Waking Up (19 page)

She lifted her brown, sun-streaked head and saw a black shadow surrounded by blinding white sun rays, and she said briefly, “Help yourself, if you’re not a chatterer and you’re not trying to pick me up. I’ve had my fill of that, and I’m in no mood to tolerate any nonsense.”

It was remarkable, she mused sleepily, what a put-off brisk annoyance really could be. The fellow looked around him with a great show of nonchalance, muttered something to her which she didn’t catch, and set off for easier prey.

That evening, as she had for the last two weeks, she dined excellently and savored every bite. The holiday had made a huge dent in her savings account, but it was something she’d always promised herself. She wished she could have appreciated it more than she had. After the meal, she strayed into the bar for a drink and to listen to the music, but after she had been forced to give a few sharp rebuffs to a man who was distinctly unsteady on his feet, she went to her room and locked the door behind her with the feeling of having escaped from a jungle. Any other time she would have felt flattered at the attention, but she was simply too preoccupied for that sort of thing.

She called her father to let him know what time her flight would be in the next day. After a wait, her phone call went through, and Herb sounded delighted through the slight crackle of the overseas connection. “Hello, honey! This is an unexpected pleasure. Is everything all right? Are you having a good time?”

“Yes, everything’s fine, and I’ve had a wonderful time,” she assured him cheerfully, if not very truthfully. “If you can believe it, I got sunburn on my first day at the beach. How’s everything there?”

“Just fine. I’ve had Marjorie over several times, and the house is a mess,” he chuckled. “Not that the two have anything to do with each other. Are you sure you can afford this phone call?”

“Don’t worry about the money,” she dismissed lightly. “I just wanted to call and let you know that my flight will be arriving tomorrow evening at six thirty, and I was wondering if you could pick me up at the airport.”

“Sure, no problem. Which airline are you flying on?” She told him, and then she started to make appropriate closing noises when he interrupted quickly with, “Listen, Jason’s sitting right here, would you like to talk to him before you hang up?”

Foolishly, her heart leaped with the unexpected shock of hearing Jason’s name. Talking to her father and discussing Jason was bringing them both as close as though they were in the next room, and the whole purpose of her holiday was shattered into indiscernible fragments. She replied, too fast, “No, we’d better hang up before I really do end up in debt over this call. Just tell him I’ll talk to him when I get back.”

“All right, honey. See you soon.” And with that, the conversation was ended.

The next day, after packing and having a leisurely brunch, she arrived at the airport in plenty of time to sit and stew for a good half an hour before her flight. She was the kind of person who found just the philosophy of travel tiring, even when she was simply sitting and doing nothing but reading a magazine and looking around. Flying was nothing new to her, and so she daydreamed for most of the trip, except for a long and hilarious conversation she had with a pale, old man who sat next to her and trembled with palsy. He said the most outrageous things and had her whooping for a good half an hour, which left her feeling like a limp noodle. When the plane landed in Cincinnati, they walked out together to find their respective families.

His was the first they spotted, and they parted with the cheerful, affectionate indifference which is so unique to travelling companions, before she continued to search for some sign of Herb. She’d had it fixed so firmly in her mind that her father was picking her up that she looked at Jason twice before realizing that he was watching her with a quiet, twisted smile. Her face reflected her deep surprise, and then he was coming towards her in long, graceful, eye-catching strides.

He was dressed in nothing special. Faded jeans hugged his lean hips and thighs, and a light blue shirt was open at his neck and rolled up at his elbows, bringing out the gold highlights in his hair and skin and making his eyes seem more vividly brilliant than ever. There was nothing especially outstanding about his appearance, and yet heads turned to watch him go by. Robbie didn’t even see the appreciative glances other women threw at him. All she saw was Jason.

“Hello. I suppose we have to get your luggage, hmm?” he said, as ordinary as he’d ever been with her, and her spirits plummeted. So it was to be a cheerful indifference from him, and she was left completely alone as she struggled to cope with her deep, surging feelings for him.

“Yes,” she said too brightly, and she whirled to find the conveyor belt upon which the luggage from their flight was unceremoniously dumped. “What happened to Dad?”

