A Sudden Change of Heart (14 page)

From the doorway she said to her partner, “I think we might have two new clients. Courtesy of Hercule Junot.”

“Come in, come in, and tell me everything!” Alison exclaimed.

B
ecause there was no urgent reason to rush home, Laura worked late. After Alison and the two secretaries, Lynne and Joni, had left for the day, she settled in to tackle the paperwork that had piled up on her desk.

At eight o’clock she finally stopped, put down her pen wearily, and sat back in her chair, glancing around the room as she did. Like Alison’s office, hers also faced out
onto the small backyard, and it was similar in size, with the same dimensions and high-flung, coffered ceiling. Laura too had used English antiques and a collection of old art posters exceptionally well framed. But whereas Alison’s walls were white, she had had hers painted a lovely primrose yellow, a color that was sunny and cheerful.

Ever since they had leased the ground floor of the town house on East Sixty-eighth Street, Laura had found her office pleasant to work in, but tonight she discovered she’d suddenly had enough of it. On the other hand, the thought of going home to the empty apartment appalled her; it was too late to make a supper date with a girlfriend or to go over to see her grandmother.

A sandwich and a glass of wine, that’s my lot tonight, she muttered to herself as she turned off the lights in her office and went out into the reception area to get her coat.

As she was taking it off the hanger, Laura unexpectedly filled with a sense of dismay, and for a moment she did not understand why she was experiencing such feelings.

And then she thought: It’s Doug. It’s because of Doug. Somehow he’s drawing further and further away from me and I don’t know the reason why.

14
     

I
t was windy, bitterly cold. But there was a bright sun in the flawless sky, and so Laura, tempted by the glittering day, had donned her bright red down coat and gone out into the yard.

Now, as she walked along the paved path that led to the stone wall fronting onto the dunes, she noticed how lifeless the area looked. The trees were leafless, dark, skeletal etchings against the azure sky, and the lawn was dun-colored, patched here and there with old snow that had frozen over. Desolate gardens in winter, wherever they were, depressed her, made her feel ineffably sad, and Mrs. Newsam’s garden in Southampton, Long Island, was no exception.

Increasing her speed, Laura hurried, wanting to leave the forlorn landscape behind, and within seconds she was pushing open the gate in the wall and stepping onto the dunes. Shrugging deeper into her coat, her hands thrust in her pockets, she trudged across the dunes and went down an incline onto the beach near the sea.

Icy though it was on this February morning, Laura enjoyed being by the ocean; she was intoxicated by the tangy smell of salt and seaweed, and the fresh, breezy air
was a wonderful tonic after being cooped up in her office all week.

This morning the Atlantic was rough and choppy, topped with whitecaps, but as beautiful to her now as it was in the summer months, when it was usually much calmer. Being close to the sea had a calming and restorative effect on her, and within minutes she was beginning to feel more at ease with herself. Some of the tension she had been holding for days began to slip away, much to her profound relief. Sunny by nature, she hated being down in the dumps.

There was no real reason for her to be there in Southampton with Hercule, even though Sandra Newsam had just become a client, after the meeting they’d had the past Saturday. But when Hercule had invited her to come along again, if only for the ride out to the beach, he had said, she accepted without hesitation. She had nothing better to do, and she did not relish the notion of spending the entire weekend alone. And in any case, it gave her a chance to look around Mrs. Newsam’s lovely old gray-shingled house for a second time.

Sandra Newsam had been impressed with Laura’s credentials, and had hired Art Acquisitions to buy art for her, after visiting them at their New York office the past Wednesday. “I won’t be your biggest client,” she had said to her and Alison, “because I don’t have millions in loose change to spend. But I do want to start collecting some really good paintings, and your advice is going to be invaluable to me. Once we’ve found things for the beach house, I’d like to start looking for art for my New York apartment. The whole idea is exciting to me. We might even discover some great new talent between us.”

She and Alison had liked Sandra Newsam, who, they quickly discovered, was straightforward, down to earth, and totally lacking in pretense. “Thank God she’s not like Mrs. Joyce,” Alison had said after Sandra Newsam had left the office, making reference to a client they had felt compelled to drop because she was the total opposite of Mrs. Newsam. Laura had grimaced, remembering the dreaded Mrs. Joyce and her pretensions of grandeur, bitchy demeanor, and acerbic tongue.

