Belonging (9 page)

The Saab’s headlights flared across the stone and clapboard exterior of the eighteenth-century inn. They’d arrived. Carter wove the car through a maze of snowdrifts and finally into a space in the parking lot, then together they made their way along a curving slate path cleared through the snow and lighted by old-fashioned gas lamps. A bitter wind howled, tugging at their coats, while all around them giant evergreens swayed. They hurried into the warmth of the inn, stamping their feet and shaking the snow from their hair. From Carter’s hair, from Joanna’s wig. A mustachioed maître d’ clicked his fingers to summon an underling who took their coats, then he swept before them, ushering them into the dimly lighted wood and leather dining room. He seated them with a flourish, and with a bow presented them with menus. Joanna forced herself to smile graciously. She was as tired as Carter was, and although they’d settled some issues about the next show during the drive up, they’d raised just as many. Part of her wanted to take out her pad of paper and scribble down notes; but the more powerful, primitive part urged her to put all thoughts of work aside.

“A double Dewar’s on the rocks,” Carter ordered.

“I’ll just have club soda,” Joanna told the waiter, and she looked quickly at Carter to see what he would say to this, because she almost always ordered margaritas, loving tequila, loving the crystals of salt. Carter was engrossed in the menu.

Their drinks were brought with benevolent speed. Carter tossed back half his Scotch, and almost immediately relaxed. He smiled at Joanna. “I think I’ll be barbarian and have the prime rib.”

“Good idea,” she said. And it was a good idea. Carter was hard on himself, always exercising and watching his diet, and when he let himself go a bit and indulged his senses, a different side of him emerged, a more gentle, tolerant man.

The dining room was almost empty tonight, no doubt because of the difficult weather. Carter looked around: silence, space surrounded him. Leaning back against the high padded booth, he took a deep breath. “This is nice. I’m glad we came. Thanks,” he told her, reaching for her hand.

Joanna returned his smile and with her free hand very lightly drew her fingers across his furrowed forehead and down his temple, over his cheek, to rest, light as a kiss, on his mouth. This kind of public affection was rare for them, and she savored it. He held her hand on top of the embossed white linen tablecloth and they looked into each other’s eyes, smiling at what they saw there.

When his beeper went off, they both jumped.

“Fuck!” Carter whispered sharply. He rose. “I don’t believe it. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him go off in search of a phone. She was not very concerned. It could be a family emergency, but more likely it was just a network problem; people out on the West Coast had his number and didn’t hesitate to beep him whenever they felt the need. She checked her image in her compact and put on more lipstick. She looked fine, she looked just fine, she reassured herself. She would tell him when he sat down at the table again.

But then she saw Carter crossing the room toward her. His face was grim.

He didn’t sit down. He hardly paused at the table before turning to leave. “We have to go. It’s Chip. There’s been an accident. He’s in the hospital.”

Joanna rose from her seat. “What—”

“Basketball game. Another player tripped him, he slammed his head against the backboard post. That’s all I know.”

Tossing a twenty on the table, he strode ahead of Joanna, brusquely explaining their hurry to the waiter—“My son’s been in an accident”—and headed out the door without waiting to put on his overcoat. Joanna wrapped her fur around her and pulled on her gloves before following. Her wig acted nicely as a hat, keeping her head warm. She hurried outside to find that Carter was already in the car with the engine running. She climbed in and fastened her seat belt.

“I can’t believe this happened when I wasn’t there. Damn it!” He hit the steering
wheel with his fist. “If you hadn’t been so insistent—” He let the thought hang in the air as he steered the Saab out onto the road.

“Come on, Carter, be logical. Chip didn’t get hurt because you didn’t go to the game.”

Carter didn’t reply. Joanna sighed and stared ahead. The bitter cold crackled like a force field around them as they sped down the road. Snow blanketed the fields on either side of Route 22, and ice gleamed wickedly in the headlights. The world was pure: black and white. Carter’s hands, tightly clutching the steering wheel, seemed in the cold lights of the dashboard to be drained of color. His chin was pushed into a boxing glove, his whole face pulled down into an aggressive, angry glare.

She wanted so desperately to soothe him. “Chip will be fine,” she said softly.

