Heartbeat by Danielle Steel
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Tố Tâm 17.05.2006 09:14:57 (permalink)
HEARTBEAT by DANIELLE STEEL




To Zara, sweet heartbeat of my life, may your life be ever full of love and joy. .

and to your daddy, who has filled my life to the brim with love and joy and heartbeats with all my heart and love, d.s.

HEARTBEAT thumping, pitter pat, wondering where it's at, heartfelt, heart sweet, sweet dreams, heartbeat, precious music in my ears, hand to hold to still my fears, loving footsteps in the night, treasured hopes, forever bright, brightest love, gift from on high, gentlest sweetest lullaby. A miracle of tiny feet, born of one single, precious beat, singing sweetest little song, my heart to yours will e'er belong, this final bond, this tie so sure, from our love so strong and pure, now whisper softly while babe sleeps, our love will always ever keep and as the magic stardust soars, my heart is ever, always, yours.




CHAPTER 1.


THE SOUND OF AN ANCIENT TYPEWRITER sang out staccato in the silence of the room, as a cloud of blue smoke hung over the corner where Bill Thigpen was working. Glasses shoved up high on his head, coffee in styrofoam cups hovering dangerously near the edge of the desk, ashtrays brimming, his face intense, blue eyes squinting at what he was writing.

Faster, faster, a glance over his shoulder at the clock ticking relentlessly behind him. He typed as though demons were lurking somewhere near him. His graying brown hair looked as though he had slept and woken several times and never remembered to comb it. The face was clean-shaven and kind, the lines strong, and yet something about him very gentle. He was not a man clearly defined by handsome, yet he seemed strong, appealing, worth more than a second glance, a man one would have liked to spend time with. But not now, not as he groaned, glanced at the clock again, and let his fingers fly at the typewriter still harder. Then finally, silence, a quick fix with a pen as he leapt to his feet, and grabbed handfuls of what he had been working on for the past seven hours, since five o'clock in the morning.

Nearly one now . . . nearly air time . . . as he flew across the room, yanked open the door, and exploded past his secretary's desk like an Olympic runner, heading down the hall as quickly as he could, darting around people, avoiding collisions, ignoring surprised stares and friendly greetings, as he pounded on doors that opened only inches as he shoved a hand inside clutching a sheaf of the freshly written changes. It was a familiar procedure.

It happened once, twice, sometimes three or four times a month when Bill decided he didn't like the way the show was going. As the originator of the most successful daytime soap on TV, whenever he was worried about the show, he stopped, wrote a segment or two, turned everything upside down, and then he was happy. His agent called him the most neurotic mother on TV, but he also knew he was the best. Bill Thigpen had an unfailing instinct for what made his show work, and he had never been wrong. Not so far.

A Life Worth Living was still the hottest daytime soap on American TV and it was William Thigpen's baby. He had started it as a way to survive when he'd been starving in New York years before as a young playwright. He had started playing with the concept and then the first script during a time when he was between plays in New York. He had started out writing plays on off-off Broadway, and in those days he had been a purist. The theater above all. But he had also been married,
living in SoHo in New York, and starving His wife, Leslie, had been a dancer in Broadway shows, and at the time she was out of work too, because she was pregnant with their first baby. At first he had kidded around about how "ironic" it would be if he finally made it with a soap, if that turned out to be the big break of his career.

But as he wrestled with the script, and a bible for a long-term show, it stopped being a joke, and became an obsession. He had to make it for Leslie . . . for their baby. And the truth was, he liked it. He loved it. And so did the network. They went crazy over it. And the baby, Adam, and the show had been born at almost the same time, one a strapping nine-pound baby boy with his father's big blue eyes and a mist of golden curls, the other a tryout on the summer schedule that
brought the ratings through the roof and an instant outcry when the show disappeared again in September. Within two months, A Life Worth Living was back and Bill Thigpen was on his way as the creator of the most successful daytime television soap ever. The important choices came later.

He started out by writing some of the early Lacy which drove the actors and director crazy. And by then his career on off-off Broadway was all but forgotten. Television became his lifeblood in a matter of moments.

Eventually, he was offered a lot of money to sell his concept and just sit back and go home to collect residuals, and go back to writing plays for off-off Broadway. But by then, almost as much as his six-month-old son, Life, as he called it, was his baby. He couldn't bring himself to leave the show, much less sell it. He had to stay with it. It was real to him, it was alive, and he cared about what he was saying. He talked about the agonies of life, the disappointments, the angers, the
sorrows, the triumphs, the challenges, the excitement, the love, the simple beauty. The show had all his zest for life, his own sorrow over grief, his own delight for living. It gave people hope after despair, sunshine after storms, and the basic core of the story line and the principal characters were decent. There were villains, of course, too, and people ate them up. But there was a basic integrity about the show that made its fans unshakable in their devotion. It was in effect a
reflection of the essence of its creator. Alive, excited about life, decent, trusting, kind, naive, intelligent, creative. And he loved the show, almost like a child he was bound and determined to nurture, almost as much as he loved Adam and Leslie.

And in those early days of the show he was constantly torn, endlessly pulled, always wanting to be with his family and yet keep an eye on the show, to make sure it was on the right track and they hadn't brought in the wrong writer or director. He viewed everyone with suspicion, and he maintained complete control. They understood nothing about his show-- his baby. And he'd pace the set like a nervous mother hen, going crazy inside over what might happen. He continued to write
random episodes, to haunt the show much of the time, and kibitz from the sidelines. And at the end of the first year, there was no point pretending that Bill Thigpen was ever going back to Broadway. He was stuck, trapped, madly in love with television and the show of his own making. He even stopped making excuses to his off-off-Broadway friends, and admitted openly that he loved what he was doing: There was no way he was going anywhere, he explained to Leslie late one night, after he'd written for hours, developing new plots, new characters, new philosophies for the coming season.

He couldn't abandon his characters, his actors, and the intricacies of the plot and its avalanche of tragedies, traumas, and problems. He loved it. The show was shot live five times a week, and even when he had no real reason to be on the set, he ate, drank, loved, breathed, and slept it. There were daily writers who kept the show going day by day, but Bill was always watching over their shoulders. And he knew what he was doing. Everyone in the business agreed. He was good. He was better than good. He was terrific. He had an instinctive sense for what worked, what didn't, what people cared about, the characters they would love, the ones they would enjoy hating.

And by the time his second son, Tommy, was born two years later, A Life Worth Living had won two critics' awards and an Emmy. It was after the show's first Emmy that the network suggested they move the show to California. It made more sense creatively, production arrangements would be easier out there, and they felt that the show "belonged" in California. To Bill, it was good news, but to Leslie, his wife, it wasn't. She was going back to work, not just as a kid in the chorus on
Broadway. After watching Bill obsess about his show for the past two and a half years, she had had it. While he had been writing night and day about incest, teenage pregnancy, and suburban extramarital affairs, she had gone back to classes in her original discipline, and now she wanted to teach ballet at Juilliard.

"You're what?" He stared at her in amazement one Sunday morning over breakfast.

Everything had been going so well for them, he was making money hand over fist, the kids were terrific, and as far as he knew, everything was just rolling along perfectly. Until that morning.

"I can't, Bill. I'm not going." She looked up at him quietly, her big brown eyes as gentle and childlike as when he'd met her with her dance bag in her hand outside a theater when she was twenty. She was from upstate New York, and she had always been decent and kind and unpretentious, a gentle soul with expressive eyes and a shy but genuine sense of humor. They used to laugh a lot in the early days, and talk late into the night in the dismal, freezing-cold apartments they
rented, until the beautiful and very expensive loft he had just bought for them in SoHo. He had even put an exercise bar in for her, so she could do her ballet warm-ups and exercises without going to a studio.

And now suddenly she was telling him it was all over.

"But why? What are you saying, Les? You don't want to leave New York?" He looked mystified as her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head, turning away from him for an instant, and then she looked back into his eyes and what he saw there made his heart ache. It was anger, disappointment, defeat, and suddenly for the first time he saw what he should have seen months before, and he wondered in terror if she still loved him.

"What is it? What happened?" How could he have missed it? he asked himself. How could he have been so stupid?

"I don't know . . . you've changed - .

And then she shook her head again, the long dark hair sailing around her like the dark wings of a fallen angel. "No - - . that's not fair... we both have. . ." She took a deep breath and tried to explain it to him. She owed him that much after five years of marriage and two children. "Changed places, I think. I used to want to be a big star on Broadway, the dancer who made good and became a star, and all you wanted to do was write plays with 'integrity, and 'guts, and
'meaning. And all of a sudden you started writing. - - -" She hesitated with a small sad smile. "You started writing more commercial stuff, and it became an obsession. All you've thought about for the last three years is the show - - - will Sheila marry Jake? did Larry really try to kill his mother? is Henry gay - - - is Martha? - - will Martha leave her husband for another woman? - - - whose baby is Hilary in truth?- - - will Mary run away from home? - and when she does will she go
back to drugs? Is Helen illegitimate? Will she marry John?" Leslie stood up and started to pace as she reeled off the familiar names.

"The truth is, they're driving me crazy. I don't want to hear about them anymore. I don't want to live with them anymore. I want to go back to something simple and healthy and normal, the discipline of dancing, the excitement of teaching. I want a normal, quiet life, without all that make-believe bullshit." She looked at him unhappily, and he wanted to cry. He had been a fool. While he had been playing with his imaginary friends, he was losing the people he really loved,
and he hadn't even known it. And yet, he couldn't promise her he'd give it up, sell his control of the show and go back to the plays he'd had to beg to get put on. How could he do that now?

And he loved the show. It made him feel good and happy and accomplished and strong - and now Leslie was leaving. It was ironic.

The show was a huge success, and so was he, and she was longing for their days of starvation.

"I'm sorry." He tried to force himself to stay calm and reason with her. "I know I've been wrapped up in the show for the last three years, but I felt I needed to control it. If I let it get completely out of my hands, if I let someone else do it, they could have cheapened it, they could have turned it into one of those ridiculous, trite, maudlin soaps that make your skin crawl. I couldn't let them do that. And the show does have integrity. Whether you admit it or not, Les, that's what people have responded to.

But that doesn't mean I have to sit on top of it forever. I think in California things will be very different - - - more professional - more in control. I should be able to get away from it more often." He only wrote occasional segments now. But he still controlled it.

Leslie only shook her head with a look of disbelief. She knew him better. It had been the same when he was writing his early plays.

He worked for two months straight without taking a break, barely eating or sleeping or thinking of anything else, but that had been only for two months and in those days she still thought it was charming. It no longer was - She was sick to death of it, sick of the intensity and the obsessiveness, and his mania for perfection. She knew that he loved her and the boys, but not the way she wanted him to. She wanted a husband who went to work at nine o'clock, and came home at six, ready to talk to her, to play with the kids, to help her cook dinner and take her to a movie. Not someone who worked straight through the night and then rushed out of the house exhausted and wild eyed at ten a.m. with an armload of memos and edicts and script changes to deliver by rehearsal at ten-thirty.

It was too much, too exhausting, too draining, and after three years she'd had it. She was burnt-out, and if she ever heard the words A Life Worth Living again, or the names of the characters he was constantly adding and subtracting, she knew she would have hysterics.

"Leslie, give it a chance, baby, please give me a chance. It'll be great in L.A. Just think of it, no more snow, no more cold weather. It'll be great for the boys. We can take them to the beach - - - we could have a pool right in our backyard - - - we can go to Disneyland."

But she was still shaking her head. She knew him better.

"No, I can take them to Disneyland and the beach. You'll be working all the time, you'll either be up all night writing someone out of the show, or running in for rehearsal or to watch them air, or frantically rewriting something else. When was the last time you took the boys to the Bronx Zoo, or anywhere for that matter?"

"All right - - - all right - - - so I work too hard - - - so I'm a terrible father or a bastard or a rotten husband or all of the above, but for christ sake, Les, for years we were starving to death. And now look, you can have anything you want, and so can they. We can send them to decent schools one day, we can give them everything we wanted to, we can send them to college. Is that so terrible? So okay, we've had a few hard years and now it's going to get better. And now you're going to walk out before it does? What timing." He stared at her, tears brimming in his own eyes as he held out a hand to her.

"Baby, I love you - - - please don't do this."
But she didn't move toward him, and she lowered her eyes so she couldn't see the pain in his. She knew he loved her, and she knew better than anyone how much he loved the boys. But it didn't matter. She knew that, for her own sake, she
had to do what she was doing.
"Do you want to stay here? I'll tell them we won't move the show. If that's what this is all about, to hell with California we'll stay here." But a note of panic had crept into his voice as he watched her, sensing that California was not the issue.

"It won't make any difference." Her voice was low and soft, and she was very sorry.

"It's too late for us. I can't explain it. I just know I have to do something diflerent."

"Like what? Move to India? Change religions? Become a nun? How different is teaching at Juilliard? What are you saying to me, dammit? That you want out? What the hell does that have to do with Juilliard or California?"

He was hurting and confused and suddenly, finally, he was angry. Why was she doing this to him? What had he done to deserve it? He had worked hard, done well, his parents would have been proud of him if they'd been alive, but both had died when he was in his early twenties, of cancer, within a year of each other, and he had no siblings. All he had was her and the boys, and now she was telling him that they were leaving, and he was going to be alone again. All alone, without the three people he loved, because he had done something wrong, he had worked too hard and been too successful. And the unfairness of what she was doing to him made him suddenly burn with fury.

"You just don't understand," she insisted limply.

"No, I don't. You're telling me you won't come to California. So I'm telling you that if it makes a difference, we'll stay here, and to hell with what the network says. They'll have to live with it. So what now? Where do we go from here? We go back to the way things were, or what? What's happening, Les?" He was torn between anger and despair and he wasn't sure what to say to her to change it.

But what he hadn't understood yet was that she had made up her mind, and there was no way now to dissuade her.

"I don't know how to say this to you- - -" Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, and for an instant he had the insane feeling that he had walked into one of his own shows and couldn't get out now - - - would Leslie leave Bill? can Bill really change?-- does Leslie really understand how much Bill loves her? - - - He wanted to laugh suddenly, or cry, but he did neither.
"It's over. I guess that's the only way to say it. California doesn't have anything to do with it. I just haven't wanted to admit it to myself until now, and now I have. I can't do this anymore. I want my own life, with the boys. I want to do my own thing, Bill - - - without living with the show day and night "- And without him. But she couldn't bring herself to say it. The look of pain in his eyes was so overwhelming, she thought she might faint just looking at him. "I'm sorry." He looked as though lightning had just struck him. He was deathly white, and his eyes were big and blue and filled with anguish.

"You're taking the boys?" What had he ever done to deserve that? They both knew that, no matter how busy he had been for the past three years, he adored them.

"You can't take care of them by yourself in California." It was a simple statement as he stared at her in horror.

"No, but you could come with me to help."

It was a weak joke, but neither of them felt like joking.

"Bill, don't - "

"Will you let them come out to see me?"

She nodded, and he prayed that she meant it.

For a moment, he thought of abandoning the show, staying in New York, and begging her not to leave him. But he also sensed that no matter what he did now, it was too late for her. In heart and soul and mind, she had already left him. And what he reproached himself for now was not having noticed sooner.

Maybe if he had, he could have changed things - But now, he knew her well enough to know he couldn't. It was all over, without a whimper or a wail. He had lost the war long since and never known it. His life was over.

The next two months were an agony that still made him cry when he thought of it.

Telling the boys. Helping them move to an apartment on the West Side before he left. His first night alone in the loft without them.

Again and again, he thought of giving up the show, and begging her to take him back, but it was clear that the door was closed now, never to be reopened. And he discovered, before he left, that there was another teacher at Juilliard whom she was "very fond of." She hadn't carried on an affair, and Bill knew her well enough to believe that she had been faithful to him, but she was falling in love with the guy and that was part of her reason for leaving. She wanted to be free to pursue her relationship with him without guilt, or Bill Thigpen. She and her teacher friend had everything in common, she insisted, and she and Bill no longer did, except their children.

Adam had been heartbroken to see him go, but at two and a half he had readjusted pretty quickly. And Tommy was only eight months old and seemed not to know the difference.

Only Bill really felt it as tears filled his eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks as the plane soared slowly over New York and headed for California.

And once there, Bill threw himself into the show with a vengeance. He worked day and night, and sometimes even slept on the couch in his office, as the ratings continued to soar, and the show won innumerable Daytime Emmys. And in the seven years he'd been in California, Bill Thigpen had become only slightly less manic. A Life Worth Living had become his pride and joy, his daily companion, his best friend, his baby. He had no reason to fight it anymore. He let his work become his daily passion.

The boys came out to visit him on alternate holidays and for a month in the summer, and he loved them more than ever. But being three thousand miles away from them when he really wanted to see them every day remained extremely painful. And there had been a parade of women in his life, but the only constant companion he had was the show, and the
actors in it. And he lived for his vacations with Adam and Tommy.

Leslie had long since married the Juilliard teacher and had two more kids, and she had finally given up teaching. With four kids at home under the age of ten, she had her hands full, but she seemed to love it. She and Bill talked on the phone now and then, particularly when the boys were coming out, or if one of them was sick, or if there was a problem, but they didn't have much to say to each other anymore, except about Adam and Tommy. It was hard even to remember what it had been like when they were married. The pain of losing her was gone, and the memories of the good times were dim. Except for the boys, it was all gone now. And they were the real loves in his life. In the summer, when they spent the month with him, his passion for them was even greater than anything he'd felt for the show, his attention to them more intense. He took a month's vacation every year and they usually went somewhere for part of it, and spent the rest of the time in L.A going to Disneyland, seeing friends, just hanging out while he cooked for them and took care of them, and ached all over again when they went back to New York and left him.

Adam, the older one, was almost ten now, responsible, funny, serious, and a lot like his mother. Tommy was the baby, disorganized, still a baby some of the time, even at seven, and whimsical, vague, and sometimes very, very funny. Leslie frequently told Bill that Tommy was the image of him in every way, but somehow he couldn't see it. He adored them both, and on long, lonely nights alone in L.A his heart still ached wishing that they all lived together. It was the one thing in his life that he regretted, the one thing he couldn't change, the one thing that really depressed him at times although he tried not to let it. But the idea that he had two kids he loved and hardly ever saw seemed a high price to pay for a mistaken marriage. Why did she get to keep them and not he? Why did she get the reward for the lost years, and he get the punishment? What was fair about that? Nothing. And it only made him sure of one thing. He was never going to let it happen again. He was never going to fall madly in love, get married, have kids, and lose them. Period. No way. And over the years, he had found the perfect solution to the problem.
Actresses. Hordes of them. When he had time, which wasn't often.
When he had first come to California, aching from the pain of leaving Leslie and the kids, he had fallen gratefully into the arms of a serious lady director, and had had an affair that lasted six months and almost led to disaster. She had moved in with him and taken over his life, inviting friends to stay, furnishing his apartment for him, running his life, until he felt as if he had been strangled. She had previously gone to UCLA, done graduate work at Yale, talked constantly
about a Ph.D and was into "serious film," and she kept insisting that A Life was beneath him.

She talked about it like a disease from which he might soon be healed, if he would only let her help him. She also hated kids, and kept putting away the photographs of his children.

Remarkably, it took him a full six months to catch his breath and let her have it. It took six months because she was great in bed, treated him like a six-year-old at a time when he desperately needed nurturing and liked it, and she seemed to know everything about the television industry in L.A. But when she told him he ought to stop talking about his kids, and forget about them, he rented a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a month, gave her the key, told her to have a great
time, and not to bother to call him when she found an apartment. He moved her things to the bungalow the same afternoon, and didn't run into her for the next four years until they saw each other at an awards ceremony, where she pretended not to know him.

And what had come after that had been intentionally lighthearted and easy. Actresses, starlets, walk-ons, models, girls who wanted a good time when he was free, and enjoyed going to an occasional party with him when he wasn't in a period of high stress due to some change on the show, and they wanted nothing more from him. They fitted him in among the other men in their lives, and seemed not to care when he didn't call them. Some of them cooked dinner for him occasionally, or he for them since he loved to cook, and the ones who were good with kids were sometimes called on to go to Disneyland with him when the boys were in town, but more often than not he enjoyed keeping the boys to himself
during their visits to California.

More recently, Bill had gotten involved with one of the actresses on the show. Sylvia was a pretty girl from New York, and she had an important part on the show. And it was the first time in a long time that he had allowed himself the indulgence of getting involved with someone who actually worked for him. But she was a sensational-looking girl, and she had been hard to resist. She had come to the show via years as a child actress and model, the cover of Vogue, a year in Paris
working for Lacroix, and six months in L.A. doing bit parts in an assortment of unsuccessful movies. She was a fairly decent actress, surprisingly enough, and a sweet girl, which came through on the air, and Bill was surprised himself by how much he liked her.

Liked. Not loved. Love was something he reserved for Adam and Tommy, who were, respectively, nine and a half and seven. Sylvia was twenty-three, and sometimes he thought she behaved like a child herself. Along with her sweetness there was a kind of simplicity and naivete that both touched him and amused him. Despite her worldly experiences, acting and modeling for the past nine years, she seemed to have remained relatively unsophisticated through all of it, which was
at times both refreshing and annoying. She was singularly unaware of the inevitable politics that went on behind the scenes on the show, and some of her performances were superb, but she was also easy prey for the more jaded women with whom she acted. And Bill found himself constantly warning her to be more alert to the games they played and the trouble they surreptitiously tried to cause her.

But childlike, she floated through all of it, and seemed to keep herself amused when Bill was too busy to entertain her, as he had been for weeks, working on the addition of two new characters, and the surprise removal of yet another. He was always careful to keep the show fresh, and keep the audiences fascinated with the never-ending plot turns.

At thirty-nine, he had become the king of daytime soaps, as his row of Emmys lined up on a shelf on his office wall clearly attested.

But he was, as always, totally unaware of them, as he returned to his office and began to pace, wondering how the actors in today's show would react to the unexpected last-minute changes. Two of the women usually handled it well, but one of his male actors frequently blew his lines when surprised at the last minute, and if the alterations made him too nervous. He had been on the show for two years, and Bill had thought more than once about replacing him, and yet he liked the human quality he brought to the show, the power of his performances when heed in what he was saying.

It was a show which seemed to mean a lot to untold millions across the United States, and the volume of mail Bill and the actors and the producers got was nothing short of amazing. The cast and crew had become a kind of family over the years, and the show meant a great deal to all of them. It had become a home and a way of life for a lot of very talented people.

That afternoon, his own ladylove, Sylvia, was going to be playing her part as Vaughn Williams, the beautiful younger sister of the show's principal heroine, Helen. "Vaughn" had been lured into an affair with her brother-in-law, and introduced to drugs by him as well, unbeknownst to anyone in her family, particularly her own sister. Trapped in a web from which she seemed unable to free herself, Vaughn's brother-in-law, John, was luring her deeper and deeper into his clutches and leading her toward her own destruction. In an unexpected turn of events on that day's show, Vaughn was going to be witness to a murder committed by John, and the police would begin seeking Vaughn for the murder of the drug dealer who had been supplying her drugs since John introduced her to him. It had been a difficult series of events to orchestrate and Bill had been closely supervising the writers, with an eye to stepping in himself if he had to. But it was exactly the kind of plot turn that had kept the show going for close to ten years, and Bill was clearly pleased with the morning's work sketching out the next developments as he sat down in a chair in his office, lit a cigarette, and took a sip from the steaming mug of coffee his secretary had just put there. He was wondering what Sylvia would think of the script changes he had just handed her through her dressing room door. He hadn't seen her since the night before, when he left her place at three a. m. and came to the office to start working on the idea that had been gnawing at him all evening. She had been asleep when he left, and he had gone home to shower and change before going to his office at four-thirty. And by twelve-thirty, the atmosphere in his office was still electrically charged as he got to his feet, stubbed the cigarette out, and hurried to the studio, where he watched the director carefully going over the last-minute changes.

The director was a man Bill had known for years, a Hollywood veteran who had come to the show after directing reams of successful television movies. He had been an unusually serious choice for a soap opera on daytime TV, but Bill had obviously known what he was doing. Allan McLoughlin kept everyone on their toes, and he was speaking seriously to Sylvia and the actor who played John, as Bill walked into the studio and stood discreetly in a remote corner of the room where he could observe but not disturb them.

"Coffee, Bill?" A pretty young script girl inquired. She had had an eye on him for a year. She liked him. He was what some people would have described as a "teddy bear," tall, powerful, warm, smart, nice-looking but not gorgeous, with easy laughter and a gentle style that somehow softened the intensity with which he worked. But Bill only smiled and shook his head. She was a nice kid, but he had never thought of her as anything but the script girl. He was too busy working while he was there to concentrate on anything but what was happening in front of the cameras, or in his head, as he plotted the show's future turns and detours.

"No, thanks, I'm fine." He smiled at the girl and turned his attention back to the director. He noticed that Sylvia was studying her lines, and the actors who played Helen and John were conferring quietly in a corner.

There were two men dressed as policemen, and the "victim," the drug dealer "John" was going to kill on today's show, was already wearing a blood-drenched shirt that looked disturbingly realistic. He was laughing and exchanging jokes with one of the grips. It was his last day on the show, and he had no lines to learn. He was going to be dead when the camera first saw him.

"Two minutes," a voice said, loud enough for everyone to hear, and Bill felt a faint flutter in the pit of his stomach. He always did.

He had felt that twinge since his very early days as an actor when he was in college. And in New York, he had actually felt sick for an hour every night before the curtain went up on one of his plays. And now, ten years after A Life had been born, he still felt a twinge every time they were about to go on the air.

What if it bombed? - - - if the ratings fell?--- if no one watched? - - - if all the actors walked off? - - - if everyone fluffed their lines? - - - if - - - the possibilities and potential for horror were endless.

"One minute!" The noose at the top of his stomach tightened further.

Bill's eyes scanned the room. Sylvia with her eyes closed, memorizing the lines one last time, and maintaining her composure. Helen and John at their marks on the set, ready for the colossal argument that was to open the day's show. The drug dealer eating a huge pastrami sandwich in his blood-drenched shirt off screen, and no one uttering a sound as
the assistant director held up a hand, fingers extended, indicating five seconds before they went on the air four - - - three - - - two one finger a leap in the pit of Bill's stomach, and the hand is down, and Helen and John are fighting furiously on the set, the language abusive but just inside what the censors will allow them, the situation tense to the point of explosion. The words are familiar to Bill, and yet here and there, as they always do, they wing it. Helen more so than John, but for her it works, and Bill doesn't mind it as long as she doesn't go too far afield, or throw off the other actors. It's working so far - - - the door slams after four minutes of intense drama, and they break away for a commercial. Helen comes off the set looking deathly pale. The work they do is brief and intense, the dialogue and the situations so real that somehow they all believe them.