As she walked along the edge of the sea, Laura continued to think about her work. She and Alison were doing exceptionally well, better than they had ever expected, and their business was in the black, growing more successful every day. They were both aware they might have to hire another art expert to work with them, if only on a part-time basis. They now had more clients than they had dreamed possible; handling them all effectively
and
finding the right art could easily become a problem.

“Let’s hold off on hiring somebody for a few more months,” Laura had said to Alison last night. “I can handle the extra workload, so you don’t have to worry about staying late or traveling. I’m quite happy to do that.”

Alison had been grateful because she liked to be with the twins as much as possible, and especially on weekends. Also, she didn’t really want to hop on and off planes anymore, or rush around the world seeing clients and scouting works of art. Tony grumbled so much when she went away, Alison always traveled with a worried and overburdened mind, which Laura thought could affect their business adversely. To balance the workload, Alison had volunteered to handle all the basics in the office and do most of the paperwork, which, as she explained to
Laura, she could do at home on the weekends if that was necessary.

Laura wasn’t sure what Doug would say when he discovered she had agreed to do all the traveling for Art Acquisitions. As her thoughts automatically swung to her husband, she felt a terrible heaviness descending on her, weighing her down. She tried to shrug it off, but to no avail.

He had been in Los Angeles for ten days already, and he would be staying there for another week at least. She felt a sudden rush of depression at the thought of this. A few days ago he had asked her to pack a suitcase with extra clothes for him, since he had taken so little when he had left in January. This she had done, and the suitcase had been picked up from the doorman of their apartment building by a lawyer from his firm; the young man was flying to join the legal team working on the Aaronson merger and had been pressed into service by Doug.

Doug called her every day, but he did not have much to say; he was even uncommunicative about his work, which was unusual for him. It seemed to her now that all he ever said was “Hi, sweetie! How are you? Got to go. Good-bye.”

It’s odd, Laura now thought, but he’s changed radically in the last few months. So much so, it’s even become noticeable on the phone. He used to have so many amusing little things to tell me, odd tidbits to share, confidences to make, and now he offers nothing except banalities. And, of course, he usually gets off the phone as fast as he can.

With a rush of clarity, Laura realized that this was
it
exactly, and it brought her to a standstill momentarily. He was making the phone calls every day only out of a sense
of duty, of wanting to keep the peace between them, at least for the time being.

On several occasions since he had been in Los Angeles, she had tried to speak to him about their life together, the route it was taking, and their problems. But he had brushed her words to one side, told her there was nothing to discuss, that everything was
fine
between them. And then he would hang up before she could argue with him. But it wasn’t
fine.
Even if he didn’t know it, she certainly did.

Once he came home she was going to sit him down and make him listen to her, make him reveal his thoughts and his feelings. Perhaps then he would share with her whatever it was that troubled him so much. Whatever it was, it was driving a wedge between them.

Doug
was
troubled. Even her grandmother had spotted it at Christmas, although Laura recognized that it hadn’t started in December, but dated back to the previous year, to sometime in the spring, in fact.

Grandma Megan had noticed it, not only because she was a wise old bird who missed nothing, but also because Doug was normally such an untroubled, carefree person, a man who made light of any burdens he might carry. He simply shrugged them off with a wink and a cheery laugh, and got on with his life. “Got to live life to the fullest, enjoy every moment. Because none of us know how long we’re going to grace this world,” he would say, and he repeated the words so often, they had become his motto. That was his nature, and he had been like that since the first day they had met.

Laura sighed under her breath as she swung around and began to walk back along the beach in the direction of the
Newsam house. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, Doug had become an enigma to her. Here was a man she had believed she knew inside out, but it wasn’t true. She didn’t know him at all. But how well do we ever really know another person? she wondered, and acknowledged that one never did. Most people were mysteries to others and frequently to themselves.

W
hen she returned to the gray-shingled house ten minutes later, she found Hercule in the library, talking on the telephone. Wanting to give him privacy, she started to leave, but he swiftly motioned to her, indicating he wished her to stay. Laura smiled, nodded, and went and sat down on the large overstuffed sofa in front of the fire. She picked up a magazine and flipped through it absently.

