Now and Forever (14 page)

"Are you dressed yet?" Jessica could hear Ian rattling around in the room where he worked, and she had just finished brushing her hair. She was wearing white silk slacks and a turquoise crocheted sweater, and she still wasn't sure if she looked right. Astrid was liable to be wearing something fabulous, and it sounded as though Ian had stayed submerged in the studio. "Ian! Are you ready?" The rattling stopped and she heard footsteps.

"More or less." He smiled at her from the bedroom doorway, and she looked into his eyes as she walked towards him.

"Mr. Clarke, you look absolutely beautiful."

"So do you." He was wearing the new dark blue Cardin blazer she'd brought him from New York, a cream-colored shirt, and a wine-colored paisley tie with beige gabardine slacks she had found in France. They sculpted his long graceful legs.

"You look terribly proper and terribly handsome, and I think I'm terribly in love with you, darling."

He swept her a neat bow and put his arms around her as she reached him.

"In that case, how about if we stay home instead?" He had a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

"Ian, don't you touch me! Astrid would be so disappointed if we didn't make it. And you'll love her."

"Promises, promises." But he offered her his arm as she picked up the white silk jacket she'd left on the chair in the hall. He was going to the dinner to humor her. He had other things on his mind.

They walked the half block to the brick house on the corner, and it was the first night there had been a chill in the air. Autumn was coming, in its own gentle fashion. San Francisco in the fall was nothing like that season in New York. It was part of the reason they'd both fallen in love with San Francisco in the first place. They loved the easy, temperate weather.

Jessica rang the bell, and they waited. For a moment there was no answer.

"Maybe she's decided she doesn't want us."

"Oh, shut up. You just want to go home and work on your book." But she smiled at him and then they heard footsteps.

The door opened a second later and there was Astrid, resplendent in a floor-length black knit dress and a long rope of pearls. Her hair was loosely swept up in the back and her eyes sparkled as she led them inside. She looked even more beautiful than Jessica had found her before. And Ian was obviously stunned. He had been expecting a middle-aged widow, and had agreed to the evening mostly as a concession to Jessie. He had had no hint of this vision in black with the Dresden-doll waist and long, elegantly arched neck--and that face. He liked the face. And the look in her eyes. This was no dowager. This was a woman.

The two women embraced, and Ian stood back for a moment, watching them, intrigued by the older woman he did not yet know, and by the formidable home he was beginning to glimpse over her shoulder. It was impossible not to stare, whether he looked at her or at the house.

"And this is Ian." He obeyed the summons, feeling like a small boy being introduced by his mother--"Say good evening to the nice lady, darling"--and held out his hand.

"How do you do." He was suddenly glad he had worn the new Cardin jacket and tie. This was not going to be just any old dinner. And she was probably a roaring snob. She had to be, in a setup like that. And widowed, yet. Nouveau riche as all hell ... but somehow a murmuring suspicion told him that that wasn't the case either. She didn't have the dead-fish eyes of a snob, or the overworked eyebrows. She had nice eyes, in a nice face. She looked like a person.

Astrid laughed gaily as she led them upstairs to the library, and Ian and Jessica exchanged glances as they passed delicate sketches and etchings on the stairs ... Picasso ... Renoir ... Renoir again ... Manet ... Klimt ... Goya ... Cassatt ... He wanted to whistle, and Jessie grinned at him like a conspirator who had assisted in getting him into the neighborhood haunted house. He raised both eyebrows and she stuck out her tongue. Astrid was ahead of them and already down the hall. He wanted to whisper, and Jessie wanted to giggle, but they couldn't. Not till they got home. But she was thoroughly enjoying the look on his face; it made her feel suddenly mischievous. She pinched him delicately on the behind as she passed in front of him to enter the library.

Astrid had a plate of hors d'oeuvres waiting for them and a handsome pate. A fire roared in the grate. Ian accepted a slice of pate, on a slim piece of toast and then laughed into Astrid's eyes.

"Mrs. Bonner, I don't know how to say this, and I feel about fourteen years old, but I am overwhelmed by your home." And my hostess. He smiled the ingenuous smile that Jessie loved, and Astrid laughed with him.

"I'm delighted, that's a lovely compliment, but calling me 'Mrs. Bonnet' isn't. You may feel fourteen, but you make me feel about four hundred. Try 'Astrid'"--she threw up both hands impishly--"or I may have to kick you out. And not 'Aunt Astrid' either, God forbid." All three of them laughed, and she slid out of her shoes and tucked her legs under her in a large comfortable chair. "But I really am glad you like the house. It's embarrassing sometimes, now that Tom isn't here anymore. I love it so much, but I occasionally feel that I never quite grew into it all. I mean, it's so ... so ... well, as though it should be my mother's and I'm just house-sitting. I mean, really, me? In all this? How ridiculous!" Except that it wasn't ridiculous at all. It suited her perfectly. Ian wondered if she knew how perfectly, or if she meant what she had just said. He imagined Tom had built the place around her, right down to the paintings and the view.

"It suits you very well, you know." Ian was watching her eyes, and Jessie was watching the exchange.