Bill catches her eye and smiles. She did a good job. She always does.

She is a very fine actress. She disappears. The hand goes up again.

Total silence. Not a sound, not a coin clanking in a pocket, or a key on a key ring, or a footstep.

John has gone to the remote country home of the drug dealer, who has anonymously called Helen and told her of her husband's affair with her sister. Shots ring out, and all we see is the prone body of the man in the bloodsoaked shirt, lying on the floor, clearly dead.

Extreme close-up of John's face, a murderous look in his eye, as Vaughn stands beside him.

Fade out. Fade in. Extreme close up of Vaughn, looking incredibly beautiful in a small but luxurious apartment. John has set her up as a good girl gone bad, and we see her saying good-bye to a man. We sense without being told that she is a call girl. Vaughn's eyes meet the camera, troubled, beautiful, and somewhat glazed. Bill watches intently as the plot unfolds and he begins to relax as they fade out for another commercial. It is like a new play every day, a fresh drama, a whole new world, and the magic of it never ceases to intrigue him. Sometimes he wonders why it works, why the show is so immensely successful, but he wonders if it's because he himself is still so wrapped up in it. He wonders, but only rarely, what might have happened if he had sold his concept, or left the show years before - if he had stayed in New York - - - gone on to something else - - stayed married to Leslie, and stayed with the boys - - - would they have had more kids? Would he be writing Broadway plays by now? Would he ever have made it? Would they have gotten divorced by now anyway?

It was odd to look back and try to second-guess it.

Bill left the studio then, assured that the segment was going well and he didn't need to stay till the end. The director had it in control, and Bill walked slowly back to his office, feeling spent, relieved, and sure of the direction of the next several segments. One of the things that he loved about the show was that he could never get lazy or complacent, he couldn't just coast, or use a formula, or follow the same old plot lines. He had to keep it fresh, moment by moment, hour by hour, or the show would simply die. And he liked the excitement of the daily challenge. The challenge met, he went back to his office, and sprawled his frame across the couch, staring out the window.

"How'd it go?" Betsey asked. She had been his secretary for nearly two years, which in television was half a lifetime. She was a standup comedian at night, and she thought Bill walked on water when no one was looking.

"It went okay." He looked relaxed and pleased. The knot in his stomach had turned into a peaceful hum of satisfaction. "Did we hear anything today from the network?" He had sent over some new concepts for some interesting directions for the show, and he was waiting to hear, although he knew they pretty much let him do anything he wanted.

"Not yet. But I think Leland Harris is out of town, and so is Nathan Steinberg." The gods who ran his life, omniscient, omnipotent, all-thinking, all-seeing, all-knowing. He and Nathan went fishing together from time to time, and although the guy was said to be a son of a bitch, Bill actually liked him and insisted that he had always been very pleasant to him. "Are you leaving early tonight?" Betsey looked at him hopefully. Once in a while when he'd come in at the crack of dawn, he left before five o'clock, but it was rare, and he shook his head as he walked across the room to his desk where his ancient typewriter sat on a small table just behind it. It was a Royal, and it was one of the few souvenirs he still had left from his
father.

"I think I'll hang around. The stuff we put in today worked, which means they've got a lot of changes to make for the next few segments.

They have to write out Barnes completely. We just killed him. And Vaughn is going to wind up in jail, not to mention the fact that Helen is getting wise to John. And wait till she finds out that her little sister has been turning tricks to support her drug habit thanks to her own darling husband." He beamed happily as he stretched his legs under the desk and leaned back with his hands behind his head in a pose of total delight and relaxation.

"You have a sick mind." Betsey made a face, and closed the door to his office, and then popped her head back in. "Do you want me to order anything from the commissary for tonight?"

"Christ - - - now I know you're trying to kill me. Just get me a couple of sandwiches and a Thermos of coffee and leave it on your desk. I'll grab it if I get hungry." But more often than not, it was midnight before he even saw the time, and by then he was no longer hungry. It was a wonder he didn't starve to death, Betsey often said, when she saw evidence that he had worked through the night, leaving overflowing ashtrays, fourteen mugs of cold coffee and half a dozen Snickers wrappers behind him.

"You should go home and get some sleep."

"Thanks, Mom." He grinned as she closed the door again. She was a terrific person and he liked her.

He was still smiling to himself, thinking of Betsey, when the door opened again, and he looked up. As always when he saw her, he felt a sharp intake of breath at how she looked. It was Sylvia, still wearing her costume and makeup from the show, and she looked stunning.

She was tall and thin and shapely, with full high silicone breasts that just begged for men to reach out and touch them, and legs that seemed to start at her armpits. She was almost as tall as Bill, and she had cascades of thick black hair that hung to her waist, creamy white skin, and green eyes that were strikingly catlike. She was a girl who would have stopped traffic anywhere, even in L.A where actresses and models and beautiful girls were commonplace. But Sylvia Stewart wasn't
commonplace anywhere, and Bill was the first to say that she did wonderful, healthy things to their ratings.

"Good job, babe. You were great today. But you always are." He stood up as she smiled, and he came around his desk to give her a half-serious kiss as she sat in a chair and crossed her legs, and looking down at her, he felt his heart beat a little
faster. "God, you destroy me when you come in here looking like that."

She was wearing the sexy little black dress that she had worn in the last scene on the show, and it was clearly a knockout. Their costume department had gotten it on loan from Fred Heyman. "The least you could do is put a sweatshirt and some jeans on." But the jeans weren't much better. She wore them skintight and all he could think of when he saw her in jeans was taking her clothes off.

"Costume said I could have the dress." She managed somehow to look both innocent and sultry.

"That's nice." He smiled at her again and settled back behind his desk. "It looks good on you. Maybe we can go out to dinner next week and you can wear it."

"Next week?" She looked like a child who had just been told her favorite doll was in the shop for repairs until next Tuesday. "Why can't we go out tonight?" She was pouting at him, and he looked faintly amused by her. They were the scenes that Sylvia was singularly good at. They were the downside of her being able good looks and irresistibly sexy "You may have noticed on today's show that several new developments occurred, and your character just wound up in jail. There are a ton of new scenes for the writers to write and I want to be around to write some of it myself, or at least check on how they're doing." Anyone who knew him knew he was going to be working eighteen- to twenty-hour days for the
next few weeks, kibitzing and coaxing and rewriting it himself, but the material he would get out of it would be worth it.

"Can't we go away this weekend?" The incredible legs uncrossed and recrossed, causing a disturbance in Bill's jeans, but she still appeared not to have understood him.

"No, we can't. If I'm lucky and everything goes okay, maybe by Sunday we can play a little tennis."

The pout deepened. Sylvia did not look pleased. "I wanted to go to Vegas. A whole bunch of the kids from My House are going to Vegas for the weekend." My House was their stiffest competition.

"I can't help it, Sylvia. I've got to work."

And then, knowing that it would be easier if she went without him than if she stayed and complained, he suggested that she go to Vegas with the others. "Why don't you go with them? You're not on the show tomorrow, and it might be fun. And I'm going to be stuck here anyway all weekend." He waved at the four walls of his office, and even though it was only Thursday then, he knew he had at least three or four more days of intense work overseeing the writers, but Sylvia looked
cheered by the suggestion that she go without him.

"Will you come to Vegas when you finish?"

She looked like a child again, and sometimes her ingenuousness touched him. In truth, her body appealed to him more and it had been an easy relationship for him for the past several months, although not one he was overly proud of. She was a decent person and he liked her, but she was less than challenging for him, and he knew he didn't always meet
her needs either. She wanted someone who is free to run around and play with her, go to openings and parties and ten o'clock dinners at Spago, and more often than not he tied up with the show, or writing new or too tired to go anywhere, and Holparties had never been his forte.

"I don't think I'll be finished in time to go anyywhere. I'll see you Sunday night when get home." The timing was going to be for him and it would keep her off his although he felt mean thinking of it that way.
But it was easier knowing that she happy somewhere else rather than calling at the office every two hours to ask him when he'd be finished working.

"Okay." She stood up, looking pleased.

"You don't mind?" She felt a little guilty leaving him, but he only smiled and escorted her to the door of his office.

"No, I don't mind. Just don't let the 'kids' from My House try to sell you a new contract." She laughed, and this time he kissed her hard on the mouth. "I'm going to miss you."

"Me too." But there was something wistful in her eyes as she looked at him and for the flash of an instant he wondered if something was wrong.

It was something he had seen in other eyes before - - - starting with Leslie's.

It was something that women said at times, without actually saying the words. It had to do with feeling alone and being lonely. And he knew it well, but there was nothing he was going to change now. He never had before, and at thirty-nine, he figured it was too late to do much changing.

Sylvia left his office, and Bill went back to work. He had a mountain of notes he wanted to make about the new scripts, and all the upcoming changes, and by the time he looked up from his typewriter again, it was dark outside, and he was startled to realize it was ten o'clock when he looked at his watch, and he suddenly realized he was desperately thirsty.

He got up from his desk, turned on some more lights, and helped himself to a soda water from the office. He knew Betsey would have left a bunch of sandwiches for him on her desk, but he wasn't even hungry.

The work seemed to feed his spirit when it was going well, and he was pleased as he glanced over what he'd done, and leaned back in his chair, sipping the soda. There was just one more scene he wanted to change before tie it up for the night, and for the next two hours he banged away on the old Royal, to forgetting everything except what he was
writing. And this time when he stopped, it was midnight. He had been at it for almost twenty hours and he was hardly even tired, he felt exhilarated by the changes he'd made and the way the work had been flowing. He took the sheaf of pages he'd been working on since that afternoon, locked them in a desk drawer, helped himself to another soda water on his way out, and left his cigarettes on the desk. He seldom smoked except when he was working.

He walked past his secretary's desk, with the sandwiches still sitting in a cardboard box, and walked out into the fluorescent-lit hall, past half a dozen studios that were closed down now. There was a late-night talk show in one, and a bunch of odd-looking kids in punk clothes had just arrived to make an appearance. He smiled at them, but they didn't
smile back. They were all much too nervous, and he walked past the studio where they did the eleven o'clock news, but that was dark now, too, having already been readied for the morning broadcast.

The guard at the front desk handed Bill the sign-out sheet and he scrawled his name and made a comment about the most recent baseball game. He and the old guard shared a passion for the Dodgers. And then he walked out into the fresh air, and took a deep breath of the warm spring night. The smog didn't seem so bad at that hour, and it felt good just to be alive. He loved what he did, and it made it seem somehow worthwhile to work those ridiculous hours, making up stories
about imaginary people. Somehow when he was doing it, it all made sense to him, and when he was finished, he was always glad he had done it. Now and then it was an agony, when a scene didn't go right or a character slipped out of control and became someone he had never intended, but most of the time doing it was something he loved, and there were times when he missed doing it full-time, and he envied the writers.

He sighed happily as he started his car. It was a '49 Chevrolet woody station wagon, he had bought it from a surfer seven years before for five hundred dollars and he loved it. It was maroon and it was in less than perfect condition, but it had soul, and lots of room, and the boys loved riding around in it when they came to visit.

As he drove home on the Santa Monica Freeway toward Fairfax Avenue, he realized suddenly that he was hungry. He was more than hungry. He was starving. And he knew that there was nothing in his apartment. He hadn't eaten there in days. He had been too busy working and before that he'd eaten out, and he had spent the weekend before at Sylvia's
place in Malibu. She rented it from an aging movie star who had been in a retirement home for years but still kept the house in Malibu she had once lived in.

Bill stopped at Safeway on his way home, and it was after midnight as he pulled his woody into the parking lot and slid into a space right in front of the main entrance. He parked it next to a battered old red MG with the top down, walked into the brightly lit allnight store and helped himself to a cart as he tried to decide what he wanted to eat.

There were chickens barbecuing in a nearby aisle, and he noticed that they smelled terrific. He helped himself to one of them, a six-pack of beer, some potato salad from the deli area, some salami, some pickles, and then he headed to the produce section for lettuce and tomatoes and vegetables to make himself a salad. The more he thought about it, the
hungrier he got, and he could hardly wait to get home and have dinner.

He could no longer remember if he'd eaten lunch, or if he had, what it had been. It seemed like years suddenly since he had eaten. He remembered then that he needed paper towels, too, and toilet paper for both bathrooms, he knew he needed shaving cream, and he had a feeling that he was running out of toothpaste. It seemed like he never had time to shop for himself, and as he roamed through the store feeling wide-awake, it seemed like the middle of the afternoon as he helped himself to cleaning products, olive oil, coffee beans, pancake mix, sausages, syrup-for the next time he had breakfast at home on a weekend-and then bran muffins, some new cereals, a pineapple and some fresh papaya. He felt like a kid going wild as he kept putting things in his basket. For once, he wasn't in a hurry, he didn't have to get to work, there was no one waiting for him anywhere, and he could explore the store at his leisure. He was just trying to decide if he
wanted some French bread and Brie with his dinner, as he rounded a corner, looking for the bread, and collided with a girl who seemed to rise up out of the floor with an armful of paper towels. She seemed to come up out of nowhere, and before he could do anything about it, he had almost run her down with his cart, and she jumped back, startled, dropping everything around her as he watched her. There was something striking about her, and beautiful, in a clean, wholesome way, and he couldn't help staring at her as she turned away, and gathered up her paper towels.

"I'm sorry - - - I - - - here, let me help - - -" He abandoned his cart, and stopped to give her a hand, but she was quick to stand up, and smile, blushing faintly.

"No problem." Her smile was powerful, strong, her eyes were huge and blue, and she looked like someone who had a lot to say, and he felt like a kid as he stared at her, and she drove her cart away, smiling at him again over her shoulder. It felt almost like a movie scene, or something he might have written for a show. Boy Meets Girl. He wanted to run after her - - - hey, wait - - - stop! But she was gone, with her shining dark hair that just brushed her shoulders as it swung
freely, her wide ivory smile, and blue eyes that seemed enormous.

There was something so straightforward about the look she gave him, yet something quizzical about her smile, as though she had been going to ask him a question, and something friendly as though she had been going to laugh at herself. She was all he could think about as he tried to finish his shopping. Mayonnaise - - - anchovies shaving cream eggs?

Did he need eggs?

Sour cream? He couldn't concentrate anymore. It was ridiculous. She was pretty but she wasn't that great-looking after all. She had the kind of preppy good looks of a girl fresh out of an eastern college.

She'd been wearing jeans, a red turtleneck, and sneakers, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw her unloading her cart at the checkout a few minute later. He stopped pushing his own cart for a moment, and looked at her. She wasn't fantastic after all, he told himself. Nice looking, yes - - - very nice-looking, in fact, but for his taste, his current California taste. In any case, she was by far too normal. She looked like someone you could talk to late at night, someone who could tell a joke, someone who could make dessert from scratch, or tell a good story. What did he need with a girl like that when he had girls like Sylvia to keep his bed warm? But as he watched her put her empty cart away, he couldn't have explained why, but he felt a kind of empty longing for her. She was someone he would have liked to know, and he
wondered what her name was, as he rolled slowly toward her. Hi - - I'm Bill Thigpen - - - he rehearsed in his head as he pulled his cart into the checkout lane where she was paying. She seemed not to notice him this time. She was writing a check, and he glanced over but he couldn't read her name. All he could see was her left hand holding the checkbook. The left hand with the gold ring. Her wedding band.

Whoever she was, it didn't matter anymore. She was married. He felt his heart plummet, like a disappointed child, and he almost laughed at himself as she glanced over at him and smiled again, recognizing him from when he'd collided with her a few minutes before with the paper towels. Hi - - - I'm Bill Thigpen and you're married - - - what a damn shame, if you get a divorce, give me a call.

- Married women was one kind he didn't mess around with. He wanted to ask her why she was doing her shopping so late at night, but there was no point. It no longer mattered.

"Good night," she said, in a soft husky voice, as she picked up her two grocery bags, and he unpacked his cart.

" Night," he answered as he watched her go, and a few minutes later, he heard a car roar out, and when he went back to his own car in the parking lot, the little MG next to his car was gone, and he wondered if that was what she had been driving. He grinned to himself then. He was obviously working too hard if he was starting to fall in love with total strangers. "Okay, Thigpen," he muttered as he started his car with a roar of exhaust fumes, "take it easy, boy." He chuckled as he drove out of the parking lot, and as he drove home, he wondered what Sylvia was up to in Las Vegas.
<bài viết được chỉnh sửa lúc 17.05.2006 13:33:11 bởi Tố Tâm >
#1
    Tố Tâm 17.05.2006 14:12:15 (permalink)
    CHAPTER 2.


    As ADRIAN TOWNSEND DROVE AWAY FROM the supermarket, her thoughts were full of Steven waiting for her at home. She hadn't seen him in four days. He had been stuck in meetings at a client presentation in St. Louis.

    Steven Townsend was the bright shining star of the ad agency where he worked, and she knew that one day, if he wanted to, he would run the L.A. office. At thirty-four, he had come a long, long way from humble beginnings in the Midwest, and she knew just how much his success meant to him. It meant everything to him. He had hated everything about poverty, his childhood, and the Midwest, and in his opinion he had been saved sixteen years ago by a scholarship to UC Berkeley. He had majored in communications, as Adrian had three years later at Stanford.

    Her passion had been TV, but Steven had fallen in love with advertising from the beginning. He had gone to work for an ad agency in San Francisco right out of school, and then he'd gone to business school at night and earned his MBA once he got to southern California.

    There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Steven Townsend was going to succeed, no matter what it took, or cost him. He was one of those people who were determined to get where he wanted to go, who planned things out in great detail. There were no accidents in Steven Townsend's life, no mistakes, no failures. He would talk to Adrian for hours sometimes about clients he was going to get, or a promotion he had set his sights on. She marveled at him sometimes, his determination, his drive, his courage. It hadn't easy for him. His father had been an autoworker on the assembly line in Detroit, with five kids, three daughters and two sons, of which Steven had been the youngest. His older brother had died in Vietnam, and the three girls had stayed close to home, perfectly content not to go to college. Two of them had been married while still in their teens, both pregnant, of course, and his oldest sister had married at twenty-one, and had had
    four children before her twenty-fifth birthday. She had married an autoworker like her dad, and when there was a strike they all went on welfare. It was a life Steven still had nightmares about, and he seldom talked to anyone about his childhood. Only Adrian knew how much he had hated it, and how much he had come to hate them. He had never gone back to Detroit once he left, and Adrian also knew that it had been more than five years since he had communicated with his parents.

    He just couldn't talk to them anymore, he had explained it to her once when he'd had a little too much to drink and they'd come home after an office party. He had hated them so much, hated their poverty and despair, hated the look of constant sorrow in his mother's eyes over all that she could not do for, or give, her children. But she must have loved you all, Adrian had tried to explain, sensing the woman's love for them, and her sense of helplessness in the face of what they
    needed and she couldn't give them, in particular, her youngest child, anxious, ambitious Steven.

    "I don't think she loved anyone," Steven had said bitterly, "she had nothing left in her - - - except for him - - - you know, she even got pregnant the year I left, and by then she must have been almost fifty thank God she lost it." Adrian felt a twinge of distant pain for her, but she had long since stopped pleading their cause to Steven. He obviously had nothing in common with them anymore, and even talking about them was far too painful. She wondered from time to time what they would have thought of him, if they could see him now. He was handsome, athletic, outspoken, well educated, intelligent, bold, and sometimes even a little too brassy.

    She had always admired his fire, his ambition, his drive, his energy, and yet from time to time she wished that it were only a little tempered. Perhaps that would come in time, with age, with love, with kindness from those who loved him. Sometimes she teased him, she said he was like a cactus plant. He wouldn't let anyone come too close, or touch his heart, except when he decided to allow it.

    They had been married for almost three years, and the marriage had done them both good. Steven had continued to rise in the agency meteorically in the past two and a half years, after moving to Los Angeles twelve years before when he finished college. He had worked in three different ad agencies over the years, and he was known in the industry as being smart, good at what he did, and more than occasionally ruthless. He had taken over clients from friends, and wooed them from other agencies in circumstances that occasionally bordered on the improper. But the agency where he worked never lost out from his maneuvers, nor did Steven. They were growing day by day, and so was Steven's importance.

    She and Steven were very different, Adrian knew, and yet she respected him. Most of all, she respected what he had come from. She knew, just from the little she had heard, that surviving his early beginnings must have been brutal. Her own were at the opposite extreme, from an upper-middle-class family in Connecticut, she had always gone to private schools, and she had one older sister. She and Adrian didn't see eye to eye, and in recent years, Adrian had drifted away from her parents, too, although every few years they came out to California to see her. But it was too different from their comfortable life in Connecticut, and the last time they had come, her parents hadn't gotten along with Steven. And Adrian had to admit he'd been difficult with them. He'd been openly critical of her father, and his genteel pursuits. Her father had never had a great interest in pursuing a major career. He was an attorney, and he had retired early on, and for years he had taught at a nearby law school. She'd been embarrassed by Steven's almost grilling him, and she'd tried to explain to them that that was just Steven's way and he meant no harm by it, but after they went back, her sister, Connie, had called Adrian and given her hell about the way Steven had treated her parents. She'd asked how Adrian could "let him do that to -' Do what? she'd asked. "Make Dad 'so insignificant. Mom said Steven humiliate him. She said Dad says he'll never go back to California."

    "Connie - - - for heaven's sake - Adrian was upset to realize how hurt her father had been, and she had to admit Steven had been a little well - - - exuberant when he pressed him, but that was just his style.

    And she tried in vain to express that to her sister. But they had never been close.

    They were five years apart, and Connie had always somehow disapproved of her, as though she didn't quite measure up. Which was why, in the end, after college, Adrian had stayed in California. That, and the fact that she had wanted a job in TV production.

    Adrian had gone to Los Angeles to take graduate courses in film at UCLA, and she had done very well. She had had several extremely interesting jobs, and then Steven had come along, and he had seen different career opportunities for her, and in some ways, that had changed things. He thought the milieu of film or even films for TV was far too arty, and he kept insisting she should be doing something more hard-edged, more concrete.

    They'd been living together for two years when she got the offer to work in TV news, and it was certainly more money than she'd earned before, but it was also very different from anything she'd ever dreamed of. She'd agonized over whether or not to take the job, she just felt it wasn't "her," but finally Steven talked her into it, and he'd been right. In the past three years she'd come to love it. And six months after she'd taken the job, she and Steven went to Reno for a weekend and got married. He hated big weddings, and "family ordeals," and she had agreed with him so as not to upset him. But that had been upsetting for her parents too. They had wanted to do a beautiful wedding at home for their youngest daughter. Instead, she and Steven flew east, and her parents had been anything but pleased to learn that they were already married. Her mother had cried, her father had scolded them both, and they had both felt like errant children. Steven had been really irritated with them, and as usual, Adrian had gotten in a big fight with her sister, Connie, who had been pregnant with her third and child by then, and as usual, she made her feel inadequate somehow, and as if she had done something really awful.

    "Look, we didn't want a big wedding. Is it a crime? Big ceremonies make Steven nervous. What's such a big deal about that? I'm twenty-nine years old, I should be able to married any damn way I want to."

    "Why do you have to hurt Mom and Dad? Can't you make an effort for once in your life? You live three thousand miles away, you do whatever you please. You're never here to help them, or to do anything for them." Her voice had trailed off accusingly as Adrian stared at her, wondering at just how much bitterness was building up between them, and how much worse it was going to get. In recent years, their relationship had begun to seriously depress her.

    "They're sixty-two and sixty-five years old, how much help do they need?" Adrian asked, and Connie looked livid.

    "A lot. Charlie comes over and shovels Dad's car out every time it snows. Did you ever think of that?" There were tears in Connie's eyes, and Adrian had had an overwhelming urge to slap her.

    "Maybe they should move to Florida, and make things easier for both of us," Adrian had said quietly, as Connie burst into tears.

    "That's all you know about, isn't it? Running away. Hiding on the other side of the country."

    "Connie, I'm not hiding. I have a life out there."

    "Doing what? Working as a gofer on production crews? That's crap and you know it. Grow up, Adrian. Be like the rest of us, be a wife, have kids, if you're going to work, then at least do something worthwhile. But at least stand up and be normal."

    "Like who? Like you? Are you 'normal' because you were a nurse before you had kids, and I'm not okay because I have a job you don't understand? Well, maybe you'll like my newsroom job better. It's called 'production assistant, maybe you can understand that a little better." But she hated the venom that had crept into their relationship over the years, the bitterness, the jealousy. They had never been close, but at least early on they had been friends, or pretended to be. Now the veneer appeared to have worn off, and there was nothing left but Connie's anger that Adrian was gone, and free, and
    doing what she wanted in California. And Adrian didn't tell them that she and Steven had agreed not to have children. It was something that meant a lot to him, after the horrors of his childhood. Adrian didn't agree with him, but she knew he blamed his parents' misery on the fact that they had children, or certainly too many of them. But he had told her long since that children were not on his agenda, and he wanted to be sure that Adrian was in full agreement. He had talked more than once about having a vasectomy, but they were both afraid that if he did, there might be physical repercussions. He had urged her to have her tubes tied instead, but she had hedged about it because it seemed so radical, and finally they had settled on alternate methods of assuring that they wouldn't have children. It made Adrian sad
    sometimes to think of never having children of her own, and yet it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for him. She knew how important it was to him. He wanted to pursue his career without encumbrances, and he wanted her to be free to pursue hers too. He was extremely supportive of her work. And she had come to like working in TV news over the past three years, but she still missed her old shows occasionally, her TV films and miniseries and specials. And more than
    once, she had talked about leaving the news and getting a production job on a series.

    "And when they cancel it?" Steven always said. "Then what? You're on the unemployment line, you're back to square one. Stick with the news, sweetheart, it's never going to be canceled." He had a horror of losing jobs, being out of work, losing opportunities, or not following a stellar route right to the top.

    Steven always kept his eye on his goals, and his goals were always at the top. And they both knew he was going to make it.

    The past two and a half years of marriage had been full for both of them. They had worked hard, done well, made some friends, he had traveled a lot in the past year, and the previous year, they had bought a really lovely condo. It was just the right size for them, a town house with a second bedroom they used as a den, a big bedroom upstairs, a living room, dining room, and a big kitchen. Adrian liked to putter in the tiny garden on the weekends. There was a pool for the entire
    complex to use, a tennis court, and a two-car garage for her MG, and his shiny new black Porsche.

    He still tried to get her to sell her car, but she never would. She had bought it used when she went to Stanford thirteen years before, and she still loved it. Adrian was someone who loved to hang on to old things, and Steven was someone who was always seeking what was newest.

    And yet, together they were a good team. He gave her an extra sense of drive and push that she might not have had to the same extent if she'd been on her own, and she softened his sharp edges just a little.

    Not enough for everyone. Her sister, Connie, and her brother-in-law, Charles, still hated him, and her parents had never come to love him.

