Nikki (13 page)

“But I’m not.”

Dolores hugged her around the shoulders. “There’s a strain. You’re afraid they might turn away from me to you. But I love, you love, they love your loving them. That clear?”

“Thank you, Dolores,” Nikki said meekly, looking down. “You’re so good. And after I just got through getting all the kids in trouble and getting your friend mad.”

“Nikki, that remark of Ginny’s that she didn’t know what came over the kids today was just a remark.”

“But I
do
bring out the worst in everybody.”

“No!” Dolores cried. She looked at her with growing emotion. “Nikki, dearest! You’re vital and stimulating. Nobody can help responding. You excite and grip people and hold them to that beautiful force in you that made me simply idolize you.” For a quickening instant Nikki thought Dolores was going to take her in her arms. But the kids began clamoring.

With a shaky little smile Dolores said, “C’mon, let’s give ‘em their baths. And you’re assigned to finishing off Val. She’s got to be oh-so-dainty for the big event of the day … Daddy’s homecoming.”

Going downstairs with Dolores after putting the kids to bed, Nikki had a solemn, vaguely wounded look on her face, and she moved with a slow, cautious sleepwalking air as if afraid of jarring herself. She came down the stairs with a langorous dreamy grace, extending and lowering each slim foot and leg prettily as her body dipped and swayed in a fluent feminine motion. Then Jim Thelton came in from the living room, stood with his back to the dark window, and looked up the stairs.

Nikki became acutely aware of the fine silk of her vivid turquoise skirt gliding over her long lovely thighs, shaping itself to the delicate undulation of her hips and defining the soft circular mound of her lower belly. Jim’s attractive square face with its wide, well-shaped mouth was clearly an adult masculine version of Val’s. This consciousness of him as sire of those beautiful children gave him an added lustre.

“The little mothers,” he jeered softly, his low-pitched voice pleasant. Like Val’s, his lips seemed to hover at the edge of a grin. He kept staring directly at Nikki and said, as though still not quite convinced that the Nikki he’d been observing for the past couple of hours was authentic, “I didn’t know you went in for the clatter-of-little-hoofs sort of thing.”

“Oh, they’re so beautiful sleeping!”

“And silent. Oh, the joyous peace and quiet of it.”

Dolores put in, “Don’t think the heap-big-man won’t be sneaking in for a peek. And he’ll come out saying something funny. Men!”

“They’re such a joy,” Nikki said, sighing.

Jim smirked. “Men?”

“I meant children,” she said, pausing on the lowermost step. She glanced at Dolores. “He doesn’t think I’m sincere,” she said, giving him a reproachful look.

He laughed, moved close to the step. “Oh, that abused-little-girl look!” he said, delightedly.

“And you like it, you sadist, you,” she said in a playful, sulky tone.

He was enjoying her, and the feel of their mock battle clearly stimulated him. His eyes sparkled with good humor and he surveyed her from head to toe, as if exploring for a weakness. Nikki was waiting for his next jab with a delicious little sense of expectancy, when Dolores broke into their private game with a nervous little laugh.

“Now, Jim, you just stop teasing her.”

Nikki glanced at her and was pained to see an anxious, questioning look beginning to grow in the Taffy Head’s tender blue eyes.

“I didn’t know how nice he was,” Nikki said. “He makes me feel truly welcome. He’s fun.” She gave Dolores a reassuring, deeply affectionate look which said, “Fun, only fun; nothing to be afraid of, Taffy Head.”

The mood through dinner was almost blissful. Finishing dessert and coffee, Nikki couldn’t remember a thing that had been said, although everything that had been said had been somehow just right, warm or witty or sentimental. There’d been no feeling of strangeness, and although she scarcely knew Jim she sensed a bond of intimacy between them, as if they’d known each other forever. Without calculating, she found that she was subtly deferring to him, acknowledging him as the unquestioned head of the house and final male authority.

“Well, well, well!” Jim said for no particular reason after they had gone into the living room.

“He’s basking,” Dolores said in a loud, stagey whisper. “A double dose of feminine admiration tonight.”

Jim put his hands in his pants pockets and grinned at them both. “I want you to feel at home, Nikki. We have books, magazines, records galore. And isn’t that a beauty of a piano? If you want to play—Dolores tells me you’re good at that, too—I’d like it. And don’t worry about waking the kids. No? Well, any time. Maybe there’s something on TV. And another thing, if you want to read or just be alone in your room, don’t hesitate because you think our feelings’ll be hurt.” He switched on the TV, went impatiently through the channels, switched it off. “I guess nothing …”

“
He
guesses nothing!” Dolores laughed.

