Lightning (18 page)

“I wish I believed that.”

“Don't listen to the horror stories, and just keep your focus on the goal. Win, win, win. Don't even let Sam distract you from that. If he can't help you, forget him for now.” Alex laughed at the vehemence with which Liz said it.

“You make me feel better.” And then she looked at her secretary sheepishly, amazed at this other life she'd known nothing about. It was incredible how there were things about people no one knew, and that were so important. Just as no one had known she was coming to have a biopsy, and possibly surgery, while she was away from the office.

“I think I was very rude this morning to some woman from your support group. Alice something,” Alex said apologetically, and Liz smiled at her.

“Ayres. She's used to it. Maybe one day you'll do something like this. It means a lot to a lot of people.”

“Thank you, Liz,” she said, and meant every word of it.

“May I come back and see you tomorrow? Maybe at lunchtime?”

“I'd love that. Just don't tell anyone at the office. I don't want them to know. Although eventually, I'll have to tell Matthew, probably once I start the chemo.”

“That's up to you. I won't say anything.”

They embraced again, and Liz left, and when Alex went to bed that night, she felt better than she had in days, and surprisingly less angry. She lay in bed thinking about everything, and she decided to call Sam and tell him she loved him.

But the phone rang for a long time, and eventually Carmen answered. It was ten o'clock by then, and she sounded as though she'd been sleeping. “I'm sorry, Carmen. Is Mr. Parker there?”

Carmen hesitated for a moment, and then answered with a yawn. She could see their bedroom door open at the end of the hall, and no light on.

“No, sorry, Mrs. Parker. He's not here. How are you?”

“I'm fine,” she said, sounding a little more convincing than she had that afternoon. “Did he go to a movie?”

“I don't know. He went out after Annabelle had dinner. He didn't eat with her, so maybe he went out with friends. He didn't tell me, and I think he forgot to leave me a number.” It was always Alex who remembered to leave the number where they could be reached when they went out for the evening.

She wondered where Sam had gone, but he'd probably been upset after their conversation at the hospital, and he'd gone out for something to eat, and a walk. He did that sometimes when he was troubled. Sam needed to be alone to resolve his problems.

“Well, just tell him I called.” She hesitated again, and then, “And tell him I love him. And kiss Annabelle for me in the morning.”

“I will, Mrs. Parker. Good night …and God bless you.”

“God bless you too, Carmen …Thank you.” She wasn't sure if He had blessed her lately or not, but at least she was alive, and in three days she'd be back home with her daughter. And three weeks after that, the fight would begin in earnest. But after talking to Liz, she was determined to win it.

She sat in her hospital bed that night for a long time, thinking of Liz, and Sam, and Annabelle, and all the good things in her life she was going to have to concentrate on if she was going to win the war…. Annabelle, she reminded herself, as she drifted off to sleep after a shot …Annabelle …Sam …Annabelle, and as she thought of her, she remembered holding her in her arms, and nursing her as a baby.

Chapter 8

A
fter he'd left the hospital, the phone had rung as soon as Sam sat down to dinner with Annabelle. It was Simon. He had arranged an impromptu dinner with some clients from London. Did Sam want to join them? He explained that he was just about to have dinner with his daughter.

“Well, stop eating, man. They're a grand bunch, Sam. You'll like them. And I think they're important. They represent the biggest textile mills in Britain, and they're aching to make investments over here. They're good men, you really should meet them. And I've got Daphne with me.” Was that supposed to be an incentive? Sam wasn't sure, and he argued for a little while. After haranguing with Alex for over an hour, he was exhausted. But he was also depressed, and the prospect of sitting around alone at home after Annabelle went to bed depressed him further.

“I really shouldn't.”

“That's nonsense.” Simon held firm. “Your wife's out of town, isn't she? Why don't you give your tot a little kiss, and come out with us? We're meeting at Le Cirque at eight, and then Daphne has found some ridiculous place downtown to take them dancing. You know the Brits, they've got to party while they're away or they feel they've been cheated. They're worse than the Italians, because it's so fucking boring in England. Come on, man, stop whining. We'll expect you at eight. Done?”

