Curious Wine (15 page)

“Lane, she might take it into her head to climb the ladder,” Diana said with difficulty, a burning sensation within her, her nipples taut.

“I hate her.”

“So do I.”

Lane said, “Let’s take my car. It’s all warmed up.”

“I like your car,” Diana said.

“It was my father’s. Would you like to drive it?”

“Not in all this ice and snow.”

“Don’t worry.” Lane tossed her the keys. “I trust you.”

Diana drove carefully, watching for slippery spots. The road was clear and dry, and she relaxed and enjoyed the car. “You’ve already been over this road,” she accused, “you knew it was clear. I still don’t know for sure if you trust me.”

“I trust you.”

Conscious of Lane looking at her she said, “This is a nice car for two people.”

“Yes. Very intimate.”

“It’s hard for me to drive when you’re looking at me.”

“I’m only looking.”

“Your looking is like touching.”

Obediently looking out the windshield, Lane asked, “What did you do this morning?”

“Remembered.” Diana asked, “Why did you get so wet and cold? Was the snow bad?”

“No, I just fell a lot. And I sat in a snowbank for a long time and remembered, too. I think that’s when I got my clothes so wet.”

“I don’t like the idea of you falling. You could hurt yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Diana parked at Harrah’s. “I know it’s too early for a drink,” she said as they walked across the parking lot, “but Harrah’s has a place with a beautiful view. It would be nice to be alone with you that way.”

“Okay. Good.”

“I need to find Viv, explain why I won’t be playing with her today. Leave it to me, I know how to take care of it.”

“We’re two strangers in a strange town,” Lane observed. “How can so many people be cluttering up the landscape?”

They found Vivian at Harvey’s. “I saw you earlier this morning, dear,” Vivian said to Lane. “At Harrah’s, over by the jewelry counter. I said hello and you looked right through me.”

“I did? Oh God I’m sorry.” Lane looked so embarrassed that Diana and Vivian laughed. “I had phone calls to make and there was a lot on my mind.”

Vivian shrugged. “I figured something was going on. Don’t worry, Vivian’s ego is indestructible.” She smiled at Lane. “Just like her curiosity.” As Lane did not answer, she shrugged again.

Diana looked at Vivian, puzzled, then dismissed her feeling. She said, “I’m going to teach Lane blackjack, then I thought we’d drive over to the North Shore. Want to come along?”

“Lord no. It’s dead as a doornail over there at the best of times. Enjoy yourselves, girls. Vivian will stay where there’s a few warm bodies and play her slot machines.”

As they rode up on the elevator Lane said, “I assume you knew she’d turn you down.”

Diana nodded. “I think we’re reasonably free of people for a while.”

A few minutes later they sat gazing at a panorama of trees and snow. Lane said, “What a wonderful place.”

The waiter brought their wine. Lane had been looking at her intently, and when he left she said, “Your eyes are a very light brown, but they have a few flecks of green in them in the daylight.”

“My mother’s eyes were green.”

“You’ve never mentioned your mother, just your father.”

“She died when I was four. Hit and run, right in front of our house. They never caught anybody.”

“What a tragedy,” murmured Lane. “Do you remember her at all?”

“Just vaguely. After that there was a procession of women through the house, all of them trying to mother me—I think to impress Dad. But he never remarried. What about your mother?”

“She’s married, she lives in Pacifica. We’re a little closer since Father died, but still not close. She divorced Father when I was ten, and I fought to be with him, I worshipped him so. That’s hard for any mother to understand or forgive, I guess. I have Father’s hair and eyes, and I was definitely his daughter. She had every reason to divorce him, though.

He was a womanizer. A very good-looking man—and there were a great many women.”

“What did you think about that?”

“At the time I was jealous, I didn’t realize how meaningless all those women were. I’ve been thinking about it again the past few days, Diana, and about Madge’s scripts. He had a lot of women—I’ve had a lot of men. I remember before Carol happened, I remember so clearly.” Lane’s face was somber. “He told me women with other women was the most irrational, the most contemptible, the most laughable of all the perversions.”

Diana said, astonished, “Why would he say that? How could he possibly know? How can any man know that?”

