Adversaries and Lovers

by Patricia Watters

  Ben tucked a credit card into the bill folder the waitress placed on the table. “They’re setting up for the swim fin commercial right now and I have to get back.” His gaze shifted between Kate and Linda, and fixed on Kate. “I don’t mean to break this up,” he said, his words touched with impatience, “but I expected you to be there too. It’s your baby and I’m disappointed you forgot.”

  Kate looked at him, miffed. “Stop treating me as if I were a child. You’re acting like a scolding father. And I didn’t forget. I intended to come by later.” She lifted her chin, and added, “Life isn’t just about work, Ben. Besides, I was distracted. We’ve been talking about you. Surely your ears must have felt hot.”

  Ben looked at Linda, who winked at him, and said, “You seemed to have met your match in stubbornness, sweetie. I suggest you approach Kate a different way.”

  Ben looked at Kate, studied her for a few moments, then covering her hand with his, said in a low, quiet voice, “Will you come with me, honey? I really want you there.”

  Kate nervously batted her eyes, and replied, “Well, since you asked me that way... Yes.”

  Ben looked at Linda, and said, “How did I do?”

  Linda winked. “She’s going with you, isn’t she?” Ben kissed Linda on the cheek, and after they'd said their "goodbyes," he took Kate by the elbow and guided her toward the door.

  Two hours later, with little awareness of the passage of time, Ben stood next to Kate at the side of the pool. The place was a hive of activity: the director yelling directives, the cameramen taking their cues, the models in Sealskins strutting their stuff. It was their fifth take, and things were not going well. The models failed to fulfill Kate's vision of a man and a woman deeply involved with each other, while being propelled through the water by their Stassen DolFins.

  Kate folded her arms and glared at the models, and said to Ben, “Where the devil did you get this pair? He’s in love with himself and she can’t keep her eyes off the cameraman. And when they’re swimming together, there’s nothing there. They’re two bodies that might as well be an ocean apart. It’s just not working.”

  “I agree,” Ben said, “but we’ve got less than two hours to wrap it up.” Hands on his hips, brows drawn, he watched the models going through the routine, but after a few minutes he said, “Wait here. I want to talk to the director.”

  Kate watched as Ben stood talking to the director while gesturing with his hands, pointing at the models, and occasionally glancing at Kate. After what looked to be some kind of an understanding, the director looked at Kate and nodded. Ben left the pool area and disappeared into the elevator. A few minutes later, he returned wearing a green Sealskin, and had a ladies green Sealskin in his hand. He offered the suit to Kate. “Honey, go into that dressing room across the pool and slip this on. We’ll show them what we have in mind.”

  Kate backed away. “No, absolutely not.”

  Ben took her by the arm before she could walk off, and said, “If we can’t show them how to do it we might as well give it up. Please, honey, put on the suit and come swim with me. We'll run through it one time—three minutes in the water—so they can get the idea. That's all. Nothing more.”

  Kate reluctantly agreed, and after changing into her suit she returned to where Ben stood waist-deep in water. She sat on the edge of the pool while Ben held each foot and fastened on her swim fins. Curving his hand around her calf, he looked at her bare ankle, and said, “Why did you take your anklet off?”

  Kate looked at him and replied, “Because when I’m swimming with you out there today, I have to know that I’ll be the only woman in your arms, or this won’t work.”

  “Believe me, sweetheart, I can absolutely and unconditionally guarantee you that there will be no one out there with me but you.”

  The director gave them last minute instructions, and with a flurry of activity, and amid a gathering of technicians and onlookers, they pushed off from opposite ends of the pool and swam toward each other. As choreographed, they circled like a pair of courting dolphins, spiraling together in the middle of the pool. In the center of the spiral, Ben moved around behind Kate so her back was against his chest, and his arm was curved snugly around her midriff, and they glided through the water in a series of elongated figure eights.

  Gradually Ben's awareness of the activity around them faded, until he could focus on nothing but the feel of Kate’s body against his, their hearts beating in cadence, their legs moving together as if their bodies were one. During a wide turn, he said against her ear, "Take a deep breath, honey," and they dove beneath the surface, twisting and twirling and gliding through the water. Then in one fluid movement, Kate turned in his arms, and although it hadn't been choreographed, their lips came together. Legs entangled, arms entwined, lips clinging, they spiraled as one until they broke the surface of the water. Their lips parted, but their eyes remained locked. The look that passed between them was deep, and intense, their unspoken promises unmistakable...

  It wasn’t until the director yelled, “Cut! That’s a take!” that they broke apart.

  Kate looked around with a start, the expression on her face clearly showing her shock and embarrassment. “Relax, honey,” Ben reassured her. “This film bunch could care less that we... umm… got carried away. Besides, if those models don’t get the idea now, they never will.”

  They swam together to the edge of the pool, but once out of the water, Kate shed her swim fins, drew a towel around her shoulders and headed for the dressing room. As she walked away, Ben couldn't put out of his mind the feel of her body against his, as if it imprinted against him for all eternity. And for the first time since they’d met, he seriously questioned his meticulous planning and single-minded determination to locate the corporate offices in Sellwood, and considered looking for another location, yet knowing there was no alternative.