    It had affected Adrian's relationship with them, and it pained her to realize at times how distant she had grown from them.

    But in spite of her love for them, she felt that she owed her principal allegiance to Steven.

    He was the man whose bed she shared, whose life she was helping to build, whose future she was forging. And no matter how much she loved them, they were her past, and he was her present and her future. Her parents understood it, too, they no longer asked when she and Steven were coming east. And they had even stopped nagging her in the past year about when she and Steven were going to have children. She had finally told Connie that they didn't want kids, and she was sure that her sister had passed the word on to her parents. Adrian and Steven's whole relationship seemed unnatural to them, in their eyes Steven and Adrian were two egocentric young hedonists living in the fast lane in California, and it was hopeless trying to explain a different viewpoint to them. It was easier just not to talk too often, and Adrian's parents no longer volunteered to come out for a visit.

    But Adrian wasn't thinking of her parents as she took the Fairfax Avenue exit off the Santa Monica Freeway late that night. All she could think of was Steven. She knew how tired he was going to be, but she had bought a bottle of white wine, some cheese, and the makings of a fine omelet for him. And she was smiling as she slid the car into the garage next to his Porsche. He was home and she was only sorry she hadn't been able to pick him up at the airport. She had had to
    work the late shift as she often did, standing in for the producer of the late news, since she was his number one assistant. It was an interesting job, and she liked it, but there were times when it was also very wearing.

    Her key turned easily in the lock, and she could see that all the lights were on as she opened the door, but at first she didn't see him.

    "Hello! - - - anyone home? - - ." The stereo was on, and his suitcase was in the hall, but she didn't see his briefcase, and then she saw him, in the kitchen, on the phone, his handsome mane of almost jet-black hair full and slightly disheveled, his head bent as he took notes, and she suspected he was talking to his boss. He didn't even seem to see her as he wrote and talked, and she walked over, put her arms around him, and kissed him. He glanced down at her with a smile, and gently kissed her full on the lips, as he continued listening to his boss without missing a beat for a moment. And then he gently pushed her away as he went on talking.

    "That's right - - - that's what I told him. They said they'd get back to us next week, but I think if we play hardball with them we'll get them to come around before that. Right - - - right - - - that's exactly what I think - - . fine - - see you in the morning." And then, suddenly, she was in his arms, and he was holding her tight, and all was right with the world again. She was always happy when she was with him, always sure that she was exactly where she was meant to be. And as she kissed him all she could think of was how much she had missed him.

    He kissed her long and hard and when he pulled away from her again, she was breathless. "My, my - - - it certainly is nice having you home again, Mr. Townsend."

    "Can't say I mind seeing you myself." He smiled mischievously at her, holding her bottom in his two hands as he continued to hold her close to him. "Where've you been?"

    "At work. I tried to get out of doing the eleven o'clock tonight but no one else was free. I stopped and got some food on the way home. Are you hungry?"

    "Yes." He smiled happily, not thinking of what she had brought home in the brown bags. "As a matter of fact, I am." He flicked off the kitchen light just behind him, and Adrian laughed at him.

    "That's not what I meant. I bought some wine, and - - -" He kissed her hard on the lips again.

    "Later, Adrian - - - later. - - -" He led her quietly upstairs, his bags forgotten in the downstairs hall, her groceries abandoned on the kitchen floor, and he looked hungrily at her as she began peeling away her clothes and he turned up the stereo and pulled her down on the bed beside him.
    #2
      Tố Tâm 19.05.2006 13:18:35 (permalink)
      CHAPTER 3.

      THEY BOTH LEFT FOR WORK AT THE SAME time the next day: It was a routine that went like clockwork every morning. Steven went for a run before work, and then he came back and rode his exercise bike while he shaved and watched the news, and Adrian made them a light breakfast. She had showered and dressed by then. And he showered and dressed while she cleaned up the kitchen and made the bed. On weekends she got him to help, but during the week he was too busy and rushed to be able to help her.

      Adrian always watched the morning news, and as much of the Today show as she could get in before they left for work. If there was something of interest, they discussed it. But usually they didn't say much to each other in the morning. This morning was different, though. They had made love twice the night before, and Adrian was feeling chatty and affectionate as she kissed him and handed him a cup of coffee. He was still damp from his run, but even with his hair wet and his sweatshirt sticking to him, Steven Townsend was movie-star handsome. It was yet another thing that had set him apart while he was struggling to get out of Detroit and away from his parents. He had been too smart, too ambitious, and too good-looking for the life he'd been born to. And Adrian was striking, too, in her own way, but it was something she
      never thought of. She was too busy living her life to think about how she looked, except when she got dressed up to go out with Steven. But she had a clean, wholesome look and her natural beauty stood out in the world artifice they lived in. But she was totally aware of her own beauty, and it was rare for Steven to mention it to her. He was always preoccupied with other things, like his life, and his own career.

      There were when he scarcely even saw her.

      "Anything special going on today?" He looked at her casually over the newspaper as he ate his breakfast. She had warmed the blueberry muffins she'd bought the night before, and made him a heaping fresh fruit salad mixed in with yogurt.

      "Not that I know of. I'll see what's happening when I go in. It didn't look like anything dramatic was happening on the morning news, but you never know. They could shoot the President while we're sitting here eating breakfast."

      "Yeah. - - ." He was looking at the stock prices, and flipping through the business pages while she spoke. "You working late tonight?"

      "Maybe. I won't know till this afternoon. A couple of people are out on vacation and we're short. I may even have to go in this weekend."

      "I hope not. Did you remember the party tomorrow night at the Jameses'?"

      Her eyes met his and she smiled at him. He could never quite believe that she remembered anything. No matter that she was the assistant producer of the news show on a major network. "Of course I remembered. Is it a big deal?"

      He nodded, humorless when it came to his career, but it was something that she was used to. "Everybody who's anybody in advertising will be there. I just wanted to make sure you remembered." She nodded, and he looked at his watch and stood up. "I'm playing squash at six o'clock tonight. If you're working late, I won't come home for dinner. Just leave a message for me at the office."

      "Yes, sir. Anything else I should know before we start the day and disappear into our separate worlds?"

      He looked blank for a moment, trying to think, and then he shook his head and looked down at her, still sitting at the kitchen table.

      But his thoughts were already far from her.

      He was thinking about two new clients he wanted to approach, and a client he was planning to take away from a slightly more senior man at the agency where he worked. It was something he had done successfully before, with other accounts, and it was a modus operandi he was neither embarrassed about nor afraid of. The end always justified the means, it always had for him. Even sixteen years before when he'd aced his best friend out of the scholarship to UC Berkeley. The other boy had actually been more qualified, but Steven also knew that his friend had cheated on his very first SAT exam, and he had seen to it that the right people heard about it at the right time. No matter that his scores had been perfect ever since, and he had helped Steven prepare for every exam he'd taken junior and senior years. And they were best
      friends but he had cheated after all - . - and they disqualified him.

      And Steven got the hell out of Detroit without ever looking back. He never heard from his friend again. And he had heard years before from his sister that Tom had dropped out of school and was pumping gas somewhere in the ghetto.

      Things worked out that way sometimes. Survival of the fittest. And Steven Townsend was fit. In every possible way. He stood looking at Adrian for a moment, and then turned and raced upstairs to shower and change before he left for the office.

      She was still in the kitchen when he came back down, impeccably dressed in a khaki suit, pale blue shirt, and blue and yellow tie.

      With his shining dark hair, he looked like a movie star again, or a man in an ad at the very least. It always jolted Adrian a little when she looked at him, he was so incredibly handsome.

      "You're looking good, kid."

      He looked pleased at the compliment, and looked her over as she stood up and picked up the tote bag she always took to work. It was a soft black leather Herme's bag she'd had for years, and like her ancient sports car, she loved it. She was wearing a navy wool skirt, a white silk blouse, and a soft white cashmere sweater knotted over her shoulder.

      She was wearing expensive black Italian loafers, and her whole look was of casual, understated, expensive elegance. It was a kind of casual, throwaway look, but when you looked again, it had style and whispered all the secret words of good taste and breeding. She has a wonderful easy style, and as under as she was, somehow everything about her still
      managed to be beautiful and striking.

      As they left the house together, they were handsome pair. He got in his Porsche as she climbed into the MG, and she laughed at the look on his face. It embarrassed him to be seen anywhere near her car and he had been threatening to make her use the open parking lot at the front of the complex.

      "You're a snob!" She laughed at him and he shook his head and a moment later he was gone in a roar from the Porsche's powerful engine, while Adrian tied a scarf around her head, put her beloved old car into gear, and listened happily as it sputtered to life and she headed it in the direction of her office. The freeway was bumper-to-bumper by then and a few minutes later she wound up sitting in the car at a dead standstill. She wondered how much better Steven had fared, and as she thought of him, she suddenly thought of something else, something that seldom happened to her. She was late. She should have had her period two days before, but she knew it didn't mean anything. With the odd hours she worked, and the constant stress, it wasn't unusual to be late, although admittedly it didn't happen to her very often. She made
      a mental note to think about it again in a few days, and with that, the traffic began moving again, and she stepped on the accelerator and headed for her office.

      Everything was in total chaos when she arrived. The producer was out sick. Two of their prize cameramen had had a minor accident, and two of her least favorite reporters were having a heated argument two feet from her desk, and she finally wound up shouting at everyone, which took them all by surprise, since Adrian seldom lost her temper.

      "For chrissake, how the hell is anyone supposed to get any work done around here? If you two want to beat on each other, go do it somewhere else." A senator had just gone down on a commuter plane and reporters at the crash site had just called in to say that there were no survivors. A major movie star had committed suicide during the night.

      And two of Hollywood's favorites had just announced that they were getting married. And an earthquake in Mexico had claimed nearly a thousand lives. It was going to be the kind of day that usually tried to give Adrian ulcers. But at least life was interesting for her, or at least that was what Steven said when she complained. Did she really want to live in fantasyland, working on miniseries, and specials about Hollywood ladies? No, but she would have loved to work on a successful prime-time series, and she knew she had enough production experience by now to do that. But she also knew she would never convince Steven that a job like that was worthy of her attention.

      "Adrian?"

      "Yeah?" For a minute she had let her mind drift to what wasn't and what might have been, and she didn't have time for that, not today at least. And it was also easy to figure out by then that she wasn't going to be having dinner that night with her husband. She asked someone to call and let him know and turned to the assistant who was begging for her attention. There had been a flood on the set and they were going to have to use an alternate studio, but everything was already set up, so there was no need to panic.

      It was four o'clock before she ate lunch, and six before she even thought of calling Steven. But by then she knew he had left to play squash with his friends from work, and he knew she was working late anyway. And as she settled down for a long evening at work, she was suddenly struck by an odd feeling of loneliness. It was Friday night, and everyone was out, or at home, or with friends, or getting ready to go on dates, or maybe just curled up with a good book, and she was at
      work, listening to police reports of local homicides and fatal accidents, and reading telexes of tragedies worldwide. It seemed like a sad way to spend a Friday night, and then she felt foolish for the feeling.

      "You're looking awfully gloomy tonight."

      Zelda, one of the production assistants, smiled at her as she brought Adrian a styrofoam cup of coffee. She was one of Adrian's favorites, she was always good for a laugh, and she was a character. She was older than Adrian, divorced frequently, and kind of a free spirit. She had bright red hair that sprang from her head like uncontrolled flames and an equally uncontrollable sense of humor.

      "Just tired, I guess. Sometimes this place gets to me."

      "At least we know you're still sane." Zelda smiled at her. She was a pretty woman, and Adrian guessed that she was about forty.

      "Doesn't it ever get to you? Christ, the news is always so depressing."

      "I never listen to it." She shrugged indifferently. "And most nights when I get out of here, I go dancing."

      "I think you've got the right idea." Most nights, Adrian went home, and Steven was already sound asleep and snoring gently. But at least they had breakfast together in the morning, and there were always weekends.

      Adrian struggled through her paperwork for the next four hours, and then she checked out the studio before the late news, chatted with the anchors, and read all the hottest stories. It was actually a pretty quiet night, and she could hardly wait to get home to Steven.

      She knew he was having dinner out with friends, but she was pretty sure he'd be home when she finished work. He seldom stayed out very late, unless there was something to be gained from it, like some important business with a client.

      The late show went fine, predictably, and at eleven thirty-five she was on her way home on the Santa Monica Freeway. She walked in her front door at five minutes to midnight, and the bedroom lights were still on, and her heart leapt with glee as she took the stairs to their bedroom two at a time, and then she laughed when she saw him. Steven was sound
      asleep on his side of the bed, arms spread out like a boy, exhausted and relaxed after a hard day at the office followed by a lively game of squash and an early dinner. He was out for the count and no amount of rustling around the room would rouse him.

      "Well, Prince Charming," Adrian whispered with a grin as she sat down next to him in her nightgown, "looks like it's a wrap, as they say in my business." She kissed him gently on the cheek and he never stirred as she turned off the light and curled up on her own side of the bed.

      And as she lay there, she thought about being late again, but she knew it was probably nothing.
      #3
        Tố Tâm 19.05.2006 13:36:58 (permalink)
        CHAPTER 4.


        WHEN ADRIAN WOKE UP AT NINE-fifteen, she could smell bacon cooking downstairs, and she could hear Steven clattering around in the kitchen.

        She smiled to herself as she rolled over in bed. She loved Saturdays, loved having him around, loved it when he brought her breakfast in bed and they made love afterward.

        She could hear him coming up the stairs as she thought of it, he was humming to himself, banging the tray against the door as he came through, and she could hear the stereo downstairs playing Bruce Springsteen.

        "Wake up, sleepyhead." He grinned down at her in their bed, and set the tray down beside her as she stretched and smiled in answer. He was a vision of handsome young manhood. His hair was still wet from the shower he'd taken before she woke up and he was wearing fresh white tennis clothes, his long, shapely legs were tanned, and from where she
        lay, Steven's shoulders looked enormous.

        "You know, you're pretty cute, for a guy who can cook." She smiled up at him and propped herself up on one elbow.

        "So are you, lazybones." He sat down next to her on the bed, and she laughed at him.

        "You should have seen yourself passed out here last night."

        "I had a tough day, and I was beat after we played squash." He looked faintly embarrassed and made it up to her by kissing her promisingly just as she took a bite of bacon.

        "Are you playing tennis today?" she inquired. She knew him well. He loved competitive sports, especially squash and tennis.

        "Yeah. But not until eleven-thirty." He glanced at his watch and smiled at her, and she laughed again, but before she could say anything, he had peeled off his tennis clothes and slipped into bed beside her.

        "Now what's this all about, Mr. Townsend? Won't this weaken your tennis game?"

        She loved to tease him about his intense seriousness about his tennis.

        "It might." He looked pensive and she laughed again. And then he turned to her with a sexy smile. "But it could just be that you're worth it."

        "Could be? Could be? - - - You've got some nerve!" But he silenced her with a kiss, and a few minutes later they had both forgotten his tennis game, and half an hour later she was dozing contentedly in his arms, and he was gently stroking her shining black hair as it fell over her cheek and she purred at him. "Personally - - - I'd rather do that than play tennis any day. - - -" She opened one eye and reached up to kiss him.

        "So would I." He stretched lazily, and an hour later he hated to get out of bed to go and shower again before he went to play with a man who lived in the complex and Steven knew only as "Harvey."

        "Are you coming back for lunch?" she inquired, and he shouted back that he'd make himself a salad when he got back, and he reminded her again about going to the Jameses' party that night at seven. But it was going to be a tight squeeze for her. She had learned the night before that she was going to have to be at work for the evening news, and then go back to be there again for the late show. It would mean dressing for the party before she went to work, and then rushing back to meet Steven at home to go to the party, or maybe even meeting him there, and then leaving at a decent hour to get to work again. But she knew the party was important to him, and she was going to join him for it no matter how hectic it made her evening. She always tried never to let Steven down, and particularly not to let her work interfere with their home life. Unlike Steven, who traveled a great deal of the time, but that just made it easier for her to work late whenever she had to.

        Steven was back, dripping wet, at two o'clock, and beaming at his victory. He had easily beaten Harvey. "He's fat and out of shape, and he admitted to me after the second set that he hasn't given up smoking. The poor bastard is lucky he didn't have a heart attack on the court."

        "I hope you went easy on him," Adrian said from the kitchen, where she had just made lemonade for him, but they both knew that he probably hadn't.

        "He didn't deserve it. He's really kind of a jerk." She had his salad ready, too, and she put both in front of him and told him she'd have to go to work before they went out, but he didn't seem to mind. He didn't even seem to mind it when she told him she had to go in for the late show. "That's okay. I can catch a ride home with someone else. You can take my car."

        "I can even come back and pick you up."

        She looked apologetically at him. "I'm really sorry. If there weren't people out and the producer weren't sick. - "

        "No problem. As long as you can make it for a while, that's fine."

        She looked at him questioningly then as he ate the salad she had made for him. "Why is this party so important to you, sweetheart? Something big going on I don't know about?"

        Maybe another important promotion.

        He looked mysterious for a moment and then he grinned at her. "If everything goes all right tonight, I might get the IMFAC account, or at least I'll get a shot at it. I got some inside information last week that they're unhappy with their current agency and they're looking around quietly. I gave them a call, and Mike was really excited about it. He might even let me fly out to Chicago on Monday to see them."

        "My God, that's an enormous account."

        That was impressive, even for him. IMFAC was one of the biggest advertising accounts in the country.

        "Yes, it is. I'll probably be gone all week, but I'm sure you'll agree it's worth it."

        "It sure is." She sat back in her chair and looked at him. He was a remarkable man. At thirty-four, he just wasn't going to stop until he had gotten everything he wanted. But one had to admire him, particularly when one looked back at where he came from. She had tried to point that out to her parents over the years, but they seemed determined to ignore all his good qualities, and all they did was harp on the negative side of his ambitions. As though it were a crime to want to succeed, to get ahead. At least she didn't think so- He had a right to accomplish what he wanted to, didn't he? And he had a need to win. Sometimes she even felt sorry for him because that need was so acute in him. It really hurt him, almost physically, when he lost, even at tennis.

        And Steven played tennis again later that afternoon. He was still playing when Adrian left for work, and she had promised to come back and pick him up at exactly seven. And when she did, he was waiting for her, handsome in a new blazer and white slacks, and a red tie she had bought him. He looked great and she told him so, and he told her she looked pretty too. She was wearing an emerald-green silk suit with matching shoes and she had just washed her hair and it shone like
        polished onyx. But she noticed as she slipped into the Porsche with him that he was nervous and distracted. But with an account the size of IMFAC on the line, it was easy to understand it.

        She chatted easily with him about unimportant things on the drive to Beverly Hills and she was impressed when she saw the house. Mike James was Steven's boss, and his wife was one of the most expensive decorators in Beverly Hills. It was their housewarming, and she had been hearing for months about the endless multimillion-dollar renovations.

        But the results were impressive anyway, and there were easily two hundred people there when they walked in, and Adrian almost instantly lost Steven, and found herself wandering between one of the many bars and buffets, listening to snatches of conversation.

        People talked about their kids, their marriages, their jobs, their trips, their houses.

        Several people stopped and talked to Adrian, but she didn't know anyone there and so was in a quiet mood and didn't linger long in any group.

        And more than once she noticed, as she often did lately, that when people realized that she was married, they asked her if she had children. It made her feel sometimes, saying that she didn't. It as though not having children was a kind of failure. No matter that she had an important job, and that she was only thirty-one.

        Women who had children looked proud of themselves, and lately Adrian had been wondering if she had missed something when she and Steven had decided never to have children. Nothing was written in stone, of course, and it wasn't as though their decision couldn't be changed, but she knew how strongly Steven felt about it, which was why she was beginning to feel a little flurry of panic each time she remembered that she was late. And day by day, she seemed to be getting later.

        She had thought about buying an at-home test that afternoon, but it seemed a little premature, and there was no need to overreact just because she was a few days late - - - but what if she was pregnant?

        She stood alone, staring at the view, and a man stopped to chat with her and offered her a glass of champagne, but she really wasn't interested in talking to him. And after he left, she suddenly found herself thinking. What would happen if she really was going to have a baby? What would she say? What would Steven do?

        Would it really be so terrible? Or would it be wonderful? Could he be wrong about his vehement stance against children? Would he warm to the idea eventually? - . - and would she? Would it interfere with her work? Permanently end her career, or could she just go on doing what she did, after a maternity leave? Other women did. It didn't seem like the end of the world to other people. They seemed to have babies and work, it wasn't so disastrous, or was it? She wasn't sure. And as she thought about it, Steven suddenly appeared beside her.

        "Done." He grinned.

        "The deal?" She looked stunned. She had been so lost in her own thoughts, he had startled her when he suddenly turned up standing next to her, and she was almost afraid he could hear her thoughts or guess what she was thinking.

        "No, I didn't make the deal yet. But Mike wants me to fly out to Chicago with him on Monday. We're going to have some very quiet meetings with them, discuss our philosophies, and theirs - And if everything goes all right, which it will, the following week I'll fly back out on my own and make the presentation."

        "Wow! Steven, that's fabulous!" And he looked as though he thought so too when she kissed him. He allowed himself to have two drinks and he was still beaming from ear to ear when he walked her out to the car when she left for work, and he told her he'd have someone drop him off at home. He told her not to bother to come back to the party after work because he didn't think he'd stay long.

        And as she drove off, he waved, and went back to see his host again.

        For Steven, it had been a fabulous evening.

        It had been less so for Adrian, and suddenly all she could think of, even in the midst of Steven's incredible opportunity, was whether or not she was pregnant. The idea tormented her all through the evening news, and she was still preoccupied on her way home, and then suddenly, with a quick swerve, she pulled into the curb and decided to stop at an all-night drugstore. Steven didn't have to know anything. She didn't have to say anything to him. But suddenly she wanted to know - - - and if not tonight - then sometime soon. If she bought the test now, she could do it anytime she felt brave enough. She could even do it while Steven was in Chicago.

        She bought the kit and had the druggist put it in a brown paper bag that she shoved deep into her tote bag, and then she got back in the Porsche again, and drove back to their apartment.

        Steven was home when she arrived, in bed, half asleep, but with a look of supreme bliss on his face. He was sure that he was on his way to Chicago to make the deal of a lifetime.
        #4
          Tố Tâm 19.05.2006 13:45:58 (permalink)
          CHAPTER 5.



          AND IN HIS CONDOMINIUM, STARING OUT the window into the darkness on Saturday night, William Thigpen looked anything but blissful. He had written for a while, bought Chinese takeout for himself, he had called his kids in New York, watched TV, and he was actually feeling rather lonely. It was one o'clock in the morning by then, and he decided to take a chance and call Sylvia in her room in Las Vegas. She might be back by then, and at worst, he could always leave a message. The phone rang half a dozen times, and when no one answered it, Bill waited for the message operator to come back on, and when he did, it was a man with a gravelly voice and he sounded half asleep and all he said was "Yeah?" as Bill waited.

          "I want to leave a message for the party in 402," Bill said crisply.

          "This is 402," the voice growled, "whaddya want?"

          "I must have the wrong room, I'm sorry - - -', and then suddenly he wondered.

          - - you expecting a call from somewhere?" The gravelly voice asked someone in the distance, and there were hushed exchanges with a hand over the phone, and then suddenly Sylvia was on the phone, sounding very nervous. She would have been smarter not to take the call, but she hadn't figured that out, and she knew it was probably Bill calling from L.A. "Hi - - - there's been a terrible mixup," she started to explain as Bill almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

          "They forgot to reserve half the rooms, and four of us are sharing."

          It was beautiful. It was a story worthy of his soap opera, and he was at the center of it, feeling as though he were watching someone else's life instead of his own.

          "This is ridiculous - - - Sylvia, what the hell is going on?" He sounded like the irate lover, but the odd thing was that he didn't feel it. He felt stupid and as though he'd been had, but the truth was he wasn't even angry.

          All he felt was dumb and disappointed.

          They'd had something pleasant for a while, but it was more than obvious now that it was over.

          "I - - - I'm really sorry, Bill - - - I can't explain it just now. But everything's gotten mixed up here - - - I - - -" She was crying and he felt like a complete fool just listening to her. He had caught her in the act and he was the one who wanted to apologize for being stupid.

          "Why don't we talk about it when you get back?"

          "Are you going to kick me off the show?"

          He felt sad for her as he listened. He wasn't that kind of man, and it hurt him that she didn't know that.

          "That has nothing to do with this, Sylvia. These are two separate issues."

          "Okay - - - I'm sorry - - - I'll be back Sunday night."

          "Have a good time," he said softly, and hung up. It was over. It should never have started, but it had, because he was lazy and she had been convenient, and so goddam sexy. She was a knockout, there was no denying it, and now she was knocking out someone else. And for a minute, Bill found himself hoping that the man with the gravelly voice made her happier than he had. He had very little to give the women in his life. He had too little time for them, and even less interest in getting hurt, and opening himself up to the kind of pain he'd had when he lost Leslie and his children. These arrangements were always easy, but they usually ended like this, or some similar scene. Someone wanted to move on, and the party ended. And he had known for a while that she had wanted something he couldn't give her. Time. Real
          devotion.

          Maybe even love. But all he had to offer was kindness and some fun, while it lasted.

          He thought about her for a while, as he stood looking out at the night sky, and then toasted her with a club soda, as he went to bed, thinking about his life. He felt lonely suddenly, and sad that it had ended like this, with a phone call to Las Vegas.

          He lay awake for a long time that night, thinking of the women in his life in recent years, of how little they had really meant to him, how uninvolved they all really were, how meaningless their relationships, how casual their sex lives, and as he fell asleep, he found himself thinking longingly of Leslie for the first time in years, and the kind of relationship they had once shared. It seemed like several lifetimes ago, and it was. He doubted if he'd ever have that again. Maybe you only had that once, when you were young. Maybe you never got a second chance at the real thing, and maybe in the end, it didn't matter.

          He fell asleep finally, thinking not of Sylvia or his ex--wife - - but of his boys, Adam and Tommy. In the end, they were all that mattered.
          #5
            Tố Tâm 20.05.2006 08:31:15 (permalink)
            CHAPTER 6.


            SUNDAY FLEW BY IN A FLURRY OF PREPAration for Steven's trip, interspersed with tennis games, and Adrian never touched the kit that sat hidden in her tote bag. She did his laundry for him, made lunch for him and the three friends he had played doubles with, and she said almost nothing to him, but he seemed not to notice. And that night, they went to a movie. She hardly heard anything that was said, and all she could think about, as they sat in the dark reading the subtitles on the Swedish film, was whether or not she was pregnant. It was crazy, in the past two days it had become an obsession with her, and yet she still wasn't that late. But for some reason, she had an odd premonition. She didn't feel sick and her body didn't seem to have changed, except in the ways it normally did when she expected her period. Her breasts were slightly enlarged, her body a little more bloated, she went to the bathroom a little more frequently, but none of it indicated any dire change. And yet, all she wanted now was for Steven to leave. She wanted him to leave the state so that she could find out in peace.

