Sleeping Beauty (47 page)

“This is the library,” Anne said, and he followed her into the next room. White bookshelves covered all the walls, filled with neatly organized books; the furniture was upholstered in dark linen, and a modern glass and steel desk had a clean surface. Nothing was out of place.

There was no guest room. And there were no framed photographs anywhere in the apartment.

“It's stunning,” Josh said as they walked back to the living room. “Brilliant and dramatic. Like a painting.”

“Thank you,” Anne said. “That was the way I thought of it from the beginning.”

A painting, a stage set, an illustration, he thought. No
books out of place, no crooked pictures, no newspapers cluttering tables or the floor. No clutter. Superbly decorated and coldly perfect; high class, high tech, and not a loose emotion floating around anywhere. The whole apartment was as numb as if it had been anesthetized. He watched Anne as she looked around her living room and he saw her face change, become thoughtful and then slightly puzzled. He wondered if she were seeing her home through his eyes, and comparing it to his. His apartment seemed to him, as he pictured it, overfurnished, disordered, even a little lush. He wondered what she thought of it, compared to her white world, and what she thought of him. It came to him that he didn't have the faintest idea what she thought of him.

“It reminds me of Diebenkorn,” he said, gesturing toward the living room. “All those clean lines of demarcation. But you wouldn't pattern your home after him, would you, since he's not a woman.”

Anne looked at him with surprise. “You recognized these artists? Most people wouldn't have heard of many of them; they aren't well known at all.”

He grinned. “I could try to fake it, but the truth is, I had help. I have a friend who's interested in women artists, and she gives me books to read. She's a board member at the LA County Museum and also the Ancient. I think she's hoping to find that some of the great Egyptian tombs were designed by women, but so far we haven't any evidence of it.”

Anne nodded vaguely, looking around the apartment. “I'm done here; we'd better go. Isn't the plane at ten?”

“It is.” He carried her suitcase and waited while she pulled on a blue leather blazer and locked the door. “Why do you collect only women artists?” he asked as they rode down the elevator.

“I'm interested in them. Like your friend at the museum. And I like their work; there's a kind of fierceness about a lot of it, and hidden meanings, layers of meanings that I like to figure out. And there are plenty of people to collect paintings by men.”

“You don't find fierceness in male artists?”

“Not the same kind.”

“What's the difference between them?”

“Power,” she said. “Men think they have it, whether they do or not. Women mostly know they don't.”

His eyebrows rose. “And you like the fierceness that comes from being powerless?”

“No. I like the fierceness that comes from the struggle to get out from under.”

“We all know what that's like,” Josh said. “You can't believe that all men have power, or even know how to get it.”

“They have more than women, and they assume it as a right. Women see it as a glittering prize at the end of a long struggle.” She gazed out the window at the Saturday traffic on the road to the airport. “For example, where are your Egyptian queens in tomb paintings? In the pictures I've seen they're always behind the pharaoh and about the height of his hand. And if they're sitting with him, they come up to his knee. Maybe not even that high.”

He glanced at her. “Isis had enormous power.”

“Not fair. She was a goddess. Gods and goddesses play under different rules.”

He grinned. “They certainly do. Do you know the story about Isis' search for her husband, Osiris, after he was killed and cut into fourteen pieces and spread around the countryside?” Anne shook her head. “Well, she found the pieces and put them together and brought him back to life. It's the Egyptian version of resurrection. But I call it a story for our time. Without women, men wouldn't be whole.”

Anne's eyebrows rose. “That's too good to be true.”

He stopped at a red light and turned to her. “Do you know, I just thought of it now, for the first time. It's not bad. I may do an article on it.”

“But you don't really believe it.”

“Yes, I do,” he said quietly. The light turned green and he drove on.

They were silent. “Have you talked to Leo about what's happening at Tamarack?” Josh asked.

“No, just Gail. Have you?”

“I called him yesterday. I'd seen the article in the
LA
Times
about the water supply in Tamarack, and a mention of the reservoir being polluted, and I wondered what was going on. Did Gail tell you?”

