Garden of Lies (64 page)

Rachel shook off the suspicion. No, ridiculous. Brian was not seeing Rose.

He loves me. He married me, not her.

Yes,
a cool inner voice answered,
but that was a lot of years ago. Suppose since then he’s

changed his mind? Suppose he regrets his choice?

Rachel cranked on the faucet, hard, as if the rushing of the water could drown out these

thoughts. She filled the kettle, and put it on the stove. A cup of tea would soothe her. Maybe

some honey and lemon, the way Mama used to fix it when she was a little girl, sick in bed with a

sore throat.

When was the last time she’d talked to Mama? A week, more? Mama used to call practically

every day. But of course lately she’d been so busy herself.

Rachel realized with a start that she missed her mother.

They differed in almost everything, how they lived, thought, dressed, behaved. But Mama was

the one person she could count on always to love her, no matter what.

Rachel quickly dialed.

“Rachel!” Sylvie sounded surprised, and thrilled, as if Rachel were a long-lost friend calling

from Nairobi. Had it been
that
long? “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you caught me. I was just on my

way out the door.”

“I won’t keep you then.” Rachel felt disappointed. Then thought,
Selfish, expecting her to drop

everything for me.

“Don’t be silly. It’s just another one of those dreary fund-raisers. They won’t discover the cure

for cancer any sooner if I’m late. Anyway, I would have called you myself, but I’ve been running

from morning to night. I was up at D and D all morning, then this afternoon—”

“D and D?”

“Designers and Decorators showrooms. On Third Avenue. The most wonderful wallpapers and

fabrics and—darling, are you all right? You sound a little funny. Are you coming down with

something?”

Rachel laughed. “No. I’m just not used to the new you, that’s all.”

[390] “The new me?” Now Sylvie laughed. “Heavens, that sounds so awful. Like one of these

new, super-improved detergents. Have I changed that much?”

“You’re—” Rachel struggled to find the right word, “happier, I guess. Since you started doing

this house for Nikos. But I’m glad for you. Honestly.” She was a little jealous, too. She yearned

to feel as happy as her mother sounded.

“You don’t sound as if you approve, somehow.” A pause. “Is it Nikos? The fact that we’re

spending so much time together lately?”

“No, of course not. I like Nikos. You know that. He’s very sweet, and obviously crazy about

you. Are you sleeping with him?”

“Rachel!” She heard the hiss of a sharply indrawn breath. Then another sound. Smaller, almost

inaudible. The tiniest of chuckles. “You never get tired of shocking me, do you? And the answer

is no. Nikos and I are just friends.”

“Friends sleep together sometimes.”

“Honestly, I just ... oh dear, there he is now. He’s waiting for me downstairs. Did I tell you he

was taking me? I have to run now. Was there something special you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No, Mama.”
Nothing special. Just everything.

Rachel ached at that moment to be a little girl again, to crawl into her mother’s lap, to rest her

head against the sweet-smelling softness of Mama’s chest.

“Well, then ...”

“Good-bye, Mama. Have fun. Give Nikos a kiss for me.”

When she hung up, the tea kettle was whistling. Rachel snatched it off the burner, and poured

some hot water in a mug. She rummaged for a tea bag in the cupboard. Everything smelled stale.

When was the last time she’d gone shopping? Or cooked a dinner?

Rachel felt hungry, but she also felt too exhausted to cook anything. She carried her mug into

the living room and flicked on the television. Same old thing. Excerpts of the Watergate hearings,

which had been broadcast live earlier in the day. John Dean in his horn-rims earnestly leaning

forward to speak into the microphone. His wife, Mo, seated behind him, elegant, stoic, her

platinum hair screwed into a bun so tight it looked as if only that might be holding her together.

But how could Rachel feel sorry for Mo Dean, so beautiful, so obviously healthy? Even her

suffering seemed somehow to have [391] been designed to cast her in the spotlight, to tweak the

viewer’s heartstrings.

Rachel thought of Alma Saucedo. How many people would ever know or care about her

plight? This very minute, lying in a coma upstairs in Neurology. A massive cerebral hemorrhage.

She probably would never regain consciousness.

Or hold her baby.

Rachel’s stomach tightened.

My fault. I should never have made that stupid promise. I should have been stronger. Why in

God’s name did I do that?

God, if only Brian would come back,
she thought.
I
want him so much. I need him.

Rachel turned off the television, and went to the back of the apartment. Next to their bedroom

was the extra room Brian used as an office. The room they’d planned to use as a nursery. She

would wait there until he got back. At least she would feel less alone, surrounded by his things.

She sank into the deep leather chair in front of Brian’s desk, staring at his typewriter, an old

Smith Corona manual he’d had since college. His lucky typewriter, he called it.

There was a page in it now, half-typed.

And a stack of pages in the metal basket beside the typewriter. His new novel. It looked as if it

were about half-finished. How could that be? Hadn’t he just started? Or was it just that she hadn’t

been paying attention?

She felt a pang, remembering how close she and Brian had been while he’d been working on

Double Eagle.
Each day, reading what he’d written, telling him what she thought was good, what

seemed like extra words that ought to be cut. Crying with him when the memories raked too close

to the bone. Laughing at humor so black no one who hadn’t been there would understand.

So where had all that closeness gone? There had to be at least some of it left, hadn’t there?

Rachel then rolled the page out of the typewriter and began to read.