In response, Carter gunned the motor, just as they approached Highway 684. The Saab hit a patch of ice, sending it into a low-bellied skid. Joanna felt the pull in her thighs and belly, like being on a carnival ride. Centrifugal force slammed her against the door. The double cone of lights from their car illuminated a red pickup truck coming toward them. Joanna watched as the driver, seeing the Saab sliding sideways across both lanes, braked. Pump your brakes, she warned him in an urgent attempt at ESP. But the driver hit his brakes hard, and the pickup skidded, too. The two vehicles drifted ponderously across the road. There was a sensation of weightlessness, then in what seemed a flash of brightness, the collision.

The noise was agonizing as the red pickup and the driver’s side of the Saab were molded together into a modernistic sculpture and the door on Carter’s side folded in like a bit of aluminum foil. For a moment, instinctively, Joanna’s eyes closed as she braced herself.

She felt only a gentle shudder. Her seat belt held her tight. She heard the shock of impact as it resonated through the car and braced herself for a blow, but felt instead only a kind of determined shifting, so that she felt like a creature lifted up and transported to the shore and laid down by a force like an ocean wave. There was a definite flow and ebb to the crash.

When all movement stopped, she opened her eyes and looked down at herself. She was fine. She was intact. Somehow she had come out of this untouched. Her immediate, instinctive reaction was a wash of gratitude. She wondered: was there a message here, a direct communication from Fate? She’d think about that later. Now she
was shaking with relief and gratitude.

In the silence, Joanna looked over at Carter. Blood streamed down his face.

Leaning toward him, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Take off the wig,” he moaned.

“What?”

“Take off the wig. The police will be here. If they insist on checking you over at the hospital, it will look awkward if you’re wearing the wig. Just be yourself. Tell them we were having a business dinner. Considering the inn for the show.”

“Carter, I don’t think—”

“Do it!”

“All right, Carter. But are you okay?”

“I can’t move my leg.”

The temperature was falling inside the car. Snow was already blanketing the windshield, but Joanna was able to see through it well enough to tell that the driver of the pickup truck was collapsed over his steering wheel, not moving.

“I’m getting out. I’m going to see if I can get help,” Joanna said.

Carter didn’t respond. His head had fallen forward onto his chest.

In her professional guise Joanna had spoken on the phone with Blair many times before, of course, asking to speak to Carter about the show or relaying a message from him when he was in conference, and so after Joanna crawled from the car and stumbled through the snow to the pickup and spotted a CB radio inside next to the unconscious driver, and after she’d pulled her shuddering body up into the cab of the truck, irrationally terrified of the unconscious man next to her, after with shaking hands she figured out how to work the radio and had gotten hold of someone who promised to send the police and an ambulance right out, and after the police had arrived and taken down the necessary information and escorted her to a hospital in the nearby Connecticut town, she called Blair to tell her about the accident. Blair wasn’t home, of course, she was in another hospital with Chip, but a friend was at the Ambersons’ house, and took the message from Joanna, and commiserated with her, and also said, “I know this isn’t the time or place, but I want to say while I’m speaking to you personally, I tell Blair all the time how lucky she is to know you. I just love your show.”

It was a small, pleasant hospital, and it didn’t take long for the doctor to check
Joanna over and pronounce that except for an understandably elevated blood pressure, she was fine, and free to go home. Carter’s leg had been broken and he was already in the operating room. Blair would arrive as soon as she could. There was no reason for Joanna to remain.

It was almost eleven o’clock. Joanna was hungry and exhausted, and she wanted someone to put his arms around her, to say, “Thank God you’re all right.” She wanted someone to pick her up at the hospital and drive her back into the city and escort her to her lonely apartment and tuck her into bed. And to stay with her, just to be with her, just in case, all through the night.

If not that, then she wanted to be the one who would sit on the scuffed vinyl sofa in the hospital lounge, waiting to hear how Carter was. She wanted the nurses and doctors to reassure and comfort her, to respect her as an integral part of Carter’s life. She wanted her claim on him to be acknowledged.

Instead, she had a cab take her back into the city. She’d put the fare on her expense account. After all, Carter had said they were on a business trip.

