One Good Turn (23 page)

“Yes.” She concentrated on the soothing pattern his thumb was sketching on her skin. “I keep trying to convince myself that it’s just like any other violent crime. Someone hurts you, and if you’re lucky you recover and get on with your life. But it’s not a crime like any other, Luke. It hurts you in places that never heal.”

He squeezed her hand. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“No, I do,” she insisted. “I owe you—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he argued.

“I do. I’ve lied to you, Luke.” The words spilled out in a rush. She would never be able to discuss this with Luke again, so she had to say it all now, right away, before she lost her nerve. “I lied about the crime—”

“Not really.”

“And I lied about your letters. I got all of them.”

His thumb stilled. Even without looking at him she could feel his eyes on her, first quizzical, then wounded, crystallizing into coldness. She didn’t have to see him to know how icy they’d become.

“I thought...” She sighed tremulously. “I thought I was doing you a favor by clearing out of your life. I wanted you to find a woman who was healthy and whole, who could love you in every way. I couldn’t, not after...” She drifted off a minute, loathing the quiver in her voice but unable to stifle it. “I couldn’t. I loved you enough to want something better for you.”

“Christ.” Though whispered, the word carried anguish and anger. “What made you think I wouldn’t want you?”

“Think?” She let out a caustic chuckle. “One thing I wasn’t doing much of was thinking.”

“But afterwards—I mean, after you got better.”

“I’m still not better,” she snapped. “I’ll never be better, don’t you see? Some things haven’t healed.”

He scrutinized her. She had neglected to turn on the light, and as the sun drifted westward it threw shadows over the table. She wondered whether the darkness in his face was a result of dusk or his own confusion. Both, probably.

She had to tell him. If she wanted catharsis, she had to testify. No more lies. The whole truth and nothing but. “I love you, Luke,” she confessed, her voice low and rich with emotion. “I did then, and I do now. I love you.”

“Jenny—”

“But we can never have a relationship, not a complete one. I can’t...I can’t have sex anymore. I hate it. It hurts. I’ve tried, Luke—I’ve gone through therapy and I’ve dated a few men. I’ve tried. And it—” she closed her eyes, afraid of how he might react “—it disgusts me. I can’t help it. It disgusts me.”

His thumb came to life again, moving slowly, consolingly over the pulse point in her wrist. “You’re on the pill,” he observed.

She wasn’t sure how he knew that, but she saw no need to deny it. “Yes. In case I get raped again.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “Going through it was wretched enough—but then, afterwards, I had to face the possibility of a pregnancy. I went crazy, Luke. I demanded an abortion. I demanded a hysterectomy. It turned out I wasn’t pregnant. But the fear that I might have been... For a while I was on tranquillizers, and then I went on the pill. If it ever happens again I’ve protected myself. I’ve learned judo and I take my pill every day.”

The shadows lengthened until they shrouded the entire dining area. Luke remained silent, stroking her wrist. Several minutes elapsed, and then he rose from his chair and eased her out of hers. He guided her into the living room, onto the couch. Sitting next to her, he arched his arm around her.

She tucked her legs beneath her and nestled against him, her body folded in on itself. His chest formed solid cushion for her head and his arm sheltered her. She wanted him to protect her. She wanted him to carry her back in time, to make all the pain go away.

She wanted the impossible.

“He was a classmate?”

She nodded.

“Smith is an all-women school.”

“I was taking a class at UMass,” she told him. “It was an advanced seminar in educational philosophy at the School of Ed. There’s a five-college exchange program where Smith students can take courses at other colleges in the area, and I signed up for this course at UMass.”

“And you were dating the guy?”

“Dating him? No. I was in love with you.”

His fingers drew soothing circles against her upper arm. She snuggled closer to him. He wasn’t making the pain go away, but somehow, when she curled up within the curve of his arm and absorbed his strength and stability, the pain seemed easier to bear.

