Authors: Nelson DeMille
She held out her empty glass, and I refilled it.
It was past 7:00 P.M., still light outside, and the open window let in a nice breeze and the sounds of birds chirping. Now and then I could hear a vehicle passing on Grace Lane, but no one drove into the gravel driveway.
She finished her wine, put her feet on the floor, and raised herself up from the armchair.
I, too, stood, and she put her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in my bare chest.
I put my arms around her, and I could feel she was limp and barely standing—as opposed to Bad John who was not limp and standing fully erect. I lifted her and laid her down on the sheets with her head on the pillow.
She stared up at the ceiling, then tears welled up in her eyes.
I took some tissues from a box on the nightstand and put them in her hand, and Good John suggested, “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
She nodded, and I got the quilt from the foot of the bed and laid it over her.
She said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I want to . . . but it’s just . . . too much. Everything. I’m too sad.”
“I understand.” I also understood that Elizabeth was possibly considering her relationship with Susan, and that made two of us.
“Maybe later,” she said.
I didn’t reply.
“I like you.”
“I like
you
.”
I opened the small closet, found a pair of khakis and a golf shirt, and got a pair of shorts from the dresser. I took off my towel, and I saw she was watching me. She asked, “Where are you going?”
“Downstairs.” I pulled on my shorts, pants, and shirt and asked her, “Do you need anything?”
She shook her head.
“See you later.” I headed toward the door.
She said, “Kiss me good night.”
I went back to the bed, gave her a kiss on the cheek, then on the lips, and wiped her eyes with a tissue, then left the room and closed the door.
I went downstairs, got a beer from the refrigerator, and sat out on the back patio.
The night was getting cool, and the setting sun cast long shadows across the lawn. In the distance, if I cared to look, was Susan’s house, and I understood that it was Susan’s proximity and her literal and figurative presence that was causing me the same conflict that Elizabeth probably felt.
And my conflicts and indecisions went beyond the issue of women; my dealings with Anthony Bellarosa, for instance, were affected by Susan’s presence, as was my uncertainty about staying here, or returning to London, or going someplace new.
So, I needed to speak to Susan to put these issues to rest, to find out how much—or how little—she actually mattered.
I finished my beer, put my feet on the table, and looked up at the darkening sky. The light pollution from the encroaching subdivisions cast an artificial glow on the horizon, but overhead it was as I remembered it; a beautiful watercolor blue and pink twilight, and in the east the stars were starting to blink on in the purple sky.
The sound of a vehicle on the gravel broke into my stargazing, and I turned as the vehicle passed the gatehouse and saw that it was a white Lexus SUV. It stopped, then moved on slowly toward the guest cottage.
We had been separated for a decade by oceans and continents, and now we were a few minutes’ walk from each other, but still separated by anger, pride, and history, which was harder to overcome than continents and oceans.
I’d always felt that we’d parted in haste, without a full accounting of why we were going our separate ways, and as a result, neither of us, I think, was really able to move on. We needed to revisit the past, no matter how painful that would be. And the time to do that was now.
A
s the sun came over the estate wall and through the kitchen window, I brewed a pot of coffee and took a mug out onto the patio, where I counted four empty beer bottles on the table.
I’d slept in my clothes on the couch, and my only trip up the stairs was to use the bathroom. To the best of my knowledge, Elizabeth never came downstairs.
I sipped coffee from my steaming mug and watched the morning mist rise from the lawn and garden.
As we used to say in college, “Getting laid is no big deal, but not getting laid is a
very
big deal.”
On a more positive note, that was the right move. No involvement, no complications.
On the other hand, sex or no sex, Elizabeth and I had connected on some level. I liked her, and she was part of my past, and therefore possibly part of my future. I’d spent ten years sleeping with strangers; it might be nice to sleep with someone I knew. If nothing else, I now had a place to store my property, and a guest room if I needed one. And, hopefully, I had a friend.
I heard the screen door squeak open, and I turned to see Elizabeth walking barefoot across the dewy patio, wrapped in my old bathrobe and carrying a mug of coffee.
