Deceptions (40 page)

She avoided her reflection in the mirror. / won't let it happen again.

And Garth will be gone for a week.

Linda Talvia called, inviting Sabrina and the children to dinner.

'Not for a few days,' Sabrina said. 'Maybe the end of the week?'

The lady wants some time alone,' said Linda. 'I know the feeling. When Marty is gone I feel three feet taller and a hundred pounds lighter. The house to myself. Paradise.'

That was my life in London, Sabrina thought. Responsible only to myself. What I wanted to get away from.

'But I want to see you,' said Linda. 'When does Garth get back?'

'Next Sunday.'

'Could you come on Wednesday, or even Tuesday? Early? I thought we could talk for awhile.'

She needs to talk, Sabrina thought. 'Why don't we come tonight? I'd love to have somebody else do the cooking for a change.'

'Would you really? Oh, Stephanie, what would I do without you? Come at four-thirty. Marty has an all-day seminar and won't be back 'til six. The kids can play in the yard.'

'We'll be there,' Sabrina said.

That afternoon she took Penny and Cliff shopping. She had put it off, hoping they could wait for Stephanie, but Cliff's shoes were falling apart. Penny was wailing that all the girls had something called Beene Jeans and she'd die if she didn't have some, too, and Sabrina finally ran out of excuses. I'm running out of excuses for everything, she thought; maybe I should break the other wrist.

At the shoe store the salesman measured Cliffs feet and brought out boxes of shoes. Cliff tried them on, looking from the shoes to Sabrina. What was he waiting for? 'Which one feels best?' she asked. 'Which do you like the best?' Hesitantly, Cliff picked up a heavy shoe, almost a hiking boot. 'You don't think they'll be too warm, sitting inside school all day?' He shook his head. 'All right, then. Let's go buy Penny some jeans.'

'Mom!' Cliff burst out. 'Can I really have these?'

Now what have I done? She picked up one of the heavy shoes, pretending to examine it. Evidently Stephanie would have said no, probably because they're for outside, not school, and maybe because of the price, but I don't know what boys' shoes cost. 'If you want them, they're yours. I've decided we should buy whatever will last the longest. But you'll have to take care of them. Can they be waterproofed?' The salesman brought a waterproofing spray and, as Sabrina searched for one of Stephanie's charge cards. Cliff put on the new boots, grinning with delight.

Outside the store, he turned to go meet his friends at the playing field, then hesitated. 'Mom? Thanks. A lot.' And he ran off, leaving Sabrina flushed with pleasure.

At the entrance to Marshall Field's they saw Vivian Goodman with Barbara. 'We are on the prowl for something called Beene Jeans,' Vivian said.

'Amazing,' Sabrina said dryly. 'Geoffrey Beene has hypnotized the entire sixth grade.'

'Mom,' said Penny, 'can I go with Barbara?'

'Why don't the two of you go alone while Vivian and I wander by ourselves? Here's the Field's charge card. But only buy one pair for now.'

Vivian looked at her curiously. *Am I behind the times? I've never sent Barbara off with a credit card.'

'Penny's maiden voyage/ Sabrina said, noting Penny's wide-eyed wonder. 'I'm feeling reckless. But don't let me influence you—'

'On the contrary, I like it. Shall we have coffee?'

'If you don't mind, there's a new antique shop I'd like to see.'

That's right; Garth told me you like antiques.'

It was a small shop called Collectibles, tucked between a high-priced luggage store and a restaurant specializing in crepes and homemade pastries. A perfect location, Sabrina thought; the owner knows what she's doing. Inside, dozens of small Oriental rugs overlapped to cover the floor of a square room crammed with furniture.

Vivian touched a leaded glass lamp shaped like a tulip. 'How can people afford a Tiffany lamp these days?'

Sabrina glanced at it. 'It's not Tiffany; it looks like Bohemian. They were wonderful imitators of Tiffany. If I were selling it, I wouldn't charge over fifty or sixty dollars.'

'Indeed,' said a new voice, and Sabrina saw a slender woman wending her way toward them. Her short hair was silver, brushed back from a thin, delicate face dominated by sharp, black eyes. With inexpensive clothes she achieved elegance and style, and Sabrina admired her; she does a lot, she thought, with not much money. And she owns the place. 'And how much have / charged for it?' the woman asked.

