Curious Wine (20 page)

She gripped his arms. “Oh Dad, no. That’s crazy. Most children don’t get the love from two parents that I got from you.”

“Baby,” he said. “But why—now? Unless… you and Barbara?”

“No.” She admitted, “Maybe it… could have. But it just didn’t.”

“This… this love isn’t making you happy. The opposite.”

“What’s making me unhappy isn’t how I feel, it’s being uncertain how she feels. She’s insisted on a separation. To… examine my feelings.”

“How long have you known her?”

“About… a month.”

Visibly relaxing, he picked up his pipe and puffed, to conceal a smile, she judged.

“Dad,” she said quietly, “this is the deepest and most serious feeling of my life.”

He put down his pipe again, leaned across the table, gripped her shoulders, released them. “I know I’m a man, but I don’t understand. What is it that she gives you?”

“Tenderness,” she answered after a moment. “And her own need for that from me.”

“The physical relationship… surely can’t be… much?”

She kept her face carefully expressionless. “Do you really want me to talk about that?”

“Diana, what if this doesn’t work out. What then?”

She understood what he was asking, and she deliberated for some time over her answer. “I would look for it again. Without any hope that I could find it. As for where I would look—” “Baby,” he said, and she understood that he did want to know her answer. “There are a lot of beautiful people in this world. A lot of people who can give, who need… tenderness.”

“Dad, why did you never remarry? Mother’s been dead for thirty years.”

He looked at her. “You’re really comparing that. with this?”

“Yes. I am. When did you first know that you loved Mother? How long did it take you to love her? Was there ever another love to compare?”

He did not answer. They sat in silence.

She inhaled the ineffably sweet smell of orange blossoms from the yard next door. Finally she said, “You insisted on knowing.” She added, trying to make her tone light, “You promised not to be disturbed.”

Eyes moist with tears, he said softly, “You can’t expect me to be happy about something with so much potential to hurt the most precious person in my life.” He cleared his throat, stroked his goatee, and tried to smile. “But give your liberal democrat father a little time.” He picked up the deck of cards, held it out to her. “In the meantime, cut for deal.”

Chapter 17

The day she was to call Lane she awoke refreshed from dreamless, uninterrupted sleep. Her vigil over, she went eagerly to her job.

That evening she called time service, and set her clock. She paced the apartment and then sat tensely at the desk in her living room, staring across the room at the clock, watching the hands creep toward seven o’clock.

Heart thudding, she dialed the number on the business card propped against the phone, the number engraved in her mind, pressing the area code and numbers carefully into the push buttons of the phone.

“Diana?” The phone had been picked up on the half-ring.

“I was going to try to sell you Arthur Murray dance lessons,” Diana managed to say.

Lane’s laughter was soft, warm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Are you?” She was trembling, with relief and joy.

“Fine. You sound… are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, but you didn’t make any allowance for that. All month I thought you might be sick or hurt and I wouldn’t know—”

“I thought that too, about you. What have you been doing all month?”

“Waiting for it to pass.”

“Did you… do any thinking?”

Diana said quietly, “I understand that you needed to give me the time. There wasn’t much thinking to do.”

There was a silence; Diana heard an exhaled breath blend with the hum of the telephone line. Then Lane said, “It’s been… a long month. There are things we need to talk about now, things I want to say…”

Diana sat with her eyes squeezed shut, closing out everything but the tones and cadences of Lane’s voice. She said, “It’s so hard to talk on the phone. I wish—I wish I could see you.”

“Can I take that as an invitation?” Lane’s voice was low. “I can be there in two hours, a little after nine.”

“Oh Lane yes.” Diana felt her pulse in her throat.

“Western flight one-twenty-four. It lands at nine-ten at Burbank. Will you meet me?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Diana?”

“Yes, Lane?”

“Nothing,” Lane said huskily, after a moment. “I’ll see you in two hours.” The phone clicked softly.

Diana looked dazedly around her apartment, went to the sofa and fluffed up the pillows, picked up magazines from the coffee table to tidy them.

Tonight she would be with Lane. With Lane.

She flung the magazines down and ran to the bathroom to run water for a bubble bath, thinking frantically about what she would wear to the airport.

