Deceptions (43 page)

children, and perhaps she was even thinking of her friends whose parents fought and sometimes divorced.

'Yelling isn't a great thing to do/ she said lightly, 'but it does clear the lungs for cheering at soccer games/ Penny laughed again. 'Come on, now. You're not even dressed yet. We have to check on Cliffs scrubbing talents and then eat and get out of here or all the Jonathans will be gone before we get to the orchard.'

'Golden Delicious,' said Penny automatically, '1 told you, that's all they let you pick by now. You knew that.'

'So far, there is nothing delicious about this morning,' Sabrina said, kissing Penny's cheek, 'exceptyou. Go on. now; get some clothes on.*

After Penny went to her room she remained kneeling, waiting for Garth to tell her, as she had told Penny, that eveiytMng was all right. But he sat silently beside the window where she had run away from him. For a long moment they stayed that way, separated by the length of the house and a terrible gulf of misunderstanding. Sabrina looked up and met his eyes. 'I'm so sony,' she said. Her words traveled down the hall and touched him with the same tender caution with which her fingers had touched his sleeping face less than an hour earlier.

Garth smiled then, a smile so loving she caught her breath. 'It's all right,' he said at last, and added, 'I thought you might have made up your mind.'

Sabrina heard him, but the words made no sense. Made up her mind to what? To make love to him? To tell him why she swung between coldness and warmth? To confess? If he knew or suspected something, why didn't he just say so? 'I must get dressed,' she said hurriedly and went to their room, closing the door behind her. / won't think about it now; I'll think about it later. I don't want to know what he meant. She pulled on a pair of Levi's, a pale yellow Oxford-cloth shirt and a russet boatnecked sweater that made her look, in the full-length mirror, only a few years older than Penny. For the briefest of moments she felt very young - untouched by time and the complicated maneuvering of adults.

She pulled back her heavy auburn hair, tying it at her neck with a brown velvet ribbon. Tendrils at Uie sides escaped,

framing her face with wisps of curls that made her look more like a mischievous gamine than a grown woman.

She looked at the gamine in the mirror and recalled other mirrors, in palaces and estates, where she had dressed in gowns of tulle and lace and silk for Europe's most famous balls, and then had swept down staircases or through great doorways, bringing a hush to the most sophisticated of the world's beautiful people.

Where was she now, that stunning woman? In a three-story frame house in Evanston, Illinois, in faded Levi's and bare feet.

She went to breakfast in bare feet.

On the curved bench at the end of the hall. Garth watched his wife go into their bedroom and close the door; watched her ten minutes later leave the room and, without looking in his direction, go barefoot downstairs. He was amazed at her stubbornness; again and again she refused to let herself settle back comfortably into dieir marriage. For each step forward, she took half a step back into the hard shell she had worn since her trip.

And what did she expect of him while she huddled inside her shell, refusing to let him join her private debate over leaving him? Was she hoping he would force the issue, demand that they talk about it, make her face her own failures as well as his? Was she waiting for him to tell her, whether she wanted to hear it or not, that he was in love with her almost as if for the first time?

'Daddy!' Penny called, and he went downstairs to breakfast.

The kitchen floor was clean. In a com%, the wastebasket bulged with soggy orange paper towels. C^liff and Penny had set the table, poured glasses of grapefruit juice and piled a plate with doughnuts. The coffee was ma^e. His family was sitting peacefully at the uble, smiling at him.

'Have I walked into the wrong kitchen?' he asked. Penny giggled. He raised his juice glass. 'To a delicious day.'

Sabrina met his eyes. 'Thankyou,* she said softly.

And in the car he felt her relax beside him. 'What a nice way to spend a Saturday,' she said. As if she had never done it before. And maybe, he thought, she hasn't. Not in this

way, caught in her own arguments over her future. CXur future, he added silently; Til have to remind her of that.

In the back seat, Penny and Cliff were competing in identifying approaching cars. Garth was withdrawn in his thoughts. Left to herself, Sabrina watched the passing scene: neatly plowed fields stretching to the horizon; sleek cattle sunding or lounging in small groups like guests she had seen at balls clustering with their friends; white farmhouses, cherry-red bams, bright yellow tractors, their colors burned into Uie blue sky. And around it all, the rich brown of the soil and the brilliance of autumn foUage.

