Within Reach (22 page)

“You mean, I’m scaring you away—” he began, then caught himself and lowered his voice. “There isn’t any chance your phone is tapped, is there?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to her, though it should have. “I don’t know,” she replied, shaken.

“Mmmm. Well, if you can come up,” Michael went on with deliberate nonchalance, “it’d be great. Sara races out to ask about you every time I pass the store. And Greta and Pat call all the time.”

“How’s Meghan?”

“Adorable.”

“And Rusty?”

“Resisting my every attempt to house-train him. I think I’m going to confine him to the beach.”

“You wouldn’t do that. It’s cold now, and he’s just a puppy.”

“He’s getting huge, which makes it all the worse.”

Danica laughed in spite of herself. “Poor baby.”

“Him or me?”

“Both. Michael?” Her voice grew soft, but mindful of his warning, she guarded her words. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“Can I call again?”

“I’d like that.”

“Well then, take care.”

“You, too, Michael. Don’t break a leg.”

He chuckled. “I won’t. Bye-bye.”

“Bye.”

A week before Christmas Danica was upset enough not to care if Blake did see the call on the bill. She tried to call Michael, then tried again the next day, but he wasn’t home. When he called to her on the third day, she was instantly relieved.

“Thank God, you’re back” were her first soft-breathed words upon hearing his voice.

“I’m not back. I took a detour in Phillie to spend time with Corey. I wasn’t sure if I should call.” He dropped his voice. “Are you okay?”

“No. I’m torn to bits inside. Blake is in seventh heaven. So are my parents and his parents and our friends, and they all expect me to be, too. Secretary of Commerce. Can you believe it? I swear he had this in mind from the start. Never once did he stop to consider what I might have wanted.”

“It won’t be that bad.”

She spoke brokenly. “I can’t make it to Maine, Michael. Blake wants to go to Washington to look at places to live.”

“I understand. Maybe it’s just as well. You and Blake have a new life ahead of you.”

“Maybe Blake. Not me. At least, not
that
life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve already told him that I won’t live in Washington. I’ll commute for weekends if I have to, but I’m staying here.”

“How did he take that?”

“Well. Actually, complacently.”

“And you’re hurt.”

“You’d think he’d have been upset. You’d think he would
want
me there. After all, I am his wife. It’s strange.”

“What is?”

“I’ve begun to wonder…I mean, he accepted my going to Maine last summer with literally no fight. He didn’t argue when I told him I’d be working with James Bryant. Now he seems perfectly agreeable to the idea of a long-distance marriage. It’s almost as though he’s glad to have me occupied and out of his hair. I wonder if he has a mistress.”

“Oh, Dani, I doubt—”

“It’s not impossible. After all, we could easily be—”

He cut her off with an “Uuuuh! I don’t think you should say things like that.” It was a subtle reminder that something spoken might be irretrievable. “Besides, Blake has his image to consider. I doubt he’d do anything to jeopardize a position he’s worked so hard to get.”

“I suppose.”

“Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Michael had no idea why he was standing up for Blake Lindsay when he wanted to scream at the man for the way he treated his wife, but he had to do it. The alternative was to give encouragement to something that might be totally false, and given his own less than impartial involvement in the situation, that would be wrong. He never wanted to be accused of actively encouraging Danica’s alienation from Blake; if there was to be alienation that would lead to a breakup, it had to be the sole doing of husband or wife.

Danica sighed. “I guess I
have
to give him the benefit of the doubt since the outcome suits me. It would have been worse if Blake had insisted I live full-time in Washington…Michael, I haven’t heard anything on the book yet.”

“It’s too soon. Don’t be discouraged. Sometimes it takes two or three months for an editor to get a chance to read a proposal.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

They talked for a while longer, and when Danica hung up the phone, she felt better.