            She had to know, but she felt sure that if she did the test while he was around, somehow he would know what had happened. She didn't even dare do it after he had left for the airport on Monday. What if he came back? - - - if he had forgotten something - - - there she would be in her bathroom with a test tube full of bright blue water - . - if she was pregnant.

            She still didn't really believe it could have happened to her, they were very careful almost all the time, but there had been one time one time - - - almost three weeks before - - - three weeks - - - She thought about it all day while she was at work after Steven had left, and she rushed home after the six o'clock news, let herself into the house, ran upstairs, and set the kit up in her bathroom. She did everything it told her to do, and then she sat nervously, watching the alarm clock in her bedroom. She didn't even trust her wristwatch. If it turned blue, it meant - - - and it was a ten-minute wait - but
            within three minutes, the guessing game was over.

            It was not a question of degree, there was no need to ask herself if the liquid in the vial had changed, if perhaps - - - or maybe as she stared at it, it was so dark, and so bright, and so definite an answer that there was no question. She stood totally still, and then she sat down on the toilet lid to stare at the bright blue liquid in the vial.

            There was no doubt in her mind as she looked, she realized that no matter what Steven had or hadn't wanted, how careful they had been, or what they had said to each other over the years - - - in spite of all of that, as she sat staring at the vial, her eyes welling up slowly with unshed tears, there wasn't a moment's doubt. She was pregnant.

            The only real question in her mind was what Steven was going to say.

            She was sure he was going to make a fuss, but how big a fuss, and how serious would he be, and would he really mean it? Would he change his mind eventually? Would he readjust to the idea of a child after all?

            Surely he couldn't have meant all the awful things he had said in the last three years. Surely, one small child couldn't make such a terrible difference. She had known about the pregnancy for five minutes, maybe less, and it was already a baby to her, and she was already arguing for its life, and she was praying that Steven would let her keep it. He couldn't force her to get rid of it, after all. And why would he want her to anyway? He was a reasonable man, and it was his baby. She sat in her bathroom and closed her eyes, as tears of fear rolled slowly down her cheeks. What was she going to do now? She was at the same time happy and sad, and terrified of what to say to her husband. He had always jokingly said that if she ever got pregnant and decided to keep it, he would leave her. But surely he didn't mean it -- and if he did? - - - what would she do? She didn't want to lose him, of course, but how could she give up this baby?

            It was a hellish week for her, spent agonizing over what to say to Steven when he got home, and each time he called with more exciting news of his meetings with IMFAC, Adrian sounded more and more confused, more distant, more distracted, until finally on Thursday night, he asked her what was wrong. She was hardly making sense and he was sure she hadn't listened to anything he'd said. The meetings had gone brilliantly, and he was returning to Los Angeles the next day, but he
            was going back to Chicago the following Tuesday.

            "Adrian, are you okay?"

            "Why?" Everything stopped as she said the word. What did he mean?

            Did he know? But how could he?

            "I don't know. You've sounded funny all week. Are you feeling okay?"

            "I'm fine - - - no - - - actually, I've been having terrible headaches. I think it's just stress - - - from work - - -" And in fact she had felt queasy once or twice, which she was sure was her imagination. But the pregnancy wasn't. She was sure of that. She had even done the test again, just to be absolutely certain.

            Tears stung her eyes as she listened to him.

            She wanted him to come home now, so she could tell him. She wanted to get it over with, to be honest with him, so he could tell her everything would be okay, and she could relax and have their baby baby- - - it was amazing - - - in a matter of days, her whole life had turned around, and all she could think of was this baby. She had always been perfectly content to give up the prospect of having children, for him, and now suddenly she was willing to turn her whole life upside down for an unknown baby. She was willing to change their apartment, their lifestyle, her job if need be, give up their den, their quiet nights, their independent free-wheeling existence. She was still scared when she thought of it, still worried about what it would be like to finally be a mother, still desperately frightened that somehow she would make a botch of it, and yet in spite of all that, she knew she had to try it.

            She wanted to go to the airport to meet his plane on Friday night, but in the end she had to work late, and she didn't see him until she got back to the apartment. He was unpacking his bags and watching TV, the stereo was on, and the whole place had come to life again now that Steven was home from Chicago. He was humming to himself when she walked in and he smiled when he saw her.

            "Hi, there - - . where've you been?"

            "At work, as usual." She grinned nervously, and slowly she approached him, but when he put his arms around her, she held him close, as though she might drown if she left him for an instant.

            "Baby - - - what's wrong?" He had known something was wrong all week, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. She looked all right to him now, and then suddenly, with a feeling of dismay, he wondered if she might have been fired and was embarrassed to tell him. Maybe with his own job going so well, she was just afraid to say it. And it was such
            a good job, too, he was really going to be sorry for her if she lost it. "Is it work? Is - - -" He stopped when he saw the look in her eyes. He didn't know what it was, but he knew instantly that something serious had happened. He pulled her down on the bed next to him with his arm around her, wanting to offer her all the support he could. He could afford to now, his own life was going so well, and Mike had already told him that he would get a huge promotion if the agency
            actually landed IMFAC. "What is it?"

            Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him, and for a moment she couldn't bring herself to say the words. This should have been the happiest moment of their married life, and yet because of the things he had said to her in the past, this was instead their most frightening moment.

            "Were you fired?"

            She laughed through her tears as she shook her head at him. "No, unfortunately. Sometimes I think that might be a relief." But he didn't take her seriously. He knew how much she loved her job. It was a great job. He knew that.

            "Are you sick?"

            She shook her head more slowly this time, and her eyes locked on his with quiet desperation. "No, I'm not - -" And then she took a quick breath and prayed that he would accept it. "I'm pregnant."

            There was an endless silence in the room where she could hear her own heart pound and his breathing as he held her, and then suddenly he wrenched away and stood up to look down at her with quiet desperation.

            "You're not serious, are you, Adrian?"

            "Yes, I am." She had known it would be a shock to him. It had been a shock to her, too, but it had been an honest error.

            "Did you deceive me?"

            She shook her head solemnly. "No, I didn't. It just happened."

            "That's unfortunate." Something in his face turned to ice, and as Adrian looked at him, she felt awash with panic. "Are you sure?"

            "Absolutely."

            "That's too bad," he said quietly with a look of intense chagrin. "I'm sorry, Adrian. That's rotten luck."

            "I wouldn't exactly call it luck," she said.

            "We had a little something to do with it, you know."

            He nodded, feeling sorry for her, and himself. "I guess you'll have to take care of it next week." Her blood ran cold as she looked at him.

            It was that simple to him. take care of it. But it wasn't that simple for her any more as she stared at her husband.

            "What does that mean?"

            "You know what it means. We can't have a baby, for God's sake, you know that."

            "Why not? Is there something I don't know about? Some terrible hereditary disease, are we planning a trip to the moon? Is there some reason why we can't have a baby?"

            "Yes. A very good one." He looked adamant suddenly as they stood facing each other across their bedroom. "We agreed a long time ago that we didn't want to have kids. And I thought we both meant it."

            "But why not? There's no real reason why we can't have kids." She looked at him pleadingly. "We both have good jobs. We have a good life. We could support a baby easily on"

            "Do you have any idea how much children cost? Education, clothes, medical. And it wouldn't be fair to bring an unwanted child into our life. No, Adrian, it is not right." He looked terrified, even more so as he saw that he hadn't convinced her. She knew how extreme he was in his views because of the poverty of his own youth, but their life was entirely different.

            "Money isn't everything. We have time and love and a nice home and each other. What more do you need than that?"

            "The desire to have them," he said quietly, "and I don't have that. I never have. I don't want children, Adrian. I never have and I never will. I told you that before we got married, and if you turn on me now, I'm not going to stand still for it. You have to get rid of that - - -', He hesitated but only for an instant. "- - - the pregnancy."

            He refused to call it a baby.

            "And what if I don't want to?"

            "You'd be a fool if you didn't, Adrian. You have a shot at a great career yourself, if you set your mind to it, and there's no way you can do what you do and have a baby."

            "I can take a leave-of-absence for six months and then go back. A lot of women do it."

            "Yeah, and eventually they give up their careers, have two more kids and become housewives. And in the end, they hate themselves and their children for it." He was voicing the worst of her fears, but she still thought it was worth taking a chance and having the baby. She didn't want to give it up just because it was easier not having children.

            So what if they weren't millionaires? Why did everything have to be so goddam perfect?

            And why couldn't he understand what she was feeling?

            "I think we ought to think about it for a while, before we do anything drastic that we might both regret later." She had friends who had had abortions and hated themselves for it, and admittedly, others who hadn't. But Steven didn't agree with her.

            "Believe me, Adrian," he gentled his voice a little bit and took a step closer to her, "you won't regret it. When you think about it afterward, you'll be relieved. This thing could be a serious threat to our marriage." This "thing" was their baby. The baby she had come to love in the four days she had known of its existence.

            "We don't have to let it be a threat to our marriage." Tears started to fill her eyes as she leaned against him. "Steven, please don't make me do this - . - please. -"

            "I'm not making you do anything." He sounded annoyed as he walked around their bedroom like a caged animal.

            He felt threatened to his very core, and deeply frightened.

            "I'm just telling you that this is a rotten piece of luck, and a bit of insanity to even consider going through with it. Our lives are at stake. For God's sake, do what you have to."

            "Why do you have to see it that way? Why is a baby such a big threat?"

            She didn't understand why he felt so radical about it, she never had.

            He had always regarded children as if they were the threat of enemy invasion.

            "You have no idea what kids can do to your life, Adrian. I do. I saw it in my own family. My parents never had anything. My mother had one lousy pair of shoes, one pair of shoes for my entire childhood. She made everything she could and then we used it till it fell apart, or the clothes fell off our backs. We didn't have books or dolls or toys. We didn't have anything, except poverty and each other." She felt sorry, and it must have been terrible, but it had nothing to do with the reality of their lives, and somehow he refused to understand that.

            "I'm sorry that happened to you. But our children would never have to live like that. We both make healthy salaries and there's enough for us and a baby to live more than comfortably."

            "That's what you think. What about school? What about college? Do you have any idea what Stanford costs these days?" And then, like a forlorn child, "What about our trip to Europe? We wouldn't be able to do anything like that anymore. We'd have to give up everything. Are you really prepared to do that?"

            "I don't understand why you see it in such extremes. And even if we did have to make sacrifices, Steven, wouldn't it be worth it?"

            He didn't answer her, but his eyes said it all.

            They said clearly that to him it wouldn't.

            "And in any case, we're not talking about planning to have kids at some future date. We're talking about a baby that's already here. That's very different." To her it was, anyway, but not to him. That much was clear.

            "We are not talking about a baby. We are talking about a nothing. A spot of sperm that touched an egg the size of a microscopic dot, and that dot is a microscopic possibility of nothing. It's a question mark, a maybe, a possibility and nothing more, and it's a possibility we don't want. That's all you have to think about. All you have to do is go to your doctor and tell him you don't want it."

            "And then what?" She felt anger boiling up inside of her as she listened to him. "Then what, Steven? He just says, 'Okay Adrian, you don't want the baby, no problem, and he checks it off in the 'no' box on a little list? Not exactly. He pulls it out of me with a suction machine and scrapes my uterus with a scalpel, and he kills our baby. That's what he does, Steven. That's what 'tell him you don't want it' means. And the thing is, I do want it, and you need to think of that too. This isn't just my baby, it's yours too, it's our baby, whether you want it or not. And I'm not going to get rid of it just because you say so." She had started sobbing as she spoke to him, but Steven acted as though he didn't hear her.

            He was so terrified that all he could do was act like an ice man. He was literally frozen with terror. And Adrian was overwhelmed with anguish.

            "I see," he said icily as he looked at her with fresh distance. "Are you telling me you won't get rid of it?"

            "I'm not telling you anything yet. I'm just asking you to think about it, and I'm telling you that I'd like to keep it." She had surprised herself by admitting that she wanted it.

            And asking him to keep it made it sound as though they were talking about a puppy and not their child, and it horrified her.

            Steven nodded miserably, and took her hand and pulled her down on the bed next to him, and suddenly she could no longer control herself as he put his arms around her, and she went on sobbing.

            All the shock and fear and tension and excitement of it bubbled up inside of her and exploded over the sides until she couldn't stop crying anymore, and she lay in his arms and sobbed as he held her.

            "I'm sorry, baby - - - I'm sorry this happened to us - - - it'll be all right - - - you'll see - - - I'm sorry - - -" She wasn't even sure what he was saying to her, but she was glad he was holding her, and maybe he would change his mind after he thought about it for a little longer.

            She thought that he probably would, but it was so emotionally draining dealing with this resistance.

            "I'm sorry too," she said finally, and he wiped the tears from her eyes and kissed her.

            He began to stroke her hair then, and kissed the tears on her eyelashes and cheeks, and then slowly he undid her blouse, and slid her shorts and her underwear down past her ankles. She lay naked beside him and he lay admiring her. She had a beautiful body, and in his opinion defiling it with a baby would have been a crime. She would never have been the same again and he knew it.

            "I love you, Adrian," he said gently. He loved her too much to let her do something so desperately foolish. And he loved himself, and their life, and everything they had striven for and accomplished and acquired, and no one was ever going to jeopardize that, certainly not a baby.

            He kissed her longingly, and she kissed him in return, thinking that he understood how she felt finally, and they made love to each other, quietly and gently. It was a time of feeling close to each other and putting their argument aside, as each one hoped that the other would come to understand their side, and afterward they lay in each other's arms and kissed again, feeling much closer.

            It was the middle of the afternoon by the time they woke up the next day, and Steven suggested they take a swim, which they did, after they showered and had breakfast.

            Adrian was in a quiet mood, and she didn't say anything as they went out to the pool holding hands and feeling pensive. It was a pool shared by all the residents of the complex, but there was no one there today. It was a beautiful sunny May afternoon and people had gone to the beach, or to see friends, or they were just lying on their decks, out of sight, getting suntanned and most of the time, lying naked.

            Steven swam laps, while Adrian swam for a little while and then lay in the sun and dozed.

            She didn't want to talk about the baby anymore, not now. She was hoping that eventually he would calm down and adjust, now that he knew.

            It had been a big adjustment for her, too, and she knew it would be an even bigger one for Steven.

            "Ready to go in?" he asked finally, after five o'clock. They had barely spoken all afternoon and after their emotional debate of the night before, Adrian was still feeling exhausted.

            They went inside quietly and after Adrian showered, Steven put the stereo on, and they listened to UB40 while she made dinner.

            Adrian wanted to spend a quiet evening with him. They had a lot to think about, a lot to consider.

            "Are you okay?" he asked as she made pasta and a big green salad.

            "I'm okay. I'm just kind of tired," she said softly, and he nodded.

            "You'll feel better next week when you get it taken care of." She couldn't believe he had said what he just did, and she stared at him in amazement.

            "How can you say a thing like that?" She looked horrified, and she realized suddenly that he wasn't reconsidering at all. He was as adamant as ever.

            "Adrian, all it is right now is a physical problem. It's making you feel lousy, so fix it. That's all. You don't have to think of it as anything more than that."

            She couldn't believe how totally unemotional he was, how totally uninvolved with their baby.

            "That's disgusting. It's a lot more than that, and you know it." She hadn't planned to mention it again that night, but now that he'd brought it up, she was going to discuss it.

            "It's our baby for God's sake." Tears filled her eyes again and she hated herself for it.

            She didn't normally cry, but he was pushing her to extremes, with his casual attitude about her having an abortion. "I'm not going to do it," she suddenly said as she left their dinner on the kitchen counter, and hurried upstairs to their bedroom, and it was over an hour later when he finally came upstairs to continue the conversation. She was lying on the bed and he sat down next to her and spoke very softly.

            "Adrian, you have to have an abortion," he said calmly. "If you value our marriage. If you don't do it, it'll ruin everything." As far as she could see, it would ruin it either way. If she didn't have the baby, she would always feel the loss, and if she did, Steven might never forgive her.

            "I don't think I can." She spoke from deep in her pillow and she was being honest with him. The last thing she wanted was an abortion.

            "I don't think you can not. It'll destroy our marriage and cost you your job if you don't have the abortion."

            "I don't care about my job." And the truth was, compared to the baby she didn't. It was amazing how quickly the baby had come to be important to her.

            "Of course you care about your job." To Steven, it seemed as though overnight she had become a different person.

            "No, I don't - . - but I don't want to destroy us," she said sadly, turning over to face him.

            "I can tell you one thing I do know for sure, Adrian, and that is that I don't want a baby."

            "You might change your mind later. People do," she said hopefully, but he shook his head.

            "I don't. I don't want kids. I never have, never will, and you used to think that was all right too. Didn't you?"

            She hesitated and then admitted something to him she never had before.

            "I thought that maybe eventually - - - you might change your mind one day. I mean - . - if we really never had kids, then I suppose it would be all right. But in a case like this - - - I thought maybe - I don't know, Steven. I didn't ask for this. But now that it's here, how can you just sweep it from our lives without a second thought?" It was awful.

            "Because the quality of our lives will be better if I do, and you're a lot more important to me than a baby."

            "There's room for both," she pleaded, but he shook his head.

            "Not in my life there isn't. There's room for you and no one else. And I don't want to compete with a baby for your attention. I don't think my parents said more than two words to each other in twenty years. They never had the time or the energy or the emotion. They were drained. There was nothing left of them when we grew up. They were like two used, finished, old dead people. Is that what you want?"

            "One baby isn't going to do that," she said softly, pleading with him again, and clearly getting nowhere.

            "I'm not willing to risk it, Adrian." he said, looking down at her.

            "Get rid of it." His voice trembled as he spoke to her, and he went back downstairs for a long time, just to get away from her, and the threat of the baby she carried within her.

            She thought about it for a long time as she waited for Steven to come back upstairs, and she knew that if she gave up this baby, an important part of her very soul would be lost forever.
            #6
              Tố Tâm 20.05.2006 08:51:17 (permalink)
              CHAPTER 7.



              SUNDAY AND MONDAY WERE A NIGHTmare of arguments and recriminations between the two of them, and at six in the morning on Tuesday before Steven left, Adrian finally collapsed in hysterical sobs and agreed to do anything he wanted. She hadn't been to work in two days, and she didn't want to lose the husband she loved, even if it meant giving up
              their baby. She promised to take care of the abortion while he was gone, and that day all she did was lie in bed and sob until she went to see the doctor at four-thirty.

              She had lain in bed all that afternoon with a feeling of dread that grew to blind terror by the time she was dressed, and she wanted to run away from all of it as she hurried out of the apartment. She wanted to run away from what was happening to her, from what she had to do, from what Steven expected of her, and what she felt she owed him if she valued their marriage.

              "Adrian," the nurse called as she stood up, looking very nervous. She had worn black slacks and a black turtleneck shirt and black shoes, and with her white skin and dark hair, she looked unusually somber.

              She led Adrian into a small room and told her to get undressed from the waist down and put on a gown. She had been there before but it had all seemed less ominous the other times when she'd been there for birth control advice or her annual checkups.

              She sat on the exam table in her black silk shirt, with the blue paper gown covering the rest of her, and her bare feet tucked under her, and she looked like a little girl, as she tried to keep her mind off why she was there and what was going to happen. She kept reminding herself that she was doing this for Steven because she loved him.

              The doctor came in finally, and he smiled as he glanced at her chart and recognized her.

              She was a nice girl, and he had always liked her.

              "What can I do for you today, Mrs. Townsend?" He was a pleasant old-fashioned man, about the age of her own father.

              "I - - -" She couldn't bring herself to say the words, and her eyes looked huge in her pale face as he watched her. "I came here - - - for an abortion." The words drifted away, spoken so softly, he could barely hear them.

              "I see." He sat down on a small revolving stool, and glanced at her chart. She was married, thirty-one, in good health, none of it added up. Maybe the baby wasn't her husband's. "Any special reason?"

              She nodded painfully. Everything about her told him that she didn't want to be there.

              The way she was curled up on the table, as though to protect herself from him, the way she shrank backward every time he went near her, the way she spoke, barely able to say the words. He had seen a lot of women in stress, women who would have done anything to get rid of babies they didn't want, but this girl was not one of them. He was willing to bet she didn't really want an abortion.

              "My husband doesn't feel this is the right time for us to have children."

              The doctor nodded again, as though he understood perfectly. "Is there any reason why he feels that way now, Adrian? Is he out of work? Is there a health problem?" He was looking for why this girl was there, and without a good reason he was not going to do the abortion. Legal or not, he still had a moral responsibility to his patients. But she was shaking her head to all of his questions.

              "No, he just - . - he just doesn't feel this is the right time for children."

              "Does he want children at all?" She hesitated, and then shook her head as her eyes brimmed with tears.

              "No." It was the merest whisper. "I don't really think so- He was one of five children, and he had a very unhappy childhood. It's hard for him to understand that things could ever be different."

              "I should think they could be. You have a fine job, and I suppose he must be fairly stable. Do you think he might change his mind in time?"

              She shook her head sadly as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and the doctor was quick to tell her something that he suspected might make her a little less nervous.

              "I'm not going to perform an abortion today, Adrian." He had switched to her first name as soon as he understood the gravity of the problem.

              This was no time for formality, she needed a friend, and he wanted to help her.

              "First, I want to make sure that you really are pregnant, and there isn't a mistake. Have you had a pregnancy test?" He assumed that she had or she wouldn't be there.

              "Yes. I did it at home. Twice. And I'm two weeks late."

              "That would make you four weeks pregnant the way we calculate it. And I'm sure you are, but we'll just check to see in a moment. And after that, I'd like you to go home and think about this, just to be sure. If you still feel you want to terminate the pregnancy after that, you can come back tomorrow. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

              She nodded, feeling both hysterical and numb.

              She felt as though the emotional trauma she was going through was going to kill her. But the doctor was gentle and kind, he confirmed what she already knew, told her to go home and think and try to talk it over again with her husband. He felt that since she felt so strongly about not wanting to abort, surely her husband would come around if she explained it to him. What he did not take into account was the fact that Steven was rabid on the subject. And when he called her that
              night, he sounded clearly annoyed that she hadn't already had the abortion.

              "Why the hell didn't he do it today, for chrissake? What's the point of waiting?"

              "He wants us to think about it before we do anything drastic. And maybe that's not such a bad idea." The realization of what she was going to do left her with a crushing feeling of depression. "When are you coming back?" she asked anxiously, but he seemed not to hear the panic in her voice as she asked him.

              "Not till Friday. And Mike and I are playing tennis on Saturday morning. Maybe you and Nancy can join us afterward for a set of doubles." She couldn't believe what he was saying to her, either he was completely insensitive, or just plain stupid.

              "I'm not sure I'll be playing tennis by then." The sarcasm in her voice was both obvious and brutal.

              "Oh, that's right . - - I forgot." In ten seconds? How could he forget so soon? How could he let her do it in the first place?

              "I think you should be thinking this over again too. Steven, it's not just my baby, it's yours too." But she could feel the walls go up even as she said the words.

              "I told you how I feel about it, Adrian. I don't want to discuss it anymore. Just take care of it, dammit. I don't understand why you have to wait until tomorrow." She didn't answer him, crushed by the brutality of what he was saying. It was as though the baby was threatening him, and she had betrayed him by letting it happen, and now she had to fix it at all cost, no matter what it did to her to do that.

              "I'll call you tomorrow night." Adrian caught her breath as the tears stung her eyes.

              "Why? Just to make sure I did it?" Her heart felt as though it were breaking as she said good-bye to him, thinking that in a few hours it would be too late to save their baby.

              And she lay in bed awake all night, crying and thinking of this child she would never know. The child she was sacrificing for her husband.

              She was still awake when the sun came up the next day, and she felt as though she were waiting for an execution. She had taken the week off from work, and all she had to do now was get back to the doctor's office and force herself to have the abortion.

              As she dressed, she kept telling herself that at the last minute Steven would call and tell her not to do it. But he didn't. The house was still silent as she left and drove away in sandals, a denim skirt, and an old work shirt.

              And she arrived at the doctor's at nine o'clock, as she'd been told to, if she decided to go through with the abortion. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since the night before in case they had to administer an anesthetic. She was trembling and pale as she drove the MG along Wilshire Boulevard, and she arrived at the doctor's office five minutes early. She told the nurse that she was there, and sat down in the waiting room with her eyes closed, and a feeling in her
              heart that she knew she would never forget for the rest of her life, and for the first time in her life, she knew that she hated Steven.

              She had a frantic urge to call him, to find him wherever he was, and tell him he had to change his mind, but she knew that it was pointless.

              The nurse stood in the doorway and called her name, and smiled at her as she led her down the hallway. She put her in a slightly larger room, and this time she told her to take all her clothes off, put on the blue gown, and lie on the table. There was an ominous-looking machine standing by, and Adrian knew that it was the vacuum. She felt her throat go dry, and her lips seemed to stick together like dampened tissue paper. All she wanted was to get it over with and go home and
              try to forget about it, and she knew that for the rest of her life she would never again let herself get pregnant. And yet, part of her still wanted to keep this baby. It was insane, she was using all her inner strength just to get rid of it, and part of her still wanted to hold on to it no matter what happened or what Steven said, or how neurotic he was about his childhood.

              "Adrian?" The doctor popped his head around the door, and looked at her with a gentle smile. "Are you all right?" She nodded, but no words came to mind as she stared at him in ill-concealed terror. He walked into the room, closed the door and spoke to her firmly. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

              She nodded again as tears sprang to her eyes, and then shook her head honestly. She was so confused and so terrified and so unhappy, and she didn't want to be here at all. She wanted to be at home with Steven, waiting for their baby. "You don't have to do this. You shouldn't do it if you don't want to. Your husband will adjust. A lot of husbands
              make a fuss like this at first, and they're the ones who are the most excited when the baby comes. I want you to really think about this before you do it."

              "I can't," she croaked. "I just can't." She was sobbing openly as she sat on the table. "I can't do it."

              "Neither can I." He smiled. "Go home, and tell your husband to buy himself a cigar and save it till, oh - - -" He checked her chart again.

              "- - - I'd say the beginning of January, and then we'll give him a nice fat baby. How does that sound to you, Adrian?"

              "It sounds lovely." She smiled through her tears and the kindly old doctor put an arm around her shoulders.

              "Go home, Adrian. Have a good rest, and a good cry. It'll be all right. It's going to be just fine. And so will your husband." He patted her shoulder then, and left the room so she could get dressed and go home, with her baby.

              She smiled to herself as she dressed, and she cried, and she felt as though something wonderful had happened. She had been spared, and she wasn't even sure why, except that her doctor had been smart enough to know that she just couldn't do it.

