Authors: John Lescroart

Tags: #Suspense, #Thriller

Sunburn (4 page)

BOOK: Sunburn

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“Watch out for that arm. There’s no hand on it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

His smile was completely natural. “You don’t think I became rich because of my talents? Here,” he said, “come around the other side and hold my hand.”

Below the window, they heard the sounds of records and laughter.

“Do you want to go up?”

For a moment, she was terrified of staying another second with him. She knew that they wouldn’t go anywhere to talk. They would walk until he stopped again and then he would touch her and she would want him.

“No. Let’s walk some more.”

The next couple of months were hell. For the first time in her life, she desired someone. After that night when in fact they had made love in the backseat of Sean’s car, she hadn’t seen Sean again for two weeks. She even thought of leaving, going farther south, and forgetting this interlude.

Her solitude became unbearable. She was constantly out on the town, going to the discos, drinking and sleeping around. She wouldn’t have him think that he was anything special. Yet she found that she couldn’t leave town.

Then one day she met him in the street. The season was just beginning in earnest, and the streets were more crowded than they’d been, or she’d have seen him and ducked out of his way.

“You’re avoiding me,” he said calmly. He didn’t seem the least bit upset. “I just wondered why.”

“I haven’t been home, is all.”

“I noticed. I came by twice.”

He steered her into a café and ordered.

“Why should I be home, then?”

“You shouldn’t. A young and attractive girl like yourself should be out getting all she can.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I know. Just an observation. Do you want me to ask you for a date?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Enjoy your coffee.”

He got up and left, never having raised his voice or lost his smile. She nearly jumped from her chair to follow him.

“Sean.”

He stopped and turned. She ran up to him.

“I’ll be home Thursday night.”

“That’s nice.”

“If you want to come by . . .”

“I’m sorry. I’m busy Thursday.”

“Well, pick a day.”

“For what?”

“Goddamn you, I won’t beg.”

“Neither will I. How about today?”

“Tonight?”

“Today. Right now.”

She couldn’t change, try as she might, and he didn’t become any more insistent. When they were together, they either fought or made love. There was no repetition of the peaceful joy they’d taken in each other on that first night, and yet it was that first night that had brought them back together again and again. In some undefined way she knew that, and knew that it was true for him too. Still, she was not able to rest. She was more promiscuous than she’d ever been.

Occasionally, after they made love, they’d go out to dinner or a cabaret. Sean would drink too much. Even when they weren’t angry, their words took on a sparring quality. He would never spend the entire night with her. She never went to his house.

Then, in early July, after he hadn’t called on her for a week, she was sitting at a table outside a small German café just in front of the church, and Sean drove up in his black Peugeot and parked in front of her. Getting out, he walked to her table and sat down.

“This has got to stop. I want you to come live with me. If you don’t, I won’t see you again. And if you do, make no mistake, it’s the end of your fucking around.”

As she looked at him, she once again saw that clarity in his face, a look of nearly total uninterest in her. He’d made up his mind. If she didn’t go, he was gone. She finished her pastis.

“Help me pack my things.”

After Douglas left the courtyard with the dead chicken, she turned to Sean.

“Why don’t you kick them out?”

“I like them.”

“Just now?”

“So what? Doug’s pissed off. It happens.”

He was embarrassed, and disgusted with her for the moment. She watched him walk into the house.

“Where are you going?”

He stopped in the doorway. “To do some writing, then clean up. Tony’s coming over for dinner.”

“All right. I won’t bother you then.”

“Good,” he said. “Don’t.”

Despite their greater intimacy and half a year of living together, things between them had declined. Nothing really had changed since she’d moved in. At first they’d had quiet times—nights sitting before the fire, finishing off their dinner wine, talking, or just lying watching the flames. But always, the next day, she would provoke him, and the fighting would start again.

She’d lived constantly hoping that he would throw her out, or that she would tire of him, and terrified that one of these things might happen.

When his sister and brother-in-law had come, she had wanted to run away. It had not been so much that she had disliked the visitors as that she had resented their intrusion. Before they arrived, there seemed to be endless time to work things out, to change slowly to suit each other, and though it hadn’t worked, she still felt hopeful that it would. But when they’d come, she’d felt, in a real sense, back in society.

Sean had begun having parties, and their private lives had stopped evolving. They became victims of their friends’ expectations.

