Change of Heart (9 page)

“Who has been doing it?” he asked, sipping his coffee and watching her over the rim of the cup.

A little color came into her cheeks. “I have. But Gil wants me to find someone else. And he’s right. I should be home to see Jenny off to school.”

“I see.” His voice was expressionless. He took another sip and thought. “There’s Harry Amesly,” he said finally. “He’s always had a horse at his place but the barn burned last week. He’s not going to rebuild it, he told me. If you let him stable a horse here, I’m sure he’d do it.”

Cecelia smiled at him warmly. “Tim, you’re a gem. That would be a perfect solution. I’ll talk to him tonight.”

“Always glad to be of service,” he said, forcing a lightness he did not feel into his voice. “When is your father coming home?” he asked after a minute’s pause.

“Tomorrow.”

“Will he be all right living alone here?” Tim took his cup over to the sink. “Has he recovered completely?”

Cecelia sighed. “He says he’s great and the doctor says he’s doing well but he has to take it easy. The problem is that when it comes to housework and cooking Daddy is a thoroughly Latin American male. He knows what the inside of the kitchen looks like because we eat here, but I doubt if he has ever even boiled water. I’m going to have to get a woman in to take care of him.” She smiled wryly at him. “You don’t happen to have a cook-housekeeper up your sleeve as well?”

“Sorry.” There was a pinched look about his nostrils. “Why can’t he stay with you?” he asked bluntly.

“He’s going to have to until I find someone,” she answered. She stood up. “Thank you for your assistance, doctor,” she said with mock solemnity.

He swallowed. “Any time, Cecelia. I’ll be in next Monday to give the school horses their shots.”

She followed him to the door. “Good. I’ll post it on the bulletin board in case any of the owners want to take advantage of your services.” She cocked an inquiring eyebrow at him. “School rates?”

He gave a group discount to her when he did the school horses. “If I do it on Monday, tell them they’ll get school rates, too,” he said.

She grinned. “Plan to be busy.” She waved as he went down the path and turned back to the kitchen, heading for the closet where she kept the mops. She couldn’t have a housekeeper coming into a dirty house.

* * * *

Gil did not make it home for dinner that evening. In fact, he didn’t make it home at all. A labor problem had arisen, he told Cecelia over the telephone, and he was staying to try to work it out. He would sleep over at the apartment.

She swallowed her disappointment and said, “All right, Gil. I contacted a few agencies today to see about a housekeeper for Daddy, but it’s going to take a few days before I can settle on one. Is it all right if he stays here until I can make arrangements?”

“Sure,” he said. Then, to someone else, “Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.” When he came back he sounded preoccupied. “I’ve got to go, Cecelia. Tell your father to stay for as long as he likes. Frank is going to take you to the airport tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll try to get home tomorrow night, but don’t count on me.”

“All right,” she said evenly. “Good-bye, Gil.*

* * * *

“Good-bye, baby. Give Jen a kiss for me.”

“I will,” she said. The phone clicked and he was gone.

* * * *

Ricardo looked wonderful as he got off the plane the following day. He was deeply tanned from the Arizona sun and looked more rested than Cecelia had seen him in years. “You look fantastic,” she said as he bent to kiss her. “I can’t believe you almost died on me.”

“I feel fantastic,” he replied. “How are you,
niña
? It is so good to see you again!”

Frank got the baggage in the trunk and Ricardo and Cecelia got in the car’s backseat. “Tell me,” he said immediately after the door closed behind them, “what has been going on at the farm?”

She laughed. “I’ve written you
volumes
about everything, Daddy. You know as much as I do.”

“How did you do at the Ridge Haven show? I don’t know that.”

She settled back. “Very well ...”

In the front seat Frank listened with half an ear to the conversation between father and daughter. For three quarters of the trip it was about horses. The topic changed, however, when Cecelia said, “You’re coming to stay with us for a few days, Daddy. You can’t go home until we find someone to do your cooking and cleaning. I’ve got our name in at several agencies; we should find someone soon.”

