Curious Wine (3 page)

Lane said, “Why don’t we flip a coin for who sleeps where, and then alternate so we can both enjoy the big room?”

“Why should we do that, Lane? There’s only a tiny window in here. That brass bed’s queen-size. Do you snore?”

Lane grinned. “I’ve never had any complaints.”

“Gnash your teeth? Kick? Sleepwalk? Then it’s settled.”

They climbed down the ladder. Liz watched them, hands on her hips. “Everything okay up there?”

“It’s fantastic,” Diana said.

Liz smiled thinly. “It’s comfortable. Well-insulated, too. If you pull up the ladder and lower the trapdoor it holds the fireplace heat in pretty well all night. But turn the heater on if you get cold.”

“How come we’re so lucky?” Diana asked.

“Not so lucky. There’s no John, you have to drag your luggage up, it’s a pain in the ass.”

“If I were you I’d sleep up there all the time.”

“Millie,” Liz said abruptly, “get busy and play something.”

“Diana, I’ll pour some wine,” Lane said, eyeing Liz.

Millie strummed lightly and turned keys, adjusting the strings. Continuing to strum in a harmonic pattern, she sang “If I Were a Carpenter” in a thin pure voice, singing with clear simplicity.

Madge and Chris applauded.

“Hey Millie, that’s beautiful,” Diana said softly.

“Nice,” Liz agreed.

“Really,” Lane said.

“Anything you want to hear? What about you, Lane?”

“You’re doing fine. Anything you want to sing.”

“What about you, Diana?” Millie asked. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Sinatra, Ella, people like that. Peggy Lee is my favorite.”

“How come somebody young as you likes such stodgy stuff?” Millie’s tone was artless.

“It’s classic stuff.” Lane’s voice was cold.

“Blame it on my father.” Diana smiled at Millie. “He taught me to love stodgy people.”

Lane said, “I have a wonderful Peggy Lee album I’ve never seen anywhere and believe me, I’ve looked. It’s called Pretty Eyes.”

Diana said incredulously, “You have that album? I’ve got it too! I’ve played it so much the grooves are almost worn through.”

“Mine too, I’ve got it on tape now, so I feel a little more secure. One of the great Peggy Lee albums ever. Beautiful. Romantic.”

“I’ll just strum a few folk songs,” Millie said grumpily.

Diana sipped her wine and studied the women. Liz, the sleeves of her maroon sweatshirt pushed up to the elbow, sat with a blue-jeaned leg hung over the arm of the sofa; she held an icy glass of dark brown bourbon. Next to her, Madge pulled at the skimpy ends of dark hair, and incessantly tapped her cigarette on the heavy glass ashtray in her lap. Chris sat in an armchair, hands clasped, watching Lane, who was at the fireplace. Lane poked the fire into crackling life, then selected and lifted a large log, heedless of damage to her clothes, and tossed it expertly, brushing herself as she watched the flames leap.

“More wine, Diana?” Lane asked.

“Thanks, no. I’m fine for now.”

“What a pair of sissy drinkers,” observed Liz, taking a deep swallow of bourbon. “How about a game of Scrabble?

We’ll draw for partners.”

“I’ll just fool around with my guitar,” Millie said.

Lane said, “I’d like to look at your books.”

Liz laughed, a harsh, sharp sound. “You know the only thing George wanted from the cabin? That collection of books over there, the matched set. Used to read them every time we came here. He loved those books. Begged me for them. I told him to go fuck himself.”

They played Scrabble sitting on the floor around the coffee table, Diana and Madge partners against Liz and Chris. Diana had played frequently when she lived with Barbara, and she gave Liz a good match, enjoying the game, entertained by Liz’s competitiveness. The contest remained close to the end, and Millie and Lane came over to watch, Lane kneeling beside Diana. Liz and Chris won by three points, and Liz shouted gleefully, “About damn time somebody gave me a good game! It’s been a hell of a long time—since George, in fact.”

Liz put the game away. “Better turn in, it’ll be sunny tomorrow. Spring skiing, you’ve got to get out there early.” She addressed Diana and Lane. “We have rules around here.

We use the bathroom alphabetically by last name. That means you, Christiansen.”

With an amused smile, Lane obediently rose and left.

Liz watched until she disappeared through the doorway to the back of the cabin. “Very cool and uppity,” she said to Madge.

