Woman in the Window (13 page)

“Only because you won’t let them be relationships. Who knows, maybe you’re not ready yet. But you’re never going to find out if you keep everybody at arm’s length. Lighten up, Nat, have a little fun. You take it all so seriously.”

“How else am I supposed to take it? I’m thirty-seven, I’m caught in the great female time warp—I want my career, I love my work, really love it. And a lot of the time I feel pretty sure that I want children and the meters running, faster and faster. And I can’t bear the thought of setting out with a sheet of requirements to find a man who matches up … I don’t simply want to
breed.
I guess I want to fall in love. And you can’t make that happen, Julie, you can’t force it. So how else can I take it? It
is
serious, for God’s sake.”

Sir looked up at her with a piece of pizza crust dangling from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed and it dropped onto the floor where he discovered it and ate it.

“It can be fun,” Julie said, yawning. “Surely you remember fun?”

“Vaguely.”

They both laughed.

Natalie went to bed early, right after Julie left. She was preoccupied with the content of Julie’s observations: there was enough truth in what she’d said to nibble away at Natalie’s resolve to live alone, to concentrate on getting her own life under control before further complicating it. Spontaneity was out, as far as Natalie was concerned. At least for now. Impulses had to be curbed and their places taken by plans with some thought behind them. She had to give Julie credit for seeing to the heart of things: the idea of the failure she felt at the end of her marriage, for instance. So often people thought that it was your lost mate you were moping over when in fact it was the loss of the relationship and all the effort you’d put into it—not the specific person. You mourned for the give and take, the familiarity and ease, and deep in your heart you were afraid that you could have saved it had you been a better human being. …

She lay in the darkness listening to Saint-Saens First Symphony, wishing for the moment that she had never heard of the Family Linehan, never experienced the bizarre, unsettling evening.

The telephone rang.

It was MacPherson. Immediately she remembered the message on her machine, began to fall all over herself, apologizing for not getting back to him.

“Hey, Natalie,” he said, calming her, “it’s okay, really. I know you’re busy. And I’m feeling overly protective for a cop. Anyway, I just got to wondering if everything was all right—if there’s been any more scary men in the shadows. So, how are things?”

She told him about the evening with the Linehans, making a manic comedy of it.

“Ah, the literary life,” he said. She’d never heard him laugh before. “It makes a good story. By the way, have you told anyone about the Alicia Quirk murder? The tie-in with the gun?” His voice had lost its amusement but the supercilious edge was absent, too, which was a relief.

“I told Lew Goldstein … and I mentioned it to Julie Conway just an hour or so ago—why? Wasn’t I supposed to?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He paused. “I guess I just don’t think it should become common knowledge, people talking about it in social situations … you don’t want the connection between you and the gunman and the murder suddenly turning up one morning in Garfein’s column. You want the guy with the gun to just forget about it. The best thing would be for him to figure the gun just disappeared under several tons of cement. Then he’d believe he’s safe.” He sounded thoughtful and marginally worried.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “But I’ve told only the two of them. And I’m all they have in common, so they won’t be going on about me to mutual friends. No, I think we’re all right.”

A few moments later he said, “I had another reason for calling you, ah, Natalie. An apology. I’m not sure how to go about this—”

“Indecision suits you,” she said, smiling to herself.

“How did you know?”

“Sticks out a mile. Almost human. Even friendly. Certainly not as detestable as I’d thought—”

“Clever you! Well, the point is, I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. I’ve been under some pressure here in the world of evildoers, but that’s no excuse. For some reason, you make me nervous and I come on nasty. Tough-cop routine. You’re dangerous … or something.”

“I’m dangerous and I make you act silly—how’s that?”

His laughter erupted over the telephone. “Nice. A little simplistic but nice, very nice. Cuts right to the core. I’m trying to keep my silliness under control—and how dangerous you are only time will tell. Well, I’m glad I caught you at home.”

“Have you got a band playing in your apartment?”

“Usually. But not right now. That’s Stan Kenton’s Christmas album. It’s the only Christmas music I ever really get into. My folks didn’t ignore Christmas but they didn’t make a big deal out of it. Where do you stand on the Christmas issue?”

