Too Much Too Soon (13 page)

Almost nine hours
, she thought.
Nine hours!

Images had paraded through her mind. His car colliding with a huge oil truck and the combined wreckage bursting into orange flames. A robber with the flash of gunfire in the darkness of Maiden Lane. A body plummeting from the Golden Gate Bridge—of her mental dioramas, this image, the body hurtling and disappearing into the black, heaving waves, was by far the most vivid.

A single tap sounded. Dropping the receiver, she rushed to the front door, struggling with the unfamiliar catch.

Curt stood there grasping a large carton filled with rolls of construction drawings. He was pale, but his left eyebrow rose in its usual sardonic arc of greeting.

Her relief was so intense that her legs turned to water. “That’s the longest hour on record!”

“Packing—there’s three more of these in the car,” he said, dropping the carton with a thud. “Not to mention my
auf Wiedersehens
to the old stamping grounds.”

“You might have let me know!” Her fury astonished her. Who was this shrew? “It’s
almost eight.”

“If you’ll notice, there’s no time clock to punch in this apartment.” He was grinning.

Drawing back her hand, she hit his cheek with all her strength.

At the sharp retort of her slap, her preposterous rage dissolved. She touched her lips tenderly to the reddening mark. “Darling, darling. I’ve been a lunatic. Didn’t you hear the phone?”

“It often rings at night.” He put his arms around her and his sigh shuddered through her body. “When I got there I couldn’t pull myself together. Rejection hurts. Christ, all these years I’ve hero-worshiped him.”

“Oh, Curt . . . .” She was stroking her fingers up the crisply clipped hairs on the tendons of his neck.

“One things’s for certain. We can’t live in the same town with my former boss. How does Los Angeles sound to you?”

“I’ve always wanted to see Hollywood,” she murmured.

She was caressing his shoulders, his arms, his buttocks. She felt the vigilante instinct to protect him and use her body as a barricade between him and all misery, yet her eyes and vagina were wet with the saline moistures of lust.

She led him to his rumpled, still made bed, yanking off the tailored spread: it was the first time she had taken the initiative for sex, and her breasts felt enormous, engorged. Pulling off her blouse and bra, she brought his face
down to her, whimpering as he kissed the erect nipples, her fingers inpatiently working his fly.

“You’re like hot silk,” he muttered.

She raised up, kissing his chest, his belly, taking him in her mouth, hearing his faraway groans.

He came, more salt on her, then fell asleep almost immediately, sprawling on his back, his clothes awry. She rested her cheek on his hard thighs, after a few minutes hearing a small, constant buzzing. She had not hung up the phone properly. Replacing the receiver, she put on his paisley silk robe and went into the galley-size kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Almost immediately the phone sounded. She picked it up before the ring completed itself, not wanting the bedroom extension to awaken Curt.

“Hello?” she said.

“Honora?” Gideon’s surprised voice grated against her ear. “Is that you?”

Idiotically, she pulled Curt’s robe tighter around her bare breasts. “Yes. Curt’s sleeping.” To her own ears the words sounded like an open confession of the act she had performed to make him sleep. “I’ll ask him to call you back.”

“That’s not necessary. You can give him the message. It’s for you, too. From here on in there is to be no communication between either you or him with anyone in my household. That includes your sisters.”

It took a moment for the dimensions of this to sink in. Not to comfort dear, anxiety-ridden
little Joscelyn whom she had held as an infant in her child’s arms? To be severed from Crystal? Never to see them?

“Did you hear me?”

“Isn’t that up to Joss and Crystal?” It was as if the words were disconnected from her.

“I won’t have them corrupted. You are not to hang around them.”

“That’s very hard, Gideon.”

“It won’t be so difficult if you remember this.” The loud, bullying voice vibrated though the telephone wires. “I have a great many friends in the engineering profession up and down the state. Come creeping around my back door and I’ll see to it that Ivory doesn’t get a job planning a backyard privy.”

She shivered at the threat.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

“I heard you.”

“And I don’t want you at your father’s place when they’re visiting. No letters. No communication.
Nothing.
”

“I won’t bother them,” she said levelly.

“Good. Now we understand each other.”

After she hung up she stared at her reflection in the distorting curved steel of the Revere kettle, considering the numerous ways that Gideon Talbott could destroy Curt’s future.

