Sydney gave her a get-to-the-point stare.
“There’s a lot of talk about love. People talk about it so much, it seems like a common, ordinary thing. But it isn’t. It’s very rare and very special. It’s what every little girl dreams of ... and what very few women find.” She paused to choose her next words carefully. “Once your heart’s known real love, it won’t be content with anything less. And just because you found it once, that doesn’t mean it’ll be any easier to find a second time.”
Sydney stared at the door long after Judy had closed it, and listened as her words resounded through the room like echoes in a cave. They were heart-words, from one woman to another, that rang true and clear and real.
Deep in thought, she entered the bathroom and let habit take over as she applied blush and mascara. Somewhere between brushing her teeth and leaving the bathroom to get dressed, a strange notion began to form in her mind.
It was not a whole thought, merely bits and pieces of an idea. But even the selection of her darkest clothing, a milk-chocolate brown skirt and jacket with a cream-colored silk blouse, was a deliberate step in the scheme forming in her head.
A glance at the clock told her she was going to be late for work, but she didn’t quicken her pace. Work simply didn’t fit into the plan she was hatching. She wouldn’t be going to work that day.
Her life was upside down and needed to be set right. One minute she was dating safe, boring, predictable men, and on the heels of a wish for some variety in her life, all hell broke loose. A desire to meet a man she could tell her dreams to was all at once a man who shared her dreams and became an intrinsic part of them. A man who was neither boring nor predictable.
Her wishes had come true. She’d experienced the flip side to her sheltered, orderly lifestyle. She promised herself to be more careful the next time she made a wish.
But she’d also met the man she’d been looking for. A once-in-a-lifetime event—a phenomenon really, considering the number of people she knew who’d given up or settled for second best. And yet, a fear that she couldn’t explain or control, a curse that shamed her, stood between them.
What did she believe, then? That fear was more powerful than love? That she was doomed to a drab, solitary existence because everything out of the ordinary threatened her sense of well-being? That she was so tightly wrapped in her own security blanket, she’d risk her heart and her future to stay that way? It didn’t sound like her. She didn’t recognize the coward she’d become.
Her tardiness helped her avoid the early morning bumper-to-bumper traffic, during which she usually did some of her best fretting. She soon discovered there was a strange correlation between motion on the freeway and the activity in her brain. The faster she drove, the quicker and less congested her thoughts were.
She’d never considered herself to be a quitter, a loser, or someone who was afraid to take a chance. She had accommodated her fear of dying all her life, but she’d never had to make a real sacrifice for it. Was she so afraid of dying that she wouldn’t allow herself to live? And wasn’t the line between living and existing drawn at the quality of one’s life rather than its length?
“Damn right it is,” she said aloud, bobbing her head to read the exit signs and steering the car into the far right-hand lane. “And I’m about to start living.”
She took the first downtown exit she came to, her strategy formed solidly in her mind.
Sydney Isadora Wiesman was a fighter—not Rambo, mind you, but certainly someone to be reckoned with when it came to getting what she wanted. And she had her heart set on Tom Ghorman. Her fear was all that stood between her and the man she loved, and it was this same fear with which she was about to do battle. Once and for all time, she would stand up to the dread and terror that controlled her without cause or invitation. She was going face-to-face with her unseen enemy, and she had every intention of conquering it.
Well, she had every intention of conquering it while she parked her car in the lot outside the largest of the eight Ghorman mortuaries. And she had every intention of conquering her fears while she reapplied the lipstick she’d chewed off, and while she envisioned herself walking through the hallowed halls of the first Ghorman funeral home to the executive offices in the rear, where Tom would be waiting for her. The expression she pictured on Tom’s face gave her the momentum to carry her to the front steps.
But there she faltered. The huge blond-brick building rose up before her like the gates of hell. Her heart pounded out an alarm, and adrenaline poured into her veins. She stood with one foot on the first step and watched the structure sway and lean heavily toward her. The thick wooden doors opened wide to expose the black abyss beyond, and her fingers went numb. The portal grew larger, wider, closer. Bile burned in the back of her throat.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she muttered, frozen on the first step.
