Garden of Lies (83 page)

Finally, after pressing the buzzer a third time, it hit him. Rose was not going to answer. She

was not. Maybe she wasn’t even there. He felt his heart sink. Turning to go, he picked up his

suitcase.

Trudging down the snow-mounded steps, he remembered. God, he still had the keys. For days,

he’d been meaning to give them back, but somehow he always forgot.

He dug a hand into his pocket, and pulled out the key ring. Yes, still there. Rose’s keys. He felt

a surge of joy he knew was ridiculous.

In a minute, he was upstairs, turning the key, feeling the dead-bolt slide back, then, slowly,

gently he was opening the door. He lowered his suitcase soundlessly just inside the door.

Max stood there, his heart surging up into his throat.
Shmuck, who are you kidding? You didn’t

come up here to say good-bye. You’re still hoping, aren’t you?

Christ, why couldn’t he ever learn? How many times did Lucy have to snatch the football out

from under Charlie Brown before he wised up?

[518] No, this was ridiculous.

But still, how could he go off without at least saying good-bye?

True, if the weather hadn’t been so lousy, if Monkey hadn’t begged him to take a later plane,

he’d have been in Beverly Hills by now.

But this flight wasn’t for another two hours. So he’d thought,
Why not?

Max tiptoed across the living room. Morning light, reflecting off the snow piled around the

window frames, made everything seem brighter, far later than six in the morning. He noticed a

jumble of clothing on a chair, a coat, a pair of boots askew on the floor nearby. She must have

come in late, too late to bother hanging her coat up. Could she have been on a date? Some guy?

He felt a little sick—Christ, she might not be alone in that bedroom. His breath left him suddenly,

as if it had been sucked out of him.

Softly, he edged into her bedroom. Dim light leaked in through the Venetian blinds, dividing

the room into hazy bars, glimmering dully off the brass knobs of the bed. He looked down at the

figure under the rumpled quilt.
Alone, yes, thank God.
He felt a sweet rush of air enter his lungs.

He gazed at Rose, asleep, the rise and fall of her chest barely disturbing the quilt. Her face

divided into two halves, light and dark, her hair a black cloud against the pillow. God, she was

beautiful. His heart broke a little, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Rose.” He touched her hand. “Rose, wake up.”
Just let me say good-bye, and I promise I’ll be

out of your life.

Tomorrow, this time, he’d be navigating the Santa Monica Freeway. Seventy degrees out there,

Gary had told him over the phone just last night. In fucking November. Seventy degrees!
I’ll take

you down to Venice,
he’d said,
you won’t believe your eyes. Girls in bikinis roller-skating down

the sidewalk. Max, out here, you’ll have it made in the shade.

Yeah, Max thought, along with all those other pathetic guys, shirts open to their navels, gold

medallions around their throats, chasing girls half their age.

But what if all I want is right here?

But she don’t want you, Max old boy. So you better head on out before you make a complete

ass of yourself.

[519] No, just one quick good-bye.
Got to do it. It’s the lawyer in me. Everything has to have a

beginning, middle, and end. Closure.

Sure, we’ll probably exchange Christmas cards for a few years, and maybe I’ll poke my head

in her office to say hello when I’m in town. Hell, she’ll probably get married one of these days

and invite me to the wedding. But this is where I get off, last stop, jury in.

“Rose,” he murmured again, staring down at her, memorizing her face. She was sleeping so

soundly he didn’t have the heart to really wake her. She looked all done in, poor kid.

Okay, probably better this way ... to leave before she even knew he’d been here.

“Good-bye. I’ll miss you,” Max whispered under his breath.

He felt as helpless as he had those long-ago nights standing watch over his daughter’s crib—

Jesus, he could have watched Monkey sleep for hours, she was that sweet to look at—knowing

that no matter how badly he wanted to protect her, to shield her inside the bulletproof vessel of

his love, the time would come when she would walk out into the world and leave him standing

back there on the curb.