  But how could building the new office in Sellwood be right, if in the end, Kate walked out of his life? But he didn’t want to think about that now. All he knew was that for the first time in six years, a woman other than Gayle dominated his heart, his mind, and his being. Like a steady stifling heat, thoughts of Kate sopped his energy, until he felt as if Gayle’s soul was being released from his, and Kate’s was being united.

  With that thought, an almost forgotten sensation began in his solar plexus, a mixture of hope, and yearning, and something he couldn’t quite grasp, until gradually he realized what it was. For only the second time in his life he was falling in love, and with a passion that was slowly consuming him, as if the absence of their physical union made his desire for Kate grow with a purer, more intense flame. In time he’d tell her, but not yet; she’d only think he was trying to weaken her resolve. Nor could he dismiss the fact that she’d saved herself for one man, one marriage, one lifetime of loving. And until he knew, unequivocally, that he was that man, and she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he could not, would not possess her body. And with that thought, the all-consuming flame burned hotter.

  ***

  Ben glanced around the projection room and saw that the board members were waiting for his response. He had to come to grips with things. His realization that he was in love with Kate was a complication he didn’t need in his life right now. It was dominating his mind and effecting his business decisions. He sat up straight, determined to stay focused. “Yeah, the model release. I’ll ask, but I doubt if Kate O’Connor will sign. She only did the session to show the models what she wanted. Rerun those last scenes with the models. There's got to be something there.”

  But as the scene on the screen unfolded, Ben’s mind fooled him again, and instead of the pair of hired models going through the motion of swimming together, he envisioned him and Kate gliding through the water, and the image refused to leave. He couldn’t dismiss the all-consuming thought of how Kate felt in his arms, or how it could be if she’d just let it happen. A part of him resented her vow of chastity and the physical restraints it placed on t
hem. Yet another part admired her for it. He reflected on the willing women who'd warmed his bed over the years and how detached it had been. These women were easy to spot: a bold stare, a suggestive smile, a little teasing banter about your place or mine, and then wham, bam, thank you ma’am. That was it. They went their way, and he went back to work. But with Kate, he couldn’t seem to get back to work. And now, no other woman would do. He felt trapped, and wondered why he couldn’t simply put his life back on track.

  He also realized there was only one acceptable film clip for the swim fin commercial, and he had no idea how he could convince Kate to give her permission to use it. His only hope was to point out to her that neither of their faces were evident in the scene, except for the split second when they resurfaced and stared at each other in shocked surprise. No, it wasn’t shocked surprise. It went much deeper. But it was that moment that captured the essence of the scene, the wonder of... falling in love? Was that when it happened? Had she felt it too?

  He looked around at the board members, who were, once again, waiting for his response, and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” The meeting over, he went to call Kate.

  It was two hours before she finally got away from work to join him in the projection room to view the different takes. But this time it was just the two of them who'd be watching and reliving the three minutes that changed his life, and maybe hers too. He also knew that if what happened between them in the water boiled down to dollars and cents, she’d never sign the model release. Turning on the projector, he took Kate through the five sessions they’d shot of the models prior to theirs, and the three sessions shot after she’d left.

  When it was over, Kate said to him, “Like I told you before, this pair just doesn’t work. Can’t you hire new models and try again?”

  “I already have too much invested in it as it is,” Ben said, before he could catch himself. “But the cost isn’t the issue,” he emphasized. “There’s no feeling, no connection between the models. I just want you to look at this next one.”

  “If you plan to run through them again, don’t bother," Kate clipped. "None work.”

  “It’s not with the models, honey," Ben said. "It’s with us.”

  Kate folded her arms. “That’s out of the question.”

  “Just look at it.”

  For three minutes Kate sat in silence as the scene unfolded and filled the large screen. While viewing it with the board members, Ben felt detached from it, as if looking at a commercial. But now, watching it alone in the darkened room with Kate, it seemed even more intimate than when it happened. The underwater cameras had moved in close, until a pair of entwined bodies filled the screen. He hadn’t realized how perfectly their bodies fit together, or how hungrily their lips clung. And when they spiraled toward the surface, with their legs intertwined, and their arms encircling each other, it was as though they were one body, one soul, one life-force. But it was that moment after they surfaced, when they stared at each other in shocked surprise, that was the essence of it. When the clip was over, they sat in dull silence, until Ben shut down the projector and snapped on the light.

  He moved to sit beside Kate. Resting his arm on the back of her chair, he said, “It really works, honey. It’s everything we wanted. It would make a great commercial.”

  Kate turned to look at him, eyes glistening with outrage. “Is that all you saw, Ben? A great commercial? Those were not a couple of paid models we were looking at, they were you and me, during a very intimate moment in our lives, and I feel as if those cameramen violated us. And now you want to flash it across every TV screen in the country. How can you even consider using it as a commercial?”

