Where Love Has Gone (3 page)

“Are you all right?” I asked. “I shouldn’t have let you come all the way out here.”

She lifted her glass and swallowed some of the cocktail. “I’m okay,” she said, a little color coming back into her face. “Maybe a little nervous, but that’s all.”

“There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“I’m not nervous about the plane,” she said. “Just about you.” I laughed. “I’ll be all right.”

She didn’t smile. “You’ll have to see her again.”

Then I knew what she meant. Nora had a way of cutting me up, and it always took a while to get the pieces back together again. I’d been in that kind of state when Elizabeth and I first met six years ago. And that was five years after I had been divorced.

It was at the tail end of the summer. Danielle was eight and I was just back from San Francisco after delivering her to her mother after one of our infrequent weekends.

Dani had run into the house while I waited outside for the butler to come and get her bag. I never went into the house after the divorce.

The door opened but it wasn’t the butler It was Nora. We looked at each other for a moment.

There was no expression in her cool eyes. “I want to talk to you.” “About what?” I asked.

Nora was never one to waste time. “I’ve decided that Dani’s not going down to visit you anymore.”

I could feel the hackles rise. “Why?”

“She’s not a child anymore,” Nora said. “She sees things.” “Like what?”

“Like the way you live on that filthy boat. The Mex women who come around, the drunken

brawls. I don’t care to have her exposed to that side of life.”

“You’re a great one to talk. I suppose it’s better the way you do it? With clean sheets and martinis?”

“You ought to know. You seemed to like it pretty well.”

The crazy thoughts that jump into your mind. The fascination of what you know to be evil. She knew me all right. She knew what she was talking about. I fought the memory down.

“I’ll talk to my lawyer about that,” I said.

“Go ahead—if you can find a lawyer who will talk to you. You’re broke and dirty, and if you go into court, I’ve got a private detective’s statement about the way you live. You won’t get anywhere.”

She turned and closed the door in my face. I stared at it a moment, then walked down the patio steps to my beat-up old jalopy. I didn’t get home until late the next day and I got on the boat with half a case of whiskey.

Two days later I heard a knock on the cabin door. I pushed myself up from my bunk and staggered over to it. I threw open the door and for a moment I could feel the shock of pain travel from my eyeballs along the optic nerves to my brain. The harsh blue sky, the hot sun, the white dress and sun-blond hair of the girl who stood there. I blinked my eyes for a moment to cut out the light.

The girl spoke, her voice big and warm. “They told me at the bait store that you charter.” I kept on blinking. The light was too much for the whiskey.

“Are you the captain?” she asked.

The pain was easing off now. I squinted at her. She was as good to look at as she sounded. Blue- eyed and tan, generous wide mouth, and a clean jaw.

“I’m the whole crew. Come on in and have a drink.”

The hand that gripped mine as she came down the narrow steps was strong and firm. She looked around the cabin curiously. It wasn’t much to look at. Empty whiskey bottles and disheveled bunks. She didn’t say anything.

“Excuse the mess,” I said. “But I drink between charters.” A faint smile wrinkled her eyes. “So did my father.”

I looked at her. “Was he a charter man?”

She shook her head. “He was captain of a tug on the East River in New York. He hit the bottle hard between jobs.”

“I don’t drink when I’m working,” I said.

“Neither did he. He was the best tugboat captain in New York.”

I pushed some of the clutter off the table and took down a couple of clean glasses. I picked up the bottle of bourbon. “I got water. No ice.”

“That’s good whiskey,” she said. “Don’t weaken it.”

I hit the tumblers to the halfway mark. She drank the whiskey like it was water. A girl after my

own heart.

“Now to business,” she said, putting down her glass.

“Fifty dollars a day. Out at five in the morning, back at four in the afternoon. No more than four passengers.”

“How much for a week? We want to go up to L.A., lay over for the weekend and come back.” “We?” I asked. “How many?”

“Just two. My boss and myself.”

I looked at her. “This is the only cabin on the boat. Of course I can bunk down on the deck if I have to.”

