Sleeping Beauty (53 page)

The guests crowded around, friends and colleagues who had not seen Josh in some time, and they eyed Anne as if to try to figure out from her appearance whether she had whatever it took to hold on to Josh Durant. This was Josh's world, the world of the wealthy and the well connected; he knew most of the guests, and he moved easily among them, exchanging news of travels and shared friends. And now, in an instant, it seemed that he and Anne had become a couple. Society did that, Anne knew: it needed to think of itself as structured and harmonious, stable, purposeful, and enduring, and so, as quickly as possible, it settled people into niches so there would be as few surprises as possible. She heard someone ask a question about Dora; someone behind them was talking about Josh and the work he had done in Sardinia and Turkey and, lately, Egypt; and someone else said what a great couple she and Josh made.

She knew it was true. He wore his tuxedo as easily as he wore jeans and hiking shorts, and she was in strapless black satin that clung to her figure, with a long slit up the side of the skirt. She wore gold earrings with a sapphire and gold necklace. Her head came to his shoulder and they moved the same way, their heads high, their eyes taking in everything around them. And as they walked through the room, everyone turned, to watch them pass.

Anne found herself enjoying it. Usually she hated being the center of attention, except in the courtroom, but sharing it with Josh was almost like a game, a secret they held together. And she liked being at his side as he commented on the people she met in a voice meant only for her.

“He's waiting to be sentenced for pocketing ten million
dollars from an S and L that went under,” Josh murmured as a couple approached them. “It's been a boon for a couple of churches in town; he's been showering them with some percentage of his ill-gotten millions in a kind of yellow brick road to heaven or a light sentence, whichever comes first.”

A small laugh broke from Anne, and Josh gave her a swift, pleased look before the couple was before them, the man in a funereal black shirt and dark purple tie beneath his tuxedo, the woman carrying a glittering Judith Leiber bag like a talisman to ward off the darkness.

A few minutes later a tall, angular woman approached them. She wore a turban and a red cape over what looked like a long white nightgown. “She's giving all her money to museums, a million or so a year,” Josh said. “She wants the money to run out when she dies, but not a minute before, so her accountants and doctors compare notes four or five times a week on how she's doing.”

Anne laughed again. “Why museums?”

“Because she says they're the only institutions besides herself that celebrate and preserve the exotic. She says she wishes she'd lived in Rome under the Caesars.”

“Does she know how women were treated there?” Anne asked.

“I tried to tell her once; she wouldn't listen, so I let it go. Why would I try to chip away at someone's dream?”

Anne looked at him in surprise. “Isn't that what scientists do? Force the truth on us whether it's pleasant or not?”

“We point it out, and we live with it. But we don't force—” He stopped as the woman in the turban reached them. “Lillian, how good to see you. May I introduce Anne Garnett.”

They did not talk long before others came up to them. “Oh, this one I know,” Anne murmured as a rotund, bearded man came toward them. “Colin Riley. He produces the ‘Rosie' show on television and his wife divorced him because she said he preferred Rosie to her.”

“Rosie is a dachshund,” Josh protested.

Anne nodded. “She said if he'd chosen a classy sporting
dog like a weimaraner or a wirehaired pointing griffon, she might have tried to see his point, but to be more interested in a dachshund than in her meant he'd sunk to a level she couldn't tolerate.”

Josh chuckled. “Was she your client?”

“Yes. It was an easy one, they both really wanted out. The toughest part was the yacht; they both really wanted that, too.”

“But she got it.”

Anne gave him a quick look. “Yes.”

“How many cases have you lost?”

“None. Colin, how nice to see you. May I introduce Josh Durant.”

A few minutes later the crowd moved to the Great Egyptian Hall for dinner. Josh had given Anne a tour of the museum weeks earlier, but she paused at the double doors to admire once again the brilliant panels of tomb paintings and carvings that lined the walls. The guests, finding their places at round tables with silver cloths, seemed to blend into the panels. Their bright gowns and sleek tuxedos bore no resemblance to the short skirts of the men in those paintings, and the long, filmy dresses of the women, but Anne could imagine everyone, regardless of the thousands of years separating them, having the same hopes and dreams, and the same worries about families and jobs and friends. The idea pleased her and she turned to tell Josh. “Oh, here's Carol,” he said just then. “I want you to meet her. Carol Marston, Anne Garnett.”