Lane was the third passenger off the plane. Diana was blurrily aware that she wore a gray sweater and pants, a simply cut dark blue jacket; and then Lane’s arms were around her, blonde hair was against her face.

“People hug at airports,” Lane soon murmured against her ear, “but usually not for this long.”

They released each other. Lane held her at arm’s length. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello.” Diana gazed at her, still weak from the scent of her perfume. “You… look beautiful.”

“Oh God so do you. I like… your dress.”

Diana wore a white V-neck dress of light wool, her cross at her throat. “I thought I’d wear one for a change.” She had meant her tone to be light, but she spoke self-consciously.

“I like it… very much.” Lane’s eyes were very blue, and shy. “Let’s go, let’s get away from all these people.”

They made their way through the airport corridors. Diana said distractedly, “How was your flight?”

Lane shrugged, touched her arm briefly. “Fine, it was fine. Long.”

“What about… Do you have luggage?”

“I have a toothbrush in my purse. I seem to have forgotten my pajamas.”

“I suppose we can manage to keep you warm enough,”

Diana murmured.

Lane said, her voice amused, “I have to leave early. I need to be in court tomorrow. My flight’s at seven. I’ll get a cab.”

“Of course you won’t. I’m so glad you’re here I wouldn’t care if I had to take you back at three o’clock in the morning.”

They got into Diana’s car. “You’re thinner,” Lane said. “I thought it was the dress at first.”

“I stopped taking birth control pills. I think it was partly that.”

Lane reached to her, smoothed a lock of hair. “I’m glad you… You look good. Can you come to San Francisco for the weekend?”

“Yes, if you want,” she answered with a tremor of shock. The weekend? Did she mean only the weekend?

“Yes, I want. Can you come tomorrow night? So we can have Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights together? I could take you to the airport early Monday morning. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” Diana said. Was this what she had in mind? That they would only spend weekends together?

“I have a plane ticket for you.”

“Everything’s planned, isn’t it.” The words broke from her. “You were very sure I’d call, weren’t you.”

Lane laughed, ironic and rueful laughter. “Hardly. The best way I could get through the month was to assume you’d call, plan as if you would. The thought of you not calling— I couldn’t think about that. And I’ve had years of practice not thinking about what I can’t handle thinking about.”

“Did you have dinner?” Diana asked, mollified, and still absorbing her answer.

“No, I’ve been too—Maybe there’s a McDonald’s around.”

“All over the landscape. I’ll fix you something. Is that okay?”

“I’d like that very much.”

Diana closed and locked her apartment door, and Lane took off her jacket and tossed it over a chair, a gesture Diana liked. They came to each other.

Lane held Diana’s face in her hands, and stared with unreadable eyes, her face tense and closed. Then one hand clasped Diana’s shoulder, brushed down over her breasts. She pulled Diana to her. Her mouth was momentarily tender, then possessive, and her arms were a fully satisfying tightness.

For a long time there was Lane’s body in Diana’s arms. Diana finally murmured, caressing her shoulders, “You need to let me fix you some food.”

“All right, but just something light. Show me your place, first.”

An arm circling each other, they strolled around Diana’s apartment. Lane examined her pictures and books, a few pieces of glass sculpture, the fine German clock given Diana by her father. When they went into the bedroom, Lane said, “You described it very well.”

Diana stirred uncomfortably under her arm, warm as she remembered. Lane’s laugh was gentle, teasing; she took Diana into her arms again. Some time later, her lips low in the V of Diana’s dress, she murmured, “I really don’t need any food.”

Diana’s eyes were closed in pleasure. “Yes you do,” she said with effort, and stepped away, out of her arms. She pulled down Lane’s sweater; her hands had been under it. “You need your strength.”

“Do I,” Lane said, reaching for her hand. “Are you planning to keep me up all night again?”

“Me? I’m the one?”

Holding hands, they went into the kitchen. Diana thought: She can’t want us to be only part-time lovers, she just can’t. She said, “It makes all the difference, knowing there’ll be tomorrow night and nights after that, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. All the difference.”

Diana poured two glasses of wine. “How about a sandwich? A hamburger? Bacon and eggs? Some soup?” She smiled. “All three?”

