Fortune's Hand (6 page)

“Oh, but you never got to do your errand.”

“It'll wait till tomorrow.”

Just as they reached Robb's house, the sky opened up and the rain crashed. He ran inside. He had forgotten the errand anyway.

That night he dreamed he was on the farm. He was in his room, in his bed near the window, and Lily was lying with him. Somebody was coming up the stairs, only it was not the stairs, it was the ladder up to Ike's barn, and Ike's head appeared above the top of it, staring in, the impudent, pop-eyed kid, calling, “Who's that?”

“Who's that? Where?”

“The woman.”

“I'm here, he means me,” said Ellen Grant in her soft voice.

“Her breasts are so white,” Ike said.

“Get out. What do you think you're doing?” Robb shouted, and woke up.

It seemed to him that he must actually have cried aloud, waking himself. He was trembling. He looked at the radium dial on the clock: it was a quarter to four, still night. He got up and washed his face in cold water.

Why am I so distressed? Dreams are only crazy jumbles. You were talking about the farm. You observed today how white her skin was. She said so herself: “I burn so easily.” And Lily was there in his bed as she had been a thousand times. It is all so natural, the usual jumble that has no meaning.

He was too wide awake to return to sleep, so the best thing to do was to put on the light and study. But
the sentences passed his eyes and did not register. He should not be having dreams about Ellen Grant! Indeed, he should not be walking around the city with her. It was harmless, yet how would he feel if Lily were doing the same with another man?

No. He would have to break off decently with Ellen. But what was there to “break off”? Nothing. Nothing at all. Still, there must be no misunderstanding. It would be unfair to drift on with any more pleasant, pointless afternoons.

When she saw him, she looked at her wristwatch and smiled. “You're five minutes late. I've been waiting.”

“How did you know I was coming?”

“The same way I knew yesterday. Do you think I didn't see it was no coincidence?”

He laughed, and she went on. “It's so cool and breezy for a change. Why don't we put the top down and take a ride into the country?”

So now it would be impossible to make his little speech today. He would have to postpone it, which would give him time to design the right approach without embarrassment for either of them.

By the eighth day, he had given up trying to find the right approach because there did not seem to be any. She had taken a place in his mind. Her voice kept echoing. He kept remembering odd scraps of her speech.
That bird just sang like the end of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
She made him see things he would never have noticed, like the remarkable Einstein face of the old
man reading in the park. Or the friendly woman who resembles her Pekingese. She opened his eyes and ears so that he laughed or was touched or curious because of her. No, there was no easy approach. It would have to be done the hard way.

Sometime in the third week when she left him at his door, she got out of the car and stood beside him on the walk. This was the moment for the kiss that was absurdly long past due. He had not given her as much as a relative's dry peck on the cheek. Now was the moment to speak out and explain himself, to watch her go away and never see her again. The unthinkable had happened.

She looked up at him bluntly. “What is it that you're not telling me, Robb?”

“I'm ashamed to say it,” he answered, very low. “I don't know how to explain myself. I don't even know myself.”

She kept looking at him, appraising him before she spoke again. “You're shivering. Let's go inside. Whatever it is, I want to hear it, unless you've killed somebody.”

“Not yet.”

The sofa was strewn with textbooks and papers. He cleared them away, and they sat down. Then he began.

“There is … there has for years been someone at home. Her name is Lily. A kind, wise, lovely woman. Trusting …” His voice broke.

Ellen was staring down at the floor. He would remember the sneakers lying there. He saw himself in some vast future, remembering them and the lamp
burning in the dim corner, and her hands clasped with the gold lion on her wrist.

Then he resumed. Mercifully, words poured from him as earnestly as if he were pleading a capital case. So he told his story and arrived at the end.

“ ‘Unless you've killed someone,' you said when we came in, and I answered, ‘Not yet.' ”

They sat there inches apart. A stranger would know, Robb thought, what is happening here in this room, even if we were at opposite ends of it. He would feel the quiver in the atmosphere. When he took both her hands in his and pulled her to him, she began to cry.

“Don't, don't,” he whispered, and kissed her mouth, her eyes, and again her lips as if the kiss could never end. He held her sorrowful face between his hands. How had this happened? He had seen himself as a man experienced in both desire and love. Now he knew he was neither.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“Why is this different for you?” she asked.

He understood her meaning:
What is the difference between me and the other?

He could not answer. He might just as well try to explain the power of music. And he replied instead, “I was afraid of you. Afraid, afraid that this might happen. From the first time in that imitation Versailles.”

“What are you going to do?” she repeated.

“Right now? I'm going to make sure that door is locked, and take you inside.”

She stood up and went with him into the room
where he slept. He had always been meticulous, and it was neat, the white cover clean, the clothes hung in the closet.

“I've never done this before,” she said. “Are you surprised?”

“No. For some reason, I'm not.”

He began to unfasten her jacket. She stood willing and straight, watching him. He drew it back over her shoulders, which were bare. Lace covered her breasts. He reached behind her to loosen the clasp, and the lace fell to the floor. Then the telephone rang.

“Damn! Let it ring.”

But stridently it persisted, scraping every nerve. He could have ripped the thing out of the wall. Instead, he picked it up and stormed, “Hello!”

“Is that you, Robb?”

“I'm sorry, I'm out of breath. I just came in from outside when I heard the phone.”

“I didn't think it was you at all. You sounded angry.”

“Not angry. Merely rushed.”

Ellen was beginning to straighten her clothes. With a gesture of his arm, he pleaded,
Wait. Don't go. Please
.

“I've been almost frantic, Robb. You haven't phoned. I called you Tuesday afternoon, and there was no answer again yesterday. I couldn't phone at night because I had to work late. They've been having some events at the library. Are you all right?”

