The Invitation (15 page)

“I want to talk to you,” she said sternly, the door barely closed behind her.

“What have I done now?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

She wasn't going to treat this matter lightly. Didn't he realize what kind of rumors could be spread? “You may get away with playing the little boy with Terri, but it won't work with me.” She had every intention of berating him for endangering her reputation by implying that he was living with her when he came into the room asking about his shoes. But to her horror, that was not what came out of her mouth.

“How could you have allowed Terri to treat you like a child?” she demanded.

William blinked at her a couple of times. “Is
that
what you're upset about?” He put his newspaper back in front of his face. “Older people always treat younger ones like children. Forever. They never stop, no matter how old you get.”

It seemed to her that William meant to end the discussion there, but Jackie suddenly became very angry. “Older!” she sputtered. “What does that mean? Terri is exactly the same age as I am. Actually, she's three months
younger
than I am.”

Obviously unperturbed, William turned a page of the newspaper. “Some people are old at twenty, and some are young at sixty.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

To further her anger, William didn't bother to answer. He just kept reading that blasted newspaper, his face hidden from her view. It was difficult, if not impossible, to have a serious argument about one of life's more profound issues with oneself. From the very beginning it seemed to her that William had failed to take this age difference seriously. He acted as though it mattered not at all.

“What did you do to Terri's son?” she asked, trying another way to get a reaction out of him.

“Did my best to teach him some manners, something he needed to be taught.”

Part of Jackie wanted to thank him for interfering, and part of her was more than a little annoyed. Every woman wanted to be a beautiful princess whose honor was fought for by a handsome young man, who, of course, later turned out to be a prince. But in the real world Jackie didn't like the implication that she belonged to William and therefore he had the right to do whatever violent thing he had done to Terri's son.

Princess or no, William's lack of reaction was taking the wind out of her sails. She wanted something from him, but she didn't know what. “There's a man in town who wants to go out with me,” she said, trying to sound as though this were an ordinary occurrence, but even as she spoke she knew she was trying to make William jealous. When he didn't look around his paper, she continued. “Terri says he's awfully nice.” Warming to her subject, she fairly purred as she looked at the newspaper William held in front of his face. “Edward Browne. Do you know him? Terri says he's a wonderful man. Older, experienced. He was married for years, so he's already broken in, so to speak. Must know a lot about women.”

She stood where she was, waiting for some reaction from him. After a while, he slowly folded the section of newspaper he was reading, neatly put it on top of the other sections—one could hardly tell that the paper had been opened—and opened another section.

“I think you ought to go out with him,” he said from behind the paper.

“Wh…what?”

“Mr. Browne
is
a nice man. My mother likes him a lot, and my dad too.”

“You want me to go out with him?” Even to her own ears there was disbelief in her voice.

“I think you should.” He looked at her from around the paper. “Really, Jackie, you need to get out more. You can't just go from Charley to me. You need to look at the choices out there.”

She didn't know whether that statement made her angry or just plain confused. “For your information, I've known
lots
of men besides you and Charley.”

“Mmmm,” he said. “Fancy foreign fellers.”

“Fancy…?” Those were not William's words. It was almost as though he was quoting someone else. “What in the world is
wrong
with you?”

“I have no idea what you mean. You said Terri suggested you go out with Edward Browne, and I agree that you should. Have I done something wrong? I assume you
do
want to go out with Mr. Browne or you wouldn't have brought it up, would you?”

What could she say? That she wanted to make him jealous? “Yes, of course it's a good idea. I'll…I'll tell Terri.”

Before she could form another thought, the telephone rang. Listlessly she answered it. Terri was calling to tell her that she had just “happened” to see Edward Browne on the street, and they had started talking, and, well, it seemed that Edward would love to take Jackie to dinner tonight. Would that be all right with her? Terri asked this question as though she were asking Jackie if she'd like to be given a couple of million dollars.

Jackie refused to think about what she was doing. Yes, it would be all right, she told Terri. She'd meet Edward at the Conservatory, Chandler's nicest restaurant at eight o'clock tonight.

“Oh, and, Jackie,” Terri said, “wear that beige silk dress of yours. The one with the gold buttons.”

“I thought I'd wear the coveralls I wear when I work on the planes,” Jackie said with great sarcasm. She'd had her fill of people implying that she didn't know how to behave, how to dress, how to run her own life. Immediately she felt guilty for speaking to Terri so waspishly. “I'll be there, and I'll look as respectable as I can.”

“All right,” Terri said timidly, knowing that she had again done something wrong. But this time she felt that the end justified the means, because she knew that Jackie and Edward were perfect for each other and would fall madly in love with each other. Someday Jackie would thank her for having introduced them.

Putting down the phone, Jackie glanced at William, his face hidden behind the newspaper. “I have a date tonight,” she said and cursed her heart for leaping into her throat. She very stupidly had a vision of William throwing his paper aside, sweeping her into his arms, and telling her she mustn't go out with any other man.

But nothing happened. In fact, William's only comment was an uncaring grunt, so Jackie, her shoulders drooping, left the room. She missed seeing William ball up the section of paper he was reading and throw it into the fireplace so forcefully that he displaced a log, which made the front log roll onto the floor and nearly set the rug on fire. Jackie missed seeing William stamping the flames out of the rug, the floor, the hearth, and four magazines with a fury that would have wrecked a less solidly built floor. An hour or so later, when she returned, dressed for her date, William was quietly still reading the paper, as though Jackie's leaving on a date meant nothing to him.

