Chapter Nine

Grandfather Turner’s arteries were steadily narrowing, and he had a bad heart. He would live another year or two perhaps, or he could be dead tomorrow.

Tears came into Laura’s eyes when she heard that. She thought of moving into his house and nursing him along. A dancer’s diet, she knew with certainty, would cure him of old age and heart disease. His favorite sherry was definitely out.

Richard, one-hundred-percent miserable, slumped into a chair. He had trouble looking at either of the two women. He played with a lampshade, turning it around and around.

“Now what is this?” Mr. Decter stood in the doorway. “We still have guests downstairs, you know. They want to know what I’ve done with my children.” He wasn’t really angry at them.

Milly jumped up and went to the door. She kissed her father on the cheek and ran off downstairs. “Now what did I do to deserve that?” asked Mr. Decter. “Come on, Richard, Laura, the two of you as well.” He turned to Laura. “You are feeling all right now, aren’t you, young lady?”

“Yes, sir,” Laura said. She got up, too, and waited for Richard to follow suit. The three of them tromped downstairs where Richard left Laura to fend for herself with the company.

He was back in fifteen minutes, along with a young couple. “This guy and I were best friends for about twelve years,” he said to Laura. He had his arm firmly around his buddy’s shoulder. He and his friend laughed. “Laura, I want you to meet Harris Perkins and his wife, Sara Jean. Harris and Sara Jean design and manufacture their own line of sportswear.”

“That sounds like fun,” said Laura.

“I wonder,” mused Sara Jean.

The two were told what Laura did, but not her relationship to Richard. Harris and Richard wandered off together and Laura and Sara Jean stood smiling at one another. “Where did you get a name like Sara Jean?” Laura asked.

“In Tennessee, same place I got the accent. And don’t tell me you don’t hear that.” Sara Jean smiled and looked around the room. “I’m not used to Harris’s people yet. They aren’t like my own, believe me. I’ve been in New York two years, that’s all. I went to school in Tennessee, then I came up here. I went to work for Harris as a designer, and you can guess the rest.”

Sara Jean did seem something like nervous. “I’m not a hillbilly though.” She laughed. “My parents have a small general store. The customers are hillbillies. Now I design hillbilly clothes for Manhattan women. They pay a lot fur—for—it too.” She smiled. “Have you known Richard a real long time?”

“Not very long,” answered Laura. “Have you met him before?”

“Only once. At our wedding, But I’ve heard everything about him. He and Harris used to put on quite a show around here.” She smiled at Laura.

“Quite a show?” Laura couldn’t imagine.

“They roughed around together a lot and raised hell, I guess.” Sara Jean smiled.

“Raised hell?” asked Laura.

“You know,” said Sara Jean. “Like all boys do.” She was more nervous now, afraid that she had offended Laura.

“It doesn’t sound like Richard,” said Laura. “But as I mentioned, I don’t know him that well.” She caught sight of Richard and Harris, coming back to the women through the laughing, talking guests.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention for one minute only.” Mr. Decter called his friends and relatives to order. He was smiling. The small crowd quieted down. Laura saw Grandfather Turner seated in the corner and wondered if he shouldn’t be taken home soon.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I have a very pleasant announcement to make. I couldn’t be happier about introducing a new family member to you. It may be a little premature, but I want you to meet Laura Reegan, who is going to be my daughter-in-law. She and our son, Richard, whom you all know, have gotten engaged. She’s a very delightful and talented young woman. We’re all very happy.” Mr. Decter’s eyes shone.

Sara Jean turned to Laura and grinned. “That’s wonderful, Laura. Congratulations. I guess you do kind of know Richard at that.”

Richard came the rest of the way across the floor to Laura. His eyes sought hers anxiously. People were applauding. Richard caught hold of Laura’s hand and pulled her toward him in protection. “I didn’t do it,” he whispered with urgency into her ear.

She had known that he hadn’t. She held his hand tightly. She was dizzy with the evening’s events. She supposed that Milly had done this, because of Grandfather Turner. Laura looked over at the elderly gentleman. People were congratulating him. People streamed over to Richard and Laura too.

Richard accepted the unanimous best wishes for both of them while Laura tried to appear friendly if the slightest bit dimwitted. Richard was moving them steadily in the direction of the door. “Cold evening,” Laura said overloudly, startling some well-wishers, who no doubt possibly wondered if she understood the topic of conversation.

Richard left Laura pinned up against a wall, nodding vigorously at several nicely appointed guests who were praising Richard’s accomplishments. “Always a smart boy.” “A real gentleman.” “After that, he didn’t disturb my mother’s chrysanthemum bed when he rode by our walkway.”

