****
The next morning, Nat called and said, "Cancel the video. The house is ours."
"No, it isn't. Becky's having a couple of friends over to study, and Russell—"
"My house. I gave Peaches a weekend on the Cape. There's a great bed and breakfast there that Linda and I once stayed at. I had hopes that it would be you and I who—anyway, Peaches is gone and here's the plan. Katie and I do some heavy-duty bonding at the Knights of Columbus carnival. I wear her out. You arrive around six-thirty. We put Katie to bed. We dine. We make wild, abandoned love until eleven. Twelve, if I can keep you. You return home. Tomorrow we do it all over again. I'll take Katie to a gym or something. So? Pure genius, am I right?"
After a too-long pause, Helen said, "What did Peaches say when you sent her away?"
"I did not send her away," Nat said, miffed at Helen's tepid response. "I just gave her an early birthday present. As a matter of fact, it was her idea. She'd mentioned recently that the bed and breakfast sounded like a wonderful getaway. Actually, I think she had in mind a family outing for all of us, but this'll be even better for her. No nannying. Maybe she'll meet a great guy."
You are the great guy, dope, thought Helen. In the last two weeks, Nat had spent every minute he could with Helen, bringing Katie along if the hour was early enough. Technically, Peaches should've been thrilled with her new free time. But Helen understood, as Nat did not, that no woman likes giving up territory to another. Was Peaches in love with him? Helen didn't know. Nat would've laughed at the notion; it was better left unsaid.
In any case, Helen didn't really care what Nat did to get rid of the ever-hovering Peaches. He could've put her in a rocket and sent her to the moon—whatever it took for Helen and him to be alone, if only for a few hours.
****
All day Helen savored the thought of the evening to come. Late in the afternoon she took a long shower and deep-conditioned her hair, then pumiced, buffed, polished, and lotioned every surface of her body. She hadn't lavished such attention on herself since—well, since Hank. She chose her laciest underthings and an easy-to-remove dress. She tried on earrings, then took them off. They'd only be in the way.
She was standing in front of the full-length mirror, pinning a tortoiseshell comb into her thick black hair, when Becky came in with an armload of just-folded towels for her mother's bathroom.
"Yikes, Mom. Why the gray dress?"
No way was Helen going to say why. "Because I like it.
"No, no, no." Becky plunked the pile of white towels on the wicker hamper and went to her mother's closet. "You look better in color." She pulled out a pretty rayon dress in a flattering shade of mauve. "Wear this one."
The dress had a million buttons down the back. "Nope," Helen said serenely. "The gray looks fine on me."
Becky scrutinized the dress for flow and cling and decided it would have to do. Sitting cross-legged on her mother's bed, she said, "Is it serious? I know it is for you. Is it for him?"
Helen felt no need to hide the truth from her perceptive daughter. "I think so," she said softly. "I hope so."
"I'm really glad. It's just so cool that you're in love."
Helen glanced at the open door. "You don't have to shout it from the rooftop."
"Mom. Stop babying him. Russell can handle this. He's not a little boy anymore; why treat him like one? Are you really so worried he's gonna freak out? Or is it more that you're afraid to move out of mom-mode?"
"Darn good points, Becky," said Helen, giving her daughter a yank on the collar. "Go away."
"Okay, okay." Becky untangled her long, tanned legs and hopped off the bed. "So where're you going to dinner?"
Helen shrugged, carefully avoiding her daughter's gaze. "Someplace quiet."
Becky studied her mother for a long moment, then smiled. "All I can say is, Mr. Byrne had better make an honest woman out of you after all this. Take an umbrella."
She flounced off, leaving Helen to stare at a thoughtful-looking reflection of herself. As for Mr. Byrne: what, exactly, were his intentions?
She wished she knew.
By the time Helen pulled up in front of the green-shuttered mansion, she hardly cared. She expected to feel shy, or to have scruples or reservations or stupid second thoughts. Instead she was amazed to see that she was on fire for him. When he opened the door it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms.
