Change of Heart (25 page)

The next day Sharlie began to pester the doctors to let her out She made fervent promises about eating and taking care of herself and checking in every few days for tests. Mary MacDonald allied herself with Sharlie, and together they made such nuisances of themselves that Diller finally, reluctantly, allowed her to leave.

It was Saturday morning, and Brian came early to pick her up. Her body was so wasted now that he could lift her with one arm. She seemed calm and cheerful, though, and bursting with plans for the trip to Pennsylvania. In the cab home she told Brian she'd hole up in the apartment for a week and eat nonstop, storing up energy for the five-hour car ride.

“It's a harebrained idea, Sharlie,” he said as they pulled up in front of their building.

“Is that when your brain gets all coated with fuzz?”

“No, no,” he said, holding her under the elbow and steering her into the lobby.
“H-a-r-e.
Derivation early Bugs Bunny. My God, you must weigh about seventy-two pounds.”

“Fritos,”
she moaned, tottering unsteadily out of the elevator. In reality, the thought of eating anything at all triggered her gag reflex, but she would force herself to gain a few pounds before the trip.

For six days she rested, took short walks, ate whatever she could choke down, and reveled in being back home with Brian.

She sent him off to work each morning, his face tense with worry. She would catch him looking at her fearfully, and when she smiled at him, he responded with a ghastly forced grin. He lingered at the doorway, not wanting to leave her, and she always ended up shoving him out with a laugh and instructions for what to bring home for dinner. Then she would fall exhausted on the bed.

She was not unhappy. The freedom and serenity she experienced after her conversation with Margaret remained with her for the most part, despite isolated moments of nightmare and grief. She was grateful to have emerged into a new awareness of herself before it was too late.

But Brian worried her. He refused to discuss the future. Every time she hinted at the possibility of her never recovering, his face became rigid. She longed to talk to him, needed to speak about what was happening to her. He would tell her she was just being morbid and should remember how many crises she had lived through, most of them worse than this. The avoidance disappointed and saddened her.

They would lie next to each other at night, her slim body curled next to his, and he would stroke her and hold her. But that was all. Brian was immobilized by fear, and Sharlie was too exhausted to feel aroused. He tired her out. Everyone tired her out.

But the afternoon they set out for Pennsylvania she seemed more animated than she'd been in days. For a while she sat watching Brian pack his suitcase, but suddenly she got up and began to snatch things out again. She grabbed a T-shirt and stood swaying her hips provocatively, humming a torch tune. She put it on over her blouse, reached into the suitcase, and extracted a sport shirt. She wriggled her eyebrows at Brian, who was standing stock-still, staring at her. She pulled the shirt on, sleeves dangling almost to her knees, and fastened each button as she ran her tongue over her lips seductively. Finally Brian sat down on the edge of the bed and folded his arms, the better to enjoy the show. By the time she was finished, she had donned the T-shirt, the sport shirt, Brian's heavy Irishknit sweater, his jeans, his jogging shoes, and a trench coat She had all but disappeared under the layers but was still humming. Like a precarious walking tepee, she swayed over to Brian and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“Hey, big boy, come on backstage and I'll show you a good time.”

Brian pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her. They both laughed until Brian held her a little too long and a little too fiercely. She scrambled away from him and hopped into the suitcase, perching in the midst of his underwear.

“You might as well just pack me.”

“Why bother with the suitcase? Stick a toothbrush in your ear and we're off.”

The trip seemed very short to Brian, maybe because they talked so much on the way, and maybe because he wasn't really anxious to get there, the familiar landmarks of Devon County appearing all too quickly. But they had a good time, chatting together in a lazy fashion both had found difficult lately.

Sharlie confessed a one-time preoccupation with celebrities. “Every time I went out for a walk, I'd see somebody who was somebody. I got an enormous thrill out of it.”

“I never noticed you do that,” he said, watching the sky grow cloudy in the southwest, probably right over Silver Creek.

