Rhapsody (36 page)

"It makes your breasts look huge," he said,
eyeing them appreciatively.

"And the boots!" she said. "Practical, no?
Stiletto heels and thigh high. Nice for a day of shopping."

"Yes," Misha said, laughing. "I can just see
it. You'd clear the store out wearing those. All the customers
would go running."

"Come here," she said, stamping one of her
heels.

He walked over and took her into his arms,
kissing her deeply. She responded immediately, throwing her arms
around him, matching his desire with her own.

"I think you like these big breasts," she
said, drawing back and looking mischievous.

"I like you," he said.

"And the big breasts?" she said
teasingly.

"Maybe those, too."

"Let's go to the bedroom," Serena said,
taking him by the hand and leading the way.

Misha followed, glancing at her firm
buttocks, tightly molded by the shiny leather. He found himself
excited by the bizarre outfit.

In the bedroom, the sexual high jinks were
quick, boisterous, and explosive, both of them hungrier than ever
for each other. Not only had it been a long time, but they also
found that her fetishistic clothing was erotic and arousing.

Afterward, they lay naked and spent upon the
bed, then finally began to talk.

"So," Serena said, staring up at the ceiling.
"Are you still mad at me?"

Misha turned his head and looked at her long
and hard. "I have to confess that I find it very difficult to be
angry with you, Serena. Especially when I'm with you. But believe
me, I was angry. When you were away."

"Well, you may as well get over it," she said
a little imperiously. "Because this is the way I am. This is me.
This is my life."

"I understand," he said, "but did you have to
cut me out of your vacation entirely? We could've done something
together. I had free time, and so did you. And you knew it. It
seems like—"

She jerked up off the pillow, staring daggers
at him. "Don't ever expect me to do something like that," she burst
out. "To give up something special for you. I was with my agent,
Coral, who is vital to my career."

She paused for a moment, and some of the
anger seemed to drain out of her eyes. "Besides, we didn't want any
men around. It was a girl thing."

She ran her fingers through her long black
hair, looked over at him, and shrugged. "Don't you ever do that?"
she asked. "Hang out with the guys, I mean?"

"Not really," Misha replied. "I guess I'm
sort of past all that. I did it in school some, sure. But nowadays
I guess I'm not much into male bonding."

Serena groaned aloud. "God, Misha!" she said.
"I can just see you encroaching more and more on my independence.
Gradually making more and more demands. Eating up my time. Eating
me up in the process."

Misha was stunned. What the hell was she
talking about? Ever since he'd known her, she'd done everything she
wanted to do. Though at times he'd been hurt and angry, and, yes,
sometimes he'd complained, he had certainly not "encroached" on her
independence, as she put it.

"Do you really feel that way?" he asked, when
the initial shock had worn off.

"Absolutely," she said without hesitation.
"And," she added, "I won't put up with it from anybody."

"What if I were your husband?"

She turned the full force of her bewitching
hazel eyes on him and then stared at him.

He thought that for a moment at least, she
had suppressed a laugh or a smile, but he couldn't be certain.

"Husband!" she exclaimed at last.
"Husband!"

She paused a moment, and the wonder on her
face was replaced by a serious expression.

"
If
I ever marry, Misha—and that is a
very big if—it will not change my life one iota." She stabbed the
air with a finger. "Not marriage to you"—her fingers stabbed the
air again—"or anybody else."

Then she dramatically slammed a fist into the
palm of her hand. "No compromises! None!"

He hung his head under the weight of her
ruthless gaze. Whatever dreams he had nourished were all now dashed
onto a rocky shore.

After a bout of silence he ventured another
supposition. "So . ..," he began, then cleared his throat, before
continuing. "So ... I guess it's safe to say that you'd never cut
back on the travel for a ...family."

Serena looked at him a moment, then laughed
uproariously. "I'm sorry," she finally sputtered. "I ... I just
don't believe I'm hearing this. You don't have a fucking clue,
Misha, do you?"

He rose abruptly to his feet, and began
gathering up his clothing and putting it on. He wanted to get away
from her and this place as fast as possible. He didn't like her
mocking him now, and he was very disturbed by the ugliness in her
character that it showed.

Serena watched him dress. "You don't have to
leave, Misha," she said.

He buckled his belt and zipped up his
trousers, then looked down at her, his face full of sorrow.

"Oh, yes, Serena," he said. "I think I do."
He slid into his jacket. "Good-bye, Serena," he added in a
whisper.

"See ya later," she said, reaching for a nail
file on the nightstand.

Back down on the street, Misha felt aimless,
like a boat adrift. He simply didn't know what to do next, where to
go, how to make sense of what had just transpired.

What do I do now? he asked himself.

He had always known that he would have to see
her on her terms. But was she truly unwilling to compromise at all?
Did she truly have no more feeling for him than that? Was she truly
unwilling to make changes for a husband? And a family?

After what she'd been through growing up,
he'd imagined that she would welcome the opportunity to show a
child or children that the world wasn't necessarily the bleak and
monstrous place she had experienced. That the world could be
nurturing, bountiful, and loving.

He supposed that her family was Coral
Randolph and Sally Parker. Nothing wrong with that, he thought.
And, of course, there were all the models and stylists and
assistants and their inevitable hangers-on who peopled her life,
celebrated ups with her, helped her through the downs, no doubt. So
many of them were cocaine-snorting, amphetamine-popping,
pot-smoking wastrels, he thought. Often not the best sort of
brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers.

That won't do for me, he thought. Absolutely
not. I want a wife. And children. I want a real family of my own.
To share my life with.

Unbidden tears formed in his eyes. I am lost,
he thought. So lost. And I don't know what to do or where to
go.

