Lunch (16 page)

 

Chapter 19

S
he is meandering down the mews, swinging her bag, her limbs still languid with lingering kisses, her hips bruised, when she sees the back of a familiar figure paying a taxi driver in front of her studio.

Olivier. It isn't possible.

Her heart stops in an instant of stunned shock, and her knees nearly buckle. She should be flying into his arms, so happy is she that he has stolen time that is not his to steal, to be here, with her as she has begged him to so many times, her voice crackling with the effort of holding back tears she does not want him to hear, but instead she steps quickly into the shadowy recess of a doorway, shivering with guilty, anxious dread. She can't let him see her now, not after lunch, not as she reeks of Nick, still feeling the imprint of his body, the soreness of her wrists, his lips toying with her nipples, the endless caresses, the sticky wetness between her legs. Her fingers still laden with him, he took her fingers and licked them one by one, suckling them, and she was helpless.

She runs down to the end of the Mews, and flags the very same taxi that has just dropped off Olivier.

Porchester Baths, she tells the driver, slumping down on her seat and trying to calm the frenzied beating of her heart. The baths will sweat the shame away.

I can't take it anymore, she is thinking, this is it, I can't lie anymore, I don't want to lie anymore. Olivier flying home on the few days he has for a long-­overdue break, the shocking boredom of all those hours in the airplane, away from his work, jeopardizing his life, and here she is crying in the backseat of a taxi driving off in the opposite direction, hating herself as she examines her wrists to see if there are any bruises to give her away.

She sits in the steam room until she is panting, dashing from the wet heat searing her lungs to squat, breathless, for only a second, in the plunge pool, the cold of its still blue water shattering, making her nerves dance in jittery rhythm, before running back to the sauna, stretching out on the cedar bench, the only sound the ragged hiss of steam when she ladles water onto the hot stones, and the sharp intake of the deep breaths she is gulping to still the jumping thuds of her heart.

The baking heat of the ritual in the baths, purifying her pores and cleansing away the scent of her sins, soothes her shattered senses, roasting Nick's smell out of her, cooking her tortured thoughts in a steaming brew of hot burning liquid, fat drops of sweat rolling down her face past her eyes misted with tears.

In the baths no one can tell that you're crying.

After she dresses she calls the machine, telling Nick curtly that Olivier has shown up unexpectedly and she doesn't know how long he is staying, and she will call back as soon as possible.

By the time she hurries home she has no problem pretending to be surprised.

T
HEY MAKE
love in the dark, in her tiny bedroom beneath her studio that Nick will never see, lit only by candles. I want to see you flicker like a ghost, because only a ghost of you is here when you're gone, she says to him. Olivier laughs softly at her, drowsy with travel fatigue, teasing her that she has gone all melodramatic as she lights the wicks, a long matchstick shaking in her fingers.

She cannot tell him making love in the daylight might make her think of Nick. She cannot tell him she is afraid of what he might see on her body, but he is very weary and his eyes remain closed, and for the moment she is safe.

Afterward, they lie intertwined and content, all trace of Nick vanishing like the thin plume of smoke from her candles.

“Let's get married now,” she says.

“Right now? In the middle of the night?” He laughs.

“Tomorrow, then. Let's go to the registry and do it. I don't want to wait any longer. I can't bear it.”

“But darling,” he says, “I've got to go back tomorrow morning, first thing.”

She props herself up to look at him, stunned. “You mean you flew all this way only for a night?”

He shrugs. “It was worth it. I missed you.”

Tears start to her eyes, and he pulls her close, tenderly, to kiss them away.

A
NNETTE
IS
lying on the chaise next to Olivia in the steam room, patting a garishly pink clay mask onto her face, her hair sleeked back with conditioner, and her flesh glowing rose in the shimmering heat.

“You look like a big pink rabbit,” Olivia says.

“And you look like a lady with a problem.”