“Done. I'll be there. I might be there five minutes late, but I'll come.” He wanted to put Annabelle to bed and read her a story.

He went back to the kitchen then and sat with her, until bedtime. And after he'd read
Goodnight Moon
to her again, and turned off all but the night-light, he went to his bedroom and changed his shirt and shaved, and thought about Alex. It had been a rough couple of days for both of them, and he was beginning to wonder just how rough it would be when she got home on Friday. She was making a real issue of the surgery and the missing breast. And the truth was that it frightened him more than a little. Who wouldn't be worried about seeing that? There was no way it could be anything but very ugly. But lie didn't want to tell her that. He wished she wouldn't push him about it. He remembered his mother asking him again and again if he loved her, before she died, and he had to close his eyes and force her voice out of his head, as he thought of Alex.

He brushed his hair, washed his face, and splashed on some after-shave, and by the time he left, he looked as though he had just stepped off the cover of
GQ
in a dark gray suit, and a white shirt. He looked like just what he was, one of the most exciting businessmen in New York, and heads turned, as they always did, when he got to Le Cirque. Half the people there knew who he was, and had read about him, the others wondered who he was because he was so good-looking, mostly the women. He was so used to it, he never paid attention to it anymore, and it was usually Alex who teased him about it. She accused him of leaving his fly open in the hope that women would watch him. And he thought of that now as he made his way across the restaurant and smiled, thinking of his wife. But when he thought of her, it was as she had been before, not as she was now, deformed and angry, at New York Hospital.

“Glad you could make it, Sam!” Simon stood up and greeted him the moment he arrived, and introduced him to everyone. There were four Englishmen, and three American girls that someone had introduced to them. They were all very pretty, two were models, and one was an actress. And then there was Daphne, which left only Sam and Simon unescorted. They were a large group in a small restaurant, and the noise was deafening. Sam managed to have an intelligent conversation nonetheless with one of the Englishmen, and on his other side was Daphne, who spent a lot of time talking to one of the models. They finally got to talk to each other over dessert, while the others drank and chatted.

“I hear your wife is a very important attorney,” she said conversationally to him, and he nodded. Somehow, right now, talking about Alex seemed painful, and it was easier not to.

“She's a litigator with a firm called Bartlett and Paskin.”

“She must be very intelligent, and very powerful.”

“She is.” He nodded, but something in the way he said it told Daphne that this wasn't a comfortable subject.

“Do you have children?”

“A little girl named Annabelle,” he smiled at that one, “she's three and a half and adorable.”

“I have a four-year-old son in England,” she said easily.

“You do?” He looked startled. Somehow she seemed too young for a husband or children, although he knew she was twenty-nine, but still it surprised him. Everything about her suggested she was single.

“Don't look so shocked,” she laughed at him, “I'm divorced. Didn't Simon tell you?”

“No, he didn't.”

“I was married to a shocking rotter at twenty-one. He finally ran off with someone else and we got divorced, which was why everyone in the family thought it would do me good to get away for a year. Therapy, I think you call it here. We call it a bit of a holiday,” she smiled at him.

“And what about your son?”

“He's very happy with my mother,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You must miss him.”

“I do. But we're not quite as sentimental about children in England as you are over here. We ship them off to boarding school at seven, you know. He'll be away at school in three years, and eventually at Eton. And I think it'll do him good to get a bit detached from Mummy in the meantime.” It was not the kind of thing he could imagine himself doing. He would have been heartbroken without Annabelle, but Daphne was very cool, and very aware of what she wanted. “Does that shock you?” She could see in his eyes that it surprised him.

“A little,” he said honestly, with a smile. “It's not exactly the image we have of motherhood over here.” But on the other hand she didn't look like a motherly type, and maybe she wanted some freedom before she was any older.

“I think as a nation we're a bit more cold-blooded than you are. Americans seem to get terribly wound up about what they ought to be doing, and what's expected of them, and what they
should
be feeling. Britons just
do
it. It's rather simple.”

“And a little self-centered.” He liked talking to her, very much in fact. She was smart and honest and totally open about who she was and what she wanted.

