The Fifth Stage Part 23

"Am I that transparent?"

Rebecca's gaze softens. She's reading me again. "Where is she now?"

"I don't know."

It's a lie. I know exactly where she is. I've driven by a hundred times, and each time, I gaze at the hill, wondering if she sees me pa.s.s, supposing that she is probably happier now. Once I even pulled over, but being so close and so distant at the same time made me feel worse.

Rebecca rests her head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry she hurt you."

"Anyone with the sense of a grapefruit would've moved on by now."

"But that tells me something about you, Claire. It tells me you don't give your heart away easily, and you don't give up at the first sign of trouble. But from what Elizabeth told me, it's been a long time. If there's no chance to reconcile, you really do need to get on with your life."

"What did Elizabeth tell you?"

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"Don't worry, she didn't fill me up with a bunch of gossip. She just said that you've been single for about three years, and she wishes you'd start living again."

I kiss Rebecca's forehead. "I'm trying. Thank you for being so understanding."

"I like you, but I won't push for something you're not ready for."

"How did you get to be so kind?"

"Patient," she says, correcting me. "I think you're worth knowing, and you can't know someone in just a few days."

"I've been coming in the restaurant for months, so we're not exactly strangers." I lean back and stroke her cheek. Her skin is like fine silk beneath my fingers, her eyes tranquil as she watches me, but her poise is astounding. What she sees in a nut like me, I'll never understand.

"We're not exactly lovers either." Rebecca yawns again, turning her head away and covering her mouth.

"Do you want to be lovers?" I ask.

She sits quietly for a moment, her eyes darting from the rumpled blanket on the sofa to the stack of logs by the fireplace, then she looks at me. "I'd like to make love with you, but not till you're ready."

The thought of being intimate with Rebecca makes my heart skip a beat. She's so pretty, so kind. I imagine my hands on her, giving her pleasure. I feel my lips graze her skin, and her body respond to my touch. I picture the desire in her eyes as she enters me, indulging my deepest needs.

"Maybe soon," I whisper.

"Take your time. We don't need to rush." She picks up her sneakers and slides one on. "I'd better be going, I've got a busy day tomorrow."

I watch her put on her other shoe and retrieve her jacket from the kitchen. As we head for the door, she takes my hand and wishes me a good night. I kiss her lips before she leaves.

CHAPTER 29.

"Oh, no! It's broken." Lora sat on our brand new king-sized bed, a crumpled piece of newspaper on her lap.

I wound my way through a maze of moving boxes and eased down beside her. "Just the gla.s.s?"

"Maybe." Picking up the bra.s.s picture frame by its corner, she let the remaining gla.s.s fall onto the paper. She inspected the frame's contents and then smiled at me. "The clover is okay."

"If we move again, we'll make sure to hand-carry it." I squeezed her shoulder as she placed the frame on the nightstand. I could almost see the visions dancing behind her eyes as she relived the day we had moved into that ratty apartment.

The clover had been there. It was more than a mutated weed or a simple good-luck charm. It was an odd but beautiful thingan emblem of our unusual but extraordinary love. Ever since Lora had found it that day outside our first apartment, we'd sworn by its magical powers. From our bedside, it had seen us make love, witnessed hours of study, and watched over us as we slept. We wouldn't dare spend the first night in our new home without it.

Lora stood and dumped the newspaper into the trash. "I'll get a new frame tomorrow."

I watched as she flittered around the room, hanging up clothes, hand dusting the dresser and kicking cardboard boxes out of her way.

The house was only a small split-foyer in a middle cla.s.s neighborhood, but Lora was ecstatic.

All the late nights and road trips had finally paid off. I had lots of potentialmy boss had said so, said that after a few years on the road, I could settle into an office job. Then I would be the boss and let underlings spend their weekdays getting doors slammed in their faces.

They, not I, would spend night after night on lumpy hotel mattresses watching backwoods local television stations till their eyes blinked shut from utter exhaustion.

