Eyes of a Child (17 page)

Please, Terri told herself, forget him. At least for tonight.

The martinis arrived. Terri touched her glass to Chris's. ‘To us,' she said. ‘And to staying up late.'

The first sip had the crisp, almost medicinal taste of a good martini. A second sip and the gin hit her, a first bracing shock, then warmth. The third sip seemed to flow down her tongue.

As Terri watched, the little girl touched her mother's face, as if to learn its features. ‘I can't believe you never wanted kids of your own,' Terri said to Chris. ‘Not the way you feel about Carlo.'

Chris considered her for a moment; since they had come to Italy, this was Terri's first mention of his son. ‘Until Carlo came to live with me.' he answered, ‘I never thought I had much talent for it. Besides, by getting him at age seven, I not only skipped the terrible twos, fours, and sixes, I never changed his diapers.' His smile did not quite touch his eyes. ‘I think it lends our relationship a certain dignity. Never once will Carlo have to listen while I tell his college girlfriend about the night he spit up on my tuxedo.'

Terri laughed and decided to order another martini.

When it arrived, the dark-haired girl was resting against her mother's shoulder. The second martini, Terri discovered, was even easier than the first. She did not know why she had never had two before.

‘I love you,' she said to Chris. ‘I love you a lot.'

Chris smiled again, more easily. ‘I love you too, Terri.'

When the waiter took their dinner orders, Terri asked for red wine. Chris did not question this; there was some consultation with the waiter, and soon a bottle of Chianti appeared. The first sip was tart, almost peppery.

‘This is good,' Terri assured him.
‘Really
good.'

The little girl was leaving, she saw. Her mother had passed her to her father, who carried her through the crowded restaurant, sliding around the people who still waited. Her head bobbed on his shoulder, but her eyes did not open; at times like this, the world of a small child was smells and closeness, the people who cared for her. The thought felt warm and then, as Terri remembered holding Elena, turned to sadness in an instant.

Chris had followed her gaze. ‘Cute kid.'

It was nice Chris had noticed, Terri thought. She treated herself to more Chianti.

About the time she finished her second glass, time and space changed.

She saw hardly anything but Chris. Dinner came; the waiter filled their glasses; Chris grinned when she liked squid pasta. Time moved like slides in a projector, one image suddenly replaced by another – the wine bottle in the waiter's hand, the check arriving. Everything but Chris seemed part of a silent movie; she could barely remember what the two of them were running from. Italy felt fine.

The night air was a shock to her – cool, hitting her face like water. Chris's gaze at her seemed far too serious.

‘Let's go dancing,' she said. ‘We've never done that.'

Suddenly Chris was laughing again. ‘I can't dance worth a damn.'

‘You just move your body.' Terri could not see what was so funny; suddenly it seemed quite important that they danced together. ‘Come
on,
Chris. I'll show you.'

Chris did not argue. There were winding streets, her hand in his, and then the dark cave of a nightclub; American music blasting from a sound system that drowned out voices; brandy; mouths opening but making no sound; bodies streaked by purple and red strobe lights. Terri went with the music, body moving, head thrown back, hair flying. Her forehead was damp, her body loose and sensual; she barely saw Chris in front of her, saw no one else at all. The songs did not matter; only the pulse of the music, the beat of her own heart. Terri was free.

No music suddenly. Harsh lights went on, dissolving the streaks of red and purple. The club was a stale-smelling cubicle filled with tables and half-empty drinks.

Chris took her hand. ‘They're closing up.'

The night was cold now. ‘Let's go somewhere,' Terri said. ‘Please, I don't want to stop yet.'

‘It won't help,' Terri thought she heard him say. She ran away, toward the night.

They were in an empty piazza – shadowy buildings, bare stones, the dark shape of a fountain. Terri's heels clattered on the stones, gray in moonlight. She kicked off her shoes and hurried toward the fountain. The water was cool on her feet; the hem of her dress clung to her legs. Chris stood watching her, hands in his pockets.