“I don’t think he did know. I think maybe he. sensed something in me.”

“It’s possible… and now I understand why you ran from what you needed. It wasn’t a matter of personal courage—it was your fear of being condemned by the person whose opinion was more powerful than anyone else’s.”

Lane said slowly, “There’s something to be said for Madge’s scripts. Yet I know Father didn’t want me to have the same kind of life he had. I see now that he was essentially lonely, trapped by his energies, and he didn’t want that for me. Mark wasn’t what he had in mind for me to marry—Mark’s goals were too modest. But he grew very fond of him, and I’d run so wild before—he wanted to see me married, happy with one man. When Mark died I think Father was almost as broken by it as I was.”

“Will you tell me about Mark?”

“Yes, if you like. He was a commercial artist. Good- looking—to me, anyway. Very slim, dark brown hair not quite to his shoulders, dark brown eyes. Sensitive features, he was a sensitive man, very unusual. He simply ignored all my little games.”

“Games?”

“Domination games. The you-better-compromise-because- I-won’t kind of games. They’re games I always seem to play, and always win. Except winning is losing, of course. My male relationships have been played out on a battlefield. I’m not proud of that, Diana, it’s just how it is. Except for Mark.”

“Why was he different?” She felt a compelling need to learn about this man Lane had loved.

“I think. he just refused to get his ego involved. And he truly cared for me. He’d say, ‘You’re acting like a child again, Lane,’ and go out and work in his garden. He had a small house with a rock garden with all kinds of delicate ferns and unusual plants. He liked to do solitary things like that. Sometimes he’d just walk. For miles, and come back and tell me droll stories of things he’d seen. He had a unique view of things I can’t really describe. He liked to cook. He liked waiting on me, I think it was another kind of caring for me. He was like a brother, a friend to me in many ways.”

“I’m glad you happened to him.”

“That’s a nice thing to say. But I’m glad he happened to me. He opened things in me. I was too young to really know it then and probably didn’t show it much. I guess I haven’t to anyone, till you.”

Lane said, forming her words tentatively, “I don’t understand about your friend who hurt you.”

“I’m still trying to understand it myself. I didn’t marry Jack—my one marriage was like being in jail. But maybe it was one of the things that caused him to place less value on our relationship.” She said the words easily that she had not said to anyone: “There were other women. He swears it will never happen again, he wants another chance, but I can’t find it in me to forgive him.”

Lane’s eyebrows rose slightly. “He must be insane. You’re the kind of desirable, responsive woman men dream of.”

Diana said awkwardly, “I’m… different with you… than I’ve ever been with anybody.”

“I’m different with you, too.”

“I have nothing to compare you with.”

“Nor me with you.”

Diana said, “Do you know how much your eyes change color? Right now they’re exactly between gray and blue. That’s what they are most often. Beautiful.”

“Thank you. Diana… I saw bruises on your shoulders this morning.” She sighed. “I don’t remember doing it. I can’t believe I could do that to you.”

They were leaning toward each other, talking softly. Diana said, “You had your arms around me, your hands on my shoulders. Your fingers kept tightening.”

“I’m sorry.”

Looking into her eyes, wishing she could take her hands, Diana said, “I mean this, don’t be sorry at all. You were so gentle with me… It was during the first time for you and your hands helped me to know… how you wanted me to… touch you.”

“I remember. I remember holding your shoulders. I didn’t know I was pressing hard with my fingers.”

“You weren’t, until suddenly.” Diana touched fingertips to her sweater, to the bruises. “I like having them.”

“Did I hurt you other times… when I wasn’t aware?”

“The second time your hands were in my hair. And one other time. The other times your hands were gripping the blanket or the sheet.”

“You don’t clench your hands at all.” Lane held out her hands, slim fingers fully extended and as far apart as she could stretch them. “Your hands look like this. Completely rigid. And trembling, like the rest of you.”

Diana did not reply, not trusting her voice. Toying with her wine glass, Lane looked out the window. Diana watched her fingers stroke frost from the glass.

After a time Diana asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Lane brought her gaze back to Diana. The planes of her face seemed hardened, almost ascetic, and her eyes were perceptibly deeper in color, almost gray. “How you taste,” she said. “Did you really need to ask?”

