Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) (3 page)

“No, there’s no need.” She stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for riding to my rescue.”

Paul leaned into the kiss. Damn Harry, didn’t he know what he had, what he could lose? “What’s a shining knight for?” Paul laughed.

She saw the pity in his eyes and turned away.

The hostility hit her like a hot, hard hand as soon as she walked into the suite.

“Where are all the packages?”

She simply walked straight to her room. “There are no packages, just one dress.”

Harold rose on unsteady legs. He took two steps toward her, holding onto the back of the sofa for support. “Just one dress,” he mimicked her voice. “How many thousands did it cost?”

She turned on him, her hurt spilling out. “Less than the money you spent on Alexandra King in the Bahamas last month.”

She had read about it in the tabloids. It seemed that lately it was the only way to keep abreast of what he was doing, by reading about it in the papers along with the rest of the world.

Harold kept on gripping the back of the sofa to steady himself. He couldn’t pass up a challenge. “She wasn’t a bitch.”

Why, why are you arguing with me? Why won’t you become the man I married again?
“Is that what I am?”

He saw the hurt in her face and felt oddly triumphant. He could still evoke emotion as he chose. That was all part of being a director. And he was the best. “That’s what you’ve become.”

“If I am, you made me that way.”

“I can’t take all the credit.”

“No, maybe not, but you certainly had a featured role.” She hated this, hated arguing. The only time they spoke to each other lately was in raised voices. She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head.

“Why aren’t you working?”

“I am working.” He tapped his temple. “Right here, the greatest work goes on right here.”

“How? There aren’t any brain cells left. You’ve burnt them all away.” She took hold of his arm. “Harry, please, can’t you stop doing that?”

“Doing what?”

She shut her eyes. “Never mind. I’m going to my room.”

Harold watched her go and wondered what had happened to the cocaine he had put out for himself. Paul. Paul must have taken it. Dirty rotten bastard, helped himself to everything around here, helped himself to Johanna too, more than likely.

Johanna heard Harold’s voice go up as he hurled a stream of curses through the locked door. She squeezed her eyes tight. How much more she could put up with before she broke down completely?

Chapter Three

Johanna didn’t know how long she sat on her bed, wadding a section of the bedspread beneath her hand, trying to pull herself together. She needed something to take her mind off Harry, off her life. Forcing herself up off the bed she found a tape that Denise, Paul’s wife had given her. She had put it away in her bureau and forgotten about it. It was a tape of the sound of rain falling. Denise found it invaluable when she was feeling tense. She said it always worked for her.

But it didn’t work for Johanna. She was too keyed up for it to penetrate to her inner soul. With a defeated sigh, Johanna shut off the tape. It was no use. She felt as if she was coming apart. This couldn’t be happening to her. This couldn’t be her life. And yet it was.

Finally, to block out the sound of Harry’s voice in the other room, the sound of the words of past arguments that echoed in her head, she decided to take a shower.

She stripped and left her clothes lying in a heap on the bedroom floor. Walking into the bathroom, she reached into the shower stall and adjusted the temperature until it was just hot enough for her to bear. She stepped in and let the water hit her full force. Johanna closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind, hoping that the steady, pulsating beat of the water coming from the shower head would somehow wipe out the residue of the last scene with Harry.

She stood there a long time, just letting the water wash over her, waiting to be cleansed. There was nowhere for her to go today and nothing to do, nothing that she felt like doing. Once she had grabbed every nuance that life had to offer with both hands, savoring everything. Now there was only a deepening malaise that reached out, attempting to take away her soul.

Johanna knew she should be doing something, anything, to shake the grip of this awful depression that threatened to engulf her permanently. Perhaps irreversibly.

A shudder passed over her body. Imagine how awful it would be to feel this way all the time. Even her first love, art, the thing that had been the sole most powerful driving force in her life before she had married Harold, no longer held an allure for her. At one time she had dreamed of holding her own shows, of sharing herself with the world through her paintings. Now she couldn’t even work up the enthusiasm to visit the nearby Tate Gallery. It was as if everything she held dear had died or was in the stages of dying around her. Within her.