Curt came in, stretching.

“Who was that?”

“Gideon.”

He halted in midyawn: a sophisticated pulley produced his wry smile. “What’s with him?”

“He called to remind us that we are persona
non grata on Clay Street,” she said lightly enough, then, finding it impossible to repeat the final vituperative threat, she began to cry.

He put his arms around her. “Hey, hey.”

“He’s like a family to you . . . I’ve pushed you apart.”

“Let’s not start that.” He stroked between her shoulder blades.

“You’ve lost your job.”

“Big fucking deal. I’ll get another.”

She pulled away from him. “Just because we’ve been to bed together is no reason for us to get married. I know Gideon pushed you into saying that and—”

“Honora,” he interrupted. “You don’t know me very well if you figure I can be shoved into doing what I don’t want. I’ve screwed other girls, and not married them.”

“Did you with Imogene?”

“Sure, why not? She goes in for it heavily. From now on, though, I’m going to be dull and faithful.”

“I’ve brought you bad luck.”

“Like hell. Look, I’m not going to lie and tell you I’m overjoyed how it turned out with Gideon, but wasn’t it clear from what I told you the other night? I make my own luck.”

“Maybe he’d forgive and forget if we broke up.”

“Stop it, Honora, just stop it.” He gripped her hands, compressing the knuckles. She grimaced in pain, but he didn’t relax his hold. “The past is the past. We’re moving toward the future. I am going to be a success, I am
going to build highways and dams and bridges and cities, I am going to the goddamn top. And you’re going to be with me. I’ll probably wear you out because I am so hot for your smooth, smooth body and the innocent way you give a blow job. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to disagree, and we’re going to be very happy. You’re going to have my children—and I want three.”

She had stopped crying. “Maybe four?”

“Three’s the starting point.”

“Honora Ivory . . . what an awful mouthful. Too many vowels.”

“That’s more like it. Now blow your nose and make us some breakfast. Today’s our wedding day.”

No matter how deep Curt’s misery, he always managed to function. He ate a half dozen scrambled eggs surrounded by bacon, smeared his toast with strawberry jam, between mouthfuls laying out their plans. “We’ll go talk to your father. Maybe he’ll come up to Lake Tahoe with us. We can be married on the Nevada side without the three-day wait for blood tests.” They would honeymoon overnight at the lake, then drive down to Los Angeles. “We’ve joint-ventured with various companies down there, and several have hinted I could have a job if I ever decided to leave Talbott’s.”

He set her to packing his clothes while he went down to talk to the manager about subleasing this apartment. He rounded up cartons for the books and papers in his built-in shelves, tipping the janitor to lug these boxes
plus the two in his car to the storage basement.

By eleven thirty the apartment was bare of personal belongings. While Curt showered the phone rang.

“Ivory residence,” she murmured, tentative after the last call.

“So you
are
there.”

“Daddy,” she said. “We were just coming to see you.”

“And I didn’t believe Talbott.”

“He
told
you?”

“His man brought your things around, no message, nothing, and of course I couldn’t discuss it with a servant, and it’s hardly the sort of matter to go into with your sisters. So I had to call Talbott. He told me I could reach you at Ivory’s number.” Langley’s voice was clipped, unpleasant. He had bolstered himself with a full pint of whiskey before dialing Talbott’s.

“Daddy, we’re getting married.”

Silence at the other end.

“I know this is a big shock to you, but we’re coming over to explain.”

“That’s quite unnecessary. You’ve made your plans and there’s nothing I could add.”

The door to the bathroom opened, and Curt stood there, wrapping a towel around his waist. His wet hair hung over his forehead and water dripped down his strong, hirsute legs onto the plushy gray carpet—this was the first carpeted bathroom Honora had seen.

Tendrils of steam curled into the bedroom as he took in her dismayed expression.

“Who is it now?” he asked.

She pressed the phone to her breasts. “Daddy, Gideon told him.”

Curt took a step into the small bedroom, reaching for the phone. “Hello, Langley,” he said easily. “Has Honora explained our plans? We’d like you to come to Tahoe to give the bride away.”

Honora couldn’t hear Langley’s reply because Curt pressed the receiver close to his ear.

