Passion's Promise (17 page)

"Maybe. I don't know. I've never felt I had the choice."

"That's where you're wrong. You always have a choice. About anything you do. Maybe you don't want a choice. Maybe you'd rather hide like a neurotic and live ten different screwed-up lives. It doesn't look worth a damn to me though, lady, I'll tell you that much."

"Maybe it isn't It doesn't look like much to me either right now. But what you don't understand is the matter of duty, obligation, tradition."

"Duty to whom? What about yourself, dammit? Didn't you ever think of that? Do you want to sit around alone here for the rest of your life, writing in secret, and then going out to those asinine parties with that faggoty asshole?" He stopped suddenly and she frowned.

"What faggoty asshole?"

"The one I saw you with in the paper."

"You mean you knew?"

He eyed her squarely and nodded. "I knew."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her eyes blazed for a moment. She had let him so far into the inner sanctum of her lif e, a traitor already?

"How could I tell you? 'Hey, lady, before you do the next interview I'd like to tell you that I know your real name because I read about you in the paper'? So what? And I figured that you'd tell me when you were ready to, or maybe never. But if I slapped you in the face with it, you'd have run like the devil and I didn't want that."

"Why? Afraid I might not write the article? Don't worry, they'd have sent someone else out to do it. You wouldn't have lost your story." She almost sneered at him, and he grabbed her arm so suddenly it stunned her.

"No, but I might have lost you."

She waited a long moment before speaking, and he still held her arm. "Would it have mattered?"

"Very much. And what you have to decide now is whether or not you want to live lies for the rest of your days. Seems like a bummer to me ... terrified about who's going to see you when and where and with whom and doing what. Who gives a shit? Let them see you! Show them who you really are, or don't you even know, Kezia? I think that's the crux of it. Maybe K. S. Miller is as big a phony as Martin Hallam or Kezia Saint Martin."

"Oh to hell with you, dammitl" she shouted, wresting her arm free. "It's so goddamn easy for you to sit there and make speeches. You have absolutely nothing to lose. No one expects a damn thing of you, so how can you know what it's like? You can do anything you bloody well please."

"Really?" His voice was quiet again and the texture of satin. "Well, let me tell you something, Miss Saint Martin. I know about duty one hell of a lot more than you do. Only mine isn't to a bunch of upper-class mummies. My duty is to real people, guys I served my time with who have no one to speak out for them, no families to hire lawyers or remember them or give a damn. I know who they are, I remember them, sitting on their ass waiting for freedom, locked up in the hole, forgotten after years in the joint, some of them for as long as you've been alive, Kezia. And if I don't have the fucking balls to go out and do something for them, then maybe no one else will. They're my 'duty.' But at least they're real, and I guess I'm lucky, because I care about them. I don't just do it because I have to, or because I'm scared not to. I do it because I want to. I gamble my own ass for theirs, because every time I shoot my mouth off, I run the risk of winding up right back in there with them. So tell me about duty, and having something to lose. But I'll tell you one more thing before you do. And that's that if I didn't give a shit about them, if I didn't like them, or even love them, I'd say 'Goodbye, Charlie' and tell them all to go fuck themselves. I'd get married again, have a bunch of kids, and go live in the country.

"Kezia, if you don't believe in the life you're leading, don't live it. It's as simple as that. Because the price you're trying to avoid paying, you're going to wind up paying anyway. You're going to wind up fucking hating yourself for wasting the years and playing games you should have outgrown years ago. If you dug that life, that would be fine. But you don't, so what are you still doing there?"

"I don't really know. Except I don't think I'm as ballsy as you are."

"You're as ballsy as you want to be. That's bullshit You're just waiting for an easy way out. A petition that gives you your freedom, a man to come and take you by the hand and lead you away. Well, maybe it'll happen like that, but it probably won't. You'll probably have to do it all yourself, just like everyone else."