“She said they're draining the reservoir and everything's under control, but she sounded worried.”

“There's a lot going on.” He pulled into a parking spot at the airport. “Leo said they're doing some routine maintenance on the gondola this afternoon and offered me a tour. Would you like to come?”

“I can't; I promised Gail I'd go mushrooming up Hayes Creek with her and the kids.”

He took their suitcases from the back of the car. “Did Gail tell you she's invited me to dinner tomorrow night?”

“Yes. I think she wants to help us along.”

Josh's eyebrows rose. “Does she think we need help?”

Anne smiled faintly. “I'm sure she thinks I do.”

There was a sadness to her smile that touched Josh, and he reached out to put his hand on hers. But he did not; he turned instead to lock the car, remembering that she had shown him more than once that she did not want to be touched. Even in his apartment, she had not moved beyond cool friendliness the entire evening, and had said good-night to him in the lobby of her apartment building with the same pleasant, public voice and face she had had since the night at Timothy's, when they had begun to shift from adversaries to . . . to what? Josh thought. What were they now? Acquaintances. Casual companions. Maybe on their way to being friends.

Did he want more? Oh, what the hell, he told himself; of course he wanted more. He wanted, at least, to find out what she was really like. He wanted to get past the haunting numbness of her facade to the emotions that had to be within her. He wanted to find out if they could share a moment of joy.

“Aren't we going?” Anne asked. She was looking at him quizzically as he stood by the car, his keys in his hand, gazing into the distance.

“Yes,” he said briskly. They walked through the crowds to the gate and stood in line to check in. Josh glanced at Anne,
beside him, absently reading over her ticket. She was so close to him he could smell the fragrance of her hair; and she was farther from him than any woman he had ever known.

She took a casual step to the side, putting space between them. Skittish, Josh thought; as if she kept a moat between herself and the world. But also very smart, very successful, good to talk to, lovely, clever, and intriguing, with an infinite sadness deep within her. You're damned right I want more than casual companionship, he said to himself. Plenty of time with her, and a hell of a lot more.

*   *   *

William was waiting on the deck when Anne arrived. He grabbed her hands with both of his and gripped them tightly before pulling her to him and kissing her loudly on the cheek. “You didn't come to Lake Forest so I came here,” he said. “Though that's stating the obvious, isn't it? Marian says I do that all the time. She's probably right. The obvious explains so much, you know.”

“I'm glad to see you,” said Anne. She pulled up a chair beside his. They were alone in the house. “Are you coming mushrooming with us this afternoon?”

He shook his head. He was short, like Vince, and gently rounded, with a paunch that strained against the buttons of his vest. His face was jovial, with high color and a neat mustache that quivered when he sent words and phrases blasting with rapid fervor from his small, precise mouth. “I can't go this afternoon; I have some letters to write. About this reservoir business. Terrible thing. But what's worse is, the papers—the television—are making Tamarack out to be a dangerous place. Leo says he heard there was an article in Los Angeles; did you see it? Of course you did; you live there. Talking about tourists canceling ski vacations that are months away because they're worried about the water! Damndest thing; how'd they find out so fast? They had it in New York and Chicago before the
Tamarack Times
did! Inexcusable, these blabbing mouths. If this was a war, it could make us lose. But I'll take care of it; a few letters to the editor, explaining how simple the problem is and how fast we'll have it solved . . . that'll stop the cancellations. You're
looking very pretty, Anne; I missed you, you know. I hope you know it.”

Anne nodded. “I missed you, too. I kept wondering if you were happy.”

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Why?”

“I used to think there were times when you weren't.”

“Well, there were. Still are. But I don't talk about it. I never talked to you about it, did I?”

“No. You just looked unhappy sometimes.”

“Did I. You were an observant little girl, weren't you? Well, those were probably the times I thought I should have gotten married. Everybody else had, you know, and there I was, still helling around like a soldier on leave. I never thought I'd be the perpetual ladies' man; I always thought Vince would be the one . . . well, where was I? Marriage. I never did, and I started feeling left out of everything—left out of
life,
more or less—but I didn't know anybody I wanted to live with for the rest of my life. Maybe I ought to find somebody now, now that I'm over sixty, and I don't have as many years left to repent a mistake or make another one, which is even worse. What do you think?”