  “Nowhere are our faces evident, except maybe for an instant at the end," Ben said. "But even that was in profile, and it goes by too fast to register.”

  Kate stared at the blank screen, arms folded across her chest, and said in an agitated voice, “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  Ben shrugged. “Well, I thought since we weren’t recognizable you wouldn’t mind. And it's the only one that works.”

  Kate shoved her chair back and stood. “For a smart man you can be amazingly dense. Or maybe you’re just an incredibly good actor and this was your command performance.”

  Ben stood, took her by the arms and looked at her. “Is that what’s bothering you? That I didn’t feel what was happening between us? I felt it. I got as caught up in it as you did. I can’t stop reliving what I felt with you in my arms, so close, yet not quite there. It haunts me during the day, and it haunts me at night, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Eyes glistening, Kate said, “Then how can you want to share it with the world!?”

  Ben's hands tightened on her arms. He bent down to look into her angry eyes, and said in a plaintive voice, “I don’t intend to share what I was feeling inside with the world, only what was photographed. It’s just a swim fin commercial.”

  “No! It’s not just a swim fin commercial!” Kate glared at him.

  “All right, I won’t use it then,” Ben said, irritated. “But you’ll have to come up with a different idea for the fins because the only way this one will work is if we use a couple of people who are genuinely in... volved.”

  “In love, Ben. They need to be in love.” She stared at him, and when he said nothing more, she turned and rushed out of the room, hot tears of anger and frustration running down her cheeks. To her mortification, she ran directly into Linda.

  “Katie! What on earth!”

  Kate waved an evasive hand. “It’s Ben. He’s the most thick-headed, insensitive... He just doesn’t get it.” She darted passed Linda, and although she heard Ben call after her, she didn’t look back, and he didn’t try to follow.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kate sat on the window seat in the alcove off the living room, staring blankly at a sky that at one moment was alive with dazzling gold-edged clouds, and the next, as dark and gloomy as her mood. It had been four days since she’d rushed out of Ben’s office, and he hadn’t called. Nor had she tried to get in touch with him. She knew he was angry about her refusal to let him use the swim fin session in the commercial, and she had nothing more to say to him about it because, as with everything else with Ben, it all boiled down to money. Yet, she wanted more than anything to be with him.

  From the kitchen came the voices of Grandma and Henry cooing to each other like a couple of love birds. Henry had come by every day since he’d brought the roses three weeks ago, and there was no question, the old flame still burned. Henry fussed over Grandma like she was queen of the prom, and Grandma was as kittenish as a school girl with her first love. Some days Henry puttered around Grandma’s house fixing things, and other days they’d spend at his winery or at his house, which was on the same property as the winery. It was becoming increasingly clear that they were headed for the altar in the very near future.

  Grandma reaffirmed that ten minutes later, when she and Henry stood before Kate, and Grandma announced, “Henry and I are getting married. Now before you get that prying, interfering look on your face, you’ll hear me out. Henry’s heading for seventy-five and I’m not far behind him, so our time’s running out, and we want to spend our best years together as husband and wife, and that’s that!”

  Henry curved his arm around Grandma’s shoulders and said, while addressing Kate, “There’s no need for a long engagement. Rosie and I go back fifty years. And we want to be together the right way.”

  Kate looked at the elderly pair. How ironic that they could so easily set their bumpy past behind and get on with a future together, yet their grandchildren had such a hard time merely understanding each other. Seeing that they were waiting for her response, she said, “I’m glad for both of you, and when do you plan to tie the knot?”

  “The Sunday after the zoning meeting, not that it has anything to do with it," Grandma said, "But it’s the only time we could get the church, the preacher, and the reception room on the same day.”

&
nbsp; Kate hugged them both and gave them her best wishes. After they left for Henry's place, Kate decided it was time to snap out of her morose mood. She’d been thinking about painting again, and maybe now was the time to start. The sky was changeable, yet the day was mostly sunny, and the weather was unusually warm for so late in the year. It could be one of the last fall days when she could paint outside without the inconvenience of sitting under an umbrella dripping with rain or shielding her from snow. And painting would keep her hands occupied, and her mind off Ben.

  In her bedroom, she dragged her collapsible combination paint box and easel out from under the bed, then she went around to various cabinets and closets, collecting her boxes of brushes and palette knives and paint thinners and tubes of oil paints, and other painting supplies that had been stashed away for years, and hauled them into the living room. She’d just propped a new stretched canvas against the stack of boxes when several sharp knocks startled her. Thinking it was Ben, she rushed to the door and swept it open, surprised to find Linda standing there.

  Linda gave her an uncertain smile. “Honey, do you mind if I come in?”

  Kate blinked several times. “Uh, no.” She moved aside for Linda to pass.

  Linda stepped into the room, then turned and opened her arms, and said, “You look like you need a hug.”

  Kate rushed into Linda’s arms for a motherly embrace. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I wanted to explain—“

  “There’s nothing to explain. Ben told me all about it.” Linda sat on the couch and patted the seat for Kate to sit beside her.