Exit to Eden (45 page)

"Lisa…"

"What?"

"Good luck."

******

The limousine was on the Bayshore Freeway fifteen minutes after we landed, burrowing north through a light evening fog into San Francisco and towards the Bay Bridge.

I don't think the craziness of it hit me, however, until I saw the ugly urban squalor of University Avenue: that I was back in my own hometown. This little chase, that had begun in another galaxy, was leading me right back into the Berkeley hills where I'd grown up.

Nice going, Elliott. Only for you.

The limo swayed awkwardly as we started up the steep, winding streets. It was worse than familiar. The very sight of the overgrown gardens, the houses nestled among the tangled oaks and Monterey cypresses, curdled my soul. No, not just home, this place: rather the landscape of an identity, a period of life that was almost indistinguishable from constant pain.

I had the terror suddenly that someone would see me in spite of the darkened window glass, and know who I really was. I hadn't come this time for a wedding or a funeral, or a week of vacation. I was Sir Richard Burton slipping into the Forbidden City of Mecca. And if I got caught I'd be killed.

I looked at my watch. Elliott was two hours ahead of me. Maybe even not there.

And in an instant of sheer perversity, I told the driver to turn and take me down my own street. I didn't know why I was doing it. But I had to just stop for a moment at my own house. We cruised slowly downhill until I saw the lights on in my dad's library. I told the driver to stop.

Quiet here under the black acacia. No sound but the lawn sprinkler spinning its shower of light across the dark, glossy grass. Blue-white flicker of a television in my little brother's upstairs bedroom. A shadow moved against the library shades.

The panic mellowed out into melancholy, that awful sadness that always came over me when I saw this overgrown corner of the world, the old peeling shingles, dim lamps that meant home.

No one was going to see me. No one would ever know I'd been here. All the things Martin had said were turning round and round inside me. Not a bad person, Lisa, just a different person, and maybe someday that person would have the courage my father had not merely to live by what he believed, but to talk about it, admit it, challenge the world with it. And maybe when that happened, the pain would stop for reasons that would never be clear.

Right now just settle for the fear going away, for the sadness melting, for another private farewell.

Elliott was five minutes up the street.

******

It was just the kind of house I imagined it would be. One of those little stone cottages with the rounded door and the tower that made it a diminutive castle, hanging on to the edge of a cliff. Garden neglected; chinaberry tree almost blocking the front door; white daisies falling down on the flagstone path.

Beyond I could see the ink-black water of the bay and the distant skyscrapers of San Francisco rising out of a layer of rose-tinted fog. The two bridges arcing over the darkness, and to the far right the vague outline of the hills of Marin.

All the familiar things and yet this was so unfamiliar. The real me in the real place. And the real him in there, because the upside-down, bathtub-style Porsche was rammed into the impossibly narrow driveway, and lights were on all over the little house.

When I touched the knob, the door opened a little.

Stone floors, big hole of a fireplace in the corner with the fire blazing, a few dim lamps scattered about under the low beam ceilings. And the leaded-glass windows showing the spectacular view of city, water, and night sky.

Nice place. Beautiful place. Smell of burning wood. Lots and lots of books on the walls.

And Elliott sitting at the table in the little dining room, with a cigarette on his lip, talking on the phone.

I pushed the door open just a little wider.

He was saying something about Kathmandu. That he would probably leave Hong Kong before the end of the week and he wanted a full three days in Kathmandu.

"Then maybe Tokyo, I don't know."

He had on his bush jacket and a white turtleneck and he was very brown, hair streaked with white, like he'd been swimming and sunning the whole time we were apart. In fact, I could smell the sun on him almost, and he looked slightly out of place in these dark, wintry rooms.

"You come up with the assignment, fine," he was saying. "But if you don't, I'm going just the same. Call me. You know where I'll be." He was loading a camera as best he could, reaching up to steady the phone receiver when it almost slipped. He clicked past the first few frames of exposed film.

Then he saw me. And he didn't have time to hide the surprise.

I tightened my grip on the doorknob as my whole arm started to shake.

"Yeah, get back to me," he said and he hung up the phone. He stood up and he said very softly, "You came."

I was shaking all over now. My knees were knocking. And the air from outside felt suddenly cold.

"Can I come in?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. Still amazed. He wasn't even trying to be tough or mean. But then I'd just chased him over two thousand miles. Why should he be, I thought. He was just standing there looking at me, the camera around his neck, as I closed the door.

"The place is musty," he said. "It's been locked up for a couple of weeks. And the heat's not working. It's kind of…"

"Why didn't you wait for me at The Club?" I asked.

"Why didn't you talk to me when you called?" Instant flare of temper. "Why did you talk to Richard instead of me? And then Scott comes in and tells me you called the night before and you were on your way."

Red to the roots of his hair.

"I felt like a goddamn eunuch waiting around there. I didn't know what I was waiting for."

Then the red started to fade a little.

"Besides, I was finished with The Club," he said.

Silence.

"Aren't you going to sit down?" he asked.

"Rather stand," I said.

"Well, come in."

I moved a little ways into the room. Big curving iron stairs to the far right, tower room overhead. Smell of incense mingled with the smell of the fire. Smell of books.

The distant lights of San Francisco seemed to pulse more strongly beyond the leaded glass.

"I have some things to say," I said.