She felt even better when, in the first week of January, she received a summons from one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Boston.

nine

t
HE DAY AFTER JASON CLAVELING WAS INAUGURATED Blake was sworn in as his Secretary of Commerce. Danica stayed through the festivities, feeling pride in her husband in spite of herself. A stunning complement to him, she received her share of praise. None, however, came directly from Blake, who was more emotionally wrapped up in himself than ever. When she returned to Boston several days later, he didn’t blink an eye.

Having signed a contract with the publishing house that had been their first choice, Danica and James spent every afternoon together, talking, discussing, recording their words for transcription by one of Danica’s ballet friends who needed the money.

Danica enjoyed her time with James. He was interesting, sharp even in spite of his age, and lacked the arrogance that so turned her off to politics. Often he would turn around and ask her a question about herself and one of her own experiences. He seemed to accept her as an equal in their enterprise, and that enhanced her enjoyment of it. At last she felt she was
doing
something. Between mornings spent at occasional meetings and ballet, afternoons spent at James’s town house and evenings spent reading what had been transcribed, she was busy.

She commuted to Washington several times a month to attend receptions and parties with Blake, and though she found the air of social climbing, ambition, competition and power hunger to be oppressive, she was satisfied to discharge her responsibility to Blake—and to her father, whom she saw more often than ever.

William accepted her presence with a this-is-your-rightful-place attitude and proceeded to pay her not much more heed than Blake did. Neither man asked about the work she was doing in Boston, as though ignoring it would make it go away. Eleanor, strangely, was the one who expressed interest, and though Danica did talk with her, she felt wary. She couldn’t understand her mother’s interest now, any more than she had been able to understand Eleanor’s coddling the August before. As had been the case then, Danica didn’t quite know how to react. More than once she wondered if Eleanor was doing William’s bidding.
Snooping
was an unkind word, but given the woman’s distance through Danica’s childhood, Danica couldn’t help but imagine that there might be some ulterior motive for her attentiveness.

Michael called Danica in Boston from time to time. He was traveling, doing research for a book on the roots of the environmental movement, spending time reading and interviewing in many of the nation’s large cities. He purposely avoided the Northeast, fearing that the temptation to see Danica would be too great, particularly now that he knew how many of her nights were spent alone. He didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. Moreover, he knew that she needed to be alone, to think. Her days were filled and she enjoyed her work; he gleaned that from the detailed phone conversations they held. And her tone of voice, sometimes growing exquisitely soft, sometimes broken, hinted that she missed him as she would never have expressed in words. He had to have faith that in time, when she felt comfortable with herself as an entity independent of both Blake and her father, she’d be more able to take a stand with regard to her future and to him.

By late May, having finished most of what he needed to do on the road, Michael headed for a few days’ R and R visiting friends and his sister in Washington.

“Hey, Mike!” Jeffrey Winston half rose from his seat in the crowded restaurant to catch his friend’s attention.

Michael quickly made his way to the table, shaking hands, then embracing the man he had been close to for years. They had met in college and had served together in Vietnam. For a time they had been brothers-in-law. The two were remarkably alike—both tall and rakishly good-looking, both intelligent, introspective and dedicated to their work.

“How’s it going, Jeff? God, it’s good to see you!”

“You, too, stranger. It’s been too long,” Jeff snagged a passing waitress around the waist and motioned for two more beers before turning back to Michael. “Cilla tells me you’ve been on the run.”

Michael teasingly held up a hand. “Nothing clandestine. Just doing research for my next master-piece.”

“The last one was great, Mike. Religious and racial bigotry—whew! Remember the talks we used to have on that topic?”

Michael grinned. “Where do you think I got the idea for the book?”

“Yeah, but you carried it off, while I couldn’t have written the first chapter. How’s it doing?”

“Not bad. We’re into a second printing, which isn’t saying all that much given the size of the first one, but at least the book’s sales have exceeded my publisher’s expectations. It always helps to do well in their eyes. But tell me about you, pal. What’s this I hear about a promotion?”

“Cilla’s been talking.”

“Why shouldn’t she? It’s exciting. He-e-ey, I’m her brother and your friend. She knew I’d want to know. That doesn’t mean she printed it on page one. Besides, she’s proud of you.”

