Walk on Water (2 page)

“Then we both are.”

But we both couldn’t be. Polygamy was for the primitive tribes in anthropology books.

Luke’s wedding day was the last day I had seen him, or any of them—in the flesh. When my own wedding day had finally come none of the Sterlings had attended, even though Mommy had forced me to send an invitation to Luke’s parents and include a hand-written note saying that their whole family was invited. It was Mrs. Sterling who had sent their regrets along with a $500 Neiman Marcus gift certificate, which had never been redeemed.

For a few years Mrs. Sterling and Mommy had continued to exchange Christmas cards, and with them the popular Christmas letters. Mommy would save the Sterling cards for me so I could read about Luke and Christina having another baby, how he was a talented engineer, the kinds of splendid vacations they took, how they were absolutely
happy-ever-after
. Dreading those exquisite cards I had never touched them.

Of course that had not stopped Mommy’s oral Sterling Reports. Although she remained convinced that Mrs. Sterling was a conceited snob, Mommy had always considered herself to be very fond of Luke, so she had taken pleasure in knowing that she had been right about him. “Everything he touches turns to gold,” Mommy had concluded about Luke, not knowing that he had
touched
me, since to this day I had never told her the truth about us.

“I can’t wait to tell Luke that I ran into you,” Mrs. Sterling was saying to me now. “He would absolutely love to see you. He moved back to Dallas, you know.”

No, I didn’t know. How could I? The Christmas card exchange had finally fizzled. I didn’t know why or when. I supposed if real friendships could not stand the test of time then why should fake ones do any better? Mommy had just stopped talking about them, and relieved I had never asked.

Luke’s
little sister
in the eyes of his bride, had been Luke’s little charity in the eyes of his mother, which made her embrace in the store just now really pretty shocking. The Betty Sterling that I knew was the type to write big checks to feed, to clothe, to help, but that was as close as she came to the needy, even if they had overcome their original circumstances and made something of themselves. “Luke has always helped those less fortunate,” she had informed me on the day I had met her, obviously meaning me. Meeting his parents had been Luke’s idea, and at least Mr. Sterling had been nice to me.

Luke hadn’t minded proximity to the poor, otherwise I would have always been on the Greyhound bus for home on holidays and summer breaks. As a laboratory technician for Parkland Hospital, Mommy had done decently enough, but there had never been much money in our house, and certainly not enough to buy me a car. An academic scholarship and the college work-study program had made my attending the University of Texas possible, and it was there that I had met the munificent Lucas James Sterling, almost as if education was indeed a great equalizer.

“After the divorce,” Mrs. Sterling continued, “I suppose he needed a fresh start.”

I swallowed, hoping that by doing so I had neutralized my face.
Divorce.
Luke had divorced Christina?

“Oh yes,” sighed Mrs. Sterling as if she were reading my thoughts. “It is the trend, I suppose. Luke wasn’t spared. Although I’ll tell you I always did have my doubts about Christina,” she added. “The engagement surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought she was his type.”

Surprised.
Really? Why should she be? Christina was definitely Betty Sterling’s
type
, in ways I had had no hope of being. “I expect a young man to play the field for a while,” Mrs. Sterling had once informed me. “But when it’s time to settle down, a man like Luke needs the right kind of woman. Someone who can be an asset to him.”

“Oh well,” said Mrs. Sterling. “We have four wonderful grandchildren. Thank goodness for that. Of course we don’t get to see them very much since they’re still in Virginia. Far be it for Christina to make a sacrifice for Luke’s sake.”

Or hers
, I was guessing. But then Betty Sterling was probably not the easiest mother-in-law. She probably thought no woman was worthy of her son. Even a
right
one. I wouldn’t think she was an especially warm and cuddly grandmother. I imagined her dragging Luke’s children to abstract art exhibits and hours of symphonies, having the maid bake them cookies that they were required to eat in the kitchen because grandmother’s house was carpeted in whites and beiges.

Maybe Luke hadn’t loved Christina either. I wondered if he had also told her one day
I can’t be with you
. More than twenty years later those words, in his baritone voice, still played in my head. But at least I hadn’t bored him. It had been good between us. Sometimes
always
was just a long time—not forever.
I’ll always be your friend, Rachel.
Maybe he still was. Lives just diverged that was all. Lots of people didn’t stay together forever. Even if they had
assets
. Or children. The research showed. The magazines said.

“Children grow up so fast,” said Mrs. Sterling. “Luke Jr. will be graduating from college next spring, and the younger three,” she shook her head. “All they care about is sports and boys and makeup. Christina never was much of a disciplinarian. But what about you, Rachel? Do you have any children?”

“No,” I said.

“What?” she exclaimed. “What are you waiting for?” then her face changed, becoming awkward. “I mean… don’t you want children?”

Don’t you want children, Rachel? It wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened.

But Luke hadn’t been the one facing the prospect of making the same disastrous mistake Mommy had made, when she had wrecked her life before it had even started. Yes, Mommy loved me, and she was a wonderful mother, but the
what-if
question never quite went away. There was always the faint hint of regret. Maybe if Peter had married her… or at least wanted me.

“I would be ruined!” I had angrily shouted at Luke that day.

“Why? Because we’d have a baby?” he had calmly asked.

“I would have the baby! Not you!”

“It wouldn’t be like that, Rachel. I’m not that kind of—”

“Oh please. You can keep your speeches, Lucas Sterling. Men are all the same. Your mistake. My problem.”

Peter was little more than a figment of my imagination and Mommy’s memory, eternally a boy with a big smile captured in Mommy’s high school yearbook with no caption to tell me more. He knew nothing of the times when I caught the measles, or got baptized, or made the honor roll, when I graduated from college, or fell in love, or got divorced. Based on what Mommy had been willing to tell me, maybe I couldn’t even qualify as a
figment
to him.

