Now and Forever (45 page)

She opened the door and turned on some lights, and he lit the candles as she poured cognac into two handsome snifters.

"Is cognac all right?"

"Perfect. And so is the view. This is quite a house." But he wasn't surprised. He had expected something like this. "And what a beautiful woman you are ... taste ... style ... elegance ... beauty ... intelligence ... a woman of a thousand virtues."

"And a fat head, if you don't stop soon." She handed him the snifter of cognac and sat down in her favorite chair. "It's a nice view from here."

"It is. I'll be looking for something like this in a few weeks."

"Will you?" She couldn't resist a burst of laughter. "Or did you make up that story about moving to San Francisco too?"

He smiled boyishly. "No, that was true. Are houses like this hard to find?"

"You mean you want to buy?" She had assumed that he would rent.

"That depends." He looked into her eyes and then into his cognac while she watched him.

"Maybe I'll rent you this place for the summer." She was teasing, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Are you serious?"

"No." Her eyes grew sad as she looked into the candle and spoke. "You wouldn't be happy here, Geoffrey." And she didn't want him in "their" house. It would have made her uncomfortable.

"Are you happy here, Jessica?"

"I don't think of it that way." She looked back into his eyes, and he was surprised at the pain he saw lurking there. It made her seem suddenly years older. "To me, it's just a house now. A roof, a clump of rooms, an address. The rest is gone."

"Then you should move out. Maybe we'll find a ... I'll find ... a larger place. Would you consider selling this?"

"No, just renting. It's not mine to sell."

"I see." He took another sip of his cognac and then smiled at her again. "I should be going soon, Jessica, or you'll be terribly tired tomorrow. Are you busy for breakfast?"

"Not usually." She laughed at the thought.

"Good. Then why don't we have breakfast somewhere amusing before I fly back to L.A. I can pick you up in a cab." She loved the idea of breakfast with him. She would have preferred to cook it for him and sit naked at the kitchen table with him, or juggle strawberries and fresh cream on a tray in bed. But she almost wondered if one did that sort of thing with Geoffrey. He looked as if he might wear a dressing gown and silk pajamas. But there was a definite sensuality about him too.

"What do you eat for breakfast?" It was a crazy question, but she wanted to know. It suddenly mattered to her. Everything did.

"What do I eat?" He seemed amused. "Generally something light. Poached eggs, rye toast, tea."

"That's all? Not even bacon? No waffles? No French toast? No papaya? Just poached eggs and rye toast? Yerghk." He roared with laughter at her reaction and began to enjoy the game.

"And what do you eat for breakfast that's so much more exotic, my love?"

"Peanut butter and apricot jam on English muffins. Or cream cheese and guava jelly on bagels. Orange juice, bacon, omelettes, apple butter, banana fritters ..." She let her imagination run wild.

"Every day?"

"Absolutely." She tried to look solemn but had a hard time.

"I don't believe you."

"Well, you're right ... about most of it. But the peanut butter and cream cheese part was true. Do you like peanut butter?"

"Hardly. It tastes like wet cement."

"Have you eaten a lot of that?" She looked across at him with interest.

"What?"

"Wet cement."

"Certainly. Marvelous on thin wheat toast. Now, are you serious about joining me for breakfast tomorrow? I'm sure we can get you some peanut butter on croissants. Will that do?"

"Perfect" She was starting to be Jessie now, and it amused him. He liked everything about her. She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up in her chair. "Geoffrey --" she tried to sound solemn--"do you read comic books?"

"Constantly. Particularly Superman."

"What? No Batman comic books?"

"Oh yes, of course, but Superman has always been my favorite." He stopped playing for a minute then and looked into his glass. "Jessica ... I like you. I like you very much." He surprised her with the directness of his words, and she was touched by the way he said them. His style was an odd mixture of formality and warmth. She hadn't thought the combination was possible, but apparently it was.

"I like you too."

They sat across from each other and he made no move to approach her. He didn't want to rush her. She was a woman you got close to gradually, after much thought.

"You haven't said much about it, nothing in fact, but I somehow have the feeling that you've suffered a lot. A very great deal, even."

"What makes you think that?"

"The things you don't say. The times you back off. The wall you run behind now and then. I won't hurt you, Jessica. I promise I'll try very hard not to."

