Talk of the Town (16 page)

When he could, he held her, stroking her back, soaking her in through his fingertips. With his eyes closed and his emotions close to the surface, he promised himself he'd never be away from her that long again. Never. And certainly not because of his pride.

He could have come back Sunday; his appointments in Sacramento hadn't been till Tuesday. Two days he could have been near her, but his pride and jealousy had kept him at home, in an empty house, with nothing but his stubbornness to keep him company.

"I missed you so much," she said, her face in the bend of his neck, her breath warm against his skin. "I should have let you come with me." Then she added, "It was awful."

"What? The whole thing was awful? Or being without me was awful?"

"Yes. Both."

“Why?" he asked, trying to look at her by the dashboard lights. "What happened?"

She moved her head a bit. "Not now. Later. I don't want to spoil this."

He smiled. "My legs are going to sleep anyway. Come on. Let's go inside. We can do it again. Right this time. Slow, the way you like it."

"I like all of it. Every way. Any way I can get it from you."

"I've noticed that," he said, handing her a wad of clothes. He helped her pull the other leg of her jeans off in the close confines of the cab and watched as she slipped her panties back on. He grinned. "Think someone's going to see you streaking to the house?"

"No," she said, her smile bright in the dull light. "I like it when you take them off."

~*~

There was no sleep for the wicked that night. They were cold by the time they reached the bedroom, stopping in the kitchen for a beer and a diet soda. The house was equipped with two hot water tanks, and they used up both of them in a long, leisurely, intimate shower.

"How do you like it when I take your towel off?" he asked, his arms circling her from behind as she brushed out her wet hair, his hands resting on the rolled corners of the towel above her breast.

"I don't know. Try it and see," she said, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. They stared at each other as his fingers slowly loosened the towel, pulled it away from her body, and dropped it on the floor. He pressed his nakedness to her back, cupping her breasts in his hands, then slowly slid them lower and lower. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart raced out of control. When her neck grew weak and her head fell back against his shoulder, he turned her in his arms and kissed her, and this time their loving was slow and sweet and heart-wrenching.

~*~

"I like it when you miss me," he said sometime later, an undeniable gloating in his voice. "I thought you were insatiable before, but this is amazing. You're shameless."

"I thought you said you liked it," she said, so spent, her words were slurred.

"I do."

"Then quit complaining. If you can't handle it . . ."

"I can handle it," he said, rolling quickly from his back to wrap her in his arms. "I think," he added softly.

They lay quiet, relishing the sensation of skin on skin.

"Tell me why it was awful," he said, muttering as if he were asking for a bedtime story; as if he were about to have happy dreams knowing that she hadn't had a good time without him.

"It wasn't awful," she said, caressing his thick muscled arm with soothing strokes. "I was awful."

He pulled back to look at her.

"What does that mean? How were you awful?"

"It's hard to explain."

"I'm listening."

She sighed heavily, wondering where to start. Her mind jumped over the lunch she'd shared with Justin. He'd scolded her for neglecting her work over the past few months. She hadn't. She'd tried to explain that she'd been working regular hours on it; that Gary wasn't standing in her way; that he actually encouraged her by bringing take out to the house so she didn't have to stop and cook, and hauling Harley here and there to give her more time with the sculptures. Once again she'd tried to make him see that it wasn't a matter of time that was holding her up, it was the lack of desire that was holding her back. She didn't like the big sculptures, didn't enjoy them, didn't love them.

Her mind blocked out the intimate dinner they'd dallied over after the tea. She had decided it would be best to forget that Justin had come on to her, tried to kiss her, touched her as if he had a thousand hands. Her shock was nothing to the anger she felt with his explanation. If she seemed less distant, less untouchable, more like a warm, open woman than a beautiful cool statue to him, it was entirely Gary's doing, not his. And if this new woman Justin saw had anything worth giving she'd be giving it to Gary first. Thank you very much.

No, it was the hours between the two meals on Saturday that were awful.

