Counterpointe (45 page)

Before her injury, he’d always attended her performances so he could drive her home. In those quiet midnight hours, they’d sat eating, talking, laughing. Rob helping her to relax so she could sleep. But he’d never truly enjoyed the ballet. She was certain of it. He’d endured it for her sake, and she’d neither acknowledged nor sufficiently valued his sacrifice.

What a shallow person she’d been.

On Monday, Clare returned from lunch to her office at Northeastern to find a gift bag on her desk. Her first thought was it must be from Justin, but when she peered inside she found the parrot hat Rob gave her so long ago in another life.

“Those delivery guys are getting more professional all the time,” Gwen said, nodding at the bag.

“What do you mean?” She reached for the envelope accompanying the hat.

“This one was wearing a tie.”

She opened the card, already knowing whose handwriting she would see.

Rob Chapin requests the pleasure

of Clare Eliason’s company at

dinner, Saturday at seven

“So who’s it from?”

She stared at the card. Why was he using her maiden name? And why so formal? What did it mean?

“Well, just ignore me, why don’t you.”

Clare grimaced. Gwen, long-time receptionist and only fly-in-the-ointment of this particular temporary position. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I said, who’s it from?”

“Oh. A friend.”

“Right, and my name’s Demi Moore.”

Gwen could be right. Clare didn’t know if Rob was still her friend. If he was, wouldn’t he have come to the benefit?

Thinking of the benefit, another memory surfaced. The man who came up to her at the reception and said he worked with Rob. His name was something with a D...Devin, Dover?

She pulled out a copy of the Northeastern phone book and ran a finger down the column of
D
names. Devaney. That was it. Edward Devaney, Esquire, College of Law. He’d said something about Rob and Marge Velez, who’d claimed she was being paid by a philanthropist nobody ever heard of.

Frowning, Clare went back to typing a manuscript she was determined to finish before she left to begin her position with Danse Classique.

Saturday evening, Rob arrived at her apartment precisely at seven, punctual as always. She didn’t invite him in since she still had no furniture. Nor did she have anything to offer him to drink, except water. All nonessentials waiting until she was more solvent.

“This seems to be a nice, quiet neighborhood,” Rob said as he helped her into the car.

“It is, and it’s convenient to public transportation.”

“That’s great. How are you enjoying working for Professor Molina? I’ve heard he can be a curmudgeon.”

“Only to the students. He’s been very pleasant to me.” Enough already with the inane pleasantries. “You know, if we’d been this awkward our first date, there never would have been a second.”

He blinked rapidly, then glanced at her. “Sorry. You’re right, but you see, what I was thinking...” His voice trailed off.

“What?” She turned to look at him, or at least his profile.

“I know you’re supposed to get only one chance to make a first impression, but I thought you and I...well, maybe we can try backing up. As if we’re at the beginning, getting to know each other. I know I’ve changed and I expect you have too.”

She stared at him.

“That probably sounds stupid. I guess it’s better if I just sign the papers and be done with it. Shame, though. To let those years go to waste.” He stopped speaking abruptly and his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“You want us to pretend we’ve just met each other?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

The awkward suggestion was so...Rob-like. Clare began to smile, then straightened her lips. If he saw her smiling, he might think she was laughing at him, and maybe she was, a little. But mostly she was smiling in relief to know he wasn’t planning to end the evening by handing her the signed divorce papers, although that would be totally unlike him.

Except. If she were to play along with his suggestion, she should keep an open mind about what he was like. He said he’d changed. It might be interesting to discover the particulars. “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Good.”

They didn’t talk as he drove into town, but the silence was a comfortable one. Rob parked the car on St. Botolph Street near Northeastern and walked her into a restaurant that was tiny, quiet, French, and one of her favorites.

“So tell me, Rob Chapin,” she said after they were served glasses of wine. “What do you like best about being a professor?”

As if to check her sincerity, he gave her a quick glance, then he leaned back, speaking thoughtfully. “Well, Miss Eliason, let’s see. The freedom, I guess. Aside from a few faculty and committee meetings and my classes, I pretty much set my own schedule. And as long as I have grant money, I can work on whatever scientific question intrigues me the most.”

“So what scientific question intrigues you?” Sad to admit that although she’d been married to him, she knew only the surface aspects of what he did at work every day.