She didn't say anything, but only looked at him and wondered how often promises turned to lies. But she wanted him to prove her wrong, and he wanted to try.

"Well, how was your evening?" Astrid was already at the shop when Jessie got there the next day. Jessie wasn't getting in as early anymore. She didn't have to. Or want to.

"Delightful." She beamed, even more enchanted with their breakfast at the Top of the Mark that morning, but she didn't feel like telling Astrid about it. "Very, very nice." She looked cryptic and pleased with herself.

"I'd say he's 'very, very nice' too."

"Now, Mother. Don't push." The two women laughed, and Astrid held up a hand innocently in protest.

"Who needs to push? He sells himself all by himself. Are you in love with him, Jessie?" Astrid looked serious and so did Jessica.

"Honestly? No. But I like him. He's the nicest man I've met in a long time."

"Then maybe the rest will come later. Give him a chance." Jessica nodded and looked at the mail that was hers. She didn't like sharing the shop anymore. It was different now. And it was like prolonging the end. She wanted to say good-bye to Lady J and get out of town. This was just like one more divorce. And there was another letter from Ian with the rest of her mail. She took it and set it apart from the rest Astrid noticed, but she didn't say anything. This was the first time Jessie hadn't torn up one of his letters. She saw Astrid's look and shrugged as she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.

"You know, I keep thinking that maybe I should drop him a note and thank him for the car. Seems like the least I could do. Your mother and I talked about it last weekend."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing much." Which only meant that Jessie wasn't telling.

In the end, she threw out the letter he had sent her.

They met with the lawyers for the next two afternoons, and everything was settled. On Saturday morning, Jessie went to three real-estate agents and listed the house as a summer rental. But she wanted careful screening of the tenants; she was leaving all her furniture there. And Ian's studio would be locked. She felt she owed him that.

It was almost midnight on Sunday when she sat down to write him a note about the car. In the end, she jotted down five or six lines, telling him how pleased she had been, how lovely it was, and that he hadn't had to do that. She wanted to cancel the debt between them. He didn't owe her anything. But it took her almost four hours to compose the short note.

Five days later the house had been rented from the fifteenth of July till the first of September, and she was almost ready to leave town. She hoped to be gone in a week. Geoffrey wanted to come up and see her again, and even invited her down to L.A. for a weekend, but she was too busy. She had found leads to two houses and an apartment for him, but she was tied up with her own affairs. There didn't seem to be room for Geoffrey just then, and she wanted him to stay away until she had closed the house, given up the shop, put away the past. She wanted to come to him "clean" and new, if he would just give her the time. She had to do it that way. Be alone to sever the last cords by herself. It was harder this way, but he didn't belong in her life yet. She would see him in the country once she was settled.

She seldom went to the shop now, except to answer questions for Astrid. But now Astrid knew fairly well how everything worked, and Katsuko was a great help. She was staying on at Lady J. And Jessie just didn't want to be there anymore. Workmen were busy changing the sign, and cards were being sent to all their customers announcing the small change in the name. It still hurt, but Jessica told herself that all changes did, perhaps especially those for the better. She wouldn't regret it once she left town. But then what would she do? Yes, paint ... but for how long? She wasn't ready to become another Grandma Moses. But something would turn up ... something better. Geoffrey? Maybe he was the answer.

Jessica stopped in at the shop for the last time on a Friday afternoon. She was leaving two days later, on Sunday. She had put away all the small treasures she didn't want to share with her new tenants. And photographs of Ian. She had unearthed so much as she'd packed. Everything hurt now. It seemed as though every moment were filled with painful reminders of the past.

She slid the car into the driveway behind Astrid's car and walked quietly into the shop. It already looked different. Astrid had added a few things, and a lovely painting in what was now her office. It was all Astrid's now. And the money from the sale was all Jessie's. It was funny how little that meant to her now. Nine months before, seven months, six ... she would have begged for one-tenth of that money ... and now ... it didn't matter. The bills were paid, Ian was gone, and what did she need? Nothing. She didn't know what to do with the money, and she didn't really care. It hadn't dawned on her yet that she had made a great deal of money selling the shop. Later she would be pleased, but not yet. And she still felt as though she had sold her only child. To a good friend, but still ... she had abandoned the only thing she had ever nurtured and helped to grow.

