For All of Her Life (12 page)

Her hair had always been a dusty blond, and she kept it highlighted a few shades more to the gold. Her eyes were her best feature, large and green. Her nose had been fixed quite nicely, and she knew she had a pretty face.

The last decade had been both hard on her and good. For all of her life before, she’d had the band. She hadn’t made decisions, she had gone with the flow. The money came in; she spent it. Then Blue Heron had been gone, and there she’d been. Like the others, she received a decent income. But she had expensive tastes—especially in plastic surgeons. And she did love jewelry. And clothes. On her own, she had one hell of a tendency to run into debt.

Jordan, though he had dissolved the band, would have helped her at any time. Any of the guys would have helped her. Kathy would have helped her.

But she hadn’t wanted to go to them. To go back. She’d been afraid to go back. Keith was dead. Buried. Doors once closed were best left that way.

Sometimes, it seemed that the past came after her. Every once in a while, she’d get a phone call, a letter in the mail, and she’d know that the past never really let go.

But she wasn’t going to confront it. Not alone.

So she’d managed on her own, and she hadn’t done so badly. Most of the time, she did “oldies” in Vegas. A few times, she had gotten roles on Broadway. She went under the stage name of Shelley Adams, since she’d discovered different receptions to her past at different auditions. Some of the young kids directing now weren’t very familiar with Blue Heron. Some of the directors were. Some wanted to gossip, and some didn’t think rock stars belonged on Broadway, no matter what others had done in the past. As Shelley Adams, she’d done all right, though. She hadn’t gotten a lead, hadn’t stormed the Big Apple, but she’d worked steadily and she’d kept her five-foot-three-inch form in damned decent shape, to keep up with the twenty-year-olds.

She glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes until showtime. Fifteen minutes. She had to call and call now.

She set her hand on the phone and plucked it up, then dialed the number she had known a very long time, but never used before.

She went through a receptionist, and was finally connected with Kathryn Connoly.

“Shelley?” came the surprised voice.

“Kath?”

“Yes. My God! How are you? What have you been up to? What have you been doing?”

Shelley smiled, twirling the wire in her fingers. It was good to hear Kathy’s voice. So natural. The warmth was all there, the enthusiasm that was so
Kathy.

“Working.”

“Where?”

“All over. Mostly Vegas.” She hesitated. “In New York now and then.”

“Shelley! Why didn’t you ever let me know? I’d have loved to have seen you!”

“Well, you know, the way you and Jordan split up, I guess we just all kind of assumed you wanted a new life with the past completely erased.”

“You don’t erase old friends!” Kathy admonished.

“Can you really erase old husbands?”

“Not completely,” Kathy agreed.

“I... uh... have to be on in just a few minutes, lunch show out here, but I wanted to ask you—you are coming back for the reunion, right?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yeah, sure. I can’t wait to see you!” Shelley rushed on. She meant it. The words were sincere. Kathy Treveryan—Connoly now—had been the best friend she’d ever had.

“You too, Shelley. You too. I can’t wait to catch up.”

“No new husbands, huh?”

“Nope. How about you?”

“I never married. You know me. Too fickle. I guess I’d better go now, the lunch crowd is the sober one, they know whether a show starts on time or not. Really, Kathy, I just can’t wait.”

“Me, too.”

“’Bye then. See you next week.”

“Next week.”

Shelley set the receiver down. She hesitated, picked it up, dialed, listened to the ringing. It was answered.

“She’s coming.”

“Definitely?”

“Definitely.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, we’ll all see each other next week, right?”

Shelley swallowed hard. “Right.”

There was a click in her ear. With another hard swallow, she set the receiver down.

She stood, startled by the little blur in her eyes. She was afraid.

Showtime!

She worked for a living. She couldn’t afford to forget that. Not for a minute. Not for anyone. Not even for herself.

Derrick Flanaghan wheezed, gasped, and dripped more sweat—but kept going, running hard on his treadmill. He still had a week before going down to Florida, and if it halfway killed him, he was going to knock off ten more pounds before getting there.