She gave me a peck on the cheek and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
She asked, “Did you sleep well?”
“I did. How about you?”
“I . . . it was strange sleeping in my old room.” She added, “I had sad dreams . . . about being a young girl again . . . and Mom and Dad . . . I woke up a few times, crying.”
I nodded and looked at her, then we held hands. She still looked very sad, then seemed to shake it off and said, “Do you know this poem? ‘Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight; Make me a child again just for tonight.’”
“I’ve heard it.”
“That’s what I was thinking last night.”
I nodded and squeezed her hand.
She said to me, “I thought you’d come up.”
“Believe me, I thought about it.”
She smiled, then said, “Well, I don’t think I was in a very romantic mood.”
“No. You wanted to be a child again, just for one night.”
She looked at me, nodded, then said, “But . . . I wanted your company. So I came downstairs. You were snoring on the couch.”
“Do I snore?”
“God, I thought you were running the vacuum cleaner.”
I smiled and said, “Red wine makes me snore.”
“No more red wine for you.” She looked at the empty beer bottles and asked, “Did you have people over?”
I smiled again and replied, “I was killing garden slugs.”
We sat down at the table, still holding hands, sipping coffee. The sun was well above the wall now, and sunlight streamed through the trees into the garden and patio, burning through the ground mist. It was quiet except for the morning birds chirping away, and the occasional vehicle on Grace Lane beyond the wall.
Elizabeth said, “I love this time of day.”
“Me, too.”
We stayed silent awhile, appreciating the dawn of a beautiful summer day.
Finally, she asked me, “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“Well . . . you might think this is silly . . . and I’m almost embarrassed . . . but when I was about . . . maybe sixteen, I developed a major crush on you.”
I smiled. “Did you?”
She laughed, then continued, “Even though you were married . . . I thought about you sometimes when I was in college, and whenever I came home and saw you . . . but then I grew up and got over it.”
“That’s good.” I added, “I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. I never flirted, did I?”
I thought about that, and replied “No, you didn’t.”
“I was a good girl.”
“Still are.”
“Well . . . let’s not go there.”
I smiled.
Elizabeth continued, “And then, when all that happened with Susan and Frank Bellarosa, I couldn’t believe what I’d heard from Mom when you moved in here . . . then, after Susan shot him . . . I wanted to call you or come by. Actually, I dropped in to see Mom a few times, but you weren’t here . . . and then Mom said that you were leaving.”
I didn’t know quite what to say, but I replied, “That’s very nice. I could have used someone to talk to.”
“I know. Mom said you were . . . withdrawn. But I was married, and I wasn’t sure in my own mind if I was concerned as a friend, or . . . something else.”
“I understand.” I added, “I’m very flattered.”
“Are you? Well, you’re too modest, John. I think you left here because the women were all over you as soon as you were separated, and you fled for your life.”
“This is true.”
She smiled, then went on, “And here’s the rest of my secret—when I heard that you were about to begin a sail around the world, I wished that you would take me with you.”
I looked at her and our eyes met. I said, not altogether insincerely, “I wish I’d known.”
“That’s very nice of you to say.”
“Well, I’m not just saying it.”
“I know. Anyway, it was just a silly fantasy. I had a husband and two children. Even if you’d asked, I would have had to say no. Because of the children.” She added, “Not to mention Mom. I think she was on to me, and
not
happy.”
I thought about all of that and about how the course of our lives can change so quickly if something is said, or not said. We feel one thing, and we say another, because that’s how we’re brought up. We have our dreams and our fantasies, though we rarely act on them. We all are, I think, more frightened than hopeful, and more self-sacrificing—the children, the spouse, the job, the community—than selfish. And that, I suppose, is good in the larger sense of maintaining a civilized society. I mean, if everyone acted like Susan Sutter, we’d all be shooting our lovers or our spouses, or both, or just running off to find love, happiness, and a life without responsibilities.
In some odd way, as angry as I was at Susan for her behavior, I almost envied her for her passion, her ability to break with her rigid upbringing and with her stifling social class. Or she was just nuts.
