Possessions (23 page)

“About a year,” he said. “I just finished putting it together. You'll see it once we get out of here.”

She shivered. She felt small and light, cut off from familiar things, as if she had become one of the bits of confetti in the room. She danced with Derek and talked to his friends, but none of it seemed real. She did not feel drab and insecure as she had at the Peruvian exhibit, but each time she was thoroughly inspected by one of Derek's friends, she wasn't sure it was really Katherine Fraser inside the cashmere dress.

All evening, she felt Derek's closeness: his body guiding hers as they danced, his eyes watching her as she talked to others, his hand holding her arm when they walked across the room. “On a business trip,” she said again and again in answer to questions, and she thought of Craig as she lied about him, as she moved smoothly with Derek to the music, as she said “Yes, of course,” when Derek told her it was time to go.

At the cloak room, a huge man, triple-chinned and balding, with dimples and curly gray sideburns, greeted Derek. “I'm told this is Katherine Fraser,” he said, and held out his hand. “Herman Mettler. I understand you're a jewelry designer.”

Katherine saw in her mind a store she visited every chance she had, dreaming of her own jewelry in its mahogany-and-glass cases. “Mettler's,” she breathed.

“The very one.” His voice rumbled like a bass fiddle beneath the high notes of the party. “You're new in town? Looking for a store?”

“Yes, but how—?”

“One of my designers mentioned it. We're always looking for new work; it's possible we could find you a small space. Depending, of course, on what you have.”

“Of course.”

“Well, bring me your samples. A good selection; I don't make decisions on a handful and a promise. Make an appointment with my secretary; week after next. Derek, good to see you; hope you're well. Give my regards to Angela; lovely young woman. Mrs. Fraser, I'll see you soon, I suppose.” And he was gone.

Dazed, Katherine put on the jacket Derek held. She thought of Craig again. What would he say if Mettler took her jewelry? Would he still call it her little hobby?

“Katherine,” Derek said as they rode the elevator to the lobby.

“What? I'm sorry; I was thinking—”

“Don't put too much faith in Mettler. He's not always reliable.”

“He didn't make any promises,” she said. “So why would I put any faith in him?”

“You were building castles, little one, and you know it. Just remember what I said.”

“I will. Who is Angela?”

“An ex-wife.”

“Whose?”

“Mine. Herman is a little slow; we've been divorced for six months.”

“He thought you were married? And at the party with me?”

Derek was silent. “Let me tell you about my apartment,” he said at last. “One of Hayward Corporation's finest.”

He described it as they drove: part of a complex of buildings, some still under construction, at the base of Telegraph Hill on Lombard Street, behind the restored warehouses and new buildings of Levi Plaza. When his company was given the contract,
Derek bought the top floor for himself, working with the architect to make one huge apartment instead of the two in the original plans. “Of course it's big enough for a tribal rain dance,” he said as he led Katherine on a quick tour of the rooms, stopping in the kitchen to take a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. “But it has its nooks. For instance—”

He took her to a room enclosed on three sides with glass jalousies, furnished with tufted red velvet couches and armchairs, oriental rugs on a parquet floor, and brass lamps with fringed shades. It was an 1890s parlor—formal and overstuffed—but Derek had made it a joke by putting it in a starkly modern building. “Angela said it was decorated in early brothel,” he said. “But she was only hoping.”

“Why did you get a divorce?” Katherine asked. Her head was against the back of the couch, the light from a fringed lamp flickering through the bubbles in her glass. Derek had had three divorces, according to Claude. I've been married almost eleven years, she thought; and divorce never occurred to me.

“We were mistaken about each other,” Derek answered. “What else ends a marriage? Angela thought she could reform me and I thought she was the only woman who didn't want anything from me. We were both wrong. She's very much like Norma: generous, impulsive, and a child. But you, my sweet Katherine, have become very much a woman.”

