Looking for Laura (30 page)

“It's a long way to come just to meet me,” Laura said with a crinkly smile. “I'll be back in Winfield in a couple of weeks for my final visiting artist reading. You could have waited until then.”

“But we wanted to meet you here. My husband—my late husband, Paul Driver—always spoke so highly of you.”

Todd shot Sally a glance. Why was she hinting around? Did she actually think her late husband, Paul Driver, had slept with this woman? Did she actually think he
could?

Evidently, she did. She observed Laura's face as closely as a botanist observing a budding orchid while she waited for a response. Did she see a rival in the woman? A femme fatale? A superannuated nymphet?

“Paul—what did you say? Driver? I don't recall ever meeting him. I'm so sorry for your loss, though, dear.”

Okay?
Todd wanted to say.
Are you satisfied? Can we go now?

But Sally didn't want to go. “So how does that all work out, your teaching in Winfield and coming here to write?”

Much to his dismay, Laura Ryershank decided to tell them how it all worked out—the unabridged version, starting with her graduation from Winfield College with the Class of '48. After college, she'd traveled to Europe and engaged in dalliances with assorted postwar types. She'd returned home, married three times, had her early works published in the Yale Younger Poets series, taught graduate students, taught second-grade students, hosted a salon in Greenwich Village, founded a small press, sold her small press to a major publishing house and retired on the profit she'd netted in that transaction. She'd spent most of her summers at Mondaga Colony, writing and savoring nature, as she put it, and ultimately she'd wound up on the board of directors. She'd been giving poetry readings and master classes at Winfield for years and was thrilled to have been named the visiting artist this year. She believed that artists needed to live in communities like Mondaga Colony, where they could nurture and support one another, because society truly didn't nurture and support its artists, even though without those artists life wouldn't be worth living.

At least she didn't hearken to the muse, Todd thought sullenly, trying not to gag on his tea while Sally sat forward in her chair, apparently enraptured by the small silver-haired woman. He hadn't noticed Sally's earrings before—he'd had other things on his mind—but when she moved her head and her hair fluttered back from her
face, he noticed that the items hanging from her earlobes bore an uncanny resemblance to gold-toned squids.

No more than a half hour ago—he discreetly checked his watch, unsure whether he'd been listening to the elderly poet for minutes or hours—he'd been craving Sally the way a dead man craved entry to heaven. Had sex with her really been so breathtaking? Had he really felt, in that endless moment when he'd completely lost himself inside her, that Sally had been the woman he'd been waiting for all his life? Now all he could see were her most irritating qualities: her intense fascination with nonsense, her infatuation with artsy types, her shallow attempt at depth—and her silly earrings.

He wanted to go home. Now.

But she had to hear more. She had to interrogate Laura Ryershank about the Battle of Mondaga Lake—“Oh, yes, it's true about the tire getting shot out. But Hawley stopping a bullet with his shoe? Ha! Hawley is a novelist, don't forget. Fiction is his life”—and about the creative process—“Trees are the poet's greatest inspiration. Trees are God's stilts. So when you surround yourself with trees, you can almost feel God teetering overhead.”

Maybe God ought to lose his balance and come tumbling down, crushing all the poets, Todd thought churlishly.

Eventually, his tea half consumed, he excused himself and left the two women jabbering. Laura Hawkes redux, he concluded. Sally obviously enjoyed making friends with Lauras who weren't her husband's mistress.

He hiked back to the cabin. A mean, selfish part of him sneered at the prospect of Sally getting lost trying to locate their cabin in the dark without him to guide her. Once inside, he saw the rumpled quilt on the bed,
the head-shaped depressions in the pillows, and a low ache tugged at his gut.

Yes, she
had
been breathtaking.

But she was also Sally. Friendly to a fault. Intrigued by life. Hungry to learn, to see the world through other people's eyes. Eager to break the rules, ignore the rules, hearken to her own muse, whatever that muse might be.

Damn. All those irritating aspects of her, the traits that set him to grinding his teeth—
they
were what made her breathtaking. Her enthusiasm. Her intensity. Her pushiness. Her boldness. She was juicy, and Paul had been as dry as stale toast, and Todd…

Todd was dying of thirst.