“Oh, if there’s something …” he began.

“No, no,” Nikki assured him. “I’d rather just talk.”

“Fine.” he flopped into a chair. “You’ve got a lot of things planned,” he said to Dolores, “haven’t you? Couple of luncheons and so forth? And take Nikki around to meet everybody.”

“I’ve got lots of things planned.”

“But not too much.”

“No.”

“And of course not too much nothing; we don’t want her bored.”

“I won’t be; I couldn’t be,” Nikki said.

“What we’ll do,” Dolores said mockingly, “is not too much and not too little, but just exactly right, the way you say.”

“Now I’m not trying to be that way; I don’t mean that.”

“But he’s got to supervise everything.”

Jim laughed, got to his feet, and began to move up and down the room, talking. “Lessee, now; there’s the club dance Saturday, and we could have a little dinner here, and Ginny’ll probably throw something. And Saturday—I tell you what—a hot-dog feast for all the kids, and we can get some hats and favors and think up some games. Then Sunday, I tell you where we could all eat. Remember that place down near the Big Sur? Nikki would like that.”

Nikki’s gaze followed him, admiring his buoyancy and male efficiency. He felt her appreciation and returned it with repeated soft-stroking looks at her.

“Beautiful country down there, and there’s the kid ranch for Val and Jimmy.” He paused. “Say, Nikki, you’re going to want your clothes.” He glanced at his watch.

“I thought I’d take her into town in the morning,” Dolores said. “You were up so late last night, Jim. She can make do for the night. Huh, honey?”

“Of course. There’s no hurry at all, Jim.”

“Oh, no. You’ll feel better with your things right at hand. We’ll get that all squared away and then you won’t have to worry and rush around into town in the morning. Besides, haven’t you got that meeting tomorrow, the finance report on last night’s thing?”

Dolores frowned, no nodded. “I’ve got some paper work to do before I show up at that meeting.”

“As if I didn’t know,” he said in a carrying undertone to Nikki. Louder, he added, “Tell you what, Dolores; you stay home and prepare your report, and I’ll drive Nikki in.” He leered.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Nikki?” Dolores said. “I really should tend to my report.”

Nikki deliberated. “All right.” She winked at Jim and said, “It worked.”

Going out to the car with them, Dolores said, “Don’t look back. Best friend and husband exit right. Wife waves from center stage, smiling bravely. Slow curtain. But honey,
do
be careful in that night traffic!”

The daylight enchantment of that hill road was lost at night. The steep rise of land had a forbidding feel, and the drop-off into jungle on the other side seemed a constant danger. Jim seemed almost to race down the straightaways toward the turns, and the road surface under a gliding, misty fog looked slippery. Nikki was acutely aware of the darkness just behind the flood of the headlights, and she kept tensing at each turn as though they might pitch off into space, or meet a climbing hell-bent car on that too-narrow road.

Her feet, thighs and buttocks were tense every inch of the way down, and she was aware that she sat far across the seat from Jim and stared directly ahead, and that neither of them had said a single word since leaving Dolores. Leaving the hill road and making for the highway, she was angry and frightened; this self-conscious silence between them amounted almost to a confession of guilt, an acknowledgement of a powerful attraction. When they had made the cut-in on the highway, Jim finally spoke.

“I just can’t get over it, the way you are with the kids.”

“I don’t know why,” she said bristlingly.

“All this and tenderness too.” He laughed self-consciously.

“All what?” she thought, but kept her mouth grimly shut.

“I’ll admit I never really knew you, and I more or less disapproved of you on general principles.”

“People take on the color of the environment. Under Dolores’s spell I get like her for a while. But—” She shrugged. “She really
is
a real woman. I just try to be, sometimes.”

“You’re all right, Nikki. All you need’s a lot of relaxation and a lot of loving … and a sense of security.”

She was silent for a long time. It felt so good, his big-brotherly affection. And that’s just what it was, big-brotherly, or fatherly. She wanted to yield to it, to encourage it, to build and strengthen this bond, to feel his good, shielding arms around her, to rest against his man’s chest, to absorb the vibrant, deep tone of his good voice, to please him, to make herself charming and receptive, to feel the loving touch of his lips, so appealingly like Val’s.

