An Ever Fixéd Mark (41 page)

“And his brother’s girlfriend?” Andrew
raised an eyebrow.

“Shut up Andrew,” Lizzie rolled her eyes.
“We went to high school together.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.”

“He just gave a lecture at UMASS,” Paula
added.

“Really?” Andrew looked at Paula.

“Yeah,” Paula searched amongst the papers on
the desk. “See.”

Andrew took the museum association
newsletter and looked at the photograph. “Professor Ol is kinda
hot,” Andrew looked at Lizzie.

“And kinda married,” Lizzie took the
newsletter out of his hands. She felt her heart speed up as she
looked briefly at his photograph.

“Did he like the house?” Andrew repeated
Paula’s question.

“Yeah,” Lizzie muttered quickly. “He even
noticed the wallpaper.”

*****

Lizzie was tired after a day of walking
aisles to look at changing stations and cribs with Nora. She
thought about going home to Jefferson Park to see if Meg was all
right. Lizzie didn’t want to keep excluding Meg from her life… not
after she committed the same sin. It was an effort and emotional
honesty she wasn’t completely ready to confront. She had to talk to
Ben before anything. She had to tell him. She had to come clean
about seeing Oliver and what… what liberty she allowed him to
take.

She settled on the couch to wait out the
hours before Ben’s taxi would bring him home. She drank two sips
from her wine and leaned against the pillow as she clicked through
different television stations. She hadn’t decided to watch anything
when she set down the remote and resigned to the fact she wasn’t
tired enough to sleep, but lacked the energy to do anything
else.

She was impatient to see Ben. Impatient for
his company. She dreaded the truth she had to reveal. She told
herself she could wait until he came home from Chicago for good.
Would the delay make it more difficult to reveal? He told her about
Meg. He didn’t tell her the moment after it happened. He seduced
her and waited until she was too tired to… think logically. The
fight was awful. That was Lizzie’s reaction. Would Ben be any more
forgiving? Or would he take off somewhere – would he leave early
for Chicago? Would he seek comfort amongst all those athletic,
young, unmarried sources? She didn’t want him to go away again. She
didn’t want the loneliness and jealousy to fill her heart and make
an excuse for indulging Oliver. For indulging herself to fill the
vacancy left by Ben’s absence. That’s all it was. She associated
Oliver with Ben. She missed Ben. She wanted to be with Ben.

But when she was with him again, would she
be able to forget Oliver?

She was at ease talking to him, even about
things that were uncomfortable. Or surreal. Not that she felt ill
at ease discussing them with Ben. Well, no more than… it was an
unusual set of circumstances that seemed to belong more in a
science fiction series than her own life. But… for some reason,
Oliver was more familiar. As if she had such conversations with him
before. Which she had. But not as Lizzie. As someone else.

How did that work? Where in that brain did
Lily survive? Even though Lily’s own mind was dust and decayed for
centuries much like Horace Fulton. And yet here was Lizzie on the
couch warm and breathing and thinking thoughts from another body…
but the same soul? Did Lily ever have Lizzie’s thoughts? How could
that happen? How could Lily see the future? Lizzie was remembering
the past.

If Lily’s past was her past, did that mean
that Lily’s feelings were hers as well? If that was the case… she
loved Oliver. Oliver meant less to Elizabeth Watson. He was the
older brother of the kid who followed her best friend around.
Except that kid was really a perpetually young man, with a soul
that was older than the country. What Ben was in high school was
irrelevant now. She loved Ben. She loved the man who bought her
books and carried her home after spraining her ankle. The man who
built her shelves in the closet and wanted to protect her... from
Oliver.

Lizzie shut her eyes to push out the next
thought that Oliver was a threat to her safety. It was all a
horrible misunderstanding between the two men – fueled, no doubt,
by a rivalry over Charlotte. Was it Charlotte? Or was it something
– someone – else?

Lizzie jumped and opened her eyes in a
panic. Her eyes slowly shifted into focus on Ben’s smile. “Hi,” he
touched her cheek as he tucked a few stray hairs behind her
ear.

“Hi,” she answered in a raspy voice. “What
time is it?”

