Deceptions (46 page)

Later, in the limousine taking them to the Plaza Hotel in New York, where they would spend the night before catching a morning plane to Chicago, Garth took Sabrina's hand. 'Wined and dined and flattered. Duck for lunch. What did you have?'

Turkey. Dried out, then drowned in sauce.'

'And lobster for dinner. What was that we had for dessert?'

'Hazelnut mousse with raspbeny puree.'

'Do you suppose professors eat this way whenever they come to Connecticut?'

'Do you suppose their wives get a lecture on how retarded Midwestemers can learn the high style of the East Coast whenever they come to Connecticut?*

'Intriguing. Who gave the lecture?'

She described the lunch, sparing herself nothing. 'I didn't do you any good at all. But if Freddie was right and you've already decided—'

*I haven't.' He was still holding her hand; he put his other hand over it and faced her.' I agreed to come out here because I thought it was necessary for us. I would never make the decision without you. It occurs to me,' he went on carefully, 'that by letting Irma Kallen have it with both barrels, you may have been saying you didn't want me to take the job.'

Sabrina closed her eyes. All the lies, all the deceptions, all the guilt and tangled feelings of the past five weeks piled up between them in a wall she could not break down. My love, I want to help you, I want you to be happy. But I owe this to Stephanie. Her hand was warm between his. 'Garth, it's your decision. I can't make it for you.'

Tired and depressed, he took his hands from hers. If she no longer cared what he did, she was not planning a future with him. Yet she loved him. He had seen it in her face, heard it in her voice. She loved him.

But still she shut him out. So often they had come close to warmth, to love, to shared feelings- and she had pulled back, turned away. All those lost opportunities to talk. As if she were afi'aid that if she listened to him she might be swayed, by his arguments or her own feelings, and not bt able to make her own decision to go or to stay.

How the hell did a man fight that? For, of course, he intended to fight. He had told her in the orchard he would accept her decision, but that was absurd. He would fight to keep her. But until he understood why she deliberately withdrew from him, why she refused to make love to him, why she had even relaxed her close vigilance of the children, he could not decide how to begin - or foresee how it would end.

They made the rest of the trip in silence, and in silence rode the hotel elevator to the suite that had been reserved for them. Sabrina stood at the window looking on either side of the leafy darkness of Central Park at the lighted windows of buildings that never slept.

Garth locked the door. 'I don't want the job,' he said abruptly. On a round table a bottle of champagne nestled in a bucket of ice; a card around its neck wished them a pleasant evening from the Kallens. Garth eased the cork out with his thumbs. 'Even if it means lobster every night and champagne at bedtime.'

•Why not?* she asked.

He filled two tall, slender glasses and handed one to her. 'How long has it been since you and I were in a hotel room?' he wondered aloud.

We have never been in a hotel room. She sat at one end of a striped silk couch. 'A long time. Why don't you want the job?'

'Because the only subjects my hosts talked about today were the market, the consumer, doUars-per-research-hour, return on investment. Because to them gene splicing means a product, as if I'd be directing a team of chefs inventing a new breakfast cereal. Because what they want to do is what they are supposed to do: make money. Because what I want to do is what the university expects me to do: research and teach. Because I don't want to have to explain why I'm following a promising new lead in research even though it might not result in a product for years - if ever. Because I can't look at the problems of genetics and see the bottom line of a corporate profit and loss statement. Because, damn it, I don't belong Uiere. More champagne? It's on the house.'

S42

She held out her glass. He refilled it and sat in a wing chair near the other end of the couch.

Two other points/ he said, 'One, as 1 said before, I don't think you belong there, either. Maybe you did once, or thought you did, but not anymore. If this were two or three months ago you wouldn't have jumped on Irma Kallen; when she was in Chicago last spring you treated her like a first cousin to Queen Elizabeth. You've changed since then. You've changed since your trip.' He paused, waiting, but she ignored the opening he offered.