"Justin calls them the Art World," she said, starting slowly. "Or sometimes the World of Art. He says they're everybody who's anybody worth knowing, who deals in art on the West Coast. Gallery owners from everywhere, collectors, brokers, fundraisers, benefactors, artists—with and without names. Special people. Rich people. Powerful people.

"Justin introduced me to the ones he thought were important. And me? I smiled and said all the right words and did all the right things. I sipped on a glass of wine I didn't want and listened to them shred the work of one artist after another. I was like someone I didn't know. All these people who couldn't draw a straight line to save their souls, but who have somehow set themselves up as the be-all and end-all authorities on good art, and I was pretending to be one of them.

"I stood there and nodded like a dummy," she said, her speech coming faster and more heated. "I didn't defend anyone. I let Justin go on and on about my sculptures, as if I were proud of them. I stood there in those tight high heels and hoped with all my heart that those people would approve of me and my work. The work I did to please them, not myself. I walked out of that fancy reception hall feeling as if I'd been sucked dry. Like an empty coffee pot with nothing left but the goopy black dregs."

Hearing this, Gary was glad he hadn't gone. It really didn't sound like his cup of tea, as it were.

"You know," he said, his tone thoughtful. "I don't think you should be beating yourself up about this. Nobody likes it, but it seems to be a part of life. Everywhere you turn, there are puffed-up people who don't know diddly about what's going on, and there they are holding all the strings, making all the rules, screaming with the loudest voice. I have to deal with them all the time. And I don't think anybody really knows what to do with them. There's no standard practice for getting around them. You put up with them. You go along with them as far as you can. You use them, because they're using you to make themselves seem important."

"But I feel like such a hypocrite," she said, miserable.

"I know. You're supposed to. It's all part of the game in the beginning."

She looked at him, confused.

"If you follow your conscience and fight them, you're dead before you ever get started. That's where their power lies. If you don't play by their rules, they simply lock you out and you never get in. But once you're in, it's your guilt and those feelings of fraud and deception that they count on to keep you submissive, which perpetuates their power over you."

"I don't think I can live like that, Gary."

"You don't have to," he said, pressing a kiss to her temple, giving himself a pat on the back for his excellent taste in women. "Didn't we already say they were know-nothing know-it-alls? Then you be smart. Beat’em at their own game. Do what you have to do to get in, and get to the top. But keep your perspective. Don't get sucked into their way of thinking. Remember what's really important in your life and be true to that. Then when you have your own power inside the group, you stomp on these people." He paused. "It's a game, Rose. Not a fun game, but a game nonetheless."

She sighed. "I still think I should have said something. Several people had pieces on display. Why do they have to be so vocal with their opinions? If something doesn't appeal to them, couldn't they simply walk away without tearing it apart? They mutilated some of those pieces. Pieces someone put time and sweat and blood into." She hesitated. "They're going to chew me up and spit me out."

"At least you'll be bleeding inside on the floor instead of outside in the dirt. It's no consolation, I know, but you can try again if you play your cards right," he said. "You don't always have to speak your mind. You don't have to help them tear anything apart; you don't have to agree with them. Just don't fight them until you know you can win."

A thought occurred to her, and she twisted her neck to get a good look at him.

"You play this game all the time, don't you? With your landfills and incinerators. Only for you it's the government and the environmentalists and property owners."

"It's almost exactly the same game. But in my case I've got a clock to beat. And when my time runs out,
everyone
will be powerless. No one will be able to stop what will happen."

The light of the sun dissolved the dark film of night. Shadows faded to gray and hid from the daylight hours as they lay in each other's arms pondering life, the world, and the roles they played in it.

NINE

She was crazy. She knew it. But that didn't stop her from racing across the street on her lunch break to fetch the mail.

"He's only been gone a day, and he called you last night to tell you he'd gotten there safely," Gary said, his ignorance sticking out all over. Clearly he'd never been a mother.