European farms were smaller, older, more weathered. To Sabrina, these American farms radiated expansiveness and endless progress, dominion, from the road to the horizon and beyond. Everything seemed open and free, harmonious, settled, and she wanted to reach out and grasp it, to press it in a scrapbook, to remember.

The apple orchard lay in a countryside of small lakes. The larger ones were surrounded by homes, boat docks and parks, with week-end crowds spilling everywhere. Garth was cursing the traffic; the closer they came to the orchard the longer it took them to reach it. Cliff groaned. *Can we get out.^ We'll race you there. And beat you.*

'Better yet,' Garth said. *You drive. High time you did the work while I play. Your mother and I will stroll happily to the orchard while you and Permy fight traffic'

'Do you mean it. Dad?' Cliff said eagerly. 'Will you let me drive?'

Garth shook his head. 'The law says no. When you're fifteen you'll learn in school.*

'They never teach anything,' Cliff said scomftiUy.

'If that's true, I'll teach you then, but not before. You'll be behind the wheel soon enough, and your mother and I will be waiting up fretting whenever you're ten minutes late getting home. Don't push time away - for us or yourself.'

Their voices seemed far away to Sabrina. / won't be here when Cliff is fifteen. Garth and I will never stroll happily while Cliff and Venny fight traffic for us. They'll go on. growing and changing, long after I leave. And- it struck her suddenly - they won't even know Fm gone. Garth's wife,

Penny and Cliffs mother, would still be part of their lives, their quarrels and jokes and family talks, their waking and sleeping. Their love. Only Sabrina would be gone.

As Garth pulled into the mass of cars in the parking lot, he glanced at her, smiling. Then his face changed. 'What is it?'

She shook her head quickly. 'Nothing. Shall we go?'

They picked up a bushel basket and walked into the orchard. The air was heavy with the scent of fallen ripe apples carpeting the trampled grass beneath the trees. Above them branches bowed down with the weight of hundreds more, perfect globes ranging from pale yellow-green to deep gold tinged with red. All around them, apple-pickers were filling baskets and plastic bags, but they walked on until they came to a quiet section^ Cliff took one look at the gnarl^ trees and with a whoop of joy leaped up and climbed with sure hands and feet through the tangled leaves and branches. 'First cousin to a monkey,' said Garth with amusement.

Penny began to follow, but Cliff called down, 'Wait; I'll toss you the ones I pick, and then we'll trade places and I'll help you up.'

Sabrina was touched. They squabbled, but Stephanie had taught them to share, too. She and Garth watched as they found a rhythm of picking, throwing and catching. 'Can we walk awhile?' she asked.

'Nothing better.' He took her arm and waved to Cliff in the tree. *We'U be back. If you fill a bushel start another. The only limit is the number of apples you're willing to peel at home.'

Cliff paused, arm outstretched, then nodded. As they walked off, Sabrina heard him say to Penny in awe, 'Mom didn't even tell us to be carefiil.'

Garth and Sabrina walked down the path, the trees lush and heavy on either side, sounds of family groups a murmur in the air about them. Dark leaves and yellow apples shone against the deep blue sky; a breeze waved the tendrils of Sabrina's hair. She lifted her face to the sun and took a deep breath. Nothing had happened - nothing exciting, nothing glamorous, nothing that put her in the spotlight of attention among people of wealth and power. Nothing had happened

except that she was in love with the man beside her. And she was happy.

The path intersected another that warned against trespassing. Here were rows of Jonathan, Mcintosh and Red Dehcious trees whose apples were being saved for sale in the orchard store and a final fate as cider and applesauce. 'Let's trespass,' said Garth. 'With respect for the flora and fauna.'

Their arms were linked and they walked slowly, warmed by the October sun, breathing the fragrance of apples and clover and cut grass from nearby fields. 'You make me wonderfully happy,' Garth said quietly. 'I don't tell you that often enough.'

She looked up at him.

'And,' he added, 'you are gloriously beautiful. I don't tell you that often enough, either.'

She continued to look at him in silence.