She abruptly checked that drifting line of thought, but it continued past dark, exciting taboo areas. She visualized herself with a baby, perhaps as beautiful as Dolores’s babies, with a hot, soft, urgent mouth feeding upon her, sucking at her breasts. An ecstasy like sudden brilliant veins of intense heat laced through her breasts and belly and genitals and there was a wild, exquisite throbbing in her womb. Her face flushed, there in the dimness of the car with Jim Thelton.

“If you want to know about the real me,” Nikki said in a tight, cold voice, “ask John Barket!”

“I saw John at lunch,” Jim answered casually.

“And?” she said defiantly.

Jim laughed. “What did you do to the poor guy?”

“Whatever he says, I did it.”

“He didn’t say.” Jim reached over and took her hand. “He just didn’t seem happy about you. My attitude is he’d damned well better go easy on whatever he’d have to say about my kids’ Aunt Nikki.” He squeezed her hand, and for a moment she returned the pressure.

“I abused him frightfully, Jim. I’m sorry as hell, but I did it. And he’s your friend and … I feel horrible, just horrible. Don’t, please don’t have any friction with your friend over me. I don’t deserve your defense and protection.”

“Deserve it or not, you’ve got it. Ah ain’t no Virginian born-and-bred, but mah womenfolks is mah womenfolks, right or wrong.”

“You’re a good man, Jim; you really are.”

“I’ve never doubted it.”

Afterward they chatted casually and companionably till they arrived at Nikki’s house. Jim followed her in and they took the elevator to her floor. Nikki was about to unlock her apartment when Jim reached over and took the keys.

“Me being the man of the family,” he said casually.

She fell instantly into her role. “I don’t know what I was thinking of,” she said, stepping aside. She followed him in, wanting to squeal with pleasure. She couldn’t contain herself, and the moment the door was shut she gave him a hug.

“That was the nicest touch! Now,” she said, brightly, stepping away, “I’ll fix you a drink. Then I want you to look the place over and tell me if it’s all right.”

Some few minutes later, in the living room, he sipped his drink, dragged at his cigarette, and nodded. “It’s an excellent building, and central to everything. The arrangement of the rooms is good. I think you have fine taste in your furnishings.”

“That makes it official.”

“I don’t mean to sound so authoritative about it.”

“I like that manly tone about you. It
does
make it official. Now I feel very, very good about the place.” She walked around, looking proudly at the room. “Your being here and approving of everything sort of neutralizes the bad memory of how I was with your friend last night. I get a confidence from you that I can start fresh and clean and make everything right.”

“Nikki, I know you can.”

“Will you step in for me and let John know I want another chance?”

“If you want him, I’ll get John Barket back for you.”

“I do. I want another chance, if he’ll give it to me.”

“He will,” Jim said flatly. He cut her off as she started to thank him. “I owe you something, Nikki. It’s something that’s chewed me a long time.” He drank off half his highball. “Dolores and I were on our honeymoon, and we didn’t hear for a month about your folks being killed. Dolores phoned you in Virginia and she wanted to run right down to you or have you come to her, but I was standing right there warning her I wouldn’t stand for it.”

He shook his head. “That sounds cold as hell on my part, considering the state you must’ve been in, but that’s what I did. You see, I was possessive as hell; I just couldn’t get enough of her or share her for a minute if I could help it. Looking back, I feel ashamed. I gave her a bad time about it, too, and for all I know it injured you deeply. So, Nikki, things have to come out right for you, and I’ve
got
to help because I’m such a yellow bastard I couldn’t stand the guilt I’d feel if they didn’t.” He looked at her in distress, and she stepped over to him and put her hand on his face.

“Jim, don’t abuse yourself,” she said tenderly. “I was just loaded with cousins and aunts and uncles, and I didn’t need anybody else. I wouldn’t have
let
her come. But I want you to know I think it took a first-rate man to tell me what you just did.”

He put his hand on hers and turned his face under her hand and kissed her palm. The scrape of his beard and the intimacy of his lips moving against her hand started a racing, thrilling sensation along her arm and shoulders. She found herself tightening her pectoral muscles with a sudden convulsion as the tingling heat threatened to overrun her sensitive breasts. When he lifted his face and gazed down at her, she had her teeth clenched and she was staring glassily at him.