Authors: Linda Schmalz
She patted the bed next to her. “Please sit?”
It was a question, not a command, so unlike Deirdre. Spencer wondered if perhaps the sedative calmed her to the point of politeness. He obliged, and sat next to her on the bed.
“I tried to contact Sam, but he won’t answer the goddamn phone.” She cried harder. “As usual. He never answers.”
“I’m sorry.” Spencer wished words would not fail him in this difficult situation. Luckily, Deirdre kept talking.
“Thank you for coming over. I know it’s late, but I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s all right, really. Who called about your mother?” He wasn’t sure that mattered, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“The doctor who was with her at her home after she-” Deirdre turned pity filled eyes to him. “-well, you know.”
“Do you want to go to the house? I could take you over.”
And maybe there would be someone who could help you through this better than I’m doing.
“No,” Deirdre said, between sobs. “I just can’t bare to see Mother dead. At least not now. I know I should be with her, but I simply can’t. I’m so weak. I’m a failure as a daughter.”
“Failure?” Spencer looked at her with surprise. “You’ve never been a failure at anything. You were a wonderful daughter to your mother.”
To his surprise, Deirdre rested her head on his shoulder. His body tensed at her touch but his heart leapt.
“Mother and father wanted me to have it all, the wealth, the fame, Sam and to be happy.”
Spencer remained silent, lost as to what to say. He wished to focus only on how her soft hair smelled of rose petals. He fought the urge to put his arm around her. One never approached Deirdre uninvited.
“I cry every night.” Her words came soft, almost in a whisper.
Spencer swallowed. Her conversation rang unusual and strange. She never shared any intimacies of any kind with him over the years.
“Well, Dee,” he said, treading carefully into these new and personal waters. “You hide unhappiness well. You seem content.”
“I have to seem happy.” She dried fresh tears with her tissue. “Don’t I? I have it all, right? Looks, money, friends and a dashingly handsome movie star husband. If I were to complain about anything, people would just laugh. How dare Deirdre Lamont-Lyons have problems? How dare I feel lonely? And now with Mother gone, everything will be worse.”
Lost for words, he patted her hand in solace, the softness of her skin seducing him to want to touch more. He removed his hand.
She lifted her head from his shoulder and faced him. He missed her touch already. She crossed one leg under the other, and sighed as if exhaling the weight of the world. Spencer studied her lovely face. Even at forty, her beauty remained untouched by time.
“Spencer, why did you never marry?”
The question came out of nowhere. “What has this got to do with anything?” He spoke politely, but his nerves jumped.
“Please, Spencer. Answer me.” Her rare and raw vulnerability forced his answer.
“I never found anyone I loved,” he said, wanting to add “
more than you
”.
“Good answer.” She fell silent as if in thought. After a moment, she looked up. “You’ve been such a good friend to me all these years.”
“Thanks.” Yes, being Deirdre’s consolation prize had its merits. Phone calls at two in the morning, babysitting Ruby and Diamond while she went on holiday with Sam, and now, helping her grieve.
“I’m going to be dreadfully lonely now that Mother is gone.”
“You must have plenty of friends.” He hated his next thought, but forged ahead. “And you have Sam.”
“Ha.” She uncrossed her leg and sat up straight. “My so-called friends only come around when money’s needed for some event. And, as for Sam, well…” She paused. “I should have had children. Then I wouldn’t be lonely.”
She chartered him into very uncomfortable waters. The discussion of family planning certainly wasn’t his territory.
“There’s still time?” he managed.
“Ha.” Deirdre regained a bit of the fire in her spirit that had disappeared in her grief. “I would need a spouse in the house for that!”
Spencer nodded. “Yes, Sam is away often.”
Deirdre continued, almost unto herself. “And when Sam and I are together we just argue or don’t speak.”
A ray of hope lit in Spencer’s heart. “Oh?”
“Besides,” Deirdre said. “I really would be a horrible mother. Let’s face it, I have nannies for
the dogs
. How would I handle children?”
Spencer laughed. “I think children would be a different matter, entirely. But who am I to speak?”
She turned and looked at him, studying him as if seeing him for the first time. “That’s right, Spencer, you don’t have a wife, or children either. You say you never loved anybody? Maybe you’re being too selective?” She looked away. “Then again, I thought Sam would be perfect for me.”
She paused and took a deep breath. “Good lord, I’ve kept you so long. You must be tired. Didn’t you just get back from a book tour or something?”
“Yes,” Spencer said. “Promoting my autobiography about my sporting life. It’s dreadfully dull, if you ask me. Story of a loser who never got seeded higher than third.”
“You should keep trying, Spencer.” She patted his hand. “Never give up.”
Spencer sighed and glanced down at his forty-two year old, already arthritic and aching knees. How could one feel so old in his early forties? Certainly the new crop of rising young, teenaged tennis stars didn’t help him feel any better. He was eighteen and pro once. He remembered his youth, the energy. He shook his head. “Now a comeback at my age, that would be a success story.”
“One of us should have a success story, Spencer.” She smiled sympathetically and patted his knee. Her touch sent shivers of excitement through his body. He tried to ignore it.
“You’re successful.” He looked around at the lavish room. “Look at all you have.”
“Yes, it hides what I don’t.”
They both fell silent. He wished she’d touch him again.
“So tell me, Spencer. What do you do when you’re not rushing about at midnight saving grieving damsels in distress or going on book tours?”
Spencer raised his eyebrows in surprise. Deirdre never asked about his life, ever. He simply had become another accessory to her. Someone to bring out, when necessary, to fill a void. Was she now sincerely interested in his life? Perhaps she just wanted to avoid talking about Penny’s death?
“I teach tennis and write and that’s about it, Dee.”
“Are you happy?”
