Authors: Donna Fletcher Crow
Glenda giggled. “Can you imagine the look on his face when I walk in. What name shall I give?”
“How about Gwendolyn?”
“A lovely name, but why that?”
“Name of my heroine.”
“The one who grows roses? Perfect! Do you think I can disguise my voice enough?”
“Can’t you just talk to the receptionist?”
“Kyle prefers to make his own appointments. But I think I can pull it off. Oh, I feel so much better! Come on, let’s go shopping to celebrate!”
“I’ve done most of the tourist spots. Show me where you really shop.”
Since Glenda had gone to Oak Bay by bus, they drove back downtown in Laura’s car. “There’s a dress shop right up here on Douglas Street. Enough racks to keep us busy for hours. Good styles and working girl prices.”
The trim saleslady in a proper black dress and pearls asked if she could help. Glenda replied that they were just browsing. “Well, you just carry on then, my dears.”
And that is precisely what they did: through stacks of sweaters, racks of lingerie, tables of hats. Laura hadn’t felt so much like a schoolgirl, or a little girl dressing up in her mother’s clothes, for years and years. At home she did almost all her shopping from the myriad of direct mail catalogs that filled her mailbox and required her spending none of her time in the malls. It was an efficient method and the results were highly satisfactory for the turtlenecks and blazers she preferred. But a shopping spree with a friend filled an entirely different need from merely stocking her wardrobe with the basics.
“Laura, just come see this gorgeous thing!”
Laura looked at the shimmering scarlet silk caftan Glenda was holding out. “Oh, try it on!” Laura urged.
“Not me, silly. It’s made for you. Come on.”
Laura held back. She had never in her life even looked at anything so seductively alluring as this garment. “I, uh—I don’t think that’s quite me.”
“Maybe not the you you are. But how about the you you’d like to be?”
Laura laughed. “You sound like you’ve been talking to a psychiatrist. What was it Kyle said, ‘It’s never hypocrisy to act the way you’d like to feel’?”
“Sure. Didn’t you ever want to feel sexy?”
Laura pushed aside her instinct to draw back. She forced herself to touch the soft, clingy fabric. She looked at the low neckline without blinking. “Well …”
“Come on. It’ll knock Tom’s eyes out.”
“Is that what I want to do?”
“Of course it is.”
“OK then, practice what you preach—let’s find something for you to wear to your appointment with Dr. Larsen.”
“Wait a minute. I’m a gardener, not a romance writer. I’m an outdoors girl—cutoffs and straw hats.”
“Which is precisely why this blouse will get his attention.” Laura held out a black crepe, dolman sleeved blouse embroidered with peacock-colored beads. “Do you have a skirt to go with this?”
Glenda admitted that she did. A short time later the two women, looking cat-with-the-creamish, emerged from the shop with their bundles. “Let’s go to the English Sweet Shop and get something to take to our fellas,” Glenda said.
“I thought that’s what we just did.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But why hold back once we’ve started? Besides, I’ve got a fatal weakness for their English Mix.”
So they added small white bags of chocolates from Brussels, mints from South Africa, and toffee from England to their day’s hoard before Laura walked Glenda to her bus stop. “Let me know how it all goes,” Laura said.
“Don’t worry, I couldn’t keep it. It feels so good just to have some sort of a plan! Why don’t you and Tom go to church with us Sunday? We might be able to get in a bit of a private word then.”
Church? How long had it been since she and Tom had gone to church together? “Well—sure. Why not? I’ll ask Tom.”
On the way back to the Empress, Laura eyed the bag containing the red caftan as uneasily as if it were a living thing. What had she done? In her mind she saw herself standing before the dressing room mirror, the lights overhead making the fabric dazzle. She gasped again at the remembered sight her contours revealed so—so—well, so revealingly under the flowing fabric. Just the color alone made her think of Rahab the harlot and her scarlet thread.
Guilt and shame overcame her for purchasing such a thing. She signaled a left-hand turn. She would go around the block here and take it right back to the store. How could she have been so wanton? What would Tom think if he had seen her in that thing? He would have thought her mother was right about her enticing that man to misbehave. Maybe her mother was right. If she could buy a thing like this to entice Tom, maybe she had done something like that as a child and then repressed the memory.
