Deceptions (44 page)

When it was off, Sabrina saw her arm white and frail, newborn. 'Should I keep it bandaged? Or not use it too much?'

He shook his head. 'Can't get out of it, Stephanie. You can

peel apples from now until Christmas, or move all the furniture in that shop where you work. In fact, use the wrist as much as possible, to strengthen the muscles. The bone is even stronger now than before.'

I'm stronger than before, she said to herself as she went to her car. She thought of Garth. And more easily hurt.

She was taking the morning off from work, and, at home, she opened the patio door to let in the breeze and the spicy fragrance of late roses still blooming against the house. She gazed thoughtfully at the three heaping baskets standing in a row next to the back door where Garth had set them down the evening before. I should do something with them, she thought. Make a dent, at least.

Instead, she made a cup of coffee and sat at the table. Her wrist felt strange in the warm air. She flexed it - how weightless it was! - picked up her cup, pressed the bones, testing for pain. Nothing. She was cured. Sabrina Longworth, in one piece again, ready to take on the world. And then the telephone rang.

She knew it was Stephanie before she picked it up. 'Sabrina,' said Stephanie in a rush, her voice a little breathless. 'How are you? How are Penny and Cliff?'

'Wonderful.' Sabrina was puzzled. Not only breathless, she thought. Wary. As if she's afraid of what I might say. 'We went apple-picking, and they tiuned into a couple of harvesting machines. Stephanie, what do I do with three bushels of apples?'

Stephanie's laugh had a wistful note that Sabrina caught insuntly. 'They always get carried away. How come you didn't tell them to stop?'

'We weren't there—'

•Weren't there?'

'We went for a walk. I... didn't feel like picking, the cast was clumsy, so we let them do the work.'

There was a brief silence. 'How is Garth?'

'Fine. He's... fine. I told you last week, he's spending more time at home, and that makes Penny and Cliff happy. We're all... fine.'

'And?'

Sabrina took a deep breath. 'And this morning I had—'

'No» I was asking about Garth. I was wondering if maybe, when he got back from California, he might have wanted to make love. Sort of a welcome home.'

Her voice was different again, as if she was tiying to put distance between them. Sabrina was uneasy. 'Is that what he used to do?'

'Yes. And he did this time, didn't he? It's all right, you know. You can do what you want. It's too much to expect someone to live a whole life without doing... some things that are ... different. After all, five weeks is a long time...*

Her voice trailed away, and suddenly Sabrina understood. Who's the man? she wondered. It must have happened veiy suddenly. 'It isn't so long,' she said cautiously. 'A lot has been going on—'

'He did want to. didn't he? Sabrina, how many times have you and Garth made love? Five? Ten? How many? Don't lie tome,*

'Once,' said Sabrina, stung, her guilt rushing back. She heard Stephanie take a sharp breath. 'The night before he went to California. I couldn't avoid it. But, Stephanie, it had no meaning. It - didn't mean anything at all.'

'It did to Garth.' Sabrina said nothing. Sighing, Stephanie curled up on the chaise in her bedroom, wishing she had someone to talk to. Gaby would be back soon, but she couldn't talk to her. Or anyone else. Not even her sister, who had made love to her husband.

'I hate this,' she said, but she didn't mean Garth and Sabrina as much as she meant her own wild swings of emotions. She had called to tell Sabrina about the cruise. Hearing about apple-picking, she wanted to be home. When Sabrina admitted making love to Garth, she wanted Max.

'1 know you hate it,' Sabrina answered. 'But I didn't seduce him, you know. I just happen to sleep in a bed that happens to be his. I wouldn't even have told you—'

'Why not? Do you think it makes any difference to me? You can make love to Garth all you want.'

'I don't need to have you offer me your husband,' Sabrina said coldly. 'It only happened once, and I won't let it happen again. Not because of you, but so I can live with myself.'

'Sabrina, wait, don't be angxy. I'm sorry; I didn't mean... Sabrina, listen, I feel so far away; nothing I do here has anything to do with that life, and I get confused. Sabrina? Are you there?'

'Yes. I'm listening. What's wrong, Stephanie?'

Stephanie heard the love in Sabrina's voice and wanted to tell her everything, but her thoughts were too tangled to sort out. 'I don't know ... Jitters, I guess, because sometimes I don't know who I really want to be. No, that's not true-of course I know. All this will pass as soon as I'm back where I belong, but - it's hard to describe. So many odd feelings.'