She laughed. “You won’t have to.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Is there something wrong with the guy?”

She laughed again. “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s seventy-one years old and treats me like his daughter.”

“Then why the charter?”

“He’s a builder from Phoenix. He had some business out here and up around L.A. Since he’s seen nothing but sand for a long time he thought it might be a good idea to get a little salt air, maybe do some fishing.”

“He won’t get much fishing done. It’s the wrong time of the year. The fish have all gone down Mexico way.”

“He won’t mind.”

“All meals on?” I asked. “Except the weekend.”

“Would five hundred be too much?” “Four hundred would be more like it.”

“You’re on,” I said. I got to my feet. “When do you want to leave?” “Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock all right? Do you want a deposit?” I grinned at her. “You got an honest face, Miss …”

“Andersen,” she said. “Elizabeth Andersen.”

She got to her feet. The swell from a passing boat rocked the deck beneath us. She put out a hand to steady herself and started up the cabin steps.

I called after her. “By the way, Miss Andersen, what day is this?”

She laughed. A warm friendly kind of laugh. “Just like my father. That was always the first thing he asked after tying one on. It’s Wednesday.”

“Of course,” I said.

I watched her walk down the dock to where her car was parked. She turned and waved to me, then got in and drove off. I went back into the cabin and began to clean up.

That was the way I met her. We weren’t married until almost a year later.

“What are you smiling at?” Elizabeth asked.

I came back to the present with a start and reached across the table and put my hand over hers. “I was thinking about how you looked when we met,” I said. “A blond goddess cast in gold and ivory.”

She laughed and sipped at her Manhattan again. “I don’t look much like a blond goddess now.” I signaled the waiter for two more drinks. “I’m still ahead.”

Her face was suddenly serious. “You’re not sorry you married me, are you?” I shook my head. “Don’t be silly. Why should I be?”

“You’re not blaming me for what happened? To Dani, I mean.”

“I’m not blaming you,” I said. “There’s nothing I could have done to stop it. I know that now.” “You used to think differently.”

“I was a fool,” I said. “I was using Dani as a crutch.”

The waiter came and put the drinks down. Time has a way of dragging when you’re waiting for a plane. Maybe it’s because you have a feeling that everything should move fast, like the six-hundred- mile-per-hour planes. But your feet are on the ground and nothing seems to move except the desire inside you to be off, to be somewhere else.

I hadn’t felt like that this morning—rather, yesterday morning. The wind was warm off the lake as I got out of my car at the construction site. The last house in this unit would be framed today and I was certain that we’d get the okay to start on the next group. With the kind of weather we’d be having, I was sure we could get the new bunch framed up before the bad weather set in. That way all the inside work could be completed during the winter.

I went into the trailer that served as our construction office and checked the gang sheets. Everything was right on schedule. This job would take me into December. By that time the baby would be old enough to move down south. Davis was starting a new project just outside Daytona, and the chances were pretty good that I could pick up the construction supervisor’s job down there.

So I wasn’t an architect like Nora had always thought I should be. With an office and secretaries and clients who came in to bother me about whether they should put gold hardware on their kitchen sinks and pink telephones in their johns.

Instead I wore work shirts and Levis and walked in mud all day and built houses for ten, twelve, fifteen grand. Not fancy, but good for the money. And houses for people to live in. People who needed them. Not neurotics whose only reason to build a home was to show off to their friends.

I felt pretty good. Useful too. I was doing something. Something I wanted to do. The something I went to college for, to architect’s school. The something I planned for before I went off to war.

I was just about to start my first inspection tour of the morning when Sam Brady came into the trailer. Sam was the builder, the boss.

I smiled at him. “Just in time to watch them frame up the last house in this unit.”

He didn’t smile back. I began to get the feeling that something was wrong. “Hey, what gives?

Didn’t you get the money for the next unit?” “I got the money.”

“Then cheer up. We’ll get them up before the first snowfall. Next spring you’ll be walking around with thousand-dollar bills sticking out of your pocket.”

“It’s not that, Luke,” he said. “I’m sorry but I gotta put you down.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, not believing him. “Who’s gonna put the houses up for you?”

