Duplicity (12 page)

 o0o

By the time they reached Ellen's cabin, the setting sun had turned Beech Mountain into a rose- colored picture postcard. Ruth Ann went inside to prepare Gigi's evening meal while Dirk and Ellen unloaded the car. Gigi picked a bouquet of golden- rod beside the road.

Ellen deposited her bag on the porch and watched as Dirk loaded his gear into Rocinante .
The charade was over. Time to get back to reality
. She reached for her billfold as he returned to the porch to say good-bye.

 "What are you doing?" he asked.

 "I'm going to pay you."

 "No."

 "No?"

 "I didn't do this because of the money. I went with you because I wanted to."

 "But I hired you to do a job. You upheld your end of the deal, now I'm upholding mine." She pulled the money from her billfold and held it out to him.

 His hand covered hers. "It was not just a deal with me. It was a pleasure." He removed his hand and shoved it into his jean's pocket. "Don't cheapen what we had with money."

 "What did we have?" she asked softly. The money was trembling in her hand.

 "For the short time that we allowed ourselves to feel, we had an interlude of romance. Thank you, Ellen."

 He turned abruptly and walked toward his car.

 She watched him go. For a moment his shoulders sagged, then he lifted them and walked away in a show of jauntiness.

 She lifted her hand and almost called him back. The words were there, waiting to be said, but she couldn't make them come out.

 As Ellen watched, Gigi shuffled up to Dirk and handed him the bouquet of goldenrod. She signed,
Man stay. Gigi love
.

 Dirk lowered his head and sniffed the flowers. "These are nice," he said. "Thank you, Gigi." To Ellen's amazement he signed
Thank you
. She hadn't been aware that he was learning American Sign Language.

 Gigi clapped her hands at Dirk's appreciation of her bouquet.
Stay. Man go. Gigi sad
, she signed.

 Dirk solemnly took her hand, then said, “Good-bye, Gigi. Thank you for the flowers”.

 Tears stung Ellen's eyes as Dirk climbed into Rocinante and headed toward Anthony's cabin. She watched until he was around the bend in the road.

 Gigi lumbered up the porch steps and touched Ellen's cheek. Ellen sad? she signed.

 "Yes, Gigi. Ellen sad," she said while signing.

 
Gigi sad, too
.

 "Why?" Ellen signed.

 Dirk was temporarily forgotten as she did what she loved best, her work. To her the most amazing thing about her research was that Gigi expressed emotions. Although she knew why Gigi was sad, her question was aimed at encouraging the gorilla to think abstractly.

 
Man go. Gigi love. Gigi sad
. The gorilla pointed to her own face. Her mouth was turned down in an exaggerated expression of sorrow.

 "Happy good," Ellen said as she signed. "Sad good too. Make Gigi fine animal gorilla."

 
Gigi fine animal gorilla?
Gigi's expression of sorrow was immediately replaced with a toothy grin. She loved compliments.

 "Yes," Ellen assured her.

 Gigi clapped her hands.
Fine animal gorilla hungry. Eat pie
.

 Ellen grinned at the devilish expression on Gigi's face. The gorilla knew that pie was for special occasions. She was playing on Ellen's sympathy.

 "No," Ellen signed. "Gigi eat fruit. Eat vegetables. Good food."

 
No. Food stink. Gigi eat pie
.

 "Maybe," she said. "After vegetables." Ellen took her hand and led her into the house.

 As Ellen watched Gigi finish her meal—she had relented about the pie—she wished that she could put Dirk from her mind as easily as Gigi. She wished pie would make her forget.

 She thought about the parting and decided that Gigi had handled it with more thoughtfulness and compassion than she had. Gigi had given Dirk flowers and she had given him money.
Almost
, she corrected herself. She had almost ruined a relationship with thirty pieces of silver.

 She wondered if civilization got in the way of relationships. Was it possible that civilized trappings stifled love and romance and caring? Was it possible that love could not grow unless people forgot rules and codes of behavior and returned to primitive emotions?

 o0o

She was still pondering these things when Ruth Ann led Gigi off to prepare her for bed.

Ellen went to her office to bring her notes up-to- date. Her mind kept wandering back to Dirk, and she finally threw her pen down in disgust. The ringing of the telephone was a welcome interruption.

"Hi. It's me," Rachelle said. Ellen smiled. Rachelle always identified herself that way. "How was the trip?"

"Fine."

"Fine? Fine! You return from a romantic weekend with a Tom Selleck look-alike and all you can say is fine?"

"Who told you?"

"You did," Rachelle said. "Before you left. While you could still drool and palpitate. Tell me everything."

"Aunt Lollie and Uncle Vester are still two wonderful lovebirds. They're as timeless as Beech Mountain. Glenda is still the family failure for having married beneath herself. Aunt Fronie still makes a great chocolate cream pie. ..."

"What about Dirk? What did your family think of him?"

"He passed muster with flying colors."

"What did you think of him?"

The question caught Ellen off-guard. She shouldn't have been surprised, she reminded herself. Rachelle had been monitoring her love life—or lack of one—for the last five years. "It doesn't matter what I think of him. Besides, I don't even know what he does for a living."

"Good grief. You're off with a movie star and all you can think about is his job? Check out the body first, and then worry about the job." Rachelle giggled. "If you ever get around to it."

"That's one of the things I love about you, Rachelle. You don't let mundane things like jobs worry you. You live in a fantasy world."

"Yeah. It's filled with fabulous faces and great bods."

Ruth Ann appeared at the doorway. "Gigi won't go to bed," she said.