After only a second or two, Hercule hung up and came to join her by the fireside. Lowering himself into a nearby chair, he explained. “I telephoned the Carlyle for my messages and found one from Sir Maximilian West. I have just spoken to him. He has finally arrived in New York after those unexpected delays. He wishes us to join him for lunch tomorrow. Is that possible, Laura? Or are you busy, my dear?”

“No, I’m not, and as you know, I’ve really been looking forward to meeting him.”

“He’s going to telephone me tomorrow morning at nine, and he will do so exactly at that time. He is very precise. Once I have heard from him, I will let you know where we are to meet.”

“That’s fine, Hercule. You told me you’d known him a long time, but you didn’t say how long. Is it many years?”

“Ah, yes, it is indeed. I first met Maxim well over thirty years ago. I was introduced to him by a friend and client, Margot Derevenko. Her daughter Anastasia was married to him, although, sadly, they were later divorced. When they remarried in 1990, we all rejoiced.”

“Everyone loves a happy ending,” Laura murmured, and glanced into the fire, a shadow of pain crossing her face as she did so.

Hercule, always keenly observant, noticed the look of anguish, fleeting though it was, and he wondered about her. He thought Laura had seemed both sad and distracted on the few occasions he had seen her in the past ten days. Because he had had to stay longer than he had anticipated, to confer with Sandra Newsam about the various decorating schemes for her house, Laura had taken him under her wing. They had dined with her grandmother, seen a movie together, and lunched several times.

It was impossible not to detect her loneliness due to her husband’s delay in Los Angeles. Now he asked himself if it was more than that. Could something else be troubling her? He hoped not. She was such a lovely young woman, so good-looking and bright, and extremely clever when it came to business. She was also one of the most knowledgeable art advisers he had ever met. Although he thought of himself as a connoisseur of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, he realized that this was a small vanity on his part. Although he outstripped her in his knowledge and understanding of Gauguin’s work, she knew much more than he did about many other artists from these periods, and her memory was prodigious. She could reel off facts and figures without giving them a thought, or so it appeared to him. Aside from this, she had
an extraordinary eye and fine taste in paintings, Perfect taste.

Hercule knew that Laura and her partner were becoming more and more successful, and therefore were accruing power in the world of art. What was it Claire had said to him recently? Ah, yes, she had told him that Laura had “a lot of clout.” Funny expression, but he rather liked it.

Now, as he sat back in the chair studying her surreptitiously, he sincerely hoped that her marriage was in the same good shape as her business. Sadly, women with successful careers were not always so lucky in their personal lives, he had noticed over the years.

Sitting up straighter on the sofa, and turning to face Hercule, Laura immediately saw the look of concern in his eyes. She gave him a dazzling smile. “I’m looking forward to Claire’s visit next month,” she said. “In fact, I’m trying to talk her into staying for a week after she finishes her shoot for the magazine.”

“Yes, a vacation
would
be good for her,” Hercule agreed. “She works very hard and she is so intense about it. But then, that is the way she is made. It is her nature, yes. Whatever Claire is doing she gives it everything she has. Her heart and her soul.”

“She’s not changed, Hercule, she was like that when we were girls. Ferociously focused.”

He smiled at her, shook his head, looking unexpectedly amused. “You both are that, Laura, my dear.”

“If you’re not focused, you don’t get anything done, so
I’ve
discovered.” Laura stood, glanced around the room. “By the way, what’s happened to Yves?” she asked, referring to Hercule’s assistant, who had flown in from Paris to help the designer earlier in the week.

“He’s upstairs, measuring the windows, and Sandra has gone out to lunch. And I think that is what we should do once Yves has completed his task. Are you not hungry, Laura?”

“I am, yes. That walk on the beach has given me an appetite.”

At this moment Yves Pannone walked into the library carrying a yellow pad attached to a clipboard. He addressed Hercule in his careful English. “The cook wishes to know if we would like to have the lunch,
Monsieur.”

“It would be simpler if we went into the town. Come, Yves, put on your coat, and you too, Laura, and let us go at once. I myself am ravenous. I will have a word with the cook on the way out so that she will not be offended.”