“It’s all right, dear,” a voice said. “Edward won’t mind that you’re a little late. Lord knows, the man took his own sweet time doing things when he was alive.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Alive is certainly one word you could use to describe our Edward. What a pistol. Of course, cad, cheat, and completely impossible are just as descriptive. But he was a human being, and he deserves a certain amount of respect, don’t you think?”
Sydney turned her head slowly until she could see the gray-haired middle-aged woman who’d spoken to her. She was tall and slim and had an air of elegance that one usually associated with affluence. She didn’t, however, strike one spark of recognition in Sydney’s distorted mind.
The woman smiled. “Oh, you had it bad, didn’t you, dear?” she said kindly. She slipped an arm through Sydney’s and began to walk with her up the steps. “You know, I’ve wondered about it a thousand times, and I have never been able to figure out what it was about Edward that got to us. He wasn’t the richest man alive, and as far as his looks went ... well, I have a poolman who Edward couldn’t hold a candle to, even in his younger days.”
Sydney couldn’t believe her feet were moving. She told them not to. She told them to turn around and run back to the car, away from the darkness, away from the danger and the crazy woman beside her. But they ignored her. Step after step, they brought her closer and closer to the black void in which she would be lost forever if she crossed over its threshold.
She looked at the woman again and tried to protest, tried to make her understand the perils of getting too close to the eternal pit of doom that loomed before them, but her vocal cords were paralyzed.
The woman continued to speak in the absence of comment from Sydney. “He had that special something, though. I can’t count the times that I made up my mind to be done with him, and then, out of the blue, there he was again. I wouldn’t hear from him for months, and then suddenly he’d show up. No doubt he was the same with you. There are so many of us, one man couldn’t possibly keep it up, so to speak, to satisfy us all.”
What was she talking about? Sydney wondered. Her fear and the unfamiliar rambling of the woman were making her head swim.
“You’re obviously one of the newer ones, so he probably saw you more often. He truly did prefer younger women, but he wasn’t a love-’em-and-leave-’em type of man.” She laughed. “We should form a sorority. We could call it We Bedded Eddy.”
Okay. Enough was enough.
“What?” she asked the woman, frowning, confused beyond definition.
The woman looked at her and smiled knowingly. “I’m sorry. Ignore me.” Sydney wished she could, but the woman had total control of her feet, and the yawning darkness was only steps away. “I don’t handle this sort of thing very well, so I make jokes. I loved Edward, and I’m going to miss him. I’m just a little nervous to see what’ll happen when we’re all in the same room with his wife.”
“Wife?” What was she talking about? Who was Edward? Who was “we”? And who cared about Edward’s wife? She forced her feet to stop and steeled herself not to move another inch, but the woman was determined.
&nb
sp; “Well, surely you must have realized she’d be here, dear,” she said, opening the door and dragging Sydney inside with her.
“No,” Sydney protested, fear gripping at her throat and abdomen. Gripping and twisting until she thought she might scream with the discomfort. Sydney shook her head. She was going blind. Except for the woman’s face, she saw only nothingness.
“Truly,” the woman said soothingly. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be right here beside you.”
“No. I ... can’t see ...” Her feet were moving again. Where was her will? Why couldn’t she take control of her own body from this woman? she wondered, feeling hopelessly lost.
“It’ll be fine. You’ll see. You want to say good-bye to Edward, don’t you?”
Although she couldn’t see, her feet followed the woman. What little control she had left was instantly fried in the sensory overload.
She cried out and turned back to the door. Like the proverbial bat out of hell, she flew through the darkness using her own personal radar system to guide her.
“Please. Please. Let me out,” she cried. “I have to get out of here.”
