Curious Wine (18 page)

“A month!” Diana said, appalled. “Without seeing you? Can I talk to you?”

Lane shook her head. “I may be something you get over like an attack of measles. A virulent attack,” she said with a smile that was prideful. “You’re on the rebound from a man you cared for, you may simply go back to him—or to some other man—and put me in your scrapbook as one of your more interesting and unusual affairs. There may be a psychological factor involved you’re not aware of, something connected to your early life that caused you to need a woman, you may have met that need now, worked through it. You might even want to talk to a psychologist to get some insight into your feelings.”

“A month is forever,” Diana said insistently. “It’s such a long time!”

“After the first night with you, when I knew I would come to you again, all that day I thought of an Emily Dickinson line: ‘I had been hungry all the years.’” Lane looked at her for a long moment. “All those years for me, Diana. I only want you to take a month. One month. To consider whether this is right for you.”

“I’ve been hungry all the years too, Lane. Waiting for Lane Christiansen the person, whether that would be a man or a woman.”

“I accept the fact,” Lane said quietly, “that I prefer Diana Holland to be a woman.”

Diana said, “What if I don’t need the whole month?”

Lane smiled. “A month, Diana. The Emily Dickinson poem goes on to say that hunger for some things ends, the entering takes away. If the entering hasn’t taken away, there are a lot of years.”

She’ll never make me wait the whole month, Diana thought. “All right,” she said.

“You call me four weeks from today. Thursday. At seven that night. Agreed?”

She’ll never make me wait, Diana thought. “Agreed.”

“I have something for you.” Lane opened the drawer of the night table. “I found it this morning when I was making my phone calls.” She gave Diana a black velvet jewelers box.

Diana accepted the box, looking at Lane wonderingly. She opened it, turned it to the starlight. Lying in the black velvet interior was a delicate silver cross on a fine silver chain. Diamonds glittered, one on each end of the cross. “The Southern Cross,” Diana whispered.

“I had to get it for you. You can have your own to look at till you get to see the real one. I was so happy to find this, I noticed it right away in the case. It was all by itself on a black velvet tray.”

“Lane… it’s absolutely beautiful.” Diana stared at it, turning the box in her hands, gazing at the soft glow of silver and the sparkle of diamonds. “It looks very expensive.”

“It is. Does that bother you?”

She considered. “No, I’m too happy to have it. Unless it was an extravagant impulse you really can’t afford.”

“I can afford it. Shall I put it on you?”

“I wish I had something for you. I wish I could give you your fantasy of running naked through the rain.”

Lane smiled. “Think about it, Diana. Haven’t I been running naked, with rain on my face?”

Diana gave Lane the box, watched her fingers lift the cross and chain from the black folds of velvet. Lane fastened the chain around Diana’s neck, holding the cross, and kissed the place just below Diana’s throat where the cross rested when she released it.

“It’s very beautiful on you,” she said.

Diana touched Lane’s face and kissed her gently. “Thank you, Lane.”

“You’re welcome,” Lane said huskily, her eyes closed.

Diana said with careful casualness, “I suppose I’ll have to pay for this now. You didn’t give it to me with purely platonic intentions, did you?”

Lane looked away, but her lips twitched with the beginning of a smile. “I haven’t had a single platonic intention toward you for some time.”

“Isn’t this what’s known as taking it out in trade?”

Lane looked at her, smiling. “I’m afraid so. I’ll have to take the cross off, first. It could puncture you if we’re not careful. And I don’t intend to be careful.”

“Are you sure you won’t just go back to San Francisco and take up with one of those willing women?”

“Do I detect signs of a jealous woman?”

“I never used to be. I never thought I was anything like Liz, either, but if you so much as look at another woman—”

“I like you jealous,” Lane said as she lowered the cross into its black velvet box. “But it’s not necessary.”

Diana sighed. “Now to get those pajamas off you. My own way.” she added, pushing Lane’s hands away from the buttons of her pajamas. She took Lane into her arms and said teasingly, “I think I’ll have you describe things, too. First your apartment, then — ”“I couldn’t, Diana,” Lane said seriously. “It’s all I can do to breathe.”