              She started to drive home, and she decided suddenly to go to the office instead. She felt better than she had in days, and she wanted to go to work and lose herself in the piles of papers on her desk. She drove to the studio with the wind blowing in her hair, and she took a deep breath and smiled to herself. Life was suddenly so sweet, and she was going to have a baby.

              She walked into her office with a spring in her step but feeling as though she had run a ten-mile race. It had not exactly been an easy morning, or an easy few days, and she still had to deal with Steven when he got back from Chicago. But at least now she knew what she was doing. She felt more relaxed than she had in days and the crushing feeling of depression seemed to have lifted.

              "Hi, Adrian." Zelda stuck her head in the door halfway through the morning. "Everything okay?"

              "Fine. Why?" Adrian was looking distracted with a pencil stuck behind each ear, and it was unusual for her to come to work in old clothes and no makeup.

              "Well, to be honest, you don't look so hot. You look as though you've been through the wringer," and she had. "Are you feeling okay?" Zelda was more observant than Adrian had realized.

              She was right. Things had been pretty awful.

              "I had the flu." She smiled, grateful that Zelda had noticed. "But I'm okay now."

              "I thought you were taking the week off."

              She was looking at her intently, as though deciding whether or not to believe her when she said she was all right. But she seemed happy as she sat industriously amid the debris in her office.

              "I decided I missed all this too much."

              "You're nuts." Zelda smiled at her.

              "Probably. Want to go out later for a sandwich?"

              "Sure. I'd love to."

              "Come by whenever you're ready."

              "I'll do that." She disappeared again then, and Adrian went back to work, feeling better than she had in days. The idea of a baby still scared her a little bit, but it was something she thought she could get used to. It was better than the alternative. She knew she couldn't have lived with that, and she still resented Steven for trying to force her to do it. She wondered how they would ever recover from the emotional bruises they had inflicted on each other in the past few days, or if they would ever forget it. She went back to work then, and tried not to think about him.

              She would have to think of what she was going to say to him later.
              #7
                YenMy 26.05.2006 17:55:22 (permalink)
                Cảm ơn tỷ tỷ nhiều nhiều, YM mê truyện của Danielle Steel dể sợ luôn. Tỷ Tỷ gắng post sớm sớm một chút nha.
                YM
                #8
                  Tố Tâm 27.05.2006 00:35:39 (permalink)
                  Welcome YenMy ghé qua đây đọc truyện chung với TT nha. Dạo này hơi busy nên để mọi người chờ TT sẽ post típ để các bạn cùng đọc this weekend ha
                  #9
                    Tố Tâm 27.05.2006 01:05:45 (permalink)
                    CHAPTER 8.



                    AND IN A STUDIO JUST DOWN THE HALL, Bill Thigpen was sitting on a stool, talking to the director and groaning.

                    "What the hell do I know where she is?

                    She checked out of her hotel room a week ago. I don't know who she's with. I don't know where she's gone. She's a grown woman and it's none of my business - - - until she starts screwing up my show. Now it's my business, but I still don't know where the hell she's gone to."

                    Sylvia Stewart had not come back from Las Vegas the previous Sunday night. She had checked out of her room there on Monday morning, exactly nine days before, the hotel said, but she still hadn't come back to work, and feeling awkward about it, Bill had gone to her apartment to check, and she hadn't been back there either.

                    They had written alternate scripts for the past week, but it was getting pretty desperate without her.

                    And in a few more days they would have to replace her. And Bill had just said as much to the director. By not calling in to at least explain to them what was going on, she was in clear violation of her contract.

                    "If she doesn't turn up before tomorrow's show, you've got to get me someone else," Bill was saying to the director and one of the assistant producers. They had already called one of the agencies earlier that day, but it wasn't going to be easy to replace her without upsetting their viewers.

                    "Did everyone get the new material today?" the director asked, frowning at what Bill had just handed him. It was a whole new plot and it was obvious that Bill had the working night and day in Sylvia's fable. It was a heroic piece of work, and it make the story afloat while she was gone.

                    There were so many dramas occurring on the show at the same time that so far it seemed plausible that Vaughn Williams had not been seen for nine days, but barely. She was still in jail, being held for the murder of the man her brother-in-law had killed nine days before, on a Friday.

                    Bill stayed in the studio till they went on the air, and watched the entire show, satisfied that everyone was handling the new plot turns and the new script well, and when it was over, after congratulating everyone, he went back to his office. It was half an hour later when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, and told him there was someone to see him.

                    "Anyone I know? Or are we going to keep it a secret?" He was tired from his long nights of work, but he was pleased that things were going well. It was mostly due, he felt, to a tremendous cast, two terrific writers, and an outstanding director. "Who is it, Betsey?"

                    There was a long pause. "It's Miss Stewart."

                    "Our Miss Stewart? The Miss Stewart we've looked for all over the state of Nevada?" He raised his eyebrows with interest.

                    "The one and only."

                    "Please show her in. I can hardly wait to see her."

                    Sylvia walked in the moment Betsey opened the door. She came in like a frightened child, and she looked more beautiful than ever. Her long black hair hung down her back like Snow White's, and her eyes looking at him remorsefully seemed enormous. Bill stood up as she walked into the room, and stared at her as though he had just seen a vision.

                    "Where the hell have you been?" he asked ominously. And for a moment she didn't know what to expect, so she started to cry as she watched him. "We've been going crazy, calling all over Las Vegas. The kids from My House said they left you with some guy. We were going to call the Nevada police and report you missing." He had been genuinely worried about her for the past week, frightened by what might have happened to her.

                    She let out a sob and sat down on the couch as he handed her some tissues. "I'm sorry."

                    "You should be. A lot of people were worried about you." It was like talking to a child, and he was suddenly relieved that in at least one way she was no longer his problem.

                    "Where were you?" Not that it really mattered now, as long as she was back, and unharmed. That was what had worried him.

                    Some nasty things had been known to happen in Las Vegas. Particularly to girls who looked like Sylvia Stewart. Especially when they slept with strangers.

                    But she was staring at him now, and started to cry again. "I got married."

                    "You got what?" For once, he looked stunned. He had suspected everything but that as he had tried to figure out what might have happened to her. "To whom? The guy in your room the other night?"

                    She nodded and blew her nose again. "He's in the garment industry. From New Jersey."

                    "Oh my God." Bill sat down heavily next to her on the couch, wondering if he had ever known her. "What ever made you do something like that?"

                    "I don't know. I just - - - you always work so hard - . - and I've been so lonely."

                    Christ. She was twenty-three years old, drop-dead gorgeous, and she was crying about being lonely. Half the women in America would have given their right arm and more to look like her, and she had married a clothing manufacturer she didn't even know, and had spent a weekend with in Las Vegas. And Bill was suddenly wondering if it was his fault.

                    Maybe if he hadn't neglected her, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in the show - - - it was a familiar refrain. In some ways, the chorus went all the way back to Leslie. But was he responsible for all of them? Was it really his fault? Why couldn't they adjust to the way he lived? Why did they have to run off and do something crazy? And now this foolish girl had married a total stranger. Bill looked at her in amazement.

                    "What are you going to do now, Sylvia?"

                    He could hardly wait to hear.

                    "I don't know. Move to New Jersey next week, I guess. His name is Stanley, and he has to be back in Newark by Tuesday."

                    "I don't believe this." Bill laid his head back against the couch and started to laugh, and in a minute, he couldn't stop laughing.

                    Betsey could even hear him from her desk outside his office, and she was relieved that he wasn't shouting. He seldom did, but she had figured that Sylvia's disappearance might just do it to him. "You and Stanley have to be back in Newark by Tuesday - - - is that it?"

                    "Well - - -" She looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Sort of. Except that I know I have a contract to do the show for another season." The truth was that she had figured he would kick her off the show after calling the other night, and in a panic she had married Stanley. She had no idea what she was getting, and yet he had been very sweet to her, and he had bought her a rather handsome diamond ring in Las Vegas, and promised to take care of her once they got to Newark. He had promised to get her a great modeling job, and if she wanted to she could do acting jobs in New York, like maybe even on commercials or the soaps there. It was a whole new horizon opening up for her, and in some ways being married to a man in the garment industry in Newark wasn't a total miscast for Sylvia Stewart. "What am I going to do about my contract?"

                    She looked pleadingly at Bill and he almost started to laugh again.

                    It was all so absurd, he almost couldn't stand it. It was impossible to take it seriously. It was life imitating art in the extreme, and he wasn't crazy enough not to see the humor in it.

                    "You know what you're going to do about your contract, Sylvia? You're going to give me two more days, today and tomorrow, on the set, for old times' sake, and we're going to kill you off in the most dramatic scene you've ever seen on Friday. And after that, you're free to go. You can go home to Newark with Stanley and have ten babies as long as you
                    name the first one after me. I'm releasing you from your contract."

                    "You are?" She looked astounded, and he grinned at her in amusement.

                    "Yes, I am. Because I'm a nice guy, and I gave you a hard time by working my ass off and not paying enough attention to you. I owe you, sweetheart. And this is the time." He was just grateful she had turned up at all. It was going to allow them to tie it all up neatly. John was going to kill Vaughn on the show, because she had seen him murder the pusher. And the saga could continue from there, ad infinitum.

                    "I'm sorry, baby," he said to her gently then, and he meant it. "I guess I'm not much of a catch these days. Never was, in fact. I'm married to this show."

                    "It's okay." Sylvia looked at him almost shyly. "You're not too mad at me? - - - for doing what I did - . - for getting married, I mean."

                    "Not if you'll be happy." And he meant it.

                    Her arrangement with Bill had been a passing thing, and they both knew it. It meant very little to either of them, as she had proven by spending the weekend with a stranger in Vegas, and Bill suspected correctly that that was exactly why she had gone there.

                    "Do I get to kiss the bride?" He stood up, and she stood up, too, still astounded that he had let her off so easily. She had expected him to be furious and to kick her off the show without releasing her from her contract. It would make it a lot easier for her to get work in New York if he let her go this way. And she turned toward him now, ready for a passionate embrace, for old times' sake, but he kissed her gently on the cheek, and for an instant, he knew he was going to miss her.

                    There had been a sweetness about her he liked, a kindnesses and they had had fun together. She was familiar to him, and they were good friends, and now he was alone again. But it would be easier not to be involved with someone on the show. It was a mistake he wouldn't make again, a form of extreme self-indulgence. There was no woman in his life, and for the moment he wasn't even sure if he minded. "What are you going to do about your stuff at my place?"

                    "I guess I'd better pick it up." She had forgotten all about that.

                    There wasn't much, but there was about a suitcase worth of clothes she had left in his closet.

                    "Want to go get it now?"

                    "Sure. I have to meet Stanley at the Beverly Wilshire at four o'clock. But I have plenty of time." There was something else implied in her voice, but he pretended not to notice. It was over for him now. She had done what she'd done and he bore her no malice, but he no longer wanted her either.

                    He left his office with her, and he was sure that everyone thought they were going back to his place for a quickie. But he only laughed and drove her to his apartment and helped her throw all her things into boxes. And then he drove her back to her apartment.

                    "Want to come up?" She looked at him sadly for a minute as she took the last of her boxes out of his woody, but he only shook his head.

                    And a moment later, he drove off, and that chapter in his life was over.
                    #10
                      Tố Tâm 27.05.2006 01:29:12 (permalink)
                      CHAPTER 8.



                      WHEN ADRIAN GOT HOME AFTER THE SIX o'clock news, the phone was ringing, and she grabbed it just as the message on her answering machine went on. She spoke into the phone hurriedly, turned off the machine, and answered, still juggling her handbag and the newspaper, and some things she'd bought at the drugstore on the way home, and everything stopped
                      when she heard his voice. It was Steven.

                      "Are you all right?" He sounded anxious and tense, and she instantly realized why.

                      "I've been calling you all afternoon. Why didn't you answer the phone?" He had been desperately worried about her all day and he had been calling since noon and only getting the machine. He was frantic by seven o'clock when she finally got in, and it had never dawned on him to call her office. Nor had she wanted to call him. She needed time to think about telling him she hadn't had the abortion.

                      "I wasn't here," she said almost remorsefully, realizing that she had to make a quick shift of gears. She had come to terms with everything that was going on in their lives early that morning. But he had no idea what she'd done, and he still assumed that she had had the abortion.

                      "Where were you? Did they keep you at the doctor's all day? Did something go wrong?" He sounded frantic and she felt sorry for him, but she was also angry. He had been willing to let her go through with the abortion all alone, and he had tried to tell her it was no big deal, which it was, or would have been. And now she was still mad at him for it.

                      "Nothing went wrong." There was a long pause, an endless silence, and she decided to tell him right away and not lead him on. "I didn't do it."

                      There was an instant of silent disbelief and then he exploded into the phone. "What? Why not? Was something wrong with you that he couldn't?"

                      "Yes," she said quietly as she sat down. She felt very old suddenly, and very tired, the emotions she had repressed all day suddenly rushed back at her and she felt drained as she listened to her husband.

                      "Something was wrong. I didn't want to do it."

                      "So you chickened out?" He sounded horrified, and now he was furious, too, which upset her even more and made her even more angry.

                      "If you want to put it that way. I decided I wanted to have our child. Most people would be flattered by that, or pleased, or something a little more human." But they both knew he wasn't human on this subject.

                      "I don't happen to be one of them, Adrian. I'm not touched - - - or flattered - - I think you're a fool. And I think you're doing it to try to get at me in some way, but I've got news for you, I'm not going to let you do it."

                      "What are you talking about? You sound like a crazy person. This isn't a vendetta, for chrissake - - - it's a baby . - - you know, small person, made by you and me, blue and pink, cries occasionally. Most people can adjust to that, they don't act as though their lives are being threatened by a Mafia hit man."

                      "Adrian, I'm not amused by your sense of humor."

                      "And I am even less so by your sense of values. What is wrong with you? How could you leave me like this and just expect me to go out and get an abortion? It isn't the minor procedure you think it is, it isn't 'nothing. It's something. It's a big something - - - and one of the reasons I didn't want to do it is because I love you."

                      "That's bullshit and you know it." He sounded threatened and cornered and extremely frightened by everything she had just said to him, and Adrian realized they weren't going to solve it on the phone, and possibly not even in the near future. He was just going to have to calm down, and see that the baby wasn't going to ruin his life. But first, they were both going to have to stop being angry.

                      "Why don't we talk about this calmly when you come home?" she said sensibly, but he was irate now.

                      "There's nothing to talk about. Unless you come to your senses and get an abortion. I'm not going to discuss anything with you until you do. Is that clear?" He was screaming at her in the phone and he sounded like a madman.

                      "Steven, stop it! Get a grip on yourself!"

                      She spoke to him like a child who was out of control, but he was beyond being able to calm down. In his hotel room in Chicago, he was shaking with fury.

                      "Don't tell me what to do, Adrian. You betrayed me!"

                      "I did not betray you." She almost laughed, he sounded so absurd, but the truth was, it wasn't funny. "It was an accident. I don't know how it happened or whose fault it was. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm not blaming you, or myself, or anyone. I just want to have the baby."

                      "You're out of your mind, and you don't know what you're talking about." He sounded like someone she didn't know, as she closed her eyes and tried to stay calm.

                      "At least I'm not hysterical. Why don't you just forget about it and we'll talk about it when you get home."

                      "I have nothing more to say to you, until you take care of it."

                      "What's that supposed to mean?" She opened her eyes again. There was something odd in his voice that she had never heard before, a kind of chill that frightened her, and she had to remind herself that this was only Steven.

                      "It means exactly what it sounds like. It's me or the baby. Get rid of it. Now. Adrian, I want you to go back to the doctor tomorrow and get an abortion." A hand clutched her heart for a moment, and she wondered if he was serious, but she knew that he couldn't be.

                      He couldn't make her choose between the baby or him, that was insane.

                      And she knew he couldn't mean it.

                      "Sweetheart - - - please - - - don't be like this - - - I can't go back - - - I can't - I just can't do it."

                      "You have to." He sounded as though he were near tears and she wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him and tell him it was going to be all right. And one day, after the baby was born, he would laugh about how upset he had been at the beginning. But right now it was all he could think of. "Adrian, I don't want a baby."

                      "You don't have one yet. Why don't you just relax, and forget about it for a couple of days." She was feeling exhausted, but calmer about it ever since she had made her decision.

                      "I'm not going to relax until you get rid of it. I want you to have an abortion." She sat there in silence, listening to him, for the first time in almost three years unable to give him what he wanted. Unable, and unwilling to, which upset him even more. And she just couldn't promise him that she would do as he told her.

                      "Steven - - - please - - -" Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes again, for the first time since that morning. "I can't. Can't you un-understand that?"

                      "All I understand is what you're doing to me. You are viciously and maliciously refusing to consider my feelings." He remembered only too well hearing how depressed his father got every time his mother had gotten pregnant again. He had held down two jobs for years, and finally he had three, until finally, mercifully, he was practically dead of cirrhosis. And by then all the children were gone anyway, and his life was over. "You don't care how I feel, Adrian. You don't give a damn about me. All you want is your god-dam baby." He was crying now, and Adrian wondered what she had done. She just didn't understand it. He had said he might be willing to have children eventually, when they were "well set," but he had never said he hated them, he had never told her he absolutely wouldn't have them. "Well, you can have your baby, Adrian. You can have it - but you can't have me - - -" he sobbed into the phone, and she was crying too as she listened.

                      "Steven, please. - - -" But as she said the words he hung up, and the phone went dead as she held it. She couldn't believe how upset he had been, how frantic, and for the next two hours she tortured herself wondering if she should have the abortion. If it meant that much to him, if it threatened him so deeply, what right did she have to force him to have the baby? And yet what right did she have to kill the baby because a grown man couldn't cope with the prospect of being a
                      father?

                      Steven could adjust, he could learn to handle it, he would discover eventually that she didn't love him any less, perhaps she would love him more, and his life would not be over.

                      She couldn't give the baby up, she reminded herself. She remembered again what it had been like going to the doctor and preparing to have the abortion, and she knew she just couldn't do it. She was going to have their baby, and Steven was just going to have to accept it. She would take full responsibility for it, all he had to do was sit back and relax and not let it make him completely crazy.

                      She was still telling herself that when she drove back to work at eleven o'clock. And when she got home after midnight she played back her machine to see if he had called, but he hadn't. And she was still upset about it the next day when she went to work and called his office and asked what plane he was coming in on, and it was perfect. He was due in at two o'clock, and she would have plenty of time to go to the airport and pick him up, and hopefully by that night everyone would
                      have calmed down, and life could begin to get back to normal. As normal as it was going to be for a while anyway. Sooner or later they were going to have to make the ordinary adjustments to the fact that she was pregnant, the way other couples did, buying bassinets and building nurseries, and getting ready for their babies. Just the thought of it made her smile as she went back to work and forced herself not to think of Steven.




                      Everyone stood on the set and watched Sylvia get killed that afternoon.

                      John visited her in jail, pretending to be her lawyer.

                      "Vaughn" appeared to be utterly amazed when she saw him, and moments later, unseen by the guard who had left them alone in a holding cell, he had his hands around her neck, and she was dead. She made wonderful sounds as John strangled her. It was a great scene, and Bill was enormously pleased with all of them as he watched it. And then the
                      moment came to say good-bye to Sylvia after they were off the air, and suddenly everyone was crying. She had been on the show for a year, and they were all going to miss her. She had been easy to work with, and even the other women liked her. The director had ordered champagne and they handed Bill a paper cup too, as he stood on the sidelines and
                      watched as the soap opera seemed to become real, and Stanley stood there watching them all and feeling awkward. Eventually, Bill tried to slip away, but Sylvia saw him before he went and she went over to him quietly and said something no one else could hear, and he smiled and raised his glass to her, and then turned and raised it to Stanley.

                      "Good luck, you two. Have a great life in New Jersey. And don't forget to write," he teased Sylvia, and kissed her on the cheek as she started to cry again, knowing that she was taking a tremendous chance on Stanley. He had rented a white stretch limousine to take them from the studio to the airport. They were taking the red-eye to Newark that night, and her bags were already packed and in the car. She had already given up her apartment.

                      She looked longingly at Bill as he left the set, and without looking back, he returned to his office. It had been a long week for him, but everything had ended well finally and he was actually going to take the weekend off, and take it easy. And as Bill drove home right after the show, Adrian was on the way to the airport. All she could think of was what she was going to say to Steven.


                      All Adrian saw as she watched Steven get off the plane was the look in his eyes when he saw her. He walked straight toward her without saying a word, his eyes full of hostility and questions.

                      "Why did you come here?" he shot at her, still furious after their conversation the night before.

                      "I wanted to pick you up," she answered gently. She tried to take his briefcase from him, to give him a hand, but he wouldn't let her.

                      "You didn't need to do that. I'd rather you hadn't."

                      "Come on, Steven - - - be fair - "

                      "Fair?" He stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the airport. "Fair? You're asking me to be fair? After what you're doing to me?"

                      "I'm not doing anything to you. I'm trying to do my best to cope with something that happened. It happened to both of us. And I just don't think it's fair to make me do something so upsetting."

                      "What you're doing is a lot worse." He started walking toward the exit as she followed him, wondering where he was going.

                      She had left her car in the garage, and he was heading for the taxis.

                      "Steven, where are you going?" He was already outside the terminal, and he had just pulled open the door of a taxi. "What are you doing?"

                      She was suddenly starting to panic.

                      He was acting like someone she didn't know.

                      And she was frightened by what it all meant.

                      She couldn't understand it. "Steven" The driver was watching them with obvious irritation.

                      "I'm going back to the apartment. - "So am I. That's why I came to the airport."

                      "- - to pick up my things. I rented a studio in a hotel until you come to your senses."

                      He was blackmailing her. He was leaving her until she got rid of the baby.

                      "For chrissake - - - Steven - - - please - -"

                      But he slammed the door in her face, locked it, and gave the driver the address, and a moment later the cab pulled away from the curb and left her standing there, staring at them in disbelief, wondering where her life was going.

                      She couldn't believe what he was doing to her or that he would actually leave her. But when she got to the apartment, he had already packed three suitcases, two tennis rackets, his golf clubs, and a whole other suitcase full of papers.

                      "I don't believe you're doing this." She stared around her in utter disbelief. "You can't be serious."

                      "I am," he said coolly. "Very much so. Take as long as you want to make up your mind, you can call me at the
                      office. I'll be back when you get rid of the baby."

                      "And if I don't?"

                      "I'll come back for the rest of my things when you let me know."

                      "Simple as that?" Something deep inside her was beginning to burn, but another part of her wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but the terror didn't show as she looked at her husband. "You're behaving like a complete lunatic. I hope you know that."

                      "I'm not aware of that. And as far as I'm concerned you have violated any basis of trust and decency in this marriage."

                      "By having our baby?"

                      "By going against something you know I feel deeply about." He sounded so uptight and so prim, she wanted to hit him.

                      "All right. I'm human. I changed. But I think we can do this. We have a lot to offer any child. And I think anyone else would think so, too, by any normal standards."

                      "I don't want a child."

                      "And I don't want an abortion just because you think you don't like children and you don't want it to interfere with your trip to Europe."

                      "That's a low blow." He looked highly insulted. "The trip to Europe has nothing to do with it. It's the entire picture. This baby will deprive us of a life-style we've worked our asses off for, and I'm not willing to give that up on a whim, or because you're too scared to get an abortion."

                      "I'm not too scared, goddammit," she screamed at him, "I want the baby. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

                      "All I've figured out is that you're doing this because you want to get at me." In his eyes, it was the final treason, the ultimate betrayal.

                      "Why would I do a thing like that?" she asked as he checked his closet again, to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything he wanted.

                      "I don't know," he responded. "I haven't figured that out yet."

                      "And you're really telling me that if I keep the baby, you're leaving me for good?" He nodded and looked her in the eye as he did, and all Adrian could do was shake her head, and sit down on the steps to the upstairs as he carried his bags out. "You're really leaving me, aren't you?" She started to cry again, and she sat on the stairs watching him wrestle with his bags, unable to believe he was really leaving her, but he was. After two and a half years of marriage, he was walking out on her because she was having his baby. It was difficult to believe, harder still to understand, but as she stared at him in disbelief, he carried the last of his suitcases to the car and came back to look at her from the doorway.

                      "Let me know what you decide." His eyes were like ice, his face perfectly calm as she sobbed and walked toward him.

                      "Please don't do this to me - - - I'll be good - - - I promise - - - I won't even let it cry - - - Steven, please - - - don't make me give it up - . - and don't leave me - . - I need you. . - "She clung to him like a child and he took a step back as though she revolted him, and it only made her feel more panicked.

                      "Get hold of yourself, Adrian. You have a choice in this. It's up to you"

                      "No it's not." She was crying almost uncontrollably. "You're asking me to do something I can't do."

                      "You can do anything you want," he said coolly to her, and she turned on him then with a look of anger.

                      "So can you. You can adjust to it if you want to."

                      "That's the whole point," he said as he looked down at her, "I already told you, Adrian, I don't want to." He picked up his tennis rackets then, and with a last look at her, without another word, he closed the door behind him, as Adrian stood staring at the spot where he had been.

                      It was hard to believe he had actually done this to her. He had left her.
                      #11
                        Tố Tâm 27.05.2006 02:25:25 (permalink)
                        CHAPTER 9.

                        THERE WAS NO SMELL OF BACON WHEN SHE awoke this Saturday morning. No breakfast tray waiting for her. No omelet made by loving hands. There were no good smells, good sounds, friendly noises. There was nothing.

                        Only silence. She was alone. And the realization hit her like a weight on her heart almost as soon as she woke up. She stirred in the bed, looking for him, and then just as suddenly she remembered. Steven had left her.

                        She had called in sick for the late news the night before. She had been too upset to go anywhere, and she had just lain on her bed and cried until she finally fell asleep with the lights on. She had woken up again at three a.m peeled off her clothes, turned off the lights, and put on her nightgown, and now as she woke up, she felt like an alcoholic waking up from a two-week hinge. Her eyes were swollen, her mouth was dry, her stomach was in her throat, and her whole body felt
                        battered. It had been a hell of a night, a hell of a week. In fact, it had been a miserable ten days ever since she had discovered she was pregnant. And she still had the choice he had given her. She could still have the abortion and he would come back, but if she did, what would they have now? Mutual resentment and anger and eventually hatred. She knew that if she gave up the baby for him, she would eventually hate him, and if she didn't, he would always resent her. In
                        one little week, they had managed to destroy what she had always considered a fairly decent marriage.

                        She lay in bed for a long time, thinking of him, and wondering what had made him do it. Obviously his memories of his childhood had been far worse than she had ever realized, and he had been truly traumatized, not just turned off, by the prospect of having children. It was not something that was going to change overnight, or maybe ever. And he would have had to want to change it very badly, which he didn't.

