“It is not cold in here. I have a fire in the living-room fireplace, and I am not cold.” She thought of the cool color she’d chosen to wear, and smiled inwardly.
“But you still don’t care to kiss me.”
“You don’t know that. Have a seat, and I’ll bring you something delicious.”
He watched her walk away from him and head to the kitchen. She seemed amenable to listening to what he had to say with an open mind. He didn’t know what Bert had told her, but he suspected that it was favorable to him. He hoped so. She was back quickly with tiny hot cheese puffs filled with Gruyère cheese sauce. He chose one, bit into it, and with his hand suspended between his mouth and the tray she held, he said, “At the risk of making you mad, let me tell you that if the meal is of this quality, I’ll be thoroughly seduced by the time you serve coffee.”
“I’m glad you like them,” she said with a slow wink. “I made plenty.”
He wanted to ask her if she was flirting with him, but he’d better not press his luck. “Where did you put the calla lilies?” he asked when she came back to him with two glasses of white wine.
“In my bedroom. Those are my favorite flowers.”
“I’m glad I chose them. I can’t wait for dinner. It didn’t occur to me that you’d cook this evening. How did you learn to cook so well?”
“My grandmother was a fantastic cook and, while growing up, I watched her, but my dad’s also a very good cook, and whenever he’d be doing something in my presence, he’d lecture and teach me how to do it. So I guess I learned mostly from him.”
“I’ve begun to realize that he’s a remarkable man. I’m not much of a cook.”
“That’s because you never had to cook.” She got up and tuned the radio to easy listening music. That suited him. He just didn’t want to hear any of the song that had a shared meaning for them. “We can eat now,” she said, and lit the candles. She would keep a home of which a man could be proud. He wanted to say the grace, but it was her table, so he left the gesture to her. But she reached across the table, took his hand, and said the grace. Then he poured red wine into their glasses and she raised hers.
“I am praying that when you leave here, you and I will both be happy.”
He held his glass tilted toward her. “So am I, Kendra. So am I.”
She served veal cutlets with madeira sauce and complemented them with an imaginative assortment of vegetable dishes, ending the meal with Brandy Alexander pie; and coffee.
After dinner, he sat in her living room facing the log fire and sipping coffee. If they couldn’t mend their relationship, he’d be in for a long stretch of unhappiness. He’d put up a front, just as he’d done when Giselda disappointed him, but this would be worse, and he may as well acknowledge that fact. He followed her to the kitchen.
“I’ll help you clean up.”
“Sure you want to?”
“Unless it’s a matter of life or death, I’m not likely to volunteer to do something I don’t want to do. You cooked a wonderful meal. Sit over there in that chair and keep me company.” Since he didn’t want to talk, he sang “Mariah,” one of his favorite songs. “I don’t remember all the words,” he told her.
“I do. It’s a song that deserves a good baritone voice, and you have it.” She repeated the words, and he sang them, but he soon tired of it, for he knew they were substituting the singing for the conversation that they needed to have. He finished cleaning, closed the dishwasher, and took her hand.
“Where do you want to talk? We have to stop procrastinating.” They walked into the living room, and he waited to see where she would sit. She chose the sofa, and he took comfort in that, but he needed to see her face when they talked, so he sat facing her.
“How much did Bert tell you?”
“He got as far as your reaction to Mama’s flirting with you. What
was
your reaction to that?”
“Outrage and disgust. After thinking about it for days, I became anxious about you and me and whether I could handle dealing with a woman like her. Because whether you want to accept it or not, she’d be a fixture in my life for as long as I care deeply about you.”
“Papa didn’t tell me all of it, did he?”
He took a deep breath and slapped his right fist into the palm of his left hand. He wasn’t going to lie. They needed the truth. And as much as it pained him to hurt her, he had to tell her.
“No, he didn’t. I stopped at Rooter’s Bar and Grill the day of that second big snow, with a professor in my department, and saw a woman sitting at the bar. The bartender was making it clear that she was his woman, but she was casing me.” He didn’t let her loud gasp stop him. It was what it was, and he didn’t intend to mince it.
“She looked so much like you that I asked the bartender her name and nearly got kicked out of there until I told him that she looked exactly like my girlfriend. Then, he got interested and told me her name was Ginny Hunter. Before you know it, they were having words, and she let him have some gutter language. I could even handle that, but when she was strolling out, she stopped and invited me and the man with me to come to her apartment where, she assured me, it would be very warm. I told her that she was not my type.”
“That’s d-disgusting. And you think I would do things like that?”
“That never occurred to me. The problem is that I can’t get it out of my head. I want to put my arms around you and hold you, and the picture of her making that pass at me . . . oh, hell. I don’t know how to put it. I couldn’t continue without leveling with you about it and knowing that you accept that I can’t stand her and don’t want her in my life. I’m sorry, but there it is. She owes you a lifetime more than she’s given you.”
He observed Kendra closely. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I told you that when I was in my early teens, I stayed in my room with the door locked, because Mama’s men friends made passes at me, and she paid it no attention. But I didn’t realize she had such loose morals.”
“When did you last see her?”
“I don’t remember. Last I heard, she had violated her probation, had a car accident, and was in the hospital with a sprained or broken wrist.”
He sat forward. “Did she call you?”
“A nurse called, but I told her to call my uncle, her brother. He refused to help her.”
“What had she done?”
“She had an accident while driving a rented car without a license, but she claims that she wasn’t driving. The only other person in the car, an older man, had never driven, or so his daughter said. Mama told the policemen a lie. I don’t know what will happen to her.”