Richard came back with two coats, neither of which was hers, obviously, since both were men’s garments. He opened the door, wrapped a coat around her, and pushed her out. He closed the door behind him and put on the other coat, which was too small. “You take this one,” she said, and began to get unbundled.

He wrapped her up again, and drew her toward the garage where he was parked. “I don’t think I can get out,” he said. “I’ll borrow someone else’s car.” They came into the garage, out of the wind.

“Whose coats are these?” She slipped her arms into the coat, then flapped them up and down to show how roomy the sleeves were.

“Don’t worry,” Richard said. He looked around. ““I can’t get out of here. Wait in the car though. I’ll go borrow somebody’s keys.”

“Is it too late to go to church tonight?” she asked.

He looked unhappy. “I think so. We can drive around. You should have said something earlier.”

“It’s not that important,” said Laura. “But sometimes I like to go.”

“We’ll go in the morning,” he told her. “Tonight, too, if we can find someplace.” He opened the car door for her and closed it again, leaving her sitting in the cold car by herself.

She pulled the large, thick coat around her, then stuck her hands into the pocket. The coat had a fur collar and she leaned her head into the silky animal hairs. She thought of her first engagement, about five years earlier. No family party had been given for that one—only a stern look on her father’s face.

In the right pocket, she felt an envelope. She ran her finger along the roughly opened edge. Her mother’s face had been anxious. Shetley’s face had worn a satisfied smile. Her own face had been eager, she guessed. The eager face of a child.

She pulled the envelope out of the coat. It was addressed to Mr. Decter and it was from Richard. She couldn’t make out the date on the postmark. Of course she had no intention of reading it. She thrust it back into the pocket. This then was Mr. Decter’s coat.

Her hand stayed glued to the envelope. She couldn’t say she wasn’t curious. Richard had lied, and Milly had lied, and Mr. Decter had lied without knowing it. She had lied too. That didn’t mean she was going to look at the letter. Richard would be back in a minute anyway.

Richard was back, dangling a set of car keys and wearing his own jacket. He had her coat also, a wool hand-me-down from her mother. She changed, leaving the mysterious letter in its rightful pocket. She put the coat on the seat and shut the door.

What kind of man was Richard? That was what tempted her to read the letter. What was in this letter he had written to his very own father? She had been fooled by Shetley and somewhat fooled for brief periods by a few other men. She had been dazzled by Dante—and probably still was. What was happening to her now?

He led her across the field that was the Decter front yard. “Are we walking or are we driving?” she asked. Her nervousness always made her sarcastic.

Laura decided Elise must be the way she was through nervousness. But with Richard, she must very often be different, more vulnerable, more tender. That was why Richard could be satisfied with her. Richard calmed Elise and made it possible for her to be loving with him. Richard knew how to be with a woman. Lucky Elise.

Richard guided Laura though the wet to a large-sized grey car and opened the door for her with the key. She reached over and opened his side for him, then pulled off her wet shoes. They were ruined. She tucked her feet under her as Richard started the car.

“I think it’s too late for church,” he said. “It’s after twelve.” The night was a quiet, country delight. The moon had moved and the stars were too chilled to show distinctly. Richard turned on the defroster and leaned across Laura to open the glove compartment. He pulled out some tissues and wiped at the inside of the window.

Laura pushed the glove compartment closed. “Who is going to take Grandfather Turner home?” she asked. “I ought to have spoken to him before we walked out.”

“George was just driving him. We can go by there now and say good night.” He glanced at her.

“Yes, please. I want to thank him again for my necklace.” The car was warming up, but she still felt cold. She was shivering.

“He was very, very happy at Dad’s little announcement.” Richard’s voice was almost too low to hear.

“That’s good,” said Laura.

“I’m sorry,” Richard told her. “I know this is difficult for you and unfair. I can’t think of anything to do to make up for it. I’m sorry. We won’t come up again anytime soon. Sometime though, you might want to see my grandfather. I think you’re fond of him.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I am too,” he acknowledged regretfully.

“You can’t blame yourself for his illness,” she said. “I’ve thought about it all very carefully. I’m like you, you see. I have an unfulfilled ambition that I live with always, in every hour, in every minute, almost.”

She took a breath and went on slowly. “I’m learning—I’m trying to learn to let go of the things I want so badly. You’ll think I’m being too philosophical, but that’s where I stand. Pushing and pulling to make things as I’d like them never brought me anything. That’s the end of the lecture.” She looked at Richard. She shouldn’t have spoken; the lesson wasn’t fully hers yet to teach.

