The Glimpsing (31 page)

“It’s not all his fault,” Gabrielle said.
 
“He didn’t force me to do anything.
 
It was my choice.
 
I’m just as wrong as he is.”

Portia stared at Gabrielle affectionately.
 
“Perhaps.
 
But you’ve done something that more than makes up for it.”

Gabrielle peered at her, dumbfounded.
 
“What?”

Portia said through a warm smile.
 
“You confessed.”
 
Gabrielle sat there, blinking.

Portia leaned forward.
 
“Isn’t that good for something, Gabrielle?”

Gabrielle felt the urge to disagree, but said nothing.

“I forgive you, okay?” Portia said.
 
She paused briefly, then added: “And I can’t think of a person on this planet who deserves that more.”

Portia watched a tear first flood, and then fall from the corner of Gabrielle’s eye.
 
She spread her arms toward the woman and they embraced one another tightly.

"I'm sorry," Gabrielle whispered.
 
"I'm so sorry."

Portia rubbed Gabrielle’s back with her hand.
 
“
It’s
okay, it’s okay.
 
Listen, you and me… we’re going to be fine.
 
I’m not going to let Jack, or anyone else for that matter, ever come between us.”

They continued to hold one another for almost a full minute.
 
When they had parted, Portia reached up and smudged away the wetness from beneath Gabrielle's eyes.
 
“Do you understand what you did today?
 
How uncommon it is?
 
How special it makes you?"

Gabrielle cowered, embarrassed.
 
“I’m not special, Portia.”

Portia reached toward Gabrielle’s hair, brushing a strand away from her face.
 
Portia’s eyes took on
a bedroom
softness then.
 
Very slowly, she eased forward… and kissed Gabrielle on the lips.
 
“Yes you are,” she whispered adoringly, “so special.”

And indeed she was special, Portia was thinking.
 
But that wasn’t going to change a damned thing.

“Portia?”
Gabrielle said, dropping her head toward her lap again.
 
“The affair wasn’t all I came here to tell you today.”

Portia grinned thinly.
 
“Okay.
 
What else, dear?”

Gabrielle looked up, hesitated… and then said it.
 
“I’m pregnant.”

For a moment, Portia forgot where she was.
 
Those words, I’m pregnant, left her as disoriented as a blow to the skull.
 
She mumbled, blinking furiously, “You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” Gabrielle reported despondently.

Portia gazed off emptily, as if drugged.
 
That made Gabrielle shift on the loveseat.
 
But Portia quickly cleared her throat, and regained her composure.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then, injecting a false air of joy, “I just… can’t believe it.
 
Really.
 
I just can’t.
 
My God, Gabrielle.
 
You’re going to be a mother.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?
 
Are you kidding?
 
For what?
 
This is incredible news.”

Uncertainty still showed in Gabrielle’s face.

“Well,” Portia said, “I guess no matter what happened to Jack, we’ll always have a part of him in our lives.”

Gabrielle smiled meekly, but almost immediately a cruel chill ran through her body.
 
Something had changed, very suddenly, in the air of the room.
 
Then she realized that it was coming upon her, even here, in this house: the dark presence of the premonition.

“My goodness,” Portia continued, “we’ve got so much to do.
 
I’m not even sure where to begin.
 
A crib, clothes… Hey, are you alright?”

Gabrielle had closed her eyes and placed a hand to her temple, trying to fight the strong sense of the premonition off.
 
“Oh, it’s… it’s nothing.
 
Just a headache coming on, I think.”

“Should I get you a painkiller?”

Gabrielle forced a grin.
 
“No, I’m okay.”

Portia grinned back, a strange grin that made Gabrielle uncomfortable.
 
“Hope it’s not afternoon sickness.
 
It may sound silly but my aunt once told me that when she was carrying, she never got sick in the morning.
 
It was always in the afternoon.”

“I don’t think that’s what it is.”

“Well, doesn’t matter.
 
Just focus on all the baby showers I plan to throw you.
 
You’ll feel better in no time.”

Gabrielle shook her head.
 
“I’m afraid there won’t be any baby showers.”

“I’m sorry?
 
What do you mean?”

“I won’t be around.”

Portia was bewildered.
 
“Well… where are you going to be?”

“Home.”

“Home?”

“San Salvador.”

“San Salvador?”
 
She paused, realizing.
 
“Gabrielle… you’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

Portia gazed, stunned.
 
“When?”

“My plane leaves Tuesday morning.”

Portia looked at her sadly.
 
“But why?
 
I don’t understand.”

“I just feel like…” she was shaking her head, “with Jack, the baby, everything that’s been happening… I just need a new start.”

Portia’s face showed dejection.
 
“But you’re just going to leave everything behind?”

“I don’t have anything to leave,” Gabrielle said, reaching up and touching Portia’s cheek, “except you.
 
And that’s the last thing I want to do, really.
 
But I think it’s the right thing, for now anyway.”