“Christmas, my God—I haven’t even thought about it yet. I guess it’s—what? Two weeks away—wow. I may skip it this year and just settle into a nice comfortable depression. I always think of that song about the snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, but we will weather the storm … and Mel Torme, the chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And I always get sad.”

“Remember that part of
All About Eve,
where they drive up to that house in the country and there’s the big snowstorm and Bette Davis can’t get back to do the play and Eve has to go on in her place—”

“Doesn’t Hugh Beaumont or somebody sabotage the car?”

“Hugh Marlowe. Look, have you got your tree yet?”

“I guess I wasn’t going to get one.”

“Well, I’m going to get one tomorrow. The Deaconess Hospital always has good ones in their lot. Your neighborhood!—look, you want to go with me?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Precisely. Let’s get an early start. I’ll come by at ten tomorrow morning. Okay?”

“Absolutely.” She had almost hung up when she pulled back the mouthpiece: “MacPherson? You still there?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Have you sent me any flowers in the past few days? Roses?”

“No.” He waited. “Good idea, though. I wish I had.”

“See you in the morning,” she said.

She went to sleep, happily for a change, wondering,
What next?
Of all the men she and Julie had considered, the cop had never crossed her mind. But then, why would it have? Until a few minutes ago, he’d been a cop … not a
person.

She woke to the sound of shovels on the sidewalk outside her bedroom window. It took several minutes of listening before the implications of the sound struck her and she leaped out of bed, ran naked to the window, and peered through the curtains. The street was thickly coated with snow, several inches of it piled up on cars and sidewalks and trash cans. Cars moved slowly past, the sound muffled. She felt a little-girl’s excitement at the change, the newness of the world outside, as if it were a fresh chance somehow, a clean slate she hadn’t yet smudged with her mistakes.

She was up and into her jeans and heavy sweater when MacPherson arrived at ten on the button. His face was red from the cold and his hair was dusted with snow. She fixed him a cup of coffee and they stood in the living room looking out at her courtyard with the evergreens drooping under the heavy snow and the lawn furniture on the way to disappearing. The snow fell thickly, tufts clinging to one another as they floated through a windless sky.

She couldn’t get the image, the metaphor, out of her mind: it was as if the snow was falling, covering up all the bad things she’d experienced lately. A fresh chance … It was hopelessly silly even to think in such terms but she couldn’t help it; she let herself feel rescued, freed from worry.

MacPherson was making the switch from cop to whatever he had in mind—and she wasn’t altogether sure—with considerable ease. He mooched around the apartment, sipping the hot coffee, inquiring about the collection of tigers, looking through the tapes and recordings, admiring the art and the spaces the burglars had left behind.

She found herself listening more than talking, watching him in a way she hadn’t before, wondering what his life was like. He made little jokes, smiled quickly, showed a sense of irony and enjoyment at the snow and the season. She let herself be swept along by him, didn’t bother to
try.
She just allowed the morning to happen: the choosing of a tree and then learning that he had decided it was to be her tree rather than his because he was determined to have her celebrate Christmas. She smiled, nodded, knowing he was inserting himself into the holidays—her holidays. Which, she knew, wouldn’t have existed without him. It’s all right, she told herself. Let it happen. It was fun. Slowing down, not forcing everything through on her own, letting someone else take over for a while. She had been fighting it for so long, had looked upon it as some kind of defeat … yet there was no defeat in this, no defeat in standing outside the hardware store holding on to the tree, which was full and round and cheery and only three feet high, while he went in and bought her a stand to put it in, a box of lights and tinsel to decorate it. She was smiling broadly, then laughing as he came out laden with packages, which he gave to her, and began his struggle to embrace and carry the sweet-smelling little tree.

Back at her place they moved a table and put the tree on it with the windows behind, framing the tree with the snow falling in the courtyard. She watched him set it into the stand, then helped him string the lights and arrange the tinsel almost a strand at a time. While she finished the job he went to the kitchen and she heard him banging around in the cupboards. By the time she was done he had butter melting in the omelet pan and a bowl of eggs and milk and a mound of freshly slivered cheddar. He was smiling and humming happily to himself. She watched him make the omelet and she ground some fresh coffee and carried the mugs into the living room. They sat on the floor before the fireplace, where a couple of last night’s logs got a big fresh one going quickly.