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I caught Lora's hand as she swept past. "Hey, slow down a minute."

She stopped and sat down on my lap. "Whatcha got in mind, sailor?"

"I've been gone for four nights. Guess I need a little pick-me-up." I cupped her breast in my hand and traced my lips along her throat.

She sighed and pressed her chest against my face. "Jesus, how do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Turn me on like a water faucet."

Her words were enough to send a throbbing ache to my groin, and when her hands slipped underneath my sweats.h.i.+rt and stroked my damp skin, there was no stopping.

We'd made the bed, but Lora threw back the cover and with a mischievous push, shoved me down. With her straddling my legs, I tugged off my s.h.i.+rt and pulled her already naked body down on me.

G.o.d, I loved her.

After an hour of playing follow-the-leader and teasing one another to the point of exhaustion, we rolled apart. The fresh sheets and blankets lay in a clump at the foot of the bed. Spent but fulfilled, we lay on our backs and held hands. We watched the moon rise through the bedroom window and listened to tree frogs sing in the backyard.

Lora rolled onto her side to face me. Throwing one leg across me, she said, "You know, baby, back in high school I used to wonder where I'd be by this time in my life."

"Bet this ain't what you expected." I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her fingers. My scent lingered on her skin.

"That's for sure." She traced her index finger along my stomach, drawing circles and upside-down triangles. I could generally tell what Lora was thinking, but right now the notions in her head were so distant and vague, I couldn't get a handle on them.

I had to ask. "Are you sorry we ever started this?"

"No, are you crazy? I'm thinking how things can turn out so different than you thought they would. Back in high school, I thought I'd marry Jock and follow him around the country. You know, be a baseball widow. I thought I'd spend nights rubbing his arm down with alcohol or something."

"Is that what you wanted?"

"Stop it. You're being silly." She brushed her moist hair from her eyes. "I'm saying that sometimes life takes a detour, some little thing 148 happens, and you end up somewhere totally different from where you thought you'd be."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember that day in my bedroom at home? The day you told me what you and Matthew had done out by the mill, and I asked you to demonstrate?"

I chuckled. "How could I forget?" The day was as fresh in my memory as what I'd had for lunch a few hours earlier. I could still see her sitting there, afraid but determined. I could smell the scarf getting hot on the lamp and her b.u.t.tery popcorn breath. With the memories, though we'd just had s.e.x, moistness crept between my legs.

The air conditioning kicked in, showering our damp bodies with a cool breeze, and I s.h.i.+vered.

Lora rolled onto her back and yanked a blanket across us. "I was so confused back then. I knew I wanted you, but I almost lost my nerve and didn't suggest it. Where do you think we'd be now if I hadn't? I might be wasting away, always waiting for Jock to come home, and who knows? You might've ended up with Matthew."

"And right now I'd be married to the most popular history teacher at Franklin High." I shook my head. "Pity Matthew's knees didn't hold out. He had real talent."

She gave me a quizzical look. "You think he's not successful because he never made it to the pros, because he doesn't earn a fortune?"

"Of course not, honey. It's a n.o.ble profession, but he's never going to get rich teaching high school. Don't you think he'd rather be playing ball and making serious money?"

"Guess we'll never know. Things didn't happen the way we expected for any of us." Lora looked into my eyes. "That day was a turning point for us. I tried to deny it, but that was the day I realized how much you really meant to me. I knew we'd spend the rest of our lives together, and that felt so much better than imagining a life with anyone else."

I nuzzled into the crook of her arm. "I know it's been hard for us financially and everything, but I hope it's been worth it."

"I wouldn't trade our worst day for anything in the world. I love you more now than ever." She turned her body in to me and caressed my skin with hers.

We lay in silence for hours. Arms wound around each other, we watched the moonlight work its way down the far wall and across the floor.

