Talk of the Town

by Mary Kay McComas

  "I know what he wants to do," she said, peevish. "Could we, ah, change the subject, do you think? I'm getting a headache thinking about all this."

  "All right," he said, leaning back in the chair. "That Arts Council Tea you wanted to go to is next week. I have to go down Wednesday, so I thought I'd stay the weekend and wait for you. We can go together."

  "You want to go to an Arts Council Tea?"

  "Not really, but I thought afterward we could go out to dinner somewhere nice, stay in a fancy hotel. On the way back I could show you my place in Fairfield, if you'd like to see it."

  "That sounds . . . nice. Great, in fact. But you don't have to go to the tea. You'd be bored silly," she said. And Justin was already anti-Gary for the time he was taking away from Rose's sculptures … and the Arts Council. Gary would be like an oil slick in this particular sea of society; he simply wouldn't mix well. He was so down-to-earth, and they were so . . . lofty, high-minded, and complicated. "And I've already promised Justin that I'd have dinner with him afterward. To discuss my work."

  When there was no invitation extended to him, he nodded and tried to hide his disappointment . . . and jealousy.

  "I'm sorry," she said, feeling terrible but knowing it was for the best. She went back to peeling the potatoes.

  "No. That's okay. I understand," he said. "I need to hit on a couple of lobbyists in Sacramento anyway. I'll go ahead and stay the weekend and then bop over to Sacramento for a couple days. That'll be a good time to do it. We can meet back here on Wednesday."

  "A week," she said aloud, her hands going still mid-peel. A week was a long time. Gary had been traveling back and forth to San Francisco and Sacramento and Fairfield for the past two months, but they hadn't been apart for more than two or three days at a time—and three days was a strain, though their reunions always alleviated that. Still, maybe a week without him would be good practice for when he was away two weeks. And then three. Then a month. Eventually more.

  "A week's a long time" he said, startling her with her own words. "Will you miss me?"

  She turned to face him. His knowing smirk didn't bother her one bit.

  "Yes. With every inch of me, I'll miss you."

  ~*~

  That said, but having very little effect on the dread of seven whole days apart—Rose accepting it as a dry run for the day he never came back, and Gary tortured with thoughts of Rose spending time with another man —the strain of being apart started immediately.

  "I told you when I started that there was a chance I might have to miss a few games on account of business. This'll be the first game I've missed, and Joe Spencer can sub for me."

  "But this is the Eureka Eagles game," she said, still miffed that he'd felt compelled to point out that she wasn't following through on her swings during practice. "You know how important it is to beat them this year."

  "Look, the team won't be any worse off than it was last year when you took second place. We've already beat the Eagles once. If we lose this game, the worst that could happen is that we'll tie for first."

  "That's not good enough. We need to beat them."

  "Rosemary, I told you," he said, sighing impatiently. "If I could reschedule, I would. But this is my incinerator we're talking about. The Greenpeace people have agreed to meet with us and listen to our proposal. If we can get their support, and if my people in Sacramento do what they're supposed to do, we can start building by Thanksgiving."

  "You couldn't tell them that Fridays weren't good for you?"

  "For crissake, it's one game. The pitcher's been out twice with menstrual cramps, and Lester missed a game because his mother-in-law's car broke down and he had to go pick her up somewhere. What's the big deal?"

  "Nothing. Forget it. Miss the game," she said, walking away, dragging her bat.

  They won the game that Gary missed. Lost the next two he played in, and took second place to the Eagles at the end of the season. Again.

  ~*~

  "What do you think of this?" she asked, making a grand entrance wearing the dress she'd shopped for all afternoon.

  Gary's face lit with approval. It was a simple black sheath dress with spaghetti straps and a short black lace jacket. It was cut low to show a tempting suggestion of her breasts, and high to show off her very shapely legs. With her mother's double strand of faux pearls, she thought the outfit chic, tasteful.

  He thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

  "I like it," he said, getting to his feet, aching to touch her. "I like it a lot. What's it for?"

  "The tea, silly."

  "I hate it." He sat down again.

  "Why?"

  "You shouldn't wear a dress like that unless you're with your grandfather, your son, or me."

  She smiled. "You're not jealous, are you?"

  "Of course I am." He was serious.

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really." He stood again, pacing a little. "What? You think I want my woman running all over San Francisco in a skimpy little dress with some other man? Some guy I've never even met?"

  "Your woman?" It wasn't that she minded being his woman as much as she minded the way he said it—as if she were his dog or his horse or his piece of meat.

  "Some guy I've never met with more in common with her than baseball and books?" he went on. "Some guy I've never met who owns an art gallery, for crissake?

  "I am not your woman."

  "What?"

  "Well, you make it sound as if you own me. And you don't."

  "That's not what I meant. What I meant was—"

  "I know what you meant. But you're going to have to trust me. You remember trust, don't you?"

  There was nothing worse than falling on your own knife.

  He looked away for a second to collect himself.

  "I remember trust. But I still wish it were going to be me with you in that dress."

  ~*~

  It was the longest Wednesday-to-Wednesday week Rose could remember. And in the end, she'd wished more than anything that she'd taken Gary with her.