 

Jackie had to admit that, if judged by looks alone, Edward Browne was everything a woman could want in a man: tall, solidly muscular, with just enough fat on him to let a woman know that he would enjoy good cooking, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped. He had dark hair with just a bit of gray at the temples, and beautiful dark eyes. Although he was very handsome, there was a quietness about him that said he had no idea that he was attractive.

No wonder the women of Chandler are killing themselves over him, Jackie thought.

“Miss O'Neill,” he said, extending his hand. “I can't tell you how pleased I am that you accepted my invitation. I have been an admirer of yours for years.”

“Not too many years, I hope,” she answered, eyes sparkling, but he looked puzzled and didn't seem to understand her sense of humor.

Graciously, with the good manners that he'd probably had all his life, he held out a chair for her. There was a rather long, awkward silence as they looked at the menu. Then Edward competently ordered a bottle of French wine.

Once the orders were placed, Jackie had to keep herself from looking at her watch. This was going to be a very long evening. She hoped that William was wondering where she was and what she was doing. Sternly she reminded herself that it didn't matter what little Billy Montgomery was doing or thinking. He was only a temporary part of her life.

“The entire ritual of dating is deplorable, isn't it?” Edward said, looking at her across the candlelight. “It takes two perfectly ordinary people and makes them nervous and uncertain. It puts them in an impossible situation and asks them to discover good qualities about each other.”

Jackie smiled. “Yes, I find it quite awful.”

His eyes were twinkling. “Has Terri told you as much about me as she's told me about you?”

At this Jackie laughed. The FBI didn't know as much about criminals as Terri had told her on the phone about Edward Browne, and Terri had emphasized repeatedly how interested Edward was in Jackie. “I think he's been in love with you from afar for a long time,” Terri said. “He knows a lot about you and has asked me thousands of questions.”

“And no doubt you've made me out to be a saint,” Jackie said.

“Did you expect me to tell him about your bad points?” she asked, then said something that made Jackie groan: “He
loved
seeing my scrapbook about you.”

So now Jackie wondered exactly what Terri had told this man. “Yes. Terri could not stop talking about you. The only thing she left out was whether or not you have any tattoos.”

Again Edward looked puzzled. “No, none,” he said seriously. “Oh, I see. You're referring to the fact that I was in the navy.”

Jackie was referring to nothing at all, just trying to inject a little levity into the situation, but she had not succeeded. The arrival of the salads kept her from having to explain.

“I guess we can skip the talk of our early lives,” he said. “Of course with you it's easier since you are a world renowned figure.”

Jackie hated it when people said that. It made her sound as though she didn't need what other humans needed: love, companionship, warmth.

For a moment Edward toyed with his salad, and Jackie watched him. She didn't know him at all, of course, and she had accepted his invitation in a fit of pique, but as she looked at him, she thought,
This
is the type of man I should marry. This man was perfect: perfect age, background, education. This was a man she could introduce to the world and everyone would say, “What a wonderful man your husband is!”

“Do you miss your husband as much as I miss my wife?” he asked softly, so softly that Jackie almost didn't hear him.

His question was from his heart, so Jackie answered from the same place. “Yes,” she said, then waited for him to speak again. There was an air of sadness about him, a romantic air, she thought and again realized why Terri and the other women were trying so hard to get him married.

“You know what I miss the most?” When she shook her head, he continued. “I miss having someone who
knows
me. My wife and I were married a very long time, and she could look at me and say, ‘You have a headache, don't you?' Every year at Christmas our grown children give me slippers and ties, but my wife gave me little ships in bottles or scrimshaw carvings of ships, because only she knew of my dream to sail around the world when I retire. She bought all my clothing in exactly my taste, cooked just what I liked. It took us many years together to reach that stage of comfort, and now it's what I miss the most.”

Jackie was silent for a while as she thought of Charley and how he'd also known so much about her, both good and bad. “When my husband wanted me to do something that I didn't want to do, he knew just how to wheedle me into doing it.”

Edward smiled at her. “Cora always spent too much money. Not on herself but on me and the kids. Sometimes I'd get furious at her, but she always knew just how to soothe me.”

As the salad plates were taken away, Jackie knew that they were talking about loneliness, the great loneliness that one felt after having been close to someone and then having lost that person. They were talking about the things that they missed. Like the affectionate names Charley had called her. On the day she met Charley, he'd called her an angel and she'd liked that very much, but after a week he stopped calling her his angel. A year or so after they were married she asked him why he'd stopped. Charley had smiled and said, “Because you, my dear, are not an angel.
You
are a little devil.”

Jackie feared that she was attracted to William because of her deep loneliness. Wasn't a warm body better than no body? She and William were actually ill-suited, weren't they? He was too set in his ways for her, wasn't he? There were too many differences between them, weren't there?

“What are you planning to do in the future?” Edward asked.

“I'm expanding my freight and passenger service with William Montgomery as my partner.”

“William Montgomery? Oh, you mean little Billy?” He chuckled. “But I guess he's not so little anymore, is he? How old is he now?”

“Twenty-eight,” she said as she gripped the stem of her wineglass.