“Yes,” agreed Richard. “Don’t you think I know that already? But go ahead and yell at me all that you like. I’ve ruined your Christmas, for one thing.”

He stopped the car outside his grandfather’s. Lights were on in the house. “No,” said Laura. “I’m not going to yell. Let’s forget it. What makes you think it’s so awful for me, anyway?” She began to laugh. “It’s quite a silly situation. It’s Shakespearean.”

Grandfather Turner was glad they had come. He was tired, but he wanted to tell them both how pleased he was. He assured them very gently that financial matters were not to worry them; he knew that Richard wanted to quit work for a while and paint.

They left soon and drove to an all-night truck stop to have hot chocolate. “So you and Harris used to rough around together,” she commented.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s what Sara Jean told me,” she shrugged.

“To tell you the truth, we were kind of amateur botanists. We collected leaves and twigs and herbs and weeds and tried to identify them. And we drew them too. And birds. And animals. And for a while we were going to be guitar players, but neither of us practiced quite enough. I never was a musician. We were sort of average kids.” He smiled, remembering his childhood.

“Then Harris went into the Army and was stationed in Germany. When he came back, his parents gave him the money to set up a business. So he did that instead of going to school. He kind of didn’t have time to see me much, or didn’t want to, after the Army.” Richard glared at her.

“Elise and I went to his wedding, but that didn’t work out any too well. Elise made me leave almost right after the ceremony. She didn’t think much of the occasion. No media stars. Harris is a good ol’ boy though. But we grew apart.” He drew the change out of his pocket to leave a tip.

“That was the longest speech I ever heard you make.” She arranged the coins into a pattern.

“Oh I make a lot of speeches. I’m full of speeches. That wasn’t a speech. Try me sometime.” He was less relaxed that he’d been all evening and this hadn’t been a good evening for him.

“Who listens to your speeches?” Her voice sounded small and thin to her.

“Who listens to yours?” He stood, the check and an ancient five-dollar bill in his hand.

She remained seated. “I know a lot of people. I have friends. At the Studio, at the health club.”

Richard sat back down. He stuck his finger in a puddle of water on the Formica table. “And Dante?”

“I think Dante and I could get to be friends,” she said with sudden inspiration.

He pulled a dot of water across the table. “I thought you were friends.”

“No, not entirely. We went out a couple of times, that’s all. I don’t know why you thought anything special was between us. There’s not. I rather liked him for a short time, but that didn’t seem too sensible. You may imagine that I told you something else, but it’s only that I didn’t contradict you. Why not? Maybe I didn’t think my relationship with Dante was any of your business, that’s all.” So that now he would know that she was free, if it mattered to him.

She stood up. Part of what she liked about Dante was his honesty, even if what he was honest about was being selfish. Honesty was getting to be an obsession with her. Living without it seemed difficult. If she could be honest with Richard and if Richard could be honest with her…

Then something could work out between them. Whether something as deep as she wanted, or not. But something valuable. Only with honesty. Without honesty—nothing. As a woman, she had lived with lies all her life—being “good” for her parents, being less than the person she actually was inside with Shetley, and with others. Someday, she would be truthful in her dancing. Someday, she would be truthful face to face with a man.

Richard stood up again. She couldn’t really tell how he was taking her revelation about Dante. She wanted honesty, but look at all the lies going on around her. Then they faced the lie of their engagement. That was a large lie.

The snow started coming down hard as they were driving. She couldn’t see the moon. “It isn’t any of my business, I know,” Richard said. “It’s none of my business at all, so you don’t have to tell me. The night I called up about Elise. Was that Dante over there, or wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that was Dante.” And hadn’t she been very much in love with Dante that night?

Richard didn’t say anything else for a while.

Laura’s mind stayed on that same chain of thought and concluded that Richard must think she had spent the entire night with Dante. Denying such a thing would be rather awkward, and not particularly dignified.

Well, he ought to know something about her by now—enough to realize that she didn’t leap easily from man to man. But what did that mean? How could she say, even to herself, I thought I loved Dante, yet that was an illusion; loving Richard is the truth.

But she knew what the difference was. She loved Richard from everything fine that was in her, to everything fine that she saw in him. She had dreamed of loving Dante for his elegance, for his supple, insinuating charm, from everything within her that said that love was magic, made by the angels, given down to earth from a higher font. She now knew that what she wanted was Richard’s kind of real-world love, that she thought herself capable of at last.