Diana held Lane’s face in her hands, smoothed blonde hair back, kissed her forehead. “Fair is fair.” She slid her arms around her and lowered her into pillows. “I plan to kiss you from head to toe, with a long slow stop at a place in between. Could I at least have a moan or two?”

“Moans I can guarantee,” Lane whispered.

Chapter 14

“Thank you for everything, Liz,” Diana said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

The women were all outside the cabin: Liz and Chris and Millie ready to leave for the ski slopes, Lane at her car arranging luggage in the trunk.

Liz beamed. “It was great having you here, Diana. I’m glad you had a good time.”

“Please call when you come to Los Angeles. I have so much hospitality to repay.”

“Not at all. I hope to see you in San Francisco.”

“I’d love it.” She exchanged goodbyes with Millie and Chris, shaking hands with Millie, hugging Chris. She took Lane’s hands without speaking.

Lane looked at her for a long moment, squeezed her hands and released them, and turned and got into her car.

She followed Lane’s car down the mountain road. At the intersection of Highway 50, before turning onto the Highway, Lane looked back at her, rolled down her window. “Diana?” she called.

“Yes,” Diana answered with wild hope.

“Take care, Diana.”

“And you, Lane.” She watched until the tiny silver car disappeared. Then she turned onto the Highway and drove to Harrah’s to pick up Vivian.

“I’ll take us to Placerville,” Vivian said, “then we can switch off. We’d better switch off pretty often, honey. We’re both pretty tired.”

“I don’t feel tired.” She felt empty, of everything but misery, and doubt.

“Buster, would you move your molasses ass,” Vivian growled at the truck crawling along in front of them. “When’s the next passing lane?”

“I think another four miles,” Diana said absently. “Tell me something, Viv. Hypothetical question. Let’s suppose a… Jewish girl falls in love with… a black man. She falls in love kind of by accident, without really being able to help it, and—”

“I would think so,” Vivian interrupted. “If she had any sense at all. Who needs that?”

Diana ignored Vivian, concentrating on her choice of words. “They make love, and he doesn’t tell her he cares for her in so many words, but he acts like he really does, everything he does strongly indicates he really does. He gives her an expensive gift, tells her to take a month to think things over to be sure of her feelings, to be sure it’s worth the problems their relationship would cause. Do you think he means it?” She added hurriedly, as Vivian stared at her, “It’s an argument we had at the cabin.”

“Crazy argument,” Vivian said, looking straight ahead again, tailgating the truck. “The answer is no, he doesn’t mean it. The expensive gift is the best clue—that’s always the big kiss-off. If you want somebody bad enough, devil take the consequences. That other kind of love—the kind where somebody loves somebody so much they’ll risk losing them—that belongs in books.”

Dismayed by her answer, Diana remonstrated, “Well, I think it’s possible.”

“You haven’t lived long enough. One thing for sure, your hypothetical Jewish girl will find out in a month.” Vivian chuckled. “If she calls and he can’t remember her name, I’d say she’s in trouble. You had some pretty strange arguments there at the cabin.”

“Yes.” Trying to reassure herself, Diana took her cross from under her sweater, fingers caressing metal warm from her skin.

Vivian swung the car out and passed the truck with a surge of horsepower. “Go drive that truck in your cabbage patch, you dumb son of a bitch,” she screamed, lifting her middle finger. As she eased the car over into the right hand lane, she glanced over at Diana.

“Diana! What are you doing with that? I saw Lane Christiansen buy that yesterday at Harrah’s.”

“I have it on loan,” Diana blurted, certain she had gone white.

“On loan?” Vivian said incredulously, braking sharply for a curve. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. That’s real. The counter she was at doesn’t sell fake diamonds.”

“She insisted.” Thinking frantically she added, “She bought it for… a cousin in… in Laguna Beach—”

“A cousin?”

“I... No, it was a sister,” Diana said desperately. “She’ll be down later this month to give it to her, it’s safer if I keep it

“That I can believe,” Vivian said. “San Francisco’s changed so much, you couldn’t pay me to live there. That’s a pretty expensive gift for a sister.”

Diana said, making her voice carefully neutral, “Why? She has money. She’s a lawyer, she drives a Mercedes.”

“I suppose so. But even so, a sister—”

Diana said hurriedly, “Lane didn’t mention seeing you at Harrah’s.”

