The Awakening (14 page)

“Thinking about it, yes.”

“A spring bride?”

“It’s possible.”

“Spring is far preferable to summer. We’d all suffocate under the heat and the fashions are so much better for spring. Have you thought about a dress, a designer? I know most of them.”

“But it’s spring already. A bit soon I think,” Carmen smiled and sipped her drink. “No point in rushing matters. After all we haven’t known each other for even a year yet.”

“No,” Elizabeth nodded. “Better not to rush. Better to be certain. Marriage is a very big step.”

“We agree, Elizabeth,” Carmen raised her glass.

“We take weddings very seriously in the Adams family, Carmen,” Elizabeth looked directly into Carmen’s eyes.

“Is there some reason why you think I would be anything less than serious, Elizabeth?” Carmen sat a little taller, a little squarer in her chair.

“Oh, dear, Carmen,” Elizabeth sighed, clasping her hands together. “I so want us to be friends. I really do, my dear. And Andrew certainly wants us to get along. Oh look, our meals.”

Thank God, thought Carmen. What was she doing here, with a woman she really didn’t like, engaged to her son whom she probably didn’t love enough anyway? Not if she was honest with herself about her feelings about Victor. There was something altogether too contrived about this lunch while Andrew was away. Why the sudden desire to be cosy-cosy now? Were they really here to talk about weddings or was Elizabeth doing her own independent research on her soon-to-be daughter in law?

They ate in silence but Carmen enjoyed the food. The steak was rare and juicy, the mushroom sauce thick and rich. The vegetables were perfect. She noticed Elizabeth left half the chicken salad on her plate. Oh, well, Carmen thought, more fool her. The waitress cleared the plates and Carmen braced herself for the second round.

“Andrew loves you. You are the first girl he’s loved. Well, since high school,” Elizabeth leant across the table in a gesture of intimacy. “He’s had some terrible luck with women, Carmen. The truth is he needs someone strong and calm like you. We’re very happy to welcome you into the family.”

“Is he going into politics, Elizabeth?” Carmen had suddenly seen Andrew in a large highly polished black car driving down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Elizabeth sat back abruptly. “Whatever makes you say that?”

“Well,” Carmen said. “Yours is a political family. A powerful family and even though Andrew is in publishing it’s only for a while, isn’t it? In the next few years you’ll call him to duty and he won’t say no. And you need the right wife. My family are nothing, not your sort of people, but I have everything a politician needs in a wife. I have enough money, status: I’m attractive and have a clean past. The country loves me and will for a long time and that’s worth a lot of votes. And in five years time when we’ve got a couple of children and Great Blizzard Publishing is even more influential than it is today then Andrew can shake off his womanising reputation and his dirty deals from the past will be well buried by his marriage to me and working for Victor. How am I doing?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Do you realise how ridiculous you sound?”

Carmen nodded. “Oh, yes. But I’m right, aren’t I? Andrew thinks he’s making choices but you’re guiding him every inch of the way.”

Elizabeth was nodding almost imperceptibly.

“I was wrong about you. I thought you thought I was beneath you, just a bimbo sports star. But you’ve been testing me. Watching me with all your important political and business friends. Yes, I’ve been completely aware of who has been at your house at the Hamptons each time we’ve stayed. You watch me quietly and inoffensively charm your guests, never drawing too much attention to myself, despite my status.”

Elizabeth looked at Carmen. “You’re different to the last time we met. You’re not the girl I know.”

Carmen sighed and smiled broadly. “No, I bet I’m not. I’ve had a weekend in the mountains with someone very special and wise and I know things now that I didn’t know before. I only knew this today sitting here with you now.”

Elizabeth clapped her hands slowly together. “I have under-estimated you. I think Andrew has too.” She snorted. “Will told me to watch you. He could see it, said you were smart. He knew you should be part of our family. That you would, in the words of today “value add”.”

“So I guess you expect us to get married this spring, to keep to your schedule.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

“Well, you’re expecting Andrew to stand before he’s forty. That’s only five years away. How much time do you expect me to take off work? Oh, I get it. I stop once the children come along.”

“You’re too clever for your own good.”

“No, I’m too clever for you and Andrew. I’m not a puppet to be pushed around. I guess you need to find another fiancé.” Carmen stood up. “Thanks for lunch, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth Adams was clearly flustered. “Sit down, sit down. Please, Carmen. You are right. Exactly right. But Andrew doesn’t know this.”

“Oh, well that figures.”

“He thinks we’re talking about dates and venues. He is quite sincere in his passion for you, Carmen. And we wouldn’t dream of using you or making you do anything you didn’t want to. But you have to admit, it’s a great plan.”

Carmen laughed. Elizabeth’s mouth creased.

“He hasn’t got a hope, has he?” Carmen said.

“Not with you and me on the same side,” Elizabeth nodded. “I’d like to think we could be friends, Carmen. I really would. I know you’ve had a lot of heart ache in your life and I’d like to think that Will and I, as well as Andrew, could be your family. Give you something you’ve always wanted.”

Carmen nodded.

“But we won’t tell Andrew about this just yet. Our secret?”

“All right.”

“An August bride?” Elizabeth ventured.

“Sounds good.”

“So we’ll do this again?” Elizabeth ventured. “And talk weddings and venues properly.”

To say she felt bizarre after lunch was an understatement. Where had all that about politics come from? She couldn’t wait to see Victor for dinner and dissect her meeting with Elizabeth Adams.

Victor looked at here dubiously as she recounted her lunch with Elizabeth. “Be careful, Carmen.”

“I thought you’d be pleased, Victor. I sensed all that. No-one told me. I just felt what was emanating from her. She seemed to be happy that I’d worked it out. That she didn’t have to explain herself.”