“I don't need the vicarious stuff anymore. I
married
a star.”

He laughed. “How come I never see anybody?”

“Listen, my love,” she said. “I have strolled with you up Madison Avenue and you have practically kissed Howard Cosell and Walter Matthau and you never noticed.”

“Thank God,” he said fervently.

“Howard Cosell's tough to spot because he's not half as repulsive as you'd think.”

“Well, I'm glad to hear you've given it up. Who'd you see yesterday?”

“Greta Garbo and Dustin Hoffman.”

He laughed and put his hand on her thigh. He squeezed very gently, feeling the bone under the thin layer of flesh.

“God, you're a pretty lady,” he said. Her eyes were deep gray-green in the sunlight, and he found it difficult to drag his attention back to the road.

“I wouldn't look half so pretty with a telephone pole sticking out of my head.”

“Nag,” he said, both hands back on the wheel.

They stopped once for lunch and again at an overlook, where Sharlie exclaimed at the October landscape—neat brown-green hills, tidy farmhouses, some white, some stone, some red. She said she wished they'd brought their camera, and they sat down on a boulder to enjoy the view.

“We'll get the wedding movies back from your parents when we get home,” Brian said. “I want to see them again.”

Sharlie laughed. “Daddy probably edited out the bit where he's deep in conversation with Barbara. Somebody at his office might blackmail him.”

“Or her.”

“You should see the movies of my parents' wedding.”

“I didn't think they had movies then,” Brian said.

Sharlie looked out at the pale-gray sky. “It's crazy. When I think about anything that happened before about 1940, I visualize it in black-and-white. World War One, the Depression, people dancing the Turkey Trot, or whatever it was—no color at all, just like in the old movies.”

“You're a victim of the communications media,” Brian said. “What about the American Revolution?”

Sharlie thought this over. “Color. That's odd. And the Renaissance, too.”

“From staring at paintings in the Metropolitan Museum.”

She laughed. “You're right.”

They rested a while longer until finally Sharlie began to shiver in her light jacket.

By the time they were within twenty miles of Silver Creek, it was dark. The moon, pale and round, had risen in the sky, and its face raced in and out of the clouds.

“He looks like I feel,” Brian said pointing up at the white globe.

“How?” Sharlie said, leaning forward to peer out the window.

“Worried,” Brian said. “Sure you don't want to turn around and go home?”

Despite Sharlie's prodding, Brian had steadfastly avoided discussing his father. But now, a few miles from his old home, he suddenly blurted, “You know, it's funny, he started getting these hard lumps under the skin on his thumbs, and they'd hurt him when he was working with a pitchfork. Finally he had to give in and see a doctor. Know what they told him?”

“What?”

“He's turning to stone. Calcifying.”

“Are you serious?” Sharlie asked.

“I could have saved him the doctor's fee,” Brian muttered.

She watched Brian's face in the headlights of an oncoming car. She could see the tough set of his mouth and his jaw muscle tensing. She felt wide awake, excitement keeping her alert and lending her a kind of surface energy. “I'm nervous, too,” she said.

“Good. Let's go home.”

“What if he hates me?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Well, not ‘hate.' What if he … how do I make a verb out of
contempt
? Contempts me?”

“Holds you in contempt.”

“No. That's not right,” she said. “You think your father dislikes you, and if he dislikes you, he won't like me because I love you.” She paused to catch her breath. “See what I mean?”

“You're just trying to distract me from my urge to make a giant U-turn.”

Sharlie stared up at the moon, which did indeed look anxious, eyebrows knit, mouth pinched. “Mmm hmm,” she said vaguely.

Brian sighed with resignation and turned off Route 13 onto a narrow road that wove through gentle hills. Sharlie rolled her window all the way down.

“It's positively deafening,” she said, greedily inhaling the cold country air.

“The silence?”

“The crickets,” she said. “I went to Vermont once when I was about ten, and I couldn't sleep with those damn things rubbing their legs together all night Don't they ever go to bed?”