“Of course, of course. I've just been up to my ears.”

“Job interviews?”

“No, the regular work, plus Law Review.”

His legs were weak. Prepared for a lengthy conversation, he sat down on the bed.

“You seem so tired, not like yourself.”

“Well, that happens to all of us sometimes.”

He was trying to think of something to say, and found it. “How is your mother?”

“All right. Fine. She was worried about you, too.”

“Well, tell her not to worry, nothing to worry about.”

“Robb, is there anything wrong?”

“Of course not. What should there be?”

“Robbie, I miss you terribly, even more now than when you first went away. Isn't that strange? Do you feel like that, too?”

“I don't know.” He felt as if he had been caught with shoplifted merchandise, fleeing the shop. “It's hard to say. I just always have.”

Ellen was sitting in the single chair at the window. There was no expression on her face. Will this end it? he thought. At least she was still there. She could have gone out the door.

“I want to ask you something. There was an ad in the paper about a rug sale in Clairmont, so I drove over and got a beautiful one for less than half price. I had them hold two until tomorrow because I couldn't make up my mind whether to choose dark blue for a background or dark red. They're both beautiful. What do you think?”

He was seeing her on her bed with the extension phone in hand and the door closed, because Mrs. Webster was no doubt sewing in the living room on the
other side of the door. He was seeing her stuffed animals propped against the pillows. He was seeing her friendly little face with its forehead in an anxious pucker over the decision.

“I don't mind either way. You decide, really,” he said.

“You don't want to tell me because you want to give the choice to me. But I want you to choose. Come on. Just say one word. Red or blue.”

Oh God, help me. “Red.”

“There! I knew you must have a preference. Robb, it's the first thing we've bought for our house.”

“You bought it, you mean.”

“That's ridiculous. There's no such thing as yours or mine. It's ours.”

Spending her little savings. Feathering her nest. His shame made him sweat, while his pity made him sick.

He turned toward Ellen, who was still there, still without expression on her face. What could she be feeling? Was she going to leave him with a tongue lashing or with tears?

And all the time Lily's voice was reporting on the affairs of Marchfield, about people he did not know, or perhaps did know. Her enthusiastic voice bubbled on. Would she never get off the phone? And he despised himself for the wish.

All of a sudden, he could bear no more. “Lily, I've got to run,” he said. “We've a downpour, and somebody's giving me a lift to the library.”

“Well, just tell me quickly when I'll see you. Shall I
go up to you or do you want to come halfway and I'll meet you?”

“Let me call you tonight. I'll call you later. Oh, they're ringing my bell. 'Bye, dear.”

He hung up.

That cliché about silence humming, he thought, is right. It does hum. A terrible despair fogged his mind. He had a sense of unreality, as on the day when they had told him his parents were dead.
Did I kill them? Could I have done that?

Am I going to do that to Lily?

Ellen was waiting for him. “Please, Robb, say something.”

A few minutes ago, she had been in his arms. He had unfastened the lace that covered her breasts.…

“We can't lose each other,” he said.

“You can't have us both.”

He held his head, with all its despair, in his hands. When she reached over to touch him, he raised it, unashamed to let her see that his eyes were wet.

“You love her,” Ellen said.

“No. I love you. But I care for her with all my heart.”

“What is the difference?”

“I can't explain it. I'm only sure there is a difference.”

“You've known her how long? Ten years? And me not much more than two months. What do we know about each other?”

“Enough. Everything. I'm in love with you, Ellen. Look at me. Believe me.”

She put her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. Although she made no sound, he felt the tremor of her sobs.

“There has to be a way,” he murmured.

“Poor Lily. Even if you should stay with her, she would feel that something is wrong.”

“Why do you say, ‘even if I stay'? Don't you see that I can't?”

“But you don't know how to leave her, either.”

That was true. She was such a happy person, Lily. How do you open a door, walk in, and crush all that happiness?

“What if you hadn't met me, Robb?”

“Then everything would have gone on as before. You don't miss what you never had, what you never knew existed.”

A dice throw, that's what it all was. If they hadn't met, he would simply marry Lily next spring and live in the moderate contentment that is the lot of the fortunate, love her, and love the children they knew would come.

“Robb, you will have to decide. It's up to you.”

“I told you I have decided.”

“About how and when to tell her, is what I meant.”

“I'll do it, but give me a little time.”

“I don't think we should see each other until you've done it.”

“Not see each other? What are you saying?”

“Well, not too often, then. I would feel—feel cheap. Do you understand?”

“I suppose I do, although I don't want to.”

Outside the rain rushed on the glass pane and the brick walk. He hadn't lied to Lily about that, at least. And they sat close for a long, quiet time, not stirring, too tired and troubled for anything more.

After a while, Robb got up and brought a cloth. “Ice water,” he said. “You mustn't let your father see you've been crying.” Gently, he washed Ellen's face.

A
fter the mail had come and been read, her father said, “You must be very happy, Ellen. At your age, to have a book accepted for publication is no small thing. Not that it is at any age.” Wilson Grant was reserved. Praise was not his wont, even for the son and daughter whom he so deeply cherished. “I'm very, very proud of you. I'm going to call and tell the whole family, second cousins and all.”

“I'm only the illustrator, Dad, and it's only a small, unimportant publishing house. Nothing prestigious.”

“Rubbish! It's a splendid start.”

Naturally she was pleased. If her emotions had not been in such turmoil, she would have been jubilant. Never had she imagined herself as part of a triangle, but now the picture was imprinted: a logo, a brand, with Robb at the peak of the triangle facing the women, one of them looking at him in anguish and at Ellen with hatred, Ellen the interloper, the destroyer, the thief.