“Ma’am? I’m Jeffrey—”
“I need to get out of here,” she told him, straining her eyes to focus on his face. In her desperation her mind seized on another idea. “I need Tom. He knows. He’ll get me out.”
“Tom? Mr. Ghorman? Tom Ghorman?”
“Yes. Take me to his office. Please. I have to get out of here.”
“He’s not in his office. Perhaps there’s something I can do for you. I’m the director of—”
“What do you mean he’s not in his office? Didn’t he come in to work today?”
“Well, yes, he did. But only to speak to the movers.”
“What movers? What are you talking about? Can’t anyone make sense in this place?” she wondered aloud, thinking it very possible that hell could be a place in which people spoke incongruously and illogically.
“Mr. Ghorman has had his offices moved to the Fargo Building on Hampton Avenue. But if there’s anything I can do for you ...”
“Why did he do that? I came all the way over here to show him how much I loved him and to see the expression on his face and to ... and now ...” She threw her hands out in despair. She wanted to cry, planned to cry as soon as she was safe.
“You could go over to the new office,” he suggested, looping a comforting arm around her shoulders. “It’s only fifteen minutes from here, and I’m sure he’d be glad to see you.” He hesitated briefly. “You’re the lady he met on TV, right?”
She nodded and took the bright white handkerchief he pressed between her fingers. She didn’t need it yet, but it gave her something to do with her hands.
“Well, then, I know for sure that he’ll be glad to see you. Tom and I are good friends.”
She was walking again, but she had no idea where she was going. She could only hope that Tom’s friend knew where he was going.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll call Tom and have him come back here. How’s that?”
“But I can’t stay here,” she mumbled, twisting the handkerchief into a small rope. “I’m already blind, and I think I’m going to have a heart attack if I don’t throw up first. I was so sure that I could do this. Just once. Just to show Tom that I love him.”
“Well, I think he’ll get the idea. If ... if I seat you here, will you be all right for a second or two while I call Tom? You won’t move, will you?” he asked, lowering her onto a deacon’s bench in the foyer. She nodded. “Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”
She trembled in the darkness and listened to the hammering of her heart. Seconds ticked by sluggishly while her apprehensions multiplied. What if Jeffrey didn’t come back? she agonized. What if she spent the few seconds she had left of her life sitting on a bench and didn’t get to tell Tom that she loved him? Was this it? Was whatever lay beyond life a perpetual state of waiting? Like an eternal express lane? Was this all there was to dying? The blackness? The quiet? The waiting for something to happen? Was this all there was? She’d accomplished some of the major goals she’d set for her life, but there were still so many things she’d wanted to do. She wasn’t finished living yet.
A door opened and closed far away, and she waited to hear Jeffery’s voice again. She soon sensed a presence beside her and waited for him to speak.
Instead she heard someone weeping, softly, almost noiselessly, but with such deep pain and sorrow that it penetrated her terror and tore at the fiber of her heart.
Nature has a way of seeking out an equilibrium. All the elements in the universe eventually came into balance. Sydney was no exception. She knew agony when she heard it. And even through her own distress, she knew it was far greater than her own and instinctively sought a balance.
She turned her head and let the image of a young blond woman form in her consciousness. She was sitting next to her in a rigid upright position, eyes closed and damp with tears, her lower lip clenched tightly between her teeth as if the tension would control the quiver in her chin.
It was several long seconds before the woman picked up on Sydney’s concern and sympathy and opened her eyes.
“I thought we had forever,” the young woman muttered vaguely, stunned in her grief. “He promised me forever.”
In the most natural, unthinking manner, Sydney reached out and gathered her into her arms. Without embarrassment and in no disgrace, the woman took comfort in her embrace. She cried tears from her soul. Bitter tears that sprang from the waste of a dream. Burning tears that came from the loss of a loved one. Biting tears that poured forth from the destruction of part of her spirit.
No words were exchanged. None were necessary. They were two women in pain, two women battling in defeat against the uncontrollable. Real and imaginary, the fear and torment were the same.