Olivia rolls on her side to look at her. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I'm not going to ask,” Annette says, pointing to the thin trail of a welt, nearly healed but still visible, on Olivia's hip. “I've always preferred discretion, as you know, so I've been waiting for you to tell me. Why, for example, you seem to be avoiding me. Why you hardly come by the gallery anymore. Why you look like you're wrestling with all the demons in hell, my darling. That sort of thing.”

Annette knows. Of course she knows. Even if it weren't written all over Olivia's face, it's been written all over her body, naked and sweating in the baths, with reminders she's so accustomed to seeing that she pays no attention, not to bruises on her arms and legs that aren't the result of clumsiness, or the sideways stares of other women around her.

“Of course, I can hardly blame you,” Annette adds, matter-­of-­factly.

“What?”

“I was there when you met, at lunch that day. I saw him looking at you like that. Nick Muncie. Your famous subject. I don't see how you could have resisted him. I wouldn't have.” She puts down the jar of her mask and picks up another, dabbing a cream smelling of coconuts into her cuticles. “Quite frankly I was wishing he'd look at me like that. Adrian never does, and never will, I suppose. I don't think he has it in him, poor dear. But I should think every woman wants a man to look at her like that, at least once in her life.”

“You're lucky he didn't,” Olivia says, relieved to talk of it at last to a trusted friend who will not judge her more harshly than she already judges herself. “Looking is one thing. Giving in to it is another.” She sighs deeply and drinks from a water bottle. “When Olivier came home the other day to surprise me I thought I was going to go mad. And you know what I did? I ran, ran from Olivier! I saw him at the door, and I ran away, because he would have looked at me and known, instantly, all I could think was I have just come from my lover, will he notice, don't let him find out, please. It was pathetic. That's the real disgustingness of betrayal.”

“How very American.”

“Don't tease me, Annette, please don't,” she says, tears in her eyes. “It's completely out of control. I never meant for it to last so long, I never wanted . . . I'm going to crack any minute if I don't get out of it.”

“Because of Olivier.”

“It's more than that. You don't know what Nick's really like.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can't.”

“Do you love him?”

“When I think of love, I don't think of Nick,” Olivia says, only realizing it as she speaks. “Love belongs to Olivier, and what we have together, we just fit. Nick's about wanting, and taking what he wants, about lust, about pure animal fucking . . . he's—­”

“—­a beast?”

Olivia smiles, barely. “Yes, a beast. His own species, master of his kingdom. It's what I saw in him to paint. It's what I wanted him to show me.”

She sighs. “He rented a flat, it's just around the corner from here,” she continues, “this marvelous magical flat with the most gorgeous things in it. It's so golden and quiet, I've never heard anyone else in the building, it was as if we were sealed off from the world in it, and it was made only for us to be together. Our safe house. As soon as I'd go in, up the flight of stairs, put my key in the lock, and open the door, I felt as if I no longer existed, not me, Olivia, the person I thought I was, I'd disappeared, melted into this room where Nick was waiting for me. He'd always be there before I arrived, lying on the bed, reading a script or dozing, and as soon as he touched me the real Olivia vanished, I was suspended in some bizarre intoxicating dream, and I told myself that as long as it wasn't real then I could take it, whatever he'd concoct, whatever he'd do to me. I wouldn't wake up till I walked out the door, and I was always shocked that only an hour or two had gone by, that the air was still cold and wet on my face, and I could hear the traffic and see the ­people walking around, minding their own business. Only then would I wake up. I'd wake up amazed that life is going on just as it always has, me painting, you selling, Olivier at the piano, all that I had before, and all that I ever wanted.”

“I understand, Olivia,” Annette says, wiping off her mask. “At least I think I do.”

“But how can anyone understand what he does to me when I can't understand it myself, or why I let him?”

“I don't know.”