“What are you thinking about?” Richard asked her.

“How much I’ve changed,” she said slowly. “When I was a kid, I used to fall in love with the basketball players—you said your sister loved football players, but they weren’t my type. I went out with a few basketball players—I was very shy, but I was considered pretty, and my family was respected socially.

“Then in college, I went out with fraternity men, but only because they were the ones who asked me, and only as a kind of passable, fill-in date. I finally married Shetley, and I idolized him, so I very easily was hurt.

“I said I was thinking how much I had changed, but now I’m thinking how much I haven’t. I don’t know any more about men than I did then. But I know so much more about myself, and that’s awfully important to me.” She stopped talking and watched the snow. How difficult being honest was. If she had been honest, she would have said, “I’m thinking that I could easily fall in love with you, Richard.”

“And you never met anyone who made you imagine you might marry again?” he asked, not looking at her.

Yes, Richard, you. “Not exactly.” Her face was flushed and she was feeling completely awkward.

“Perhaps you don’t believe in marriage?” he probed.

“Of course I do.” But only in special circumstances. Like this one.

“Why of course? A lot of women don’t anymore. Especially if they’re set on a career, as you are.” He had to look very hard out the window to see where he was driving and that gave him a perfect reason to avoid looking at her face. She wondered what he was thinking, but was afraid that she already knew.

“Like Elise, you mean?” He still wanted to marry Elise, didn’t he? Her heart sank, her body burned as if she’d been poisoned. She felt like a fool, and, what was worse, she would never have him. Oh, Richard, don’t you know? she thought.

“Oh, Elise.” He shook his head. “Please. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t talk about her tonight.”

Yes, he did seem to be in pain for the mention of her, but so was Laura. His refusal to discuss Elise smarted. Laura was trying to open up to him—her thoughts, her life. Revealing herself wasn’t easy; she wasn’t used to it. But he didn’t want to try, it seemed. He wasn’t thinking of her in that way at all—either as a friend or as a lover.

She was thinking of him as both of those. She was thinking of him tonight, their first night under the same roof. She would put on her nightgown and robe and go and knock on his door. He would answer, “Come in.” She would open the door and stand there. He would be surprised to see her, but the same feeling would be in his eyes as when they had danced together earlier that evening—deep desire.

She knew it. She knew that was what he had felt. And desire that deep could only mean love. Yet if he had loved her, then it had passed like a bolt of lightning—powerful, illuminating, finished.

But she had been ignited by that lightning, if she hadn’t already been. And now all she could think of was their bodies together. Of his kiss. Of the strong passion the two of them could share. It would be exactly as it ought to be. She knew it, she knew it, she knew it.

It would be as pure as dance, but even purer. It would be the consuming physical-spiritual love that brought dance into being. It would be the full expression of everything she lived.

“You’re not offended?” he asked her, straining to see ahead as the wet, white flakes swirled thickly down.

“Offended? Because you won’t talk about Elise? No, I feel foolish rather. And I feel the slightest bit rebuffed since I’ve been at least somewhat honest with you. But I shouldn’t be saying this either, should I? I should be saying, ‘No, not at all.’ Oh, Richard, I’m tired. I want to go to bed.” Her brain was reeling with fatigue and she wondered how many things she had told him tonight when he had told her nothing at all.

“We’re here,” said Richard, stopping the car.

She opened the door for herself, and stepped out into the snow in her already wet, paper-thin flats. The feeling on her feet was unpleasant, and she felt anger and disgust, self-disgust mostly, washing over her. She trudged off blindly in the direction of what seemed to be the whitely veiled house.

Richard caught up with her and took her arm. “What’s the hurry?” He appeared to be in something of a fury, too.

“My feet are freezing,” she said in annoyance.

He picked her up and swung her toward his chest. She was forced to put her arms around his neck. She placed her head against him, too. “Thank you,” she whispered, clinging to him.

Holding him like this, being held, was the most intense and glorious sensation in the world. He was strong and walked steadily, rhythmically, and carried her securely. She felt disappointed when he finally put her down.

She held on to him a tenth of a second longer than she might have, then stepped away. “Thank you,” she repeated. They were in the garage.

“We can go in through the laundry room.” He indicated the door.

“Oh, your father’s coat,” she remembered, stepping to the car where she had left it.

She carried the coat into the house, knowing that she was going to read the letter, if she could. Such a violation would be disgraceful, but she already felt thoroughly disgraced tonight. Let him think the worst of her; let her think the worst of herself. If she could read something that would cure her of this love, so much the better.