“But you’re going to need help with the baby.”

“My entire family is waiting for me in San Salvador.”

Portia blinked.
 
“Well… There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”

“There’s plenty you can say to change my mind.”
 
Gabrielle clasped Portia’s hand in her own.
 
Another tear streamed down Gabrielle’s face.
 
“But I’m going to ask you not to.”

Portia gazed at Gabrielle for a moment,
then
finally dropped her head in sorrow.
 
Gabrielle pulled the woman in and embraced her warmly.

Portia wept.
 
“I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” Gabrielle whispered.

They sat there holding one another, lamenting.
 
Gabrielle lamented having given such terrible news to such a wonderful friend, for seeming to have broken her heart.
 
And Portia lamented as well, first because everything had to happen tonight, she wouldn’t have time to prepare the house, and second… because she had worn her favorite white dress.

Portia reached forward and cradled one of Gabrielle’s hands again.
 
“I want you to promise me something, Gabrielle.”

“Anything.”

“No more secrets—I mean between you and me?
 
Okay.
 
No more secrets.”

Gabrielle added her free hand to Portia’s.
 
She gazed at her with warm regard, feeling unworthy to have a friend of such uncommon forgiveness.
 
“No more secrets.
 
I promise.”

Portia nodded.
 
She then did something rather unexpected.
 
Relinquishing Gabrielle’s hand, she stood and began pacing back and forth in the space between the couch and the loveseat.
 
As she went, she brought her hands together, prayer-like, pressing them to her lips.

“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle asked.

“Nothing.
 
It’s just that… I have some things to tell you as well.”

“Oh, no Portia.
 
Just because I confessed, doesn’t mean you—”

“I meant it when I said no more secrets,” Portia interrupted.
 
“You’re my best friend.
 
I want you to know everything there is to know about me—even the things I’ve never told anyone.
 
Besides, now that you’re leaving tomorrow, this may be the last opportunity I get to do it.”

Gabrielle frowned slightly.
 
“Why would that be?”

“Because I’m not sure I’ll ever see you again.”

Gabrielle reared.
 
“What would make you say a thing like that?”

“Well, with you going off to your family in Brazil, your baby, your new life.”
 
She shrugged.
 
“Things change, Gabrielle.
 
Sometimes in
very
unexpected ways.
 
You may not ever want to come back.”

“I’m coming back,” Gabrielle assured her.
 
“Baby or not, Brazil or not, I’m never going to let anything come between us.”

Portia nodded, and then looked away.
 
She paced the floor once more and then slowed to a stop.
 
She looked at Gabrielle.
 
“No more secrets.”

“No more secrets,” Gabrielle agreed, although she still wished Portia would abandon whatever it was she was about to tell her.

“Okay then, what I want you to know is…”
 
She paused for a moment.
 
“I hope this doesn’t make you think different of me, but… what I want you to know is,” she sighed heavily, “that I once tried to kill myself.”

That admission stunned Gabrielle, but she did her best to appear unmoved.
 
“Recently?”

“No.
 
Twelve years ago.
 
I was eighteen at the time, but it feels like it was just yesterday.”

“Why would you do something like that?
 
What happened?”

“Same old story, you know, I fell in love with a man who didn’t love me back.
 
His name was Collin Freely.”

“Collin Freely?
 
Your first agent?”

“Yes.
 
I owe him everything.
 
If it wasn’t for him,” her eyes drifted a bit, “I wouldn’t be what I am today.
 
But I’d trade it all only to have never met him.”

“He hurt you?”

She chuckled.
 
“Isn’t that always what happens when a teenager dates a man almost a decade older than herself?
 
The whole thing was doomed from the start.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Nothing in the beginning; he was great.
 
Our relationship was a secret, of course, but that didn’t stop him from treating me like a queen.
 
But all of that changed when I turned eighteen.
 
He began pressuring me to have sex with him.
 
I refused, but being much older and worldlier, he knew just what to say.
 
He told me that I was eighteen now, a woman, and that I shouldn’t so much as call him until I was ready to start acting like one.
 
I became very confused then.
 
I wanted to please him, but I just hadn’t been raised that way.
 
I thought about it for a while, and eventually came to the conclusion that I’d better give Collin what he wanted, or risk losing him forever.
 
It was the most foolish thought of my entire life.

“Fully intending to give up my virginity, I drove to his apartment.
 
I remember wanting to make that night very special.
 
I knew he liked women with short dark hair, so, as a surprise, I cut my hair, dyed it black, and put on the skimpiest dress I had.
 
I left my house thinking I was the woman of his dreams.
 
I actually believed that when he opened that door, he’d be so surprised, and find me so irresistible, that he’d immediately take me in his arms and make love to me.
 
But it was me who got the surprise, not him.
 
When I got there he was drunk, so drunk that he didn’t even recognize me.
 
Worse
yet, there was a woman sitting at his bar, barely clothed with a drink in her hand.
 
