Rhapsody (23 page)

Misha laughed with her. "Who was he?" he
asked.

"Jamie Croft-Milnes," she said. "Lord
Rowlandseer, he was. The future Earl of Something. I was about
fifteen and so was he. It was at a big house party at his family's
estate in England. Kent. You know, a bunch of young aristocrats and
rich Americans, mostly. Experimenting with sex and drugs. Neither
one of us was sure exactly what to do." She laughed again. "It was
all so embarrassing."

"And then?" Misha asked. "Who else?"

"Antonio," Vera said. "An Italian guy I met
in Gstaad on a skiing trip."

"And was it good?" Misha asked.

Vera looked at him. "You're being awfully
nosy," she said teasingly. "I don't know if I should be telling you
these things."

"Oh, come on," Misha said. "I want to know
everything about you, Vera."

"Well . . ." She hesitated.

"I'll tell you," Misha said, grinning. "All
about my own sordid past."

"Promise?" Vera asked.

"Promise," he said.

"Well, Antonio was fun," she said. "And
experienced. Probably with about every girl in Switzerland." She
laughed. "He was very energetic, but he was also gentle. He helped
me overcome my fears and shyness and to enjoy it." She looked at
Misha. "But I knew it meant nothing with him. It wasn't even a
crush. It was just..."

"Fucking?" Misha supplied.

"Exactly," she said.

"And then?" he persisted.

"Well, I dated a lot of guys, but there was
nobody serious," she said. "The only other person I had a ...well,
a sort of a fling with was Simon. A guy I dated in England." She
turned suddenly quiet.

"Go on," Misha said. "What about this
Simon?"

"Oh, we met at a party in London," she said
with a sigh. "He's an artist. A painter. Studies at the Slade. Very
good-looking. Very intense. Very macho and very possessive. It was
...interesting, at first. You know?"

Misha nodded. "I think so."

"It was all so new to me," she went on. "His
sort of man, I mean. He had a motorcycle and a black leather jacket
and all that," she said. "Sort of a rebel, I guess. But the macho
attitude got to be unbearable, and the possessiveness. He went nuts
if I so much as even looked at another man. I swore never
again."

She looked up at him and shrugged again. "And
that's really it," she said. "Till there was you."

Misha smiled and hugged her to him, kissing
her on the forehead. "Till there was me," he said softly. "And
you," he added, his lips brushing her eyes, her nose, and then her
mouth.

Vera responded immediately, swept up on a
tide of passion, of desire, of hunger for this man. "Oh," she
whispered, "I'm going to miss you so much when you're on tour."

"I'll miss you, too," Misha said, his mouth
moving down to her neck, where he licked and kissed her. "But I
haven't left yet. We've got a little more time. Besides, I'll be
able to see you in London, and I'll be coming back to New York
regularly, so we won't be separated for too long."

His kisses became more urgent, and his hands
went to her breasts, but then Vera jerked back. "Oh, Misha!" she
exclaimed. "It's ...it's so scary."

"What?" he asked. "What's so scary?"

"Just thinking about being separated from
you," she said. "I know it hasn't been long, but I think ... I
think I'm in love with you." She looked into his eyes, afraid of
what she would see there and already sorry that she had voiced such
a revelation. The last thing she wanted to do was scare him off
with what might appear to be a demand on his affections.

Misha looked thoughtfully off into the
distance, his expression difficult to read. Finally, he hugged her
and said, "I honestly don't know what I feel, Vera." He met her
gaze. "I know you're a great friend, and I love being with you. But
I really don't know what else to say."

"It's okay, Misha," she said softly.

He sighed. "Except I do know that I'm going
to be putting my career before everything else for a while." He
gave her a meaningful look.

"I understand," Vera said, nodding her head
slightly. She hoped that her face didn't reflect the turmoil that
she felt, the sadness that wrenched her heart in two.

If only he could have told me that he loves
me, too, she thought miserably. While she appreciated his being
forthcoming with her, his honesty was little compensation for the
profound sorrow she felt.

