Duplicity (20 page)

And then bad things had started to happen. Sam was crippled in a logging accident and lost his job. Erma's health began to fail. As they struggled to cope with life, the little orphan boy became a liability, another mouth to feed. The family bonding was lost in tension and frustration. Finally survival dictated giving up the foster son. When he was sent back to the orphanage, he had believed that it was all somehow his fault. It was a feeling that stayed with him for years, and it had solidified his belief that love didn't last.

His face twisted with remembered pain. "That was a long time ago, Tony."

"But not so long ago that it can't play hell with your future." Tony took a thoughtful draw on his pipe. "It's time to make peace with the past, Dirk. You're not a mischievous little boy being shuffled off to another orphanage. You're not that little kid anymore who cried because he couldn't have a dog and kept a stiff upper lip when he was shipped away from his friends. Love is waiting on Beech Mountain. Go back and grab it."

"Your armchair psychology won't work with me."

Tony smiled. "Why don't we continue this discussion over a bottle of wine and a mess of fish?"

Dirk clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Done."

 o0o

Dirk reached over the bedside table and picked up Ellen's tattered bear. The room was empty except for the two of them, but Tony's presence could still be felt in the aroma of pipe tobacco that hung in the air.

He traced the bear's permanent grin with one finger. "He could be right, you know." He set the bear back on the table and opened the top drawer. The folded paper rattled as he lifted it toward the light and opened it. There was no need to read the words again, he thought. He knew them by heart. From the time he had left Ellen beside Gigi's summer enclosure and found the bear on the backseat of his car, the words in that note had been emblazoned on his mind:

 Dirk,

Since I can't come with you, I'm sending a good friend to take my place. Pooh Bear is tattered from an overdose of loving, and he doesn't talk much, but he is still a good listener. Perhaps he can even fill the lonesome places in your heart.

 Ellen

He studied the paper for a long time, then he began to smile. It was a slow smile that started at the corner of his mouth and spread upward to his eyes. By the time he had carefully refolded the note and put it in the drawer, his whole face was alight with the smile of discovery.

 o0o

"I don't know which one is worse, you or Gigi," Ruth Ann grumbled to Ellen. "Both of you have been moping around here for two weeks."

Ellen carefully placed her pencil on top of her notes. It seemed that she did everything with care these days, as if any hurried movement would cause her to shatter.

"Is this going to be a conference or a lecture?" she asked.

"It's time for a lecture." Ruth Ann patted her Mamie Eisenhower bangs although they needed no attention. "Either forget about that man or go after him."

"Go after him?"

"You heard me. Go after him. If you ask me, he's nothing but trouble." She paused and gave Ellen a sly smile. "Although I must say that he had his good points, one of them being his kindness to Gigi. Not every man is kind to animals. That shows a good heart."

Ellen pressed her hands to her temples as if she were trying to push Dirk from her mind. But it didn't work. Nothing worked. She would still feel his presence on this mountain, whether he stayed away two weeks or two months or two years. When Dirk had left in Rocinante, he had carried more than Pooh Bear: He had carried her heart.

She shoved her chair aside and stood up. "Of course, he has a good heart," she all but yelled. "I couldn't love a man who didn't. But he's gone. The affair is over and done with." She paced the small conference room as she talked. "Every affair has its rules, Ruth Ann. We played by the rules."

She jerked her chair back to the table and sat down.

"You've always played by the rules, haven't you?" Ruth Ann asked quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you've prided yourself on being a career woman, different from all the other Stanford women, and yet every year you return to Tennessee. You go in search of those very rules that you tell yourself you've left behind."

"If you're talking about marriage and preserving the family name, you can forget it. That was never important to me until I met Dirk, and now he's gone. Whether I'm bound by the codes of my ancestors is a moot point."

"I look like a fine one to talk, Ellen, with my sad spinster shoes and my narrow spinster ways, but there are two things I know: You can never escape your past and you can never escape love. I know; I tried."

Ellen covered Ruth Ann's hands in quick sympathy. "I didn't know."

"It was a long time ago. The details don't matter now. The important thing is that I see you making the same mistakes I did. You have that same damn stiff-necked pride, that abide-by-the-rules-if-it- kills-you attitude that made me the old sourpuss that I am."

Ellen protested. "You're not—"

"Yes, I am. An old tight-lipped crow who saw Dirk as a threat to the secure, safe life we have on this mountain. But I also have a heart, dried up as it may be." She gave a bitter laugh. "I love you, Ellen, and I don't like to see you hurting. If you love Dirk, go after him."

She fiddled with her glasses and patted her hair to cover the sudden moisture in her eyes. "There. I've had my say."

"Thank you, Ruth Ann, for caring." Ellen patted the wrinkled hand. "Dirk's going was not my idea; it was his. Commitment has to work both ways. Besides, I don't even know where he is. I couldn't go after him if I wanted to." She reached blindly for her notes. "Let's get on with this conference."

"I'm ready when you are. But don't you think you'd better put down that banana and pick up your notebook?"

Ellen stared at the piece of fruit in her hands. "One of us needs a vacation," she said.

 o0o

First the notes began to arrive.
Thinking of you. Dirk
. Postmarked Washington, D.C.
This city has no grapes
. No signature, just a New York City postmark.
A rose for remembrance
. Again no signature. A West German postmark and an envelope full of dried rose petals. Ellen's hopes soared.

And then her friends began acting funny. Tony paid an unexpected visit at the same time that Rachelle appeared at the compound with a cat- swallowed-the-canary grin.

Ellen looked up to see them both standing in her office doorway. "Well, hello, you two. What a pleasant surprise."