Her name was Susanna.

“I was devastated, not only because Collin had been unfaithful to me, but because of the way Susanna looked.
 
She was stunningly beautiful, with short, naturally black hair.
 
Real black hair, not fake like mine.
 
And she was Collin’s age also, a full grown woman, not just a girl, as I was.
 
Susanna was everything I could only pretend to be.

“I left Collin’s house completely devastated.
 
I went home and shut myself in for weeks.
 
I hated Collin.
 
I hated him with every ounce of my being.
 
But somehow, I still loved him, still wanted to please him.

“To help me cope, I immersed myself in an old childhood hobby.
 
Painting.
 
But even that didn’t help.
 
Everything I painted related back to that horrible night, to Collin and Susanna.
 
I was just too hurt, Gabrielle.
 
I wasn’t ever going to get over it.
 
And that was when I decided to take my own life.

“Before I did it, however, I wanted to leave Collin something to remember me by.
 
I didn’t intend it this way, but I began to paint a woman, a woman who turned out to be a very peculiar mixture of Susanna and myself.
 
She had short black hair, like Susanna’s, but she also carried many of my own facial features.
 
Her expression was brazen and sensuous, again like Susanna’s, but she was adorned in my red dress, the very dress I had intended to lose my virginity in.

“When I was almost finished with the painting, I went into the bathroom, pulled out a razor, and very carefully slit my wrists.
 
It was important that I not bleed out too fast, or else I wouldn’t have a chance to finish the painting.

“When I returned, I began to paint the woman’s dress, but as I did some of the blood spilled from my wrist and fell onto the easel.
 
I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I decided to mix the blood with the paint, using it to complete the dress.
 
I guess that was what caused what followed shortly thereafter.”

“What was that?” Gabrielle asked.

Portia paused for a moment.
 
“After I finished the woman, I remember thinking she was perfect.
 
I knew that if she could somehow become real, Collin would love her, because she was everything I was, and everything Susanna was as well.
 
She was the perfect combination of the virgin and the whore.

“After that my body gave out.
 
I fell from my stool and landed in a pool of my own blood.
 
I lay there dying, watching the blood seep from my wrists.

“Now you might have some difficulty believing this part, but I assure you it happened just the way I’m about to tell you.
 
When I was very close to death, I happened to glance up.
 
And what I saw made me sadder than you can possibly imagine: the woman I painted was no longer in my painting.

“I remember wanting to cry.
 
I wasn’t even sure if I’d really painted her at all.
 
But then, just before I went out, I saw her.”

“You… saw her?
 
You mean literally?”

“Yes.
 
She was lying right in front of me, staring at me eye to eye, seeming to mimic my facial expressions, which obviously weren’t very good given the situation.”
 
Portia’s eyes seemed to drift.
 
“She had come out of the painting, Gabrielle.
 
She was alive.”

Gabrielle studied Portia hard, looking for even a trace of uncertainty.
 
But all she saw was a cold conviction, and that made her shudder.
 
“But… she wasn’t alive, right?
 
She was a hallucination, because you’d lost so much blood.”

Portia shook her head slowly.
 
“No.
 
I don’t think so.”

“Portia, what you’re suggesting is impossible.”

“If there’s one thing that day taught me, Gabrielle, it’s that nothing is impossible.”

Gabrielle went silent.

Portia said, “She whispered something to me.”

“What?” Gabrielle asked, after hesitating a moment.

“She said… take me to him.”

Gabrielle frowned.
 
“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did
I
at first.
 
I blacked out after that, and when I came to, the woman was back in the painting, as if she had never left.
 
But I was certain she was real, certain she was alive, and as such, I considered very carefully what she had told me.
 
I figured it out soon enough.
 
Take me to him.
 
She was talking about Collin.
 
She wanted me to take her, the painting that is, to him.
 
So the next day, that’s exactly what I did.
 
What happened after that, I think, proves her existence beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

“And what did happen after that?”

“Collin went mad,” she paused, “and murdered Susanna.”

“What?” Gabrielle said in disbelief.

“He murdered her.
 
Butchered her pristine little body with a knife and dumped her in a landfill.
 
From what I understand she was barely recognizable.”

Gabrielle only stared blankly.

“He was never charged with the crime, of course, and to this day Susanna’s death remains officially unsolved.
 
But I know it was Collin.
 
I think the woman in my painting did something to him, to his mind.
 
I think he literally went mad and, you know, murdered Susanna.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.
 
I mean anyone could have killed Susanna.
 
You said yourself that Collin was never charged.”

“Oh, the police had their suspicions.”

“Then why didn’t they charge him?”

“Because he wasn’t there to charge.
 
Collin went missing just a day or two after Susanna’s body was found.
 
He just seemed to vanish into thin air.
 
No one has seen him since.”

Gabrielle gazed at Portia steadily.
 
“And you think that this… this woman you saw, caused all of this?”