‘It's nearly three,' he said. ‘We're out of places, Zelda. This is the last fountain in Venice.'

It made Terri laugh. She looked down at Chris, slim and beautiful as a statue, and wondered if she could ever look that way to him.

‘It doesn't matter,' she said, and got down from the fountain. ‘There's something I want to do with you.'

She took his hand, stepped into her heels again. Each move felt sure and perfect.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Let's hurry back.'

They ran through the streets twisting and turning, until the last one opened on the Grand Canal.

When they were inside the hotel room, time stopped.

Terri turned off all the lights. It was so quiet that she could hear herself breathe.

The dark was softened by moonlight, the faint glow of the gaslights on the walk below. Terri could see nothing but his face.

‘Stay there,' she whispered.

He stood by the bed, perhaps ten feet away. Taking off her earings, Terri placed them on the dresser behind her. His reflection in the mirror was a shadow above her shoulder, so still that it was as if he were captured by her image. Terri turned to him again.

There was no sound. ‘I've been wanting to do this,' she said softly.

Slowly, she began to move for him.

The pulse of the music in her head was slow and sinuous. Her dress as it fell was caught for a moment by the sway of her hips.

She slid her bra down over her shoulders, imagining that he had never seen her like this.

It fell to the floor. Her rhythm was slower yet; Terri wanted him to feel her across the room.

‘Jesus.'

His voice was husky now. Yet as clear as her own.

‘I want to take us away, Chris. From everything.'

When she was naked, Terri asked him to watch her.

Seconds passed. In the silver light, moving as he watched, Terri felt beautiful at last.

When his shadow came toward her, Terri did not stop. Face-to-face with him, she saw how dark his eyes seemed.

‘Right here,' she said.

They slipped to the floor together. Everything he did was right. Even his silence as he filled her.

The rest was wanting, mutual and desperate, nothing held back. For a long time after, neither spoke.

‘Sleepy?' Chris asked.

‘No,' Terri answered quietly. ‘Not sleepy.'

Slowly, his mouth moved across her stomach, and then nothing mattered. In the deep quiet of release that followed, Terri at last forgot Elena.

Chapter
16

When Terri awoke, the morning sun shone with a savage brightness, and the room looked like a bad dream: clothes strewn on the floor; her bra draped over the mirror; the sheets half torn from the bed. The back of her skull throbbed.

Chris handed her a glass of water and three aspirins. She took them without comment, then squinted up at him.

‘How come
you're
so chipper?'

‘A cold shower.' He grinned. ‘Otherwise I'm walking the thin line between civilization and barbarism. Much as we did last night.'

Terri sat up in bed. She was naked; it took her a moment to realize that the rawness on her shoulder blades was rug burn. A flush spread across her face.

‘How much,' she asked, ‘do you remember?'

Chris sat beside her. ‘Every bit of it. Care for a detailed decription?'

She shook her head. ‘I've never done
that
before.'

‘I'm flattered.' He kissed her forehead. ‘I just wish we'd gotten back a little earlier. Anytime before three-thirty.'

Terri managed a smile. ‘If I'm going to start taking my clothes off like that, I should probably pace myself.' She looked at him askance. ‘How many times did we make love?'

‘Three. But only twice on the rug.' Chris pulled a damp cloth out of the ice bucket, wrung it out, and gave it to her. ‘Put this over your eyes for a while. It helped
me
this morning, and I needed it.'

It was a good idea; everything in the room had sharp edges. Darkness was better, and the cloth soothed the pounding that ran from her neck through her eyes. ‘Speaking of last night,' she heard Chris ask, ‘you didn't happen to use a diaphragm, did you?'

‘Are you serious? Did
you
use a condom?'

‘I was afraid of that,' Chris said. ‘The amateur hour.'

He slid the cloth from her eyes and kissed her. Terri took his hand, held it to her cheek. ‘Can you pass me the phone?' she asked.

A shadow crossed his face. And then he turned, reaching, and passed her the telephone.