"She knows that," Lu said. She was leaning on her side of the lunch counter, watching with the others as Rose frantically sorted the junk mail from the bills, looking for a postcard from Harley.

When she came across a particular envelope, frowned at it a moment, then finished her useless search and went back to it, she had everyone's interest piqued.

"You didn't find one, did you?" Lu asked, thinking she'd grossly underestimated Harley's attachment to his mother.

 "No. Not from Harley. But this one's from the San Francisco Patrons of Fine Arts Ball Committee."

"Well, open it. Open it," was the general accord.

"Oh no," she said, peeking into the envelope before she pulled out four tastefully printed cream-colored tickets.

"What are they?" Lucy Flannary asked, her chin resting on her fists over a glass of cherry cola.

"Tickets to the ball," Rose said, sounding ill. "The Patrons' Ball. Do you have any idea how much these tickets cost?"

"Send 'em back," Emma Motley, postmistress, said. "It's against the law to—"

"Oh, I'm going to send them back, all right." Rose broke in. She was miffed. "I've been telling Justin for months that I couldn't afford to go to this, so he takes it upon himself to send me tickets. Well, I can't accept these. It's too much."

"Wait a second," Gary said, setting his coffee mug on the counter. "Think this through. If he wants you to go so bad, he must think it's pretty important."

"It's not. The whole thing is boring," she said, reconsidering the tickets. "I pawned an arm and a leg two years ago to go. The food was terrible. Justin thought the tea and this ball were the best places to start getting my name out before the Amateur Art Show at Fennway's Gallery in August."

""You're showing your sculptures." It was a half question, half statement.

"Maybe. If they're finished. If they're good enough."

 "Then the artsy fella is right," Lucy said, passing down her judgment. "Even vague name recognition is better than no recognition at all."

"And if you make an impression on one or two people and they like you, so much the better when they see your work," Emma said. "They'll say nice things about you, even if they hate what you've done."

Rose's gaze rose to Gary's.

"It's part of the game, isn't it?" He nodded. She filled her cheeks with a deep sigh until the air broke through her lips. She chewed the lower one as she thought it over. Finally she held up one ticket. "Okay. I'll send three of them back and pay him for this one."

"How come he sent four?" Danny O'Brian asked, not all that interested in the conversation to begin with —he was having a Rubbermaid sale
and
a Craftmaster tool sale
and
a lawn and garden sale all at once and couldn't get involved right now. But he did see the disparity of sending four expensive ball tickets when only one was needed.

"Maybe he wants you to bring the whole family," Lu suggested with a humorous smirk, as if she were picturing Earl in a tuxedo.

Rose was frowning at the elegant invitations, seeing Justin's error for the first time. Why
had
he sent four tickets? Maybe there had been some sort of mix-up. Still . . . Harley all dressed up and Earl ...

"Like they'd come," she muttered.

"I'd go," Gary said, his eyes bright with enthusiasm, hinting heavily for an invitation.

Naturally, no one but Rose was surprised to hear that he considered himself a part of the family. Not even now when their dates sometimes ended at eight in the morning.

"Oh no, you'd hate it. I'd never put you through that," she said, beginning to feel uneasy.

"I've been to things like this before," he said. "I even own my own tux."

The two ladies having coffee to his left were more impressed than Rose.

"You'd hate it," she insisted.

"No, I wouldn't. And I can help Earl and Harley rent their duds. Oh! What about a limo? I could rent one for the night. That would be fun. The four of us could make a night of it."

"Oh, right. Earl? As if we wouldn't have to gag and hog-tie him first?"

"How do you know that? Maybe he's always wanted to go to something like this. Have you ever asked him?"

"Well, no, but ..."

"You really ought to ask him," Emma said, nodding judiciously. "Opportunities like this don't come in the mail every day, you know."

"That's true," Lucy added. "And as I recall, ol' Earl was a dasher as a young man. My oh my, I remember him being such a handsome young fella. With those wide shoulders. He'd come in from the lumber camp all slicked back and smellin' fine. . . ."