And while she was breaking the rules, she’d also broken the law. Murder. She’d gotten a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card on that, but Mr. Anthony Bellarosa was holding a past-due bill that he might decide to collect.
Elizabeth asked me, “What are you thinking about?”
“About not following the rules. And taking chances. And using more heart and less brain.”
She nodded and said, somewhat astutely, “Susan did that. And so did Tom. I never did, but you did when you sailed around the world.”
“Well, I was put in that enviable position of having nothing left to lose. The only wrong move I could have made was to stay here and go to marriage counseling.”
She smiled, and again with some insight pointed out, “You should try to figure out how your marriage got to that point. And you should make sure you don’t go there again. Assuming you remarry.”
The word “marry,” and all its derivations and synonyms, upsets my stomach, so I changed the subject and asked, “Can I get you more coffee?”
“No, thanks. But let me make you breakfast.”
“That’s all right.”
“I insist. Compensation for last night.”
I didn’t know if she meant compensation for not buying me dinner or for not having sex. I said, “Well, there’s not much in the refrigerator.”
“I saw that. But we can split that English muffin, and there’s crab-apple jelly, club soda, and two beers left.”
“How did that English muffin get in there?”
She stood and said, “I see you didn’t plan on me staying the night.”
“No . . .” Actually, I did plan on it, but I didn’t plan
for
it. I said, “We can go to a coffee shop.”
“No. Just relax. I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks.” So I sat there, thinking about our post-non-coital conversation, which was not much different than if we’d done it.
Bottom line on this was that I really liked Elizabeth, and I’d really wanted to sleep with her, but now I was glad I didn’t, and I’d make sure it didn’t happen and we could be just friends.
Maybe I should try that again. I’d have sex with her in a heartbeat. Why is this so complicated?
She reappeared with the coffee pot, refilled my cup, and said, “Breakfast will be served shortly, Mr. Sutter.”
“Thank you, Elizabeth. I like my muffins well done and my crab-apple jelly on the side.”
“Very good, sir.” She bent over, tousled my hair, kissed my lips, then went inside.
I could feel Little John waking up and stretching. Maybe I needed a cold shower.
I sipped my coffee and tried to think about things other than sex, or Elizabeth’s perfect body, or my T-shirt riding up to her smooth, creamy white inner thighs, and her breasts nearly popping out of that bath towel last night, and how they almost fell out of my bathrobe when she bent over just now. Instead, I thought about . . . well, sex was all I could think about.
Elizabeth returned with a tray on which was the toasted English muffin split in two, an open jar of the jelly, a bottle of my Hildon sparkling water, the coffee pot, and the leftover cheese, crackers, and vegetables from last night. She set the tray on the table and said, “Breakfast is served.”
“Thank you. Will you join me?”
“Oh, sir, that is not permitted. But if you insist.” She sat and poured water into two glasses, saying, “Your breakfast beer is being chilled, sir.”
“Thank you.” I mean, this was a little funny, but hanging over the humor was the not-so-distant past when the Allards waited on the Stanhopes. I was rarely included in this arrangement, but there were a few times, years ago, when I dined with the Stanhopes in the great house, and Ethel, George, and a few of the other remaining servants would cook and serve a formal dinner to the Stanhope clan and their stuffed-shirt guests. In fact, I remembered now at least one occasion when Elizabeth, home from boarding school or college, cleared the table. I wondered if Lord William the Cheap paid her. Anyway, yes, Elizabeth was being funny, and this was a parody, but it made me a little uncomfortable.
Elizabeth spooned some jelly on my muffin and said, “We make this here on the estate.”
I didn’t come back with anything witty.
She placed some cheese on my plate and said, “This has been aged on the coffee table for twelve hours.”
I smiled.
So we had breakfast, made some small talk about her clothing boutiques, and about the changes that had taken place on the Gold Coast in the last decade. She commented on that subject, “It’s more subtle than dramatic. And not as bad as it could be. The nouveaux riches seem happy enough with their five acres and their semi-custom-built tract mansions.” She smiled and said, “Some of the women even dress well.”