Transgressions

'With real estate in the sky, best we could hope for is a small house in, you know, Yonkers or Port Chester. This is Bedford.'

Peter cupped the back of her head with his hand.

'He's got you wanting, instead of thinking. He's damn good at it. And that's how he gets what he wants.'

Echo slipped a hand over his heart. 'So angry.' She trembled. 'I'm cold, Peter. Warm me up.'

'Isn't what we've always planned good enough any more?'

'Oh, Peter. I love you and I'm going to marry you, and nothing will ever change that.'

'Maybe we should get started home.'

'But what if this is home, Peter? Our home.' She slid off his lap, tugged nonchalantly at him with one hand. 'C'mon. You haven't seen everything yet.'

'What did I miss?' he said reluctantly.

'Bedroom. And there's a fireplace too.'

She dealt soothingly with his resistance, his fears that he wasn't equal to the emotional cost that remained to be exacted for their prize. He wasn't steady on his feet. The brandy he had drunk was hitting him hard.

'Just think about it,' Echo said, leading him. 'How it could be. Imagine that a year has gone by—so fast—,' Echo kissed him and opened the bedroom door. Inside there was a gas log fire on a corner hearth.

'And here we are.' She framed his his face lovingly with her hands. 'What do you want to do now?' she said, looking solemnly into his eyes.

Peter swallowed the words he couldn't speak, glancing at the four-poster bed that dominated the room.

'I know what I want you to do,' she said.

'Echo—'

She tugged him into the room and closed the door with her foot.

'It's all right,' she said as he wavered. 'Such a perfect place to spend our first night together. I want you to appreciate just how much I love you.'

She left him and went to a corner of the room by the hearth where she undressed quickly, a quick- change artist, down to the skin, slipping then beneath covers, to his fuming eyes a comely shadow.

'Peter?'

He touched his belt buckle, dropped his hands. He felt at the point of tears; ardor and longing were compromised by too much drink. His heartbeat was fueled by inchoate anger.

'Peter? What's wrong?'

He took a step toward her, stumbled, fell against a chair with a lyre back. Heavy, but he lifted it easily and slammed it against the wall. His unexpected rage had her cowering, his insulted hubris a raw wound she was too inexperienced to deal with. She hugged herself in shock and pain.

Peter opened the bedroom door.

'I'll wait in the fuckin' limo. You—you stay here if you want! Stay all night. Do whatever the hell you think you've got to do to make yourself happy, and just never mind what it'll do to us!'

Six

The first day of fall, and it was a good day for riding in convertibles: unclouded blue sky, temperatures on the East Coast in the sixties. The car John Ransome drove uptown and parked opposite Echo's building was a Mercedes two-seater. Not a lot of room for luggage, but she'd packed frugally, only the clothes she would need for wintering on a small island off the coast of Maine. And her paintbox.

He didn't get out of the car right away; cell phone call. Echo lingered an extra few moments at her bedroom windows hoping to see Peter's car. They'd talked briefly at about one A.M., and he'd sounded okay, almost casual about her upcoming forced absence from his life. Holidays included. He was trying a little too hard not to show a lack of faith in her. Neither of them mentioned John Ransome. As if he didn't exist, and she was leaving to study painting in Paris for a year.

Echo picked up her duffels from the bed and carried them out to the front hall. She left the door ajar and went into the front room where Julia was reading to Rosemay from the National Enquirer. Julia was a devotee of celebrity gossip.

Commenting on an actress who had been photographed trying to slip out of a California clinic after a makeover, Julia said, 'Sure and she's at an age where she needs to give up plastic surgery and place her bets with a good taxidermist.'

Rosemay smiled, her eyes on her daughter. Rosemay's lips trembled perceptibly; her skin was china- white, mimicking the tone of the bones within. Echo felt a strong pulse of fear; how frail her mother had become in just three months.

'Mom, I'm leaving my cell phone with you. It doesn't work on the island, John says. But there's a dish for Internet, no problem with e-mail.'

'That's a blessing.'

'Peter comin' to see you off?' Julia asked.

Echo glanced at her watch. 'He wasn't sure. They were working a triple homicide last night.'

'Do we have time for tea?' Rosemay asked, turning slowly away from her computer and looking up at Echo through her green eyeshade.

'John's here already, mom.'