“She is? Funny, she always hated what I did when we were married.”

“It wasn’t what you did that she hated. It was what you
didn’t
do, i.e., tell her all the little details.”

“I couldn’t. She’s the press, for Christ’s sake. I couldn’t tell her what I was working on when it was confidential.”

“You didn’t trust her to keep it that way and she knew it. But, hey, I’m not blaming anything on you. It takes two to make a marriage work or not work. Cilla’s constantly curious, about anything and everything. She can be pretty intense when she wants to be. She’s like Dad in that way. I’m sure she was no joy to live with.”

“I don’t know,” Jeffrey mused, “we had some good times. If it hadn’t been for her occupation…okay, okay,
and
mine, we might have made it. I don’t think she trusted me any more than I trusted her. She was constantly worried that I’d pry her sources out of her and then turn around and launch an investigation.” He snorted. “As if I had the power…”

“Do you now? Come on, give. What’s the story on the promotion?”

Jeffrey took a breath and sat back in his seat. Talk of Cilla always got to him. He had so many misgivings, so many lingering feelings for her. Lately, he seemed obsessed with the good times they’d had. In the six years since their divorce, he hadn’t met another woman who came close to her in fun or challenge or sheer sexual abandon.

“The promotion. I’m in charge of DOD’s investigative unit. It’s not that I can go out looking for things to investigate, but when we get a referral, even a tip, I decide who’s going to do the work and then keep tabs on things.”

“So it’s mainly administrative?”

“More so than before. I still do the nitty-gritty—you know I love that part—and I can assign myself to work on some of the plums, which is nice. It’s a challenge.”

“What are some of the things you’re doing?”

Over roast beef sandwiches, Jeffrey talked. He kept his voice low and leaned forward from time to time, but he trusted Michael with his life, literally and figuratively. It occurred to him that if he had trusted Cilla a fraction as much, they might not have split. When he asked himself why he
hadn’t
trusted her, he didn’t like the only reason he could find, so he stopped pondering it.

“Is that the current project?” Michael asked after Jeffrey had told of an investigation into leaks of classified information within the State Department.

“No. Something else has just come up.” He frowned. “It’s a tricky thing.”

It was Michael’s turn to lean forward, which he did with both brows raised in invitation.

Jeffrey wavered. “I don’t know. It’s still pretty vague.”

“Come on, Jeff. It’s me. Michael.”

“This is a little different from the counterinsurgency work we did in Nam.…Ah, hell. You’ll keep quiet. Besides, there’s not really much that’s classified yet.” Putting both elbows on the table, he spoke quietly. “You’ve heard of Operation Exodus.”

“U.S. Customs Service, isn’t it?”

“Mmmm. It’s a program that was set up a few years back to halt the illegal export of high-tech products to the Soviet bloc. From the beginning it had plenty of opposition, congressmen and exporters who felt that it hindered the flow of trade abroad. The government’s theory is that since the Soviet Union is years behind us in research and technology that can vastly improve its military systems, it will beg, borrow or steal what it can. One vital acquisition can advance them ten years. The same semiconductors and integrated circuits that are used in video games also go into guided-missile systems. Small computers, which businesses here use every day of the week, also can be used by the military to efficiently plot and track movements of troops. Laser technology used by our doctors can be used to disable enemy communication satellites.”

“Dual-use technologies.”

“Right. Like I say, it’s a sensitive issue. There are constant battles being waged on what items should or should not be on the restricted list. Any number of advanced technology items could possibly be used for defense by a hostile country. Whether they
would
be is another story. The Pentagon takes the hard line, wanting to clamp down on every possibility. The Commerce Department is obviously more attuned to the country’s commercial interests. It maintains that by stringently controlling what Americans are allowed to export, we yield a lucrative market to European concerns.”

“What about the Coordinating Committee for Export Controls? Doesn’t it have a say as to what’s sold to Eastern Europe?”