The Insiders (30 page)

"Okay, enough soul-searching. Why don't we call
your mother right now,
before Jamison announces din
ner.

Eve found herself agreeing meekly. Brant kept surprising her, damn him, often enough to make her curious. Perhaps that was what he had meant about wanting to dig deeper.

Brant surprised Eve
all over again when he seemed to genuinely like her mother. She had expected that after the initial shock her mother would like
him
—or at least like the idea that her daughter was finally getting married—and how many women could boast of having a millionaire son-in-law?

Her mother, as usual, fussed first and then hugged and kissed. The younger children stared from a safe distance to begin with and then slowly came closer, to tag at Brant's heels.

"Hey, are you really going to marry Eve? She told us she was never going to get married."

And shyly, from her little sister, Pat:

"Wow! You're gorgeous. Wish
I'd
seen you first!"

She hadn't quite remembered how enveloping, how smothering and personal her family could be, and she expected Brant to withdraw behind his polite smile. Instead, he seemed to become really human for the first time, kissing her mother back and telling her he could see where Eve had got her looks, promising her brother, Steve, that he'd play ball with him, even whispering to Pat that he wished he'd seen
her
first, too.

It had been Brant's idea that they be married from her home—her real home—and helplessly, more than ever unable to fathom him, Eve let herself be taken over and swept forward by what was happening.

She didn't ask
how,
but Brant had arranged for their blood tests and their immediate results, and he had arranged for a special license. The wedding was to be held the next day, in church, and the neighbors and family friends had been told already, with explanations preferred as to the unexpected swiftness of the whole affair.

Eve listened to her mother make some of the last-minute telephone calls.

"Well, Minnie, you know how young people are these days; they keep saying they don't want
fuss.
They were going to elope, you see, but Eve's young man wanted a church wedding in the end. What did you say? Oh, but their reservations had already been made months ahead for their honeymoon, and there was no way they could cancel them and make new ones unless they wanted to wait another month, and of course they didn't want to do
that"

White lies! Why did there always have to be explanations for other people? Eve was suddenly tired, tired—when she went up to bed that first night, her face ached from smiling. Still, once she was lying there, gazing up at the familiar low ceiling, she found she could not sleep immediately. She moved and twisted uneasily for what seemed like hours, listening to the voices that still floated up from the living room. Was she the only one in the house who wanted to sleep? Try closing your eyes and letting your body go limp, Eve. Try
not
thinking about David.

It was morning—Eve realized, surprised, that she had actually slept. She lay there, inert, hoping she'd go back to sleep, but the thoughts of last night still clung to the fringes of her mind. Strange droughts to be having on her wedding day. Wedding to a stranger. But at least with this particular stranger there would be no need for pretense between them. No love, but no lies, either.

Oh—
David!
The thought came unbidden and unwanted, a habit-thought from the days when the thinking of his name was like a litany she repeated in her mind constan
tl
y. David—David—David!

She saw her own face reflected in the mirror over her dresser. So pale without any makeup. Scared-looking.

It would never have worked out with David. He'd have drained her dry—of hate, of love, of initiative, of self-respect. She'd made a kind of vampire of him by putting herself so much in his power. By her own weakness and unadmitted masochism she'd almost forced him to more and worse acts of cruelty and indifference.

Eve lay back again, looking at the beamed ceiling of her childhood, thinking of all those nights when she was young and lay there thinking, I want—ohh, I
want
—yet not ever really being able to define in thoughts or words what she wanted. The ceiling became a mirror, and she saw her own writhing body—hers and yet not hers, as it had seemed that night with all the hands crawling over it, touching, hurting, holding her down while Brant's gold head with the hair curling behind his ears went down on her body, down between her spread thighs—
No!
Not today. She wouldn't, couldn't think of that, either.

Her eyes were restless, roaming—through the window now, and there were soft tracings of cloud, almost cloud-shadows, in the sky beyond the apple-tree branches. She'd wear white—her wedding dress had cost a small fortune—and her Uncle Joseph would give her away.

Give her away—to Brant. Into a stranger's keeping. No, she mustn't think that way. All people were strangers to each other. She and Brant—they had at least seen each other at their worst and best.

Eve closed her eyes. God, let it be all right! It popped into her mind, the silly litde ritual phrase from her childhood. Her favorite prayer-thought. When she hadn't wanted it to rain on her birthday; when she'd wanted the lead in the class play; and for Mom not to find out about the lipstick she'd filched from Andrea.

She was suddenly aware of voices outside the window —laughter. This was ridiculous! Some stupid, poin
tl
ess, pagan custom that dictated she shouldn't see his face until this afternoon, when they were to be married. And there
he
was, playing ball, of all things, with the kids (with Pattie following him around adoringly, no doubt), while
she
was cloistered in her room.

Her thoughts of him grew softer, turned deeper. There was, she had to admit, a natural spontaneity about the way he'd made friends with the kids. He was more at ease, less remote with children, and she had noticed that right away.

No wonder he expects me to be a brood cow! But after all, that thought, too, was not as impossible, as unbearable as it had been ten years ago, say—or even less than that. Lisa had helped her rediscover her love for children, and she would miss Lisa, poor neglected baby. Lisa's love, at least, had been real and freely given, while David's attention had been conditional— on loan, at best.

Her mother, knocking diffidently at the door, brought her thoughts back to the present. Oh, God, surely Mom wouldn't give her the old, traditional facts-of-life talk? No, certainly not after their first private conversation yesterday.