Diana looked away, out the window, her mind swept clean of thought, her heart thudding dully. Lane said, “Why don’t we talk about blackjack and what I should know to play it?”

Diana began a discussion of the game, grateful for the distraction, and Lane listened attentively, asking questions.

“Sometimes everybody’s friendly, including the dealer,” Diana concluded, “but it’s usually a quiet game, and usually sexless. The men pay very little attention to you.”

“That will be a refreshing change.”

“Does how you look bother you?”

“Sometimes.” “Would you prefer to be less attractive than you are?”

“Not at the moment,” Lane said, placing a bill on the check. “Don’t argue about who pays, okay?”

Diana gazed at her.

Lane looked away and said, her voice husky, “I suppose we should be. a little careful how we look at each other.”

“Lane… when you go back to San Francisco — ”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Lane said evenly. “I don’t want to think about anything but you and being with you today and tonight.”

They went into the casino.

“For luck,” Diana said. She had placed ten dollars in the betting square in front of Lane.

The dealer drew a blackjack, to groans around the table.

“That wasn’t nice,” Lane observed, taking a fifty-dollar bill from her wallet.

“That’s right, honey,” said the dealer, a husky woman with tightly curled black hair. “I’ve been known to be downright nasty.”

Diana, chuckling, looked at her nameplate. She asked, puzzled, “Your name is Benny?” “Nope. Carlotta. Lost my nametag. Found this one in back.”

The table of players laughed. The dealer shrugged. “It’s a rule we wear a nametag. Who cares what it says? What do you think, what’s Benny short for?”

“How about Bernadette?” Lane suggested.

“Bernadette, Benny,” the dealer said, changing Lane’s fifty dollars into chips. “I guess so. Isn’t that the name of one of those saints who died saving her virginity?”

“I think so,” Lane said.

“Would that be dumb enough?”

Lane leaned over and placed ten dollars in the square in front of Diana, her arm brushing hers; the scent of her perfume reached Diana. “For luck,” she said.

Their eyes met. Diana looked down, at Lane’s waist, at the curving of her body encircled by the small gold links of her belt; her eyes followed the line of her thigh. Desire washed through her, a huge warm wave.

She watched Lane’s cards, leaning close to her, explaining, enjoying her reactions to her wins and losses, looking at her as she played, at her hands handling cards and money, her long slender fingers, the slightly squared-off nails.

The man on the other side of Lane asked something Diana did not hear. “No, I’m taken,” Lane answered abstractedly, with the barest glance at him, and picked up her cards, ignoring him.

She looked at the delicate bones of Lane’s wrists, remembering how she had kissed them and traced them with her tongue. She saw the outline of Lane’s breasts through her blouse, and that her nipples were hardened.

The dealer was tapping in front of her, waiting. “I’m sorry,” Diana said, and looked at her cards.

She said to Lane, “You have pretty hands.”

“Thank you,” Lane said in an amused voice, “I’m so glad you like them.” She moved restlessly in her chair.

Diana thought of the slender body under the white silk shuddering in her arms, and another wave of desire swept powerfully through her, closing up her throat.

The dealer was tapping in front of her again. “You seemed all right before, dear. Was it something I said that put you to sleep?”

“Let’s do something else.” Lane picked up her money.

“I’m having trouble concentrating,” Diana said to the dealer, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, babe. Lots of people up here don’t get enough sleep.”

“What do you want to do?” Lane asked as they walked through the casino.

Diana shrugged, sighed. “My second choice would be to go for a drive, I guess.”

“What’s your first choice?”

Diana said with a faint smile, “Did you really have to ask?”

“Yes.” Lane took her arm, led her to a deserted section of tables, and looked at her intently. “Tell me. Tell me what you really want to do, Diana.”

“I want to go to bed with you. And you know it.”

“I want that too. Right now. What about a motel?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll drive. You look.”

Lane pulled out of Harrah’s parking lot. “Right at the next corner, at Stateline,” Diana instructed. “Why did it take so long to think of this?”

“Because we’re both used to having this initiative taken for us. I’ve never even been physically aggressive before two nights ago. At least we learn fast. Maybe we can find a place in the pines.”