Anne was smiling. “I think if you're ready to get married, you'll meet someone you'd like to marry.”

“Is that so?” He sat back. “I hear you never got married either. Was that because you weren't ready?”

“Probably. Tell me what else you've been doing.”

He waved a finger at her. “That's exactly what they told me you'd do. You don't talk about yourself, they said: you slither out of it by asking people to talk about themselves, and of course they always do because they're just waiting for somebody to ask them. I don't approve, young woman; when two people converse they answer each other's questions. Now I want to know something about you. Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Anne said.

“You really are? You haven't just talked yourself into it?”

“If I have, and I feel happy, isn't that just as good?”

He glowered at her. “That sounds like a clever lawyer's
question. Are you content? There's a word! How about that? Are you content?”

Anne hesitated. “I don't know.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. I don't think about it; I'm too busy. And what good does it do? If I'm not content, worrying about it won't help, and if I am, I don't need to worry about it. People don't ask me these questions. Nobody from the family has.”

“Why haven't they? They all wonder the same things I do.”

“I think they're afraid to ask me too much, because then we might find ourselves talking about Vince.”

There was a silence. “Do you want to talk about him?” William asked.

“I won't talk about him.”

He nodded. After a minute, he said, “You know, Anne, I always thought we had a happy family. As families go, of course; everybody has troubles, but I thought we did better than most. We saw each other a lot, and there was always plenty to talk about, and we didn't have any feuds going. To me that's a good family. Marian and Nina felt the same way. Then you made us think about unpleasant things and we just weren't good at that. It wasn't that we didn't believe you, you know; I for one knew you weren't a liar. It was just that we couldn't face what you were saying. It was like you were forcing it down our throats and we were gagging, and all we could think about was that we were uncomfortable, and in an odd way we blamed that on you. I'm sorry to bring this up now, in this lovely place, but I've been wanting to tell you for a long time that I was sure you weren't lying.”

“Thank you,” Anne said. Her voice shook. In the warm sun, she was dizzy and shivering; he had brought it all to life again. She stared fixedly at the distant mountains, concentrating on each peak, willing the dizziness to pass.
Put your shoulders back and breathe deeply. Fill your lungs.
She sat straight, taking long breaths.

“So now you're back with us, and we're all delighted.”
William was squinting at her in the sunlight, trying to make out her expression. “Of course that's stating the obvious again, isn't it? What I really want to say is, we're not so foolish as to think we can wipe out the past, but we do ask you to try to understand us and forgive us. We behaved badly, and we've regretted it all these years, and if we could have found you, we would have told you so a lot earlier. And now it's time to rebuild, and we should all work together to do it.” He paused. “Isn't that why you're here?”

Anne nodded. “How sensible you are, Uncle William.”

“Oh, don't ‘uncle' me, my dear; nobody does that anymore. As for being sensible, well, you know, when I admitted to myself one day that my father and Vince were the smart ones in the family, and I was just ordinary—nice, mind you, and well meaning, good-hearted, friendly to people and dogs, that sort of thing, but still, just ordinary—I decided to look at everything else the same way, square in the eye, calling it the way I saw it. No dancing around to prettify things. I'll never amount to much, Anne; that's probably why I spend most of my time writing letters. I keep trying to have an effect on the world, make a difference, you know. Mostly I know that the world doesn't give a damn what I think; it's going to go its own way whether I like it or not. Wars, elections, higher taxes, lower social security, bigger toxic dumps, smaller national parks—they're all going to happen like steamrollers, and what I think won't slow any of them down or change them a damn bit. Unless . . . You see, that's the thing. Unless it does. How do I really know that it won't? Maybe one really fine letter to the newspapers or somebody in the State Department or the president's cabinet, or even the president himself, might make somebody say, ‘Hey, wait a minute; here's something I never thought of before. We ought to change our policy because this William Chatham has a good idea.' Who knows that something like that might not happen someday?”