The hellion Page 9

  She came up into a deep entry in which were ensconced two redwood tubs of boxwood badly in need of watering, and glanced up at the only window facing this side, the large hexagon above the doors. A faint memory shivered through her. Don't be silly, she thought. How can you remember something you've never seen? Then she quickly rang the bell before she could lose her courage.

  Two minutes passed and nothing happened- except that Rachel became aware of a tiny pain at the back of her head-tension. He's probably out on the lake with his daughter. She rang again and felt a trickle of sweat drizzle down the center of her back while the seconds ticked past and a woodpecker thwacked away someplace in the trees behind her.

  Suddenly the door was jerked open and there stood Tommy Lee, looking as if he was recovering from a four-day drunk and wishing he'd died instead. His hair was tousled, his face grizzled by an unkempt beard, shirt dangling limp and wrinkled and unbuttoned. The knees of his jeans were rumpled and his feet were bare. He stood staring at her as if she were a reincarnation.

  "Rachel, my God, you came!"

  "Yes. You invited me, remember?"

  "But I never thought you would." Unconsciously, he closed a single button at the waist of the shirt, which only emphasized its hapless condition.

  "The house was driving me crazy, it was so quiet. And the lake sounded good."

  He remained in the open doorway as if too surprised to orient himself. She felt the rush of conditioned air cooling the fronts of her legs and wondered how long he intended to stand gaping at her. "Am I intruding?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

  Abruptly he jerked awake. "Oh… no. No!" He stepped back. "Not at all. I was asleep. Come in." He finger-combed his hair while she cautiously entered. When the door closed she found herself in an enormous entry and peered up at a contemporary brass and smoked-glass light fixture hanging before the hexagonal window from a height of eighteen feet. She removed her sunglasses and glanced at what she could see of the rest of the place from here: a lot of wood, windows, and staggered levels. The house was silent as a tomb as Rachel's gaze made a circle and came back to him. Their eyes met. Tommy Lee's hand still rested on the fancy doorknob. He flashed her a self-conscious smile, which she returned with a quavering one of her own, then dropped her eyes to the floor only to encounter the bare feet she recognized from all those carefree days of swimming at City Park. His second toes were longer than the big toes, and his feet were shaded now with dark hair. Quickly she glanced up at the living room, which overhung the entry.

  "Come in." He gestured her ahead of him, up six steps into a room that looked worse than its owner, if possible. Dirty glasses, full ashtrays, and clothes littered the furniture. The carpet, though dense, hadn't been touched by a vacuum cleaner in weeks, and the hundreds of dollars' worth of potted plants along the glass wall were drooping, drying up, and dusty. Newspapers were scattered over the vast expanse of sofa, which turned two corners and seemed to sprawl forever, its mother lode of ottomans creating a veritable sea of cushions before a glorious fireplace. Glancing at the array of flotsam, Rachel wondered how Tommy Lee could possibly manage to look so neat in public when his entire wardrobe seemed to be flung around his living room.

  She glanced back uncertainly and stopped in her tracks.

  "I wasn't expecting company," he explained, and moved around her to scrape an armful of garments off the back of the sofa.

  "You told me your daughter was coming for the weekend."

  "Yes, she was, but at the last minute her mother decided not to let her." His eyes dropped to the shirts in his hands, then wandered off with a dismal expression to some distant point across the lake. "I was going to come home Friday night and get everything in shape before Beth got here, but when she called to say she wasn't coming it seemed pointless."

  Somehow she believed him, that he hadn't invented Beth's visit to lure her here with a false sense of security. His eyes swung back to Rachel and he seemed to make a conscious effort to put away his troubled thoughts. "But even though she's not here, I'd still like you to stay."

  In this? she thought. The place smelled like an unaired saloon-stale smoke, used filters and alcoholic dregs, and even if she could find a spot to sit on that davenport, there wasn't a single place to do so without putting her feet up. Furthermore, she didn't want to be next after the woman with the red earrings.