She was silent in answer, and he found himself wanting to hold her. He had given her a lot to swallow in one dose, but he couldn't help himself. Now that she had opened the doors, he had to tell her what he saw. For both their sakes. But mainly for hers.

"I didn't mean to trample all over you, babe."

"It needed to be said."

"You could probably level some things at me that need

to be said too. I see what you're going through, and you're right in a sense, it is a lot easier for me. I have an army of people waiting in the wings all the time to tell me how terrific I am. Not the parole board, mind you, but people, friends. That makes a big difference, it makes it kind of an ego trip. What you're trying to do is a lot harder. Causes carry a lot of glory, breaking away from home never does . . . until later. Much later. But you'll get there. You're already more than halfway there, you just don't know it yet."

"You think so?"

"I know so. You'll make it. But we all know it's a rough road." As he watched her, he was once again stunned by all that he'd heard. The secrets from the depths of her soul, the confessions about her family and the insane theories about tradition and treason. It was all more than a little new to him, but intriguing nonetheless. She was the product of a strange and different world, yet a hybrid in her own way. "Where do you think that road to freedom is going to take you, by the way—to SoHo?" He wanted to know, but she laughed at him.

"Don't be ridiculous. I have a pleasant time down there, but that's not the real thing. Even I know that. It just helps get me through the rest of the bullshit. You know, the only thing that isn't bullshit is K. S.

Miller."

"That's a byline, not a human being. You're the human being, Kezia. I think that's what you forget.

Maybe on purpose."

"Maybe I've had to. Just look at my life, Luke. It's nowhere, and the games are getting harder and harder to play. It's all one big long game. The game of the parties, the committees, the balls and the bullshit, the game of 'artist's old lady in SoHo,' the game of the gossip column. It's all a game. And I'm tired of living in a world that's so limited it can only bring itself to include about eight hundred people. And I don't fit in a scene like SoHo."

"Why? Not your class?"

"No. Just not my world."

"Then stop poaching on other people's worlds. Make your own. A crazy one, a good one, a bad one, whatever you want, just make it one that suits you, for a change. You make the rules. Be quiet about it if you think you have to, but at least try to respect your own trip. Don't sell out, Kezia. You're too smart for that. I think you realize yourself that you've gotten to a point where you're going to have to make some choices."

"I know that. I think that's why I had the courage to invite you here. I had to. You're a good man, I respect you. I couldn't insult you with more lies and evasions. I couldn't insult myself like that. Not again. It's a question of trust."

"I'm honored." She looked up to see if he was making fun of her, and was touched when she saw that he wasn't "And that makes four," he announced.

"Four what?"

"You said there were five of you. You've just covered four. The hen-ess, the writer, the gossip columnist, and the tourist in SoHo. Who's number five? I'm beginning to like this." He smiled easily again, and stretched out his legs.

"So am I. And I am not a gossip columnist, by the way. It's a 'Society Editorial.'" She grinned primly.

"Forgive me, Mr. Hallam."

"Indeed. The fifth me is your doing. 'Kate.' I've never told all this to anyone before. I think this marks the beginning of a new me."

"Or the end of all the old ones. Don't just tack another role onto the list, another game. Do it straight."

"I am." There was tenderness in her eyes as she watched him.

"I know you are, Kezia. And I'm glad. For both of us. No . . . for you."

"You've given me a kind of freedom tonight, Luke. That's a very special thing."

"It is, but you're wrong about my giving it to you. I told you before that no one can take your freedom from you ... and no one can give it back either. You manage that one all by yourself. Keep it safe." He leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head and then moved to whisper in her ear. "Which way's your John?"

She laughed as she looked up into his face. He was such a beautiful man.

"The John's down the hall to your left You can't miss it, it's pink."

"I'd be disappointed if it weren't" His laugh was a slow rumble as he disappeared down the hall, and she went back to the kitchen to see about their coffee. Three hours had passed.

"Still want that coffee, Luke?" He was back and stretching lazily in the kitchen doorway.

"Could I trade it in for a beer?"

"Sure could."