He'd dressed more casually than she, in khakis and crumply white linen shirt. It gave him an air of slouchy elegance that she found desperately appealing. Once she was in the hall, he took her in his arms and kissed her; she threaded her fingers through his shower-damp hair and let herself enjoy the first sweet taste of the night to come.
He said in her ear, "I've been obsessing on you all day long. On the Ferris wheel, on the merry-go-round, at the milk-bottle toss. I wish you'd come along."
"No, you were right to be with Katie on your own. Did she have fun?"
"She loved it," he said as they headed automatically for the music room. "It was a little touch and go after the candy cotton and ice cream, though. Maybe I shouldn't have done both."
"Maybe," Helen said, smiling.
Katie was in her pajamas at the far end of the room, kneeling next to the low table on which she liked to draw and paint. At the moment she had her big crayolas out and was immersed completely in her work. Helen was a little disappointed that the child hadn't come running. In the past two weeks—and especially during the two days that Helen had taken over Katie's preschool class—they'd become delightfully at ease with one another.
"Hey, kiddo, look who's here," Nat finally said.
Katie kept on coloring. Puzzled, Nat prompted her again.
The child looked up at Helen with blue-eyed reproach. "You made Peaches go away," she said. Without waiting for an answer, she returned to her drawing.
"No, honey, I—"
"Katie, what're you talking about?" her father said, amazed. "I told you. Peaches went for a little vacation on Cape Cod. She'll be home tomorrow night."
Helen saw that his cheeks were flushed. Guilt. Somehow he must have implied to his daughter that he was sending Peaches away so that he could be with Helen. Distressed, Helen sat on the sofa where Katie was working and, resting her arms on her thighs, clasped her hands and said, "What're you drawing, Katie? May I see?"
Still on her knees, Katie edged away from Helen. But she didn't reposition her drawing, which Helen studied with some interest. It was a murky arrangement of lines and shapes, but one aspect of it seemed clearer than the rest: a stick-figure inside what looked like a cage or basket.
Helen took a shot. "Is this a drawing of a zoo?" she asked.
Katie shook her head gravely. "That's Peaches. She can't get out."
Helen looked up quickly at Nat, who was standing above them, hands hooked in his front pockets. "Katie, that's silly. Peaches is fine. She needed some quiet time to be by herself. Just like you."
Katie stuck out her lower lip and said, "Is she coming back?"
"I told you—tomorrow night. C'mon, Rembrandt," he said, lifting her in his arms. "Time for bed. You've had your milk; your teeth are brushed. I'll read you a story and—would you like Mrs. Evett to read it to you instead?" he suddenly asked.
Katie, who just two days ago had sat mesmerized in the classroom circle while Helen read a tale from Beatrix Potter, decided to decline. She shook her head, lifting her arm over her eyes in the universal sign of rejection. Children did that, Helen knew; but she wasn't prepared for the pain she felt when the child was Katie.
"Well ... good-night, then, sweetie," she said with a reassuring little wave.
It was good that she hadn't risked blowing Katie a kiss, because the child turned away and buried her face in her father's shoulder and wouldn't have seen it anyway.
She's afraid of me, Helen thought, dismayed.
"She's tired," her father said, offering a more reasonable explanation. He nodded at the liquor cabinet and sa
id, "Why don't you pour while I ..."
He lumbered off with his cranky cargo and Helen, feeling a bit dispirited, walked over to the glass-fronted cabinet where a bottle of chablis stood uncorked and ready. She poured herself a glass, then wandered into the kitchen to see whether anything there needed tending.
It was all under control: a casserole of lobster thermidor, ready to pop into the Viking oven; two bowls of undressed salad in the Sub-Zero fridge; a crusty baguette on the Corian counter. Despite the elegant simplicity of the meal, Helen's guess was that Nat had had it catered, and she was right: a canvas sack with Christine's Catering stenciled on it lay on top of a small plastic cooler tucked away in a corner.
