A ruling passion : a novel (7 page)

into the large room fear gripped her, especially when Valerie disappeared right after introducing her to their hostess. Sybille watched her move among the guests as comfortably as if she were on the campus, and she thought angrily that she had no right to leave her alone; she should have stayed at her side. Valerie was always like that: swinging wildly from generosity and praise to total thoughdessness. She did just what she felt like at the moment without concern for what was past or what lay ahead.

While Valerie was the center of attention, Sybille stood at the edges of groups, hstening to conversations, smiling when others laughed, always looking intently at the speaker as if she were the one being spoken to. In that way she spent the evening, saying almost nothing while the guests stood about the living room, having drinks, and then sat at three round granite-topped tables for dinner. She watched, she listened, she took note of dresses, gestures and mannerisms, and the anecdotes about television and local and national poHtics that filled the conversation, giving her her first view from the inside. It was the most exciting evening she'd ever known, and it showed her exactly what had been missing in her plans for the future. Now she expected not only to become wealthy and powerftil in television, but also to be part of the life of powerftil people.

"Thank you," she said to Valerie at eleven o'clock when the limousine stopped in exactly the same spot it had picked her up only a few hours before.

"I'm glad you could come," Valerie replied. "I hope you had some ftm; you were awfully quiet."

"I was watching, and learning a lot. You don't have to worry about me, Valerie. I had the most fun I've ever had in my Ufe."

Nick pulled ahead of Valerie, his horse flying as they reached the crest of a rise and began the downward run. He hadn't ridden in years and was rediscovering the exhilaration of it, the unbridled energy and sense of freedom that swept over him with the wind. He bent low over the horse's sleek neck, and so it was the flying hoofs of Valerie's horse he saw first as she caught and passed him, shouting something he could not hear. She looked back at him, laughing as she turned her horse toward the hills, increasing the distance between them. But Nick, urging his horse on, caught her and then they rode side by side. The matched energy of their horses and the thrill of their speed flowed between them like an embrace, and when at last they stopped, Valerie

moved her horse close to his. "It's like making love, don't you think? Like we were inside each other."

"Not quite." He grinned at her. "As I recall, there's a distinct difference."

"Well, but not in essence. We were riding each other just now, weren't we? In a mystical sense, anyway: I felt so much a part of you."

She could always surprise him. As far as Nick could tell, she took nothing as seriously as he took almost everything, but then she would come up with quirky, interesting ideas that showed she'd thought about things in an almost analytical way. But Valerie wasn't analytical; everybody knew that. She was spoiled and willful and resdess. She was also absolutely captivating, which had nothing to do with how serious she was, but had everything to do with why he spent so much of his time thinking about her. This morning he had missed a class to ride with her—she had missed one, too, but she brushed it aside—and he had two papers to finish, and a project at work that would keep him up most of the night. But he barely thought about any of that; he was completely absorbed by the warm, hazy day, the excitement of riding, the fascination of Valerie.

"No mystical sense?" she said mockingly, when his silence stretched out. "I should have known; it must be as forbidden as magic in your book of rules."

"I'm open to it," he said. "A scientist is always willing to listen."

"Oh, you want proof How dreary. Do you know what I love best about riding? Cutting loose from everything. The whole world goes by in a blur, all pale and misty, and the only thing that's real is me, but I'm totally different. I'm my own universe: pure space, pure movement. As if time disappears and there's only speed and eternity. Now, how does a scientist feel about that?"

"He feels he should have been a poet," Nick said quiedy. "I may have felt something like that when we were riding, but those weren't the ideas that came to me."

"Well, they're yours now," Valerie said carelessly. "You can do what you want with them. We'd better start back; I have a paper due tomorrow and we're rehearsing the first act of Misalliance tonight."

"Before or after dinner?"

"During, I guess; it's called for six-thirty. It's going to be a contest between Shaw's dialogue and our corned-beef sandwiches. Do you want to watch?"

"They don't want an audience, do they?"

"The star gets to bend the rules. If you want to watch, you can watch."

"Another night, then; I'd like to. I'll be working most of tonight."