He turned her to him and held her face between his hands. He felt her stiffen. 'Don't run away, my love. I know what's bothering you and I'm trying not to force you into anything. But you must know that I won't sit by indefinitely- after all, I have a stake in bringing things into the open—'

He was stopped by the alarm in her eyes. Was she afraid of him - or of herself? 'Stephanie,' he said gently, his words oddly formal because he was being so careful, 'I will not hurt you. I would never hurt you. Whatever you decide, I suppose I would have to accept it. But I love you more now than I ever have, and I need you - as, of course, the children do -and it would mean everything to me if you stay with us.'

A late red apple fell with a soft plop on the ground near their feet. A dragonfly darted past, its translucent wings glinting in the sun; a chipmunk scattered a mound of dry leaves. Sabrina was silent. Garth's warm hands on her face kept her from turning away, and their eyes met, his probing, hers dark with uncertainty. She was bewildered by much of what he said, but one phrase echoed again and again -more than I ever have: I love you more now than I ever have. It reverberated with the desire he had aroused that morning, still pulsing through her body, beating strongly, steadily, glowing in her blood as the melting sun glowed through her eyelids when she closed them.

'Look at me,* Garth said roughly, but she shook her head. Whatever he knew, it was not the truth - could not be the truth or he would not have called her Stephanie - but somehow he had come to believe she might leave him and it was true, it was true, though he would never know why, or what it really meant. My dear love, there is nothing I can tell you.

He dropped his hands. Her face felt cold and naked, as cold as Garth's bleak look when she opened her eyes. She searched for words to recapture the harmony of a few minutes before, but there was nothing to say. 'We should turn back - the children—'

'Soon,' he said shortly, and turned onto another path. Sabrina kept pace with him. 'We owe each other some time,* he said casually. 'When did we last go away together?'

' I don't know,' she answered, grateful for the chance to tell a simple truth.

'This week, then. I meant to tell you, I finally accepted Kallen's invitation to visit Foster Labs. We'll fly out Tuesday morning, stay in New York that night and come back on Wednesday.'

Sabrina reacted automatically. 'No.' When he frowned, she fumbled for reasons. The children. My job. My wrist. The money.'

He ticked them off. 'The kids will stay with Vivian; I've already asked her. Your antiques got along without you for a hundred years; they'll manage another two days. You told me the cnst comes off Monday, Foster is paying the whole tab, including the hotel in New York. Look, you've pushed me for months to take this job. That's why I said we'd go.'

Sabrina picked up an apple and polished it on her sleeve. It was perfect, without a bruise or soft spot. She bit into the flesh, its sharp tang crisp on her tongue. To travel with Garth, to be alone with him-Oh. I'd love it, she had thought when he asked her to join him in Berkeley. But how could she travel with Garth? How many intimacies could she share with him and keep on rejecting him?

But she could not tell him to forget the job when Stephanie so desperately wanted him to take it, and she'd even promised Stephanie she'd try to convince him to visit

Stamford. So, reluctantly, she nodded. She would go with him to Connecticut. He put his arm around her as they turned to go back to Penny and Cliff. 'It's about time we had a chance to be alone,' he said, 'and find out who we really are.'

Chapter 16

Nathan Goldner snapped the X ray into place on the illuminated panel and stood back so Sabrina could view it with him. 'Couldn't be better,* he said. 'You can go back to beating Garth and the kids and whipping up your famous cakes. Now let's get that cast off.'

He bent over Sabrina's arm, then looked up. 'No cries of joy at getting back your very own wrist?'

She smiled faintly, locked in her thoughts, seeing in her mind not her left wrist lying on the table, still encased in plaster, but two left wrists, healthy and identical: Stephanie's and Sabrina's wrists, once again interchangeable. 'Stephanie?' Nat said. 'Are you all right?'

I'm fine; that's the trouble. 'I'm sorry, Nat. I was thinking of three bushels of Golden Dehcious apples at home. If you could leave the cast on for a few more weeks, I could delegate the pies and strudel and applesauce to the rest of the family.'

A joke: 'If you could leave the cast on for a few more weeks ...' Would she like that? As much as she missed London and wondered what was happening to her other life, would she like a few more weeks? She didn't know. That was the crazy part: she really didn't know. But what difference did it make? She had no choice.

But to Nat it was a joke. 'Condemned to strudel,' he said, and bent once again to cut open the cast.