"Mail for you, madam." Astrid handed it to her with a smile. She looked happy these days, and even younger than she had when Jessie had met her. It was difficult to believe that she had just had a birthday and turned forty-three. And in July, Jessie would be thirty-two. Time was moving. Quickly.

"Thanks." Jessie slid the letters into a pocket. She could look at them later. "Well, I'm all packed and ready to go."

"And already homesick." Astrid had guessed. She took her out to lunch and they drank too much white wine, but Jessie felt better. It helped. She went home in a much better mood.

She opened the windows and sat in a patch of sunlight on the floor, looking around the living room she had sat in so often with Ian. She could see him sprawled out on the couch, listening to her talk about the shop, or telling her about something brilliant he'd said in a new chapter. That was what was missing--that excitement of sharing the things they loved doing. Of laughing and being two kids on a warm sunny day, or a cold winter afternoon while he lit the fire. A man like Geoffrey would spoil her, and take her to the best restaurants and hotels all over the world, but he wouldn't take a splinter out of her heel, or scratch her back just right where it itched ... he wouldn't burp over a beer watching a horror movie in bed, or look like a boy when he woke up in the morning. He would look very handsome, and smell of the cologne he had worn to dinner that time ... and he hadn't been there when Jake had died ... or her parents ... but Ian had. You couldn't replace that. Maybe you shouldn't even try.

She wondered as she stared out at the bay, and remembered the letters Astrid had handed her before lunch. She went back to them now, digging into her jacket pocket ... she hoped ... she didn't ... and she did ... and there was ... a letter from Ian. Her eyes swept quickly across the lines. He had gotten her note about the car.

... I write these to myself now, wondering only for a moment if you read them. And then suddenly, a few quick nervous lines from you, but you kept the car. That's all that mattered. I wanted you to have that more than you can know, Jess. Thanks for keeping it.

I assume that you don't open my letters ... I know you. Rip, snap, gone.

She smiled at the image. And he was, of course, right.

But I seem to need to write them anyway, like whistling in the dark, or talking to myself. Who do you talk to now, Jessie? Who holds your hand? Who makes you laugh? Or holds you when you cry? You look such a mess when you cry, and God, how I miss that. I imagine you now, driving the new Morgan, and that note the other day ... it sounded like something you'd write to your grandmother's best friend. "Thank you, dear Mr. Clarke, for the perfectly lovely car. I needed one just that color to go with my best skirt and my favorite gloves and hat." Darling, I love you. I only hope that you'll be happier now. With whomever, whenever. You have a right to that And I know you must need someone. Or do you have a right to that? My heart aches so at the thought, yet I can't see myself stamping my feet and raising hell. How could I possibly say anything after all this? Nothing except good luck ... and I love you.

It does make me sad that now that the book has sold, and I have sat back and taken a look at my life, you're not here to enjoy the changes. I've grown up here. It's a tough school to learn in, but I've learned a lot about you, and myself. It isn't enough just to make money, Jessie. And I don't give a damn who pays the bills. I want to pay them, but I don't think I'd get an ulcer anymore every time you signed a check. Life is so much fuller and simpler than that, or it can be. In an odd way, my life is full now, yet so empty without you. Darling, impossible Jessie, I still love you. Go away, leave my mind, let me go in peace, or come back. Oh God, how I wish you'd do that. But you won't. I understand. I'm not angry. I only wonder if it would have been different if I hadn't walked out that day, leaving you there with the phone in your hand. I still see your face on that day ... but no, it's not all because of that one stinking day. We're both paying for old, old sins now--because I still believe that we are both suffering this loss. Or are you free of it now? Maybe you don't care anymore. I can't tell you the empty feeling that gives me, but that's what will happen in time, I suppose. Neither of us will give a damn. Not some-thing I look forward to. A lot of good years "from dust to dust." Gone. And I still see you and see you and see you. I touch your hair and smile into your eyes. Perhaps you can feel that now--my smile into your eyes as you go your own way. Go in peace, Jessie dearest, and watch out for lizards and ants. They won't bite you, I promise, but the neighbors might call the cops when you scream. Just keep the hair spray handy, and take it easy on yourself. Always, Ian.