“Langley, you found out in a rotten way, and I can understand you’re not brimming with goodwill, but it would mean a lot to Honora—and to me—if you’d drive up with us.”

Another pause.

“I’m sorry that’s how you feel. No, don’t worry about the clothes, she’ll buy what she needs in Los Angeles. Yes, we’re leaving right away.”

He hung up. “I’ll make it up to you, love,” he said, putting his arms around her, holding her to his wet body, stroking back her hair. His deep gentleness always came as a surprise to her: it seemed completely misplaced in a man who regarded life with detached amusement.

*   *   *

They drove on Highway 40 across the hot heart of California, near Sacramento switching to a narrow road which wound through the old gold-mining towns. When they stopped for hamburgers at Placerville, they found a dim little store that sold souvenirs and jewelry. There was only one wedding band small enough to fit
her finger, sterling silver electroplated with gold.

It was dark by the time they arrived in Tahoe and the lopsided moon was reflected in the immense dark glass of the lake. The first thing they saw in Stateline was a blinking neon sign:
TAHOE WEDDING CHAPEL
. The false front was V-pointed like a church, and above the door, multicolored paint masqueraded as a stain-glass window.

“Welcome to beautiful Nevada,” Curt said, sarcasm cutting through the weariness in his voice.

Honora touched his cheek. “It looks lovely to me.”

Curt swerved into the gravel.

The bell was answered by a man with a napkin tucked into his open shirt. Large splotches marked his skin, and his cheeks were hollow so that he appeared whittled from the surrounding sugar pines. “You folks want to tie the knot?” he asked with a practiced glance at the large convertible. “Ten bucks.”

“Fine,” Curt said.

Not bothering to remove his napkin, the justice of the peace called in his buxom daughter and shapeless wife, who both exuded underarm odors and the aroma of fried chicken. Hastily he gabbled the minimum questions required by the State of Nevada to legitimize a union, everybody scrawled on the wedding certificate and the threesome returned to the kitchen to finish their chicken before it got cold.

“Christ,” Curt said as they walked through
the pine-scented night to the Buick convertible. “Well, one thing’s for certain. The marriage has got to go uphill from here.”

“Unless you kiss the bride it’s not legal and binding,” Honora murmured, her arm reaching around him.

He halted. The near-full moon and a glitter of mountain stars looked down as he cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her eyes, the tip of her nose, and her lips.

Earlier that same day, at around eleven thirty, Crystal was in her dressing room trying on the mist-blue silk faille suit that she’d had sent home on approval from Ransohoff’s, dispiritedly turning to gauge her reflection in the mirrored closet doors. A long, almost sleepless night had laid siege to her pragmatism. Certainly she was frayed with misery about poor Honora’s banishment—and would do all in her power to remind Gideon of the Christian virtues of charity and forgiveness—but she would have to be a mental case to sacrifice a Pacific Heights mansion and Chargaplate privileges in the best Debutante departments in San Francisco for the abstraction of sisterly unity.

“Crystal?” Mrs. Ekberg was a narrow sliver of darkness in the sunlit doorway between bedroom and dressing room. “Mr. Talbott would like a word with you, dear. He’s
downstairs in the Turkish room.”

“Gideon? Home? On a Monday morning?”

“It is odd, isn’t it? But then everything’s topsy-turvy today. Honora back with your father. And little Joss refusing to go to school.” Mrs. Ekberg buried a nervous belch in her hand. She was maintaining a façade of chirpy ignorance that she hoped would allow her to remain employed in the Talbott ménage. “Poor mite, she’s beside herself.”

“Tell Gideon I’ll be right down.”

Crystal folded the suit and carefully placed it back in its tissue before turning to her appearance. Her hair took forever. Last night, in her unhappy emotional chaos, she had not put it up in pin curls, and two recalcitrant wisps kept escaping from the shining golden mass.

It was thirty minutes before she went into the round little room.

Gideon showed no sign of the previous night’s disintegrating grief. As he set down his
Wall Street Journal
, his hard mouth was clamped in a tight line.

Crystal seldom gave much thought to those who awaited her spectacular, perennially tardy entrances, but now a tiny shiver of anxiety went down her spine. “Sorry I took so long.” She formed her most winsome smile. “You caught me in my bath. But what’s going on? Has Talbott’s declared a national holiday?”