Victor took her hand as they sat in a little Italian restaurant that Victor loved in Greenwich Village. “It’s good that you are feeling your way more through the world. But, my little bear, you must be careful with whom you “share” these revelations.”

Carmen sat back, a petulant pout overtaking her lips. “You’re not easy to please, Victor. You say, look inside, feel more, think less, be and then when I do you say no. Not now. What am I meant to do?”

“Yes,” Victor sighed. “I take your point, Carmen. You are just discovering your power and reaching inside others as well as yourself is something to value. But you must learn discretion. Know when to reveal, when to keep things to yourself.”

“Like you do.”

“Yes,” he signalled to the waiter. “Just like in most things, and you should appreciate this, timing is everything. A fraction of a second one way or the other and what have you got?”

“A world record or nothing,” she nodded. “History books or zero.”

“Exactly.” Victor ordered for them. He handed the menus back to the waiter and gave his undivided, piercing gaze to Carmen.

“Think of yourself as a toddler just starting out. You know some things but not enough. You are like a seven year old, you can read, you can speak and listen but you have no road sense. You aren’t safe in the world.”

“But it’s only Andrew’s mother and you said be fierce.”

Victor smiled across the table. “No I didn’t. And you need to know more about Andrew’s family. Don’t assume anything. They are incredibly powerful people, with more connections than you could imagine.”

“But you’re not frightened of them. Elizabeth is on one of your committees.”

“Oh Carmen, you are very young. You see the world in a simplistic way. Fear and power are simple terms to you when the truth is they are highly complex concepts.” He took a sip of wine. “Your enemies are not always where you expect them to be.”

She looked at him. “Should I be suspicious of everyone?”

“Until you know better, yes.”

“That’s very cynical, Victor.”

“Carmen, we tread a difficult path as it is. Just living and making our way in the world is challenging enough. But you, who will be greater than the rest of us, have a harder path.”

“No Victor, not again.” Carmen put up her hands and closed her eyes. “We’re just having dinner.”

“Carmen.” Victor’s voice was edged with steel. “You are still to grasp the seriousness of our relationship and what has to happen. You and I can never “just have dinner” or coffee or a chat. It’s not possible. I have a great task and you must be a more willing student or, or-”

“What? The end of the world will come?”

Victor nodded his head vigorously. “Yes. Yes, it will.”

Carmen stood up. “Look, Victor, I’m sure you believe what you say. I’m sure you have my best interests at heart but you sound insane. I had lunch with my future mother in law, made some intuitive deductions which I shared with the smug old cow, who then was much nicer to me than she’d ever been, because it was obvious I wasn’t another bimbo and you are moving back into conspiracy theory mode.” She took a big swig of water. “So, do you work for the CIA, is that it?”

“Sit down, Carmen.”

“So help me Victor I’m ready to go. Walk out of this restaurant, away from Great Blizzard, right away from your insanity and marry AA as soon as he gets back.”

“That would be a mistake,” Victor’s eyes, which Carmen was growing to love, were dark and threatening.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

“Sit down, Carmen. Please.” His voice and eyes were softer again. He smiled in a gentle pleading way. She sat. He was pleased to see the polar bear necklace was securely in place around her golden neck. While it remained there he could keep pushing, keep reminding her of her destiny. He willed her to touch it in moments of tension, insecurity, as she was now, to remind her of her primal connections. The food arrived: garlic bread and steaming fettuccini marinara. “Have some food, Carmen.”

Just like at lunch, Carmen found solace in silence. She ate quietly, slowly, enjoying the freshness of the seafood and the ripeness of the tomatoes, considering Victor, wondering why she should actually trust him. For all she knew little about Andrew or his family she knew even less about Victor. True she felt more comfortable and safe with him than anyone else she’d known in her life, despite his insistence on talking like some other world doomsayer, some super-human being. With Victor she felt more conflicted than with anyone else she’d ever met. Part of her just wanted to remove herself from his compelling sphere of interest. The other part wanted him to take her as his and obliterate Andrew from her life.

Finally Victor spoke. He knew that Carmen would maintain her silence for as long as she needed. He felt her need to have some control over the situation and re-opening the conversation was his gesture of compliance and understanding. She knew that and smiled as he spoke.

“There is a great darkness in the world, Carmen. Some of us are trying to fight it. The planet is in danger. Man has run wild for too long, abusing the earth, killing the beasts: destroying the balance. Gaia is dying. We have to act and you are the instrument of hope, of change. We have been waiting a long time for you to come to us, Carmen and now that you have finally shown yourself to me again, I have to act. I have no choice. You must understand this. I have no choice.”

Carmen took a deep breath. “Every time you tell me this you add a layer. I believe you believe what you say. I believe you are entirely sincere, Victor. Your life and work shows that you are dedicated to the planet. That you do everything in your power to stop global warming and help endangered species. I believe you see something in me. And yes, there is more to me than I thought. But, Victor.” Carmen took his hand. “I am no more than a woman who has lost touch with her instincts, who has become a machine, used to performing for the public. I’m just a swimmer, Victor. I have no great or special powers. I just guessed with Elizabeth. I made a few assumptions and followed the expressions on her face as I spoke. It wasn’t hard to work out. Any old journalist would put it together. Andrew is not destined to take over Great Blizzard. He is no threat to you, but you know that all ready. His family want him for the White House. They’re like the Kennedys. A family of politicians, with high hopes for the only beloved son. It was nothing special. You know that.”

“But the clearing with the wolves. That was something special, Carmen. Take my word for it.”

She laughed dismissively. “That was you, Victor. A stunt engineered by you.”

He shook his head slowly. “It wasn’t. I concede the white wolf was me. A stunt as you would say, to give you confidence in yourself. But the pack of wolves - no. That was all you, Carmen. No magic, no interference.”