It was after midnight when she finally unlocked her door and half fell into her apartment. Kicking off her heels, tossing her coat and bag on a chair, she headed directly for the kitchen. She was starving. But of course there was very little to eat in her cupboards or refrigerator—she didn’t know much about cooking, didn’t have the time. By now as she moved she was weeping steadily, quietly whimpering. She was so cold. She was so hungry. She was so tired. She was so sad. Now she was trembling. Her apartment was always overheated in the winter, but she turned up the thermostat anyway, and started the hot water in her shower, and stripped off her clothes, letting them lie where they fell. She stood under the shower for a long time, leaning against the white tile wall, the hot water washing her tears down her face. Stepping out, she pulled on her terry-cloth robe and the heaviest pair of socks she could find. Shuffling back to the kitchen, she dug out a frost-encumbered box of Sara Lee cinnamon rolls from the freezer, heated them in the microwave, and filled a glass with water—there was nothing except coffee to drink, and she didn’t want more coffee. She carried the rolls back to her bedroom, crawled under the covers, and ate them with a sloppy voraciousness that would have irritated Carter. Crumbs fell all over the bedcovers.

Her hunger slightly assuaged, she felt strong enough to listen to the messages that
her answering machine’s blinking light told her were waiting. She hit the rewind button and then the play, and licked her fingers as she listened.

Who did she think in her wildest hopes would call? Carter? Did she actually think Carter would come out of his anesthetic fog and think, first thing upon awakening, “How is Joanna? Did she get home all right? I need to call her!”?

Of course she couldn’t hope for that, and of course there was no message from Carter on the machine.

Gloria’s annoyingly efficient voice was first: “Hey, boss lady, you’ve got some correspondence that needs signing immediately; I’ll leave it on your desk for you to get first thing in the morning. Catch ya later.”

Beep
. “This is Giles Berklow’s secretary calling for Joanna Jones. We’ve finished her taxes. We’ll put them in the mail to her unless she wants to pick them up. Let us know. Thanks.”

Beep
. “Darling, it’s Sheila. Now listen. ShinyBowl just called me with a to-die-for offer if you’d only do one little commercial for them. Not glamorous, perhaps, but honey, the money. Call me. Kisses.”

Beep
. “Joanna, it’s Bill Shorter. I’m not too happy with the last show we taped. The lighting was too murky for about two minutes in the children’s playroom. Would you come in
immediately
and look at it and see what we could substitute?”

Beep
. “It’s me again, boss lady. I’m sorry, but the effin’ airlines called and the Monday morning flight you were scheduled to take to Charleston has been canceled. You’ll have to go Sunday night. Okay? Get back to me.”

Beep
. “Hello, sweetheart, this is Dot, your personal shopper, and I’ve found such a collection of suits for you, you’ll die with joy. But look, I’m leaving for vacation in a week, so could you call and schedule an appointment for like yesterday? I’d be so grateful. Bye, doll.”

Beep
. “Ms. Jones, this is the custodial manager of the CVN offices calling. We’ll be in to clean your office carpet next Thursday, so could you schedule yourself out of the office that day to give it time to dry? We’d appreciate it.”

“My, what a romantic life you lead,” Joanna said aloud as her machine trilled to announce the end of the messages. She stabbed the answer button, then slid her empty plate onto the bedside table where it rested amid other used plates, glasses, coffee mugs, pads of paper and pens, layers of dust, her telephone, answering machine, and, barely
visible, her alarm clock.

She stared out at her room around her as if seeing it for the first time. She certainly couldn’t say her apartment was a nest, a refuge. It was more a way station where she slept, bathed, and changed clothes before rushing back to the network or off to tape a show. When Carter had started spending the night with her with some regularity, she’d bought a king-sized bed and a CD player to put next to the television and VCR along the bedroom wall so they could listen to music, or, more often, look at tapes for
Fabulous Homes
. Because of the way she’d been brought up, she’d never learned the art of collecting
things
, and so she had no porcelain pillboxes or china figurines or antique inkwells, or even the usual jewelry boxes, vases, clocks, goblets, embroidered pillows, crystal perfume atomizers, candlesticks, or any other of the usual objects with which people embellished and enriched their daily lives. She’d never gotten around to getting any furniture for the living room other than a card table and chair on which to stack and sort all the work she took home with her. She kept things in the boxes they were bought in, piled on the wall of shelves in her bedroom and living room, and in the cardboard boxes which she thought worked perfectly well for storing the bags of mail she tried to answer personally, as well as clippings from magazines and newspapers and the copious notes she wrote to herself. In Joanna’s mind everything had an order, but Tory had teased Joanna, saying that her living room looked like the back room of a warehouse.