“I'm glad to meet you,” Carol said as they shook hands. “I've heard good things about you; I know a couple of women you worked miracles for.”

“Not quite miracles,” Anne said. “I have to be able to do repeat performances or I'm out of work. I think the definition of a miracle is that it only happens once.”

“I was lucky enough to be in on a miracle a couple of months ago,” Carol said. “Josh probably told you all about it.”

“Hard work and luck,” Josh said.

“And wonderfully exciting. I'm going back as soon as I can; I want to see a lot more than I did. Aren't you going back, too, Josh? How can you bear to stay away when they're working on your tomb?”

“I'll be there soon. And Hosni won't open the first door without me. Where are you sitting tonight?”

“Table Eight. Oh, you're at One. What a shame. Maybe we'll talk later,” she said to Anne, and went to another part of the hall.

Josh held Anne's chair and said something, but she did not hear it. She was in turmoil about something she could not name. Carol, she thought. And of course, Josh. Carol Marston—tall, young, with striking almond-shaped brown eyes that seemed to take in everything and everyone around her—had been in Egypt with Josh.

Until a few minutes earlier, Carol had been a faceless museum board member who had been in Egypt with the rest of Josh's crew. If Anne had thought about her at all, it was as an older woman, vaguely sixty or more, a little drab, lonely or bored, who filled her time by working as a director of the Museum of the Ancient World. But to meet Carol Marston, and to imagine her in Luxor with Josh, walking with him in the magnificence of the Valley of the Kings, sitting with him in restaurants, spreading her hand on those stone steps for him to photograph . . . that was enough to make Anne tighten up inside and feel a strange, unfocused sense of being left out.

The president of the museum welcomed the dinner guests and introduced Josh. Anne watched his tall, lean figure as he took the few steps to the podium and stood easily in the spotlight. He was extraordinarily handsome, she thought. His face had strength and determination; his mouth had a suggestion of stubbornness, even when he smiled, but it also gave promise, perhaps only for those who knew him, of warmth and tenderness. And then she knew why she was in turmoil. She was caught by an emotion she had never had before. She was jealous.

“I'm glad to join in welcoming you here,” Josh said, his
voice amplified by the microphone. “This is your museum; your support literally keeps the doors open and makes it possible to plan for the future.”

Anne stared at him. It was as if she were looking at a stranger. She was trembling. What she had thought was a friendship, one she was beginning to treasure, had turned into something terrifying. Jealous, she thought, and felt ill. Jealousy afflicted lovers; jealousy meant involvements, closeness, attachments, demands. No, she cried silently. I can't. I can't.

“. . . show you some of what your support has meant to the projects the museum has organized in the past year,” Josh was saying. The lights dimmed. Behind him, a screen came down. For a few minutes a rapid succession of slides showed the foundations of an ancient palace in Mexico, the remains of Roman shops unearthed on the Corso in the old city of Jerusalem, the columns of a Greek temple on the coast in Turkey, primitive workers' tools found in northern Iraq.

Anne could not concentrate on the slides or on Josh's voice. How had she so completely lost control of herself? She was always careful. No one could be more than a casual friend. Well, except for Eleanor, of course, and Gail and Leo, but they were different. What had happened to her that she had let slip the perfect control she had worked so hard to build? It was as if she had left a door unlocked and someone had walked in and now she was threatened. She gripped her hands to stop their trembling. I didn't want anything like this. Everything was fine; I won't have it destroyed.

