'Anything else?'
'Nothing. I'll carry your bags into the back, but it's late. I'm afraid I can't stay.'
When he was gone, Rachel wandered listlessly from room to room, realizing that the trip to St. Thomas had only been a respite that delayed her acceptance of Owen's irreversible absence. Standing in the doorway of their bedroom, she chafed
her arms, shivering. Her nostrils narrowed. The room still seemed to smell of sickness. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but Owen had spent so much of his last months here and had slipped into death right there on the bed in the middle of the night while she lay beside him.
Again she shivered. Then she was besieged by guilt for dwelling more on the unpleasant memories created in this room than on the pleasant.
When the phone rang, she jumped and pressed a hand to her heart, then stared at the instrument on the bedside table. It rang again and she hurried to answer it, sure it must be Marshall.
'Hello.'
But the low, masculine voice was not Marshall's. 'Hello, Rachel.'
'Hello,' she repeated, hoping for a clue from his inflection.
'How are you?' Still she couldn't identify the caller and had a sudden wary prickling along her spine-might it be one of those obscene callers who preyed on new widows?
'Who is this?' she asked icily.
'It's Tommy Lee.'
For a second she wished it had been only an
obscene call. She wrapped her free 57 hand around the mouthpiece and sank back onto the edge of the bed, her throat suddenly tight and dry.
'Tommy Lee… I…' I what? I went away to mourn my husband's death and thought more of you than I did of him? 'I certainly wasn't expecting it to be you.'
'Oh? Who were you expecting?'
'I… nobody.' After a breathless pause, she repeated, 'Nobody.'
'You've been gone.'
'Yes, to St. Thomas.'
'And how was St. Thomas?'
Her voice was falsely bright. 'Oh, lovely. Lovely! March is their dryest month. No rain, and highs in the eighties.' But once the weather report was finished she fell silent, that silence greeted by a matching one from the other end of the line. The strain grew between them until Rachel felt it between her shoulderblades. When her voice came again it was low and subdued. 'I didn't expect to see you at the funeral.'
Again there followed a long pause, as if he was measuring his reply. When it came, it was as tightly controlled as hers. 'I didn't
expect to be there.'
'You shouldn't have come, Tommy Lee.'
'I know that now.'
'I don't mean to sound ungrateful.' She swallowed, eyes closed, both hands gripping the phone. 'It did mean a lot to me to see you there.'
A full fifteen seconds of silence followed, then, 'Rachel, I want to talk to you.' His voice sounded tightly controlled, and she could hear his raspy breathing now.
'I'm here.'
'No, not on the phone. I want to see you.'
The very idea brought fresh pain to Rachel, laced with a hint of panic. 'What good would it do?'
'I don't know. I…' He sighed deeply. 'Don't you think it's time?'
She hugged her ribs tightly with one hand, bending forward slightly. 'Tommy Lee, listen to me. It would be a mistake. What's done is done and there's no use reviving old regrets. We're different now. You… I don't…' But she was stammering, voicing hollow words, unable to reason very well. 'Please, Tommy Lee, don't call me anymore. I have enough to deal with as
it is right now.' She hadn't realized 59 tears had been welling in her eyes until they slipped over and darkened two spots on her skirt. Staring at them, she wasn't sure if they were for Owen or Tommy Lee.
'Rachel, I'm sorry.' He sounded as if his lips were touching the mouthpiece of the phone. 'Look, I didn't mean to upset you. I just called to see how you're doing and let you know I've been thinking about you… and…'
'Tommy Lee, I… I have to go now.'
They listened to each other breathe for endless seconds.
'Sure,' he said at last, but it came out so softly she could scarcely hear the word.
'Good-bye, Tommy Lee.' She waited, but he neither said good-bye nor hung up. Finally she replaced the receiver with utmost care, as if not to disturb it again. Huddled on the edge of the bed, she hugged herself harder, squeezing her eyes closed, rocking forward and back, seeking to blot out the loneliness that always stemmed from thoughts of what could have been. She saw Tommy Lee again as he'd looked at the cemetery. Older, so much older, just as she was. She fought against recalling the
facts she'd gleaned about him over the years, the events of his life that had aged him, those that had brought him happiness, wealth, sadness, hope.
You've got to stop thinking about him. Think of anything else… anything at all. The bedroom! If the bedroom is difficult for you to face, have it redecorated. Think of colors, textures, furniture… anything but Tommy Lee Gentry.
But in the end, as she wandered off to sleep in a guest bedroom again, the memory of his face and his voice on the phone was her lullaby.
It was busy at Panache the following day. Spring had arrived and the seasonal fashion change brought a flurry of shoppers. Verda had managed beautifully while Rachel was gone. Sales had been good. New stock had come in. Rachel was tagging a shipment of swimwear when Verda remembered, 'Oh! Some man kept calling for you while you were gone.'
Rachel's head snapped up. 'Who?'
'I don't know. He wouldn't give his name, but I'd recognize his voice if he called again.'
A premonition of dread struck 61 Rachel. Could it have been Tommy Lee? The last thing she needed was to have Verda aware that he had called. With his reputation, eyebrows would rise in no time.
'Did he say what he wanted?'
'No, just kept saying he'd call back, and I finally told him you'd gone to St. Thomas and would be back today.'
So he'd known when she'd get back. That's why his phone call had come immediately upon her return. That meant last night's call hadn't been impetuous, as she'd hoped. But she'd made it clear she didn't want to see him or talk to him again. Surely Tommy Lee wouldn't force the issue.
He didn't. For two weeks.
But during the third, after suffering sleepless nights and haunted days, he knew he could put it off no longer- he had to see her.
He left the office at the end of a balmy spring day and made the run home in the usual nine minutes, bounded into the house and began stripping off his jacket before he hit the stairs to the living room. If he'd been planning to see
Bitsy tonight he would have been whistling. But as it was, he found his mouth dry, so he washed a glass from the kitchen sink and mixed himself a martini to carry with him upstairs to the bathroom.
In the shower he thought of Rachel, becoming conscious once again of the twenty-five pounds he should lose. When he'd finished shaving, he paused in the act of patting after-shave on the slack skin about his jaws, scowling into the mirror. Brushing his hair, he wished he'd used something to cover the gray, but it was too late now. He recalled the ducktail he'd worn all those years ago when he and Rachel were teenagers. And she'd worn a long black ponytail, and sometimes a high-placed doughnut circled by a ring of tiny flowers to match her blouse or skirt. Lord, she'd come a long way since then. Her stylishness alone made Tommy Lee quaver. So when he dressed, he chose carefully: an expensive pair of trousers in oatmeal beige; a coordinating belt with a shining gold buckle; a blue-on-blue dress shirt; and a summer slubbed-silk sports coat the color of a coconut shell. He debated about a tie,