“He wanted to date me, though,” she continued, resting her head against the soft white cotton of his shirt. “He asked me out dozens of times. He wouldn’t give up, even when I told him I was in love with someone else.” She sighed. She knew she was inhaling Luke’s bracing male scent, the spicy aromas of their uneaten dinner, the clean fragrance of her apartment, but her nostrils filled with the odors of pine needles and decomposing leaves, one smell tangy and one musty. A shiver ran down her spine.

Apparently Luke sensed her sudden discomfort. “If it hurts too much to talk about—”

“I want to talk about it,” she insisted. “Unless you don’t want to hear.”

“I want to,” he assured her, touching his lips to the soft red wisps of hair at the crown of her head. “Whatever you want to tell me, I want to know.”

“His name was Adam Hastings. He was brilliant but very disorganized. He was clinically bi-polar—at least that’s how his lawyer plea-bargained it.”

“There was never a trial?”

“No. He had himself voluntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and everyone told me I was fortunate not to have to go through the agony of a court trial.”

“Is he still hospitalized?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know.” She swallowed. “He never seemed particularly unbalanced to me. We were friends. He was awfully persistent about trying to get me to go out with him, but he was a good person—I thought. I was so stupid...”

“No, Jenny.” Luke grazed the crown of her head with his lips again. “You’re not stupid.”

“Not anymore. I was then. I trusted everyone. I thought that if you treated people with kindness they would be kind right back to you. I thought that no matter what they were like on the surface, everyone was blessed with inner goodness. It never occurred to me not to trust Adam. I didn’t know how not to trust.”

Luke sighed. His chest rose and fell against her cheek, and he pulled her closer to himself.

“It was a Wednesday in October,” she said, determined to tell Luke everything. “The Wednesday before you were supposed to visit. I was at UMass for the seminar, and afterwards Adam asked me for my help on a research assignment. I told him I didn’t think we were allowed to collaborate, and he begged me to help him anyway, and we argued long enough that I wound up missing the bus back to Smith. He offered to drive me back to campus. So I got into his car.” She smothered a reflexive groan of self-loathing. Her parents, her doctors and her therapists had all labored tirelessly to convince her she’d done nothing wrong in accepting a ride from a classmate, and most of the time she believed them. But every now and then, when she thought about how different her life might have been if only she’d refused his offer and waited for the next bus...

“He drove right past the campus,” she said, her voice cracking. Luke encouraged her with a hug. “He started hounding me about why I wouldn’t go out with him, and why wouldn’t I give him a chance, and he was so much better than whoever it was I was in love with. And—” she grimaced at her memory of how obtuse she’d been “—I
still
didn’t think I was in any trouble. I just thought he was a bit overwrought. I told him I’d be happy to talk it through with him for the sake of our friendship, but I wished he’d take me back to Smith first. And he kept driving. He kept driving...”

Her voice drifted off. The smell was growing so intense she almost gagged. Pine needles and rotting leaves, autumn decay. Twigs and rocks. She couldn’t go on.

She couldn’t stop.

“He took me to a park. It was getting late, and no one was around. He made me get out of the car and go into the woods with him, and all the time he kept saying he was going to make me love him. And then—” She was silenced by another wave of nausea.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Luke murmured.

The deep, smooth texture of his voice lulled her. She closed her eyes and cuddled impossibly closer to him, so close she was practically sitting in his lap. She
did
have to tell him. If she didn’t, if she stopped now, it would be another defeat. Adam Hastings would have triumphed again.

“He threw me on the ground and he raped me.” She sounded unnaturally calm, even to herself, but that was the only way she could force out the words. “I screamed, but no one was there to hear me, and I tried to push him away but he was much bigger than me. He just shoved down my jeans and climbed onto me and raped me, and he kept saying this was going to make me fall in love with him. And when he was done I started crying, and he said that if I didn’t love him it meant he must have done it wrong and he’d have to do it again. So he pulled the rest of my clothes off, and he tried to get me to make him hard again, and when I refused he hit me. And that seemed to excite him, so he kept on hitting me until he was aroused enough to rape me again.”

“Jenny...”

She realized that Luke’s arms had become as tense and rigid as steel, that his breath had grown harsh. Against her ear his heart drummed in a savage rage.