From her armchair in their comfortable L.A. home, Judy shook her head, not looking his way. “You’re going to kill yourself, Derrick. Drop dead of a heart attack.”

He didn’t answer her; he didn’t have the breath to do so. But the timer on his machine mercifully buzzed then, and he slowed his gait. Down to a walk, he glanced at his wife.

Judy was wraith thin. She had a metabolism that moved a thousand miles an hour, or so it seemed. It might have come from sheer cussedness. Judy spoke her mind, did what she wanted, and moved mountains when she chose. What she lacked in tact she made up in energy. She hadn’t wanted children; they didn’t have any. Pets ruined carpets—they didn’t have any of those, either. According to Judy, he couldn’t really make music on his own. He’d never really tried. Actually, he was glad they’d never had children. He believed in the theory that children lived up to or down to their parents expectations. Judy was, in her terms, a realist.

His children would have been basket weavers.

But there was a lot that was good about Judy, too. She was striking. She always had been. Always would be. Her features were elegant. All of that energy of hers, which she’d never had to put into a job or family, had been given over to the perfection of her skin. She’d never needed to work out, but she loved tennis and ate only organic food. She and California had been made for one another.

And it had been the best place in the world for a man to find work writing advertising jingles.

Derrick grabbed his towel and mopped the sweat from his face, stepping from his treadmill to walk over to the bay window area of their bedroom where Judy was sitting in her chair, sipping iced tea as she leafed through magazines. She looked up at him. “You are dripping ickily upon me.”

“Ickily?”

“Okay, you’re gross.”

“I’m no more than a few pounds overweight.”

She grinned. Lifted a hand. Waved it in the air.

“You need a shower.”

“I know. How about a sip of your tea first.”

She sighed. Offered it to him. He swallowed it down. It was tart and strange. Bitter.

“Yuck. There’s no sugar in it.”

“You don’t need sugar.”

“No, it’s fat you don’t need.”

“Derrick, if you’ve just been on a treadmill for an hour, you don’t need fat or sugar. Trust me. And that tea is organic Oolong. It’s delicious. Give it back if you don’t like it.”

“I’m too thirsty.”

She shook her head, watching him. “You’re like a little kid, all excited about going back.”

“Darned right. I’ll get to play again.”

“You play the piano every day of your life.”

“I write stupid lyrics and bubble-gum music. In Florida, I’ll get to
play.”

Judy shook her head, looking back to her magazine. “You guys will probably stink.”

“Thanks, Jude.”

“I just look at things—”

“Realistically. I know.”

She shrugged, then patted his hand, smiling up at him.

That was another of Judy’s good qualities. She loved him. She wasn’t a bowlful of optimism or encouragement, but she loved him for what she saw him to be.

He bent down and kissed her forehead despite the face she made at him. “Go take a shower!” she commanded.

“Yep,” he said, turning and starting for the bath in their room. “And I am excited about going back! Aren’t you?”

Judy set down her magazine. The bathroom door had already closed. He hadn’t really been expecting an answer.

She looked outside and a shiver streaked down her spine. “Oh, yeah,” she said softly. “I’m exacted. I’m just so damned fucking excited I’m about to pee in my pants!”

Jordan stood by the window in his room, looking out at the guest house.

Eerie.

It could have been another time; the new structure was so similar to the old.

He heard her come to his room. Heard her slip through the doorway, come up behind him. Run a finger down his back. “Hey, old man!” she whispered softly. “I’ve got to leave soon.”

“I know.”

She leaned against him. He was still wearing cut-offs from the pool. The coolness of her face felt good against his skin.

She slipped a hand inside the waistband of his cut-offs. “Want to fool around?”

He wasn’t sure what his answer might have been except that her touch was darned persuasive. He turned, taking her into her arms, wondering if he was getting old, or worse, if he was losing his mind, becoming obsessed with the past, with his past...

With a woman who had left him as if she were running from something evil, slamming an iron gate behind her.

He told himself that Tara was perfection. That she was what every man wanted. Warm, giving. Sleek, curved, slim, musky, enticing. She all but purred. Her breath was hot mint, her fingers were nimble, she moved like a cat. Her heart thundered as their lips met, as they groped one another by the window. Her excitement was instantaneous, contagious. She knew how to arouse, how to tease. She gave back all she demanded.