"Yes, it does, in some ways, and not in others. It frightens people away sometimes. The lifestyle does. The opulence. The ... I guess you could call it an aura. A lot of it is Tom, and some of it is just ... oh ... things." She waved vaguely around the room, encompassing rapidly a fortune in art objects. Things. "And some of it is me." Ian liked the fact that she conceded the point. "People expect you to be a lot when you live like this. Sometimes they expect me to be something I'm not, or they don't stick around long enough to see what I am. I told you, Jessie, I'd trade you for your jewel of a house any day. But ..." She grinned like a cat stretching lazily in the sun. "... This isn't a bad place to live, either."

"Looks like a damn nice place to live, if you ask me, Mrs.... Astrid." They exchanged a quick burst of laughter over the slip. "But I doubt if you'd trade us for our 'jewel,' once you plugged in the hair dryer and the washing machine blew, or when the plumbing fell through to the basement. Our place has a few kinks."

"That does sound like fun." It was clear that nothing like that happened here, and Jessie was grinning broadly, remembering the last time all the fuses had blown, and Ian had refused to deal with it; they had spent the rest of the evening by candlelight--until he wanted to work, and needed the electric typewriter. He looked up sheepishly, knowing what she was thinking.

"Well, children? Do you want a tour of the place?" Astrid interrupted their thoughts. Jessie hadn't seen the whole thing, and Ian nodded quickly.

She tiptoed barefoot along the carpeted hall, flipping switches under brass sconces, opening doors, turning on more lights. There were three bedrooms upstairs. Hers in bright, flowery yellow prints with a large four-poster bed and the same splendid view of the bay. She had a small mirrored boudoir and a white marble bath, which was repeated in pale green across the hall, to go with a quietly elegant bedroom full of small French Provincial antiques.

"My mother sleeps here when she comes to the city, and this suits her perfectly. You'll know what I mean when you see her. She's very lively and little and funny, and she likes lots of flowers everywhere."

"Does she live in the East?" Ian was curious, and remembered only that Jessie had told him Astrid had originally come from New York.

"No, Mother lives on a ranch out here, of all things. She bought it a few years ago, and she's having a great time with it. Much to our astonishment, it actually agrees with her. We thought she'd be bored in six months, but she's not. She's very independent, and she rides a lot and loves to play cowboy. At seventy-two, if you please. She reminds one a bit of Colette."

It made Jessie smile to think of a tiny white-haired woman in cowboy gear ensconced in the delicately appointed room. But if she was anything like Astrid, she could pull it off. With cowboy boots custom-made by Gucci and a hat by Adolfo.

The bedroom next to Astrid's was more somber, and had apparently belonged to her husband. Jessie and Ian exchanged a rapid, casual glance ... they had had separate bedrooms? But Jessie remembered the difference in age. There was a small, elegant study next to his room, rich in red leathers, with a handsome old desk covered with pictures of Astrid.

Astrid passed quickly through the room and went back out to the hall, closing the door of the green guest room as Jessie and Ian followed.

"It's a magnificent house." Jessie sighed. It was the sort of place that made you want to appear for the next dinner invitation with everything you owned in your arms. You wanted to stay there forever. Now they both understood why she didn't close the house and find something smaller. It told a tale of people who cared--about beauty, about each other, and about living well.

"And you saw the downstairs. It's not very exciting, but it's pretty." Jessie wondered why there was no trace of servants. One expected at least a white-aproned maid, or a butler, but she seemed to live alone.

"Do you both like crab? I really should have called to ask, but I forgot." She looked faintly embarrassed.

"We love crab!" Jessie answered for them both.

"Oh, good! Seems that every time I order it for friends, and forget to ask beforehand, it turns out that someone is allergic to it or something. I love it."

It was an unusual feast. Astrid piled a mountain of dismembered cracked crabs on a vast plate in the center of the dining-room table, set out a huge carafe of white wine, added a salad and hot rolls, and invited her guests to dig in. She rolled up the sleeves of her black knit dress, invited Ian to take off his jacket, and sat there like a child, vying for the claws with whoever saw them first.

"Ian, you're a fiend. I saw that one first, and you know it!" She rapped him gently on the knuckles with the claw as she removed it, giggling and sipping her wine. She was right--she did look like a young girl whose mother was out for the evening and had let her have her friends over for dinner "as long as you're all good." She was delightful, and both Jessie and Ian fell in love with her.

It was an easy-going evening; they looked like three people with no problems at all--just expensive taste, and a liking for pleasure. It was after midnight when Ian stood up and held out a hand to Jessie.

"Astrid, I could stay here till four in the morning, but I have to get up tomorrow and work on the book, and if Jessie doesn't get enough sleep, she turns into a monster." But it was obvious that they all shared regret that the evening was over. "You'll come to the ballet with us next week?"

"With pleasure. And I'll have you know that Jessie said I would love you, and she was absolutely one-hundred-percent right. I can't think of two people I'd rather be a fifth wheel with."

"Good. Because you're not. Fifth wheel, my ass." They all laughed, and Astrid hugged them both as they left, as though she had known them for years. They felt as though she had, as Astrid stood barefoot in the doorway, waving before closing the shiny black door with its brass lion-head knocker.

"Christ, Jess, what a nice evening. And what a marvelous woman. She's amazing."

"Isn't she? But she must be lonely as hell. There's something about the way she invites people into her life, as though she has a lot of leftover loving and no one to give it to most of the time." Jessie yawned on the last words and Ian nodded. Talking over the evening was always the best part. She could no longer remember when Ian hadn't been around to share secrets, and opinions, and questions. He had been with her forever.