  Sensing that she was close to having a change of heart, he hurriedly moved around the room, leaning over the back of the sofa to sweep up newspapers, socks, and neckties. "Just give me a few minutes and I'll run upstairs and grab a quick shower, okay?" He straightened with his arms full and appealed, "Now, don't go away, okay?"

  She shook her head and dredged up a faint smile while he gazed at her hopefully, backing away. Then he turned and with a flash of shirttail, bounded up a stairway and out of sight.

  She looked around, reluctant to sit down on anything, though the room was luxurious at its core. She moved around the corners of the U-shaped sofa, studying the dirty glasses, the dried rings where others had been, the dust caught and held in gray overlapping circles, the empty matchbooks and full ashtrays. Coming to one glass that was still sweating, she reached down and touched it. It was still cold. She held it to her nose and sniffed. Gin, diluted by melted ice. She set it down distastefully and dropped her eyes to the sofa. The picture was clear: a depressed alcoholic, lying in an inert sprawl, sipping away his lonely weekend while the cobwebs collected around him, and his mind and body grew dissipated.

  It had been a mistake to come here.

  She turned her back on the living room and moved toward the end of the fireplace wall where the dining area was announced by caned chairs surrounding a fruitwood table. Empty containers from take-out food lay amid his unopened mail, a half-eaten bag of cheese curls, and an open jar of peanuts. He doesn't eat right, she thought, and the realization saddened her as she gazed at two cold french fries and a blob of dried-up ketchup. A fingernail clipper lay beside them, and the sight of it rent her heart as she pictured him here at the table, clipping his nails in silence, then eating his supper alone.

  She turned to glance at the working end of the kitchen, but the cabinets held only dirty glasses and an array of booze bottles, all partly empty. Again she closed her eyes, wishing she had sensibly stayed away.

  She sat on one of the cane and chrome chairs and turned her eyes to the lake, to something that was pleasant and clean and told no tales. From overhead came the sound of the shower, then in a few minutes the buzz of an electric razor, and in record time Tommy Lee's footsteps thumped down the stairs.

  At first he thought she'd left, for the living room was empty, and as he raced through it his heart seemed to stop. But then he caught sight of her at the kitchen table and his shoulders slumped with relief. How many years had he pictured Rachel here? The sight of her with her tanned legs crossed, a white sandal hanging from her toes, a delicate elbow resting on the table edge, seemed too good to be true.

  "I'm sorry I kept you waiting, Rachel."

  "I've been enjoying the view."

  He looked down his chest. "I dressed for the water. I wasn't sure what you wanted to do."

  He wore white swimming trunks and a matching terrycloth cover-up snapped at the waist, revealing a V of skin with far more hair than he'd had on his chest the last time she'd seen it-and some of it glinting silver in the light from the long windows. His hair was neatly combed and, from this angle, as thick as it had been in high school. But as he approached she made out the wiry texture of the gray at his temples and was surprised to find it not altogether unpleasing.

  She forced her eyes away. "I brought a bathing suit. It's in the car. But I… I expected Beth to be coming along."

  Her reluctance was so obvious that he felt obliged to give her a choice. "Do you want to put it on?"

  No, she thought, not anymore. Not since walking in here and realizing your life-style is precisely what it's purported to be, and nothing I want to become involve
d with.

  "I'll run out and get it for you," he offered with boyish eagerness. And seeing how much it meant to him to have her here, she relented.

  "No, I'll go."

  She felt his eyes follow her as she arose and crossed the living room, moved down the steps and outside. When the door closed behind her, she tipped her head back against it and sucked in a long breath. Tears stung her eyes. Oh, Tommy Lee… Tommy Lee. We can never go back. Her nostrils flared and she opened her eyes to see the tips of the trees blurred as she contemplated the loneliness she had just witnessed. What am I doing? she wondered as she made her way to the car and reached inside for a wide-mouthed straw tote bag. But something made her retrace her steps up the ramp to the shiny black doors.

  He had put away the pile of newspapers while she was gone, and she caught him carrying dirty ashtrays and glasses to the kitchen. Their eyes met, then swerved apart.

  "You can use the guest bedroom upstairs at the first landing."