'Terrific, and you can keep the glass clean, thanks. No class. No class at all. You know how it is with the peasants." He pulled the tab off the can and took a long swallow. "Man, that tastes good."

"It's been a long night. I'm sorry to have chewed your ear off like that, Luke."

"No, you're not, and neither am I." They smiled at each other again, and she sipped at a glass of white wine.

"I'll get you set up on the couch." He nodded and took a long swig of beer, as she stepped easily under the arm he had propped in the doorway.

She had the couch made up as a bed in a matter of moments.

"That ought to keep you till morning. Do you need anything else before I trot off to bed?"

What he needed would have shocked her. She was crisp and matter-of-fact again now. The lady of the house. The Honorable Kezia Saint Martin.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do need something before you 'trot off to bed.' I need a glimpse of the woman I sat here and talked to all night. You've got a poker up your ass again, my love. It's a lousy habit. I'm not going to hurt you, or rape you, or plunder your mind. I won't even blackmail you."

She looked surprised and a little hurt as she stood across the room. "I didn't feel you had plundered my mind. I wanted to talk to you, Lucas."

"So what's different now?"

"I just wasn't thinking."

"So you closed up."

"Habit, I guess."

"And I told you, a lousy one. Aren't we friends?"

She nodded at him, tears bright in her eyes again. It had been an emotional evening. "Of course we're friends."

"Good, because I think you're very special." He crossed the room in three long strides, and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, babe. Have a good sleep." She stood on tiptoe and returned the kiss to his cheek. "Thanks, and you too, Lucas. Sleep tight"

He could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the darkened house, and there was no sound from her room. He had only been lying there for about ten minutes, and he was too keyed up to sleep. It felt as though they had talked for days, and he had been so afraid of frightening her away, of doing something to make her close the door again. That was why he was lying on the couch, and had settled for a kiss on the cheek. She was not a woman you could rush at—not unless you wanted to lose her before you began.

But they had come a long way in one night. He was con* tent merely with that. He ran over the hours of talking in his mind ... the expressions on her face . . . the words ... the tears ... the way she reached out for his hand. . . .

"Luke? Are you sleeping?" He had been so intent on his thoughts that he hadn't heard her bare feet pad across the carpeted floor.

"No. I'm awake." He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her. She was wearing a soft pink nightgown and her hair fell loose past her shoulders. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, I can't sleep."

"Neither can I."

She smiled and sat down on the floor near the couch. He didn't know what to make of her reappearance. She was not always easy to read. Luke lit a cigarette and handed it to her. She took it, inhaled, and returned it.

"You did a nice thing for me tonight, Lucas."

"What's that?" He was lying down again, gazing up at the ceiling.

"You let me talk out a lot of things that have been bothering me for years. I needed that so badly."

And that wasn't all she needed, but the idea of dealing with that almost frightened him. He didn't want to screw up her life; she had enough on her hands.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"What was your wife like?" There was a long silence and she began to regret having asked him.

"Pretty, young, crazy, like me in those days . . . and afraid. She was afraid to go it alone. I don't know, Kezia . . . she was a nice girl, I loved her . . . but it seems like a long time ago. I was different then. We did things, we never said things. It got all fucked up when I went to the joint. You have to be able to talk when something like that happens, and she couldn't. She couldn't even talk when our little girl was killed.

I think that's what killed her. It all knotted up inside her till she strangled on it and died. In a way she was dead before she committed suicide. Maybe like your mother."

Kezia nodded, watching his face. He wore a faraway look, but his voice showed no emotion other than respect for the passing of time.

"What made you ask?"

"Curious, I guess. We talked a lot about me tonight."

"We talked a lot about me yesterday in the interview. I'd say we're even. Why don't you try and get some sleep?"

She nodded and he stubbed out the cigarette they had shared, as she stood up.

"Good night, Luke."

'"Night, babe. See you tomorrow."

"Today."

He grinned at her correction, and then swatted one long paw lazily in the direction of her bottom.