“Give her time. She just needs to relax, Liz.”

“She thinks she’s better than any of us,” Chris said.

“She sure doesn’t have a thing to say to me,” Millie said.

Madge shook her head. “I haven’t been around Lane all that much, but I think she’s just very tired.”

“I like her,” Diana stated, and in irritation walked over to the windows. “I’ve never been up here in the winter,” she said. “Does the snow get very deep?”

“Sometimes it covers the cabin,” Liz answered. “Drifts piled so high you have to shovel your way to the door. These are the elements, my dear.” She was smiling at Diana’s look of awe. “I think George loved that part of this place the most. What a shame,” she said maliciously. “It’s all mine now and he’s not welcome, not even to visit. Kiss it goodbye, George—that’s what I told him. No more cabin, George. As if I was about to let him screw his little floozy here when we had this place together for twenty years. I’d have burned it down first.” “Twenty years,” Millie said. “You had this place the whole time you were married.”

“Before. We came here on our honeymoon.”

Lane, clad in blue silk pajamas, helped Diana draw the ladder up and lower the trapdoor. Then they stood in silver light and watched the winking lights of an aircraft drift across the glittering sky.

Lane said, “I remember skies like this up until I was ten, before we left Oklahoma.”

“Dad used to take me camping in the mountains when I was small. We’d sit at night looking at the sky.”

“I took beauty like this for granted when I was a child. Now I have to read poetry to recapture those feelings.”

“What kind of poetry do you like?”

“I’m a hopeless romantic. Shelley, Keats, Dylan Thomas. Emily Dickinson is my favorite.”

“Mine too.” Diana shook her head, smiling. “We have odd things in common.”

“Odd?”

“Unusual,” Diana amended. “Surprising.”

“I’m not surprised you like poetry.”

“I grew up with it. Dad was forever quoting Kipling and Robert Burns.”

“Your father sounds like quite a person.”

“He is,” Diana said with quiet pride. “He’s a professor of English at Cal State Northridge and an absolutely marvelous father.”

“That’s nice to hear. I haven’t read Robert Burns for years—but he’s another romantic. My Emily Dickinson book, it’s in about the same condition as my Peggy Lee record.”

“I always read her selectively. When I read a lot of her at once she affects me too much. She’s really a poet of grief, of loss.”

“Yes. She truly is.” In a voice so quiet Diana had to lean toward her to hear, Lane quoted,

“There is a pain—so utter—

It swallows substance up—

Then covers the Abyss with Trance—

So Memory can step

Around—across—upon it.”

Silent with the thought of the agony that would cause Lane to commit such lines to memory, Diana stared bleakly at the snow.

“I don’t mean to depress you,” Lane murmured.

Diana said slowly, “Those words are powerful and terrible, even more so in all this snow, this cold.” She continued thoughtfully, “Strange, of all her nature poems, I don’t remember any about ice or snow or stars.”

“She used this as a metaphor,” Lane said, gesturing at the scene beyond the window. “For death, immortality. Her joy, her humor came out in her poems of summer.”

“The ones I like best.” She wondered if she should change this subject, which seemed so painful to Lane. She said tentatively, “I’ve seen Orion so many times but never in a setting like this.”

“Where?”

“There, see? The rectangle with the three stars in it.” Diana moved closer to Lane, sighting for her. There was the scent of perfume, delicate, elusive, pleasing. “See there?”

“Oh yes. It’s beautiful.”

“The brightest star in that corner is Rigel.”

“Do you know astronomy? Other constellations?”

“Some of them.”

“Will you show me?”

She slid an arm around Lane, feeling her warmth through the cool silk pajamas, and sighted again for her. “Over there, Cassiopeia, shaped like a W. Just follow the line from the Dipper handle straight through the North Star.”

“Yes, I see it.”

Diana continued to point out the constellations and major stars she knew. She said impulsively, “I’ve always had this dream of seeing the Southern Cross. It’s simply four stars forming the shape of a cross. You can only see it in the southern hemisphere. I’ve imagined myself on a dark ocean on the deck of a ship looking at it, four jewels hanging in a warm black tropical sky.”

Feeling foolish now, embarrassed, she said diffidently, “I guess mostly embezzlers go to South America. I doubt anyone’s ever gone there just to look at the Southern Cross.”