He got a cigarette out of his pocket and had a little trouble closing in with the lighter. Glad to see that. Then he threw me a glance the way people throw a punch. Eyes very blue thanks to the darker tan. Got to be one of the handsomest men I've ever seen. Even when the mouth is mean.

I took a deep breath.

"So go ahead," he said. He looked directly at me this time and held it.

Chills from his voice.

"I ah… came here…" Stop. Breathe. "I came here to tell you that I…"

Silence.

"Well, I'm listening."

"… that I love you."

No change in his expression. Then the cigarette rising very slowly to the lip.

"I love you," I said again. "And I ah… I loved you when you told me you loved me. I just couldn't say it. I was afraid."

Silence.

"I fell in love with you and I lost my head. I ran away with you and I fucked everything up because I didn't know how to handle it, didn't know what to do."

Silence.

Face changing slightly. Softening, or it might have been an illusion. Head cocked to the side just a little. Temper and the coldness melting so slowly that I really couldn't be sure.

The fire hurt my eyes suddenly, like there was smoke in the place or something. But what the hell damn difference did it make, whether he was still mad?

I was going to say it all no matter what he did. No matter what he said. I knew that it was right to say it, it was right to come and tell him everything, and right in the middle of it all, dead center in the pain, I felt this strange elation, this relief.

I stopped looking at him. I just looked past him at the glittering outline of the Golden Gate, at the city lights.

"I love you," I said again. "I love you so much that I am willing to make a fool of myself coming here. I don't want ever to be separated from you. I'd have gone after you to Hong Kong or Kathmandu to tell you these things."

Silence.

The lights seemed alive along the curve of the bridge, alive- in the skyscrapers that climbed like ladders to the stars.

"I ah… I owe you all kinds of apologies," I said, "for what I did, for spoiling The Club for you."

"To hell with The Club," he said.

I looked at him slowly, cautiously, so that if he looked really mean, I could quickly detach, look away. But I couldn't tell with the flicker of the fire and the shadows. All I could clearly see was that he was Elliott and that he was a little closer to me than he had been a moment ago. But my eyes were watering badly now and I knew I had to take out the goddamned handkerchief for the umpteenth time.

"I mean somebody else would have handled it all better," I said. "Somebody else would have known what to say, what to do. All I knew was I couldn't stay at The Club with you and be in love with you. I couldn't love you and be the person that I was there. I know I should have told you in New Orleans, but I was so afraid that you wanted to go back to The Club. I knew I couldn't do it anymore, the roles and all. I thought I was going to disa… I was going to disappoint you. Make things even worse than they were. Really let you down."

Silence.

"Well, the fact is I still can't do it. Even now. Something's snapped in my head that makes all that impossible. I can't do it anymore with you. And I don't know if I can ever do it again with anyone else. It became artificial. It became like a trap."

I shut my eyes for a second. He was just staring at me when I opened them again.

"But you were never an escape route. It was you—you who made it fall apart—you and me."

He was staring, but the face softened, becoming obviously emotional yet in a secretive way.

"And if you don't want me this way," I said, "the way it was those last few days, I understand. I mean it's not what you came for, right? I understand if you don't answer me. I understand if you call me names. But that's what happened. And I love you. I am in love with you and I've never said that to anyone else."

I blew my nose and wiped my eyes.

And I stood looking at the floor, and thinking, well, it's done. Whatever happens, it's done. The worst was over. And I had a splendid sense of that, that it was over. It had its chance now, whatever it was going to be. There was no impediment now.

So let him blow up.

Silence.

"Well, anyway. That's what I had to tell you," I said. "That I love you, that I'm sorry for what I did."

Tears again.

"This is really something," I said, "this crying at regular four-hour intervals. It's getting almost to feel natural, like a new kind of sado-masochism, the heat and the chills."

The room was fading like the light was being closed off. And then coming back gradually and brightly. He had come closer, blotting out the light of the fire a little, and now he was right in front of me, and I could see the light over his shoulder. I could smell his cologne and the sea salt smell of his hair and skin.

I was disintegrating. It was as bad as I told Martin it was. I wanted to reach out for him, to hold on to him. But we were both standing there, not moving. And I couldn't, didn't dare be the first one to touch.

"You know, I ah… I booked the plane to Venice," I said. "I had this idea, that maybe somehow we could get it going again. And this time we could really take off. In Venice, we could just walk and we could talk things out. I mean if it could be patched up between us, if you… I mean if it isn't totally fucked."

Silence.

"You remember you said there is no city in the world other than New Orleans for walking quite like Venice."

Silence.

"You said that," he said.

"I did? Well, you know the food in Venice, well, I mean the pasta and the wine and all." Shrug from me. "Well, I thought it was worth a try." I looked directly at him. "I thought it was worth anything and everything actually… I'd do anything to get you back."

"Anything?" he asked.

"Yeah, anything, except…" Be the Perfectionist. You wouldn't ask me to be that…

"Like marry me? Be my wife?"

"
Marry
you!"

"That's what I said."

For a second I was too stunned to answer. He looked as if he was perfectly serious, and he was so beautiful that I could hardly stand it.

"Marry you!" I said again.

"Yes, marriage, Lisa," he said with the smallest smile. "You know, like walking down the hill and introducing me to your dad? And later driving up to Sonoma and meeting mine? And maybe having a little wedding in the wine country, with your family and my family and—"