“Delicious,” she said.

“I’ve made enough of them. Just call me Cholesterol Man.” He looked up at the tree, twinkling brightly on the table. “Looks good. You really know how to decorate a tree.”

“Very funny. The first tree I’ve had in three years.”

“Dammit, we forgot to get mistletoe—”

“Ah, the last resort of the terminally shy,” she said.

“Listen, it’s a fact of life. No one has ever been rejected while standing around underneath the mistletoe.” He smiled gently at her, almost wistfully, and she realized she was feeling a kind of spontaneous warmth she hadn’t known in a very long time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d acted on impulse.

She leaned across their empty plates and kissed him softly. She felt his lips smiling.

“Mistletoe, while useful,” she whispered, “is hardly necessary.”

“Apparently not. You’re showing wonderful initiative.”

“You’re the one who’s made the effort,” she said, leaning back against the table leg, watching the fire. “It’s very sweet of you—the tree, all the doodads, the omelet. Very thoughtful. But you’ve far exceeded the simple apology for being such a shit … or is this part of NYPD public relations?”

“Oh, it’s the famous MacPherson Touch all right, but …”He seemed at a loss for words, unable to find the right lightness, the little joke.

“I understand it runs in the family.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your father must have had quite a touch, too.”

“Ah. You mean Laura. Mom, I should say. Quite a pair, those two.” He said it fondly.

She sat quietly, relaxed, curious. “I can’t remember the last time I spent such an enjoyable Saturday. It’s been … well, fun, MacPherson.”

He looked at his watch and asked her if he had time to light up a pipe before leaving.

“Of course. It’s my free weekend, nothing hanging over me.”

“Wish I could say the same.” He pulled a tartan plaid tobacco pouch from his hip pocket and filled the pipe. He lit it and she smelled the clean smell of tobacco, not some awful perfumed gunk. “I’ve got to head out to Glen Cove to see my parents tonight, spend the day, come back tomorrow night. I don’t mean to say I’ll mind being there—Dad and I play chess and he beats the hell out of me at darts and the three of us go for long walks and there’ll be some people over for dinner in the late afternoon. My mother is a fanatical Giants fan so there’ll be a football game or two on television all afternoon—very homey, nice, easy … but this weekend I wish I were staying in town.” He puffed, looking at her openly: the curve of her thighs in the tight denim, the boyish figure beneath the sweater, her eyes. She felt his gaze like a soft, insistent touch.

“Why? Sounds like an idyllic visit—”

“It is, but just badly timed. Seeing you today, like this, makes me wish we could just haul out and go to a movie late in the afternoon and have a bite to eat and …” He shrugged. “Well, listen, I’d better be going.” He stood up, stretched. “With all this snow I must be Long Island bound. Natalie, thanks for the use of the hall. I had a marvelous time and I’m sure I’ll be replaying it all the way to Glen Cove.” He knocked his pipe out against the bricks in the fireplace.

She followed him up the stairs. “I love my tree,” she said, looking back.

At the top of the stairs he turned and took her by the shoulders. “I hope I see it again. It’s partly mine.”

“Indeed it is. You’re welcome anytime.”

He leaned forward, kissed her very lightly, and said, “Be careful. Don’t go out alone. I don’t want anything to happen to you, understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “I understand.”

N
ATALIE SPENT THE NEXT
hour busying herself around the apartment, straightening and fussing and trying not to think about Danny MacPherson. After all, there was no sane reason to assume that merely because he regretted having treated her badly and had tried to make amends … no sane reason to make anymore out of it. Absolutely no sane reason. But … but that kiss …

She put
Tosca
on the stereo and vacuumed the stray shreds of tinsel from the carpet, played with the logs in the fireplace, and watched the afternoon darken and finally close down over the snowy courtyard. No sane reason—but she could feel his lips on hers, his hands on her shoulders, she could still hear his laugh as he struggled down the street with the Christmas tree, still saw him at home in her kitchen with the omelet pan. …