To See The Daises ... First (8 page)

Six

During the days that followed, Ben shoved reality Into a hidden corner of his mind, and watched his bright illusion watch the World. The small, dreary neighborhood he had believed was so familiar to him suddenly became a fairy-tale world brimming over with miracles.

After being forced into innumerable conversations with odd-looking characters in the park or on the street, it gradually dawned on him that his introversion had not been only self-indulgent, but it had robbed him of the chance to get a close-up look at mankind!—the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

Never had his brain been forced to work so keenly. Never had he found such a wealth of material as when he walked with her and observed the world and its inhabitants through her eyes.

She was attuned to the beauty that lay hidden beneath the surface all around them. She dismissed the rain and saw the rainbow, found character and worldliness in the scruffy features of a mongrel dog. She listened avidly to the precious memories of an old woman's long-ago suitor.

And through her Ben saw and heard and felt with an openness he hadn't possessed even in childhood. He gave up trying to fight his fascination for her. The end would come in its own time and, like Sunny, he was more than willing to wait for reality to find him. He wouldn't go looking for it.

Now, a mere five days after he had encountered her outside Charlie's office, he was hurrying home after a fifteen minute trip to the grocery store as though he had been away for days.

"Well?" she said expectantly, waving her hands in his face as he walked in the door. "How do you like them? Mary Louise painted them for me while you were at the store."

She held her hand against her throat, the bright polish contrasting sharply with the creamy flesh of her neck. "She says the color is blood red and she rolls the I, making it sound deliciously gruesome."

He laughed and picked up one of her hands, knowing he was taking an inordinate amount of time to examine the garish nails, but unable to resist the temptation to touch her.

"Very vampirish," he said in a suitably admiring tone, then gave her a look of inquiry. "How is it that I never see Mary Louise? You've been telling me for days that she's there, but all I've ever seen are eyes staring a hole in me when I go in or out."

"She's a very cautious bird, our Mary Louise," Sunny said, chuckling. "Not that she doesn't like you. She, in her own words, thinks you're a 'hunk.' But, after all, a person can't be too careful.''

He grinned in appreciation of her imitation of her gruff young friend. "She sounds like a sensible young lady. I hope you listen to what she tells you."

"Faithfully," she said, her face solemn, but her eyes twinkling in merriment. "For instance, did you know that every time you paint your nails, you get an itch or someone comes to the door." She laid her hand on his bare arm and leaned toward him, lowering her voice confidentially. "Mary Louise says it's a law. In the same category with the one that says bread has to land on the floor jelly side down."

"I may change my mind about Mary Louise," he muttered, then fell silent as his gaze dropped to where her hand lay on his forearm. The skin was bare there and as he felt the warmth of her smooth palm, the devils that had become so familiar in the past few days rose up to haunt him, turning a casual touch into a sensual caress.

Sunny was a person who liked to touch. She hugged when she was excited and kissed when she was pleased. She had a habit of stroking his arm or shoulder when she talked. Oh, it was all unconscious contact, of course ... nothing devious or covert. And he Was sure she had nothing sexual in mind when she touched him. It was all a part of her open nature. All perfectly innocent— and it was driving him crazy as surely as if he were undergoing Chinese water torture.

Surely she could feel the way he tensed when she touched him casualty, as she was now. It seemed so obvious to him. How could she go on talking and smiling as though he weren't in incredible pain?

A fine layer of perspiration broke out on his forehead as he forced himself to tune out the screaming frustration his body was experiencing and tune in to what she was saying.

"But even after we had gone to so much trouble, she actually had to teach me to use a curling iron," she said in a wry aside, "and you can imagine what she had to say about my mental state when she found out I didn't know how to use one. Anyway, after we went to all that trouble, it looked simply awful. It was as bad as the ruffles on her dresses."

She paused for a moment and leaned against him, her brow wrinkling in thought. "Isn't it strange that I can remember about Sophocles and not about curling irons? Maybe only one side of my brain was affected." She grinned up at him. "Which side do you suppose—" Suddenly her eyes went a stormy blue, the pupils dilating with some intense emotion and the rest of her sentence was a barely heard whisper: "—deals with curling irons?"

He couldn't keep his gaze from slipping to her mouth, focusing with fascinated intensity on the quivering lower lip and the velvet brown beauty mark that guarded the treasure. The air between them grew thick, almost seeming to join their bodies with a heavy, vibrating sensuality that grew stronger with each passing second.