She felt so alien, so unlike herself. She hardly recognized the person she had become. With a pang she remembered how she had always greeted each day with such enthusiasm, such zest. How she had felt so wonderful just being alive, anticipating the incredible things that were waiting for her around the next corner. But that had been when she was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, a hundred years ago and in another life.

Life held nothing for her now.

With a jerk of her hand, she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, heedlessly dripping on the pearl gray mat on the tiled floor. Naked, she leaned over the sink and wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror. The reflection that stared back at her looked almost gaunt.

No, damn it, she wasn’t down yet. She was going to find a solution to this mess that her life had become. Somehow, somewhere, there had to be a way to get them back to where they once had been. Life was worth living. She wouldn’t let go of that. She couldn’t let go of that. If she did, Johanna knew she would die.

She took the huge bath towel from the rack on the wall and slowly began to blot her body. She looked at herself critically. She was still young, still blessed with a good figure. She was still the same person she had been inside. She could make it work.

Besides, there was Jocelyn.

At the thought of her twelve-year-old daughter, the tiny lines etched by sadness about her mouth began to soften. Jocelyn was her pride and joy, the embodiment of everything good in her life. She was everything that a mother could want, bright, sunny, pretty, with the promise of startling beauty just a few years away. Whatever happened between her and Harry, right or wrong, at least they had created this one sweet life. Perhaps that would have to be enough.

She looked at herself again and raised her chin.
C’mon, ]oey, no one said life was going to be fair. Or easy. You’re only down and out when you give up. Don’t give up
.

“Terrific.” Johanna drew away. “Now I’m giving myself pep talks in the mirror.”

She laughed, but the laugh rang hollow. She had never felt this empty, this hollow before. All her rationalizations, all her logic were failing her now. She knew she was hanging on by her fingertips and they were beginning to grow numb. But hang on she was bound to do until she found a way to make it right again.

What else could she do? She couldn’t give up totally.

That wasn’t her. Her father, a gentle-voiced man with infinite patience, had taught her never, ever to give up. And so she was bound to try again.

With a sigh, Johanna wrapped the towel around her body. Taking a second towel, she fashioned a terry cloth turban for her hair. She was going to go to Harry and ask for a truce, to tell him that they had to start over again. It wouldn’t be the first time she had said those words, but maybe this time they would stick. Maybe he was reaching bottom, just like she was, feeling just as desperate. Maybe he wanted a change and didn’t know how to go about it. And maybe, she prayed, together they could regain what they had once had.

She squared her shoulders and opened the bathroom door.

She heard movement in the next room. “Harry?” she called out. “Harry, I want to talk to you.”

But when she walked out into the area that served as a sitting room for the suite, Harold wasn’t there. Instead, she saw Megan, the young woman she had hired to help take care of Jocelyn while they were in London. Ariel Natwik had resigned her position as nanny, citing the fact that she was getting on in years. But Johanna knew better. She knew that the old woman left them because she disapproved of Harold and the lifestyle that he lived.

Jocelyn had protested that she was too old for a nanny, so Megan was hired as a compromise.

A compromise, Johanna thought dryly, in more ways than one.

Large brown eyes swept over Johanna’s towel-clad body.

Comparing us, Megan, dear?
Johanna thought.
I’m not ready for the glue factory yet, even if I am twelve years older.

Instinctively, Johanna moved regally into the room. She had learned long ago how to deal with uncomfortable situations and keep the other person from knowing just what she felt.

“Harry, um, Mr. Whitney’s left for the studio, Mrs. Whitney,” Megan told her, her eyes not meeting Johanna’s.

“I see.”

And what would I see if our eyes met, little girl,
Johanna thought.
Guilt, remorse? Or a smugness? Don’t you think I know?

The dark-haired, sloe-eyed Megan had been to bed with Harry. Probably more than once. He could still be very, very charming when he wanted to be.