“That's how they snore.”

“Oh,” she said. “I married a naturalist”

“We're almost there.”

“The voice of doom,” she replied. “Is all this his?” She waved at the countryside.

“A lot of it, but don't be impressed. It's not worth much of a damn.”

He pulled up in front of a rambling old building. In the moonlight, it appeared almost deserted except for a small square of light off the front porch.

“We're here?” she asked.

“We're here.”

“Oh,” Sharlie said. “Hey, let me sit here for a second and get myself together.”

“Gladly.” He switched off the motor and stretched his stiff arms.

Sharlie felt a sudden terror of entering that house. She was weak and nauseated and afraid to stand up. Finally after a few deep breaths she said shakily, “This country air can kill you, you know. Too much oxygen. Too rich a mixture.”

Brian peered at her closely. “You okay?”

“Just babbling,” she murmured.

“Ready?” he asked, staring at the orange window waiting in the darkness.

“Charge,” she said, opening the car door and stepping out into the cold night. She had to steady herself by holding on to the door handle until Brian could get to her. She tried to keep most of her weight off him, just leaning enough to retain her balance. When they reached the front porch and walked up the creaking wooden steps, she straightened and gave Brian a desperate smile. He knocked on the door, and they heard a muffled sound from inside. After what seemed like a long time the porch lamp went on, spotlighting them and sending a whirlwind of moths swirling above their heads. Sharlie watched them dance around the naked bulb, then looked down just in time to see Brian and his father shaking hands formally.

“Sir,” Brian said stiffly. He put his arm around Sharlie. His father started to ask about the trip at the same moment that Brian began to introduce her, so they both broke off, leaving them all in silence again.

Finally Sharlie said, “I'm Sharlie, Mister Morgan. I'm glad to meet you.” She held out her hand and felt the old man's callused fingers grip hers. She suddenly remembered the first time she had felt Brian's touch, back at Saint Joe's almost a year ago. The same sensation—rough, warm hands. She was moved, and looked away shyly for fear he might see the emotion in her face and think her strange.

Then, with awkward heartiness, John Morgan ushered them into the house, the screen door slamming behind them. One of the little moths slipped inside, too. Sharlie found its company comforting, and watched it settle against the inside of the screen door. She turned and saw Brian and his father halfway down the hall toward the kitchen at the rear of the house. They passed a small sitting room on the right—the source of the glow they'd seen from the road.

“Thought I heard a car outside,” the old man said when they reached the kitchen. He pulled out a chair for Sharlie. The table's red Formica surface had become so worn and been polished so many times that it was almost pink. Sharlie sat down carefully, thinking to herself,
Thank you, I'll sit down before I fall down.

Brian started foraging in the refrigerator. He moved familiarly around the kitchen, finding a plate, a glass, utensils. John Morgan leaned against the counter and watched his son intently. Sharlie was grateful for the opportunity to inspect Brian's father with freedom. How fascinating to scrutinize someone related to the man she knew so intimately. She searched for the impulses behind Brian's well-memorized features and thought she could trace the familiar outline under the rugged, stubbly surface of the old farmer's face. The eyes were identical—blue chips of sky. Chips off the old block.

She must have smiled because John Morgan suddenly looked at her questioningly. “Your eyes, they're exactly like Brian's,” she said.

The old man nodded. He didn't return her smile, but his voice was warm. “You hungry?” he asked. Sharlie shook her head, and she saw his glance fasten briefly on her thin arms. “Good trip?” he asked.

She nodded. “There's a full moon. It was nice.” Then they fell silent. Brian sat down, loaded with sandwich material. His father looked in Brian's general direction but didn't quite meet his eyes.

“You working hard at the lawyer business?”

“Yeah,” Brian said, mouth full. “Busy time.”

The old man nodded and stared down at his arms folded across his chest. Everyone was quiet for a while, until Sharlie began to grow uncomfortable.

“I've never been on a farm before,” she said lamely.

“That a fact?” Brian's father muttered.