                        The phone rang then, and for a desperate moment, she prayed that it was Steven. He had come to his senses, changed his mind - - - he wanted her - - - and the baby. She picked it up with a hopeful croak, and a crestfallen look. It was her mother. She called once every few months and Adrian never enjoyed speaking to her anymore. Their conversations
                        had always centered around her sister's glowing deeds, which, as far as Adrian was concerned, were few, and unpleasant references to Steven.

                        Most of all, her mother made not-so-veiled comments about Adrian's many failings. She hadn't called, hadn't come home for Christmas in years, had forgotten her father's birthday, her parents' anniversary, had moved to California, married someone they didn't like, and had compounded it by failing to have children. At least her mother had given up asking her if she and Steven had seen a doctor.

                        Adrian assured her now that everything was fine, wished her a belated happy Mother's Day from the week before, realizing that she had failed yet again, and told her mother that she'd been working so hard, she'd forgotten what day it was. Not to mention the fact that she had her own problems.

                        "How's Dad?" she managed to ask, only to be told that he was getting old, but that her brother-in-law had just bought a new Cadillac and what kind of car did Steven drive anyway? A Porsche? What was that?

                        Oh, a foreign car, and did Adrian still drive that ridiculous little car she'd had in college? Her mother admitted to being shocked that Steven didn't buy her a decent car. Her sister had two cars now. A Mustang, and a Volvo.

                        It was a conversation designed to irritate in every possible way, and it did. Adrian only said that everything was fine, and Steven was out playing tennis. It would have been nice having a mother she could talk to, someone whose shoulder she could cry on, someone who could bolster her spirits. But her mother was only interested in keeping score, and when she'd heard enough she told Adrian to give Steven her "best," and hung up without offering any comfort.

                        The phone rang again after that, but this time, Adrian didn't answer.

                        She listened to her answering machine afterward, and discovered that it had been Zelda, but she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to her either. She wanted to be alone to lick her wounds, and the only person she really wanted to talk to was Steven. But he didn't call all day, and that night, Adrian sat alone, wearing his bathrobe and huddled in front of the television, feeling sorry for herself, and crying.

                        The phone rang again then, and she grabbed it without thinking. It was Zelda calling from work to ask her something, and she was quick to guess that something was wrong. Adrian sounded awful.

                        "Are you sick?"

                        "More or less - - -" she muttered, wishing she hadn't answered. She answered Zelda's questions about work and then Zelda seemed to hesitate, wanting to ask her again if she was all right. Lately she had sensed that Adrian was troubled.

                        "Is there anything I can do for you, Adrian?"

                        "No - - - I - - -" Adrian was touched by her question. "I'm okay."

                        Zelda's voice was kind at the other end.

                        "You don't sound it." And at her end, just listening to her, Adrian was crying.

                        "Yeah," she sniffed loudly into the phone, feeling foolish for falling apart so suddenly, but she just couldn't keep up the pretense anymore.

                        It was all too hard, and too awful now that he had left her. She still couldn't believe he would do such a thing, and she wished that someone were there just to put his arms around her. "I guess I'm not okay after all." She laughed through her tears, choking on a sob, and Zelda couldn't help wondering what had happened. And then, Adrian decided to
                        tell her. There was no one else to say anything to, and she and Zelda had always felt a comfortable rapport in the years they had worked together. "Steven and I - - - he - - - we - - - he left me"
                        The last words were barely more than a squeak while she started to cry all over again, and Zelda felt sorry for her. She knew how rough those things were. She had been through it before, which is why she only went out with young boys now. She wanted some fun, and some good times, but no more heartbreak and no headaches.

                        "I'm sorry, Adrian. I really am. Is there anything I can do?"

                        Adrian shook her head as the tears coursed down her cheeks. "No, I'll be okay." But when - - - and would he come back? She was praying that he'd come to his senses.

                        "Sure you will." Zelda encouraged her.

                        "You know, no matter how much we think we can't live without them, we always can. Six months from now, you may even be glad that this happened." But Zelda's words only made her cry harder.

                        "I doubt that."

                        "Wait and see." She spoke convincingly, but Adrian knew something she didn't. "Six months from now you may be having a hot romance with someone else you haven't even met yet."

                        And then suddenly, at her words, Adrian started to laugh. The image was comical at best. In six months, she would be more than seven months pregnant. "I doubt that." She blew her nose again and then sighed.

                        "How can you be so sure?"

                        And then Adrian looked serious again.

                        "Because I'm having a baby." There was a moment's silence at the other end as Zelda absorbed what she had just said, and then there was a long, low whistle.

                        "That certainly puts a different light on things. Does he know?"

                        Adrian hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. She needed to talk to someone, and Zelda was smart and wise, and Adrian knew she could trust her. "That's why he left. He doesn't want kids."

                        "He'll come back." Zelda sounded confident then. "He's just reacting. He's probably just scared." She was right. He was terrified, but Adrian wasn't totally convinced that he would ever come to his senses.

                        She wanted him to, she wanted that more than anything, but it was hard to tell what he would do. He was the same man who had walked out on his family, and never looked back. In fact, she was certain that he'd never even missed them.

                        Once he made up his mind, he was capable of severing a bond he had once cherished, if it suited his purpose.

                        "I hope you're right." Adrian sighed again, her breath catching on the remains of a sob, like a child who's been crying. And then she thought of something. "Don't say anything to anyone at work." She was far from ready to announce it. She wanted to settle things with Steven first. It would be simpler if he came back and things calmed down before she told anyone that she was having a baby, and she didn't want to get them nervous at work about whether or not she'd be leaving.

                        "I won't say a thing," Zelda was quick to reassure her. "What are you going to do? Quit or take a leave?"

                        "I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet. Take a leave, I guess." But what if Steven was gone? What if she was alone? How was she going to work and manage a baby? She hadn't even begun to figure that out yet. But whatever it took, she knew that she was going to do it.

                        "You've got time. And you're right. Don't say anything. You'll just get them nervous."

                        And she had a good job, maybe even a great one. It was a job Zelda wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole, it had too much responsibility and too many headaches, but she knew that Adrian was good at it, and she had always thought that she liked it. In truth, the job had been Steven's idea, but Adrian had enjoyed it, too, even though she still longed at times for something a little more esoteric.

                        Working with the news day after day was brutal sometimes, and they all knew it could be very depressing. They were too close to the horrors that man committed against man, and the tragedies inflicted by nature, and there was seldom an instance when they were cheered by a happy story. But there was the satisfaction of doing a job well, and Adrian did. They all knew that. "Just take it easy, Adrian. Try not to let all this bullshit get to you. The job will sort itself out eventually, the baby will come when it's ready to, and Steven will probably be back in two days with an armful of red roses and a present, wanting to pretend he never left you."

                        "I hope you're right." And as she hung up a few minutes later, so did Zelda. She wasn't sure what Steven would do. She had met him several times, and been impressed by him, but in her heart of hearts, she had never liked him. There was something cold and calculating about the man. He looked right through you, as though anxious to move on to someone else, and she had never thought he was as warm and decent as Adrian. There was something about Adrian that she had liked the minute she met her. And she was sorry for her now. It was rough being pregnant and having her husband walk out on her. It wasn't fair, Zelda fumed, and she didn't deserve it.

                        She didn't, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't do anything to make him come back, or change his mind. And later that night Adrian sat in front of the TV, blinded by tears and crying. She fell asleep on the couch finally, and it was four o'clock when she woke up to the somber strains of the national anthem. She clicked off the TV, and turned over on the couch. She didn't want to go upstairs to their empty bed. It was just too depressing. And in the morning she
                        woke up, as the first rays of sun streamed in through the windows. She could hear the birds chirping outside, and it was a beautiful day, but she felt as though there were an elephant sitting on her heart as she lay on the couch and thought about Steven. Why was he doing this to her? And to himself? Why was he depriving them both of something that had so much meaning? It was strange how after resigning herself to never having kids, now suddenly she was willing to sacrifice
                        every-thing for this one. It was all strange, she thought to herself as she got up slowly, and sat on the couch, feeling as though she had been beaten by midgets. Every inch of her body hurt, and her eyes felt swollen from all the crying she'd done the night before. And when she went to the bathroom a minute later, she groaned when she looked in the mirror.

                        "No wonder he left you," she muttered at the image she saw, and tears filled her eyes again as she laughed. It was hopeless. All she did was cry. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then she brushed her hair and put on jeans and an old sweater of Steven's. It was a way of staying close to him. She could wear his clothes if she couldn't have him.

                        She made herself a piece of toast reluctantly, and she warmed coffee from the left-overs of the day before. It tasted awful, but she didn't really care. She only had a sip and then she sat staring into space, thinking of him again, and why he had left her. Her mind seemed to have only one theme, and when the phone rang, she jumped a foot, and ran to pick it up, breathless and excited - - - he was coming home - he had to be. Who else would call at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning?

                        But when she answered it, the voice was Chinese, and he hung up as soon as he heard her. It was a wrong number.

                        She dragged around the apartment for the next hour, picking things up and putting them down, sorting out laundry, but most of it was his, and she started to cry again when she saw it. Nothing was easy to deal with anymore. Everything hurt, everything was a reminder of what had happened, and just being in the apartment without him suddenly seemed too painful. By nine o'clock she couldn't stand it anymore, and she decided to take a walk. She didn't know where to go, but she just wanted to go somewhere and get some air, and get away from his clothes and their things and the empty rooms that made her feel even more lonely. She picked up her keys, and closed the door behind her, walking toward the front of the complex. She hadn't picked up her mail in two days and she didn't really care. But it was something to do while she went out walking. She stopped at their mailbox and leaned against the wall, flipping through bills, and two letters for Steven.

                        There was nothing for her, and she put it all back in the box, and walked slowly out to her car, thinking that maybe she'd go for a drive.

                        She had left her car at the front of the complex the day before, and she noticed an old woody station wagon parked next to it, and as she approached she saw a man taking a bicycle out of it. He was hot and damp, and he looked as though he had been out for an early morning ride, as he turned and looked at her. He seemed to stare at her for a long moment, as though searching his mind, and then he smiled, and remembered exactly where he had seen her. He had a fantastic memory for things like that, useless details, faces he had once seen, and names of people he would never meet again. He didn't know hers because he had never known her name, but he remembered instantly that she was the pretty girl he had seen in the Safeway weeks before. And he remembered also that she was married.

                        "Hi, there," He set his bicycle down next to her, and she found herself looking into blue eyes that were direct and warm and friendly. She guessed him to be about forty or forty-one, and he had friendly, happy-looking little lines next to his eyes. He looked like someone who enjoyed his life and was at ease with himself and the people around him.

                        "Hello." Her voice seemed very small, and he noticed that she looked a little different than she had several weeks before. She looked tired and pale, and he wondered if she'd been working too hard, or maybe she'd been sick.

                        And she seemed subdued, like someone who'd been through a lot. She had seemed bouncier somehow at the grocery store in the middle of the night, but in any case, she was still beautiful, and he was happy to see her.

                        "Do you live here?" He found himself wanting to talk to her, to find out something about her. It was odd that their paths had crossed again. Maybe their destinies were entwined, he teased himself, as he admired her.

                        He would have liked nothing better, except, of course, he reminded himself silently as he smiled at her, that that would also mean having his destiny entwined with her husband's.

                        "Yes, we do." She smiled quietly. "We live in one of the town houses at the other end. I don't usually park here. But I've seen your car here before. It's great." She had admired it frequently, never knowing whom it belonged to.

                        "Thanks, I love it. I've seen yours here too," now that he realized it was hers. He had always liked the battered little MG whenever he noticed it, and now he realized that he had seen her at the complex once before, from the distance. She had been with a tall, handsome man with dark hair, and they had driven off in something boring like a Mercedes, or a Porsche. And he realized as he thought of it that that was probably her husband. They had made a handsome pair, but she'd made a much greater impression on him when he'd seen her alone at the Safeway. But women alone were more likely to spark some interest in him than handsome young couples. "It's nice to see you again," he said, feeling suddenly awkward with her, and then he laughed at himself. "Doesn't it make you feel like a kid again when you run into people like this? - - - Hi - - - I'm Bill - - - what's your name? - - - Gee, do you go to school here?"

                        He put on a schoolboy voice and they both laughed because he was right.

                        Married or not, she was a beautiful girl, and he was a man, and it was obvious to both of them that he liked her. "Which reminds me." He held a hand out to her, still holding on to his mountain bike with his other hand. "I'm Bill Thigpen, and we met about two weeks ago at the Safeway, around midnight. I tried to run you down with my cart and you dropped about fourteen rolls of paper towels."

                        She smiled at the memory and held her hand out to him. "I'm Adrian Townsend."

                        She shook his hand with a small, solemn smile, thinking how odd it was to run into him again. She remembered him now, although only vaguely.

                        And her whole life had changed since then. Everything - . - Hi, I'm Adrian Townsend, and my whole life has fallen apart - - - my husband left me and I'm having a baby. - - - "It's nice to see you again."

                        She was trying to be polite, but her eyes still looked so sad. Just looking at her made him want to put his arms around her. "Where do you ride your bike?" She struggled for something to say to him, he seemed to want to keep on talking.

                        "Oh - - - here and there - - - I drove down to Malibu this morning. It was really beautiful. Sometimes I just go down there to walk on the beach and clear my head if I've been working all night."

                        "Do you do that a lot?" She tried to sound interested, although she wasn't sure why. She just knew that he seemed like a nice guy and he was friendly and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. And there was something about him that made her just want to stand there, close to him, and talk about nothing. It was as though, standing near him, she would be safe for a little while, and nothing else terrible could happen to her. He had that kind of feeling about him, like someone who could take care of things, and as she spoke to him, he was intently watching her eyes. Something had happened to her in the past few weeks.

                        He was sure of it. He had no idea what, but she had changed. She looked bruised. From within. And it made him sad for her.

                        "Yeah - - - I work late sometimes. Very late. And you? Do you always buy your groceries at midnight?" he laughed at the question, but in fact she did, whenever she'd forgotten to buy something earlier. She liked shopping after the eve-rung news. She was relaxed but still wide awake from work, and the store was always empty. "Yes, sometimes I do.
                        I finish work at eleven-thirty. I work on the late news and the six o'clock. It's a good hour to go shopping."

                        He looked amused. "What network are you with?" She told him and he laughed again.

                        Maybe their destinies really were entwined.

                        "You know, we also work in the same building." Although he had never seen her there, his show was shot some three floors from her office.

                        "I work on a soap opera about three floors from the newsroom."

                        "That's funny." She was amused by the coincidence, too, although less encouraged by it than he was. "Which show?"

                        'A Life Worth Living." He said it noncommittally, trying not to give away the fact that A Life was his baby.

                        "That's a good one. I used to love watching it between jobs, before I went to work on the news."

                        "How long have you been there?" He was intrigued by her, and he loved standing there next to her. He could almost imagine that he smelled the shampoo in her hair. She looked so clean and bright and decent, and he suddenly found himself wondering stupid things, like whether or not she wore perfume, and if she did, what kind and if he'd like it.

                        "Three years," she answered him about how long she'd worked on the news. "I used to do specials, and two-hour movies. I'm in production. But then I got this chance to work on the news - - -" Her voice drifted off as though she still wasn't sure of it, and he wondered why.

                        "Do you like it?"

                        "Sometimes. It's pretty grim sometimes, and it gets to me." She shrugged as though apologizing for some intrinsic weakness.

                        "It would get to me too. I don't think I could do it. I'd much rather make it all up - - - murder and rape and incest. The good wholesome stuff America loves." He grinned again and leaned on his bike as she laughed and for an instant, barely more than that, she looked carefree and happy, the way she had the first time he'd seen her.

                        "Are you a writer?" She wasn't sure why she was asking him, but it was easy to talk to him and she had nothing else to do early on this Sunday morning.

                        "Yes, I am," he answered her. "But I don't write the show very often anymore. I just kibitz from the sidelines." She hadn't figured out that he was the originator of the show and he didn't want to tell her.

                        "It must be fun. I used to want to write, a long time ago, but I'm better at the production end." Or at least that was what Steven said, but as soon as she thought of him, her eyes got sad again, and as he watched her, Bill saw it.

                        "I'll bet you'd be fine at it, if you tried it. Most people think writing is a big mystery, like math, but it really isn't." But as he talked to her, he could almost see her drift away, back into her initial sadness. And for an instant, neither of them spoke as he watched her, and then she shook her head, forcing herself to think about writing again, to keep her mind off Steven.

                        "I don't think I could write." She looked at him so sadly then, he wanted to reach out to her and touch her.

                        "Maybe you should try it. It's a tremendous release sometimes - - -" for whatever all that is, roaming around inside you and making you sad."

                        He sent all his good thoughts to her, but he couldn't say anything.

                        They were strangers, after all, and he could hardly ask her what it was that was making her so unhappy.

                        She opened her car door then, and looked back up at him before she got into the MG. It was almost as though she was sorry to leave him, but she didn't know what else to say to him. The small talk was wearing thin, and she thought she should move on, but she didn't really want to. "See you again some-time - - -" she said quietly as he nodded.

                        "I hope so." He smiled, defying her wedding band, which was rare for him, but she was a rare girl. Without even knowing her, he knew that.

                        And as she drove away, he stood holding his mountain bike and watched her.
                        #12
                          Tố Tâm 27.05.2006 06:23:13 (permalink)
                          CHAPTER 10.

                          STEVEN CALLED HER AT HOME FINALLY two days later before she left for work. By then, she was desperate to hear from him, and her spirits soared when she heard his voice, and then plummeted when he told her he needed his other razor.

                          "If you bring it in to work today, I'll pick it up sometime before work tomorrow morning. My good one just broke."

                          "I'm sorry to hear that." She tried to sound up, so he wouldn't know how depressed she had been. "How's the rest of you?"

                          "Fine." He sounded cool. "You?"

                          "I'm okay. I miss you."

                          "Apparently not enough. Unless something's happened I don't know about." He went right back to the same point. There was no compromise, no change, no sign of his relenting, and Adrian wondered suddenly if Zelda was wrong, and their marriage was actually over. It was difficult to believe, but so was his moving out because of the baby.

                          "I'm sorry you still feel that way, Steven. Do you want to come over this weekend and talk?"

                          "There's nothing to talk about, unless you've changed your mind." It was almost childish the way he kept insisting that she get an abortion, "or else."

                          "So now what? We live like this forever and I send you an announcement when the baby is born?" She was being facetious, but he wasn't.

                          "Maybe so- I thought we should wait awhile, to see if you feel any differently in the next few weeks. And if you decide to - - - to go ahead - - then I'll start looking for an apartment."

                          "You're serious, aren't you?" She still couldn't believe it.

                          "I am. And I think you know that. You know me well enough to know that I'm not going to play games for long, Adrian. Make up your mind and let me know so we can both get on with our lives. This isn't healthy for either of us." She couldn't believe it. He wanted to be notified as soon as possible so he could start dating and look for an apartment.

                          She just couldn't believe it.

                          "It certainly isn't healthy. And it will certainly be interesting to explain to your son or daughter." But the barb didn't hit its mark.

                          He didn't seem to care what she told them.

                          "Why don't we let it rest for a few weeks and you can let me know how you feel by then. I'm going to New York next week, and back to Chicago after that. In fact, I'm going to be traveling a lot in the next few weeks. Why don't we leave it until mid-June. That gives you a month to figure out what you want to do." She wanted to kill herself, that was what she wanted to do - - - or kill him - she didn't want to wait until June while he decided whether or not he wanted to divorce her.

                          "You're really ready to throw away two and half years over a temper tantrum?"

                          "Is that all you think it is? Then you don't understand very much, do you, Adrian? It's a question of life's goals, and yours and mine are apparently very different."

                          "You're right, I'm not willing to sell my soul, or my child, for a new stereo and a trip to Europe. This isn't a game show we're talking about. This is our lives, and our child. I keep saying that to you, but I don't really think you hear me."

                          "I hear you, Adrian. But I don't agree with what you're saying. I'll talk to you in a few weeks." And then, "Call me if you have a change of heart in the meantime."

                          "How will I find you?" And what if there was an emergency or if she needed him? He was still her next of kin on all her papers.

                          That made her feel panicky too. Everything did. She felt totally abandoned.

                          "Call my office, they'll know where I am."

                          "Lucky them," she said sarcastically.

                          "Don't forget my razor."

                          "Yeah - - - sure - - -" He hung up then and she sat in her kitchen for a long time, thinking of what he had said, and wondering if she'd ever known him. She was beginning to doubt it.

                          She brought the razor to the office that day and the next day it was gone. He had picked it up that night and hadn't left so much as a note for her, but she didn't say anything about it to anyone. Not even Zelda. And she hadn't told anyone at work that Steven had left her.

                          It was too embarrassing. And when they got back together in a few weeks, it would be less awkward if no one had known he'd been gone, except Zelda.

                          And when Zelda heard about the call, she assured Adrian that he would come to his senses in no time.

                          But in the meantime, the weekends were endless. He didn't call, and suddenly Adrian realized that she was so used to being with him that she didn't know what to do without him anymore. And Zelda had her own life to lead. She had a new twenty-four-year-old boyfriend, who was a model. And as concerned as she was about Adrian, she was busy with her own life, and Adrian didn't want to be a bother.

                          It was quiet while Adrian knew Steven was away, and in some ways it was restful. She stopped expecting to hear from him, or to run into him.

                          She didn't lie in bed hoping he'd come to the apartment to pick something up, or turn up in her office to tell her that he'd been a fool and he was desperately sorry. She knew he was back in Chicago by then, and she hadn't heard from him in weeks, but maybe when he came back, they could finally sort things out and get back to the business of living.

                          In the meantime, she felt as though every-thing was on hold. She worked, she ate, she slept, she didn't go anywhere, she didn't go out.

                          She didn't even go to a movie. She'd been back to see the doctor once, and he told her the pregnancy was progressing well, and everything was normal. Everything except the fact that her husband had left her, she thought to herself. But she was relieved that the baby was all right.

                          It had come to mean everything to her now, it was all she had left one tiny little being to love - - - a being who wasn't even born yet.

                          She got so lonely once or twice, she was even tempted to call her parents, but she resisted the urge, and she had lunch at work with Zelda from time to time. At least she knew, and Adrian could talk about the baby.

                          She ran into Bill Thigpen at work, too, and now that they had officially met, they seemed to run into each other everywhere, in the elevator, the parking lot, and they had even run into each other again at the Safeway. She had run into him at the apartment complex, too, and he didn't tell her he had seen her husband leaving their town house several weeks before with a staggering amount of luggage.

                          He knew he had to be going somewhere but he didn't ask where, and Adrian didn't mention it when they saw each other at the pool.

                          Instead they talked for a long time about favorite books and movies they had loved, and he told her about his children. It was obvious that he was crazy about them and she was touched by the way he spoke about them.

                          "They must be very important to you."

                          "They are. They're the best thing in my life." He smiled at Adrian, admiring her as she put on more suntan oil. She looked happier than she had when he'd run into her before, and somehow more peaceful, but she still seemed very quiet. He wondered if she was always like that, or if she was just a little shy with strangers.

                          "You don't have kids, do you?" He assumed she hadn't, because he had never seen any with her, and she hadn't mentioned it, and she would have surely said something if she had children. Most people in the complex didn't. There were a few couples with newborns, but usually they moved out and bought larger homes after they had babies.

                          "No." She seemed to hesitate and he looked at her, wondering if there was more to the story. "No, we don't. I - - - we we've both been pretty busy working."

                          He nodded, wondering what it would really be like to be friends with her. He hadn't been friends with a woman in a purely platonic way in a very long time, and in an odd way, there were times when she reminded him of Leslie. She had the same kind of seriousness and intensity, the same decent values about many things. And Bill found himself wondering
                          more than once if he would like her husband. Maybe they could all be friends.

                          All he had to do was forget that he thought she was sensational-looking and had a really sexy body.

                          He forced himself to look into her eyes then and discuss her future in the newsroom.

                          It was one way to forget how she looked in her bathing suit, and the fact that he would have given anything to lean over and kiss her.

                          "When is your husband coming back?" he asked conversationally, and she looked startled by the question. She hadn't known that Bill knew he was gone. Maybe she'd said something, she thought, as she wondered.

                          "Pretty soon," she said quietly. "He's in Chicago." And when he came back, they were going to try and settle, once and for all, the matter of their marriage. It was no small thing, and she was both dreading his return and looking forward to it. She was dying to see him, but she was also dreading telling him that she had had no change of heart about the baby. The baby was part of her now, and it was going to stay that way, until it was born.

                          And she knew Steven wasn't going to be happy to hear it.

                          She heard from Steven finally the second Monday in June, at nine o'clock, almost the moment she got to the office. Her secretary said he was on the line, and she pounced on it. She had waited almost a month for his call, and there were tears in her eyes when she heard his voice, she was so happy. But he didn't sound friendly. He asked how she was, and seemed to be asking pointedly about her health. She knew what he wanted to know and she decided to face it squarely.

                          "Steven, I'm still pregnant, and I'm going to stay that way."

                          "I thought so," and then, "I'm sorry to hear that." It was a cruel thing for him to say but it was honest. "You haven't changed your mind, then?"

                          She shook her head as the tears spilled from her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. "No, I haven't. But I'd love to see you."

                          "I don't think that's such a good idea. It'll just confuse both of us." Why was he so afraid of her? Why was he doing this? She still didn't understand it.

                          "What's a little confusion between friends?" She laughed through her tears, and tried to keep things light, but they just weren't.

                          "I'll move my things out in the next few weeks. I'll start looking for an apartment."

                          "Why? Why are you doing this? Why don't you come home for a while? Just try it." They had never had a problem getting along, never had fights, never had a problem adjusting when they were first married.

                          Just this. Their baby. And suddenly it was all over.

                          "There's no point torturing ourselves, Adrian. You've made your decision, now let's just do our best to pick up the pieces and move on." He acted as though she had betrayed him, as though the fault was all hers and he had been decent and reasonable. She wondered if he was actually going to call a lawyer. "What do you want to do about the condo?" Their town house? What did he mean, what did she want to do with it? She was going to live there while she had their baby.

                          "I was planning to live there, do you have any objection?"

                          "Not now. But I will eventually. We should both get our money out of it, and then we can each buy something else, unless you want to buy my half from me," but they both knew she couldn't afford it.

                          "How soon do you want me to move?" He was putting her out on the street, and all because she was pregnant.

                          "There's no rush. I'll let you know if I want to make any moves in that direction. For the moment, I just want to rent." How nice. How wonderful for him. She felt sick as she listened to him. There was no fooling herself anymore. He was leaving her. It was over.