He barely seemed to move, but his face was above hers, blocking the lighted lamp. He put her glass on the table and brushed her lips lightly with his. Then, sliding his arm beneath her shoulders, he kissed her with a demanding confidence that struck against her like a wave, pushing her back against the velvet couch.

Everything fell away. Her fears about Craig, her helpless rage at Lister, worries about the children, about money, about jewelry design, even the spark of jealousy she felt when Derek talked about women—all fell away. There was only Derek's body on hers, after months without anyone to hold her and make love to her. Katherine felt she was dissolving. His tongue against hers released all the longings she had held back for so long; her arms reached around him and her hips strained upward.

And then, through the roaring in her ears, she heard Craig's
voice. The words were muffled, but Katherine knew they were the same ones he had said the first time they made love, when they held each other, laughing and already making plans, because they had been so lonely and now had someone to love.

She pulled away from Derek and sat up, wanting him so much that tears filled her eyes. But as she stood and walked the length of the room, she was not sure whether she was crying for him or for Craig. She kept her back to Derek until she could stop her tears. Then she turned around.

He was watching her, the bones of his face sharply shadowed in the light from the fringed lamp. “I gather my cousin joined us,” he said ironically.

His cousin. It had been weeks since she thought of Craig and Derek as cousins. No two men could be more different.

Derek refilled their glasses. “Sit down and drink this. He can't see us, you know, and even if he could, you are allowed champagne every other Friday night, or rather Saturday morning, at precisely one fifteen
A.M.
”

She gave a small laugh and came back to the couch. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize. You do too much of that. Has it occurred to you that he's not worth your fidelity?”

“No. That doesn't help, Derek. It's hard enough knowing how to behave without making up excuses. I don't know what happened to Craig, but he's my husband and I'd rather believe he is worth my fidelity.”

He drained his glass and slowly refilled it. “Would you like to hear what happened the last time we sailed together, fifteen years ago?”

“Didn't Claude tell me? Last June?”

“The official version. He wasn't on the boat. I was.”

“But you let him tell it.”

“I always let Claude tell official stories. Do you want to hear mine?”

“You mean it's different from his. About Craig.”

“All of us.” He looked at her, waiting.

“Of course I want to hear it.” Katherine spoke slowly, still shaking from the heat of her body and the memory of Craig's voice. Derek seemed untouched: cool and remote. “I've always wanted the truth,” she said.

“The truth.” He smiled faintly, then settled back on the
couch. “We were sailing home across the bay,” he began. His speech was flat, almost a monotone. “We'd been at a party in Sausalito, very dull, and when we left, Craig decided to sail home the long way, out past the Golden Gate Bridge and then in again, to the harbor. Since he'd appointed himself captain, there was no arguing; we went the long way. But when I told him I was in a hurry, he made a concession and put up the spinnaker; the wind was up and it gave us good speed.

“But then he changed his mind; he got worried about the currents and told us to put on lifejackets—Ross was in the cabin and Jennifer took one down to him—and then said we'd have to take down the spinnaker. I said I wanted it up and we argued about it. ‘Too much sail,' he said. ‘A strong wind could rip it to shreds.' Ross and Jennifer came up from the cabin in the middle of our mutual insults—got drenched by spray, I remember, because by then the boat was heeling and we were going at a good clip and water was breaking over the cockpit. It was the right way to sail—top speed and a roaring wind, spray flying, and waves slapping the boat—and I put my arm around Jennifer and said we liked living dangerously and no one was worried but the captain.

“Of course he couldn't take it: the boat was his turf; the only place he could feel superior to me. Besides, he was crazy about his sister—guarded her like a mother hen. He gripped the wheel and yelled at me to let go of Jennifer; he looked so wild that Ross stepped in, to distract him, and said
he'd
take down the spinnaker.

“Craig hardly heard him; he was so busy yelling—he told me if I didn't like the way he captained the ship, I could swim to shore, if I had the guts to try it in that water. Only an ass would have gone in willingly, but he made it a challenge to manhood, or some such thing, and I told him to shut up and get us home.