“And finally,” Josh said, “the one that fits most properly in this great hall.” Once again, Anne was looking at the Valley of the Kings, with workers hacking at rock, and Hosni standing nearby. “We're digging on the far side of a low ridge—here in the background—that runs along the known part of the Valley of the Kings. What we found a few weeks ago was this.” The slide of the steps appeared, with Carol's hand. A murmur went through the room. “Stone steps in the Valley of the Kings,” Josh said, letting the moment stretch
out. “We'll know in the next few weeks where they will lead us. And you'll know, almost as soon as we do. We'll keep you informed about everything we discover.” The lights came up. “The hand in that picture, by the way, belongs to Carol Marston, a member of our board of directors. No museum can function without an active, involved, caring board, any more than it can without the financial support you, and others with you, give each year. And with their continued help, and yours, we'll make the Ancient the best museum of its kind in the world.”

The guests applauded as Josh returned to his chair and the president returned to introduce the auctioneer. “Who will whip them to a happy frenzy,” Josh murmured to Anne as he sat down, “so they'll bid huge amounts for items people have donated and we won't have to go through this hat-in-the-hand routine for another year. Is something wrong?”

Anne started to speak, but the noise around them had risen as the auctioneer chanted into the microphone, and bids were called out by spotters around the room. “We can talk about it later,” she said, raising her voice just enough for Josh to hear.

Immediately, he stood up. “I've done my part. Unless you're anxious to hear this, let's go.”

They made their way through the noisy throng to a small door at the other end of the room. “The quick escape route,” Josh said. “Used only by insiders. We can cut through my office.”

He led the way down a short corridor, into a large room lined with bookshelves. There was no desk; only a long table covered with books, slides, journals, and notepads. Anne had been there before, and she remembered now how Josh had talked about his work, the same way he talked about his dig.

Everything she knew about him showed him to be a man absorbed in his work, fascinated by the challenges around him and wanting to cram as many as he could into each day. An archaeologist, a professor, a museum consultant. A man who moved comfortably in society, who lived well, who had good friends, who liked women. Regret filled her. She
admired him; she enjoyed their times together. She had looked forward to more.

Josh held the door for her and locked it behind them. They walked in silence to his car in the parking lot, and they were silent as he drove to Anne's apartment and pulled to a stop near the entrance. “Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?” he asked.

“Yes.” She met his eyes. “I can't see you anymore, Josh. I'm sorry. I like you and I enjoy being with you, but there are reasons why we have to stop.”

“No,” he said. He felt a sense of loss, almost of bereavement, that was made worse by his admiration for the way she said what she had to say without looking away. She met things head-on and did not flinch, and that was one of the things he always looked for in people. But then he felt angry. She was taking herself away from him as if he had nothing to say about it. “I'd like to know the reasons.”

“I can't talk about them. They have nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing? But I'm the one you don't want to see again.”

She flushed. “Yes, that was foolish of me. I meant, it was nothing you did or didn't do. It's entirely within me.”

She did not look for excuses, Josh thought; another reason to admire her. “You know I would help you with it if I could.”

“I know. Thank you. No one can; I told you, it's within me.”

“And unchangeable?”

“Yes.”

“In all circumstances? Forever? As eternal as the desert?”

Again, she flushed. “It may sound as if I'm exaggerating or being overemotional or irrational, but this is something I have to deal with, and it's very strong, and no one else can pass judgment on it.”

“That's true,” Josh said quickly, “that was presumptuous of me. But you know you're making me deal with it, too.”

“It's not a part of you. You'll deal with it the same way you would if someone withdrew funding for your dig. You'd find another donor.”

The cruelty of it stunned him. Did she really think he was so shallow that he could segue from one woman to another with no more involvement than if he were fund-raising? But then he thought, let's look at it as unsparingly and precisely as Anne does. And he knew she was right. He would find someone else. Whatever they had been building together hadn't gone deep enough to change his life, much less turn him into a monk.

She might have changed his life, given enough time, but she would not allow that to happen. And then he thought of her, and knew that the cruelty of her words were turned more on herself than on him. She would be alone because something within her was so strong she could not do anything else, while Josh would find a new companion. And because they had been together so little, they would leave barely a ripple in each other's lives, no more substantial than the ripples on Defiance Lake caused by the jumping of the trout.