Her lips parted from his, her voice breathy as she spoke while he tore away the strings of her bikini.

“Jordan... the floor... the floor.”

“The bed.”

“The floor. Here, now.”

“The bed.” As passionate as she could make him feel, he felt like laughing. “My back can’t take the floor.”

She was agreeable. Yet as she drew him down, he seemed to suddenly withdraw into himself.

Her
room. They’d always made love in her room. Or... elsewhere. Never in here. This had really become his private sanctuary. It held too much of the past. He could remember bringing the girls home as babies. They’d lain on the bed between him and Kathy while he and she marveled at the perfection they’d created.

Tara crawled over him. Lips and hands touching, stroking. He responded. Held her. Touched her. Heard her excited little cries...

She had a great body. Stomach flat, perfectly smooth. Kathy had two tiny little white lines that stretched from her pubis upward toward her belly button. They hadn’t distressed her terribly. She’d acquired one with each child. She’d teased him, saying that if they ever did decide they wanted more than the two children they’d agreed upon, they’d have to procreate in even numbers since she wanted even stretch marks. He’d told her he liked the slight imperfections of those marks, they were special, they were unique...

They were. He’d always liked her body. A little bit heavier, a bit thinner. She was long, with just the right curves. Nice breasts, not too big, not miniscule. Nipples a dusky rose shade, darkened just a little after the kids. Her body had been a part of her. Like her face. The way the amber tints in her eyes could change. The way she could smile. The million ways she could laugh, whisper...

Too bad she hadn’t decently decayed with time, he thought. Gained a hundred pounds, grown warts on her nose, turned to stone. Or married one of her writers, a publishing mogul...

Her young Muscleman. With whom she was sleeping even now?

Tara was good. Damned good.

And despite it, he felt something within—and without—withering away.

He pulled away from her suddenly, maybe just a little bit embarrassed.

“Jordan?” she asked softly.

Back to life, old man! he admonished himself. You can’t bring back the past!
His wife had left him, he hadn’t left his wife.

Maybe he could bring her back here, but it remained true that he couldn’t bring back the past. Their past.

He looked out the window again. Twilight was falling. Nighttime. Darkness to wash away the reminders. Ten years had gone by. He’d kept on living. Hell, he’d lived well and heartily, many a day.

And life would go on still, after the reunion, he reminded himself bleakly.

But not here, not tonight. Too many ghosts were haunting this bed.

He stood up, forgot that he would wreck his back, and swept Tara off the bed. Her brows shot up, her lips curled into a smile.

“Yeah? Where are we going?”

“I like your room better.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. With the scent of your perfume all around...”

“Mmm...” she murmured, curling naked and sinuous, against him.

Yet later he’d showered industriously, trying to rid himself of her scent. And when he’d said good-bye and she had left to fly away, he’d been glad to go back to his solitary vigil once again, staring out at the night.

At the guest house.

The back looked just exactly the same. Maybe, just maybe, he could bring the past back to life.

Miles Reeves sat in the darkness of his back porch. Just this spring Megan had convinced him to screen it in for the coming summer. At the time, he had thought she was crazy. Boston—all of Massachusetts and all of the Northeast, for that matter—had just endured one of the most brutal winters on record. But Megan had been right; summer was proving to be hot as all blazes, and at this time of night, or morning as it might be, the porch was beautiful.

He picked up his flute, absently, lovingly, running his fingers over the instrument. Funny to think back. Not that he didn’t think about Blue Heron often enough. They all thought about Blue Heron because radio and video stations played their old music regularly. But he’d gotten used to that. He could even listen and think with pride that they’d been good, damned good. They would endure. Years from now, radio and video stations would still be playing Blue Heron music, other groups would copy them, learn from them.

Well, once around again for Blue Heron. It seemed a good idea. With or without Keith’s death, Miles thought, the group would have split. Keith, dead or alive, was or would have been the cause. But now they were going back.