  Her footsteps were muffled by the deep pile of the indigo carpeting. Against the white walls and natural wood, it was stunning. At the first landing an unexpected window cranny looked out over a steeply canting roof, and a potted fig tree drooped before it. She peered around a doorway into a beautifully decorated bedroom done in eggshell, muted blue, and brown, its double bed covered with a geometric quilted spread whose design continued in a mountain of throw pillows, then up the wall between two long, narrow windows decorated with nothing but a pair of mobiles.

  The tiny metal sailfish circled slowly as she stepped inside the room and surveyed a baretopped Danish dresser and chest of drawers with natural waxed wood finish, costly lamps, and a large framed photo of a pair of well-used toe shoes with their ribbons worn and sides misshapen.

  Beth's room-she must be a dancer.

  For a moment his Beth and their Beth melded into one, and she had the awesome feeling that she was stepping into her own daughter's room, and again that feeling that she'd been here before. But she shook herself and crossed to a far doorway that led into a lovely bathroom with blue fixtures and a shower curtain of the same design as that of the bedspread. Lush blue towels hung from the towel bars, but as she moved closer she saw that their folds bore a line of dust. At the foot of the tub another window looked out over the roof and the shimmering lake beyond. Over the tub hung a dead ivy.

  What a beautiful house, she thought, glancing once more around the bedroom and bath. But their stark, unused look contained a message as poignant as that of the abject disorder downstairs.

  It was a house that cried out for life.

  She tried to put the thought from her mind as she changed into her swimsuit. But when she was slipping it on, she confronted the cesarean-section scar on her stomach, realizing afresh what an irony it was that the birth of her and Tommy Lee's baby had left a permanent mark as a reminder that their child was the only one she'd ever have. She tugged the waistband into place and told herself to stop thinking senseless things about the past. But again, when the halter was tied behind her neck, Rachel studied her reflection in the mirror, then cupped both breasts, pushing them high, dismayed to see that even by doing this she could create no cleavage. It was impossible not to remember that at sixteen she had been fuller-breasted than now, or to imagine that Tommy Lee would not notice.

  Her distraught eyes scolded those in the mirror. You foolish middle-aged woman, what are you doing? You shouldn't even be here in the first place, and you're looking for cleavage? She dropped her hands and covered herself with the beach jacket, glanced disparagingly at the glimpse of skin still revealed above and below, sighed, grabbed her towel, slipped on her thongs again, and left the room.

  In the hall she paused and glanced at the carpeted stairs that continued up two more levels with windows and potted plants announcing each floor. Steps, handrailings, and white walls rose to the various levels of the house, which had appeared so tall from outside. Tommy Lee's bedroom must be up there. And it must have as stunning a view as that from an aerie.

  It struck her then why she'd sensed a feeling of dйjа vu about the house, and her head snapped back as she stared up the steps, trying to calculate where the chimney flue would rise up through the walls if the master bedroom had a fireplace… a deck overlooking the lake. It struck her like lightning. My God, it's our house! The one we planned together when we were starry-eyed teenagers! For a moment she felt dizzy, and her stomach seemed to tilt. No, you must be wrong, Rachel. But a quick mental assessment of the rooms below confirmed it. This was their dream house. It had just taken her some time to recognize it beneath the clutter and loneliness. She returned to the lower level feeling shaken, and though she thought she'd approached soundlessly, Tommy Lee's voice called, "I'm out here, Rachel."

  She found him in the kitchen, a black towel slung over his shoulder as he hunkered down before the open refrigerator packing a cooler. When she rounded the corner he lifted his eyes to her, dropped them slowly down her tanned legs, swallowed in a way that made his Adam's apple move, then returned his attention to the refrigerator. "What would you like to drink? I've got beer, rum, vod..."

  "Do you have limes?"

  He looked up again. "Sure. Gin and tonic with a twist of lime?"

  "Just plain tap water with a twist of lime will be fine."

  He went on piling cold beer into the red and white cooler, and as she counted the cans, she wondered how many he intended to take. From the crisper he took two limes, dropped them into the cooler, and asked, "Perrier water okay?"