He looked her square in the eye as if he might will her to understand. “Mostly.”
She held his gaze for a moment. He noticed a faint blush rise in her cheeks and she quickly looked away.
“You should go.” She spoke faint and unsure. She rose from the bed. “I feel tired. Thank you for coming.”
He was dismissed.
Spencer stood, confused by her sudden transformation into her cold self. For a brief moment they had been friends, close even.
He headed for the door, his heart pounding. He thought maybe he had reached her, in some small way. Reached into her heart, perhaps, and touched it, ever so gently, opening it to what could be. But no. Now she commanded him to leave.
He reached for the doorknob.
“Spencer?”
He turned. Her face fell soft; her expression betrayed the neutrality of her voice. “You’re always here for me.”
He clenched his jaw, wanting so badly to tell of everything he held in his heart. Yet he refrained, knowing that with one tiny retort, she could crumple his feelings like a wad of unwanted paper and toss them into the fire. “I am here for you, Dee. Always.”
She smiled, but it was genuine. “I think I’ve come to realize that. I’m sorry I hadn’t before.”
He stood silent. There was really nothing left he could say and still leave with his dignity.
“Thank you for coming over, Spencer.”
“Yes, well, I know you’ll call me if there’s more I can do.”
She didn’t speak further but stood there, staring at him as if he were a new and exotic museum piece she suddenly realized she owned.
“Well, then, I’ll be going,” he said, as he again, reached for the door.
“Wait.” She walked to him, gently placing her hands at his waist. Tenderly she reached up and brushed her lips against his cheek. Her touch against his skin and the slight press of her body into his melted his resolve at dignity. He pulled her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers, lightly at first, and when she didn’t pull away, more insistently.
Suddenly, Deirdre backed away as her eyes filled with tears once again.
The heat of desire or humiliation flamed his body. “I’m sorry,” Spencer looked away. “I shouldn’t have-”
She shook her head. “No, it is, was fine.”
“No,” he insisted. “It isn’t right of me. You’re not in your right mind. The doctor gave you a sedative.”
Deirdre smiled through her tears and suddenly laughed. “I didn’t take it.”
“Oh.” Spencer held her gaze. He stepped closer to her. His words entered the air between them as a whisper. “I could stay.”
“Please.”
From the moment Sam entered the grand lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House, he stood in awe. From the lobby’s exotic wood paneling and gold leaf ceilings, to the giant Chagalls on either side, Sam reveled in its grandeur. Patrons in all states of dress, from tuxedos and gowns, to casual chinos and sport shirts, enjoyed libations on the red-velvet carpet, seemingly oblivious to the gorgeous chandelier and star-shaped fixtures illuminating above. But Sam noticed the decor; his eyes keen to its brilliance, his mind aware of the crowd’s excitement. He wished he could join in the simple merriment of the other patrons, but fame had its price. As the crowd became aware of his presence, several fans stopped him with requests for autographs. Archie finally whisked him away up a curved staircase to their box seats just in time for the opening curtain.
Sam now shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Although he found the light and airy opera,
L’Italiana in Algeri
, fascinating, his long legs barely fit in the Parterre box that Archie and Lucy invited him to share, and his knees ached. A slight tickle in his throat added to his discomfort as did a nagging cough that plagued him for weeks. Sam noted to himself to visit his general practitioner as soon as he returned to London. But for now, however, he didn’t want to think about ailments, he simply wished to take in the grandeur of opera.
Thunderous applause rose as the act ended and intermission began. Patrons scurried for the restroom or refreshments. Sam longed to stretch or go for a smoke, but Archie and Lucy remained seated, Archie on the verge of a nap.
Lucy leaned across her stout husband to address Sam. “Enjoying yourself, dear?”
“Yes, utterly fantastic opera,” Sam said, truthfully. Lucy’s age-refined beauty and graceful mannerisms reminded him of his mother. Lila Lyons’s death seemed ages ago. That fatal car crash not only claimed the lives of his parents and Deirdre’s father, but Sam’s happiness as well.
He shook his head as if he might erase the memory like an Etch-a-Sketch toy. He concentrated instead on the lucky people below him not confined to their seats. They gathered in small groups, chatting animatedly, perhaps discussing the opera, or their mundane, normal lives that Sam sometimes envied.
“Oh dear, Sam.” Lucy’s sweet lilt broke his concentration. “Look below. You have admirers down there.”
Sam glanced in the direction Lucy indicated, to find a small group of people waving to him.
“Ah,” he said to Lucy. “My adoring public.” He smiled and waved back, his attention suddenly drawn to a blonde woman in the crowd. She stared, but did not wave, nor did she smile.
He’d know her anywhere. Her hair remained the color of golden summer wheat, but fell straight to her shoulders instead of in long tresses like before. Her figure remained unchanged from younger years, and her elegant, strapless tea-length black dress accentuated curves Sam remembered caressing on long endless nights. But it was her eyes that he remembered most. Those big, beautiful sky-colored eyes that used to look up at him in wonder and love.
“Julia!” He stood, as if ready to leap to her from the balcony.
He watched as she startled at his voice and his heart fell as she suddenly turned and headed for the exit.
“Julia, wait!” Sam cried again, but to no avail, other than to awaken Archie.
Archie shuffled in his seat and snorted. “What’s going on?”
Sam watched helplessly as Julia hurried out of the theater. He collapsed back into his seat, holding his head in his hands. Chasing after her would be impossible. His presence in the lobby again would turn the situation into chaos.
“Sammy, my boy, are you all right?” Archie stared at him.
“I saw someone I know.” Sam wondered if he sounded as desperate as he felt. “But I can’t just dash down there. I’d be mobbed.”
Lucy placed a white-gloved hand on his arm. “If you wait until just before the curtains rise, most people will be back in their seats.”