‘Thanks,' she said, and dialed Richie's number.

No one answered.

Holding the telephone, Terri imagined that Elena must feel as if she had lost her mother. As if it were now, Terri remembered the morning when Rosa had gone to the doctor, her face bruised, and Terri had hidden from her father in the bedroom. Looking out the window for her mother, Terri had been frightened that Rosa might tell the truth about what had happened, that they would never let her come home. When at last she did, pausing on the sidewalk until she saw Terri's face in the window, Terri the child felt relieved for herself, a guilty sorrow for Rosa. Remembering now, Terri understood the power of Elena's wish that
she
return to Richie; Terri had no scars that Elena could see.

Watching Chris, Terri dialed again.

No answer, still. All at once, Terri felt the venoms of her hangover – guilt and nausea and self-contempt. ‘God,' she said bitterly, ‘I wish he were dead.'

The words echoed inside her. But all that Chris said was, ‘I should call Carlo.'

Terri handed him the telephone. Dialing, he turned from her. The moment that Carlo answered, Chris's voice lightened. After a time, Terri left the room.

When he was finished, she picked up the telephone again. Her head still pounded.

‘Nothing?' Chris asked.

‘No. And Elena should have been in bed for hours.'

Putting down the phone, Terri drifted to the balcony. The morning was bright; the sidewalks stirred. ‘If I can't reach Richie by tonight,' she said, ‘I'm calling the school.'

Chris said nothing.

After a time, they put on sunglasses and went to an outdoor café on the Piazza San Marco, that immense stone retangle, the size of two football fields, lined on three sides by two- and three-story buildings with terraces and ornate columns. Chris and Terri chose a table; ordered croissants and two double espressos; amd surveyed the rest of the piazza. It was, Terri realized, quite wonderful.

‘I'm sorry,' she said finally. ‘Not just about being so worried. About everything.' She looked him in the face. ‘I wonder, sometimes, if you can ever forgive me for what he's done to you. Even if we could find a way to go on.'

Chris pushed his chair back from the table, stretching his legs in front of him. He stared at the espresso he cupped in both hands. ‘I think that's more a matter of whether you'll forgive
yourself
for staying with him. Enough to stay with
me
.'

‘You still think I need a shrink, in other words.'

‘Is
that
a sin too? Like the one in this dream you've started having again? Or whatever feelings you've never faced about your mother and father?'

Terri turned away. ‘I don't like thinking of
him
,' she finally said. ‘When I do, it scares me. Anyway, a lot of it I hardly remember now.' Suddenly she felt angry. ‘It's done, all right? My father's dead.'

Chris gazed at her over the edge of his cup. ‘How
did
he die, Terri? You never really say.'

As if by reflex, Terri shut her eyes.

The image was like the shock of a flashbulb, leaving a painful shadow on the retina. Her father's head at her feet in the first morning sun, a ribbon of dried blood running from his temple. She felt her mind flinch, close down; then there was nothing.

Terri did not answer. Softly, Chris asked. ‘What is it, Terri? That you blame
yourself
somehow?'

Terri opened her eyes, dispelling the terrible image. But she did not look at Chris. ‘The house felt safer afterward,' she said at last. ‘Maybe I blamed myself for liking that.' Her voice grew tired. ‘Sometimes, Chris, I think that's why I was so determined to become a lawyer. Because there were
rules
: no one got hit, and everyone had their turn to speak. The law protected even children, I thought.'

Turning to the piazza, Chris fell silent. As Terri had known he would.

Chapter
17

Terri stood in a phone booth near the Doges' Palace.

No one answered Richie's telephone. As before, the machine, with its despised cheery message, did not switch on.

Chris paced outside, squinting in the noonday sun. As she dialed again, he turned away.

Terri pushed open the glass door. The breeze felt cool.

Chris shoved his hands in his pockets. For a moment, Terri thought, everything about him looked tight. ‘It's three a.m. in San Francisco,' she told him. ‘Richie's
there,
Chris – he's just not answering.'