There had always been in her a need to appear consistent in front of others. This was why she’d always changed locations before she’d changed her actions. She couldn’t explain why this was true, but it had always been so. And Doug and Lea had arrived when she and Sean had been fighting and challenging. They’d both fallen into their public roles, and their already tenuous private lives, which had brought them together, were buried under this hail of momentum.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself. Though she knew it was poisoning all that was good between them, she continued to taunt and belittle him, while he remained detached and, realistically, on guard.

At least she had been faithful to him. Other men didn’t interest her, though she pretended otherwise, and she knew that here Sean would draw the line, as he’d said.

But now, as she watched him enter the house, she felt physically sick. She turned and looked at the surrounding woods, and slowly walked out through the gates into the trees.

She had gone too far. Douglas had been right. She’d been pushing too hard for weeks now. Leaving the road, she walked back between the trees, which were beginning to turn for autumn. She kicked at scattered leaves on the ground, then leaned back against one of the trees. Her stomach felt hollow and she crossed her arms and leaned over. Suddenly, she felt her frustration like a force moving up from her stomach. She began to cry, at first softly, and then threw herself headlong on the ground and sobbed uncontrollably.

After a time, she stopped and lay quietly. Then she got up and walked back to the house, through the front room, and back to their bedroom. She took a shower and put on a terry-cloth robe, then walked back through the house to Sean’s study.

He sat in his chair in front of his desk. His right hand cradled his head and covered his eyes. He might have been sleeping.

“Sean.”

He looked up. She crossed to him and knelt on the floor beside him.

“It’s not working, is it?”

He stared silently ahead.

“Because I want to tell you that we have to start over, and not be afraid to admit or show that we like each other. It’s like we’ve gotten so that anything but fighting is out of the question between us, and I don’t want to fight you anymore. I really don’t.”

He put his hand on her head and smoothed her hair. He looked impassive, bitter.

She put her head on his lap and whispered, “It just seems that ever since we started, it’s been one or both of us afraid to be ourselves. I don’t know why. But it’s been like there’s this . . . I don’t know, this force making a travesty of us living together. Like we never really wanted to try, but something made us. You know what I’m saying?”

He nodded, gently rubbing her neck.

“But now it’s gotten horrible. I don’t care, now, if you hurt me. If you want to, then go ahead, but I won’t be a bitch anymore. We don’t have to be this way.”

“I know.”

“So let’s not. Let’s stop.”

“What have I been doing?”

“Hiding.”

“From what?”

She stopped looking up at him. “Let’s just leave it at that. There’s more to you than you show me.”

“There’s more to everyone than they show anyone.”

“You showed me more our first night.”

He was silent.

“Come on. Stand up.” She was smiling now. “Do you want me to help you change?”

“I can change myself,” he answered.

“I know. Do you want me to help you?”

Gradually his features softened. He smiled. “Let’s have a kiss,” he said. “Then we’ll see.”

Three

We stayed in bed until the sun had nearly gone down. Below we could hear Sean and Kyra speaking with the guests, who had come up from the town, I assumed. The window in our room looked out over the courtyard and to the trees beyond. It was a beautiful evening. We had dozed and I had wakened before Lea. Lying on my back, I enjoyed the weight of Lea’s head as it rested on my chest, her leg thrown carelessly over mine. Sean’s earlier foolishness was forgotten. I even felt kindly disposed toward Kyra.

Berta rang what we called the half-hour bell, telling us when dinner would be served, and I pulled gently at Lea’s hair.

“Food,” I whispered.

“Uhhh.”

“Dinner bell just now.”

I took my arm from around her and sat up. Automatically, it seemed, she reached out and scratched my back.

“God, I’m lazy.”

“So it seems.”

I got up. “Coming?”

“Minute.”

The upstairs showers had been installed the previous spring, but had not been connected to the water heater, so showering was more of an ordeal than I’d been used to, but I was getting to like it. At least it was impossible to emerge drowsy.

While I spluttered and groaned, Lea came in and sat on the bidet, which was, if possible, colder.

“How do you do it?” she asked.

“Clean living,” I said. “Hand me a towel, huh?”

She shivered. “Still.”

“Should I shave? Sean tell you who’s coming?”

“You know anybody with a white Citröen?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t know.” She had a towel wrapped around her hips, as a man might, and combed her hair abstractedly. She looked at me in the mirror. “Don’t shave. You look good.”

We dressed together, husband and wife, talking like it, and went downstairs.