Vivian read the small sticker on the base of the lamp. 'Fifty-five dollars. That's amazing.'

'Not for someone who knows Bohemian glass.' The woman held out her hand to Sabrina. 'Madeline Kane. Do you work with antiques?'

'Sa - Stephanie Andersen.' They shook hands. 'I have, in the past.'

'Why don't you look around and tell me what you think. I've only been open for a week. Still getting organized.*

Sabrina was nervous as they began to maneuver around the furniture. It was the first time she had slipped on her name, and she knew why; she was caught in the spell of the

shop, the pungent fragrance of furniture polish, musty velvets and brocades, dust dancing in sunbeams that turned the grains of well-worn woods to gold. / want to go home, I want to walk through Ambassadors, and sit in my office; 1 want my own work. It was a piercing homesickness and her eyes filled with tears.

Vivian looked at her in alarm. 'Stephanie? What is it?*

'Nothing.' She blinked, and a magnificently ugly couch, tufted in purple, wavered through her tears. 'An impossible thought.'

'Is there anything I can do?'

'No, it's-oh, once I had my own business, managing estate sales, and I handled furniture like this, art and antiques, collectibles. It didn't work out; I had to close it and get another job. And I miss all this. The smell and look and feel of my own shop—'

'You had a shop?'

'Oh, no. But I always wanted one.'

Madeline Kane had been following a little distance behind. There was something about this woman, she thought, that set her apart. The way she walked and held her head. The way she took in the shop with a swift glance, knowledgeable and certain. Her curiosity aroused, Madeline looked at her thoughtfully. 'Perhaps you can help me. I'm trying to find some background information on this Duncan Phyfe table. Do you know anything about it? I know it has to be about 1850—'

'It's not Phyfe,' Sabrina said bluntly. She ran her hand over it, bending to look at the feet. 'It's Belter. Very early, 1840s, but Phyfe never handled rosewood that way; look at the carvings on the claw feet.'

Madeline bent to look. 'Yes,' she mused. 'Of course.' She straightened up and pursed her mouth. 'Stephanie, why don't you get back into the estate business?'

Sabrina looked at her coolly.

'You're thinking it's none of my business,' Madeline said. 'But I need someone to work for me, occasionally with inventory and in the store, but mainly to run estate sales. I used to do it, and I didn't like it; I prefer puttering around here. But there's good money in those sales, and it's the

easiest way to add to my inventory. So I'm offering you a job. Part-time, if you have to be home with children. Now is it my business? Or is it our business?'

No, you wonderful, wonderful woman, it's Stephanie's business. You just gave Stephanie a job. 'Our business,' Sabrina agreed with a smile. 'When would you like me to start?'

'Yesterday.*

'Then I'll be here Monday morning about ten.'

'Ten is for customers, my dear. Nine would be better.*

'Of course.' I've forgotten what it's like to work for someone. 'But I have to make a call first, to resign from another job. I'll be here as close to nine as I can make it.'

'Fine. I take it you're not interested in salary.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You haven't asked about pay.'

Sabrina laughed. 'I'll be more practical when I manage estate sales. But it can wait until Monday, when we talk about how many hours I work and exactly what I'll be doing.'

Madeline gazed at her, clearly puzzled, and Sabrina knew she had to be more careful. She was behaving like Lady Longworth instead of a housewife who had to work to help make ends meet.

'If that is all right with you,' she added.

Madeline smiled faintly. 'Of course. I'll expect you on Monday.'

On their way to pick up Permy and Barbara, Vivian said, 'Garth didn't tell me you were an expert.'

'We don't talk about it much.' Sabrina felt like skipping down the street. A job for Stephanie. And for herself as long as she was here. But her homesickness had not gone away; she wanted Ambassadors. I'll call Nat, she thought, and try to push up the date for the X ray. If he can do it as soon as Garth gets back, I'll leave right away. She remembered waking up with her fingers twined in his. I have to leave right away.

'Mommy, look what I bought!' Penny cried. 'And guess what? The saleslady didn't want to wait on us, but I showed

her the card - here it is - and then she treated us like she treats you; she called us Miss!'