Garth could not bear to look at her. He had never been so aware of her nearness-or of how far fi^om him she went when she withdrew into silence. He drained his glass. 'And one of the changes I like best is that you can put down a pompous, small-town queen mother like Irma Kallen without being afraid that she won't like you, or me, afterward. Which means one of two things. You have a lot more confidence than you've ever had before ...'

Sabrina watched the bubbles streaming upward in her glass. 'Or?'

'Or you've decided you don't give a damn what I do or what happens to me. Or us.'

The room was hushed. Soft light firom the table lamp glinted off melting ice in the champagne bucket and the dark green bottle as Garth tilted it above their glasses. The rest of the room was in shadow. A doorway led to the bedroom where a single lamp illuminated the bed, turned down for the night by a maid who had left a gold-wrapped chocolate centered on each pillow. Nearby, their two overnight bags stood side by side, touching, like lovers.

They had not been alone, away fi-om the children, in the five weeks Sabrina had been there. In the muffled quiet she was conscious of Garth's presence with such force that her skin felt his touch though he was a dozen feet away. She saw each detail of his face though she was not looking at him. Her mouth felt his mouth on hers though they had not kissed for three days, since the moment in the hallway at home when she had broken from his arms in a panic of love and guilt.

He has become a pan of me,

'And finally/ he said when she did not answer, 'I have

S43

been offered the directorship of the Institute of Genetic Engineering at Midwestern, to be built this spring and in operation by next year.'

'Garth!' She looked up, her eyes shining. 'But that's wonderful! It should have been your first reason -your only reason! Nothing else matters. Does it?'

'It might.'

'Why didn't you tell me? Oh, now I know what Vivian was talking about when I took Penny and Cliff over there yesterday. She said to give you her congratulations. I thought she was talking about your conmiittee granting her tenure, that you'd won. But she wasn't; she knew about your appointment.'

'She knew I'd been offered the position. I haven't taken it.'

•But why not? Isn't it everything you want?'

'I don't know if it's what you want. The pay is about two-thirds of what Foster would pay, much less when you add bonuses, stock options, travel, company car, countiy club membership - all the perks that universities never heaid of. I know how worried you've been about money-worried enough, probably, to make Irma Kallen tolerable.*

'But all those reasons you gave for not—'

'I said I don't want to take it. But if you want me to, if you would share it with me—'

'But you would hate it.*

He shrugged. 'A lot of it. I'd concentrate on the research and learn to deal with the rest of it.' He leaned forward in his chair. 'Stephanie. Listen to me. I love you. I can't imagine making a life without you. Nothing I do means a damn thing if I can't bring it home to you- if I can't say your name and hear you answer - if I can't go to sleep at night knowing that when I open my eyes in the morning I '11 find you next to me. All the wonder of my work disappears when I look at the wonder of you. The discoveries are there, even the excitement is there, but it's empty, it doesn't mean a damn thing to me without you. I am not complete without you. Don't you understand that? Don't you understand that I would do anything to keep your life woven into mine? If you ask me to take this job—'

'I wouldn't. I don't want you to take it. Of course I don't want you to take it.'

He looked at her somberly. 'I don't know what that means.'

It means I love you. I love you, I want you to be happy. I want you to do what is best for you even if I'm gone, even if I'll never share it, never be with you when you wake up in the morning. He watched her lips move silently and tears fill her eyes. He stirred, wanting to go to her, but he forced himself to wait. 'I don't know what your tears mean, either/ he said harshly.

Sabrina put her hands over her face and let the tears come. She had been holding them back for so long that now they came with relief and a kind of exhilaration. / can't help it, I'm sorry, I can't help it. I can only do so much. And I did try. 'What do they mean?' he repeated. He went to her and pulled away her hands. Her face was wet with tears and her mouth trembled; her eyes were shining as they had been on that morning when he awakened and caught her in an unguarded moment.

'That I love you,' she said at last, the words finally freed, and his arms caught her up, enfolding her in an embrace so confident she felt she had at last come home.

He would have picked her up, but she shook her head. She would share this with him; her decision as well as his. They walked to the bedroom and undressed each other, hunying, touching the skin they bared as children explore a new discovery to make sure it is real, and really theirs.