A note on the stove said fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. Good. They'd get the meal behind them in no time. Startled by her own brazenness, Helen returned to the music room to wait. She was feeling more and more restless and edgy, almost driven. She paced the width and length of the room, pausing to stare through the floor-to-ceiling casements at the damp and gloomy garden that lay beyond. The open east-facing window panels were spotted with rain; she drew the casements most of the way closed, then opened them again after she felt the air flow cease.
She wanted so much to seem in control of herself. But her nerves were jangled, her emotions on fire. What is wrong with me? she wondered. It couldn't just be the need for sex. No, it was Katie looking at her that way—it was disconcerting. Nat was probably right about her being worn-out, but still. And her drawing of Peaches in a cage—even more disconcerting. Could Peaches really have replaced Linda so soon in Katie's eyes?
Why not? Wasn't Helen hoping to do the same in Nat's eyes?
Too soon, too soon, she thought wildly. He's still angry at his wife, he's confused. Too soon.
The longer she waited for Nat to come down, the less resolve she had. She'd been assuming that her edginess was eagerness; in fact, it was just the opposite. She wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready for this.
She heard a sound and whirled violently around. He was standing at the far end of the room, his hands slung across his hips. She didn't understand his body language at all; was he angry?
"You won't believe this," he said, walking over to the glass-fronted cabinet and picking up the glass of wine she'd poured for him. He came over to where Helen had been standing and listening—she now realized—for the sneezing sound of the short-eared owl.
"Katie made me call Peaches," he said, shaking his head. "To prove she hadn't gone to heaven." He stared out at the garden with Helen. Together they listened to the sound of rain dripping on the ivy that clung to the bricks around the casements. "It was the damndest thing," he said after a moment.
"She's afraid of me," Helen murmured.
He was amused by that. "Two days ago she wasn't. She came home thrilled to have you taking care of her class. She hardly ate a thing at dinner that night; ask Peaches. No, it's not so much that she's afraid of you as that she's afraid Peaches will go away."
"She connects the two."
"She doesn't. Anyway, she talked with Peaches, was reassured, and is fast asleep. The night," he said, taking Helen's wineglass from her, "is ours. Finally."
He put the stemmed glasses down and took her in his arms. And suddenly, nothing else mattered. Helen remembered why it was she'd come; why it was she'd dressed with such care. She loved him, and wanted him, and nothing would be right until she felt him inside her again.
He slipped the tortoiseshell comb from her hair, letting her hair fall in a heavy slide to her shoulders, then pooled the shining black mass in his hands and inhaled deeply from it, as if it were rose petals. Smiling, pulling her close, fitting her hard against him, he said in a rueful voice, "Supper. I did promise you food."
"Turn off the oven," she whispered.
"My thoughts exactly."
They detoured through the kitchen. He flipped off the preheating oven while Helen, explaining one more time about food left out at room temperature, tucked the glass dish in the fridge for safekeeping. After that they went up the graceful curved staircase, the same staircase that generations of his people had ascended with just the same purpose in mind.
The same staircase that Linda Byrne had ascended.
For a moment Helen faltered.
Nat noticed at once. "What?" he said.
She rallied. "Nothing." Nat had a different bedroom now, a different bed now. It would be all right.
They passed the door to Peaches's room. Helen had to resist an urge to throw it open, making sure she wasn't there. Then Katie's room. Automatically both of them paused to listen. They heard the sweet, blissful sound of quiet.
And then, at last, they entered the room that Helen hadn't been in since she fainted. It was a beautiful room, neither masculine nor feminine, but of good classic design, from the walls upholstered in chinoiserie toile to the needlepoint rug in tea-stained tones of ivory and faded red.
In place of the canopied bed where Linda had died, there was a simple bed with a padded headboard covered in the same chinoiserie as the walls. The canopied bed, she knew, was on permanent loan to a West Coast museum; Nat had told her he could not deal with the memories.
"So. Here we are," said Nat behind her. "Why do I feel as if it's my first time?"
Helen turned from the bed to him. "Because in a way," she said, "it is."