“Do you want me to bail her out?”
“Do I—are you serious? After what you just told me, why would you do that?”
“I’ll do it, because I hate knowing that you’re unhappy, and . . . and because I love you.” She slapped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“You . . . you never told me. I know you care, but . . . that must have really shaken you up.”
“It did, more than you can guess. How do you feel about me right now?”
“I’m hurt and embarrassed by Mama’s behavior, but that’s nothing new. It’s just so close this time.”
“But what about me?” He had to know. If she blamed him, he was out of there.
“I love you, and I’m not going to let you bail her out. She was driving an unregistered and uninsured car with a suspended license, and well above the speed limit. One day, she will kill someone.”
“Are you saying that you love me and can accept that I don’t want your mother around me?”
Her eyes blinked rapidly, but not a tear fell. “Don’t you realize, Sam, that
I
don’t want to be around her? It’s the tragedy of my life. Being with you has given me more happiness than I ever expected to have. My father and grandmother have loved and cared for me. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known what love is. But you’ve given me so much more. With you, I’ve known emotional security and belonging, the feeling that someone needed me. When you wanted to slow down, I wasn’t sure if you were saying you needed space, a distance between us. I’m still not certain.”
“I try not to analyze myself, and it’s a good thing. I realized that I was getting in deeper and deeper with you, that the minute I left you, I wanted to go back to you, and I developed a driving, barely controllable need to make love with you. I’d never had such feelings for a woman, and it scared the
bejeebers
out of me.
“I told myself—and with my professional knowledge to back it up—that I didn’t know important things about you, things that could wreck a committed relationship, and I confess that your mother’s attempt to steal her own child’s pocketbook fueled that misgiving. My growing acquaintance with Bert is the only concrete thing that has happened between then and now to alleviate it. I went to him because I needed his advice and support.”
She nodded slowly. “He said that if he were your father, he would have told you to forget about me, that Mama is too much baggage.”
“If you feel that you have to have her in your life in the role of mother, I . . . I don’t think I could handle that. You and I agreed to try and find out if we have anything going for us. That means not dating other people and exploring each other’s personalities and interests. Are you still willing?”
He didn’t like the sadness in her eyes or her not-quitecertain expression. “I asked you once before if you were sure. I’m asking you again. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“These past weeks have been a great teacher. I’m sure.”
She got up, walked over to him, and stood looking down at him. Then, without preliminaries or warning, she sat in his lap, put an arm around his neck, and put her head on his shoulder. “I needed you so badly,” she whispered.
He told himself to straighten out his head, that it was not a time for what he was thinking and feeling. “Can we see each other tomorrow? I . . . uh, I think I’d better leave.”
She tightened her hold on him. “It’s early yet. Do you have to go?” she asked him, twisting around to be able to see his face.
“I’d better,” he replied as the pressure of her body against him intensified his need to have her. He started to move her from him, but she obstructed his movements. “Kendra! You’re asking for trouble.”
“Is that the new name for it?”
“You’d better quit while you’re ahead, Kendra.”
“You’re leaving me? And you call that being ahead?” she asked him. “Not in my book.”
“On whose terms am I staying?” he asked, no longer able to pretend a casual, laid-back attitude.
“Ours, Sam. Not yours or mine, but ours.” He lifted her and carried her to her bedroom.
Kendra trembled not with fear of Sam, but of herself. Was she like Ginny? Was this the beginning of something that she wouldn’t be able to control? Had she inherited a slavishness to sex?
“What is it? What’s wrong, Kendra? If you’re not sure, we won’t do this. I don’t want you to have reservations about making love with me. It is the most natural step for a man and woman who love each other. Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to be like her, Sam. I don’t want sex to govern my life.”
“Shh. Sex
doesn’t
rule her. Greed and want govern her life. Sex for her is a means to an end. Tell me if there is anything I need to know.”
“Thanks. I’m practically ignorant about this. Does that disappoint you?”
He leaned over her and began to stroke her bare arms and let his fingers drift over the tips of her breasts. “No. It means I won’t have to correct another guy’s mistakes.” He stretched out on top of her and let her feel his flesh and the bulk of his genitals as he rested his weight on his elbows and shifted slowly and erotically over her. Evidently satisfied that he had awakened her, he rolled off, leaned over her, pulled her nipple into his mouth, and began to apply his talent.
An hour later, she gazed up at him, happy and sated. “Can it be like this all the time?” When he answered in the affirmative, she asked, “If that’s so, why do couples split up, sometimes after long years together?”
“If something goes wrong in a relationship, I imagine that the effect shows first when they’re in bed, provided they get that far. You didn’t want to kiss me, Thanksgiving night. Remember? You certainly didn’t want greater intimacy.”
“I don’t know. If I knew then what I know now, given a little pressure, I might have caved in.”
“Don’t you believe that. Pride can be very strong in relations between lovers.” His lips brushed hers softly and thoroughly as if they were his to do with as he pleased. “I hate to think of what I came close to losing,” he said, hardened inside of her and took them on a fast romp to powerful explosions.
Hours later, when he’d gone home and telephoned good night to her, she sat up in bed with the sheet pulled up to her shoulders, wondering about what could come next. Her mother could jettison all that she held dear and would think nothing of it. And if she didn’t get professional help for Ginny, she’d either kill herself or someone else. God forbid that Ginny should ever see Sam again. Kendra doubted she’d use discretion even if she were married to him. He’d snubbed Ginny, and she’d get even if it killed her. How did anybody become so asocial, without morals or social conscience? “And Lord, why do I have to look like her?” she asked herself.