He wanted Sally. Even though she'd rather spend an evening interviewing an old lady about what life had been like in postwar France or what exactly she'd meant when she said trees were God's stilts, or what it felt like to hold an actual book you had written in your hands—even though she'd prefer that to wrapping her legs around Todd and letting him bury himself inside her until they were both sweating and writhing in ecstasy, he wanted her.

So instead of tossing his things into his suitcase, he pulled out the box of condoms and left it handy on the night table. Then he took a shower—a quick one, because the hot water ran out while he was soaping his chest. He ran his razor over his cheeks and chin, brushed his teeth and climbed into bed, knowing she'd be worth the wait.

And when she returned to the cabin sometime later, awakening him with her exuberant chatter about how Laura had given her an autographed copy of her most recent book and Claude had given her the recipe for the vegetarian lasagna they'd had for dinner, and damn but
she wished she could write because these people were just so amazingly talented and complex—babbling the whole time she was in the bathroom, even when she was brushing her teeth and her words came out unintelligible….

He didn't have to know what she was saying. It didn't matter. What mattered was that she was there, spiky with energy, vibrant with the sheer joy of having met new people with new ideas.

When she slipped under the quilt beside him and her joy filled the bed, he knew she was worth the wait.

“T
he brownies were great, Mommy!” Rosie announced, bouncing up and down on the porch as Sally and Todd climbed out of the Saab. “They were so good! We didn't save you any. I gave one to Trevor and we gave a couple to Helen's husband, and then we ate the rest. We made them, so they were ours. We had such a good time!”

So did I
, Sally thought, racing up the front walk with her arms outstretched. She felt horribly guilty that she hadn't missed Rosie more, that she hadn't been counting the milliseconds until she could close her arms around her beloved daughter. Blame it on Todd. Blame it on the fact that her worst fears about taking an overnight trip alone with him had come true—and far from being appalled, she was bewildered and delighted and mildly in shock about the whole thing.

The trip had been a failure in one respect, of course. They hadn't found the right Laura. But somehow, that didn't matter quite so much. How could she be stewing about Paul's cheating heart when her own heart had moved on to better things?

She gathered Rosie in a crushing hug that lifted her off her feet. “So, you had fun?”

“Yup! Helen's husband came over and he mostly
watched golf on TV, which is really boring. And I taught Helen how to play DragonKeeper—”

“You did what?” Todd asked, climbing the porch steps and setting Sally's bag down.

Rosie grinned up at Todd. “I taught her DragonKeeper and some other computer games. She really liked them. This tooth is loose, Mommy,” she added, using her tongue to wiggle one of her front teeth. “I bet it falls out soon. Helen said the tooth fairy is supposed to bring me five dollars.”

“Five dollars? Try fifty cents.”

“No. Helen said five dollars.”

“You taught my mother DragonKeeper?” Todd interrupted, scowling in disbelief. “Where is she?”

“She's inside.” Rosie shoved open the front door and charged into the house. “I taught her Dark Thunder, too. She was really good at it. She beat me in one game, even.”

“She beat you at Dark Thunder?”

“Yup. I think she liked DragonKeeper better, but that's a harder game so she didn't win it. And I 'splained to her about the list…”

“What list?” Sally asked, but Rosie was out of earshot, scampering down the hall in search of Helen. “Helen? They're home!”

“I know that, sweetheart. I also know you bolted from the kitchen instead of helping me with the lunch dishes.” Sally followed Rosie into the kitchen, where Helen was standing by the sink, wedging a glistening plate upright on the drying rack. She had on a dowdy, comfortable-looking beige knit outfit—slacks and a matching short-sleeve top. Her hair was mussed.

Sally fell back a step, astonished. She'd never seen Helen with a hair out of place. She'd assumed Helen
cemented her coif into shape with lacquer—or perhaps crimson-tinted polyurethane.

But hairs were awry on Helen's head today. Strands curled in the wrong direction behind her ears, strayed daringly across the part, tufted and fluffed in a disarray that would have looked human if the color had been more natural.

She didn't look frazzled, though. She beamed a grin at Rosie, then directed her smile to Sally and Todd, who had entered the kitchen right behind Sally.