He kissed her tenderly, but she pulled away.
"What?" he asked, reluctantly parting his lips from hers. "What is
it?"

"What time is it?" she asked.

He looked at his wristwatch and grimaced.
"Oh, God, no," he moaned. "Twenty of twelve."

"We're going to have to hurry," Vera said.
"Before Priscilla gets back." She rolled away from him and sat up
in bed. "She'll be furious if we're still here when she gets home.
She's got some new boyfriend, and she plans on having quite a night
with him."

"This is hell," Misha said. "Pure
unadulterated hell."

She turned and looked at him. "Yes," she said
gloomily, "it is." Then she brightened. "But just think, Misha!
Soon you may have your own place. And I'll have one of my own in
London, too."

"Not soon enough," he groused, sitting up
beside her. Then he leaned over and kissed the pulsating artery on
her neck. "Not soon enough."

They got out of bed and dressed quickly, then
straightened the disheveled comforter on the bed. Misha took her in
his arms and held her tightly.

Vera looked up at him and smiled. "You know
what?" she said.

"What?" he asked.

"You didn't tell me about your sordid past,"
she said, tapping his nose with a fingertip.

"Next time," Misha said with a grin. "I
promise."

"I'm going to hold you to it," Vera said. "I
want to know everything there is to know about you, too."

"You will," he said. He kissed her
passionately, then drew back. "I hate having to part this way," he
said bitterly.

"We must," Vera said, "but only for now. It
won't be for long."

I wish that we would never have to part, Vera
thought. I wish we could always be together. But even as swept up
in the emotional maelstrom that this love was for her, she knew
that she could not have what she wanted. At least not now, when
they were so young and inexperienced. Vera, however, felt certain
that someday in the future, when the time was right, she would have
what she wanted.

And that, of course, was Misha Levin.

Her flat in London's once bohemian but now
highly fashionable and exclusive Chelsea district was in Cheyne
Walk, inarguably one of London's most sought-after addresses. The
house itself was a grand nineteenth-century limestone mansion that
had been broken up into large, airy apartments at the turn of the
century.

Although she would have preferred living in a
younger, hipper neighborhood, like the trendy Notting Hill area,
Vera did not want to appear to be ungrateful to her parents by
complaining that the accommodations they had bought for her were
ridiculously lavish for a student. She did, however, harbor a
resentment toward their generosity, since it undeniably gave them a
hold over her. Also, she found Angus, the live-in manservant they'd
hired to see to her needs, an intrusion into her privacy. He was a
powerfully built middle-aged man who, oddly, had been well trained
as both a butler and a security expert.

Vera had laughingly told friends, "He knows
how to serve a drink and cripple your best friend—all in one fell
swoop!"

Though said jokingly, it was nevertheless
true, and made her feel eerily uncomfortable.

Finally she'd resigned herself to her
parents' well- meaning protective measures—and had reached a truce
of sorts with Angus regarding her personal life. Through compromise
she had enjoyed the last four years in London, first studying art
history at the Corthault Institute, now getting a graduate diploma
in fine and decorative arts from Christie's and the Royal Society
of the Arts.

Seated in her library, a large room with
antique mahogany floor-to-ceiling bookcases and walls covered in
hunter green felt, Vera was working diligently on a paper that was
soon due. Her desk, a George I yew and mahogany table, was piled
high with books and papers, and faced the wall, a necessity as she
became too easily distracted by window views or perspectives into
her other rooms.

She put down her pen and rubbed her bleary
eyes with her fingers. She'd been at it for about two hours
already, and was tiring. As she glanced up at the wall, a welcoming
pleasure suffused her with its warmth.

For above the desk hung a bulletin board, and
pinned over its entirety were postcards from all over the world:
Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Paris,
Munich, Geneva, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Lisbon, Sydney, Capetown,
Nairobi, Tokyo. Many of them were typical pictures of tourist
attractions in the various cities—palaces, opera houses, performing
arts centers, that sort of thing—but where possible, Misha had sent
her rather risque and sometimes downright silly cards. From
Capetown, Nairobi, and Sydney there were photographs of copulating
animals—frogs, hyenas, and zebras. From Paris there was a
photograph of turn-of-the-century prostitutes, posing provocatively
in antiquated-looking maillots, garters, and hose.

