland, we should be goin'!"
Cornelius laughed and said, "Ireland it is, then!" and turned the helm sharply to the left. The Déjà Vu began heading out the bay, toward open water.
Chapter 22
Almost at once Jack appeared. "What the hell's going on?" he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
His father, who'd fallen into the spirit of Deirdre's whimsy, said affably, "We're sailing to Ireland, that's all. Don't worry, son; we'll have you back at the yard by the time the whistle blows in the morning."
Ignoring his father's flip tone, Jack said, "I just monitored the weather. There's an advisory posted until nine o'clock tonight. A line of thunderstorms is moving through Connecticut."
"Was it a watch or a warning?"
"A watch."
"No problem, then," his father said with a wink at Deirdre. "We'll hold our course for Ireland."
"We've got a couple of kids—"
"Hey, we'll take 'em along," Cornelius said with a laugh.
"For God's sake, Dad! Give it a rest!"
The look in his father's eyes turned suddenly cold. "Something bugging you, Jack?"
Jack turned on his heel and went back below.
More uncomfortable than ever now, and nervous to boot, Liz walked up to the rail, expecting to see a dangerous sky to the west. But what she saw was a benign and reassuring summer sunset. As long as they didn't actually try to make Ireland tonight, they should be back before any weather rolled through.
Meanwhile it was Susy's suppertime, and Liz didn't dare go rummaging through the wicker basket, wherever it was, because she was a guest. Who the hell was the host? She turned her back on the western shore and, gripping the rail behind her, watched Susy and Caroline carefully ignoring one another as they stood at the rail opposite. It wasn't the ride Liz thought it would be: she had the profound sense that nobody liked anybody on this boat except the two people who had no business liking one another at all.
Time After Time Page 31