So yes I had been terrified of repeating Mommy’s life. However, the pregnancy test at the free clinic had been negative. Nerves had most likely screwed up my period. After all I had been a virgin, frightened and eager at the same time. And a perhaps a little guilty too. Maybe love did cover a multitude of sins like the Bible said, but was that still true when the love itself was the sin?

It was supposed to have been a dream-come-true, making love to Luke, in my own room while Mommy had been working a double shift at the hospital. I had been a college graduate, it must be time. But maybe I had been afraid too, afraid of Luke being older and needing more than an adoring sidekick. His parents had been pressing him to go to graduate school, and he had already entered the professional world. Pretty soon we might not have anything in common anymore.

Besides it had been my turn to have what I heard about for years, and from Luke. It was to have been a new beginning for me, and for us. Instead it had become the end. Perhaps
Seinfeld’s Elaine
had been right. Sex could ruin the friendship.

I had yearned for Luke’s beautiful naked body glowing in the warm soft light of a candle; and in my bed, so that I could dream about his presence even after he was gone. Because even then I had known that the day would come when he would be gone. Then, like all the rest, I could take my place among the rejected.

So now Christina was among us too. In the end, as he had done to the rest of us, he had simply given her what she had wanted too only to take it away. I wondered if she were grateful anyway. I was. Although it had taken me a while to get there. To decide that it had been my fault because I had known better. In the reception line, on Luke’s wedding day, as he had been embracing Mommy but looking into my eyes over her shoulder, I had realized it. I lived with it still, a permanent mark of recrimination. I had asked for too much.

“Things didn’t work out for Robert and me,” I offered his mother as an explanation for my childlessness.

“Oh,” replied Mrs. Sterling. “You too? I’m so sorry, Rachel. It is the times I guess. But don’t worry, you’ll find happiness I’m sure.”

Assuming I hadn’t already, I thought defensively. I might still be in love with her son, I might always be, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t happy. Betty Sterling did not need to feel sorry for me.

“Do you have a business card?” Mrs. Sterling asked. “Maybe Luke could give you a call. You could have a little reunion. You two were such good friends, and he needs his friends now.”

.

TWO

B
ack at work, the rest of the afternoon I was in a kind of daze. Every time the telephone rang on my desk I was afraid it would be Luke, and when it wasn’t, every time I was disappointed, until I was on the edge of despair. Which was stupid really. He must be at work too. Mrs. Sterling might have a million errands to do. If Luke took the time to make a personal telephone call at all while he was at work, it would be to his girlfriend. I assumed he must have one. The Luke Sterling I remembered was kind of a ladies’ man, a real player truth be told, but not in a bad way. He had always had a conscience that was equal to his good looks.

Besides what could we have to say to each other beyond
hello, how have you been?
When people asked that question they usually didn’t mean it. The Luke I remembered also wasn’t much for small talk and neither was I. It had been more than twenty years. There was a reason why reunions were generally one-weekend events. Living in the past became pathological if you did it too long.

Somehow I managed to make it through the rest of my appointments for the day, but it was a struggle, and the clients who came to see me didn’t get their just due. Five o’clock could not come soon enough, and when it finally did I was dashing to my car before the long-hand on the office clock could make it to 5:01 or before Corrine could drop by for a chat.

I had made up my mind not to tell Corrine anything because she would surely make too much of it. Underneath her hard-ass-leave-them-on-the-battlefield exterior, my best friend harbored a fairytale romantic heart which she had no qualms about breaking as long as the sex was worth it. She’d have me looking Luke up on the Internet and friending him on Facebook.

When I got home I fed Tony-the-Tiger (T-T for short) and Agatha, my two cats, and then I made myself a cup of tea. I had no appetite for food. Luke Sterling had that kind of effect on me. In the first six months that I had known him I had lost fifteen pounds without even trying. Too constantly excited to eat, all kinds of food had gone to waste on my plate, including desserts. Luke had labeled me a picky eater, but I had simply been preoccupied. Hunger was no match for secret infatuation, and adoration, and love. But all of that silliness should be over and done with. I was too old for it. Even so, the tea cooled in my cup as I watched the telephone, waiting for it to ring. It didn’t.

I turned on the television and focused on the news. Traffic was backed up on I-30. A reporter flying over the freeway in a helicopter shouted his report over the whirling chopper blades. Somebody had been killed. Tonight somebody wouldn’t go home, and a typical day would now be a tragedy. Life was so random, unpredictable. Bad. Good. Grief. Happiness. Anytime anywhere. You couldn’t know the harvest, no matter what the season. Trend lines were more like wild roller coasters or rough jagged edges. They either made you throw-up or cut yourself.

Feeling a frenzy coming on I decided I had better make myself eat, so I made myself scrambled eggs and the food eventually helped. Why should Luke call me tonight, I asked myself again. Why should he call at all? I would probably never run into Mrs. Sterling again. I could find myself another Bath & Body Works to buy my
Juniper Breeze.

When the telephone finally did ring it was Mommy calling for our nightly check-in chat. At first I suppressed the news about running into Mrs. Sterling and Luke’s divorce, opting to let her go first with her own news of the day. She gossiped about the hospital and I made all of the obligatory sounds of an involved listener.

“He’s such a pervert,” Mommy complained about one of the other lab techs who was having sex with another female lab tech and a hospital nurse too.

“Having two girlfriends doesn’t make him a pervert, Mommy,” I replied.

“It does if he’s married. And who said they were girlfriends?”