His heart slipped in his chest, and tears stung his eyes. “Yeah ... well.” He dropped a kiss on

her slack mouth. “See you around, kiddo.”

He was at the bedroom door when he heard Rose croak, “Max? That you?”

He turned back, his heart leaping. “It’s me. Sorry if I scared you.”

Now she was bolting upright, wide awake, her huge dark eyes fixed on him in amazement.

“Max, what are you doing
here?
You’re supposed to be in L.A.!”

“Mandy was worried about me flying in such lousy weather, so I told her I’d wait until it

cleared. And now I’m on my way to the airport. Just stopped in to say good-bye ... and leave you

these.” He slid the keys off his ring, and dropped them on the dresser with a muffled click. “Don’t

get up. I only have a minute.” He forced a smile. “California, here I come, as the song goes.

Hey ... hey, what’s this? What’s with the waterworks?”

Suddenly, Rose, in a rumpled blue flannel nightgown, was leaping from the bed, with that wild

clock-sprung hair sticking out all [520] over her head and tears running down her cheeks. And

now she was blocking the door, hands on hips.

“You can’t go. I won’t let you.”

Max stared at her, stunned.

“Rose, what are you talking about?”

“You heard me, Max Griffin! You’re not going anywhere, not without me, you’re not!” Flags

of stung red stood out on her cheeks, and her eyes glittered.

A kernel of hope broke open inside him, and sent out a pale, searching tendril. Max found he

could move then, and he was crossing the room in two strides, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Rose, are you crazy?”

“You heard me. I’m going with you.”

“Are you dreaming? What the hell do you want to go to California for?”

“Grapefruit.”

“Rose ... you’re not making—”

“Smog. Hot tubs. Freeways. Ronald Reagan ...”

“Have you gone completely—”

“You.”

“What did you say?”

“You.” She was smiling. “I love you, Max. I can’t stay if you’re not going to be here.”

Now the hope was blossoming in him, full blown, incredulous. “I think I’m the one who’s

dreaming now.”

“I loved you from the beginning, I think, only I just didn’t know it. Then when I thought it was

too late, when you told me you were moving to L.A.. ... oh Max,
is
it too late?”

“Did you mean that, about coming out with me?”

She grinned, but he could see that the corners of her mouth were trembling. “I hear hot tubs do

wonders for your sex life. I also happen to love grapefruit.”

Max stared at her, feeling as if the floor had been yanked out from underneath him, and he

were tumbling in midair. And now landing with a bone-jarring thud. Jesus, oh Jesus, he had been

down twenty years of bad road, and here she was suddenly, a mirage shimmering on the horizon,

promising coolness and sweet water and an end to the loneliness.

[521] God, could he trust this?

A memory floated up from his subconscious. Sixteen years old, and wanting so bad to own a

car that he spent every day of the summer working the bag-packing line of a Jersey cement plant.

Coming home each day in a pall of dust, eyes on fire, a gritty taste of cement dust in his mouth

that wouldn’t wash out even when he brushed his teeth until his gums were bleeding. And then

finally, come September, when he’d had four hundred saved, the car. Oh Jesus, that shit-kicking

car.
A 1941 puke-green Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight. Rust-eaten and hung together with old

coathangers. His mother cried when he brought it home and parked it in the driveway. But it ran,

goddamn it. Wouldn’t have stood up in the Indy 500, but it
ran.
On a gallon of spit for every

gallon of regular. Christ, he’d loved that car. Better than the brand-new Thunderbird he’d bought

after law school, and all the cars he’d owned since. Now he thought he understood why, in spite

of all its flaws, he’d loved it so.

Because he hadn’t just bought it, he’d
dreamed
it. He had conjured it up, like some demented

teenage Ali Baba, out of cement dust and wishful thinking. And he had known, then and forever,

sitting behind the sun-cracked steering wheel of that Olds, that if you wanted it bad enough,

dreamed
hard
enough, anything was possible.