Ellen covered the mouthpiece. "I’ll be right with you," she told her assistant. To Rachelle she said, "Duty calls. Can you leave your shop long enough to come up tomorrow for lunch? We can talk."

"Can do. See you tomorrow."

Ellen replaced the phone and walked through the compound to take care of Gigi's problem.

 o0o

"What would we do without frozen croissants?" Ellen said. She pushed her plate away and reached for her glass of iced tea. A breeze stirred the branches of a pine tree overhead, and a couple of cardinals hopped close to the picnic table, hoping to catch a fallen crumb.

Rachelle took a bite of her croissant and leaned across the redwood table. "I didn't come all the way up Beech Mountain to get a Julia Child lecture. Tell me about Dirk. I want to know everything that happened in Lawrenceburg."

"Nothing happened."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're holding back?" Rachelle studied her friend's face. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say that you were smitten."

"Smitten?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Doctor. Smitten as in head-over-heels, crazy, mooney-eyed. In love, for gosh sakes!"

Ellen marveled at how close her friend was to the truth. "If you're talking about Dirk ..."

"Did I hear someone call my name?" Dirk walked out of the forest and into the clearing.

Ellen thought she would die on the spot. She had forgotten how impossibly handsome he was and how her heart wouldn't behave when he was around and how her bones turned to maple syrup. Why did he have to lean against the table with those fabulous hips? Why couldn't he stand over there on the edge of the woods so she wouldn't notice his chest gleaming through that half- buttoned shirt?

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" Rachelle's voice brought her back to reality.

"Rachelle Durante. Dirk—" Ellen hesitated, not knowing what to call him.

"Just call me Dirk," he said smoothly. He gave Rachelle a dazzling smile. "You must be the one who arranged for Nate."

Rachelle tossed her blond head and laughed. "I’ll have to admit that Ellen did better on her own. Maybe you can tell me about the reunion. I can't get a thing out of the good doctor."

"Uncle Vester and Aunt Lollie are two of the finest people I've ever met," he said.

Rachelle rolled her eyes. "Here we go again."

"She doesn't want a report," Ellen explained. "She wants fantasy." For the first time she noticed the bouquet of wild flowers in his hand. "Why are you here?"

"I was out walking and saw these flowers. They reminded me of Gigi, so I decided to come by and see her. Is that possible?"

Ellen didn't know what she had expected him to say or why she felt a twinge of disappointment. "I'm glad you came back. For Gigi's sake," she added hastily. "It's good for her to know that friends can come and go."

"Then I'll go up to the compound," he said. "Don't bother to get up. Ruth Ann can let me in." He inclined his head toward Rachelle and smiled again. "It was nice meeting you, Rachelle."

Ellen forced herself not to turn around and watch him walk toward the compound. She forced herself to drink her tea as if her heart weren't doing a tap dance against her rib cage.

"Well, what do you know about that!" Rachelle said as soon as Dirk was out of earshot.

"About what?"

"Where is he staying? I didn't think there was anything up here except this compound and Anthony's cabin."

"That's where he's staying. Anthony's cabin."

"Well, what do you know about that!" Rachelle said again.

"Why do you keep saying that? For goodness' sakes, drink your tea and get that expression off your face."

Rachelle playfully pretended to wipe the expression off her face. "There. Is that better? Don't tell me that man was out walking and just happened to come three miles out of his way to deliver flowers. To Gigi yet!"

"There's nothing unusual about that. He happens to like Gigi. He has a great capacity for caring." If anyone had told Ellen how her eyes sparkled when she defended Dirk, she wouldn't have believed them.

"I'm sure he does," Rachelle agreed. "And from the way he fit into those jeans, I'd say he has a great capacity for something else too. Lucky you." She sighed lustily.

Ellen didn't even hear her. She was too busy thinking about that endearing little-boy look on Dirk's face and the wilted bouquet of wild flowers in his hand.

After Rachelle had gone, Ellen hurried back to the compound. As she passed the pine tree that marked the edge of the fenced-in area, she told herself that her haste was due to the work that needed to be done. A persistent picture of Dirk and his bouquet kept flitting through her mind, and by the time she reached the patch of goldenrod, she knew that she had been lying to herself. Dirk was the reason for her hurry.

Ruth Ann looked up as Ellen burst through the front door. "I see that you already know he's here," she said.

"How did you know?"

"You look like you've been in a footrace."

Ellen hastily repinned her loose topknot and put her hands to her flushed cheeks. Was she that transparent?

"I have to reorganize my notes."

She started to walk briskly to her desk, then changed her mind. What was the matter with her? . She didn't need excuses for her - actions. Who did she think she was fooling anyhow? Certainly not Ruth Ann. She stopped in midstride.

"Where is he?"

"I thought you'd never ask." The starchy old scientist almost smiled. "He's in the dayroom with Gigi, drawing pictures."

Ellen whirled through the door and hastened down the hall. She stopped outside the dayroom door to smooth her white lab jacket and catch her breath. It would never do for Dirk to see her eagerness. As skittish as he was about things such as involvement and commitment, he would probably run all the way back to Paris or Connecticut or wherever he had come from.

She stepped into the room and stood quietly, observing the two artists. Drooping wild flowers were tucked behind Gigi's ears, and her head was cocked to one side as she studied Dirk's painting.

"What do you think, Gigi?" Dirk asked.

Gigi put her tongue between her lips and made a sound of disgust. "Bleah!"

"Is that an unbiased opinion, or do you have something against still lifes?" he asked.

"Bleah!" Gigi said.

"She fancies herself quite an art critic," Ellen said. She walked toward them, smiling. "You should hear what she says about my paintings."