“It’s almost midnight,” Ben explained. “My
plane had a delay because of snow squalls.”

“It’s snowing?” Lizzie propped herself up
weakly.

“Not now,” he sat beside her.

“I fell asleep.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Ben rested his
hand beside hers. “I just wanted to look at what I’ve been missing
this week.”

“
I’m glad you woke me. How
was Chicago?”

“Busy. Very, very busy. How was your
week?”

Lizzie was glad her cheeks were already red
from sleeping close to the radiator. “I had dinner with Nora and
Mark yesterday. Today we went shopping for baby furniture.”

“Oh,” Ben wasn’t very much interested. Did
he suspect there was something else? Lizzie leaned towards him and
wrapped her arms around his neck. He turned into her embrace and
kissed her passionately, but briefly. “I have to get some work done
tonight. I have a meeting tomorrow morning and spent little time
preparing for it. I’m sorry, Lizzie.”

Lizzie rubbed her eyes at the sound of her
nickname. Her thoughts were too cloudy to think about his meaning.
She didn’t want to worry about any confessions and would much
rather find a comfortable pillow. She shook her head and rested her
forehead against his shoulder. “I’m tired anyway.”

“Come on,” he suddenly scooped her off the
couch. Lizzie was already asleep when he got to the bedroom.

She didn’t see much of Ben in the following
days. He was leaving for Chicago again on Thursday. He spent most
of the days in between at his business, or working on the computer
in his home office. She read her book on the couch while he worked,
but always went to bed long before he left his desk. She woke up in
the middle of the night with his arms around her, but he was gone
by the time she got up to get ready for work.

It was difficult to keep her mind focused
with his absence, even as he sat in the same room as her. The
memory of Oliver’s conversations and his kiss kept seeping into her
brain. She was idle at work and let herself look up articles about
his research project. She found an actor bio – with no photo – on
imdb. There were pictures of him on his college’s website. She
found a page the students created about the projects. She could
tell from that and his Facebook that many of his female students
were smitten – not to mention a few of the males. It was very easy
to understand why.

He hadn’t contacted her at all since she
watched him from the train. Maybe he realized the error of his
impulse. He didn’t want to create more tension with Ben. Or maybe
he simply respected her and didn’t want to cause her more
confusion. Yes, he would want her to be happy. He always did.
Except when he went to Charlotte.

Lizzie lifted her eyes from her book and
watched Ben at his computer. The glow of the screen reflected off
his pale skin. He was very pale. He had the look of exhaustion
under his eyes, making the freckles of his skin glaringly obvious.
Lizzie wondered if he fed before he came home. She thought of the
calendar and realized it was beyond eight weeks.

She looked back at her book, knowing she
hadn’t run in over a week. She wasn’t conscientious about her diet
and imagined her blood less appealing than the multitudes he was
screening over the past three weeks. Then again, if he was that
hungry it meant he hadn’t fed on his last visit to Chicago. Maybe
he was hoping to wait until he came home.

“What are you reading?” he asked
suddenly.

Lizzie looked up as he rubbed his forehead
in a break from the computer screen. He lifted his eyes to her and
offered a smile. “Just some chic lit.”

“Do you mind if I interrupt you for a few
minutes?”

“No,” she shook her head with an impish
grin.

“Come here,” he held out his arm and folded
it around her as she approached the desk. He gently eased her onto
his knee as he clicked the mouse to bring up a website for a bed
and breakfast. “What do you think?”

“It looks pretty. What is it?”

“An inn in the Berkshires,” he kissed her
cheek lightly. “I was thinking we could go there after we leave
your parents next Thursday.’

“The whole weekend?”

“Why not?”

“I promised Paula I would work at the museum
on Saturday.”

“Tell her you changed your mind.”

“I can’t.”

“Then we can drive back Saturday morning,”
he kissed her again.

“When will you be back?”

“Wednesday night.”

“Jack emailed me yesterday. He and Jen are
having people over for drinks that night. Do you want to go?”

“Why don’t you pick me up from the airport
and we can head to Coldbrook?”