His mouth grew dry, his breath coming in harsh, fiery gusts as his eyes slid feverishly over the places that were forbidden his hands. The beckoning curve of her hips. The high, rounded breasts with nipples that pressed firmly against the knit fabric of her blouse and seemed to beg for a more substantial caress. The delicately molded shoulders and the smooth, ivory flesh of her throat. The lip whose quiver he wanted desperately to still with his kiss.

He had to stop this. His need for her was getting out of hand. He felt her pull twenty-four hours a day. Even in sleep the need pursued him, sending erotic dreams that should have shamed him, but merely served to spur the need to new and desperate heights.

Pulling his gaze away, he drew a deep, shuddering breath, mentally subduing the tortured throbbing of his body. When he heard her move, he glanced warily in her direction.

Clearing her throat nervously, she said, "I . . . uh . . . guess I'll get back to my room." She smiled weakly, then as she backed slowly toward the bedroom, added, "There's an article I want to finish reading."

He silently watched as she turned and entered the bedroom, then, with a pent-up frustration that was ready to burst at the seams, kicked a footstool across the room.

***

Sunny leaned heavily against the bedroom door, flinching when she heard the crash from the next room.

Pushing away from the door, she began to pace
in agitation. How stupid can you get? she thought
in disgust. An article I want to read, for heaven's
sake!

Every time she was in his company for five minutes, the thoughts started whirling in her head. There was no way to stop them. She had tried—of course she had tried, but it was no use. She couldn't keep from touching him. She couldn't keep her mind off the nearness of him, the sight and sound and feel of him.

"What kind of woman am I?" she muttered angrily. He had made it perfectly clear that he didn't intend to let anything happen between them. Which meant that either he didn't feel the aching need that plagued her or his strength was beyond her comprehension.

Either way, it added up to the same thing— frustration. And fighting it was getting more and more difficult each day. She was beginning to think that the only way to combat it was to stay out of his way completely.

But where could she go? She couldn't stay cooped up in her room all day. If only she could get a job. It would solve so many problems. Not only would it get her away from the growing attraction, it would give her a chance to pay him back for his kindness in taking her in.

She sat slowly on the bed, staring straight ahead as the-thought became stronger. As far as she could see, her only other alternative was allowing him to find out who she was, and that she wouldn't even consider. Although her reasons had changed, she was still as determined as ever to prevent the past from finding her.

She jerked her head sideways when she heard a tapping on the window and saw Mary Louise's face pressed against the pane. Sunny really couldn't say whether their friendship was progressing, but the girl visited her regularly now, sometimes managing to stay a whole hour before walking out in a huff. She was still wary of Ben, and when he was home, refused to come in the ordinary way, instead edged her way across from her apartment on the parapet below the window.

"What's up?" her brusque visitor asked as she climbed clumsily through the window.

Sunny stared at her in amused resignation. "You know, Mary Louise, as much as I enjoy the intrigue and originality of your entrances, it's really not necessary. Ben wouldn't bite your head off if you came through the door."

"Did I say anything about Ben?" she asked huffily. "It just so happens that I need the fresh air—if you can call that gray stuff out there fresh." She stared at Sunny with narrow-eyed intensity. "Has he got you locked in here?"

"Of course not." Sunny laughed at her friend's suspicious expression. "I just wanted to—well, the fact is I feel like I'm in his way. He doesn't seem to be able to relax when I'm in the room." And neither can you, she added silently.

"You sure can't spend all your time in here. You'll end up loonier than you already are."

"Thanks," Sunny said drily. "What do you suggest I do?"

"Why don't you get a job? Then you'll not only be getting out of here, but you'll be able to pay him room and board." She lowered her voice to an ominous whisper and leaned closer. "Then he cant say you owe him anything."

"Trusting soul, aren't you?" Sunny said, chuckling. "He doesn't think I owe him anything, you goose. I think I owe him something—everything in fact. But I can't get a job without a Social Security card."

Mary Louise pushed her glasses back on her nose thoughtfully, then glanced hesitantly at Sunny. "I know a place that would take you. It wouldn't matter that you're crazy," she said, casually passing over Sunny's mental state. "Or that you don't have a card. In fact it wouldn't matter if you were a schizophrenic gorilla as long as you do what he tells you, but I have to tell you, the man you would be working for is a prize pig. He'll work you till you drop."

"I don't mind hard work," Sunny said, her eyes beginning to glow with excitement. Then suddenly the glow dimmed somewhat. "He wouldn't ask me to do anything . . . disgusting, would he?"

"Depends on what you call disgusting," the woman-child said, shrugging. "If you mean would there be any funny business, then no. That's what we're trying to get you away from."