  However, that wasn't the first thing she told him when he walked into the diner Wednesday evening, just before closing.

  The bells over the front door tinkled his tinkle. They rang fifty or sixty times a day, more on the weekend, and they always sounded the same, except when Gary walked in.

  Rose hurried from the kitchen to greet him, stopping short when she saw him. Goodness. How could someone get better looking in a week? He seemed bigger too. His presence dominated everything in the room.

  He'd stopped to talk to Floyd Bracken, a highway patrol officer who cruised in regularly to fill his thermos with coffee. He was on what he referred to as the Maytag shift, the loneliest shift in the world, patrolling the bleak stretch of Highway 101 from Eureka to the Oregon coast from nine P.M. to nine A.M. He'd pulled Gary over for a burnt-out brake light one night on his way home from her house. They'd hung out together on the side of the road, talking for hours, and had become good friends.

  He smiled at something Floyd said, and Rose went weak with longing. When he glanced her way and his smile brightened to a blinding intensity, her heart wiggled and shimmied like a joyful puppy.

  "Hi," he said, saying so much more, with his eyes.

  "Hi," she said, agreeing with him totally.

  "How are you?" he asked, making it sound like: I need to touch you. Right now. Let me make love to you. Here on the floor in front of God and everyone.

  "Fine." Yes, yes!

  "How was your trip?" he asked. Which was really: Hurry and finish so we can leave. I can't wait any longer to be alone with you.

  "All right. I'll tell you about it later." Right now I'm in a rush.

  If no one noticed the sweltering looks that passed between them or the way their bodies squirmed with excitement when they came within ten feet of each other, they were bound to suspect something was going on when their half-full coffee cups disappeared ten minutes before closing or when Rose stood holding the door open, telling them
it was time to close up when the clock on the wall clearly read five minutes to ten. If not at those times, then positively when Gary took them by the arm, smiling and patting them cordially on the back, and all but threw them into the street.

  Of course, it was Gladys Ford who reported the next morning that she'd seen Gary's truck streaking away at an incredible speed the night before, and it hadn't returned until after she'd had breakfast.

  Still, it was only the two of them who knew that Rose had Gary's shirt open and his fly undone before they pulled onto the dirt road leading to the old farmhouse. He put on the brake and turned off the engine in the front yard, his hands pulling at the buttons on her shirt before the night went silent around them. He pushed her back in the seat, his lips everywhere he could find warm flesh, one hand snaking its way into her blue jeans. She tugged at his khaki slacks, then pushed from the top with both hands pressed to the hot, hot skin of his pelvis.

  Their hands groped, their muscles trembled with need. Their breaths mingled in small excited gasps. Finally, when he had but one leg free of her pants, he pulled her forward, lilting her onto his lap and his urgent desire. There was a simultaneous moan of relief and a moment of utter ecstasy before the tiniest movement excited them again. He lifted his head from the back of the seat to suckle first one breast, then the other, dragging one pleasured groan after another from deep in her chest. She held his head close, her fingers fisted in his thick dark hair as she impaled herself again and again, harder and harder, deeper and deeper until the clamor within her exploded in the night, scattering tiny fragments of her in the wind, to float weightless.

  When he could, he held her, stroking her back, soaking her in through his fingertips. With his eyes closed and his emotions close to the surface, he promised himself he'd never be away from her that long again. Never. And certainly not because of his pride.

  He could have come back Sunday; his appointments in Sacramento hadn't been till Tuesday. Two days he could have been near her, but his pride and jealousy had kept him at home, in an empty house, with nothing but his stubbornness to keep him company.

  "I missed you so much," she said, her face in the bend of his neck, her breath warm against his skin. "I should have let you come with me." Then she added, "It was awful."

  "What? The whole thing was awful? Or being without me was awful?"

  "Yes. Both."

  “Why?" he asked, trying to look at her by the dashboard lights. "What happened?"

  She moved her head a bit. "Not now. Later. I don't want to spoil this."

  He smiled. "My legs are going to sleep anyway. Come on. Let's go inside. We can do it again. Right this time. Slow, the way you like it."

  "I like all of it. Every way. Any way I can get it from you."

  "I've noticed that," he said, handing her a wad of clothes. He helped her pull the other leg of her jeans off in the close confines of the cab and watched as she slipped her panties back on. He grinned. "Think someone's going to see you streaking to the house?"

  "No," she said, her smile bright in the dull light. "I like it when you take them off."

  ~*~

  There was no sleep for the wicked that night. They were cold by the time they reached the bedroom, stopping in the kitchen for a beer and a diet soda. The house was equipped with two hot water tanks, and they used up both of them in a long, leisurely, intimate shower.

  "How do you like it when I take your towel off?" he asked, his arms circling her from behind as she brushed out her wet hair, his hands resting on the rolled corners of the towel above her breast.

  "I don't know. Try it and see," she said, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. They stared at each other as his fingers slowly loosened the towel, pulled it away from her body, and dropped it on the floor. He pressed his nakedness to her back, cupping her breasts in his hands, then slowly slid them lower and lower. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart raced out of control. When her neck grew weak and her head fell back against his shoulder, he turned her in his arms and kissed her, and this time their loving was slow and sweet and heart-wrenching.