Garth removed the ivory combs in her hair and the heavy waves fell over her shoulders, bronze in the dim light. He looked at her slender body and passed his hands along the clear, silken skin as if he had never seen it before. Her ripe fullness lifted toward him, her head high and proud as he gazed at her. I am a part of us, her eyes said, and my beauty is greater because you desire me.

Once again he gathered her into his arms, her softness curving against the muscles of his arms and stomach and legs, the warmth of her body merging into his. They held each other, treasuring their desire, for now they knew it would be fulfilled. At last he bent his head to her uplifted

face and kissed her, tasting the coolness of champagne in the warmth of her mouth.

'Dear love,' Sabrina whispered against his lips. They lay on the bed. Garth's full weight upon her. He raised his head and his eyes, dark and intense, met hers, deeper than he had ever imagined, with a blue flame in their depths.

'My love,' he murmured. 'My dearest, newfound love. * The room was bright from the luster of her body. He closed his eyes, but the brightness was still there and he knew then that it was everywhere, that in rediscovering his wife he had discovered light and life, and they were part of him as she was.

'Yes,' she said, and with the passion they had denied for so long he thrust into her. She moved against him, enclosing him, her bones against his, her skin against his, one body, one rush of blood.

This is where 1 belong, she thought, and then she let go of the solid room, let go of herself, and disappeared in the darkness of sensation, her mind finally stilled, nothing left but feeling and an overwhelming gratitude for what she was discovering of herself and of him in their flesh, the meeting of their mouths and the worlds they saw in each other's eyes.

The gilt-wrapped chocolate lay crushed on the pillow. CarefoUy, Garth unwrapped it, and Sabrina took it into her mouth from his hand. 'Where is yours?' she asked, and they hunted until they found the other on the floor where it had fallen.

'But I'm still hungry,' he said after nibbUng it from her fingers. 'What shall we demand of room service?'

'Nectar. Robins' eggs. Rose petals with dew.'

Garth dialed. 'Champagne; omelet; salad. And grapefruit sorbet.'

Sabrina was laughing 'Grapefruit sorbet?'

'I forgot to tell you. A new passion I discovered in California. Robins' eggs take half an hour. I would like to make love to you again.'

'Yes.' These are our years together; these hours. They are all we have. Garth bent over her, kissing her mouth, but she

put her hands on his chest, pushing him firmly until he lay back, and then she was kissing him, her lips trembling along his throat and through the dark hairs of his chest, slipping softly, lingeringly over his smooth flat stomach. She curled up beside him, her hands on his thighs, and raised her head for a moment, meeting the darkness of his gaze, telling him, with her eyes and her strong hands, to lie still and let her give him pleasure. Languidly, with her tongue, she caressed the tip of his penis extended before her, and then she brought him slowly into her mouth, along her tongue, into her throat. He filled her: smooth, firm, a strong, solid force pulsing with life, and Sabrina felt an exaltation, a freedom, a kind of love and giving she had never known before.

Garth groaned with the waves of pleasure that flowed through him in widening circles, thinking this was something else she brought him for the first time in so many years, thinking he could sink into her, drown himself in the tenderness and strength of her mouth. But finally he needed to give to her, and he pulled out of her mouth to bring her beside him.

He kissed her closed eyelids and followed with his lips the shape of her face, the long line of her slender throat, her rounded breasts, heavy against his cheek, and took into his mouth first one nipple and then the other, until they grew erect beneath his tongue.

Slowly, slowly, his lips moved along her body, drinking in her silken scent, brushing with light kisses the luminous skin, alive beneath his mouth, down her belly to the cluster of curling hair and within it the warm, pliant flesh that trembled as he reached it. Sabrina thrust her fingers into the thick black hair of his head and opened her legs as she felt him take her with his tongue and lips. All her senses were drawn to that one yielding place. Then suddenly, fiercely, he thrust his tongue deep inside her, possessing her throbbing dark center until it contracted, poised on a thin precipice, then leaped, pulsing wildly as she cried out and shuddered beneath his hands.