"That's what you're trying to get me away from," Sunny murmured wryly under her breath, then, "And you realty think he'll hire me?"

"Sure. I'll take you there tomorrow and get it fixed up," she promised, moving back toward the window. She paused in her exit to straddle the sill as she looked back at Sunny. "Are you going to tell Ben?"

Sunny hadn't thought of that. Somehow she didn't think Ben would care for the idea. "I think maybe I'll Just leave him a note tomorrow. There'll he enough time to discuss it with him when I know for sure that I have the job."

But, as it turned out, Sunny had badly miscalculated. There hadn't been time. There had scarcely been time for breathing and none at all for resting, much less discussing her plan with him. She had barely entered the little cafe before she had been put to work. And now, ten hours later, she felt she would be lucky if she made it home. She hadn't the strength to worry about the coming confrontation.

On her one brief break, she called the apartment to let him know she was all right and the resulting conversation had effectively warned her what was to store for her when she got home.

As soon as she had identified herself, Ben had begun to question her with a fury that made her pull the phone away from her ear. Oddly enough, his first question, after assuring himself of her safety, was to ask in a strange, stiff voice if she had remembered who she was.

The information that she had found a job, but refused to tell him where, provoked another storm and she was almost grateful when the cook indicated to her that her break was over.

Now as she breathed deeply of the heavy, evening air, she decided to deal with Ben's anger when she got home—if she got home. She kept a steady pace, knowing that if she ever slowed down, she would probably drop. Her back ached in places she hadn't known existed and her feet seemed to be made of thousands of tiny, burning muscles, making every step torture.

"Now I know how the little mermaid felt," she murmured as she walked. "This is the price I pay for giving up my tail."

She felt somehow that Hans Christian Anderson's heroine had gotten the better deal. She at least had suffered the pain for the love of a prince. Sunny had done it for an amount of money that wouldn't have kept a vegetarian alive.

Leaning against a lamp post, she raised each foot in turn to flex the aching insteps.

So that was work. At least now she knew she wasn't a slow study. It hadn't taken her long to find out beyond a doubt that she wasn't fond of the backbreaking labor that went with her new job as waitress-busboy-dishwasher. And she had been equally unfond of the dirt that seemed to be the cafe's only claim to atmosphere. And most of all she had detested the large blond man who had hired her. She shuddered now, remembering the way he had grinned slyly when she had lied about losing her Social Security card.

After what seemed like eons, she reached the house that contained the dearest things in the world—a bath, a bed, and Ben. Her steps quickened as she opened the front door, then she gave a groan of pain and weariness when she stared up the three, long flights of stairs.

There was no help for it. The stairs would not go away no matter how long she stood and stared at them. So, leaning heavily on the banister, she began the slow ascent, silently urging on legs that frequently refused to move. With brief pauses on each landing, she arrived at last at Ben's front door.

Leaning against the wall, she closed her eyes and began searching for any remaining strength to help her through what she knew was coming when she opened the door. Although she heard Mary Louise's door open, she couldn't seem to lift her eyelids to acknowledge the girl's presence. Then she heard an eerie, gruff voice echo through the hall.

"What's long and yellow and seldom rings?"

Sunny chuckled weakly at her friend's attempted improvement on the riddle of the Sphinx. Suddenly the chain rattled and the door squeaked open wider.

"Jeez, you look awful," Mary Louise said slowly, but strangely she didn't sound amused as Sunny had expected.

"I feel awful. That man could have made a fortune hiring himself out during the Spanish Inquisition."

"Didn't I tell you he was a horror?"

"Yes, you told me," she murmured, her voice faint from exhaustion. "But you didn't do him justice. He would have, made Ivan the Terrible look like a sweet guy in comparison."

"Ivan who?"

"He was a sixteenth-century punk rock star," Sunny muttered, then opened her eyes and shoved her body away from the wall. There was no sense in postponing the inevitable.

After looking at her suspiciously for a moment, Mary Louise shrugged and said in her gruff voice, "Ben's been acting real weird. Every once in a while he opens the door and looks around, then goes back in looking like he's ready to explode. And it sounds like he's been fighting with the furniture."

"Uh-oh," Sunny said apprehensively, staring at the closed door. Then she sighed in resignation. "I guess I might as well get it over with. Wish me luck." She paused. "By the way, what is long and yellow and seldom rings?"

The girl grinned. "An unlisted banana."

Sunny laughed as she turned away, then groaned when the sudden movement sent a pain shooting down her back. Raising her chin bravely, she reached for the knob.