“You don’t want to come back here…”

“I want to be with you,” he turned her chin
towards him and kissed her. She felt the thrill of his hunger as he
pulled her closer to him and then lifted her towards the desk. He
pushed aside the pile of papers before unfastening the top of her
buttons. Lizzie reached for his buckle as the phone rang loudly.
Ben paused and rested his forehead against hers momentarily before
deciding to take the phone call. She saw the burn in his eyes focus
on her half opened shirt and knew that was why he left the
room.

Lizzie got off the desk and picked up the
papers off the floor. A lot were clinical reports of some nature.
Several O’s, A’s, and B’s. She arranged them in neat piles, hoping
she hadn’t put them out of essential order. As she straightened one
pile, a thick vellum envelope slipped out. She sat in the chair and
pulled the invitation inside. The paper was glossy – imprinted with
the image of red blood cells. Inside were the logistical details of
location, time, and the cost of the tickets. Lizzie was startled by
the number of zeroes in the cost of one ticket.

Lizzie looked through the RSVP card and
return envelope. It seemed as though Ben hadn’t paid any mind to
the materials. He was probably going to be there regardless and
wasn’t required to RSVP. The last item in the invitation was a
slick card with a photograph of a porcelain skinned female body. A
strip of red velvet rippled across her torso, barely covering the
nipples on her breasts and just reaching the space between her
legs. On the back was an additional invitation to a VIP reception
where key patrons would be matched with the prime sources. Lizzie
couldn’t imagine that all those important contributors would sit
around a room hooked up to IVs to get their dose of blood. Judging
from the photograph, she didn’t think that was what the party
entailed.

She heard Ben come back into the room and
shoved the invitation back into the envelope. “Sorry about that,”
he grinned as he set a glass and bottle of wine on the desk.

Lizzie forced a smile to mask the
disappointment she felt come over her. If he was offering her wine,
he didn’t want her blood that evening. Was he saving his appetite
for the VIP reception? “Are you going to this party?” she held up
the invitation.

“I doubt it,” he laughed. “I have to get all
the sources screened and prepared for the first day of feedings on
Sunday. I doubt I’ll have any mind for socializing.”

“But you’ve been working so hard,” Lizzie
argued to hide her relief.

“I will be glad to be done with Chicago,” he
uncorked the wine. “I don’t think any clinic was this
disorganized.”

“Why is it?”

“
My friend started this
venture with her partner. He was supposed to manage the lab and
oversee all screenings and source evaluations. Six months ago, he
left her.”

“Why?”

“He fell in love with his source,
ironically,” Ben shook his head. Lizzie felt her cheeks burn. “She
couldn’t turn back. They need this clinic in Chicago. But… it is a
different city.”

“What do you mean?” Lizzie accepted her wine
and reluctantly took a sip.

“There is a great resistance to clinical
methodology. Too many organics,” Ben sighed. “This is probably
boring you.”

“No,” Lizzie shook her head, knowing he was
going to stall with conversation until she finished her wine
anyway. She wanted to ask him if he preferred organic over
clinical, but thought that might indicate to whom she had been
speaking. Lizzie felt an overwhelming irritation with herself. How
could she be upset with him for wanting to feed at the clinic when
she was lying to him for nearly a month? How could she accept his
invitation to the bed and breakfast when she was so dishonest with
him? How could she say she wanted to live with him when she kissed
his brother?

“It will all work out. It has to. I’m not
going back there after this next trip.”

“Ben,” she drank a large sip of wine but
lost her nerve under his watchful gaze.

“I’m not going to work anymore tonight,” he
took her hand and pulled her out of the seat.

“I’m glad,” she leaned to kiss him.

Ben was gone when she woke the next morning.
She knew he would be. She knew he was only gone for a week. She
knew when he came back he wasn’t going away again. But this time
when she saw his empty pillow and felt the cold at her side, she
didn’t completely believe it would be warm again.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Lizzie traced along the margin of the legal
pad and then started to color it in. She didn’t think the tangent
about Thanksgiving menus was necessary for the minutes of the
planning meeting. She was surprised Richard asked her to sit in. It
was better than sitting at the desk waiting for the last tedious
minutes of Wednesday morning to pass by.