“You're playing DragonKeeper?” Todd asked.

“What list?” Sally asked at the same time.

Helen shrugged, folded the dishcloth neatly and draped it over the spout to dry. “I told Rosie I didn't understand how computers worked, so she taught me. I made it as far as level five in the Dragon game—”

“Level six,” Rosie corrected her, the proud teacher gloating over her student's progress.

“And I've pretty much gotten the hang of the mouse and the arrow keys. Rosie taught me that just because it's called a cursor doesn't mean you're supposed to curse at it.”

“For an old lady, Helen knows lots of cool curses,” Rosie added.

“If you worked at a newspaper for forty years,” Helen told her, “you'd know lots of cool curses, too.”

“What list?” Sally persisted.

“That list on the computer disk,” Rosie answered. “You know, Daddy's gamers.”

“His what?”

“His gamers. That's what he called them. All those lawyers he used to play games with.”

“What games?” Sally remembered the disk with the list of telephone numbers on it; Todd had found it in
Paul's office. She exchanged a quick look with him. He appeared as puzzled as she felt.

“Daddy told me they were these other lawyers, and they all used to play games with each other in chat rooms or something. Like computer games where they played against each other on their own computers. Daddy told me not to tell 'cuz he was playing when he was supposed to be working. He said he got bored at work, so he played.”

Sally eyed Todd again. He shrugged.

At least they could forget about finding Laura on that list. But she was still unnerved—that her husband had had not just one secret life but two, as a cheating husband and as a cheating lawyer. He'd probably been billing his clients for all the hours he'd spent playing with his “gamers.” Winfield's legal demands hadn't been enough to keep him entertained.

He'd been bored—with his job and with his wife.

And he'd discussed at least one of those boredoms with his daughter.

Had he discussed Laura with Rosie, too? Had he told her he'd played with another woman and then sworn her to secrecy?

The possibility sickened Sally. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, darting out of the kitchen, heading straight for the stairs and up, not caring if everyone in the kitchen thought she was rude.

She hurled herself into her bedroom, slammed the door and let out a quiet sob. The son of a bitch! Living a double life—a
double
double life: playing games with his career and with his marriage. The career games were no big deal. For all she knew, he'd indulged in them during his lunch hour, a diversion while he ate—al
though if he'd only played during his own time he wouldn't have asked Rosie to keep the games a secret.

But what truly nauseated her was that he'd shared his secret life with Rosie. His own five-year-old daughter, dragged into the shadow world he inhabited and burdened with the enormous responsibility of keeping her mouth shut. Which she had, until now.

Everyone—at least, everyone in this house—had known Sally's husband better than she had. Todd and Paul had been best friends for fifteen years. Helen had known Paul almost as long. And Rosie…Rosie was the Driver he'd confided in.

Sally stormed to the closet, shoved open the door and yanked his fancy suits off their hangers. She derived cathartic satisfaction from flinging them to the floor, rumpling his perfectly creased trousers, kicking the tailored sleeves of his jackets and listening to the buttons click like chattering teeth. She gathered his belts and hurled them across the room, watching them unfurl and snake through the air. She grabbed one of his prissily buffed loafers and flung it at a wall, then grimaced at the black scuff it left on the paint as it fell.

The bedroom door swung open and Todd barreled into the room. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, ducking to avoid getting beaned by another flying loafer.

“That bastard!”

“Hey, no news there, but come on.” He batted down the moose-skin slipper she'd lofted in his general direction, then closed in on her, grabbing her wrist before she could tear the Black Watch plaid bathrobe from its hanger. He leaned into her, pushing her halfway into the closet, and she felt his warmth against her, his strength.

She wanted to cry but she was too angry—and she'd
be damned if she was going to fall apart in Todd's arms like a helpless ninny.

“He told Rosie,” she wailed. “He told her about that list.”

“Yeah, well, he loved her.” Todd rubbed the back of her neck, which annoyed her because it was soothing enough to defuse her anger. She wasn't ready to stop being angry yet.

“He didn't tell
me
about the list,” she snapped. “In other words, he didn't love me. Right?”

“Who the hell knows? It doesn't matter.”