The girls turned their shining faces from Vivian to Sabrina. *What a wonderful thing you did for them/ Vivian said. 'I wish I'd thought of it. But eleven seems so young—'

I thought of it because I'm not a mother, Sabrina reflected. But when Penny hugged her and thanked her, she felt the same delight she had felt when Cliff thanked her for his shoes. She'd made them happy. And they loved her.

On the way home. Penny took her hand and held it tightly. And a thought chilled Sabrina: When I leave, I'll leave this behind.

Penny scuffed the brown and rust leaves on the sidewalk, talking happily about the puppet costumes she was making. 'I'll give you a fashion show in a few days,' she promised. 'And then I'll only have the last four to do. I need your help with those.'

I won't call Nat right away, Sabrina thought. I don't want to seem in too much of a hurry. He might get suspicious.

Penny and Cliff were on their way to bed when Garth called from Berkeley on Sunday night. Sabrina, fumbling with needle and thread and CUfPs torn jacket, and blaming her clumsiness on her cast instead of the fact that she never learned to sew, let them take over the kitchen and bedroom telephones. From her chair in the living room she could hear them chattering as if Garth had been gone a month instead of two days, and once Penny went into peals of laughter that rang through the house. 'Mom!' Cliff called. 'Dad wants to talk to you.' She went into the breakfast room, and, in a moment. Garth's voice was there, astonishingly close, low and warm, familiar. And as Sabrina's heart leaped she knew how much she missed him.

'It's beautiful here,' he said. 'I wish you were with me to

watch the sun bum through the fog. The world turns green

and gold and the water changes from gray to a wonderful

silver blue.'

'How do you see all that from a lecture hall?'

'The lectures begin tomorrow. All I've done so far is meet

with the other seminar leaders to organize the week. I understand you gave Cliff and Penny a day to remember.'

•Yesterday? We had a good time.'

'And where did you go while Penny and Barbara were trying on bean bags?'

'Jeans/ she said, laughing. What she missed was their companionship. Even as she had been pushing him away, they had become friends. She had happily looked forward to a week alone, to enjoy the family - Bur it isn't a family without Garth. 'Did you call them bean bags to Penny?'

*I did. She found it amusing. Where did you go while she was tiying them on?'

To a new antique shop on Sherman Avenue. Owned by a very attractive, very sharp lady who, I think, gave me a test on what she called a Duncan Phyfe table.'

'Did you pass?'

'With flying colors. And then she offered me a job. I start tomorrow morning.'

'You quit the university job?*

'I will first thing tomorrow.'

'Well. That's wonderful.'

'Is something wrong? You don't think I should quit?'

'Of course you should; you might recall the times I've urged you to find somethingyou like better. And, asyou took care to point out not so long ago, you help pay the mortgage, so I have no right to tell you where to work.'

'Garth, what is wrong?' She felt anxiety rising inside her. How had she made him angry? She tried to think of something to say, then caught herself. The job was for Stephanie; what did she care whether Garth was angry about it or not?

But / do care. Because when Garth is angry it usually means he's hurt. And I don't want him hurt,

'Garth, are you there?'

'Yes; I'm sorry I sounded—'

'No, I'm sorry. I should have talked to you about it, but I was so excited.... Do you know, I never even asked her what the job pays? I'll find out tomorrow, before I quit the other job, and then decide—'

'No, quit the job. If the new one doesn't work out, you'll find another.'

We're trying to make each other feel better, Sabrina thought.

Garth was still talking. 'What?' she asked.

'I asked how your dinner was, with Linda and Marty.'

'Oh. Sad.'

'Sad?'

'No, dinner was all right. But Linda asked me to come early so she could talk; she was so upset about... Ganh, did Marty ever talk to you about having other women?'

After a moment. Garth said, 'If he did, it would have been in confidence.'

Oh, come on, nothing stays confidential for very long; everybody talks about these things.

But Garth isn't everybody.

'All right.' she said, 'but can you tell me if he thinks Linda is having affairs?'

'He's told her he thinks so.'

'She wants him to think that. She isn't, you know, but she scatters clues around to make him jealous so he'll stop having the affairs she thinks he's having and love her more, or guard her more carefully from temptations - something like that. Honestly, I've never known two people more at cross-purposes, absolutely incapable of talking about what they're thinking—'

'Never?'

Oh, damn.

She ignored it; he wasn't going to trap her into discussing their marriage. 'Garth, have you heard a rumor that some professors are giving passing grades to students they sleep with?'