“I’m studying plants used by native healers to see if they contain active compounds.”

She tipped her head, motioning for him to continue, glad for the game.

“Most people figure it’s only a coincidence when a
payé
, a medicine man that is, cures someone. That the patient was going to get better anyway. But I think
payé
s are amazing ethnobotanists.”

“What’s that?”

“A person who understands plants and how to use them. It takes years to be a
payé
.”

“So is that your goal. To become a
payé
?”

He shook his head, and she realized she’d never before asked him what his dreams were.

His expression turned pensive. “I just came back from Peru where I worked with a
payé
for six months. I barely scratched the surface of his knowledge of plants and healing rituals. He even used a few of them on me.”

“Are you ready to order?” The waiter stood poised with a napkin over his arm, a pen and pad at the ready.

“Give us a minute, will you,” Rob said.

After they placed their orders, Clare picked up the thread of the conversation. “Why did you need the services of a
payé
?”

“I had to have an emergency appendectomy in the jungle. The surgery was performed using modern methods, but then the healer performed a healing service, and he provided a poultice for my incision.”

Once again, the thought of Rob having surgery in the jungle made her throat tight. He could have died so easily. Suddenly, she wanted to touch him, to reassure herself of his solidity. Instead, she circled the lip of her wine glass with a finger. “Do you think the healer helped?”

Rob looked thoughtfully at his own wine glass before taking a sip and setting it down. “The incision did heal more quickly than my surgeon expected.”

“What was it like in the jungle?”

“It was...completely different from any other place I’ve ever been. Instead of sirens and the hum of air conditioners, we had the screech of birds, the buzz of insects. The sheer magnitude of all that green, raucous, aggressive life. Overwhelming. Claustrophobic at times. And us in the middle of it. With no filters, no barriers. Our huts didn’t even have complete walls.”

As Rob continued to talk, she sat back listening, trying to visualize what he was describing. Comparing it to what she’d read about the Amazon.

“One day, I was down by the river at dawn. All of a sudden, the tops of the trees exploded into the sky as thousands of macaws took off. Blue, red, green. An enormous cloud of color. And my God, the sound. As if everyone in Boston was leaning on their horns. Then they were gone, and I could hear the river again.”

They sat silently as the waiter came and placed salads in front of them. Clare waited until they were alone before she spoke past the lump in her throat. “Were you happy there?”

“Happy? No. At first, I hated it. Then I made friends with the Machiguenga, the people we stayed with. The way they conducted their lives...it made me wonder how different our world would be if we lived more simply and chose the wise rather than the clever to lead us.”

He stopped to take a bite of salad, chewed, swallowed, then continued. “I haven’t been happy for a long time, but I did find some satisfaction being there. There was interesting work to do and no phone calls to return, no mail to open, no meetings to attend, or news to watch.”

No wife to worry about
. But Rob was too kind to add that.

“One of the Machiguenga men took me on as a project. He taught me to find paths through the jungle, to spot animals hidden in the shadows, to locate food and water. The peculiar thing is, it rains a great deal and there’s the river, but safe drinking water is always in short supply. One day, we’d been walking for several hours, and my water ran out. The man showed me this vine. He cut the end and the clearest, most delicious water was right there, like turning on a tap.”

She could see it clearly. Living water coming out of the vine and Rob smiling at the native man and then taking a grateful drink. She wished she could have shared that with him.

He stopped and took a sip of wine, before looking across at her. “What about you? Do you have a career?”

“I’m finishing a temporary job typing a manuscript for an English professor. Next week, though, I’m starting a new job. One I’m very excited about.” She paused, then took the plunge, watching him closely. “I’m going to be the ballet master for Danse Classique.”

He was bringing a bite of salad to his mouth, and the fork stopped in midair. His lips tightened. “Does that mean you’re a dancer?”

She struggled to continue speaking. “Most ballet masters used to be dancers, which I was. A long time ago. I’m not anymore.”

“How come?”

She glanced at him, but saw nothing in his expression to indicate he was deliberately baiting her. “I was injured and was no longer able to dance. For a long time, I let it paralyze me. You know that phrase, ‘stop the world I want to get off’? That was me. Only I couldn’t get off.”

“What did you do?”