She sighed. "Nose to the grindstone," she murmured, and rode off, leaving him behind.

But she rode at an easy pace and soon Nick was beside her. Their horses moved in tandem, their bodies rose and fell in a matched rhythm, and they were content to ride that way, without speaking, sharing their smiles as the perfect afternoon slid slowly past.

They were only a mile from the ranch where they would return the horses when they heard a harmonica and an accordion playing a lively tune, and the shrieks and laughter of children. "Let's go see," Valerie said, and, following the sounds, they came to a carnival on the outskirts of Los Verdes. There seemed to be hundreds of children milling about, and a few adults who stood out like tall weeds in a field of waving grass. "Oh, lovely," Valerie said and, jumping down, tied her horse to a fencepost with a loose knot. "Nick, come on; don't you love these?"

"It's been a long time." He'd said the same thing about riding when she first invited him. So many rediscoveries, he thought as he tied up his horse. And discoveries too. Forgotten were the papers due the next day, the rehearsal that evening, Nick's job. They wandered hand in hand through the carnival, tossing horseshoes, shooting at moving ducks, fishing for prizes in wooden barrels, playing miniature golf and skittles. They rode the ferris wheel twice, watched the delight in the eyes of children on the merry-go-round and the miniature train, and then, at the far end of the carnival, they came upon a puppet show.

Valerie grabbed Nick's hand. "I don't believe it; it's just like the one I had when I was growing up." They stood behind a crowd of children sitting cross-legged on the grass, and Valerie gazed at the little theater almost hungrily. "It was all glittery like this one, only with gold spangles instead of silver. When I turned on the stage lights, the gold was like stars and everything was a fairyland." She laughed softly, caught in her memories. "My cousins and I used to make up plays and put them on for the family, until the plots got so gruesome nobody would watch. Sometimes we couldn't watch them, either; we'd scare ourselves so much we wouldn't do it again for weeks. But we always came back and made another one even more awftil. Isn't it amazing how children love to terrify themselves with the worst that might happen? I can't imagine why; I refuse to think about those things now. It's much better to think everything will always be gold spangles that look like stars. I wonder if it's still in the basement on the farm. If I ever have

children, Fd love to see what they do with it; there must be thirty puppets there, just waiting to be brought to life."

On the small stage, two puppets were playing Ping-Pong. "If you have children?" Nick asked.

"Oh, I suppose I will someday. I haven't given it much thought. Not for a long time, anyway; I wouldn't have them if all I'd do is give them to somebody else to bring up, and I'm not about to let some kids take up all my time right now." She caught a glimpse of his curious look before he masked it. "I'm only twenty!" she exclaimed. "Why do you keep expecting me to make all these decisions? I'm not ready. Anyone who has children ought to be settled and wise, and I'm not. Not yet, anyway. Oh, look, what a clever idea!"

One of the puppets had taken a wild swipe at the Ping-Pong ball and sent it sailing out to the audience. With shrieks of glee, the children grabbed at it; a little girl snatched it and hugged it to herself. When the children looked back at the stage, the puppets were quarreling. "Look what you did! You lost the ball!" "I didn't! You hit it wrong and it bounced off my paddle!" "I hit it right! You didn't know how to hit it back!" "I hit it right! You hit it wrong!" 'HTou hit it wrong!" "Listen, dummy, there's two ways to do things: my way and the wrong way. That's all!"

The children were laughing and jumping up and down and Nick and Valerie looked at each other. "The reason nations go to war," he murmured, and she laughed. "It's a lesson in power politics."

But in a minute the puppets were reconciled. "Maybe there is another right way besides mine," said the one who had caUed his friend a dummy. "But it's an awful nuisance, having to learn two ways." "That's okay," said the other. "A little nuisance isn't so bad if it means we can play together without fighting all the time."

"Moral for the day," Nick said as he and Valerie walked back the way they had come. "But it's not power poUtics, as we know it."

"No. It's not even marriage as we know it."

He gave her a swift glance. "Then what was that play about?"