“Craig was twenty-two that summer, and I was twenty-one—a couple of kids who happened to be related but didn't like each other. We never needed an excuse to think up insults and that day was no different, except Jennifer was there. She always tried to calm Craig down, especially when he was attacking me, but she didn't have any luck that day, and she was probably frightened, too—the wind was so loud we had to shout; we were soaking wet; and Craig seemed to have trouble
controlling the boat and his own temper. Jennifer started to cry and Craig went into a rage, blaming me for her tears, calling me a string of names he'd never used before—looking at Jennifer to make sure she heard—and then he began raving about the way I was managing a building we were constructing that summer, the Macklin Building. Craig spent a lot of time trying to convince the family he knew more than I did, making me out to be incompetent or crooked, or both. But that day he should have known better. He was having enough trouble keeping the boat under control but he had to try to impress his sister. When he sent Ross forward to take down the spinnaker, I went over to try to calm him down, but he'd worked himself up to such a pitch he thought I was telling him what to do, and he let out a roar and jumped me.

“Then everything happened at once. He'd left the wheel to get his hands on my throat and just as Jennifer was pulling on his arm, crying for him to stop, the boat changed direction—crossed the wind instead of going with it—because there was no one to hold it on course. The boom swung across and struck Jennifer on the side of the head. I barely saw it—I was trying to get out of Craig's grip—but I heard the thud and a second later I saw her tumble over the side.

“Craig screamed and dropped me. He lunged for the life preserver and marker pole and threw them into the water, yelling to Jennifer to grab hold, to fight. We were moving away from her, very fast, and the next minute Craig dove over the side, screaming her name. Ross was at the bow, taking down the spinnaker, and I grabbed the wheel, but I wasn't an experienced sailor and it took me almost ten minutes to get the boat turned around. Ross didn't know any more about sailing than I did—since then he's become an expert—so he stood at the side, calling Craig and Jennifer, trying to see them. It was getting dark.

“I headed for the light on the marker pole Craig had thrown in, and we finally saw the life preserver. Jennifer was propped in it, like a doll, staring at us. But she wasn't alive; I suppose we knew that long before we got to her. Ross started to retch, and then cry, and I told him to pull himself together and start calling Craig again; he had to be nearby.

“Ross called until he was hoarse, in between whimpering, ‘My God, my God, both of them—' until I had to slap him to
get him to pay attention. I told him to hold the boat and I went over the side and tied a rope around Jennifer and together we got her into the cockpit. I couldn't find a pulse.

“Ross called the Coast Guard. By then it was dark and while we waited for them, we got a searchlight from the cabin and swept the water with it, looking for Craig. But of course there was no sign of him. He was gone.”

In the abrupt silence, Katherine sat shivering, so chilled by Derek's cold telling of the story her bones felt brittle. He had not moved; he had not raised his voice. His face had not changed. He might have been recounting a story about strangers. She clasped her hands, to keep them still. “Where was Craig while you were looking for him?”

Derek shrugged. “As Claude said, we assume he swam to shore. There were no other boats in the area and we weren't far from Lime Point. He was very strong and he could have made it. Obviously he did.”

“Lime Point?” Katherine was trying to place the name.

“A small spit of land just below the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. There's a lighthouse on it.”

Todd walking toward a beach, and a lighthouse. “Can we go look, Mom?” “Not today; we're meeting the realtor, remember? We'll come back.” “Lime Point,” the fisherman said. “Great place. Out at the end, you feel like you're all alone in the middle of the water.”

Katherine shivered. “Champagne,” Derek said, filling her glass and handing it to her.

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded distant in her ears. “Why did Jennifer drown, if she was wearing a lifejacket?”

“She wasn't. For some reason she didn't put it on when Craig told her to. But she probably didn't drown. We found later that when the boom struck her one of the cleats pierced her skull. It's likely she was dead before Craig got to her. My grandmother was vehement about not having an autopsy, and she pulled strings to prevent one. It didn't matter to the family; with both of them gone in one day, no one thought of anything but mourning.”