In the noon sunlight of the breakfast room, Sabrina ran her finger along a scratch in the round table and gazed at a dead leaf dangling from an avocado plant that Penny refused to throw away. As clearly as she could see the table and the plant, she could picture each room at Cadogan Square; she could feel their quiet serenity and privacy, the beauty she had created.

Absentmindedly, she bent down and picked up a baseball trading card Cliff had dropped. She put it on the sideboard, thinking that she'd forgotten to take the pot roast out of the freezer for dinner. 'I know,' she said. 'I'm going through the same things you are.'

'In Evanston?' Stephanie asked, with such genuine surprise that Sabrina laughed in a rush of love for her sister.

'Even in Evanston,' she said. 'A lot goes on here.'

'Yes, indeed,* Stephanie said flatly. 'You told me.'

All right, Sabrina thought. It's over. I don't know why she hasn't asked about the X ray - she knew it was supposed to be today - but I have to tell her and then get out. It doesn't matter whether I want to or not; it's her family and I'm the destructive outsider.

'Stephanie, I had an appointment with—'

'We've been busy at Ambassadors,* Stephanie interrupted.

*0h, have you? What did you sell?'

'The Petuntse porcelain you bought in China.' Stephanie's voice was elated. 'It arrived three days ago, and before Brian and I even had it all unpacked a salesman from Bonn bought it - Brooks sent him over. And a lawyer from Manchester

bought the Grendly day-bed» the mahogany one with scrolls. Oh, and Lady Surgrave came in - she wants a Chippendale lacquered cabinet for her new town house. I said I'd get it« but I don't know where.'

'Thomas Strang may have one in his shop. He bought two last year. If not, he'll probably have a Gillows, and Bettina would be satisfied with that; they're so similar in technique she'll neveMoiow the difference. But I can—'

'I'll call him,* Stephanie said, and raced on. 'Gabrielle is fine, though she moons around like a teenager about Brooks and won't go out with anyone else. I thought I'd ask her to help Brian in the shop while I'm away.'

Silence. 'While you're what?'

'Just for a few days. Sabrina, I've met someone - not the kind of man I'd want to be with for a longtime, but exciting, and different firom anyone I've ever known, and enormously wealthy.' She laughed lightly. 'The perfect fantasy. He wants me to go on a cruise in the Mediterranean for four or five days, on his yacht, and I've decided to go. It's just this once, this one chance, and I don't want to turn it down.'

That's why you forced me to say Garth and I had made love. You wanted to know, you wanted the excuse. And that's why you're not letting me tell you about my wrist. Quiet Stephanie, who had worried about being overshadowed; cautious Stephanie, afiraid to take risks, who had met Garth so early and married and settled down - and now was having a daring romance. Sabrina smiled to herself at the twist their lives had taken. I'm having my daring romance, she thought, because I met Garth so late.

But - a cruise, a yacht, the Mediterranean. That was Sabrina's world, and thinking of it triggered her appetite as no other memory could. She knew those cruises: self-contained worlds of luxury and sensuahty cut off from time and space. A blinding white yacht cutting through a blue-green sea. hazy islands like mirages on the horizon, molten sun, cool staterooms, and dark, dreamlike sex weaving through the days and nights. Oh, I miss it, I miss it, I need it.

'But you've done all that,' Stephanie said, as if she heard

Sabrina's thoughts. 'And you will again. This is my only chance.'

* A last fling?*

*A last fling.* It was a promise, made to both of them.

Sabrina took a deep breath. Another week. Another week with Ganh. 'Who's the man?* she asked casually.

Stephanie hesiuted. 'Max Stuyvesant.*

'No.'

'Don't be so quick. He's changed. Even Alexandra says so. Anyway, when did you see him last? He's been in New York for three years.*

'Alexandra says he's changed?*

'She says he's mellowed. Like a ripe pear.'

Sabrina laughed. 'That sounds like AJexandra. Stephanie, you can't know much about Max. Did you ask Alexandra about him?'

*I didn't need to. I decorated his house. Top to bottom. The way you did Alexandra's. I didn't tell you because I was afraid I'd fail and have to bring in someone to rescue me. But I didn't. Sabrina, I know all I need to know about Max. I'm not asking for permission, you know; I've already said I'd go with him. And you're hardly in a position to teU me to stay out of his bed.'