Ricardo frowned. “I would like to go home, Cecelia. I am perfectly fine, I assure you, and I will be more comfortable in my own house.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” she retorted. “And what will you eat?”

“I am quite sure I can learn to work the stove,” he said stiffly.

“And the washing machine? And vacuum cleaner? And dishwasher?” She was laughing at him.

He smiled a little sheepishly. “You make me sound very useless.”

“Totally.” She softened her judgment by reaching up and kissing his cheek. “Mrs. Monk did a good job of looking after you the year I was in Colombia, but she’s moved to Florida I’m afraid. We’ll get someone else soon, but I want you under my eye until we do.” Still he hesitated and she added, “Gil wants you to stay too.”

Ricardo really had no desire to start learning how to cook and clean at this point in his life. Even in the liberated eighties he was still convinced that housework was a woman’s job. He was, as his daughter well knew, a thoroughly Latin American male. He smiled. “All right,
niña.
Until you find someone.”

* * * *

Mrs. Loren, a nice motherly widow, took on the job of housekeeper for Ricardo Vargas, and soon life settled down to what on the surface appeared normality. Ricardo took back his advanced students and left Cecelia the beginners. They split the intermediate riders, Ricardo taking the more serious among them. He also began to coach Cecelia again; it was evident he had his heart set on her winning at the national show in New York in November. Cecelia wanted to win too—and not just for her father.

Cecelia rode and taught during the mornings. In the afternoons she sat around the Archer pool and lifeguarded for Jenny and her friends. The little girl was blossoming, and Cecelia, watching her shouting as she cannonballed off the diving board, would think back to the quiet reserved child she had been and shake her head in wonder. Several afternoons a week Cecelia had adult company at the pool: her father, Marie Rice, one of her college friends, one of the mothers of Jenny’s friends. Scarcely ever Gil; he was extremely busy and got home only rarely during the long hot month of July.

Cecelia spent the month waiting for him. When she rode, when she taught, when she played tennis or swam or watched Jenny and her friends, she was outwardly serene but inwardly never at rest. Her whole life was a matter of wondering: When will he come home? When will I see him again? When will we start to live a normal life together? She hated getting into the big lonely bed at night. She did not sleep well when he wasn’t there.

All through July she kept thinking that the life they were leading was only temporary, that once the various crises at the office settled down, Gil would have more time for her. It wasn’t until he made a two-week trip to England, France, and Germany that she began to realize that perhaps he didn’t want to make more time for her, that, unlike her, he was perfectly satisfied with the way things were.

It was to be a working trip, this European jaunt, or so he told her. He had set up a series of appointments with various ministers and bankers and labor leaders.
News Report
was planning an in-depth article on the European economy for the fall. Very hesitantly Cecelia said, “Perhaps I could go with you.”

She had been sitting up in bed reading when he came home at ten-thirty. He had kissed her, taken off his jacket and tie, and started to unbutton his shirt. “What did you do today?” he asked. The shirt was off and he stretched as though the muscles in his back were tired.

Cecelia’s eyes, watching him, were very dark. “The same old stuff,” she had said. “Daddy started Jenny jumping today. She did really well.”

“Great.” He sat down on a wingback chair and started to take off his shoes.

“Did you get a decent dinner?” she asked quietly.

“Mmm. I ate with Ben and Pat Carruthers, as a matter of fact. And Liz. They were all in the city from Southampton and routed me out of the office.”

“Oh,” said Cecelia. He went into the bathroom and Cecelia slid down a little on her pillows. This was not the first time by any means that he had dined with friends rather than come home. She felt infinitely forlorn.

He came back into the bedroom, his eyelashes still wet from the washcloth. “By the way,” he said, “I’m going abroad for two weeks. I want to get some background for that article I was telling you about. I’ll be leaving Tuesday.”

That was when she had said, “Perhaps I could go with you.”

He looked surprised. “Not this time, baby. I’ll take you to Europe, don’t worry. But not now.”

It was not Europe that she wanted to see. “Why not now?” she persisted. “I won’t get in your way, Gil. I promise.”