...
dark, but he found the ladder, his palms meeting the metal rungs still warm from the sun,

which had gone down hours ago. There was no moon, but he could see well enough with all the

lighted windows
[392]
above and below him. In fact, damned if he couldn’t see all the way to

Coney Island, lit up like a Christmas tree. Laura was waiting, up there in the fort they had built

together when they were kids. The two Luckies he’d swiped from his father’s steel lunch bucket

were nestled in the front pocket of his shirt. One for each of them. He thought of how it would be.

Laura beside him, her shoulder snuggled against his, her bare legs stretching out from under a

too-small dress, long and darkly golden as maple syrup. He felt hot, even with the breeze blowing

cool against his neck. And angry with himself all of a sudden. Maybe it was time he stopped

meeting her up here. Now that he was close enough to fourteen to suspect that Laura’s mouth

was made for more than shooting of wisecracks and smoking Pop’s Luckies. ...

Rachel let the page drop. She felt cold, as if a hole had been opened somewhere inside her, and

all her blood were draining out.

Rose. He’s writing this book about
her.

Why didn’t he tell me?

What did it mean?

Rachel began to shiver. She was afraid. She wondered if maybe she was even more afraid now

than she’d been in Vietnam.

Part III

You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,

But the scent of roses will hang round it still.

Thomas Moore

Chapter 26

“No, that one’s too dark. Too formal. Now this ...” Sylvie selected a wallpaper sample and held

it up against the sheetrock. “There, you see how it picks up the light from outside? You almost

feel as if you’re inside a van Gogh.”

“Yes,” Nikos nodded thoughtfully. “I think you are right. Once again. But you must give me

credit for one thing—knowing what this house needed most.” He turned to her, smiling, his dark

eyes gleaming. “You.”

Sylvie felt his hand, warm and heavy, on the back of her neck.

The swatch of William Morris paper with its bright mustard sunflowers slipped from her

fingers and fluttered to the floor. How quiet it was. The painter’s crew had all gone home, and the

late afternoon light filled the room with a glow like dark wild honey. The ladders propped by the

window cast long, rippling trails of shadow across the canvas dropcloths on the floor. Outside,

she could hear pigeons murmuring in the rain gutter.

Sylvie, a little frightened, her heart beating fast, thought,
What shall I do? I want him. But am I

ready to take everything that goes with it? Love, perhaps even marriage?

No. Maybe.

No, I don’t know. I can’t think. Not when he’s touching me like this.

Warmth spread from Nikos’s hand, down her spine, filling her with slow, warm waves of

desire. Dear God, how wonderful to feel this way again. After so many years.

Sylvie shivered, watching motes of dust eddy within the slanting bars of yellow sunlight. Then

she felt a tiny gray speck of dread.

If Nikos knew the truth about Rose, would he still want her? If he knew how she’d lied, denied

him what he’d wanted perhaps more than anything?

And her own life? Did she want it to change? All those years, [396] trying to do what was

right, what was expected. Now she was doing just as she pleased ... and it felt nice.

She drew away slightly.

“Wicker,” she said. “That’s how I’d furnish this room. Like a garden, with white wicker

furniture, cover the cushions in one of those splashy Japanese fabrics ... and over there by the

window, a basket of dried flowers ...”

But Nikos wasn’t listening, she could see. He was massaging her shoulders now, loosening the

knotted muscles with deep, circular strokes of his thumbs.

“Nikos ... ,” she protested weakly, “you’re not paying attention. You hired me to—”

“You’re too thin, Sylvie,” he interrupted. “I can feel your bones. Like a starling.”

“A sparrow,” she corrected with a nervous laugh.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Yes ... no ... oh, it
does
feel good. But, Nikos, I thought you wanted to go over these samples

with me. I can tell you what I think will work best, but you have to make the final choice. It’s

your house, after all.”

“I like what you like.”

His hands moved down the slope of her shoulders, caressing her arms, bare in her short-sleeved

summer blouse. She felt a sharp prickling of gooseflesh.

“Nikos ... this will take
forever
if you don’t cooperate.”

“I have been very selfish, keeping you from your other work, no?”

“Other work?”

“Running a bank is not work?” He smiled, the seams in his leathery brown face deepening.

Sylvie understood. He was not joking. Replaying his words in her mind, she seemed to step out

of herself, and see herself as Nikos probably saw her. A woman growing stronger with age, rather

than weaker. A woman who now had more than the faded remnants of youthful prettiness. A

woman with a good head, who was finally learning how to use it.

Yes, the bank
was
her responsibility. Not the way it had been with Gerald. But still, these days

when she walked into a board [397] meeting, there was no more clearing of throats, shifting of

eyes. The men greeted her with respect, met her gaze directly, listened to her ideas.

God, the fears she had clung to for so many years, like that lumpy old baby blanket that

Rachel, until she was two, had dragged everywhere. And now, for the first time in fifty-eight

years, Sylvie felt free.

Letting herself fall in love with Nikos could only spoil it all.

“Nikos ...” Now he was kissing her neck, his lips whispering over her skin, sending delicious

shivers through her. Sylvie, sighing, relaxed against him, leaning into the safe cove of his

muscular arms and broad chest. She felt so weak. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting him.

“I warn you,” he murmured, “I am a jealous man.”

“And just who is it you’re jealous of? Mr. Caswell at the bank? He’s eighty, but I hear he’s

pretty spry. And there’s Neal, who does my hair, but I suspect he’d prefer it if I were a boy. ...”