  She nodded and several small bottles joined the cans. Then he snapped the cooler shut and stood up.

  "Ready?"

  She forced a smile and he gestured toward the door, following her to slide the heavy glass panel aside and allow her to step through before him. They crossed a slatted redwood deck, moved down steps to a grassy stretch of lawn and on toward a dock where a black and white speedboat waited beneath a yellow canopy. He tossed his towel on a seat, then presented a palm to help her board. To ignore it would have made more of an issue than to touch him. His fingers clamped hers tightly as she stepped down and the boat rocked. Though the contact was brief, it left a residue of awareness that Rachel tried to put from her mind.

  "Sit there." He pointed to the front passenger seat, then busied himself freeing both bow and stern lines before leaping down to join her. She was extremely conscious of his long bare legs and feet, peppered with dark hair, and of the casual way his glance washed over her as he squeezed through the small opening between the seats, his thigh nearly brushing her shoulder, before he settled himself behind the wheel with the cooler close at hand and inserted the key in the ignition.

  The touch of a button brought the soft buzz of the motor being lowered, then the inboard growled to life, followed by the swish of water purling against the hull. The lake was as calm as a glass of water, and as the boat got under way it skimmed the surface with scarcely a vibration. He eased the throttle forward and Rachel's hair lifted, then flurried back. Instinctively she raised her nose into the air, sniffing, feeling life flowing back into her veins as she dangled an arm above the water.

  Tommy Lee turned to watch her as her eyes closed and she nosed the wind. Lord a'mighty, had there ever been a woman as perfect? She'd been a knockout in high school, but age had only refined her fragile beauty. She had weathered the years so much more gracefully than he had. And she'd achieved a reputation of highest regard in both her personal life and her business, while he had become merely dйclassй. It seemed quite unbelievable that she was here with him at last, for in spite of all his dreams, he'd never really believed it would happen.

  Rachel hung her head back, felt the cool droplets spray her fingertips, heard the snick of a lighter, then caught the faint drift of cigarette smoke. Even with her eyes closed, she knew he was studying her.

  The boat suddenly thrust forward with a jerk that lifted its nose above the water and snapped Rachel's head farther back. Her eyes flew open and she shot a loo
k at Tommy Lee.

  He had a cigarette clamped between china-white teeth while his broad teasing smile shone devilishly. Left hand on the wheel, right on the throttle, he studied her with a challenge in his glinting eyes. "Let's cool off." The words were distorted around the filter as he spoke, but they gave him a rakish appeal much as he'd had in those days when they'd roared off, carefree, in his '57 Chevy.

  A tiny smirk appeared at the corners of Rachel's mouth. "You always did like speed."

  "Always!" he shouted above the wind, while she herself became exhilarated by it as the boat gained momentum then leveled off with the fluttering wind pressing against her ears, lifting and swirling her hair.

  It was wonderful! Releasing! She turned to him and shouted to be heard above the motor and the thump of the hull bouncing on the water. "I can remember my daddy saying to you, `Now, drive carefully, and don't speed.` Then we'd get one block away from the houses and fly like the wind."

  He laughed, throwing his head back while taking the cigarette out of his mouth as an ash flew backward. "I still love it!" he shouted.

  "So I've heard!"

  His eyes returned to hers and they measured each other silently. Then he shouted, "Do you want me to slow down?"

  By now the minute ripples on the surface of the water had become nothing more than a blur as the rumbling inboard propelled them forward like a dynamo. She pushed the whipping hair back from her temple with the palm of one hand and yelled, "No, it feels wonderful. I think it's exactly what I needed."

  But he couldn't hear her and leaned across the aisle, lowering his ear.

  She leaned close enough to smell fresh after-shave. "I said, it feels wonderful! I think it's exactly what I needed!"

  He straightened, smiled wider, and warned, "Hang on!" Then he anchored the cigarette between his teeth, dropped his hand to the throttle, and pushed it full forward. Their hair whipped like flags; their jackets billowed like sails. Their bodies jiggled as they rocketed toward a vanishing point on the far horizon, wrapped in the ebullient sensation of near-flight.