A horn blared behind her. She jumped and realized the light had changed. She rounded the corner and pulled into a parking spot. But before she even turned her engine off, the image of Kyle Larsen rose before her, sitting across from her, tapping the eraser end of his pencil on his desk.
“Does it help you to know you’re not alone in your feelings? Identifying sex with guilt is not at all uncommon. The Bible so often speaks against the misuses of sex—such as adultery or fornication—that many people have concluded erroneously that God condemns all sex. But remember, He’s the one who created men and women to complement each other physically. Have you got that—not opposites. Complements.”
“Yes, but—”
“And then, of course, there are some people who believe that anything that pleases God can’t be fun …”
Laura thought for a moment. “No, I don’t believe that. A God who created roses couldn’t be dour.”
“That’s right. And He wants you to find even greater joy in your marriage than you do in your rose garden.”
“I do enjoy part of it—being held close, feelings of tenderness …”
“Right. That’s exactly the right place to start. Concentrate on that. Then go on to concentrate on the joy of giving your husband pleasure. Forget about yourself. It’s thoughts of yourself that are inhibiting you—not thoughts of Tom.”
“But what if I don’t make him happy? I don’t think I could stand another failure.”
Kyle’s pencil tapped. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. Nothing satisfies a man like knowing he has satisfied his wife. If you’re happy, he’ll be happy.”
“Yes! Tom told me that once, but I couldn’t cope with it at the time.” She paused. “And if I’m unhappy, he’s unhappy. I guess that’s what’s called a vicious cycle.”
“Nothing could be further from vicious when it’s going the right direction. When your husband is convinced that you love him for himself and enjoy his lovemaking, he’ll become more confident in all areas of his life and be a better husband—in or out of bed.”
The full implication of that concept overwhelmed Laura. She tried to imagine how wonderful life could be with that principle in operation in their home. Laura felt an incredible joy, like a new birth. She was more than prepared to die to her old inhibitions, her old self-consciousness.
I’ll be born a new and better self in real communion with Tom. I’ll …
Another blaring horn made Laura jump and brought her back sharply to the real world. The real world of automobiles and city traffic. She eased out into the street and drove to the hotel, the scarlet caftan still on the seat beside her.
Tom met her at the door of their room. “Where have you been? I thought we had a date to go to the castle this afternoon.”
“Oh, Tom, I’m sorry! How could I have forgotten?” She knew how he hated to be kept waiting. And here he’d been, getting more and more frustrated while she daydreamed about how happy she would make him.
“Is it too late to go now?”
Tom glanced at his watch. “Probably not. If you’re sure you can fit me into your schedule.”
“I said I’m sorry. I know I should have called when Glenda and I decided to go shopping, but I guess I thought you’d be so involved in your work you’d be glad not to be interrupted.”
“If
you thought at all.”
She dropped her packages on the bed and followed Tom into the hall. “How is Phil getting along at the office?”
“K.C. looks better than ever.” Tom glowed with excitement. “I may even press for a whole percentage point more. If our backer will just stay with us until it’s signed, Marsen and James, Inc. should be financially independent at last.”
Laura nodded just as if she understood the machinations of his business activities. But one thing she understood—getting him talking about the world of high finance and investment properties would take his mind off his irritation with her.
She listened with one ear as she reached for her briefcase and pulled out her guidebook notes on the building they were to visit. Craigdarroch Castle was built a hundred years ago by Robert Dunsmuir who promised his young wife that if she would accompany him to Victoria from Scotland he would “become rich and build her a castle with a porte cochere and liveried coachmen and she would give grand dinner parties under crystal chandeliers.”
Her mind full of this prince-in-shining-armor vision, Laura’s consciousness came back to Tom’s words, “… and of course, eliminating the middleman on that stage of the procedure will give us more margin for profit for ourselves or for reducing fees to the consumer …”
“I’m sorry. I missed that part. How will you cut out a middleman?”