Her mother came to sit on the bed beside her, carrying a cup of coffee—another ritual from her childhood, only then it had been chocolate. Eve sat up, sipping, postponing conversation.

"Eve darling—are you
sureF'
So her mother had, after all, sensed her uneasiness. It was strange that after so many years her mother could still see through her facade.

She squeezed her mother's shoulders.

"As sure as anyone is when they get married, Mom. I'm—just nervous. Are
you
sure you can take all the publicity? Brant's photographer friend will be there, you know, and people from newspapers and magazines and maybe even television." She made a wry face, not able to help herself. "They'll be asking questions and taking pictures—"

"If you can stand it, then I can, dear. I—just wanted to make sure in my own mind that you do love him and—that it's not just the money, you know. Or thinking that since your father is gone
you
have to be responsible—" Her mother flushed red, and Eve realized suddenly that it had been a hard thing for her to say. They had been strangers for too long; her mother had not said too much after she'd left home, but Eve knew now that it must have hurt and confused her to have one of her daughters turn her back on all the values they'd tried to teach her.

Oh,
Mom!
she thought suddenly, wretchedly aware that she'd even, at one time, been ashamed of her large, Catholic, middle-class family. Looking into worried brown eyes, Eve took a deep breath and lied convincingly.

"Of course I love him, Mom. Don't
you,
already? Oh, come on, admit it! You're happy I brought home a nice, suitable young man, after all—aren't you?"

"Darling, yes! Yes, you did, and I can't begin to tell you how happy I am, even if it is a trifle
sudden.
I just wanted to be sure, and now I am. I do like him, Eve. He's such a nice, polite young man, and I'd never have dreamed he was so rich if you hadn't told me."

Eve remembered, suddenly, Brant saying furiously,
"Fuck
the money!" and wondered if she'd ever get used to being rich.

To
come groping
out of the dark of weeds and water into sunlight; to He panting and exhausted on a warm stone; half-dream, half-subconscious impression. Something from the universal unconscious that Jung had written about, Eve supposed. It was something like that old dream of hers, to feel herself cut away so completely and finally from the life she had made for herself—and from David, whom she'd felt to be her life source.

And suddenly, here she was—married to someone else, and by a priest, no less; her wedding to Brant Newcomb the biggest event in her hometown for years, with the small church filled to overflowing and flashbulbs going off continuously and Brant wrathful because Jerry had brought so many people down with him. Thank goodness it was all over finally.

Eve had felt like a marionette—as if she were modeling her own wedding gown. She and Brant, both beautiful, like models in a fashion show, making the right gestures, smiling the correct smiles—everything make-believe until Father Kilkenny was facing them both, reading the marriage service, and she and Brant were suddenly isolated up there, being pronounced man and wife. She losing her name and her separate identity, walking back down the aisle as Mrs. Brant Newcomb—
rich
Mrs. Brant Newcomb.

Eve remembered her father, filled with rage when she'd broken the news that she was going away to Berkeley, first step toward making a career for herself.

"Political science—demonstrations—what is it you're looking for, Eve?" he had ranted. "You'll not find it there in a city wearing fancy clothes—or taking them off, God knows—for a bunch of pigs. . ."

That was before one of his sudden rages, quick to rise and quick to pass, had turned into the last fit of fury— the one that killed him. How would her father have reacted to Brant, or her too-sudden marriage to him?

Eve lay beside her new husband and watched him as he slept. He slept so damned calmly, without struggles or grimaces or the clutching, groping,
human
movements that most people made in their sleep sometimes —as David used to. She had felt for David at those times a great and crus
hing weight of love and protec
tiveness—she'd felt he needed her, just as Lisa (who was David in miniature) needed her. What was she doing here, lying next to a handsome golden stranger who slept so peacefully, sated by their lovemaking?

She turned very carefully and lay as far away from him as she could, looking out through the window at the gnarled tree branches that swayed and creaked in a light breeze. She wanted, quite unexpectedly, to cry, and to shake with the fury and release of great, tearing sobs, as she had done on so many nights when she had lain alone and waited to hear from David. But tonight she didn't dare. Not because of what Brant might do, but because of some deep-rooted vein of superstition and stubbornness that dwelt inside her mind somewhere, telling her sternly that David was past and done with by her own choice, and Brant was her husband.

Eve shifted uneasily, longing for sleep, and heard the changed rhythm of Brant's fight breathing. Damn her small bed with its slight sag in the middle. They had decided to spend their wedding night here to put off all the reporters—calling the airport to cancel their plane reservations and make new ones for tomorrow.

She could feel his warmth along the length of her body. Sighing softly, Eve let herself slide closer to him and felt his arm come over her body as he turned sideways, his breath tickling the back of her neck. Maybe, she thought, maybe in some ways she and Brant were alike—each looking for refuge in the other. He could be kind—she had discovered that. Perhaps it was only surprising because he had always appeared so selfish and so callous. But perhaps he had become that way as a form of self-protection—be the attacker, the one who inflicted pain, in order not to become a victim.

He began to make love to her again, and as if he had sensed her mood, still half-asleep, his lovemaking this time was very slow and very tender, whereas earlier that night he had taken her almost savagely, forcing a climax from her.

In the morning, facing her mother, Eve felt herself blush warmly and wondered why she blushed.