“The mortgage company’s got a man.” He looked over at me. “They made it part of the deal, Luke. No man, no dough.” He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

“Sorry?” I said, lighting up my own cigarette. “That’s a real gas. How do you think I feel?” “Yuh hear anything on that Davis job yet?”

I shook my head. “Not a word.” “It’ll come through.”

I dragged on the cigarette silently.

“Look, if it’s just a question of time, I can put you on one of the gangs.” “No, thanks,” I said. “You know better than that, Sam.”

He nodded. He knew. If I went back on the gangs there wasn’t a builder in the country would put me back up. The word got around real fast.

I let out a gust of smoke and pressed the butt out in a try. “I’ll finish off the day and pick up my time.”

“The new man will be coming on this afternoon.” I got the message. “I’ll clear out by lunch then.”

He nodded, then he gave me my pay envelope and went out. I stared after him for a moment, then set about getting my things out of the beat-up old desk.

I didn’t go right home. Instead I went into a bar and watched the Reds blow the Series. I stayed away from the whiskey and stuck with the fifteen-cent beer. Maris hit the long one just as I can back from my fifth trip to the john. There was a shot of the Cincinnati manager staring glumly down the line after Maris had come home.

The bartender wiped down the bar in front of me. “Losers,” he said, staring up over his shoulder at the set. “That’s what they are. Born losers. They might as well quit now.”

I threw some change down on the bar and walked out. There was no sense in putting it off any longer. I had to tell Elizabeth sometime.

Actually it was easier than I thought. I guess she kind of knew it the minute I walked into the house early. She didn’t say anything when I told her, just turned and put the roast she had been preparing into the oven.

I stood there waiting for her to say something. I don’t know what. Anything. Be angry maybe.

Instead she acted just like a woman.

“You better go inside and wash up,” she said.

4

__________________________________________

I was just about to order another round of drinks when I caught Elizabeth looking at me. I switched to coffee. She smiled.

“That’s another thing for you not to be nervous about,” I said.

“This is no time for you to get back on the sauce. You’ll need all your wits if you’re going to help Dani.”

“I don’t know what I can do.”

“There must be something,” she said, “or Gordon wouldn’t want you out there.” “I guess so,” I said.

The place of fathers in our society. The old man had to be good for something. Even if it was to play straight man on television.

I was restless. The hands on the big clock on the wall pointed to a quarter to two. I wanted to be moving. “How about coming out for some air?”

Elizabeth nodded and I picked up the check and paid it on the way out. We came out on the observation deck just as a big jet came roaring in for a landing. I could see the big double-A on its side as it taxied over to its station.

The loudspeaker over our heads blared, “American Airlines, Flight 42, arriving from New York at Gate 4.”

“That must be my plane,” I said.

All sleek and shining and big. Four huge engines balanced precariously on delicately swept- back wings. While we watched, the doors opened and passengers began to disembark.

“For the first time I’m beginning to feel alone,” Elizabeth said suddenly.

I looked at her and her face seemed pale in the blue-white fluorescent lighting from the field. I reached for her hand. It was cold. “I don’t have to go.”

“You have to go and you know it.” Her eyes were somber.

“Not according to Nora,” I said. “Eleven years ago she said that I haven’t any right there.” “Is that what you believe?”

I didn’t answer. Instead I took out a cigarette and lit it. But she wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily.

“Is it?” she demanded, a curious harshness in her voice.

“No,” I said, looking down onto the field. They were unloading the baggage from the plane. “I don’t know what to believe. Inside I feel like she’s my daughter all right. But sometimes I wish I could believe it was the way Nora says. Everything would be so much easier then.”

“Would it, Luke?” she asked softly. “Would it wash away the years you had with Dani, the years she belonged to you more than to anyone else, even her mother?”

Again I could feel the choking come up inside me. “Lay off!” I said hoarsely. “Even if I am her father, what good was I to her? I couldn’t take care of her. I couldn’t support her. I couldn’t even protect her from her mother!”