“Then why doesn't it happen all the time? Why isn't everybody going around reinventing the past, creating people who never existed?”
“Maybe that's exactly what's happening. Maybe we do it all the time, and that's what the past is.”
She thought about this for a moment. “Maybe,” she said, getting to her feet, “I'll have some of that vodka.”
She went through to the tiny kitchen and got some ice cubes from the refrigerator, then tipped a shot of alcohol over them and listened to them crack. She took a sip, letting the sensation brace her, enjoying the instantaneous sense of well-being that it gave, no less welcome for being illusory.
“If that's what we've done,” she said, crossing back into the sitting room, “if we've created someone who never existed before we thought of him,” she looked at Sam, an odd smile playing at the corners of her mouth, “then it's rather appropriate that we called him Adam, isn't it?”
“Maybe we knew what we were doing.”
“Oh, no!” She held up a hand in protest. “I can swallow anything except the idea that we knew what we were doing!”
She took another sip of her drink. “At least,” she said, “we've finally got some concrete proof that paranormal phenomena exist.”
There was something in the way he looked at her that made her think he was about to burst into laughter. But he just shook his head, and gave a resigned smile. “No, I'm afraid not.”
She frowned. “How come?”
“Think about it. To anybody outside our group who finds out about Adam now, it will seem that he must have always existed. How can we prove otherwise?”
Joanna's blood ran cold. She saw so totally the logic of what he had just said that she didn't even for a second question it.
“That's what that old woman said. You're on your own now. Maybe she really did put a curse on me, and this is all part of it.”
“Well, she didn't put a curse on me. Or Maggie, or Drew and Barry, or any of us in this thing with you. So I don't think that hypothesis stands up.”
“Good,” she said, “I'm glad to hear it.” She took another sip of her drink, and was surprised to find that she'd already finished it. “Have you heard any more from Ward?” she asked.
“I forgot to tell you with all this other stuff. He gets in tomorrow morning. I'm meeting him at his apartment at midday-can you make it?”
“Sure.”
“He wouldn't tell me what he's got, but he sounded excited-at least for Ward.”
38
They ate around the corner in a fish place. Over a bottle of Chablis, they turned over what they'd been talking about a few more times and speculated about what Ward might have come up with.
“The first thing we do tomorrow,” Sam said, “is start researching who exactly the Adam Wyatt in that grave was.”
“I'll get right on it. I've got some great people for fast research.”
She linked her arm through his as they walked slowly back to her apartment, heads down, each lost in private thoughts. They undressed and shared her tiny bathroom like a couple long familiar with each other's habits. It was only once they were in bed and their bodies touched beneath the sheets that the responses of the past few months were reawakened. To their surprise and mutual delight, they lost themselves in sheer physicality for what seemed like half the night, falling at last into a sated and more contented sleep than either had imagined possible.
“So tell me,” he said over a hurried breakfast of cereal and coffee, “have you decided yet what you're going to do about the story?”
She had told him over dinner about Taylor Freestone's ultimatum.
“I'm going to stick with it,” she said. As she spoke she realized that she'd made her mind up long since, she just hadn't said the words yet. She saw now there was never a choice: she could not let this story be told by anyone but herself. “I've come too far with it to quit. We all have.”
“I think it's the right choice,” he said, “I'm glad.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. See you at twelve.”
He reached for his coat, they kissed, and he was gone. From her window she watched his car pull out of its space and head around the corner toward the dense traffic of First Avenue. As he disappeared from sight, her phone rang. She crossed to her desk and picked it up.
“Joanna?”
“Yes.”
“This is Ralph Cazaubon.”
She was surprised by the call, but even more by the strange sense of guilt that it provoked in her, as though just by talking to him she was somehow betraying Sam. It was absurd, of course, an irrational response that reminded her of what Sam had said about superstition the first time they met.
“Hello? Are you there? Don't tell me you've forgotten me already.”
“No…I'm sorry, I just wasn't…it's just a surprise.”
“I hope this isn't too early, but I wanted to catch you before you left for the office-that is if writers work in offices.”
“Sometimes. Not today, though.”
She wanted to ask how he'd gotten her number, then she remembered she was listed: Cross, J. E. Had she told him she lived in Beekman Place? She couldn't remember.
“I was a little worried about you yesterday. You rushed off so suddenly I was afraid something had happened.”
“No…not really…not happened exactly. I'm afraid it's something I can't explain.”
Which was truer than he knew, she thought.
“Well, as long as you're all right…”
“I'm fine.”
She was grateful that he didn't probe further.
“I was wondering,” he said, as though coming to the real point of his call, “whether we might meet sometime. Is lunch or dinner good for you this week?”
She hesitated. Not about whether to accept, but how to answer. “I'm afraid not,” she said. “It just isn't possible at the moment.”
Why had she said that? At the moment? Was she hedging her bets? She hated herself for the thought. She had spent the night with Sam, she loved him. And yet there was something about Ralph Cazaubon that was curiously intriguing. He was attractive, undeniably; but it was more than that, something that she couldn't put her finger on.
“I understand,” he said.
He didn't, of course, she told herself. How could he? But again he didn't ask questions or try to insist. He was respecting her privacy, while carefully leaving the door open.
“Can I give you my number…?”
He gave it without waiting for an answer. And she wrote it down on the pad she kept by her phone. As an afterthought he added his address-a few blocks up on the East Side, between Park and Lexington. She knew the street well, full of large and very expensive brownstones.
“I'll be giving a party soon-when I've finished buying curtains and sorting out colors. Maybe you'll be able to come. I'll send you an invitation.”
“Thank you, I'd…I'd be happy to if I can.”
That was all right, wasn't it? She felt oddly disconcerted. Not shy, exactly, not that teenage tongue-tied thing. There was just something about him, about this call, that wrong-footed her. It wasn't him so much as her.