“Do you have any chicken soup?”

Diana gazed at her with tenderness. “You’re such a little kid about food. How about a hamburger with your soup?”

Lane grinned. “That sounds great.”

Diana prepared food, and Lane sat at the breakfast bar sipping wine and watching her. “Have something with me,” Lane said. “A little bowl of soup if you’re not hungry. To keep me company.”

“Okay,” Diana said. “Bring me up to date about the group at the cabin.”

“There’s some news. Nearly as I can tell, Madge and Arthur are still status quo. Madge doesn’t talk about it —I think she’s still working on her courage. Millie’s still Millie. Chris is seeing some man in her apartment building. According to Madge, Liz is upset that he’s forty and Chris’s forty-five. Not much wonder Chris managed never to marry all these years—first her mother and then her overbearing younger sister. The big news is George’s blonde paramour.” Lane grinned. “She’s given him the boot.”

“That is news. Has he called Liz?”

“Not so far. I don’t think his pride is quite ready for that yet. But he’s used the indirect approach—leaving all kinds of hints and messages with their two boys about how wonderful it was being married to Liz.” Lane chuckled. “I think it’ll work out, given time.” She tasted her soup, bit into her hamburger. “Mmm, this is so good, Diana.”

They sat together at the breakfast bar, Diana sipping a spoonful of soup occasionally, watching with pleasure as Lane ate her food. She picked up the plane ticket Lane had placed on the counter. “I didn’t thank you for this,” she said. “In fact I was hardly even — ” She looked at the ticket and said in surprise, “This is first class.”

“Right.”

“To San Francisco?”

“I know it’s not far,” Lane said defensively, “but I want you to be comfortable.” “You’re crazy,” Diana said, shaking her head, very pleased. “But awfully nice.”

“I have all kinds of things for you at my apartment. Every time I had an anxiety attack I went out and bought something to convince myself you’d call. I’ve got some pretty strange things. Four sweaters, all kinds of jewelry, a silver pen, a T-shirt that says I left my heart in San Francisco—”

Diana was laughing. “You crazy woman. I have something for you, too. But only one thing.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. The one really insane thing I did during the month was one Saturday I went over to Bullock’s and smelled every bottle they had trying to find your perfume. I can’t imagine what they must have thought. I just suddenly had to know what kind it was.”

“Did you find it?”

“Nina Ricci.”

“Right,” Lane said, laughing. “That is crazy. The scent I associate with you doesn’t come in a bottle.” She looked at Diana with sparkling eyes. “I’m going to take you all over San Francisco. There’s a restaurant in Sausalito… Will you wear that dress?”

“Yes, if you want. I have some others I think you might like.”

Lane finished her food, sighing with contentment. She looked at Diana with very blue eyes. “What you bought me, can I have it now?”

“Sure,” Diana said, smiling, swept again by tenderness. She went to the bedroom, and returned with a package.

Lane removed the ribbon and bright paper slowly, with the anticipation of a child. “Oh,” she said, and lifted from the wrapping a volume of Emily Dickinson poems bound in dark red morocco leather, the title stamped in gold, with LANE CHRISTIANSON in gold letters in the lower corner of the front cover.

“I had it made for you,” Diana said.

“It certainly doesn’t look like a book club edition,” Lane said, smiling, her hands caressing the leather, riffling the gold-edged pages. “What a beautiful thing to have. Thank you, Diana. I love it.”

“I loved getting it for you.”

“I’ve thought of so many places for us to go in San Francisco… But I won’t want to let you out of bed. I’ll have to depend on you to make me let go of you.”

Diana heard, strongly felt, vulnerability. She said gently, “I won’t want you to let me out of bed. I won’t want to let go of you, either.”

Their eyes held for a moment and then Lane smiled. Diana remembered quoting a line of poetry in a station wagon on a winding mountain road, and Lane turning to her with a similar smile that had pierced her with its intimacy and loveliness.

Lane said, “My apartment has a view of the Bay. The fog comes in at night, Diana, it’s so beautiful. With enough time I think I could teach you to love my city.”

“I know you could.” Just ask me, she thought. Tell me how you feel and then ask me.

Lane said, “Let’s pick out some music.”