                          Unless afterward - - - after the baby was born, he came back and realized how wrong he had been. There was always some small hope of that. She wouldn't believe he was really gone until he had seen their baby and then told her he didn't want it. She was willing to wait until then, no matter how neurotic he got in the meantime. And even if he divorced her, they could always get remarried later.

                          "Do whatever you want," she said calmly.

                          "I'll be by to get my things this weekend."

                          In the end, he came the following week because he'd had the flu, and Adrian watched mournfully as he packed everything he owned into boxes.

                          It took him hours to pack it all, and he had rented a small truck that he'd brought with him, and a friend from the office to help him load it. And it was embarrassing for her just being there. She had been so happy to see him at first, but he had been cool and maintained his distance.

                          She went out for the afternoon when they loaded the truck and she just stayed in her car and drove so she didn't have to watch, or say goodbye to him again. She couldn't stand the pain of it anymore, and he seemed anxious to avoid her.

                          She went home after six o'clock, and she saw that the truck was gone.

                          She let herself in, and her breath caught as she looked around. When he had said he was going to "take everything," he had meant it. He had taken everything that was technically his, everything he had owned before, and everything he had paid for, or given her even some of the money for, since they'd been married. She started to cry without meaning to. The couch and chairs were gone, the cocktail table, the stereo, the breakfast table, the kitchen chairs, every single thing
                          that had once hung on the walls. There was not a single chair in the living room, and when she went upstairs the only thing left in the bedroom was their bed.

                          All her clothes from the chest of drawers had been carefully folded and put in boxes. The chest itself was gone, as were all the lamps and the comfortable leather contour chair.

                          All his toys and gadgets and devices. She no longer owned a television set, and when she went into the bathroom to blow her nose, she found that he had even taken her toothbrush.

                          She started to laugh at the absurdity of it then. It was insane. He had taken everything.

                          She had nothing left. It was all gone. All she had left was her bed and her clothes, the living room rug, a few odds and ends, which he'd carefully left on the floor, and the set of china she'd had when they were married, most of which was now broken.

                          There had been no discussion, no argument, no conversation about what belonged to whom, or who wanted what. He had simply taken all of it, because he had paid for most of it, and because he felt it was his and he had a right to. As she walked through the ownstairs rooms again, she reached into the refrigerator for something to drink, and found that he had taken all the sodas. She started to laugh again then.

                          There was nothing else she could do. And she was still looking around in amazement when the phone rang. It was Zelda.

                          "What's up?"

                          "Not much." Adrian looked around her ruefully. "In fact, absolutely nothing."

                          "What does that mean?" But she wasn't worried this time. Adrian sounded better than she had in a long time. She almost sounded happy for once. But she wasn't. She was just beyond being depressed anymore. It had all gone too far, and maybe all she could do was laugh now.

                          "Attila the Hun has been here. Plundering and looting."

                          "You've been robbed?" Zelda sounded horrified.

                          "You could call it that, I guess." Adrian laughed and sat down on the floor next to the phone. Life had become very simple. "Steven picked up the rest of his things today. He left me the rug and the bed, and he took everything else, including my toothbrush."

                          "Oh, my God. How could you let him do that?"

                          "What do you think I should have done? Gone after him with a shotgun? What am I supposed to do, fight for every dishtowel and hairpin? To hell with it. If he wants it all, he can have it." And if he ever came back, which she suspected he might one day, he would bring it all back anyway, not that it really mattered. She was beyond fighting over coffee tables and couches.

                          "Do you need anything?" Zelda asked sincerely, and Adrian could only laugh.

                          "Sure. Do you happen to have a vanload of tables and chairs, a couple of dozen dishes, some tablecloths, a chest of drawers, some towels oh, and don't forget a tooth-brush."

                          "I'm serious."

                          "So am I. It doesn't matter, Zelda. He wants to sell this place anyway." Zelda couldn't believe it, neither could Adrian. He had taken everything. But she had kept the only thing that mattered to her. Their baby.

                          She was in surprisingly good spirits in spite of everything and it was only the next day that it hit her. She lay by the pool for a long time, thinking of him, and wondering how their life had managed to fall apart so quickly. Something must have been wrong from the start, something essential must have always been missing, in him perhaps, if not in their marriage. She thought of the parents and siblings he had walked out on years before, the friend he had betrayed, with never a
                          look back. Maybe there was a part of him that just didn't know how to love. Otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for everything to fall apart the way it had. It just couldn't have - . - but it had. In a matter of weeks, their marriage had ended. It depressed her to think about it now, but she had to face the fact that he was gone. She had to make a new life for herself, but she couldn't even begin to imagine how. She was thirty-one years old, she had been married for two and a
                          half years, and she was pregnant. She was hardly dating material, and she didn't want to go out with anyone anyway. She didn't even want to admit to anyone that Steven had left her. She kept telling everyone that Steven was away.

                          Because it hurt too much and it was too embarrassing to say that he had left her. And when Bill Thigpen turned up at the pool that afternoon with a quizzical look and asked if they were moving out, she flinched visibly and said they were selling their furniture and buying everything new, but even to her something about the way she said it didn't sound convincing.

                          "It looked like great stuff," he said cautiously as he watched her as they lay by the pool. And there had been something about Steven's face that had reminded him of Leslie when she left him. But Adrian looked perfectly happy as she lay by the pool. She had a book in her hands, and she was holding it upside down as she felt her heart ache, thinking
                          of Steven.
                          #13
                            Tố Tâm 30.05.2006 09:53:09 (permalink)
                            CHAPTER 11.


                            THE WEEK THAT STEVEN MOVED OUT, Adrian felt as though she were in a dream.

                            She got up, she went to work, she went home at night, and every night when she got there, she expected to find him. He would have come to his senses by then. He'd be mortified, apologetic, aghast at what he'd done, and they'd both laugh and go upstairs to bed and make up, and ten years hence he would tell their child how absurd he had been when she
                            told him she was having a baby.

                            But when she got home at night, he wasn't there. He never called. And she sat on the floor of her living room at night, trying to read, or pretending to shuffle papers.

                            She had thought about buying new furniture as soon as he left. But she decided not to, in case he came back, which she still thought he would.

                            And what was the point of having two sets of furniture for one apartment?

                            She kept the answering machine on most of the time, but she listened to the calls when they came in. They were never Steven, but usually friends, or her office, and lately more often than not it was Zelda.

                            But Adrian didn't feel like talking to her either. Her only concession to keeping her life afloat was going to work and coming home. She felt like a robot getting up and going to work every day, and then coming home, making herself something to eat, and going back for the eleven o'clock news. She felt as though she were on an endless treadmill.

                            There was a blind look of pain in her eyes day after day, and it hurt Zelda to see her like that, but even she couldn't help her. She still couldn't believe what Steven had done, or that he really meant it. But when Adrian tried to call him, his secretary always said he was away, and Adrian wasn't sure if he was or not. There was still that panicky feeling of what would happen to her if she really needed him, but she didn't for the moment, and she knew she just had to sit tight until he
                            came to his senses.

                            It was Friday of the Fourth of July weekend when she ran into Bill Thigpen at the Safeway again. She had just finished the late news, and she had realized that she had nothing in the house for the next day, and she was off for the whole weekend. He was juggling two carts, and they were filled with charcoal, two dozen steaks, several packages of hot dogs and some ground meat, buns, rolls, and an assortment of things that looked as though he was preparing a picnic.

                            "Hi," he said as they collided in the aisle where he was picking up two huge containers of ketchup. "I haven't seen you all week," he teased, and he realized as he saw her that he had missed her. There was something so fresh and appealing about her face that he liked just looking at her, and the intensity of her smile always warmed him.

                            "How's the news?"

                            "The same. Wars, earthquakes, explosions, tidal waves, the usual stuff. How are things on A Life?" The thought that he was involved with a soap opera still amused her.

                            "Same as the news - - - wars - - - tidal waves - - - earthquakes, explosions divorce - - - illegitimacy - - - murder the usual happy stuff. Maybe we're both really in the same business."

                            She smiled at him then. "Yours sounds like more fun."

                            "It is - . - sometimes - - -" He had been lonely since Sylvia left the show, but he had to admit that it was stupid. She had been fun to be with from time to time, and they had provided each other with something comfortable and easy. But the truth was that she didn't really improve the quality of his life, nor he hers, and she was better off with her clothing manufacturer in New Jersey. She had sent a postcard to the cast after she'd left, rhapsodizing about the house Stanley had just bought her. And looking back, he felt foolish now, for being with her. He felt that way now about most of the women he'd gone out with.

                            And he had decided to turn over a new leaf, to get involved only with women who really meant something to him, but the trouble was that most of the women he met just didn't.

                            He met a lot of actresses through his work, a lot of women who just wanted to get laid in exchange for a great part, or an opportunity to appear on his show. They considered it a fair exchange, and the attitude was hardly conductive to high romance. As a result, he hadn't been out with anyone in over a month, and he didn't really miss it. He missed having someone to talk to late at night, someone to bounce his ideas off for the show, someone to share his joys and sorrows with.

                            But he hadn't had that with Sylvia anyway. In fact, he hadn't had that since Leslie.

                            "Are you coming to the barbecue tomorrow night?" he asked Adrian hopefully. He liked chatting with her, and he was curious about her husband. She had told him he was in advertising, but to Bill he looked more like an actor. But he hadn't seen him in almost two weeks, since he'd loaded all their furniture into a van and removed it. "The Fourth of July barbecue at our apartment complex is my biggest annual culinary moment. You really shouldn't miss it." He waved at the things in his cart and grinned at her. "I do it every year, previously by popular demand, nowadays out of habit. But I make a great steak." He smiled again. "Did you come last year?" He couldn't remember seeing them, although he knew he would have. He wouldn't have forgotten a girl who looked like her, or maybe he had just been distracted.

                            But she shook her head. "We usually go away. I think last year we were in La Jolla."

                            "Are you going away again?" He looked disappointed.

                            She shook her head. "No - - - I Steven - - - my husband is out of town again. In Chicago." The words came out awkwardly, and Bill looked surprised.

                            "Over the Fourth of July? That's a bummer. What are you doing while he's gone?"

                            He wasn't being fresh, he was just being friendly. They had enjoyed chatting by the pool several times. And he knew she was married, and he understood that.

                            "Nothing much," she said vaguely, looking nervous.

                            "Come to the barbecue, then. I'll fix you a famous steak a' la Thigpen." She smiled at the look on his face, he looked so eager, and she really liked him.

                            "I - - - I'm having dinner with friends."

                            She smiled, but her eyes were sad again and he saw it. "Maybe next year."

                            He nodded, and noticed the clock on the wall behind her. It was twelve-thirty at night, and they were chatting as though it were ten in the morning. "I guess I ought to get the rest of my stuff," he said regretfully. "Come by if you change your mind. Bring your friends. got enough for anybody."

                            "I'll try." But she had no intention of going to the barbecue as she shopped for the rest of her groceries. She remembered seeing a signup sheet in her mail weeks before, but she had thrown it out. She had other things on her mind at that point, and she didn't regret it.

                            The last thing she wanted was to hang around a bunch of lonely singles at the complex. She had her own life to lead, and she was not interested in cultivating new relationships, or dating. She was married, and all she had to do was wait for Steven to come to his senses.

                            It was just a matter of time, she was sure of it.

                            And when he came back, they could concentrate on having the baby. In the meantime, she had put that on a back burner too. She hardly ever thought of it. She had made her decision and gone ahead with the pregnancy, but now she put it out of her head as much as possible. And it was still easy to ignore for the moment, except for an occasional moment of queasiness, and an increased appetite the rest of the time, and some slight fatigue, she could just about forget that she was pregnant. Nothing showed, and she was only three months pregnant. And all she needed to think about was her work, and waiting for Steven.

                            When he left, at first, she had told herself that it was all over, that he would never come back, and if he did, their relationship would be permanently damaged. But in the past two weeks, she had managed to convince herself that it was a temporary lapse, a moment of insanity in the otherwise healthy life of their marriage. She refused to believe that the fact that he never called, that he wouldn't take her calls whenever she called him, and that she hadn't heard from him since he'd removed everything he owned from their condo was a sign that he felt the marriage was truly over.

                            She caught a glimpse of Bill again in the checkout line, with three carts loaded to the brim trailing behind him. She carried her own meager purchases to the car, feeling sad again. She could fit a week's groceries into two bags now. Everything about her life seemed to have shrunk, ever since Steven had left her. And when she got home, the apartment seemed so ridiculously empty. She put her groceries in the fridge, turned off the lights, and went upstairs where the box spring and mattress still sat on her bedroom floor, and her clothes still sat in the boxes on the floor where Steven had left them. She lay in bed awake for a long time, thinking of him, and wondering what he was doing all week-end. She was tempted to call, to beg him to come home, to tell him she'd do anything - - . anything except an abortion. That wasn't the issue anymore. The issue was carrying on her life without a husband. It still surprised her to realize how lost she felt, how bereft and deserted. After two and a half years, she couldn't even remember what she used to do with herself to keep amused before they were married. It was almost as though she had never lived alone before, as though there had never been a life before Steven.

                            It was after three when she finally fell asleep, and almost eleven when she woke up the next morning. It was the one thing she seemed to do easily now. She could sleep all day if she had the chance. The doctor said it was because of the baby. The baby. The idea of it still seemed unreal. The tiny being who had cost her her marriage. And yet she still wanted it. Somehow it still seemed worth it.

                            She got up and showered, and made herself some scrambled eggs at noon, and then she paid some bills and did her laundry. She looked around the empty living room and laughed. It was certainly easy keeping house these days - There was nothing to straighten out, or dust, no spots to worry about on the couch, no plants to water, he had taken those too.

                            All she had to do was make her bed and vacuum. And at two-thirty, she went out to the pool, and saw Bill busily preparing for the barbecue.

                            He was conferring with two other men Adrian had seen before, and there were two women putting a big bowl of flowers on a long picnic table.

                            This was obviously going to be an event, and she was almost sorry she wasn't going. She had nothing to do, and no-where to go. Zelda was in Mexico with a friend, and all Adrian could think of to do was go to a movie.

                            She waved at him as she headed toward the pool, and lay floating in the hot sun for a long time and then she lay down on one of the lounge chairs on her stomach. And he came and sat down next to her a little while later, looking happy but exhausted.

                            "Remind me not to do this next year," he said, as though they were old friends. But they were actually growing familiar just from running into each other regularly in all the same places. They lived and worked in the same place, and even bought their groceries at the same midnight market. "I say that every year." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "These people drive me crazy."

                            She grinned as she looked at him. He was funny without meaning to be.

                            And he looked wonderfully harassed, but he also looked as though he enjoyed it. "I'll bet you have fun doing it."

                            "Sure I do. Sherman probably had a hell of a good time with the march on Atlanta. But it was probably a lot simpler to orchestrate than this." He leaned closer to her so no one else would hear him. "The guys figure that maybe this year I should have bought lobster, they said I've done steak, burgers, and hot dogs for the last three years and it's getting old. The women think we should be having it catered. Christ, did you ever go to a catered picnic when you were a kid? I mean whoever heard of a catered hot dog for the Fourth of July?"

                            He looked outraged and she laughed, the idea amused her. "Did you go to a Fourth of July picnic when you were growing up?"

                            She nodded. "We used to go to Cape Cod. When I was older we went to Martha's Vineyard. I loved it. There's nothing like that out here. That wonderful feeling of summer towns and perfect beaches and the kids you play with every summer and wait all year to see. It was great."

                            "Yeah." He smiled at his own memories.

                            "We used to go to Coney Island. Ride the roller coaster and look at the fireworks. My father would do a great barbecue at night on the beach. When I was older, they had a house on Long Island and my mom did a real picnic in the backyard. But I always thought the Coney Island days were better." He still had wonderful memories of the things he had done with his parents in his childhood. He had been an only child and he had been crazy about his parents.

                            "Do they still do that?"

                            "No." He shook his head, thinking about them, but the memories were all tinged with warm feelings now, the grief was gone. The shock of losing them was long over. He looked at Adrian, he liked what he saw in her eyes, liked the way her dark hair fell over her shoulders.

                            "They died. After they got the house on Long Island. A long time ago." Sixteen years. He'd been twenty-two when his father died, twenty-three when his mother died a year later. "I think I do this whole Fourth of July production because of them. Maybe it's my way of saying I remember."

                            He smiled warmly at her. "It seems like most of us out here don't have families, we have girlfriends and kids and dogs and friends, but our aunts and uncles and parents and grand-parents and cousins are all somewhere else. I mean, seriously, have you ever met anyone who grew up in L.A.? I mean someone normal, who doesn't look like Jean Harlow
                            and is actually a guy who happens to be madly in love with his sister?"

                            She laughed at him. He was so real, and so deep, and so solid, and at the same time he was lighthearted and funny.

                            "Where are you from?"

                            She wanted to say L.A but she didn't.

                            "I'm from Connecticut. New London."

                            "I'm from New York. But I hardly ever get back there. Do you get back to Connecticut sometimes?"

                            "Not if I can help it." She grinned. "It stopped being fun right about the time they stopped going to Martha's Vineyard, when I went to college. My sister lives there, though." She and her kids and her incredibly boring husband. It was so hard to relate to any of them, and ever since she'd married Steven, she didn't even try. She knew she had to tell them about the baby one of these days, though, but she wanted to wait until Steven came home, after he came to his senses. It
                            would be just too complicated to explain that she was pregnant and he was gone, let alone why, all of which was why she was trying to put the pregnancy out of her mind for the moment.

                            "It's too bad you can't make it tonight," he said forlornly. She nodded, embarrassed about the lie, but it was just easier not to go.

                            She got in the pool and swam again, and he went back to his preparations for dinner, and a little while later he went back to his apartment to marinate the steaks. The barbecue sounded like a big production.

                            And at five o'clock she went back to her apartment and lay on the bed and tried to read. But she couldn't concentrate. Lately it was hard to do that most of the time, there were just too many things on her mind. And as she lay there, she could hear the sounds of the barbecue going on. At six o'clock people started to arrive. There were music and laughter, and she could hear what sounded like about fifty people.

                            She went out on her deck after a while, where she could hear the noise and smell the food, but they couldn't see her, and she couldn't see them. But it all sounded very festive. There was the clinking of glasses, and someone was playing old Beatles albums and music from the sixties. It sounded like fun, and she was sorry she hadn't gone. But it was too awkward to explain why Steven wasn't there, even though she had said he was in Chicago on business.

                            But it was embarrassing going out alone. She hadn't done it yet, and she wasn't ready to start. But smelling the food was making her desperately hungry. She finally went back downstairs and looked in her fridge, but nothing looked as good as what she smelled, and all of it was too much trouble to cook.

                            She was suddenly dying for a hamburger. It was seven-thirty and she was absolutely starving. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and she wondered if she could just slip into the group, grab something to eat, and disappear again. She could always write Bill Thigpen a check later for what she owed for participating in the dinner. There was no harm in that. It wasn't really like going out.

                            It was just eating. Like going to a fast-food place, or Chinese takeout. She could even grab a hamburger and bring it back. She didn't have to hang around for the party.

                            She hurried upstairs again, looked in the mirror in her bathroom, combed her hair, pulled it back and tied it with a white satin ribbon, and then she slipped on a white lace Mexican dress she and Steven had bought on a trip to Acapulco. It was pretty and feminine and easy to wear, and hid the tiny bulge that didn't show but made it difficult to wear slacks or jeans now. But it still didn't show in her dresses.

                            She put on silver sandals and big dangly silver earrings. She hesitated for just a moment before she went back downstairs.

                            What if they all had dates, or if she didn't know anyone at all? But even if he had a date, at least she knew Bill Thigpen, and he was always easygoing and friendly. She went downstairs then, and a moment later, she was hovering at the edge of the crowd near one of the big picnic tables where the food was laid out. There were groups of people clustered everywhere, laughing and chatting and telling stories, some were sitting near the pool, with their plates on their laps, or
                            drinking wine, or just relaxing and enjoying the party. Everyone looked as though they were having a good time, and standing at the barbecue in a red-and-white-striped shirt and white pants and a blue apron over them was Bill Thigpen.

                            Adrian hesitated, watching him, he was handing out steaks with a professional air, and chatting with everyone as they came and went, but he seemed to be alone, not that it really mattered. And she realized then that she didn't even know if he had a girlfriend, not that it really made any difference. But somehow she had assumed that he wasn't involved with anyone. He had always seemed so unencumbered. She walked slowly over to him, and his face broke into a broad smile as he saw her. He took it all in, the white lace dress, the shiny dark hair, her big blue eyes, she looked beautiful, and he was thrilled to see her. He felt like a kid, with a crush on a neighborhood girl. You didn't see her for weeks, and then suddenly you turn a corner, and there she is, looking gorgeous and you feel like a fool, stumbling all over yourself, and then she's gone again, and your whole world is over, until you meet again. Lately, he'd been beginning to feel as though
                            his whole life, or the only worthwhile part of it, was just a series of chance meetings.

                            "Hi, there!" He blushed, and hoped she thought it was the heat of the barbecue. He wasn't sure why, but she was the first married woman he'd ever had a serious crush on. And it wasn't just that he liked looking at her. He liked talking to her too. The worst of it was that he liked everything about her. "Did you bring your friends?"

                            "They called at the last minute and said they couldn't make it." She told the lie with ease, and looked up at him happily as he watched her.

                            "I'm glad - - - I mean - - - yeah, actually, I am glad." And then he pointed to the meat he was cooking. "What can I do for you? Hot dog, hamburger, steak? I recommend the steaks myself." He tried to cover what he felt with ordinary pastimes, like cooking dinner. He really did feel like a kid every time he saw her. But so did she. And the funny thing was, all she wanted to do was talk to him. He was always so easy to be with and to talk to.

                            She had been dying for a hamburger a few minutes ago, but suddenly the steaks looked terrific. "I'll have a steak please. Rare."

                            "Coming right up. There's lots of other stuff over there on the table. Fourteen different kinds of salad, some kind of cold souffle, cheese, Nova Scotia salmon, I don't do anything with that stuff. I'm the barbecue specialist, but go take a look and by the time you get back, I'll have your steak for you." She did, and he noticed that she had piled her plate with the salads and shrimp and other things she had found at the buffet table. She had a healthy appetite, which was surprising, given how thin she was. She was obviously very athletic.

                            He put the steak on her plate, offered her some wine, which she declined, and she went to sit near the pool, and he hoped she'd still be there by the time he finished cooking. It was half an hour later when he finally decided he'd done his bit, everyone had been served, and most of the guests had had seconds. Another man, from a condo near his, offered to take over for him, and Bill gladly accepted and went to find Adrian, happily polishing off dessert, as she sat quietly by herself, listening to the people chatting around her.

                            "How was it? It couldn't have been too bad." The steak had disappeared, along with everything else she'd had on her plate. She looked embarrassed and laughed self-consciously.

                            "It was delicious. And I was starving."

                            "Good. I hate to cook for people who don't eat. Do you like to cook?"

                            He was curious about her, what she was like, what she did, how happy she was with her husband. It shouldn't have mattered to him, but it did.

                            He could hear alarm bells go off in his head, and he was telling himself to stop, but another, stronger, voice told him not to.

                            "Sometimes. I'm not very good. I don't have much time to cook." And no one to cook for. Now, at least. But Steven wasn't much of an eater anyway. He had always preferred just making a salad.

                            "Not if you do both shows on the evening news. Do you come home between shows?"

                            He wanted to know everything about her.

                            "Most of the time. Unless there's something really dramatic going on and I can't get out between shows. But generally I come home around seven and go back around ten or ten-thirty. Then I'm home again around midnight."

                            "I know." He smiled. That was usually when they ran into each other in the Safeway.

                            "You must keep pretty long hours too."

                            She smiled. She was toying with the apple pie on her plate, embarrassed to devour it while he watched her.

                            "I do. Some nights I just sleep on the couch at the office." It made him great company, as any number of women would have been happy to tell her. "Our scripts change so fast sometimes, it shifts everyone's position in the show. It's kind of a ripple effect, and sometimes it's difficult to keep up with. But it's fun too. You ought to see the show sometime." It sounded like fun to her and they talked about the show for a while, how it had started in New York ten years ago, and
                            eventually he had moved it to California. "The hardest thing about coming out here was leaving my boys," he said quietly. "They're such great kids. And I really miss them." He had talked about them before, but there was still a lot about them she didn't know, just as there was about their father.

                            "Do you see them much?"

                            "Not as much as I'd like to. They come out for school vacations through the year, and for about a month in the summer. They'll be here in two weeks." His whole face lit up as he said it, and it touched her to see it.

                            "What do you do with them when they're here?" Working the way he did, taking care of two young children couldn't be easy.

                            "I work like a fiend before they come, and then I take four weeks off. I go in once in a while just to keep an eye on things, but basically, much as I hate to admit it, the show does fine without me." He smiled almost sheepishly over the admission. "We go on a two-week camping trip, and we hang around here for about two weeks. And they love it. I could do without the camping trip. My idea of camping is a week at the Bel-Air Hotel. But it means a lot to them and they love getting grubby and uncomfortable and sleeping in the woods. Actually, we do that for about a week, and we stay at a hotel somewhere for the other week. Like the Ahwahnee in Yosemite, or we go up to Lake Tahoe. A week is about all I can handle in a tent and a sleeping bag, but it's good for us. It keeps me humble." He laughed, and Adrian finished her apple pie as she listened. They were nervous with each other this time, but it wasn't so much nervous as a kind of excitement.

                            This was the first time they had been together, intentionally, in a social setting.

                            "How old are they?"

                            "Seven and ten. They're great kids. You'll see them here at the pool. They think California is all about swimming pools. It's a lot different than Great Neck, outside New York, where they live with their mother."

                            "Do they look like you?" Adrian asked with a smile, she could imagine him with two little teddy bear clones, just like him.

                            "I'm not sure. People say that the little guy does, but I think they both look like their mother." And then, nostalgically, "We had Adam right away. And it was rough. Leslie had to stop dancing, my wife was a dancer on Broadway then. And I was really struggling. There were times when I really thought we'd starve, but we never did. And the baby was the best thing that ever happened to us. I think that's one of the few things we still agree on. Adam and the show happened at about the same time. I always felt that it was providence sending us what we needed for him, and for us. The show has been good to me for a long time." He looked appreciative as he talked about it, as though he didn't really deserve it but had been very lucky, and he knew it. And it struck Adrian as she listened to him how different he was from Steven. His children meant a lot to him, and he was very modest about his success. The two men had very little in
                            common. "What about you?" he asked her then. "Do you think you'll stay with the news?"

                            "I don't know." She had wondered about that, too, and maybe when she took her maternity leave, she would have time to think about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, other than being a mother.

                            "I think about starting another show sometimes. But I never seem to have time to think about it, let alone do it. A Life is still a full-time commitment."

                            "Where do you get the ideas for it?" she asked, sipping at a glass of lemonade someone had poured her.