When he’d said she didn’t have to tell him, maybe what he’d meant was that he didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want to hear about how chilly and damp the ground was, how the rocks and twigs dug into her flesh, transforming her skin into a map of bruises and cuts, and how she screamed until her throat was too raw to make any sound at all, and how the nightmare went on and on, again and again, time after torturous time until the sun set completely and the air became frigid. And how, hours later, Adam closed his pants and kicked her in the ribs for good measure and said, “Well, if you didn’t like it there must be something wrong with you,” and sauntered off, leaving her alone in the night, naked and battered, surrounded by towering pines.

Maybe Luke didn’t want to hear. But she told him anyway. Just so he’d understand. Just so he’d know why she could never be his lover.

“I REALLY THINK
this is what we’re looking for,” Taylor was saying as he refilled their mugs with coffee. Morning sunlight streamed into the kitchen, burning Luke’s eyes. Even in a less glaring light, the documents Taylor had placed before him would have registered as a meaningless blur.

“The price is a little high, given the current market conditions,” Taylor continued as he removed a quart of milk from the refrigerator and brought it to the table. He poured some into his mug, stirred it, and scanned the documents. “There’s room to negotiate, though. And even at the asking price, I think it’s feasible. The profits have been outstanding; we’d be buying a business with a great reputation and a loyal clientele. Their menu is limited, but I can work on that. The chef’s creative and I think he’d like to expand and break out a little. The place has an ideal location, its off-season traffic isn’t bad, and I can pull off the financing.” He sipped his coffee and eyed Luke inquisitively. “So? Say something.”

“Why should I say something?” Luke asked. “I’m supposed to be the silent partner.”

“You’re planning to sink a big chunk of money into the deal. You’re entitled to an opinion.”

“My opinion,” Luke said, shutting the folder of documents and sliding it across the table to Taylor, “is that in the four years since you bought the Haven you’ve doubled profits and gotten rave reviews. I have faith in your judgment. If you say this place is a good investment, I’m not going to argue.”

Taylor scrutinized his friend thoughtfully. “What’s the matter? You look strung out.”

“I’m not strung out,” Luke said defensively. Hoping to discourage further questioning, he shielded himself with his mug and drank, even though the coffee was hot enough to scaled his tongue.

“Then what is it? You’re going through withdrawal because you’re missing a day of the trial?”

In truth, Luke had been very anxious to be in the courtroom today—not so much because it was the first day of defense testimony but because he didn’t want Jenny to think she’d frightened him off by what she’d told him yesterday. If she’d allowed him, he wouldn’t have even left her apartment last night. He would have spent the entire night holding her, cradling her, whispering words of comfort even though he knew such words were empty and useless, even though he acknowledged that, as pained as he was by what she’d told him, he could scarcely begin to imagine the pain she herself had suffered.

He would have stayed all night but she wouldn’t let him. She’d asked him to leave and he had—but only because he knew he’d see her again the next day, and the next, and the next. Now that she was back in his life, he had every intention of remaining firmly in hers.

When Taylor had accosted him early that morning before he’d left for Cambridge and implored him to stay home so they could discuss the investment toward which Taylor was leaning, Luke had reluctantly caved in. He could give his best friend this one day. But he’d telephoned Jenny’s office and left a message that he would definitely be there tomorrow.

He couldn’t bear the possibility that she would misinterpret his absence. He couldn’t bear to let her think he was deliberately keeping his distance. Last night she had cut her soul open and let its terrifying contents bleed onto him. As troubled as he was by what she’d said, her honesty had been the most profound expression of love.

All he wanted was to be with her. Courtrooms, trials, restaurants and investments were irrelevant. He wanted Jenny.

“Things were quiet at the Haven last night,” Taylor noted, selecting a banana from the fruit bowl at the center of the table and methodically peeling it. “I thought you’d be showing up for dinner. We could have talked about all this—” he indicated the folder “—then.”

“Yeah, well...I didn’t make it.”

“You had dinner in town?”

“I had dinner with Jenny,” Luke said, staring into his coffee.