He was leaning against a walnut tallboy, with his arms folded nonchalantly across his chest and an edgy smile on his lips. His dark hair had gone too long uncut—probably because he was so occupied with her—giving him a laid-back air at odds with the tension in his voice. As for the look in his ocean blue eyes—it was unfathomable. Desire, yes; but bafflement, too. He was looking at her as if she were part apparition.
"Helen of Salem," he murmured. "You have me in your spell."
"No, don't," she said, abashed. She went up to him quickly and put her hand over his mouth. It was a melodramatic gesture, to be sure; but she was in a heightened state.
She took her hand away almost at once, embarrassed by her response. "I'm Helen Evett," she said. "No more, no less."
"Whoever you are," he said, amused by her distress, "I love you dearly."
''I—" What could she say to that? They were the words she longed to hear, at a time she could not trust them. She put them aside, like cut flowers in water, and promised herself to arrange them later in her heart.
She bowed her head and took a deep breath, then let it out. "You must know how I feel, Nat," she said, too overcome by emotion to tell him.
"It would be nice to hear the words," he prompted in a soft, coaxing voice.
But the words would not come. Instead, she raised her arms around his neck and lifted her face to his, inviting him to kiss her and find out.
He took up her offer, kissing her with a warmth that quickly became heat, a heat that boiled over into abandon. His hands slid up, then down the curve of her spine—and then back up, to where the zipper began. He caught hold of it and pulled it down easily; the sound was music to her ears.
The dress fell away in a puddle at her feet as Helen became another step unbound. Nat took her by her shoulders and eased her down on the bed, then, gazing down at her, said in a voice slurred with desire, "Stay right ... there. Don't go anywhere."
Dazed with a sense of her own power, at the same time almost helpless with love for him, Helen watched as he jiggled a drawer in a small commode that stood alongside the bed.
"This time I'm prepared," he said, then let out a soft curse of exasperation and added, "except that the damn drawer sticks."
The hazy smile on Helen's face sharpened into something else altogether as he finally got it open with a sharp knocking sound.
Jiggle. Knock.
Jiggle knock. Jiggle knock, jiggle knock, jiggle knock!
"Oh no!" Helen cried, jumping up from the bed. "It can't be. . . Linda, Linda! Oh no!"
Chapter 24
Stiffly, blindly, Helen lunged for the drawer, slammed it shut, then trie
d to jiggle it open again. Yes, yes, it was the sound, the exact sound—and then the sharp knock as it broke free. After Linda's death, she'd been haunted by that sound for weeks. It was the sound that the plumber couldn't trace—and no wonder.
"What do you keep in that drawer?" she said to Nat. "Tell me what you keep in it!"
He stared at her as if she'd gone mad. "Condoms," he answered.
"Always? Always in that drawer?"
"Christ, no. I haven't used 'em since I was eighteen. These are for tonight—for you. For me; for us," he said, angered and confused by her outrageous behavior.
"Before tonight! I mean before," she cried.
"Before—? I don't know. Stuff. What does it matter? She kept stuff there. Dental floss. Paper, pencils, that kind of thing. For making notes to herself as she was dropping off to sleep."
"Why would she do that?" Helen demanded, more of herself than of him. "Why would she want a paper and pencil?"
"I just told you why, Helen. Jesus! What's wrong with you?"
She wasn't listening. "What was so important that she had to write it down then?"
"Then? When?"
"When she was dying, Nat!" Helen said, whirling around to him. "Why did she bother forcing this drawer instead of calling you—or 911?"
His voice became quiet, his face, as still as a pond at midnight. "How do you know that she opened the drawer?"
Helen made a tisking sound of impatience, as if one of her kids were asking her how to ring a doorbell. "Because I heard it—how do you think? I heard it. Over and over and over."
"Helen—"
"No, no, I know what you're thinking. I did hear it, Nat. I did! You have to believe me. Becky knows."
"Becky!"
"She didn't hear it, exactly; but she saw me hear it!"
"When? Where?"
"After Linda died. In my bedroom. Why do you think the plumber said the house is haunted, Nat? Because it is! She's there!"
"In your house? But—you never even met Linda; you talked to her only once!"
Beyond Midnight Page 28