“Then you should be the first,” Lane answered seriously. “People should do things like that. Know what I’ve always wanted to do? Run naked through the rain. I know that sounds adolescent—but I’ve always thought it would be such a feeling of exhilaration, even exultation.”

“I think it would be wonderful.”

After a moment Lane said, her voice warm with amusement, “We should go to South America together. You can drop me off on a nice warm tropical island where it’s raining, and go on to contemplate your Southern Cross.”

Chuckling, Diana gazed at the snow, thinking that Jack would have long since been bored; they would be making love by now. She asked, “Do the stars make you feel insignificant?”

“They’re too remote,” Lane answered. “Too many events on our own world make me feel insignificant enough.” She moved away from Diana. “I guess we’d better get to bed. I’m glad it’s warm up here. I didn’t get a chance to get any flannel pajamas.”

“I didn’t bother. Flannel pajamas are awful. And who needs them in Southern California?”

They exclaimed over a huge down-filled quilt and pillows so soft that Diana, sighing luxuriously, piled three of them together.

“This is such a romantic room,” Lane said. “I can understand why Liz won’t sleep up here. It has to be where she spent her wedding night. And quite a few other nights, I’m sure.”

“You’re right. How insensitive of me not to realize that. It’s not exactly designed for reading in bed, is it. Speaking of Liz, what was so funny about her books?”

“Oh God, you noticed. I did my best not to choke over those books. Promise you won’t tell?” Lane’s eyes glinted with merriment as she looked over at Diana from her pillows. “That set of so-called classics is actually a collection of pornography.”

They laughed uproariously, and Diana gasped, “She doesn’t know, does she.”

“I’m sure not. She probably thought it was the cabin that brought out the romantic in her George.”

They laughed again, and Diana said, “It’s really sort of pitiful, Lane.”

“Yes it is, Diana. I doubt she’ll ever find out, though. The classics are the perfect place to hide pornography.” Her voice brimmed with amusement. “Nobody ever reads them.” She added in a sober tone, “I recommend you don’t look. It’s pretty sickening stuff.”

“Okay.” Diana settled herself on her pillows, pulled up the quilt. “How did you happen to go into law?”

“I followed my father. He communicated his love for the law so well I finally caught it myself.”

“He must be very proud of you.”

“I think he was. I hope he was. He died two years ago, a heart attack.”

“I’m truly sorry,” Diana said sincerely, remembering Lane’s quiet voice reciting the Emily Dickinson poem.

“Thank you. I know you are, as close as you are to your father.” “Your work seems to take up a lot of your life.” She had noticed that Lane wore a tiny gold watch and a chain bracelet, but no rings.

“I’ve managed to escape marriage, if that’s what you mean. What about you?”

“I was married once, a long time ago. I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to escape. Unless you don’t believe in marriage. I don’t. At least I don’t think I do,” she added.

“What do you object to? Making a commitment?”

“Least of all that. I don’t like the ownership aspects.”

“I see. I’ve had a close call or two, but. I sometimes think I should dye my hair. Blonde hair is such a symbol of a brainless, frivolous woman. I always seem to attract the wrong sort of men. Right now it’s just as well, I work very long hours. It’s very important to me to do well. Most of the men I work with think all women lawyers —I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make a speech. Should I continue droning on till I put you to sleep?”

Diana laughed. “You’re very interesting.”

“So are you. I enjoy talking to you.”

Diana had formed another question to ask about her work, but Lane stretched tiredly and settled under the quilt.

“Good night, Diana.”

“Good night, Lane.”

Diana lay waiting for sleep, drawing her thoughts away from the woman lying quietly next to her, but glad to have her there during this, her worst time of each night.

Again, as she did every night, she tested the armor of her icy, merciless rejection of Jack Gordon. And she remembered that every night for the past five years she had fallen asleep with Jack’s body against hers; if they had made love she would lay her head on his chest, her arms around him, drowsily happy with her knowledge of his contentment, smelling his soap, his shaving cream, his cologne, and just faintly, the perspiration that had lightly, briefly coated his body when he had reached orgasm; and inhaling all the intoxicating scents of him, she would fall asleep instantly. The nights they did not make love she would fall asleep with her face pressed against the smooth muscle of his arm, her arm in the channel dividing his chest, her hand resting in the springy hair.

Remembering the feeling of the crisp curliness of Jack’s hair under her fingers, she fell asleep.