“Every time he pushed me, just a little bit further, I almost couldn't see how far I'd gone, or that he'd hurt me, till I got home. And then I'd hate myself, swear I'd never see him again, till the next time. I always let him, it's part of the game we played, it's always been a game to him, dominating me, and I welcomed it, actually, giving in to him made it easier for me to deal with the guilt, because I could tell myself it wasn't really me playing, it was some awful creature who was curious and flattered by the attention, some silly girl who was lonely and wanted one last fling, as if I were punishing Olivier because he was so far away.” Her face is deeply flushed, and she wipes the tears and the sweat away, closing her eyes.

“Are you guilty because of him, and worrying about Olivier, or because you like it?”

“What are you, the shrink of sauna?”

“For the moment.”

“Both, of course. Nick is . . . well, he's always been overwhelming. What got him off was to feel me helpless, and my pleading with him to stop. I never liked feeling that way, not really, it's not how—­”

“—­how Olivier makes love to you.”

“How anybody ever did. Nick didn't make love, he fucked me as if it were the only thing he had to keep him alive. And I thought if I only saw him for a short time I'd be able to control it, but that was ridiculously naive. What a fool I am.”

“How could you have known?”

“Oh, I knew, all right, that's part of what was so tantalizing, sensing that unbelievable power in him. It was so erotic, feeling the enormity of this man's sexual potency focusing on me, watching me when I was painting him. I must've encouraged it then, subconsciously, or even overtly. I know I did, because feeding off that concentration gave me the strength to capture it in his face, in the portrait.”

“That's why it's the best you've ever done.”

“But even when I felt that desire oozing out of him, when he made me feel so alive, painting, I couldn't understand why me, why he wanted me.”

“Maybe because he sensed that you didn't want him.”

“I wonder. I thought that, at first, you know, no one ever says no to a Hollywood star, blah blah, spoiled jerk, can have any woman he wants, but it's become more than that. Now I see what I can do to him, too. It's an addiction, a physical addiction. That I'd even want one bit of it after seeing Olivier like that the other day makes me sick.”

“It doesn't sound to me as if you really want it anymore. I imagine you're not quite aware of it, but you've been talking about it as if it's already over, describing him in the past tense, you know, as if it's something that happened to you a long time ago.”

“I wish. It's much more complicated than what I might want anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm afraid.” She towels the sweat away. “I'm afraid he won't let me go. Last time we met he asked me to go back to L.A. with him, he told me all about his house, how he lives, and made me memorize his private number. He thinks I'm seriously considering it even though he knows I want out. He's sure he can do something to change my mind.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. Not having something he wants is making him angry. The more mad he feels, the more he feels anything, the more unable he is to suppress his anger, and it scares me.”

“Do you think he's in love with you?”

Olivia frowns and rearranges her towels. “No, I don't think so. God, I hope not. I told you, Nick's not about love.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What can I do, send him a letter? I'll tell him, I have to. I'll tell him that it's over, cold turkey. The film's almost finished, and I'm going to leave.” She sits up, splashing more tepid water on her face. “God, I can't breathe, thinking about it.”

“You need a cold shower.”

“I need a lot more than that.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Olivia laughs, touched. “You are a darling, but it's my mess, and I have to deal with it.” She doesn't tell Annette about the terrifying blankness sweeping all humanity from Nick's face, about the bonds imprisoning her to the bed, and to him. Even the heat of this room parching her skin can't stop her from shivering at the thought of it. “And afterward, I'll disappear, I can't risk seeing him. And I don't want him to know where I'm going.”

“With Olivier.”

“Yes.”

She stands up, too quickly, and her head spins. Annette grabs her arm, righting her. “Come on, sweetheart, time for some cold water on your face,” she says.

“I'm okay,” Olivia says. “It's just the heat making me dizzy.”

It's more than the heat, she says to herself, it's much more than the heat.

S
HE HAS
carefully planned what she is going to say to him, calm and assured and unyielding, rehearsing it over and over again in her mind as if she were a young actress auditioning for a role in
Faust,
but he spoils it as soon as she walks in the door and drops her bag with a thud.