Loving (37 page)

She looked faintly supercilious. I was nineteen and he was sixty-two."

"Ooo ..." he whistled. "That was older." But his smile was gentle and there was no reproach. Only interest.

"He was a marvelous man, a friend of my father's. Actually maybe you knew him." But he held up a hand as she started to say his name.

"No, no, please, this is marriage anonymous. Let's not blow it. The next thing you know we'll find out I was married to two of your cousins and you'll hate me all over again."

She laughed, and then looked at him more seriously. "Is this what everyone in Hollywood does? Sit around discussing their last four husbands and wives?"

"Only the sickoes, Bettina. The rest of us just make human mistakes, not that anyone would believe it. I mean four is a bit much." They both grinned. "Anyway, continue.... "

"My second husband sounds like your wife who joined the Peace Corps. He wanted a green card. We were also married for six months." But her face clouded briefly as she thought of the baby she'd lost. "My third was a doctor in San Francisco, and for five years I tried to be a 'normal' wife."

"What does a 'normal' wife do?" He looked at her with intrigue in his eyes as he took another cookie from the plate.

"To tell the truth I was never sure. I just knew that whatever it was, I was never doing it. One of my friends says that you have to be a little brown and gray bird."

He looked at her, torn between laughter and compassion, as his gaze fell on the flaming hair and the deep-purple dress. "You are very definitely not that."

"Thank you. Well, in any case I blew it completely by writing my first play."

"He didn't like that?"

"He filed for divorce the moment I left for New York, sold our house, and I found out when I came home."

"He didn't tell you?" She shook her head. "Charming. And then?"

"Then I moved to New York and"--she seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then she went on--"I met ... my fourth husband, and he was very special." Her voice softened as he watched her. "We had a baby, and almost a yeas ago he died."

"I'm sorry." They sat in silence for a moment, and then he looked at her gently.

"See, Bettina, that's what I mean. Other people, the rest of them out there, think that we just sit here laughing, collecting divorces, and paying alimony and that we're amused by our endless list of ex-wives, but what they don't understand is that it can happen to real people, tragedies and mistakes, and people you believed in who disappoint you ... it's all terribly real, but no one understands." They looked at each other for as endless moment. "My second wife and I had two children, but she had a drinking problem I didn't know about when we got married. She spent most of our marriage in and out of hospitals, trying to deal with it, but eventually she lost." He sighed for a moment, and then went on. "She was driving one day with my two little girls in the car and--" His voice caught, and without thinking, Bettina reached out to him, knowing what he was going to say, and he took her hand. "She smashed the car up, and both of the kids died. But she didn't. And she was never the same after that. She's been in and out of institutions ever since." He shrugged and his voice drifted away. "I kind of thought we would make it, but... we never did." And then he looked up at her kindly and pulled away his hand. "How are you doing after losing your husband? Is that why you've been incommunicado for all these months?" Suddenly he understood.

She nodded slowly. "Yes, that's why. And I'm doing better. At first it seemed so--so unfair."

He nodded. "It is. That's the bitch of it. The good people, the ones you could make it with--" He didn't finish his sentence. "My first wife was like that. God, she was so good and so funny. She was an actress and I was a writer. She got her first damn road show, and ... end of the road. I was twenty-three and I thought it would kill me. I almost drank myself to death for a year." And then he looked hard at Bettina. "Isn't that incredible? That was sixteen years ago ... and there have been three other women in my life since who were important enough for me to marry. If someone had told me that after Anna died, I'd have killed them. It's odd, time does such strange things." He sat there musing for a moment, and then he smiled. Interesting stories, yours and mine."

"I'm glad you think so. Once in a while I've thought it wasn't worth the trouble going on another day."

"But it is, isn't it?" He smiled at her softly. "The amazing thing is that it always is. There's always another event, another person, a woman you fall in love with, a friend you have to see, a baby you want to give birth to ... something that makes you go on. It's been like that for me."

She nodded, loving what he was giving her, because his words were setting her free. It fit all the pieces together and made the picture not only whole, but it allowed her to see that there was still more of the picture, a part she had yet to see. "Do you have other children?" He shook his head slowly.

"No. Miss Peace Corps didn't stick around long enough to have a baby. And number four and I were married for three years, but--" He laughed softly. "They were the three longest years of my life." And then suddenly she remembered.

"I remember when you were getting married." She grinned broadly. "I lived in your apartment in New York."

"You did?" He looked baffled "When?"

"When you got married. You were on the West Coast. It was a beautiful place on the West Side."

"My God." He looked at her in stupefaction. "I rented that to Ollie ... Oliver Paxton ... for chrissake, ..." He looked at her, stonned. "Thaife who you as", Bettina! You're Ollie Pastern's wife!"

But as she looked at him, sitting very tall in her chair, she slowly shook her head. "No, I'm not.... " It was like hearing a dozen echoes and denying them all at last. Not even for Ollie could she be just that. "I'm Bettina Daniels."

For a moment he was startled, and then suddenly he understood, and he nodded, holding out a hand. She was not her father's or Ivo's or Ollie's anymore.... She was her own now ... and he under-stood that, just as she knew it about him. Their eyes met as they shook hands carefully over the table. "Hello, Bettina. I'm Bill."