Stony River (68 page)

“I don’t think so. He was on business for his company. Something about a part from a wrecking yard.”

Sevana pulled at the ends of her hair. “He’s always trying to keep the logging machinery running. Some of it’s so old they don’t even make parts for it anymore.” She gave a sigh. “I wish he’d looked me up. I would have liked so much to see him.”

“Really?” Willy was interested. “That’s not what he said. I asked if you knew he was here, and he said you wouldn’t want to see him. That stopped me—thought maybe you two didn’t get along or something. Too bad; I was all set to go get you. I thought I had a surefire way of getting you out to the Roadhouse.”

Sevana was too distraught to find entertainment in his jesting. “It’s not true at all!” she cried. “I’d give anything to see him! You’re right, Willy, I would have gone with you without a moment’s notice. It’s
he
who doesn’t want to see
me
.”

Willy gave a shrug. “He wasn’t in much shape to see anybody last night. If you lived with him all summer, I can’t see why you would complain about the wild crowd at the Roadhouse. I look like your preacher next to him.”

Sevana didn’t reply. She kept her eye on the street the rest of the morning, and spent her lunchbreak walking the sidewalk on the improbable chance Fenn might drive by on his way out of town.

When she returned, Willy went for the door. “Oh, by the way, Sevana,” he said, offhand, “a Mr. Ownbey called to see if you want your sheep inoculated the same time he does the others.”

Sevana’s stomach flopped. She should have told Mr. Ownbey never,
never
to call the shop. “Inoculated?” she repeated, as her mind raced frantically ahead, searching for a way to preserve her credibility.

“Yes—you know, immunized against sheep-type diseases.” Willy was plainly awaiting an explanation.

“All right, thanks…I’ll call him back,” she said vaguely, starting as if for the phone.

“Sheep, Sevana?” Willy’s no-nonsense voice stopped her.

“They’re Joel’s.” She turned with an air of injured innocence. “I’m just seeing to their care while he’s gone.” Which in one way was an outrageous lie—and in another way perfectly true.

“Wait a minute,” Willy objected. “I thought you said he had to sell his sheep.”

“He did,” she said desperately. “Only there were a few he couldn’t bear to part with.”

“A few
you
couldn’t bear to part with, you mean,” Willy corrected her with terrifying accuracy. He hadn’t built a prosperous business with nothing upstairs. “In other words, you own a bunch of sheep.”

She knew she was beaten. “Only five. And Mr. Ownbey is willing to board them indefinitely.”

Willy gave a low whistle. “He’d better be. I’m not letting you keep them in the apartment.”

In the afternoon they sat side by side, Sevana updating the list of current pictures for sale and Willy trying to figure out how many corners he could cut on his taxes without getting caught. After a time he paused to look around the empty shop. “We’d better enjoy this while we can,” he said. “I have a feeling we won’t be having too many more quiet moments once we move to Calgary.”

Sevana put down her pen and summoned the courage to hurt the beneficent soul who had looked out for her so untiringly. “I don’t think I’ll be going with you,” she informed him.

“No?” He lifted an eyebrow. “And why not?”

“I think I’ll go after my degree.” But her voice lacked some of its intended resolution under his accosting gaze.

“A worthy ambition, to be sure,” he said acridly. “But what is to keep you from taking courses from, say—strictly as an offhand example—the
University of Calgary
, while having a rewarding job doing something you enjoy, in a place where you can have all the connections you could ever want for your work?”

She couldn’t argue with his reasoning; it was faultless. “I just think—it would be better if I didn’t go to Calgary—at all.”

He slammed the ledger shut. “And run from me?” he demanded, seeing through her perfectly. “I would have thought you would deal with me more fairly than that, Sevana!”

“I don’t mean to be unfair to you!” she exclaimed. “You said we would just be friends, so let us be.”

“It’s not possible, and if you think it is, you’re mocking your own heart,” Willy said. “When will you admit it?”

Sevana watched him stalk to the other room with the misgivings she always felt when confronted with his own sure views—which never allowed him the possibility he might be wrong.

It would be nice, she mused, to go through life thinking you knew all the answers—unless, of course, in the end you turned out to be mistaken. He was no philosopher—hadn’t he said he had no room for such matters?—and yet he had his own philosophy just the same. Oh, maybe not thought out or consciously defined, but even so, a set of beliefs in which the answers to the big questions were clear-cut. Suddenly she wanted to hear his view of life. It wouldn’t be couched in deep, analytical terms, she was sure. Maybe it would be something she could understand. If he wasn’t in such a bad mood, she would ask him right now. Still, she kept it in mind to ask him later.

When Willy emerged from the back at closing time, she searched his face to see if he was still angry with her, and he noticed her interest. “Ready to go?” he asked, stopping by the counter.

She nodded and gave him a little smile to say she hoped they were back in accord. She went to get her cashmere from the hook.

“What do I read in those big eyes of yours?” he demanded, following her curiously. “You’ve thought it over and decided to come to Calgary with me, am I right?”

“Not exactly.” A moment’s hesitation. “I was thinking of asking you what the meaning of life is.”

Willy froze in the midst of putting on his suitcoat before smoothly recovering himself. “Been working too hard, Sevana?” he asked in concern, setting his lapels straight. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

But Sevana, having expected such a response, was not deterred. “No, Willy,” she said patiently. “I know it’s not a question you hear every day. I’m not out to prove a point or anything. I just want to hear what you think, because I don’t know the answer myself.”

Convinced of her sincerity, Willy finally turned serious. He even seemed flattered that she looked up to him. “The meaning of life, well, that’s easy,” he said cockily. “It’s all in what you aspire to be. Having a dream, one that fills all your vision, and then putting everything you’ve got into making it successful.”