"A love affair," she said, laughing. "Couldn't you tell? It's the only time two people really work at being on their best behavior. There are the horses; my God, it's so late, let's see how fast we can get back."

"In a minute." Nick put his arm around her and brought her to him to kiss her. They stood for a long moment beneath the tree. Music and the laughter of children drifted to them, the air was fragrant with sunlight and flowering shrubs, and they held each other close, their breaths mingling.

"I like that," Valerie said when they moved a little apart and smiled at each other. "What inspired it?"

"A wonderful day. And I wanted to be on my best behavior."

She laughed. "But I expect that of you. Otherwise this would be a very unsatisfaaory affair. Come on, we're going to race back."

By the time they reached the ranch, their horses neck and neck, Valerie was thinking about the play she would rehearse that night; she had forgotten the puppets. But Nick never forgot them. Because that afternoon was the first time he knew he wanted to marry her—and that he could not ask her because she would turn him down. That afternoon was the first of many afternoons and evenings he would tell himself that she wasn't ready yet; he would have to wait for just the right time.

A college campus is its own world, almost as separate from the larger world as if it were tucked into itself behind a high wall. Even without a wall, a visitor notices changes the instant the Stanford boundary is crossed. The light is softer, sifting down on students strolling, sprawling, and embracing; it glows along the harmonious curves of sandstone buildings with arches and red tile roofs surrounding serene quadrangles and lining long walks. The clamor of the city fades away, even the bicycling students seem reflective, and it is easy to believe that here the hustle of the marketplace takes a backseat to the pursuit of knowledge, perhaps even of wisdom.

Nick had loved it from the moment his parents first drove him to the campus seven years earlier, helping him move his few possessions into his dormitory room, and giving him words of advice as urgendy as if it were the last chance they would ever have. As soon as they left, he went for a walk, studying a map to learn his way around the campus, memorizing names of buildings, watching soccer practice, envying the couples walking hand in hand across the grass, wandering through the library stacks and running his hands along the shelves of books. He wanted to read them all.

He never lived at home again. For most of the year he stayed on campus, studying and holding down one job or another, sometimes two at a time. One month every summer he hitchhiked the West, from Oregon and Washington to Arizona and New Mexico, photographing, making notes, reading Indian and Western lore. Most often he went alone. One summer he was joined by a girl he thought he loved, but the closeness proved too much for them. Another summer two friends from his soccer team went along, one of them providing a car, and the

three of them explored the rifts and ranges of Wyoming on what became one of the best trips Nick ever took. But his friends graduated the following spring, and that summer he once again took off alone, this time bicycling past the fantastic rock formations that ran the length of Baja California. And that was a great trip, too, solitude having its own pleasures. He had never been afraid of being alone.

When he came back to the campus, whether from a trip through the West or from visiting his parents, it was always with a feeling of coming home. It was where he belonged.

When he told that to Sybille, she stared at him in surprise. She had led him and Valerie on a tour of KNEX and then they had driven in Valerie's sports car to a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto for dinner. 'Tou can't think college is like home; it's more like a stopping place on the way to the rest of your life."

"Nick builds nests," Valerie said, "even if he's on the way somewhere. It's amazing how good he is at it; I couldn't begin to do what he does."

"You just need a few lessons in homemaking," Nick said with a grin. "Which I will be glad to supply."

"Too late; I'm far too old to learn. Why don't I teach you how to hire servants?"

"Too rich for my budget, and all my dusting and cooking skills would atrophy." He caught a glimpse of Sybille's wistftil eyes, and felt guilty for excluding her. "We were talking about Stanford," he said, turning to her. "What's wrong with it?"

"Ifs not just Stanford; ifs any college. It takes forever to get through it, and it doesn't have what I want; what is there to like?"

Nick watched the waiter spread plum jam and shredded meat and vegetables on pancakes, then roll them up. "What do you want?" he asked.

She hesitated. "A lot of things." She wished Valerie weren't there; she would have liked to talk to Nick alone. "To be noticed. To make people know I'm here. Most people I know are so satisfied; they don't have that awftil ache to be as big and as high—" She broke off and dropped her eyes, her face flushed with embarrassment.