  ~*~

  "I like it when you miss me," he said sometime later, an undeniable gloating in his voice. "I thought you were insatiable before, but this is amazing. You're shameless."

  "I thought you said you liked it," she said, so spent, her words were slurred.

  "I do."

  "Then quit complaining. If you can't handle it . . ."

  "I can handle it," he said, rolling quickly from his back to wrap her in his arms. "I think," he added softly.

  They lay quiet, relishing the sensation of skin on skin.

  "Tell me why it was awful," he said, muttering as if he were asking for a bedtime story; as if he were about to have happy dreams knowing that she hadn't had a good time without him.

  "It wasn't awful," she said, caressing his thick muscled arm with soothing strokes. "I was awful."

  He pulled back to look at her.

  "What does that mean? How were you awful?"

  "It's hard to explain."

  "I'm listening."

  She sighed heavily, wondering where to start. Her mind jumped over the lunch she'd shared with Justin. He'd scolded her for neglecting her work over the past few months. She hadn't. She'd tried to explain that she'd been working regular hours on it; that Gary wasn't standing in her way; that he actually encouraged her by bringing take out to the house so she didn't have to stop and cook, and hauling Harley here and there to give her more time with the sculptures. Once again she'd tried to make him see that it wasn't a matter of time that was holding her up, it was the lack of desire that was holding her back. She didn't like the big sculptures, didn't enjoy them, didn't love them.

  Her mind blocked out the intimate dinner they'd dallied over after the tea. She had decided it would be best to forget that Justin had come on to her, tried to kiss her, touched her as if he had a thousand hands. Her shock was nothing to the anger she felt with his explanation. If she seemed less distant, less untouchable, more like a warm, open woman than a beautiful cool statue to him, it was entirely Gary's doing, not his. And if this new woman Justin saw had anything worth giving she'd be giving it to Gary first. Thank you very much.

  No, it was the hours between the two meals on Saturday that were awful.

  "Justin calls them the Art World," she said, starting slowly. "Or sometimes the World of Art. He says they're everybody who's anybody worth knowing, who deals in art on the West Coast. Gallery owners from everywhere, collectors, brokers, fundraisers, benefactors, artists—with and without names. Special people. Rich people. Powerful people.

  "Justin introduced me to the ones he thought were important. And me? I smiled and said all the right words and did all the right things. I sipped on a glass of wine I didn't want and listened to them shred the work of one artist after another. I was like someone I didn't know. All these people who couldn't draw a straight line to save their souls, but who have somehow set themselves up as the be-all and end-all authorities on good art, and I was pretending to be one of them.

  "I stood there and nodded like a dummy," she said, her speech coming faster and more heated. "I didn't defend anyone. I let Justin go on and on about my sculptures, as if I were proud of them. I stood there in those tight high heels and hoped with all my heart that those people would approve of me and my work. The work I did to please them, not myself. I walked out of that fancy reception hall feeling as if I'd been sucked dry. Like an empty coffee pot with nothing left but the goopy black dregs."

  Hearing this, Gary was glad he hadn't gone. It really didn't sound like his cup of tea, as it were.

  "You know," he said, his tone thoughtful. "I don't think you should be beating yourself up about this. Nobody likes it, but it seems to be a part of life. Everywhere you turn, there are puffed-up people who don't know diddly about what's going on, and there they are holding all the strings, making all the rules, screaming with the loudest voice. I have to deal with them all the time. And
I don't think anybody really knows what to do with them. There's no standard practice for getting around them. You put up with them. You go along with them as far as you can. You use them, because they're using you to make themselves seem important."

  "But I feel like such a hypocrite," she said, miserable.

  "I know. You're supposed to. It's all part of the game in the beginning."

  She looked at him, confused.

  "If you follow your conscience and fight them, you're dead before you ever get started. That's where their power lies. If you don't play by their rules, they simply lock you out and you never get in. But once you're in, it's your guilt and those feelings of fraud and deception that they count on to keep you submissive, which perpetuates their power over you."

  "I don't think I can live like that, Gary."

  "You don't have to," he said, pressing a kiss to her temple, giving himself a pat on the back for his excellent taste in women. "Didn't we already say they were know-nothing know-it-alls? Then you be smart. Beat’em at their own game. Do what you have to do to get in, and get to the top. But keep your perspective. Don't get sucked into their way of thinking. Remember what's really important in your life and be true to that. Then when you have your own power inside the group, you stomp on these people." He paused. "It's a game, Rose. Not a fun game, but a game nonetheless."

  She sighed. "I still think I should have said something. Several people had pieces on display. Why do they have to be so vocal with their opinions? If something doesn't appeal to them, couldn't they simply walk away without tearing it apart? They mutilated some of those pieces. Pieces someone put time and sweat and blood into." She hesitated. "They're going to chew me up and spit me out."

  "At least you'll be bleeding inside on the floor instead of outside in the dirt. It's no consolation, I know, but you can try again if you play your cards right," he said. "You don't always have to speak your mind. You don't have to help them tear anything apart; you don't have to agree with them. Just don't fight them until you know you can win."