Max blinked, bringing Rose into sudden, dazzling focus, and it was as if he were seeing a tiny

universe of sorts, the delicate blue veins tracing her temples, each glistening coil of hair, the

specks of clear light in her dark eyes, making them shine.

He brought his hand to her face, palm up, not touching her but close enough to feel her heat.

Rose leaned into his palm, closing her eyes, and the silken feel of her skin over the hard curve of

cheekbone made him feel as if he were turning cartwheels on new grass, leaving him breathless,

dizzy, heartstruck. No mirage, he told himself. No, she, like himself, was just another weary

traveler come home.

“One condition,” he said, his throat rusty with emotion.

“Shoot,” she murmured.

“Marry me.”

Her eyes flew open. A slow smile spreading across her face. “I do. I mean, I will. Yes. Does

that answer your question or do you want me to go on?”

[522] “Yeah,” he said. “But keep going. I like hearing it anyway.” She threw her head back,

laughing, arms stretching up, up, her throat arching, her electric hair falling away from her ears

and neck. And that’s when he noticed—the earrings.
Two
of them, identical, shaped like tiny

teardrops, sparkling in each of her ears.

Epilogue

Sylvie sank into the deep chair by the fireplace, and luxuriated a moment in its soft velvet. She

kicked off her pumps, and let her head fall against the plump backrest. Through the etched glass

panels of the parlor pocket doors, she could see shadows wavering—the caterer’s people clearing

away empty glasses, ashtrays, plates.

She felt tired, but it was a
good
tired. Like arranging roses in her best Waterford vase after a

hard morning of pulling weeds in the hot sun.

They loved it. Everyone. What Nikos has done with this old wreck of a house. What I have

done. A miracle, they said.

Drifting up the stairs, she could hear the faint tinkle of the women’s laughter, the deep rolling

bell of Nikos’s voice bidding the last of the guests good-night. And sounds from the kitchen

directly below, too, the singsong patter of Jamaican patois, the tap running, dishes clattering.

Sylvie propped her stockinged feet on the needlepoint foot rest. She felt a twinge of

sheepishness now to think how shamelessly she had basked in the evening’s praise, worn it about

her like a crown of laurel leaves.

But then, why not? She
did
deserve it.

Sylvie looked about the parlor, soft in the rosy light of the dying fire, and saw it in its splendid

completeness as if for the first time—without the invasive memories of cracked walls, sagging

ceiling, lumber and paint buckets. A slow, wondering pride crept through, made her feel lifted up.

Grand, yes. And intimate, too. The best of both worlds.

How right she’d been to choose this light color to offset the mahogany moldings about the

doors and windows, a William Morris design in the palest silver; and for the ceiling, with its

garlands of plaster rosettes, soft pastel colors. And instead of the heavy funereal [524] velvet,

she’d picked drapes of a soft lemony weave, with the sheerest of liners, designed to drink in the

sunlight. And, here and there, bright accents. A red-lacquered Chinese tea cabinet, a striking

Louis Quinze gilt pier mirror between the two tall windows, a Georgia O’Keeffe lily over the

fireplace.

I created this. Something to be proud of. Oh, Mama, I wish you could see this. ...

In the tall pier mirror, Sylvie caught the shimmery amber reflection of a slender woman

wearing a crepe gown the color of Blue Nile roses, her pale hair caught up with two antique silver

combs. There was a look of deep calm in the woman’s wide, sea-green eyes.

She gazed at this image of herself, feeling distanced, as if she were seeing a portrait someone

had painted of her. And she was struck by the woman’s dignity, her air of self-possession.

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” she whispered to herself, breathing in the scent of

perfume and cigarettes which still lingered.

Yes. Finally. She knew how she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Nikos was growing

impatient. She had put him off too long. Now he deserved an answer, though it hurt so to think of

what she’d be sacrificing.

But for every choice there is a price. And who knows that better than I?

She thought of that long-ago night, the choking smoke, terror, searing flames, and how after

claiming the sheet-wrapped bundle in her arms as her own, she’d had to live with that choice.