When Anne emerged from the shower, I was tying my tie and humming a little tune. I was starting to feel as though the two of us might be on somewhat equal footing. I was conscious of being terrifically happy, and for right then, at least, I was wise enough not to question it.
I had dressed while she unpacked. Now it was my turn to lie on the bed and watch her. She stood indecisively at the closet door for a moment. “What should I wear?”
“We’re not going to the Doghouse,” I replied.
She chose a muted red dress of delicate silk. Red was her color on any occasion, in any light. Before I met her I had no idea red came in so many different shades. Maxwell Cole had been more correct than he knew when he called her the Lady in Red.
Carefully she selected underwear and put it on. It was a quiet, intimate time together, with her doing things she would usually do alone. She didn’t seem disturbed by my presence or by my watching her. In the short period we had been together a bonding had occurred. I had experienced that bonding only once before, with Karen, and then I’d lost it. I was grateful to have it back. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.
Anne came to me to zip the dress and to fasten the diamond pendant. “From Milton?” I asked, surprised that there was no pang of jealousy as I asked the question.
“Yes,” she said, turning to kiss me. “Thanks.”
“Where’s your car?” I asked. “Did you bring it along with your clothes?”
She nodded. “It’s down on the street.”
“We’ll have to move it to a lot in the morning, or we’ll spend all day feeding parking meters.”
“Would you like to take it?” she asked.
I tossed Peters’ Datsun keys into the air. “Not on a bet. I don’t think I’d better press my luck. I’m just barely qualified for a Datsun. A Porsche would be overkill.”
Of course we could have walked, but I drove up to the valet parking attendant. He opened the door with a slight bow in Anne’s direction, diplomatically concealing most of his disdain for the battered Datsun.
The old Anne Corley was back. She was delighted and delightful. Everything about the evening pleased her. As the restaurant rotated she asked questions about various landmarks. She ate like a famished puppy and joked with the waiter, who regarded her with a certain awe. We drank champagne and toasted our future. It was a festive, joyous occasion.
The conversation was light, fun-filled nonsense. It was only when the coffee came and we were working our way through two final glasses of wine that she turned serious on me. I knew enough to be wary by now, to tread softly and not force her beyond her own speed.
“Do you want me to tell you about Milton?” she asked softly.
“Only if you want to, only if you think I need to know.”
“It’s the same version they wrote years ago. He sounds like a monster who took advantage of a young female patient, doesn’t he?”
“That’s why he lost his job, isn’t it?”
“People were only interested in how things looked. No one cared how things really were. It’s too much trouble to look beneath the surface.”
“But he committed suicide.”
“He didn’t do it because of his job,” she said “He was dying of cancer. He didn’t want to go on. He didn’t want to face what was coming. I understand that a lot more now than I did then.” She paused. “How old are you, Beau?”
“Forty-two, going on sixty.”
“Milton was sixty-three when I married him.” She made the statement quietly and waited for my reaction.
“Sixty-three!” I choked on a sip of coffee.
Anne smiled. “I’ve always gone for older men,” she teased. The smile faded from her face, her eyes. “He was the first person who believed me.”
I struggled to follow her train of thought. “You mean about Patty?”
She nodded. “I had been locked up in that place for five years when I met him, and he was the very first person who believed me.”
“How is that possible?”
“You told me yourself. This isn’t the best of all possible worlds, remember? I stayed because my mother had enough money to pay to keep me there. I’d have been pronounced cured and turned loose if we’d been poor.”
She watched in silence as the waiter refilled her cup with coffee. “Doctors became omnipotent in places like that. They have the power of life and death over you. The smallest kindness becomes an incredible gift. He took an interest in me. He promised he’d take care of me if I’d have sex with him.”
Outrage came boiling to the surface. “When you were thirteen and he was fifty-seven?”
“No. I said I met him then. I was seventeen when it started.” She was holding her cup in both hands, looking at me through the steam, using it as a screen to protect her from my sudden flare of anger. “There’s no need to be angry,” she said. “He kept his part of the bargain, and I kept mine. He saw to it that I got an education, that I had books to read, that I learned things. On weekends he would get me a pass and take me places. He bought me clothes, taught me how to dress, how to wear my hair. I don’t have any complaints.”
“But Anne…”
“When my mother died, I was nineteen. He hired Ancell Ames, Ralph’s father, to lay hands on the moneys left in trust for me, money my mother had been appropriating over the years. He got me out of the hospital, and we got married. Everyone believed he married me because of the money. Nobody cared that he had plenty himself. It made a better scandal the other way around.” For the first time I heard a trace of bitterness in her voice.
“Did you love him when you married him?”
She shook her head. “That came later. I loved him when he died.”
She set down her coffee cup, gray eyes searching mine. “Do you want to know about the money?”
I reached across the table and took her hand. “No,” I said, laughing. “I don’t want to know about the money. Maybe you should get Ralph to draw up a prenuptial agreement. Would that make you feel better?”
“What’s mine is yours,” she said.
“Me too,” I grinned, “but I think you’re getting the short end of the stick.”
She sat there looking beautiful and troubled. A lifetime of tragedy had swirled around her and brought her to me. I wanted to free her from all that had gone before, to set her feet firmly on present, solid ground. I took her hand and held it with both my massive paws around her slender fingers. “Considering what you’ve been through, you have every right to be totally screwed up.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed,” she replied. “I am totally screwed up.”
“So where does all this leave us?” I asked.
“I’ve talked to Ralph. He’s coming back up tomorrow night. I want him to be a witness. What about Peters?”
“He’s out of town,” I told her, guiltily remembering that I had assured Peters the wedding would be postponed. It was too late to do anything about that, however.
Anne must have seen my hesitation. “You do still want to get married, don’t you?”
She sat waiting for my answer; both pain and doubt visible in her face, her eyes. I succumbed.
“I think all my objections have just been overruled,” I said. “Would you like to dance?”
She nodded. There was a piano player in the bar, the music soft, old and danceable. I’m a reasonably capable dancer, and Anne flowed with my body. The admiration of those watching was obvious, and I enjoyed it. I wanted to be seen with her; I wanted to be the one who brought Anne Corley to Seattle and kept her there.
We danced until one. I was sleepy when we got back to the apartment. Anne said she was wide-awake and wanted to stay up and rework the last chapter. She wanted to send it with Ralph on Sunday. She also said she planned to jog early in the morning. I kissed her good night in the living room.
“Thanks for a wonderful evening, Anne. All of it.”
“It was good, wasn’t it?” she agreed.
“Promise we’ll have a lifetime of evenings like this.”
She didn’t answer; she kissed me. “Good night,” she murmured with her lips still on mine.
“Good night yourself.”