It seemed, Johanna thought, that Harry was having an affair with everyone these days, everyone but her. Even though she had insisted on coming along with him on this trip to London despite his assertions that he was going to be busy with the film, nothing had changed between them. They were still occupying separate rooms, where once separate beds would have been unthinkable. She laid awake at night, missing him, missing the intimacy that had once been hers alone, feeling sorry for herself, feeling angry with him and cursing the fate that had fulfilled his fantasies beyond his wildest dreams and done this to them.

“Where’s Jocelyn?” Johanna asked.

“Right here, Mom.”

Johanna turned around as the young girl came up behind her. At twelve, she was up to Johanna’s shoulder, her young body strong and hard, just beginning to reach out to the ripening that was to be. She had long, shimmery silver-blond hair just like her mother and looked, just as Johanna did, much taller than she really was. At the moment, her hair was pulled back from her face and neatly arranged in a French twist.

“How do you like it?” Jocelyn twirled around, hand on hip, showing off her new look.

Johanna’s mouth hardened as she shot Megan a disapproving glare. Megan raised her chin defiantly, but said nothing.

“I don’t,” Johanna said.

Jocelyn was wearing designer clothes meant for someone much older than she. The dress adhered to her young body almost provocatively. Her fresh face was carefully painted with blush and shadow and lipstick, creating an illusion of a child-woman.

“Take it off.” Johanna’s voice was deadly still. “The dress, the make-up, take it all off.”

Jocelyn’s wide smile turned into a petulant pout instantly. She took a step closer to the au pair girl. “But Megan said I looked sophisticated.”

“Twelve-year-olds don’t need to look sophisticated. They need to look clean.”

Jocelyn dug in. “I’m not a baby any more.”

To lose her temper would gain her nothing. Johanna smiled, tempering her words. “No, but you’re not a grownup either, my love.” She took her chin in her hand. When Jocelyn attempted to retreat, she tightened her hold, though careful not to hurt her. “I’m afraid you’re in that valley betwixt and between right now. You’ll be old soon enough. Enjoy all this while you can.”

“You don’t let me enjoy anything!” Jocelyn snapped back, pulling away. She played her ace card triumphantly. “Daddy said he liked it.”

“Daddy likes strolling hostesses of the evening,” Johanna murmured under her breath, looking pointedly at Megan, “and has very little taste left anymore. There’s the bathroom sink, Jocelyn,” she pointed behind her. “Use it.”

Jocelyn flounced out of the room and slammed the bathroom door behind her.

“Mrs. Whitney,” Megan began, folding her hands before her, “I didn’t think—“

Johanna whirled around. The smile was still on her face, but it had hardened. “No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Johanna said. “Next time, please do. Her name is Jocelyn, not Lolita.”

Megan stared at her, confused. “What?”

Johanna waved her hand at the younger woman. “Before your time, I imagine. An old movie. An even older book.”

She remembered sneaking into the theater her best friend’s father owned to see it. Forbidden fruit at the time. Her mother had had a fit and called to upbraid Mr. Wyatt for his careless lack of supervision. She had been embarrassed for days. “Might seem tame by today’s standards,” she mused. “But it goes without saying that I want Jocelyn to stay twelve until she reaches thirteen.” By which time, you’ll be gone, Johanna promised herself. “And so on. One step at a time, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Megan’s smile, as well as the polite tone she used, was forced.

Ma’am. God, that word made her feel old. Old and ugly and unloved. It seemed as if there was very little these days that didn’t.

Johanna went to her room to get dressed.

When she emerged again, Jocelyn’s door was still closed. She hesitated before it, debating whether to give the young girl her space or talk to her. No, there was too much space giving and not enough communication these days, Johanna thought. Space was just another term for emptiness. Nothing was solved with emptiness. She tapped on the door lightly.

“Jocelyn?” There was no answer. She knocked again. “Jocelyn, can I come in?”

“If I said no would you stay out?” her daughter asked defiantly.

“Probably not.”

“Then come in.”

She opened the door and found her daughter sitting on her bed. Her face was scrubbed, the french twist gone, replaced by loose hair that hung down to her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt that bore the face of Jon Bon Jovi. She was Jocelyn again.