He came over to stand by the bed. “You couldn’t ever get in my way,” he said tenderly. Cecelia’s eyes slid away from his until she was looking once more at her book. Why did his voice have such power over her, she thought painfully. “When I take you to Europe, I want to have time for you,” he went on. “Time to show you around myself. I don’t want to have to consign you to American Express. And Jenny would miss you terribly. We’ll wait until she’s back in school.”

“All right,” she said on a thread of sound. His hands were on the buckle of his belt, and she put her book down and slid completely off her pillows as he finished undressing and got into bed with her. Yet even as her body automatically responded to his, a despairing thought flashed across her mind: this is all he wants from me. During the daytime it wasn’t enough, but for now, as she felt his mouth touch her cool bare skin, it was.

* * * *

Gil went off to Europe and the routine of his home scarcely missed a beat. His wife and daughter continued their daily activities, and one of them at least was blissfully happy without him.

Cecelia had been right when she thought that Jenny was blossoming. Cecelia’s presence had given the little girl something she had lacked all her life: a stable, loving parent who was a steady presence in her life. She went to Hilltop Farm with Cecelia every morning; she played at the pool in the afternoon with Cecelia watching; she ate dinner with Cecelia every night. Cecelia was there to monitor her television shows, suggest books she might like to read, crab at her for not keeping her room tidy. Jenny did not at all mind her father being away; she liked having her stepmother’s undivided attention.

The return home of Ricardo Vargas added another element to Jenny’s emotional life that had been long missing: a doting grandparent. Ricardo’s growing attachment to Jenny had surprised Cecelia. He was a man who placed a great deal of importance on blood ties and she wouldn’t have thought him capable of so much affection for a child who was unrelated to him.

The fact was that Ricardo missed his daughter, and in his step-granddaughter he had found the perfect solution to fill the gap in his life. The fact that Jennifer obviously thought he was wonderful didn’t hurt at all. Soon after his return he took over her lessons himself—a signal honor—and was predicting great things for her future. Cecelia knew he was envisioning Olympic medals, but since Jenny seemed to be thriving on the attention and the work she didn’t interfere.

It sometimes seemed to Cecelia that everyone was happy with the arrangements of the Archer-Vargas household except her. Jenny and Ricardo were happy. Gil was happy: he had gotten a mother for his child and a willing partner for his bed. That, apparently, was all he had wanted when he had asked her to marry him. It had become increasingly evident that she was only an adjunct to his life, not an integral part.

It was not a role that satisfied Cecelia. It gave her many material advantages, but material advantages did not interest her. She had not married Gil because he was rich. She had married him because she had thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. He fulfilled all her ideals of what a man ought to be: strong, intelligent, authoritative, good-humored, amusing, kind to those who needed and relied on his strength.

She had loved him when she agreed to marry him, before she knew what it was like to lie in his arms. She loved him now, deeply, achingly, irrevocably. Her whole life had narrowed and the things that once were important to her were important no longer. All that mattered was Gil. If she were with him, if she could rest secure in the knowledge that he loved her as she did him, then she would be happy with the rest of her life. But without that core contentment, all there was for her was restlessness and dissatisfaction. And she was becoming increasingly certain that he did
not
love her—not in the way Cecelia understood love. She was a convenience to him; a convenience he was fond of, but a convenience nonetheless. As beautiful summer day succeeded beautiful summer day and Jenny and Ricardo glowed with health and happiness, Cecelia became increasingly more desolate.

Gil came back from his European trip two days earlier than expected. Cecelia was in their bedroom changing for dinner when the door opened and he was there.

“Gil!” she said, surprise in her voice, astonishment on her face. She was standing barefoot in front of the closet wearing a white blouse and blue-flowered skirt; a sandal was in her hand. He started across the room toward her and she dropped the sandal to the floor. Then his arms were around her and her feet were dangling off the floor as he enfolded her in an embrace that left her breathless. “What are you doing home?” she asked when her feet were once more where they should be. “I didn’t expect you until the weekend.”

“I got everything in I wanted to do, so I decided to catch the next plane home. I got the limousine from the airport.”