“By having the contractor be his own investor—then we won’t have to borrow capital from an outside lender …”
Laura really did try to follow his explanations, but then her eye caught the story of the wedding of the Dunsmuirs’ daughter: “The most fashionable and brilliant ever witnessed in Victoria. The bride’s gown was white and silver brocade with full court train, brocaded in silver in the pattern of the Prince of Wales’ crest. The wedding party included six bridesmaids, several trainbearers and flower girls, and 20 friends of the bride as maids of honor. The bride and bridegroom received some 300 guests at Craigdarroch, the fashionable company spending several merry hours in the palatial residence and its beautiful gardens while the band of the HMS
Warspite
played …”
“… But then if this falls through, I don’t really know what we’ll do. Phil’s age and health don’t make heavy indebtedness sensible for the company, and I—”
“Tom!” His words suddenly made sense. “Are you saying we’re in financial trouble?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying we need this Kansas City deal to be really independent.”
“You do expect to get it, don’t you?”
“You never have a deal until the money’s changed hands. But it looks good.”
“Well, then, let’s quit worrying.” And as if worries could disappear and castles appear magically, Craigdarroch, a sugarplum fairy confection of steep red-roofed gables, conical turrets, and multiple chimneys rose before them. Laura resisted the urge to take out her notebook.
You’re not here for research. You’re here to give Tom pleasure. To be with him.
They entered the mellow wood-paneled grand hall and went on to a music room where intricately jeweled stained-glass windows brought splashes of color to the ornate white and gold walls under a rain forest of crystal chandeliers—Robert Dunsmuir had been a man of his word. All the light and color was reflected and rereflected in equally ornate mirrors adorning the walls on every side of the room. Laura laughed and started to wave to their repeated images when she stopped. Was that tall, redheaded fellow with acne staring at her? She turned, but he was gone. Silly of her. He was just looking at the marvelous mirror—like all the other tourists. Or admiring his earring in it.
And then Laura’s attention moved to a white alabaster statue of a bonneted baby girl lying on her stomach, playing. Subconsciously Laura’s hand went to her flat abdomen.
She turned at the guide’s words and made herself focus on the unique fireplaces with flues that divided around stained-glass windows centered over the mantels in the library and dining room. They moved on to the carriage entrance: the promised porte cochere. Apparently the Scottish prince charming had fulfilled all his promises. Laura moved ahead of Tom into the central entry, rich with multiple varieties of wood. She held on to the railing so she could look straight up through four floors of curving oak banisters and brass chandeliers.
The wooden floor creaked sharply behind her. She turned but was dizzy from looking up. When her head cleared, no one was there. She was still puzzling over the small incident when Tom joined her. They went on from room to room, Laura becoming increasingly entranced with the pictures on the walls—not the prized oil paintings written up in the guidebooks but the simple, black-and-white pictures of children. The first one to capture her attention was an Edwardian photograph of Julie, eight-year-old granddaughter of the Dunsmuirs, in a low-waisted white dress with a big hair ribbon, holding up a skirt full of blossoms while dropping a single rose behind her. Then to the nursery, its walls covered with delightful old lithographs of children playing blindman’s bluff in a flowerfilled garden, golden-haired children at a picnic tea along a riverbank, laughing children playing tug-of-war with their grandfather …
“Victorian sentimentality.” Tom shook his head.
Yanked out of her personal yearnings, Laura realized how little she had succeeded in connecting emotionally with Tom on this excursion. “I think it’s rather wonderful.” She turned back down the stairs.
“And apparently so did your friend, as absorbed as he seemed to be in every item.” Tom crunched across the parking lot to the car with long strides.
“My friend? What are you talking about?”
“Your friend from the museum. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t see him. I saw you start to wave to him in the mirror before you saw me looking. Who did you say you had tea with today?”
“You know perfectly well I was with Glenda. If that man—whoever he is—was here—and, no, I didn’t see him—it was just a coincidence. Why are you so fixated about this?”
“Some masher is following my wife around, and
I’m
the one who’s fixated?”
Laura remained quiet. Aggravating as the exchange was, she couldn’t help being pleased that Tom cared enough to be jealous. And besides, she could tell by the look on Tom’s face that he was back to running calculations in his head again. Any incident at Craigdarroch—real or imagined—was forgotten.