She considered that. “What if your dream isn’t something you can get for yourself?”

“Get one you can, and don’t waste time on impossibilities.”

She twirled the sash on her sweater. “What if no other dream will do?”

“Waste your life as a hopeless romantic. Sevana, when I say ‘dream’, I mean an ambition, a goal founded in reality. I am not talking about the unfounded fancies of which you are so fond.”

“So you think the key lies in success?”

“Basically, yes, that’s right. The success of fulfilling your ambitions. That’s why I don’t like to see you throwing your life away on unrealistic whims. Success is within your grasp, and you’re not even convinced you want it. If you think that’s hard for me to understand, you’re right.”

Somehow their conversations always got around to this. “If you weren’t happy,” Sevana said slowly, “I don’t think your success would mean very much.”

“Sevana!” Willy was stock incredulous. “How could you be unhappy if you were successful? That’s not possible. Success brings happiness. They’re bound up together: success, happiness—inevitable partners.”

“But what if you were successful, say
wildly
so,” she swept her hand through the air, “but you were meant to live an entirely different life, and so missed your whole destiny?”

Willy’s forehead creased in unaccustomed lines. “Sevana, you are not ‘meant’ for any particular life,” he said in his best teaching voice. “There’s no mysterious plan floating around in the universe, waiting for you to connect into it. You make your own destiny by what you choose it to be. That’s why I want you to choose Calgary, and make your mark on the world with me.”

She considered his words. “Well, thanks, Willy. It’s been interesting hearing your views.” She headed for the door.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You don’t agree, do you? Tell me where we differ.”

Startled, she had to collect herself under his direct scrutiny. “Well, Willy, like I said, I’m not sure of the answers myself,” she said carefully. “But I think I disagree with you about fate, even though I don’t have any proof. I think maybe you could have everything you want out of life, and still miss the whole point of who you were supposed to be. I have a feeling life isn’t a game of chance, there’s a purpose for each of us, and we’d better hope we are able to find it.”

He let go of her to muse the point. “What if we don’t? Should we go groping through life looking for that elusive
something
we were supposed to find? Or should we just take the bull by the horns and go for what we know?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

“That’s what has been worrying that pretty head of yours?” He sounded surprised. “Well, Sevana, tell you what.” He was smiling again, everything solved. “Until you figure it out, come with me and be a success. That way, in case you don’t find the one, at least you’ll have the other.”

“Thanks, Willy.” She had to smile in spite of herself. “It’s a tempting offer, to be sure. I only wish it was that easy.” She hastened for the door, sorry she had brought up the subject after all.

CHAPTER 47

Over the next month Sevana and Willy worked hard getting ready for the art show. They put in extra hours rearranging the shop, besides designing posters and tacking them all over town. They contacted every artist in the area personally to invite them to display their work. All of it ran into far more time than Sevana had anticipated, and she found herself on a demanding schedule of busy days and late nights.

On the day prior to the art show they worked late again, setting up the last-minute pictures that had come in—until tired but satisfied that everything was ready, they headed over to the twenty-four-hour diner at the shopping centre for a very late meal. Sevana took her chair with, “Let me get your dinner this time, Willy. You’re always getting mine.”

But Willy refused. “I’ve got money to burn,” he said carelessly. “I’ve got everything I want. Almost everything,” he amended, his eyes narrowing as he looked across the table at her.

All the effort they had put into the show proved worthwhile. Sale after sale was made, and the shop was packed out the whole day. Len was there with the pretty and softspoken Annalisa Larkin. Even David came to take in the show. Sevana was surprised by the many compliments she received for her work. Of course it wasn’t really fair, because Willy’s were as good or better—but he didn’t receive as much notice because he was expected to be good. She could never mimic his bold, flamboyant technique, but neither could he imitate the minute, true-to-life detail of her photographic-style pictures.

But the biggest surprise was the appearance of Adriel Thane, a short, stocky man of jet-black hair and indistinguishable age. He was on his way east to conduct a little business and had stopped to take in Willy’s art show, boasting he could ferret out an art exhibition from hundreds of miles away. He took Sevana off to a corner to talk to her alone. “Your work is good, impressive!” he said. “You are wasting your time here. You come to Vancouver, study under me. I will make you famous, no?”

Sevana was too startled to make reply.

“You think about it,” he went on with an air of utmost confidence. “There is no one better in the country. There will never be a better chance. You come; you will not regret it.” He gave her his card from the school of fine arts where he taught.

Sevana went dazedly back into the crowd. She hadn’t known when they planned this show that she would be the center of so much attention. She wondered how Willy would react if he knew what Adriel had said.

At the end of a long day when they had the shop to themselves again, Willy put an arm around her and pulled her close. “Let’s go celebrate a good day,” he said, smiling down at her with a cozy look. “What say a formal dinner at Lethbridge’s most obscenely expensive establishment for my prize pupil and valued colleague?”

She looked into his admiring eyes, so near, and made herself shake her head. “It’s awfully nice of you, Willy, but I think I’ll just go upstairs. I—I’ve been out with you a lot lately, and I’m—” Her words fell unfinished as she turned from him in confusion.

“Afraid you might fall for me?” he finished for her softly, but with an edge to his words.

“It wouldn’t be so hard,” she said, meeting his eyes unhappily. She started for the door, but he stopped her by getting there first and standing in front of it.

“Let’s stop playing these games,” he said with finality. “Yes, we have been seeing a lot of each other, and it’s a good thing, too, because we can’t get along without each other. We belong together, and you know it as well as I. Your heart is all mine, and it’s only a thought in your head that keeps you from me. In fact I don’t think it’s even there anymore, if you’d just look. You’re just so used to it being there, you haven’t noticed lately that it’s gone.”