And that had been it. I’d started to examine everything I did for motives, for truth, for meaning, and more often than not had found that cynicism was the overseer of my life. There was no other underlying principle. Above all, nothing was sacred, and I was cool enough to handle it.
Maybe that was what Lea had come to sense. I’d still acted like my old self, but somehow the connection had been broken, and not just with her. I’d stopped hoping and planning and dreaming because it couldn’t matter much. We would go on in our routines and do things together, but the spark was gone. I hadn’t been able to get excited about anything. There had been no continuity, no link between things, and with everything broken down and isolated, there had been no resonance in my life. No magic, no mystery, no hope.
But things had turned around now. I felt at home among people. I couldn’t get out of my mind the thought of what the tune Mike played on the guitar that night had done to all of us. What if he hadn’t done it, just put the guitar down after Marianne’s dance and said good night? Would Sean still be alive? Or Lea with me?
A shooting star cut an arc across the sky. I almost wished on it.
Nineteen
Normally, Lea didn’t wear hats, but she had picked up one in Barcelona on the day of her flight to buoy her spirits. It was a light blue, tiny-brimmed and very fashionable hat that might be described as pert. It went well with her coloring.
At the airport, she paid the driver and had him transfer her bags to a porter, who carried them to the loading platform for her plane. Then she went to the bar and ordered a sandwich of very salty ham and a full bottle of white wine, which she finished.
She had never felt more alone. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick and, as she sat eating, she darted looks from time to time around the room as though she expected to see someone. But really she expected no one. When she had nearly emptied the wine bottle, the sun finally cleared the deck surrounding the airport and flooded the room with afternoon light. Immediately, one of the waiters went to pull the shades across the wide windows, but she didn’t wait for that. She gulped the wine, and got up and left the place.
The plane loaded shortly afterward, and she took a window seat near the front. Pulling down her window shade, she took off her new hat and put it on the rack above her head. Then she settled down, intending to read a novel during the flight. But her eyes were heavy from the wine, and even as the plane taxied for takeoff, she found herself unable to concentrate. She opened the shade, and watched as Barcelona receded and the Mediterranean spread out below her. Luckily, the man next to her did not seem disposed to talk. She felt that she would have been rude to him if he had. It would not be a long flight, and she wanted to hug her solitude to herself. She slept on and off, and started when the stewardess announced their descent into Marseilles.
When they landed, she went into the bathroom and patted water on her eyes to revive herself. Mike should be waiting outside for her and she didn’t know how anything would be with him. It had all been so strange and horrible with the funeral and Doug’s good nature.
She’d hated herself, and him. And Sean was gone.
She wouldn’t let herself think about that. She’d gone over and over it in her mind, and it could do no good. But she wanted to talk to him now. She was so confused, and it had just gotten so they were talking again for the first time since they’d been kids.
No, she wouldn’t think about it.
Mike hadn’t come up for the funeral. She really hadn’t wanted him to, but had also been bothered when he’d suggested that he pass on it. They’d met the day before it for the first time since the day Sean had died. They’d gone up to Mike’s shitty room and made love, and she’d cried the whole day, and he’d tried to be kind, but didn’t really know what would help, or how to reach her. And he’d hurt her physically. She hadn’t been quite ready and he was young and too fast. He hadn’t forced himself on her. She’d wanted him, but at a different pace.
But then he’d told her about his plans, about their plans. He was going to drive to Marseilles the next day and he’d meet her there when she felt she could travel. He’d given her the address where he’d be staying. It was the old dive he’d known from years before, and he told her to write to him and he’d pick her up at the airport or the train station.
And now here she was. Two weeks had gone by. Berta had been good to let her stay, and they had stayed up late almost every night, talking about Sean. She was a good woman, not so simple as Lea had earlier imagined. She was different in what she thought about. When she’d talked about Sean, she spoke of the things he’d done, in a practical sense, whereas Lea had gone on about the kind of man he’d been. They’d complemented each other, and it had been a comfort. In the end, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave, but she knew she had to follow through with the thing with Mike. After all, she’d lost Doug over it. Wouldn’t it be stupid to give up on it now?
The sun had just gone down as she stepped onto the boarding platform. It was cold and windy, especially after the warmth of the plane, and as soon as she stepped outside the wind picked up and whipped her hat off and into the air. She watched it being tossed and then land way back beyond the tail of the plane. Then it skidded and rolled in the wind, getting smaller and smaller as it crossed the open airfield, until it was the size of a pebble to her eye. The hat hadn’t really meant anything to her, but she found herself on the verge of tears. Then she straightened her shoulders and looked back into the wind, telling herself she wouldn’t let herself cry. Still, she bit her bottom lip until it bled.
Mike met her just beyond customs. At first, she was surprised at his appearance. He’d cut his hair quite a bit and looked much younger. His clothing had improved. Before, he’d always been neat, but now he looked almost elegant, in a way that didn’t appeal to Lea. He wore brown loafers and beige, highly pressed slacks, and a pale yellow turtleneck pullover. She’d stared at him when she waited in line, smiled nervously when he’d caught her eye, and then looked down, pretending to be checking her bags. She felt awkward, embarrassed to be seen with him. This was the first time she was with him as his woman. She felt uneasily that she must look like one of those rich women who hire young gigolos to escort them. And he certainly looked the part.
In Tossa, even when she’d been with him, it had been easy to imagine that everyone knew they were only friends, that everyone knew she was Doug’s wife, and that it was perfectly legitimate. Here she was with Mike. But then she thought of the other side—that she on her own had attracted this younger man, and was pleasing him. The thought made her feel better. Certainly, that was how it must look. She was too attractive to have to pay someone. But still she wished he had not cut his hair, and that he had dressed more casually.