Jason’s light eyes were on the moving luggage, his lean face preoccupied, and her spirits sank even lower. “Hmm? Oh, he was going out this evening with Marjorie, so I said I’d pick you up to save him time.” With a quickly flicked, smiling glance, he remarked, “I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re darker than ever. Herb told me you got sunburned.”

“Yes, the weather was fabulous.” She hardly knew what she said, and her large suitcase almost went by before she saw it and made a darting grab. “I think it must have been the swimming that did it. I was in the water for several hours that first day, and isn’t water supposed to reflect sunlight?”

“I believe so. Is that it, then? We might as well go. Here, let me take that for you.” His lean fingers brushed hers as he took the suitcase handle, and she nearly dropped the luggage before he had a grip on it.

The drive back was full of pleasant, nondescript, empty conversation. Jason informed her that he was back at work, to which she replied that it was a shame he hadn’t had more time off. She stared out the window and felt deadened inside while he traced the long-familiar route back home. He pulled into their cul-de-sac, parked in the Morrows’ driveway, and carried her suitcase again as he walked her back to her house.

For some reason, walking into the empty house with Jason silent and somehow distant right behind her made her start to shake. She entered breezily and walked right through the entire downstairs as though she were inspecting the place, but in reality, she was running away. The rooms were scrupulously clean, and in the kitchen she turned to laugh at Jason who had set down her suitcase and followed her. He leaned against the archway to the hall, regarding her steadily.

“Dad said the house was a wreck, but I think it looks terrific! He must have stayed up late last night cleaning!” she exclaimed, and then she whirled to the kitchen counter. “Want a cup of coffee? I think I’ll make a pot.”

“Why did you leave like that?” he asked softly, and a terrible apprehension seized her. She turned to stare at him and found that she’d been wrong, horribly wrong, for under his pleasant cheerfulness had burned a hot anger the entire time. It was a hard shock, for she’d never realized how adept he was at concealing his emotions.

“I needed a vacation,” she said, her voice strained. She couldn’t bear to look into his hard expression and angry eyes, and so she turned back to the coffeepot and took it in her hands. All intention of making coffee had fled, and she just stared down blankly at the empty pot.

“You were already having a vacation. Why did you leave like that?” His quiet, soft voice, that frightening control, that relentlessness, sent her into a panic.

“I needed to get away.” Her words throbbed.

“You didn’t say a word to me, not a word. You were gone, and I didn’t find out until I came over that evening and Herb told me. You just left. I understood that you might have needed to get away, but how the hell could you have just picked up and left like that?” Though he tried, the burning heat came through the fabric of his words until his last question was savage with it.

“I couldn’t face you,” she whispered, and she didn’t think he could hear.

“My God,” he said deeply, and he began to swear. She whirled, feeling a little like a spinning top, and she stared at him, shocked by his molten eyes, his clenched hands, his taut, darkened expression. When he finally fell silent, they stared at each other across the distance of the room. She was weak with weariness at her intense emotions, and she bent her head to cover her eyes with one hand. Then Jason asked, his voice raw, “What did I do to send you away?”

“It wasn’t you!” she cried out. “It was me, so just drop it, will you?”

“I’ll be damned if I will,” he said quickly, passionately, striding forward. He stopped only when she shrank against the counter, afraid of the violence of feeling he emanated. “We’re going to thrash this out because I’ve had it with silence and patience and waiting, and, Robbie, I can’t wait any longer! Answer me!”

Bewildered by his strange words and the import he gave them, she lifted her liquid-bright gaze to his to say haltingly, “I…think we should stop…being lovers.” He flinched as if she’d struck him across the face and went ashen under his tan. Then her tears spilled over because she knew she’d hurt him, and she had never wanted to do that. She said from the back of her throat, “I can’t take having an affair. I can’t take the uncertainty and the inconstancy with a healthy attitude. Some day, I…I want to marry, Jason…”

“God damn you,” he said hoarsely, his mouth distorted out of its usual beauty. Her face crumbled and she sobbed harshly into her hand. In the next instant he had her by the shoulders and was shaking her. She cried out and caught a flashing, blurred sight of his agonized eyes before he let her go and turned away to lean his forehead against his fist, taking great gulps of air as though he were suffocating. Then his head came up. His voice was underscored with bitterness as he began, “Well. If that’s what you want…”

“It was Linda!” she blurted, out of control. She could never hold anything back from him. She always spilled herself out, and then shivered with the nakedness. “I…saw her come over to your house that evening before I left. You came outside and hugged her, and then you both went indoors.”