How like Misha! she thought with warm
amusement. Who else's taste runs the gamut from the grandest of
palaces to the very sleazy all the way to unquestionably plain bad
taste.

But good taste or bad, she loved them all,
especially the vulgar ones. In the last four years, since he had
been on his world tours—playing the piano to great acclaim— the two
of them had corresponded almost religiously, sending each other
weekly, sometimes even daily, updates on their lives. Thus they
chronicled their ups and downs, oftentimes divulged the quotidian
details of their daily lives, the parties, the concerts, the people
they met, and to some extent their emotional lives.

She reached out to an ivory-veneered box and
opened the lid. Inside, it was stuffed full of letters. These
letters and postcards had kept them in touch with each other,
serving almost as a kind of therapy. When Misha grew lonely on the
road, his notes to and from Vera helped fill the emptiness he often
felt, especially during the long nights in anonymous hotel rooms.
For Vera the notes served much the same purpose. She had found that
in many of the social situations into which she was constantly
being thrust by her family and friends, she sometimes became
lonely. It didn't matter that she was being exposed to a constant
stream of new and interesting people, many of whom wanted to become
friends. She felt that her life was being misspent in some way,
that she was wasting precious time. She knew the answer to this
dilemma: she was without Misha.

She pushed her chair back from the table,
deciding that she had done enough work on her paper today. Her work
on the history of furniture and the decorative arts at Christie's
and the Royal Society of the Arts was soon drawing to a close, and
she was going to finish in the top of her class, no mean
accomplishment. She could hardly wait to begin to apply some of the
knowledge she had acquired, hopefully working for one of the major
auction houses, either Sotheby's or Christie's in New York or
London. Her father had assured her that she would have no trouble
getting such a job, since he was a stockholder in one of the
companies and a highly valued customer of them both. Besides, she
was more than qualified.

At this point in time she had a powerful urge
to get on with her life. Now that school was nearly over, she hoped
that a job, whatever it turned out to be, would be fulfilling—and
that a job alone, for a while at least, would be fulfilling for
her. For she knew that Misha, despite their four-year, oftentimes
long-distance friendship and the intimate sexual liaisons they
scheduled whenever possible, was still not ready to make a
commitment to her or—thank God!—to anyone else.

Vera knew now, more than ever, that she was
still in love with him. Her love for him had only grown in the last
four years. A part of her was waiting—and waiting, waiting,
waiting!—for him to ultimately come to the decision that she was
the one.

"Ma'am?"

Vera was startled from her reverie by Angus,
who had appeared at the library door on whispery feet. How does he
do it? she wondered for the thousandth time. He's as big as a
truck, but moves like a ballerina.

She looked over at him, standing there
waiting in such repose, such self-possession. "What is it, Angus?"
she asked.

"There's a telephone call for you on line
one," he said. "The young man."

She knew who he meant, and her heart jumped
with excitement. "Thanks, Angus," she said. "I'll take it in
here."

Angus turned and disappeared down the
hallway, toward the kitchen.

She had all the telephones turned off while
she worked, except for the one in the kitchen, which she couldn't
hear, and Angus knew to interrupt her only if her father or mother,
Misha, or Simon called.

She picked up the receiver on her desk.
"Hello?" she said.

"Hey," the gravelly baritone answered. "You
coming over tonight?"

"Yes," Vera said. "I'll probably leave here
in about an hour. Okay?"

"See you then."

"Bye," Vera said, but the phone had already
been hung up at the other end.

She replaced the receiver in its cradle and
sat thinking, knowing that she should go upstairs and bathe and
dress for her date—if that's what it could be called—but she wasn't
quite ready to yet. She idly wondered if she really wanted to go
out at all, asking herself if it wouldn't be smarter just to stay
at home tonight. She often questioned if it was wise to be seeing
this man.