'Yes, but I'm not sure I'm the one she should have been asking.'
'Of course you are.' After a pause he added, 'James asked me for advice, too. Made me feel older than I am.' He turned to me in the darkness, his face cloaked in the shadows. 'They think we're Mr. and Mrs. Perfect.'
'I know.'
'I wish we were.' He took my hand again. 'So what are we going to do?'
'Let's not try to come up with all the answers tonight, Paul. I'm tired and confused myself.'
'Whatever you say.' He leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. 'Don't hate me for loving you so much,' he whispered. I wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to soothe his troubled soul, but all I could do was shed some tears and stare into the night with my heart feeling like a lump of lead.
Finally we both went in and up to our separate bedrooms. After I put out my light, I stood by my window and gazed into the evening sky. I thought about Jeanne and James hurrying home after a wonderful meal, wine, and conversation, excited about each other, eager to hold each other and cap the evening with their lovemaking.
While in his room, Paul embraced a pillow, and in mine, I embraced my memories of Beau.
Shortly after Paul left for work the next morning, Beau called. He was so excited about our next rendezvous, barely squeezing in a breath as he described his plans for our day and evening, that at first I couldn't get in a word.
'You don't know how this has changed my life,' he said. 'You've given me something to look forward to, something to cheer me through the most dreary days and nights.'
'Beau, I have some bad news,' I finally inserted, and told him about Mrs. Flemming's daughter. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone things.'
'Why? Just come in with Pearl,' he pleaded.
'No. I can't,' I said.
'It's more than that, isn't it?' he asked after a pause.
'Yes,' I admitted, and told him about Paul.
'Then he knows about us?'
'Yes, Beau.'
'Gisselle has been very suspicious lately, too,' he confessed. 'She's even uttered some veiled threats and some not so veiled threats.'
'Then maybe it's best we cool things down,' I suggested. 'We must think of all the people we might hurt, Beau.'
'Yes,' he said in a cracked voice.
If words had weight, the telephone lines between New Orleans and Cypress Woods would sag and tear apart, I thought.
'I'm sorry, Beau.'
I heard him sigh deeply. 'Well, Gisselle keeps asking to go to the ranch for a few days. I guess I'll take her next week. The truth is, I hate living in this house without you, Ruby. There are too many memories of us together here. Every time I walk past your room, I stop and stare at the door and remember.'
'Talk Gisselle into selling the house, Beau. Start new somewhere else,' I suggested.
'She doesn't care. Nothing bothers her. What have we done to each other, Ruby?' he asked.
I swallowed back the throat lumps, but fugitive tears trickled down my cheeks. For a moment I couldn't find my voice.
'We fell in love, Beau. That's all. We fell in love.'
'Ruby . . .'
'I've got to go, Beau. Please.'
'Don't say good-bye. Just hang up,' he told me, and I did so, but I sat at the phone and sobbed until I heard Pearl wake from her nap and call to me. Then I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and went on to fill my days and nights with as much work as I could find, so I wouldn't think and I wouldn't regret.
A quiet resignation fell over me. I began to feel like a nun, spending much of my time in quiet meditation, painting, reading, and listening to music. Caring for Pearl was a full-time job now, too. She was very active and curious about everything. I had to go about and make the house child-proof, placing valuable knick-knacks out of her reach, being sure she couldn't get into anything dangerous. Occasionally Molly would look after her for me for a few hours while I shopped or had some quiet time alone.
Paul was busier than ever; deliberately so, I thought. He was up at the crack of dawn and gone some days before I came down for breakfast. Sometimes he couldn't get back in time for dinner. He told me his father was doing less and less at the cannery, and talking about retirement.
'Maybe you should hire a manager, then,' I suggested. 'You can't do it all.'
'I'll see,' he promised, but I saw that he enjoyed being occupied. Just like me, he hated leisure because leisure made him reflect on what his life was really like now.
I thought it would go on like this forever until we were both old and gray, rocking side by side on the gallery and looking out at the bayou, wondering what life would have been like had we not made some of the decisions we had made when we were young and impulsive. But one night after dinner toward the end of the month, the phone rang. Paul had already settled himself in his favorite easy chair and had the journal opened to the business pages. Pearl was asleep and I was reading a novel. James appeared in the doorway.