“I mentioned it yesterday when I saw you both, remember? She was very closed-mouthed when I mentioned it, and she was acting damn odd when she bought it, too.”

“Odd?”

“Like she was in another world. You know how curious Vivian is, I went over to see what she was buying. I spoke to her, she looked right through me like I wasn’t even there. She sure is one good-looking woman.”

“Yes.”

“Liz told me she goes through men like a lawn mower goes through grass. Madge calls her Venus Mantrap.”

Diana laughed, relieved at the change in direction of their conversation. “So?” she said indifferently. It occurred to her that she was unconcerned about the men that Lane had been with—so long as she was the only woman.

“She a nympho?”

“What kind of question is that?” Diana asked, astonished. “And how should I know?”

“You spent time together. What did you talk about?”

“Astronomy, law, music, books.” She added, smiling, “Architecture, interior decorating.”

“Jesus. With looks like hers, all those men—I figure she’s nympho. Or she’d be married.”

“Why aren’t you married? Why am I not married?”

“Don’t get so feisty, what the hell do I care?” Vivian swerved around a curve. “This goddamn one horse highway, you’d think they’d do something about it.” She

continued in a quiet voice, “Diana dear, I’m sorry as hell about that bastard you met up here.”

“Don’t worry about it, forget it. I’ll be grateful all my life you talked me into coming up here.”

“That’s pretty extravagant.” Vivian’s tone was pleased, and slightly puzzled.

“I mean it.”

“You feel better about Jack?”

“I feel better about me. From now on I intend to be possessive about what I love. To fight to keep it.”

“You don’t mean that about Jack, do you?”

“I mean it generally.”

“I hope you’ve learned to look at him a little more coldly and see he’s no great loss. When a thirty-eight year old man just wants to play golf all weekend you begin to suspect he still has his rubber duck.”

Diana chuckled. “I bow to your superior wisdom, Viv.”

“Vivian knows whereof she speaks.”

As Vivian continued to talk, Diana fingered the cross at her throat, pondering how close she had come to not being able to think of a lie. She was not accustomed to lying. And there would be no end to the lies to protect herself and those she loved—and Lane. Lane had asked her to consider their relationship in context with her life. Could she accept the lying, deception, pretense? Soberly, she contemplated the courage required for people to come out of the closet of secrecy she had just walked into. What kind of courage did she have? How strong was she?

Chapter 15

That evening, back home at her apartment, she found a note in her mail.

Diana,

Your department secretary told me you’re at Tahoe. I promise not to bother you ever again if you see me one time. I’ll be at your apartment Monday night at eight unless I hear from you.

Please see me. I need you to do this for me.

JACK

Depressed, Diana unpacked and immediately went to bed. She fell asleep remembering the motel on the Lake, and Lane’s tender body, the texture of gold hair on her breasts as Lane slept in her arms.

At exactly eight o’clock the following Monday night,

Diana opened her apartment door to Jack Gordon.

Warm feeling surged through her at the sight of him, but she was immensely relieved when he made no attempt to touch her. “Come in. Can I get you something to drink? Scotch?”

“Okay, if you have something to mix it with. To tell you the truth, I never did like how it tastes.”

“I knew that.” She looked at him in surprise. He had always drunk his liquor with water, and without pleasure, always referring to mixed drinks as fag drinks.

“How was vacation? Were you lucky?”

“A little. It’s a beautiful place.”

“Yeah, I remember. You wanted to go back, and we should have. You look fantastic, Diana. Better than I’ve ever seen you look.”

“Thank you. How about vodka and ginger ale? You might like that.”

He nodded, and followed her into the kitchen, watched her pour his drink. “Nice place,” he said glancing around. “You’ve really fixed it up. You’re awfully good at stuff like that.”

“Thanks. And you look good, too,” she told him. “Very sharp, in fact.” He was freshly barbered, and wore a light gray suit, a white shirt, a subtly striped tie. He looked crisp and handsome.

In the living room they sat across from each other. Jack made conversation about his relatives, other people they knew. Diana listened with detachment and an impatience she soon realized was boredom.

Jack paused, and in the silence between them, cleared his throat. “I wanted you to know I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist. I started to go from bad to worse over this, the way I screwed up something so good. I’ll tell you the truth, why I went to him. To find out if he could help me get you back.”