'I don't deserve that.* Don*tyou? You're in love with her husband.

'I suppose not,* said Stephanie carelessly. 'What*s the real reason you don't want me to go? It can't be Max. Are you so bored you can't wait to get back? It's only a few more days, you know. And it's not as if I'm asking a favor; we don't have any choice. Do we, Sabrina? Nat hasn't taken the final X rays, has he?'

She wants me to lie. 'No. No, he hasn't. He changed it to the end of this week. About the time you get back from your fling.'

'Well, then, everything is fine, isn't it? I'm not making you wait any longer at all. I'll get my plane ticket for next Monday. Sabrina ... don't be angry with me. I need you. I know I'm going back, and I'll live in my house and take care of my children and try to work things out with Garth, and everything will be all right. I just can't picture myself at

home yet. I'll be able to later, after the cruise. And I'll have your help, won't I? Because I guess by now there are things you can tell me about my family so I can take over again. I will have your help, won't I, Sabrina?'

Sabrina was crying. 'Yes. Any way I can.' She closed her eyes, blotting out the sun. She could hear the strain in Stephanie's voice and knew she was dreading coming back as much as she was anticipating it. But it didn't matter. Whatever happened between Stephanie and Garth, Sabrina would have disappeared and it would be Stephanie who was in Garth's arms, a world away from Max and his yacht. And Stephanie would have forgotten the fantasy of that yacht long before Sabrina had stopped aching for Garth.

Next Monday. But until then, let Stephanie have her cruise, her fling. I owe it to her. Let her go without knowing about the trip to Connecticut, without knowing that the cast is off. Let her go. There is plenty of time for the truth.

Sabrina watched Chicago tilt below them as the plane climbed through the early-morning haze and banked to the east. Lake Michigan glittered below, the skyscrapers of the city clustered on its shore. She could make out Evanston and the university campus, the green expanse and turning leaves of Lincoln Park, the wall of high-rise apartments along the pale ribbon of beaches lapped by long, slow waves. A few hardy sailors had their boats out, tall white sails snapping and billowing above the water striped blue and green beneath sunlight and shifting clouds.

'The end of the season,' Garth said, looking with her out the window. He put his arm around her. 'What a lovely autimm we've had.'

She held out her wrist, flexed the hand with its gold wedding band. 'A strange autumn.'

Her burnished hair curled against his shoulder; the perfect curve of her cheek, her clear skin and long curved eyelashes were inches from his lips as his arm held her. He thought back to last year when they had flown together to Amsterdam and she had gone on by herself to London to visit her sister. Had they spent any time together on that trip? He couldn't remeii]i>er. Probably not. They hadn't done many things

together in those days. Why not? He looked at the beautiftil woman beside him and could not think of an answer.

They had climbed above the clouds. Below them, moving with them on the white landscape, was a perfect circle of a rainbow with the shadow of their plane in the center. 'It's called a pilot's halo,' Garth said when she pointed it out to him.

'Are we in the middle of a rainbow, too?*

•Not that I know of. Why?'

*I was wondering if our plane might look like a shadow inside a rainbow to the people in another plane, far above us.'

He chuckled. 'You think we might be only shadows, then?'

'If we were, I wonder if we'd know it.'

He put his lips to her hair. 'I wouldn't care, as long as you were this real to me.'

Sabrina was silent. Garth took his arm from her shoulders and opened his book to read, a minute later she did the same. When they had landed in New York and were in the limousine Foster Laboratories had sent to drive them to Stamford, he said wiyly, 'My first trip with my wife in over a year, and I have to spend the day with a bunch of pharmaceutical executives. Doesn't make sense.'

'I have to spend it with their wives,' she countered. 'Does that make more sense?'

'No. Shall we run away? Go back to New York and have our own holiday and forget all about Stamford?'

'We can't.'

'No.* His voice changed. 'Of course not. I forgot how important this is to you.'

It's important to Stephanie, 'I meant that we'd accepted their invitation and they've made plans for us. Garth, what am I going to do with all those wives?'

'Nothing. Just follow them around. They're the ones with something to do - entertain you, I gather, and make you think Stamford is the earthly Garden of Eden so you can't wait to move there.'