She held the young woman without weariness. There was a comfort in the sharing and understanding. There was a serenity in taking on a pain far more immediate than her own, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Tom had ever felt the same sort of soul-linking kinship with his clients that she felt with the woman in her arms.
“Jeannie?” a soft voice broke in.
The head on Sydney’s shoulder lifted at the sound of the voice. In a dazed fluster the woman looked at her.
“I’m sorry ... I ... Thank you. I’m very sorry,” she said, her voice cracking with sudden awkwardness and discomfort.
“No. I’m sorry. For your loss.”
She nodded, and her gaze met Sydney’s with a unique type of silent gratitude. It was a look that Sydney would never forget.
A shadowy arm stretched out for the woman, and she left willingly, leaving Sydney alone on the deacon’s bench. Still basking in the warm sensation of being human, Sydney sat back and took note of other shadows.
As if looking through darkly tinted sunglasses, she saw the few sparse pieces of finely carved antiques set about the vestibule. The Queen Anne chairs, the ornate pattern in the rug, the doors leading ...
The doors!
Like a hostage with one final chance at escape, she didn’t hesitate. She bolted for the main doors, already sucking in the fresh air of freedom when the doors opened.
“Sydney!”
“Tom!” It seemed fitting that he stood on the other side of the threshold in the sunlight, in her sanctuary, one step beyond the gloom.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, catching her in his arms as she flew past him.
She clung to him, safe at last. For long minutes they said nothing. It was enough to simply hold tight to each other, to feel loved, to belong. But the link between time and reality was a solid connection, and the truth couldn’t be put off indefinitely.
“It didn’t work, Tom,” she said, disheartened and miserable, recognizing her opportunity to cry, to release her emotions. “I tried. I wanted it to work, but it didn’t.”
“What?” he asked, brushing short blond locks of hair away fr
om her face and, when they were out of the way, brushing her cheek tenderly because he loved touching her. “What were you trying to do here?”
“Cure myself.” She sniffed loudly. “I thought if I stood up to my fears, that I could find some way to deal with them, and we could—” she shrugged off the rest of her sentence, knowing it would hurt too much to list her hopeless wishes out loud.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
Through a blur of tears she met his gentle, inquisitive gaze and found it hard to sustain in her shame. She walked away from him as she spoke. “It was worse than I ever imagined. I was a basket case. Ask your friend Jeffrey.” She sat down on the steps and wrapped her arms around her, gripping her jacket to contain the tremors that came in the aftershock. “I made a fool of myself, and of you.”
“With who? Jeff?” he asked, sitting down beside her. “I don’t think so. He told me you were beautiful and that I was a lucky guy.”
“Everyone must go blind in there,” she said, dejected.
Tom exhaled slowly, biding his time. He could see that Sydney wasn’t as happy with what she’d done as he was. She was upset and disappointed—he was thrilled. He concentrated on keeping a concerned frown on his face so he wouldn’t grin, and waited for her to realize that he had her right where he wanted her.
“I don’t know where I got the idea that this would work,” she said, folding her arms across her knees and lowering her head to hide her tears. The gentling hand on her back did little to console her.
“If it matters at all, I’m not disappointed that it didn’t work.”
“It matters to me,” she mumbled into her lap. “What if I never get over this fear I have of dying?”
“Then you never get over it.”
“But what about us? You moved your office for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” He wanted to shout with joy. He wanted to kiss her, take her there and then on the steps of the mortuary and make love to her for the rest of time. He wanted to leap park benches and dance in a fountain. But it didn’t seem like the right moment. “I moved the offices so that you could have as much or as little to do with my professional life as you could handle. But as far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to have anything at all to do with it. You don’t even have to think about it. Tell your friends I’m a mailman or an antiques dealer. Tell them anything you’re comfortable with. It’s my personal life I want you to be a part of, and I’m perfectly willing to keep them two complete and different entities.”
Asking for Trouble Page 14