“It
does
matter. He told her about the games. What if he told her about Laura?”

“Is that what you think? That he'd tell her about that?”

“Maybe he told her what he did with my knife. Maybe he told her he had a hanky-panky pen pal. And I can't even ask her. How can I ask her if she knew her father was an adulterer? It's too revolting. And it would make her feel bad for not telling me sooner. I don't want her to feel bad.”

“So don't ask her.” He brushed a kiss against her forehead.

She almost wished he could be the creep she used to think he was—just so she could fume a little longer, throw a few more items around the room, maybe kick and stomp and break a couple of Paul's possessions.

But as long as Todd was holding her, raveling his fingers through her hair, brushing kisses against her forehead, it was impossible to stay mad. “I want his stuff out of my bedroom,” she muttered.

“Fine. You'll get his stuff out of your bedroom. Could it wait a couple of minutes? My mother is downstairs wondering what's wrong.”

She didn't want Helen thinking she'd gone insane. Or Rosie, for that matter. She had to pull herself together. And damn it, Todd was helping her, as if he cared. As if last night—and that morning—had been about more than just the chemistry between them, a chemistry so outrageously combustible they ought to write up their findings and submit a paper to the Nobel Prize committee.

Todd was treating her as if he honestly, truly, cared about her.

“All right,” she murmured, releasing the last of her anger on a sigh. “I'm all right.”

“You're going to come downstairs?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, let it out, nodded and stepped out of the closet. “I'll come downstairs.”

“Okay.” Todd took her hand, led her across the room—en route, she gleefully ground her heel into the fine worsted of Paul's favorite pinstripe suit—and ushered her out of the bedroom. He released her hand when they were halfway down the stairs, and she was grateful. She wasn't ready to inform Helen or Rosie of her relationship with Todd yet. She didn't even know exactly what the relationship was, other than the Nobel Prize in chemistry aspect of it and Todd's ability to talk her out of a first-class snit.

Helen and Rosie were at the foot of the stairs, Helen's overnight bag on the floor beside them. “Mommy, can Helen baby-sit for me again?” Rosie asked.

“Of course.” Sally felt Todd touch the small of her back, and she had to exert herself not to lean into him. It was a tiny, meaningless touch—just enough to communicate that he'd like her to leave Rosie with Helen and spend another night with him.

Or maybe the touch was accidental. Maybe Sally's
mind was talking to itself; maybe she was the one longing to spend a night with him. A fresh surge of guilt overtook her when she acknowledged how willingly she would hand her daughter over to Helen for the chance to make love with Todd again.

She was overloaded. Overwhelmed. The trip, the sex and the discovery that Rosie knew at least some of her father's secrets congealed into a quivering wad of anxiety that pressed down on her, causing her knees to ache.

Still, she had to act normal. “Helen, I really appreciate—”

“No speeches,” Helen insisted as Todd lifted her overnight bag. “It was my pleasure. And yes, Rosie—” she didn't have to bend down too far to reach her arms around the child “—I'd love to baby-sit for you again. I'm going to beat you in DragonKeeper one of these days.”

“Prob'ly not,” Rosie said matter-of-factly.

“Well.” Helen straightened up and smiled at Sally, “I'll see you at the café.”

With that, she waltzed out of the house, leaving Todd and her suitcase behind.

He glanced at the bag, then lifted his gaze to Sally. “I guess I'd better be going, too.”

Sally nodded. She wished he would stay, which made it more imperative that he leave. Given how vulnerable she felt, she didn't want him around, offering a convenient shoulder to lean on. She needed to find her way back to life as she knew it.

“I'll call you,” he said. Then, his mother's suitcase in hand, followed her out the front door. Sally closed it behind him.

“Wanna play DragonKeeper?” Rosie asked.

That was the last thing Sally wanted to do. “Sure,”
she said, extending her hand to Rosie and letting the girl drag her down the hall to the den, where the computer and Paul's game disks were waiting.

 

Only seven phone messages, none of dire importance. A few bills, a few flyers, a new catalog from his favorite model-car-kit company and an invitation to the fifteenth reunion of his graduating class at Winfield High School—but he'd known about that already because he'd published information on it in the Community Listings section of the
Valley News
.