                            "God knows." He smiled. "Real life, my head. Anything that comes to mind and seems to fit. It's all about the kinds of things that happen in people's lives, all poured into one pot and stirred around. People do the damnedest things, and get into the most incredible situations."

                            She nodded pensively.

                            She knew exactly what he meant, and he was watching her expression.

                            And when she looked up again, her eyes met his, and she looked as though she was about to say something, but she didn't.

                            The crowd was thinning by then, and people had come over to thank him several times.

                            He seemed to know everyone, and he was always friendly and pleasant.

                            She liked being with him and was surprised by how comfortable she was with him. She could imagine herself telling him almost anything.

                            Almost.

                            Except maybe about Steven. In some ways, she felt like a failure because he had left her.

                            "Would you like a drink?" he asked. He had been nursing the same glass of wine all night, and when she declined, he set it down, and poured himself a cup of coffee. "I don't drink very much," he explained. "If I do, I can't work all night."

                            "Neither can I." She smiled. There were several young couples sitting nearby, talking and laughing and holding hands, and she felt lonely as she watched them. It suddenly brought it home to her that she was alone again. After building her relationship with Steven for the last five years, she was alone, and there was no one to hold her and love her.

                            "So when is your husband coming back?" he said easily, almost sorry that he was. He was a lucky guy, and Bill still wished that Adrian wasn't married.

                            "Next week," she said noncommittally.

                            "And where is he again?"

                            "New York," she answered quickly, and suddenly something struck Bill as she said it.

                            He looked at her quizzically. "I thought you said he was in Chicago."

                            He looked puzzled, and then backed off when he saw the look of panic on her face. Something had upset her terribly and he wasn't sure what it was, as she quickly changed the subject.

                            "This was a great idea," she said as she stood up, looking around nervously. "I had a wonderful time." She was leaving and he was desolate. He had frightened her off and he didn't want her to go.

                            Without thinking, he reached out and took her hand, wanting to do anything to make her stay near him.

                            "Please don't go, Adrian - . - it's such a nice night, and it's so good being here, just talking to you." He looked very young and very vulnerable and it touched her heart the way he said it.

                            "I just thought - - - maybe - - - you had other plans - - - I didn't want to bore you - - -" She looked uncomfortable, but he still didn't know why, as she sat down again and he kept her hand in his own, wondering what he was doing. She was married, and he didn't need the heartbreak.

                            "You don't bore me. You're wonderful, and I'm having a terrific time. Tell me about you. What do you like to do? What's your favorite sport? What kind of music do you like?"

                            She laughed. No one had asked her that in years, but it was fun talking to him, as long as he didn't press her about Steven. "I like everything - - - classical - - - jazz - - - rock - - - country - . - I love Sting, the Beatles, U2, Mozart. I used to ski a lot when I was growing up, but I haven't in years. I love the beach - . - and hot chocolate - - - and dogs - -" She laughed suddenly. "And red hair, I've always wanted red hair," and then suddenly she looked wistful.

                            "And babies. I've always liked babies."

                            "So have I." He smiled at her, wishing that he could spend a lifetime with her instead of just an evening. "My boys were so cute when they were babies. I left when Tommy wasn't even a year old. It almost killed me." And there was the memory of real pain in his eyes as he said it. "I'd like you to meet them when they come out in a couple of weeks. Maybe we could all spend an evening together." He knew that if he and Adrian were going to be friends, he was going to have to make friends with her husband. It was the only relationship available to them, and he was willing to do that just to get to know her. And maybe her husband was nicer than he looked, although Bill considered it unlikely.

                            "I'd love to meet them sometime. When do you go on your camping trip?"

                            "In about two weeks." He smiled. "Actually, we're driving up to Lake Tahoe, via Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and the Napa Valley. Then we'll camp for five days when we get there."

                            "It sounds like a very civilized trip." She had expected something a lot more rugged.

                            "I have to do it that way. Too much fresh air comes as a shock to my system."

                            "Do you play tennis?" she asked hesitantly. It wasn't that she was comparing them, but she was curious. With Steven, it was almost a fixation.

                            "If you can call it that," he apologized.

                            "I'm not very good."

                            "Neither am I." She laughed, longing for another piece of apple pie, but she didn't dare go and get it. He was going to think she was a real pig if she ate any more, but the whole dinner had been delicious.

                            The "cleaning-up" crew was putting things away, and it had grown dark as they sat by the pool. The crowd had thinned out even more, but she was enjoying his company and she hated to leave, although she was beginning to think that she should. And then suddenly, high in the sky, the fireworks began. They were being set off in a park nearby and they were beautiful as everyone stopped and watched, and Adrian watched, too, like a delighted child, as Bill smiled at her. She was
                            so beautiful, and so warm and so gentle. She looked like a little girl with her face turned up to the sky, but a very pretty one, and he had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. He had had that urge before, but it was becoming more acute each time he saw her.

                            The show went on for half an hour and exploded finally with a wild shower of red, white, and blue that went on and on and on, seemingly forever. And then the sky went dark again, with only the stars high above, and the black powder left from the fireworks and the little wisps of smoke falling slowly to earth, as Bill sat close to her and caught a whiff of her perfume. It was Chanel No. I9 and he liked it.

                            "Are you doing anything this weekend?" he asked hesitantly, not sure how proper it was for him even to ask her. But they could be friends after all. As long as he controlled himself, there was no real reason why they couldn't be together. "I thought maybe you'd like to go to the beach or something," since she had already told him that she liked
                            beaches.

                            "I - - - well - - - I'm not sure - - - my husband might be coming home - - -" She was embarrassed, and yet she wanted to go, and she wasn't sure how to handle the invitation.

                            "I thought he was in New York - - - or Chicago - - - until next week. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. I'm very respectable. And it's better than sitting around here all weekend, as long as you're not working. We could go down to Malibu, I have friends who let me use a house there. They live in New York, and they just keep the place for the hell of it. I keep an eye on it for them. You'd enjoy it."

                            "Okay." She smiled at him, not sure why she was doing it. But there was something irresistibly comfortable and appealing about the man, and she stood up then, and prepared to go back to her own apartment. "I'd like that."

                            "Does eleven sound about right?"

                            She nodded. It sounded perfect. But also a little scary. "I'll walk you back to your place." He had taken the apron off long since, and he looked nice as he walked her back to her town house. And when she got to her front door, she unlocked it carefully, and opened it just a crack without turning the light on. She didn't want him to see how empty her place was.

                            "Thanks a lot, Bill. I had a wonderful time. Thank you for inviting me tonight." It was a lot better than sitting at home, feeling sorry for herself and wondering what Steven was doing.

                            "I had a good time too." He smiled, feeling happy and relaxed and contented. "I'll come by tomorrow around eleven."

                            "That's all right. I can meet you at the pool."

                            "You don't need to do that. I'll pick you up here." He sounded firm and she looked nervous, as she prepared to leap through her front door before he could look inside it.

                            "Thanks again." She gave him a last look, and then suddenly disappeared, like an apparition. One minute she was standing in front of him, and the next, she was inside, and the door was closed? and he wasn't sure how she'd done it. It was one of the fastest goodbyes he'd ever said, and he walked slowly back to his own place, smiling.
                            #14
                              Tố Tâm 30.05.2006 10:59:31 (permalink)
                              CHAPTER 12.


                              BILL PICKED ADRIAN UP THE NEXT DAY AT precisely eleven o'clock, and she was waiting outside when he came, in jeans, a big floppy shirt, a sun hat, and sneakers. And she was carrying a beach bag full of towels and creams and books and a Frisbee, and he laughed when he saw her.

                              "You look about fourteen in that outfit."

                              The shirt had been Steven's, but she had always loved it, and it covered the fact that her jeans were getting a little tight, but Bill seemed not to notice as he watched her.

                              "Is that a compliment or a reproach?" she asked comfortably. She was completely at ease with him as she started to follow him across the complex.

                              "A compliment. Definitely." And then he stopped, he had forgotten something, as he turned to her. "Do you have any sodas at your place? I'm fresh out." And everything was closed. It was Sunday.

                              "Sure."

                              "Why don't we grab some, in case we get thirsty." She started back toward her place and he followed her, but when they got to her front door, she stopped, and glanced over her shoulder.

                              "I'll just run in and get them. Why don't you stay here with our stuff?" She acted as though she thought someone was going to run off with her beach bag.

                              "I'll come in and give you a hand."

                              "No, that's okay. The place is a mess. I haven't had a chance to clean since Steven left - - - the other day, I mean - - - when he went to New York - - -" Was it New York or Chicago, Bill wondered, but he didn't say anything, because it was obvious she didn't want him to go in, so he didn't.

                              "I'll wait for you here," he told her at the front door, feeling a little foolish. She left the front door unlatched, but closed so he couldn't see in. It was as though she was hiding something in her apartment. And a moment later, he heard a tremendous crash, and without thinking twice, he dashed inside to help her. She had dropped two soda bottles, and they had sprayed soda all over the kitchen. "Did you get hurt?" he was quick to ask with a worried glance, and she shook her head as he grabbed a towel and helped her clean the mess up.

                              "That was really stupid of me," she said. "I must have shaken them without noticing, and then I dropped them." It took them two minutes to clean it up, and he hadn't noticed anything unusual about the place, until she brought out more sodas and he realized there was no furniture in the kitchen. The place where a kitchen table might have been was empty and there was a lonesome stool sitting near a phone at the other end of the kitchen.

                              And as they walked through the living room, it was almost eerie. There was no furniture anywhere, and there were marks on the walls where paintings had been, and then he remembered Steven loading furniture into a van almost two months before. She had said they were selling everything and buying new, but in the meantime, the apartment looked bare and depressing. But Bill didn't say anything, and she was quick to explain it. "We ordered a lot of new stuff. But you know what it's like. Everything is a ten- to twelve-week delivery. It'll be August before this place looks halfway decent again." In truth, she hadn't ordered anything. She was still expecting Steven to come home with the old stuff he'd taken with him.

                              "Of course. I know how that is." But something didn't ring true, and he wasn't sure what it was. Maybe they were too poor to buy furniture.

                              Maybe it had all been repossessed.

                              People in Hollywood lived like that. He had a lot of friends who did.

                              And it was obvious that Adrian was embarrassed about something. "It's a nice, clean look," he teased.

                              "And it's easy to take care of." She started to look embarrassed again and then he teased her gently. "Never mind. It'll look great when all the new things come." But in the meantime, it certainly didn't. The place looked somehow abandoned.

                              And as soon as they left, they both forgot about it, and they had a wonderful time at the beach. They stayed until after five when it started to get cool, talking about theater and books, and New York and Boston, and Europe. They talked about children and politics and the philosophies behind both soap operas and news shows, the kinds of things he liked to write, and the short stories she had written in college. They talked about everything and they were still talking as they drove back to the complex in his woody.

                              "I am in love with your car, by the way."

                              He had admired her MG the first time he'd ever seen it.

                              She looked pleased at the compliment. "So am I - Everybody's been trying to get me to give it up for years, but I can't. I love it too much. It's part of me."

                              "So is my woody." He beamed. This was a woman who understood what it was to love a car. This was a woman who understood many things, like caring and loss, and integrity and love and respect, and she even shared his passion for old movies. The only thing wrong with her, aside from her eating enough for two families, was the fact that she was married. But he had decided to ignore that and stop chafing about it, and just enjoy her friendship - It was rare for men and women to be friends, without expecting anything sexual out of it, and if they were able to have a real friendship, he was going to consider himself very lucky. "Do you want to have dinner on the way back? There's a great Mexican place in Santa Monica Canyon, if you want to try it." He treated her like an old pal, someone he had known and loved forever.

                              "Or you know what, I've got a couple of those steaks left. Do you want to go back to my place and I'll cook you dinner?"

                              "We could cook them at my place." She had been about to say that she should probably go home, but there was no reason to, and she didn't really want to. It was a lonely Sun day night, and she was enjoying him too much to give it up just yet. And there was no real reason why she couldn't have dinner with him.

                              "I'm not exactly dying to eat them off the floor," Bill teased her.

                              "Or is there more furniture I haven't seen yet?" Only her bed, but she didn't say that.

                              "Snob. Okay," she said playfully, feeling like a kid again, "let's go to your place." It had been years since she'd said that to a man.

                              She and Steven had gone out for two years before they'd gotten married.

                              And here she was, suddenly, five years later, having dinner at a man's apartment. But she had to admit, she didn't mind it. Bill Thigpen was terrific.

                              He was smart, interesting, kind, and he gave her the impression of taking care of her, no matter what he did. He was always concerned if she was thirsty, hungry, wanted an ice cream, a soda, needed a hat, was warm enough, comfortable, happy, all the while keeping her amused with his stories about his soap opera, or the people he knew, or his two boys, Adam and Tommy.

                              And when she walked into his apartment, she saw yet another dimension.

                              There were beautiful modern paintings on the walls, and some interesting sculptures he had collected in the course of his travels.

                              The couches were leather and comfortable and well worn. The chairs, enormous and soft and inviting. And in the dining room there was a beautiful table he had found in an Italian monastery, a rug he had bought in Pakistan, and everywhere there were wonderful pictures of his children.

                              There was a feeling of hominess about it that made you want to browse around, walls of books, a brick fireplace, and a beautifully designed large country kitchen. It looked more like a home than an apartment.

                              He had a cozy den where he worked, with an old typewriter almost as old as his beloved Royal, and more books and a big cozy leather easy chair that was all beaten up and well loved and had been his father's. There was an attractive guest bedroom that looked as though it had never been used, done in beige wools, with a big sheepskin rug, and a modern
                              four-poster, and there was a big colorful bedroom for the boys, with a bright red bunk bed that looked like a locomotive, and his own bedroom was just down the hall, all done in warm earth tones, and soft fabrics, with big sunny windows that looked out on a garden that Adrian hadn't even known existed in the complex. It was perfect. It was just like him. Handsome and warm and loving. And parts of it looked a little worn from the hands that had touched it. It was the kind of place where you wanted to stay a year, just to look around and get to know it, and it was in sharp contrast to the expensive sterility she had shared with Steven until he walked off with all of it, leaving her nothing but the bed and the carpet.

                              "Bill, this is gorgeous," she said in open admiration.

                              "I love it too," he admitted. "Did you see the kids' bed? I had it made by a guy in Newport Beach. He makes about two a year. I had a choice between that and a double-decker bus. Some English guy bought that, and I got the locomotive. I've always had a thing for trains. They're so great and old-fashioned and cozy." He sounded as though he were describing himself as Adrian smiled at him.

                              "I love it." No wonder he had laughed at her empty apartment. His had so much character and so much warmth. It was a great place to live or to work.

                              "I've been trying to talk myself into buying a house for years, but I hate moving and this is so comfortable. It works. And the boys love it."

                              "I can see why." He had given them the biggest room, even for the little time they spent with him, but to him, it was worth it.

                              "When they're older, I hope they spend more time here."

                              "I'm sure they will." Who wouldn't, with a father like him, and a home like this to come back to. It wasn't that the place was so big or so luxurious, it wasn't. But it was warm and inviting, and it was like a big hug just being there. Adrian felt it as she settled into the couch to look around, and then went out to the kitchen to help him with dinner. He had built most of the kitchen himself, and he was adept at cooking their dinner.

                              "What can't you do?"

                              "I'm rotten at sports. I told you, I'm terrible at tennis. I can't build a fire in the wilderness to save my life. Adam has to do it whenever we go camping. And I'm terrified of airplanes." It was a short list compared to what he could do.

                              "At least it's nice to know that you're human."

                              "What about you, Adrian? What aren't you good at?" It was always interesting to hear what people said about themselves. And he asked her as he carefully chopped fresh basil for their salad.

                              "I'm not good at a lot of things. Skiing. I'm so-so at tennis, terrible at bridge. I'm lousy at games, I can never remember the rules, and I don't care if I win anyway. Computers, I hate computers."

                              She thought seriously for a moment. "And compromising. I'm not good at compromising about what I believe in."

                              "I'd say that's a virtue, not a flaw, wouldn't you?"

                              "Sometimes," she said thoughtfully.

                              "Sometimes it can cost you a lot." She was thinking about Steven. She had paid a high price for what she believed in.

                              "But isn't it worth it?" he said softly.

                              "Wouldn't you rather pay a price and stick to what you believe? I always have." But he had ended up alone, too, not that he really minded.

                              "Sometimes it's hard to know what's the right thing to do."

                              "You do your best, kid. Give it your best shot, and hope that does the trick. And if the folks don't like it," he said, shrugging philosophically, "them's the breaks." Easily said.

                              But she still couldn't believe what had happened as a result of her sticking to her guns with Steven. But it wasn't as though she'd had a choice. She couldn't have done otherwise. She just couldn't. There was no reason to. It was their baby, and she loved him. It made it impossible to get rid of it, on a whim, just because it frightened Steven. So she had lost him.

                              "Would you stick by what you believed in, no matter how someone else felt?" she inquired as they sat down to the big juicy steaks he had cooked while she watched him. She had set the table and made the salad dressing, but he had done everything else, and the dinner looked delicious - Steak, salad, garlic bread. And there were strawberries dipped in chocolate for dessert. "Would you hold your ground no matter what?"

                              "That depends. You mean at someone else's expense?"

                              "Maybe."

                              He puzzled over it for a minute, as she helped herself to the salad.

                              "I think it would depend on how strongly I felt. Probably. If I really thought my integrity was at stake, or the integrity of the situation. Sometimes it doesn't matter how unpopular you get, you just can't deviate from what you believe in. I know, as one gets older one is supposed to get more moderate, and in some ways I have. I'm thirty-nine years old and I'm more tolerant than I used to be, but I still believe in taking stands about things I care about. It hasn't exactly won me a lot of gold stars, but on the other hand, my friends know I'm someone they can count on. That counts for something, I
                              think."

                              "I think so too," she said softly.

                              "How does Steven feel about that?" He was getting curious about him.

                              Adrian spoke of him very little, and he wondered how well they got along. He wondered how much they had in common. Just looking at them, they seemed very different.

                              "I think he feels strongly about his opinions too. He's not always very good about understanding other people's positions." It was a classic understatement.

                              "Is he good about adjusting to you?" Their marriage intrigued him. He wanted to get to know them both, since he couldn't have her to himself, much as he would have liked to.

                              "Not always. He's good at - - -, She groped for the words and then found them.

                              "Parallel living is the best way I can describe it. He does what he wants to do, and he lets you do what you want without interfering."

                              As long as he thought you were doing the right thing to get ahead.

                              Like working in the newsroom.

                              "Does that work?"

                              It used to. It did. Until he moved right out of her life because he didn't like what she was doing. She took a breath as she tried to explain it to Bill Thigpen. "I think to make a marriage really work, you need more involvement than that, more intertwining, more interaction. It's not good enough to let each other be, you have to be something together."

                              It made sense to him, and he had figured that out when he was married to Leslie. "But I only figured that out recently."

                              "The kicker is that that's the whole secret.

                              A lot of people will just let you do your own thing. The trouble is, there are damn few people who want to do the same thing you do. I've never found one. Though I have to admit, I haven't looked very hard in the last few years. I haven't really had the time, or the inclination," Bill added.

                              "Why not?" She was intrigued by him too.

                              He looked as though he would have enjoyed being married.

                              "I think I was scared. It hurt so much when Leslie and I broke up, and when she took the boys, I think I never really wanted to do that again. I never wanted to care enough to get that hurt, or have kids someone could take away from me just because the marriage didn't work out. It never seemed fair to me.

                              Why should I lose my kids because the woman I'm with no longer loves me? So I've been careful." And lazy. He had purposely not looked for a serious relationship for a long time, telling himself he wasn't ready.

                              "Do you think she'll ever give the boys to you full-time, or more than for just a few visits a year?"

                              "I doubt it. She thinks she has a right to them, that they're hers, and she does me a big favor by sending them to me at all. But the truth is, I have as much right to be with them as she does. It's just bad luck that I happen to live in California. I could always go back to New York, to see more of them, but I always thought it would be even more difficult there.

                              I don't want to be ten blocks away from them every night and wonder what they're doing. I want to wander in and out of the room when they're talking on the phone, doing their homework, hanging out with their friends. I want to stand there and get tears in my eyes when I watch them sleep at night. I want to be there when they're sick and throw up and have runny noses. I want to be there for the real stuff. Not just a few weeks of Disneyland and Lake Tahoe in the summer." He
                              shrugged then, he had let her see what really mattered to him, and it really touched her.

                              "But I guess this is all I get. So I make the best of it. And most of the time, I just accept what is, and I don't worry about it. I used to want to have more kids one day, so I could 'do it right' this time, but I think by now I've decided it's better this way. I don't want to go through all that heartbreak again, in case someone decides they don't really like me."

                              "Maybe next time you could keep the kids." She smiled sadly and he shook his head. He knew better than that.

                              "Maybe next time it would be smarter not to get married and have children." Which was what he'd done for years, but deep down he knew that wasn't the answer either. "What about you? You think you and Steven will have kids?" It was a rude question, but he was so comfortable with her that he dared to ask it.

                              She hesitated for a long time before answering, not sure what to tell him. For a moment, she almost wanted to tell him the truth, but she didn't. "Maybe. Not for a while. Steven is - - - a little nervous about children."

                              "Why?" That intrigued him. Bill thought they were one of the best things about marriage. But he had the benefit of experience, so he knew that.

                              "He had a difficult childhood. Dirt-poor parents. And Steven decided early on that kids were the root of all evil."

                              "Oh, dear. One of those. How does that sit with you?"

                              She sighed, and her eyes met Bill's. "It's not always easy. I'm hoping he'll come around eventually." Like by January maybe.

                              "Don't wait too long, Adrian. You'll be sorry if you do. Kids are the greatest joy in the world. Don't deprive yourself of that, if you can help it." To him not having children seemed like a real deprivation.

                              "I'll tell Steven you said so." She smiled, and Bill smiled back, wishing Steven in perdition. It would have been so nice if she were free. He reached out and touched her hand, not in a rude way, but a warm one.

                              "I've had a wonderful day, Adrian. I hope you know that."

                              "So have I." She smiled happily, and polished off the last of her steak, as Bill finished the salad.

                              "You know, for a skinny girl, you eat a lot." He was honest, but teasing, and they both laughed.

                              "I'm sorry. It must be all the fresh air."

                              She knew exactly what it was, but she wasn't going to tell him.

                              "You're lucky, you can afford it." She had a beautiful figure, and he liked the fact that she obviously enjoyed his cooking.

                              They talked until about ten o'clock and she helped him clean up the kitchen, and then finally he walked her back to her place, carrying her beach bag. It was another beautiful night, with hardly any smog in evidence, and the stars bright above their heads. She hated to go back to work the next day. It was the Monday holiday of the three-day weekend, but she had said she would work because she had nothing else to do except wait for Steven to call. And they had their regular show to do, despite the long weekend. And so did Bill.

                              "Do you want to come by tomorrow?" Bill asked. "I should be in the office by eleven."

                              "It sounds like fun."

                              "We go on the air at one o'clock. Come on by if you've got a free minute. You can watch the show, tomorrow's a good one." She smiled at the prospect, and this time she was more relaxed as she unlocked the front door.

                              He had already seen her empty apartment.

                              There was nothing to hide from him anymore. Except the fact that Steven had left her two months before, and she was pregnant.

                              "Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?" He was about to say no, and then decided he would, just to prolong the evening.

                              She pulled up the stool and offered it to him as she made the coffee and then they went to sit in the living room with their cups. They sat on the floor because there was nowhere else to sit. It was a far cry from his comfortable apartment.

                              He noticed as they sat that she didn't even have a TV or a radio, and then he noticed where there had obviously been stereo speakers. And it dawned on him suddenly that she wouldn't have sold them. There was absolutely nothing left in her place except the light fixtures and the doorknobs, a carpet in the living room, and an answering machine on the floor next to the telephone. Even the table the phone had been on was gone. It looked like a place someone had just emptied to move out of, and as he thought the words, he suddenly realized what must have happened. He looked at her as though he had spoken the words out loud, with a startled look, as the idea came to him, but he didn't dare ask her.

                              "So, tell me about your new things," he said, pretending to be casual, as he stood up and looked around. "What kind of stuff did you order?"

                              "Oh - - - just the usual stuff," she said vaguely, continuing to tell him about the politics of the newsroom, hoping to distract him.

                              "You know, your layout is so different than mine, the two places don't even look remotely related."

                              "I know. It's funny, isn't it? I noticed that, too, when I was at your place." She was smiling at him. She had had a beautiful day, and she was totally relaxed, even though she was a little bit tired.

                              "How much space do you have upstairs?"

                              "Just one bedroom and a bath," she answered easily. "We have another bedroom downstairs, but we never use it."

                              "Can I look?" He had let her wander all over his place and it would have seemed unfriendly not to let him do the same, so she hesitated but nodded, as he walked easily upstairs and asked her for another cup of coffee.

                              And when she went into the kitchen to get it, he whipped like whirlwind through her bedroom. It was as empty as he had expected it would be, and within seconds he pulled open both closets, and looked through the bathroom cabinets, pawed through the boxes where she kept her clothes, and discovered what he had just figured out but she had never told him
                              - . - unless his things were downstairs, and suddenly Bill wanted to know, but he didn't dare ask her. A sixth sense told him that there was a reason why Steven Townsend had loaded all their belongings into a van, and it wasn't because they were going to redo the apartment. Even their wedding picture in the silver frame now sat on the bedroom floor with the room's only lamp, because Steven had taken the dresser and all the tables.

                              "I like the layout," he said, as he came downstairs looking relaxed, his whirlwind tour having gone unobserved, and then he asked her if he could use the bathroom. There were two doors on the main floor, and he intentionally chose the one he suspected was a closet, pulled open the door and found it empty save for a handful of empty wooden suit hangers. And then he opened the right one, and closed it behind him as he walked into the bathroom. He opened all the cupboards as quietly as he could, and then flushed the toilet and ran the water. And as he sat down to coffee with her again, he watched her eyes for the answers to his questions. But there were none. She had said nothing to him. She had pretended for weeks that Steven was away on business, that he would be back in a few days, that everything was fine, although she had
                              admitted over dinner that it wasn't always easy. She was a beautiful girl, and he knew she was married.

                              She was still wearing her wedding ring. But he also knew one other thing, after going through every closet in the place. For whatever reason she chose not to disclose, Steven Townsend was no longer living with his wife, and when he had left, he had taken everything with him.

                              Bill thanked her after a little while, and told her he'd drop by the newsroom the next day. And he thought about her all the way back to his place on the other side of the complex, and he just couldn't figure it out. He was intrigued by her all over again. What was she doing?

                              And why? Why was she pretending that everything was okay? Why hadn't she admitted that she was living alone? What was she hiding?

                              And why? But as he thought of the empty closets again, Bill Thigpen was delighted.
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