When she’d been cleared, he was waiting just at the gate, and took her things. She kissed him on the cheek in greeting, and then walked beside him out to the parking lot. They didn’t speak. When he put the bags in the Citröen, he turned to her and put his arms around her, and she pressed herself against him. She was with him now, and she would be with him, damn it. She hugged him closer, forcing herself not to think.
They got in the car and started driving. Finally, she felt a little relaxed. It was just the two of them again. He got out a cigarette and lit it, looked over at her, and smiled.
“I’m glad you’ve come.”
“So am I.”
“How do you feel?”
“Good. Tired.”
He reached out his hand and took one of hers. Their fingers intertwined. Was he nervous, too? she wondered.
“We should be at the hotel before long. Why don’t you lean back, close your eyes?”
“I feel like I’ve been trying to sleep all day long. Especially on the plane. I’m OK. I just think I want to stop . . . oh, nothing.”
“Stop what?”
“Nothing. I’m just drained. I’d like to stop having everything be so intense for a couple of hours, is all.”
“With me?”
She looked over at him and squeezed his hand. He was so much younger.
“Who’s being intense with you?”
They drove now into the city, talking in bursts, not saying anything important, then lapsing into silence.
“Would you like to stop for a drink?”
“That would be good,” she said.
“Have you eaten?”
“Yes. No. I don’t remember.”
He pulled the car over to the side of the road, and turned to face her. She looked at his face now in the dark. The only light was from the streetlamps outside. It was not the face of such a young man. She was getting used to it again. He put his hand on the nape of her neck and held her facing him.
“Come on,” he said. “Stop this. What’s wrong?”
She looked down. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
He pulled her face up and leaned over to kiss her.
“Give yourself a chance,” he said. “Why don’t we have something to eat?”
He started up again and turned onto one of the backstreets behind the port. The streets here were lit only at the corners. Women stood singly in doorways and the pedestrians seemed to hug the walls as they drove past. They came out into a pleasant street, well lit and open, and Mike parked in front of an open-air café. Heaters burned between the outdoor tables, but most of the patrons preferred to eat inside. Lea linked her arm through Mike’s. She felt funny holding hands while walking with him.
The restaurant specialized in shellfish on the half-shell, but Lea had a fillet of sole. Mike ordered a couple dozen assorted oysters, clams, and mussels, and a bottle of wine, and halfway through the meal they began talking naturally with each other, at least from Lea’s point of view. She was feeling much better. Warmer. The wine helped.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I feel that I just can’t get my balance back. I don’t mean to take it out on you. This has been an awfully hard time.”
“I know. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
“I don’t think I have. I feel like this past month I’ve been sleepwalking, just trying to make it to the next morning, and always waking up in the middle of something I can’t control.”
“Would you like to take a few days off here and just kind of get to feeling back to normal?”
“But you see, that’s just it. I don’t know what normal is anymore. I’ve been taking days off to myself now since you left Tossa, and trying to sort things out, but getting nowhere. What I’d like to do is be able to not think about anything for a week, but I can’t get Sean out of my mind, or Douglas, for that matter. They’re both just as surely gone. And now you’re really all I have, and I don’t know you at all.”
He didn’t answer, and took a drink of his wine.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean that the way it sounded. But do you know what I mean?”
“What more do you need to know about me? I didn’t force you here.”
“Oh, God, Mike, don’t get mad. Please. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I’m not mad, but you know me enough. How well do I know you?”
“Yes. I know. You’re right. Let’s not fight, all right? I couldn’t take a fight now.”
“I’m not going to fight you.” He pointed down at her plate. “Eat your fish, and just try to concentrate on how it tastes. We don’t need to talk for a while.”
And she did what he told her, calming herself. He ordered coffee for them both, and then brandy. She just wanted not to care, to let things go on for a while, and even to enjoy herself. She wished she were with Douglas, so they wouldn’t have to talk, to explain things. Although Mike wasn’t forcing her to talk, she felt pressure. But Douglas really would be worse. He wouldn’t care about her, or anything else, and he would appear to. That was why she had left him. Or was that true? She hadn’t so much left him as gone with Mike. When it had come to it, you could almost say that Doug had left her. Certainly he hadn’t given her much of a chance to reconcile.
Then she thought of why she was really here, to help Mike find his lost love, and she felt like a fool. Why did he need her? And why was she going to bed with him? She glanced toward him.
He sat drinking his brandy, turned half away from her in his seat, looking out at the people passing. It was the sharing, she decided. She didn’t know that they ever had a chance of finding Sharon, but that didn’t matter. They were looking together, and he had something he had to do. As long as there was that, she would be with him, and if they found her, and he went with Sharon, then she would be prepared for that, too. She loved him, she thought. And he took her because he needed someone. He could never love her. She knew that. Maybe she loved him more because it was so clear to her. But what if they spent a year or more looking and never found Sharon? Then what would she be left with? Would she love him without that? At least, she thought, by then I’ll know him and be able to say.
Abruptly, Mike finished his brandy and said they should go. She gulped what was left of hers and stood. He came around the table and helped her with her coat.
Back in the car, they drove back through the red-light district and pulled up in front of a sleazy doorway across from a bar. Mike got out his side and opened the back for the bags. Lea looked at the building they’d parked in front of and suddenly wanted to be far away. Mike came to her door and opened it.