Love Always (35 page)

It was cruel, of course; the cross in front of the vampire as far as Myra DeVane was concerned. But she had gotten bored with the videotape, and with Hildon’s game, long before Lucy’s image came on the screen. They were at his friends’ house, and she was drunk on champagne, lying underneath Hildon, still wearing a camisole and her socks, eyes shut, smile flickering on her lips as he made love to her. Last week with Edward, the Plaza. Today, the floor of the Hadley-Cooper’s video room.

Myra had written Hildon a letter—a frank letter, trying to get to know him. He assumed that she was flirting and took her up on it. He agreed that their interview had not scratched the surface of what was meaningful about what they did. About their profession. Why didn’t they get together, now that her piece was published, and have a drink? He didn’t hate himself for picking up her cue, or because she wasn’t his type. She was the one who happened to be there when he realized, finally,
that nobody was his type: this routine was his type of routine. The woman didn’t matter. He had done this with different women at least half a dozen times when Maureen left and Lucy went to California for Jane’s funeral. He was now having a life apart from the person with whom he had shared a secret life.

He looked at the screen. In the clutter of his desk drawer, along with pens and postcards, scissors and a bandanna, was a small blue velvet box. The videotape did not show the pink-pearl-and-diamond ring inside—his great-great-grandmother’s engagement ring. He had taken it out of his safe deposit box on the day of the annual staff party at his house, thinking about asking Lucy to marry him. But then he had left it in the drawer, deliberately. If he had the prop, he was sure to go through with the action. He wanted to see what he would do without it, whether he would ask her anyway, or find some way to meet her later, at the office.

He had decided against it that night, so at least he didn’t feel like a coward for not asking Lucy to marry him once Nicole came to live with her. It wouldn’t have been possible for the three of them to be a typical, dreary family anyway. He trusted Lucy, loved the way she could switch gears, the way she would join in when he put on his torn clothes and boots, calling what he engaged in his sexual fast-food fantasies. She was wonderful, but she wasn’t right. She could take an imaginative leap, but only in terms of where she’d go or what she’d do. She wasn’t an emotional chameleon, and that was what he needed.

Myra, lying below him on the rug, was the sound track of the video that didn’t exist. She was telling him that she loved him.

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EATTIE
was born in Washington, D.C., and was educated at American University and the University of Connecticut. She has taught at the University of Virginia and Harvard.
Love Always
is her third novel and sixth book. She now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.