“It's terribly simple, you go after what you want, when you want it, without apologizing, or pretending that you're doing anything other than what you are. I rather like it. Things seem a bit more exaggerated here. Everyone's always apologizing for what they're doing, or not doing, or not feeling.” She laughed, and Sam liked the sound of it. It was an unbridled sound of almost sensual amusement, and he could imagine her easily with her clothes off and totally unembarrassed. “Have you ever been divorced?” she asked bluntly, and he laughed at the question.

“No, I haven't.”

“Most Americans have, or at least that's the impression they give me.”

“Was your divorce very traumatic?” It was an oddly personal conversation between two strangers, but he was enjoying it. There was something totally open and abandoned about her.

“Not at all. It was a great relief. He was a complete bastard. For the life of me, I can't imagine how we stayed married for so long, seven years. It was quite dreadful, I assure you.”

“Who did he run off with?” He liked being somewhat forward with her. It was fun playing the game of discovering things about her.

“A barmaid, naturally. Quite a pretty one though. He's already left her. And he's living in Paris with some girl who says she's an artist. He's quite mad, but fortunately he takes good care of Andrew, our son, so I don't need to panic.” She seemed anything but panicked, she seemed completely in control of any situation. And more than one of the Englishmen were eyeing her with interest. She looked as though she could have had anyone she wanted.

“Were you in love with him?” Sam asked her, feeling brazen.

“Probably. For a while anyway. At twenty-one, it's awfully difficult to tell the difference between love and good sex. I'm not sure I ever figured out which one it was.” She smiled cheekily at him, and as he looked at her, he wished suddenly that he were young enough to have her. She was terrific. But then he thought of Alex. And it was as though Daphne saw that.

“And what about you? Are you in love with your wife? I hear she's very pretty.” She was, for forty-two, for any age. But she was not quite as outrageous or even as striking as Daphne and he knew it.

“Yes, I love her,” he answered firmly, as Daphne watched him intently.

“That's not what I asked you, is it? I asked if you were
in
love with her. There's a difference,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Is there? We've been married for more than seventeen years. That's a long time, you get very attached to someone by then. I love her very much,” he said, as though trying to convince himself, but he still hadn't answered Daphne's question.

“Are you telling me you don't know if you're still in love with her? Were you ever?” she persisted, playing cat and mouse with him, but he didn't mind it.

“Of course I was.” He sounded shocked at the question, and Simon was amused by the intense look on their faces from across the table. They were huddled together, as though solving all of life's greatest problems.

“Then when did it change? When did you stop loving her?” Daphne accused, sounding like a lawyer, and Sam wagged a finger at her.

“I never said that. That's a terrible thing to say.” Especially now. But all he could think about as he looked at her was Daphne.

“I didn't say it. You did. You said you
were
in love with her, but you don't seem to be able to tell me if you are now,” she said, looking incredibly sexy as she persisted.

“Sometimes marriage is like that. There are dead spots in the water sometimes, when you kind of run dry and get stale, and none of the right things seem to happen.”

“Is this one of those times?” she asked, her voice a velvet purr that tore at his insides.

“Maybe. It's hard to say.”

“For any particular reason? Did anything happen?”

“That's a long story,” he said almost sadly.

“Have you had affairs?” she asked bluntly, and this time he laughed at her.

“Has anyone ever told you that you're outrageous?” And beautiful …and sensual …and have skin like velvet….

“Completely.” She smiled dazzlingly at him. “Actually, I pride myself on it.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't,” he tried to chide her unsuccessfully.

“At my age, I can do almost anything I want. I'm not quite old enough to be held seriously accountable, and old enough to know what I'm doing. I hate really young girls, don't you?” She leapt from one subject to another, as she flipped her long black hair over her bare shoulders, and she was incredibly alluring. In some ways, she was so much like Alex, and in others she was very different. She was much bolder, more outrageous, yet she had that razor-sharp mind, and the same long, lanky body. But she was much more overtly sexual than Alex had ever been, and Sam was embarrassed to admit that he liked it, but he hoped that no one knew it. She made him constantly want to tease her back, to play with her, to play a game that neither of them could lose. But he also knew full well that he was not free to play it. She knew that too. But it didn't seem to stop her from playing.