His head snapped up, and he turned to stare at her incredulously. “That’s why you went? You were jealous of Linda?”

“No. Yes,” she said miserably, and then with an impatient shake of her head, she qualified, “In a way, yes, I was jealous. But I soon realized how silly I was to be jealous of her when you had just made love to me that very day.”

“Wonders never cease.” She winced at his harsh tone.

“Please don’t be cruel,” she whispered. “Not you, of all people.”

At that, he looked away blindly. “I feel like slapping you,” he said as though it were torn from him. “So, just try to be glad I’m resorting to words. Do you want to know why she came over? She’d fallen in love with Ian and she saw him with another woman. It really messed her up. She came over and stayed late into the night just talking to me.”

In a flashing image, she remembered Ian’s call to her that very evening, and a surge of compassion swept over her for the other woman. “Is she all right?” she asked, hushed, and he made a quick, impatient gesture with one hand without replying. Then she tried to explain herself, saying, “Jason, it wasn’t Linda who scared me. It was my jealousy that scared me, and that’s why I went. I’d never imagined that this would get so deep. We’ve got to stop now before we get hurt any more than…”

“All right!” he shouted violently, as though he couldn’t bear to hear her say any more. “All right, damn it!” He turned his face back to her, and she knew she’d never forget the sight of a single tear that splashed down his face. She reeled. “I’ve had it. I’ve tried and tried, but you just don’t get it, do you? Robbie, I’ve been telling you that I love you in so many ways, I don’t even know how to say it anymore! Sometimes I didn’t know why I bothered, but I hung on to any chance I could that you’d grow to love me back. Now I can see that it’s just no use, is it?”

Her body shook so that she could hardly stand. Her heart had stopped totally for one frozen moment before pounding in slow, hard, painful strokes that roared in her ears and eyes and temples until she thought she might pass out. “You never told me!” she cried, reaching to the counter with one hand. “You always said you loved me, but you never said you were in love with me!”

“It was so obvious. Everybody but you knew,” he whispered, his eyes and face naked with his pain. “Marilyn, Herb, my parents, everybody. But you never guessed. I’ve been in love with you all my life. I was in love with you when I left for college, but all you saw was good old Jason! And all I could do was leave and wait for you to grow up before I could see whether or not I really had a chance. But you still haven’t grown up.”

“You’re wrong,” she choked, shaking her head so that wet drops flew. One tear hit him, and he flinched, putting his fingers to the spot as though touching a wound and being amazed that it bled.

A calm descended over him then with a terrible finality that she sensed. She held out her hand to him and drew in a breath with which to speak, but he was already saying, “I’m sorry I shouted at you and hurt you the way I did.” His voice was incredibly gentle. His face was still wet but he didn’t seem to notice as he stared at her for a long, long time. His mouth was thinned to a white line. “I don’t know what else to do, Robbie,” he said quietly. “I’ve been your closest friend. I’ve waited years to be your lover, and I thought that surely you would guess the truth when I confessed that to you. I…I’ve done nothing but picture this scene for years, but somehow we were together in the end and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together.” Then he gave a little laugh, as if at the foolishness of young dreams. “I suppose,” he whispered, “I should have expected this. It was just that towards the end you seemed to change. But when I thought you had, you never did. You never saw. Maybe in time you could have learned to love me a little. But I don’t have any more time. There are some things that I can’t stand either, Robbie, and…I love you too much to be able to stand by and wait any longer while you fall in love and marry someone else.” He reached out and cupped her cheek for a moment. “I just wish you’d realized what I’d been trying to say. It’s my fault. I didn’t say it clearly enough.”