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But in the peaceful darkness, restless thoughts careened through my mind. As I considered what might have been, what could have happened, tears stung in my eyes. What if we'd never been a.s.signed to the same composition cla.s.s? What if I'd stayed in the locker room with Jill after that first, disastrous basketball game instead of tagging along with Lora to Pizza Oven? What if I'd been more hesitant in Lora's bedroom that afternoon? Was there a master plan, or did our present situation result from dozens of unrelated coincidences?

More important, was our future set or were we at the mercy of random events and twists of fate?

Moving into our first house was the realization of a dream for Lora and me. Finally, we were acting a little more like grown-ups. But grown-ups have responsibilities, and I was keenly aware of mine.

Leaving Lora every week was bad enough, but hitting the road a day early had put a serious dent in our moving schedule, and our little bedroom jaunt on Friday night had put us even farther behind. By Sunday evening, we were supposed to have done the major unpacking and hung the replacement drywall in the downstairs den. By the time I returned home Thursday night we should have been ready to start painting, but we'd barely started unpacking. The lumber company had delivered the drywall on Friday, and it leaned, untouched, against the cinder block wall in the garage. To beat it all, I had an early appointment scheduled for Monday morning in Alabama, and that meant leaving home on Sunday.

Lora dropped a laundry basket on the bed and emptied its contents across the spread. "Don't forget to take an extra pair of panties." She was miffed and made no bones about it.

"Honey, I've told you a hundred times. I'm sorry, but this guy might be a big fish, and the mortgage won't pay itself, you know."

"Why do you worry about money so much? I'll have my PhD in three weeks, and Debbie is going to give me her overflow at the clinic.

Money won't be a problem."

"Money will always be a problem."

Lora folded a pillowcase and threw it too hard into the basket.

"Why don't you say what you mean, Claire? Money will be a problem as long as Jock Richardson has more of it than you do."

I shook my head and wandered toward the closet. "That's absurd."

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"Is it? You've been jealous of him for years, and for the life of me, I don't understand it."

I returned to the bed with an armload of shoes and found Lora in confrontation mode, one hand on her hip, squinting toward me with blazing eyes.

"I'm not jealous of Jock." I slid the pumps into the garment bag and turned away.

"Don't you see what you're doing? You're working yourself to death in the name of money. You spend most of the week on the road, and when you come home, you're either at the office or pa.s.sed out on the couch." Her face relaxed, but the fire still burned in her eyes. "All you have to do is hire another sales rep and let someone else do the leg work."

"Honey, I see what you're saying, but you don't understand." I met her stare for an instant before returning to the closet. When she got like that, an instant of her eyes was all I could take. "I designed this equipment, and no one will ever work it the way I do."

With an exasperated sigh, Lora plopped down on the bed. "You mean we're going to have to live like this till you retire?"

I hung three suits in my garment bag and watched her fold a washcloth. She looked tired. Between the move, my absence, and the stress of finis.h.i.+ng her degree, she had a lot on her shoulders, but things would be better soon. We'd get settled in, and she'd hang her framed diploma over the mantle. My work schedule, however, was another matter.

I sat on the bed beside her and took her hand. "Give me a little longer. While I'm building the market, I can make enough money to do some heavy investing. Then I can hire a whole team of sales reps and kick back in the office. Be home by dinner every stinking day. You'll get so sick of me, you'll beg me to go back out on the road."

Lora laughed and touched my cheek, but a peculiar sorrow glazed her eyes. "My baby always thinks about our future."

I took the remark as a compliment, but she went on. "Planning for later is okay, but what about now? You're so big on investing, don't you think we should invest some time in ourselves, in our relations.h.i.+p, while we're young enough to enjoy it?"

"Learn that in one of your psychobabble textbooks?" Half of me agreed with her, but the other half was planning my sales pitch for Monday morning.

"I miss you, that's all. I know you're trying to do what's right for us, and I'm proud of what you've accomplished."

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I looked into her eyes, commanding her attention. "Honey, one of these days, I'm going to give you everything you deserve."

She leaned in and whispered, "You already do."

CHAPTER 30.