Then he began to walk. He walked and walked
and walked, aimlessly, paying no attention to where he was going.
Time had failed to exist for him, and he felt as if he were in a
dimension outside it. He had no idea how long this wandering went
on.

When he finally looked up, to avoid a
pedestrian in his way, he looked around. He realized that he'd
walked all the way from SoHo to Midtown and beyond. The east
Sixties.

Then it came to him. As if a lightning bolt
had struck him and unleashed from his confused mind an idea that
had been there all along, just waiting to be discovered.

Misha knew what he would do. Yes! He knew
with a certainty he had never felt before. He looked about him
again. The city seemed to have taken on a clarity that he'd never
seen before. Then, with a confident, self- assured stride, he
picked up his pace, headed in the direction of his solution, no
longer aimless, no longer lost.

I know exactly what to do. Exactly where
to go
, he thought. And he marveled:
I've found myself at
last. I know my heart's desire
.

"Misha, I want you to think about this," she
said. "At least for a few days, if not longer." She eyed him warily
across the table. "You should be absolutely certain in your own
mind that this is what you really want to do."

Misha nodded and his dark eyes flashed. "I
don't have to think about it," he said in an earnest voice. "I've
already thought about it. Make no mistake about that. This is
definitely what I want to do."

His eyes, she thought, had never sparkled
with such determination, and that handsome square jaw of his had
never looked more assertive. Still, she felt that she must make
certain that his decision wasn't a snap one, made in the heat of
anger or in desperation. And she knew that it might very well
be.

She took a deep, fortifying breath. "Misha,"
she said, as evenly as she could. "I just want to clear up one
thing first."

"Anything," he said. "What is it? You can ask
me anything."

"I... I hope," she said, choosing her words
carefully, "that you're not making this decision on ...on ...the
rebound."

Misha returned her gaze. "On the rebound?" he
repeated. "Why would you think that?"

"If there's one time in our lives when we've
got to be absolutely honest with each other," she said, "then that
time is surely now."

He readily nodded in agreement.

"And I expect you to be as honest with me as
I am with you," she went on. "So tell me the truth, Misha. Are you
doing this . . ." She paused and took another deep breath, then
hurried on, rushing her words while she had the courage to use
them. "...because you're angry with her? Have you come running to
me just to get back at her?"

Misha's face reddened, and his eyes strayed
from hers, off into the distance. Then he heaved a sigh, and his
eyes shifted back to hers.

"You knew," he said.

"Yes," she said, nodding.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Well... for a
long time. Since the beginning, I guess."

Misha was stunned. "How?" he asked. "How did
you know?"

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" she
said. "I'd heard rumors," she said. "After all, we do know some of
the same people."

He looked at her. "You never said a thing,"
he said in a sad voice. "Not a single word."

She remained silent.

"All this time," he said, "and you carried on
valiantly, like there was nothing to worry about, as if everything
was as it should be."

He reached over the table and took one of her
hands in his. "You're even more wonderful than I'd thought," he
said. "And that's why I want to marry you, Vera. Not because I'm
angry with her. And not to get back at her. I decided that I've
loved you all along. All these years."

Tears of joy crept into the corners of Vera's
eyes and began to spill unchecked down her cheeks. She wasn't
certain that she believed him, but she wanted to. Oh, how she
wanted to!

"I just didn't know it, Vera," he continued.
"I guess I was too blind, too stupid, too self-absorbed to
recognize it for what it was." He paused, and his voice softened.
"To see that I loved you all the time. That you're the only woman I
ever really wanted."

He reached over and gently wiped the tears
from her face with a fingertip.

"You ...you're really sure about this?" she
finally managed to whisper.

"Oh, yes," he said, bringing her hand to his
lips and tenderly kissing it. "I want to marry you. I want us to
have children and be a family. Please say yes, Vera."

Vera saw the plea in his eyes, unconcealed
and vulnerable. Her mind was reeling with a thousand unexpressed
emotions, but she forced herself to utter her prevailing sentiment:
"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, Misha. I will marry you. Yes, yes,
yes!"

Later, back at her office, Vera realized that
she didn't even know the name of the nondescript little restaurant
where Misha had proposed to her. He had come rushing in just as she
was getting ready to leave for lunch. Then he'd taken her arm and
rushed her off, mumbling mysteriously that they must talk, at once.
Now, she didn't even think she could remember what block it was
on.

But it didn't matter. Nothing else mattered
to her right now. Not even the beautiful Serena Gibbons, who she
knew had held such a spell over Misha. For Vera finally, after
years of patient waiting, had just what she wanted: Misha
Levin.

She wanted to shout it from the rooftops, to
let the whole world know that Mikhail Levin loved her, Vera Bunim,
and that she and Misha were going to be husband and wife. But she
went about her work dutifully and with her usual poise, containing
for the time being her utter joy.

Life will be perfect now, she thought. No
matter what happens, with Misha at my side, nothing in life can
defeat or hurt me.

Vera let herself into her apartment. She
dropped her keys in a silver bowl on the commode in the foyer and
put her shoulder bag on a chair.

"Home, sweet home," she said aloud, expelling
a sigh of gratified relief. "Home at long last."

Vera was exhausted. The wedding was but a
little more than a week away, and helping her mother with the
myriad wedding details—plus keeping up with her heavy workload at
the same time—were taking their toll.

The apartment was oddly silent because,
unlike nearly every evening for the last few weeks, Misha was not
here. That, too, filled her with a sense of relief. As much as she
missed his company, she was glad that he was busy tonight.

Tonight. What was tonight ...?

Oh, right. The dinner and a long business
meeting with Manny and Sasha. So he would be staying across town at
his own apartment.

If he were here, she thought, our evening
would just be beginning. We would be up half the night ...Cooking
together. Eating together. Talking together. Planning things
together. And, of course, making love together.

Together. That was the magic word.