"Just popped in to see how the work's coming," Tony said. "That's all you do lately. Work."

"Me, too," Rachelle chimed in. "Just popped in, I mean. I'm afraid you're working too hard. It's about time for you to take a vacation."

Ellen propped her hands on her hips. "What is this? A conspiracy? I took a vacation early this summer."

"A trip to a family reunion is not a vacation," Rachelle said. "I mean a real vacation. Somewhere like Tahiti or Barbados or the Yukon."

 "The Yukon!" Ellen laughed.

 "The fishing's good up there," Tony said.

 "I don't fish." Ellen removed her lab coat and hung it carefully on the coat rack. "All right, you two. What's going on?"

 "Nothing," Rachelle said.

 "Not a thing," Tony said.

 Ellen didn't believe either one of them. "Since you're both here, why don't we have a cup of tea?" She gave them a beautiful smile. Perhaps she could coax it out of them over the teapot.

 "What a great idea," Tony said.

 "Super," Rachelle said. "You make the most fabulous tea."

 Ellen laughed again. Even for Rachelle, that remark was out of character. "Tea is tea. Since when has mine been wonderful?" She poured fresh water into her teapot and plugged it in.

 Rachelle shrugged. "You know me. Everything is wonderful these days. You should see the new ski instructor who's come to town. He has the most fabulous biceps this side of a Mr. America pageant. And those lips! Lord, you should see his lips." Rachelle sat down abruptly. "By the way, have you heard from Dirk?"

 
Was the question idle curiosity or previous knowledge?
Ellen wondered.

 "I've had a note or two." She saw the look Tony and Rachelle exchanged. Pretending not to notice, she dropped teabags into three stoneware cups and poured the hot water. "One lump or two?" she asked Rachelle.

 "The Yukon is probably nice this time of year," Rachelle said, overlooking the question of sugar.

 "Great fishing," Tony said. "Beautiful scenery. Snow-capped mountains and rivers. A great place to go on vacation." He pulled up a chair beside Rachelle. "What did he say?"

 Ellen dumped sugar into their teacups and pretended ignorance. "Who?"

 "Dirk." Tony and Rachelle said the name simultaneously.

 "When?" Ellen was beginning to enjoy watching the significant glances they were exchanging.

 "In the notes," Rachelle prodded.

 "Oh, this and that." Ellen stirred her tea. She could be maddening when she wanted to, and she decided this was the time to exercise that ability.

 "Ruth Ann could fill in for you, you know," Rachelle said.

 "Fill in for what?" Ellen asked.

 "In case you decide to take a vacation," Tony said. "I could pop in every now and then to see that everything is all right. I'll still be in Dir—" He stopped and corrected himself in midsentence. "I'll be in my cabin."

 Ellen lowered her cup carefully. It was a miracle that she didn't pour the whole scalding brew down the front of her dress. "What did you say?" she asked Tony.

 "I’ll pop in—"

 "No. After that." She stared at him. "You said that you would still be in Dirk's cabin."

 Tony took a great interest in his neglected tea. He stared into its murky depths for a full half minute, trying to think of a suitable reply.

 Rachelle jumped into the conversational void. "That just shows how much you need a vacation. You've started hearing things."

 Ellen suppressed a giggle as Tony gave Rachelle a thank-goodness-for-lying-friends look. They were definitely up to something, but they would never admit it. She decided to give them a break. "Your tea's getting cold."

Her conspiring friends grabbed their teacups as if they were lifeboats in a storm at sea.

"I've never seen Beech Mountain look so gorgeous this time of year," Rachelle said.

"Yes," Tony agreed, "the weather's beautiful."

Ellen smiled. She knew a conversational deadend when she heard it. "Let's talk about the weather," she said, and figured their combined sigh of relief could be heard halfway down Beech Mountain.

 o0o

The letters continued to come. They were all unsigned and all postmarked from various cities in West Germany.
The chicken coop here is stale compared to the one in Banner Elk.
That one made her laugh.
I never see red hair in the moonlight that I don't think of you.
That one made her cry.
Eggs have lost their savor
. That one put a zing into her step for the rest of the day.

She carefully folded each letter and put it in the top drawer of her dresser. At the end of each day she would get them all out and reread them. She was alternately elated and saddened that Dirk had broken all the rules. Her elation stemmed from hope and her sadness stemmed from the reminders. There should be no reminders of dead summer affairs, she thought. Letters only prolonged the agony of forgetting.

As the night sounds of September seeped through her window, Ellen thought of burning the letters, destroying all tangible evidence of Dirk's existence. Instead she smoothed them with her hands and tenderly shut them into the drawer.
Be fair
, she chided herself.
You gave him Pooh Bear hoping that it would be a constant reminder of you. It's all evidence. Evidence not of a dead affair but of a lasting love, a love that transcends time and distance
.

It was a long time before she slept, and when she did, her dreams were haunted by Dirk.

 o0o

A commotion outside the compound woke her. Ellen peered at her clock.
Six A.M. Good Lord
, she moaned to herself. Had Gigi run away again? She stumbled out of bed and into her robe. Without bothering to find her slippers, she raced down the hall and around the corner to her office. And then she heard them. Her bare feet skidded to a stop, and a wide grin split her face.

"Shhh, you silly old poop," a woman said. "You'll wake them all up."

"Shoot," a man replied. "Back home folks have been up and already done an hour's plowing."

Ellen ran out the door and down the porch steps. "Uncle Vester! Aunt Lollie!" She pulled them into her arms for a bear hug, then stood back to look at their dear faces. She knew that this was harvest time in Lawrence County. For Uncle Vester to leave his farm in September was almost unheard of.