After the Reunion (12 page)

“I have to work,” Annabel said. “What about Sunday?”

“Lunch on Sunday?” he said.

“Perfect,” she said. “Why don’t I get some food and we’ll have a picnic here.”

They had three dates, if you could call them that. Three picnics where they ignored the food and went to bed to devour each other. He told Monica, who wanted a husband and children, that he wanted only to be free, to “find himself.” And then he asked Annabel if he could stay with her while Monica was looking for her own apartment.

It took Annabel about two minutes to say yes. She had never been a person who worried about consequences until afterward. Dean was not what she had been looking for: he was too young, it was impossible that it could last. But she was interested in
him
now, not some unknown someone else. She knew she was falling in love with him, and that it was insane. Their relationship was mostly physical—not that he wasn’t bright and talented and fun to talk to—but they had no shared history. Even when they read the Sunday
Times
together they would be looking for different things, seeing them through different eyes. But wasn’t that often the way with people who weren’t twenty years apart in age? She didn’t want a soul mate any more, she just wanted to be with him. She liked that he was not like her, that they came from a different place in time. Whatever someone else might consider a flaw in their relationship she found interesting, a challenge. His extraordinary good looks still stunned her. That proved he wasn’t a boring person, because you got used to beauty so quickly. Didn’t you …?

Chris, speaking of a person who had fallen in love with beauty, had stopped coming around the boutique, although she and Annabel still spoke on the phone almost every day. Finally Annabel had to make a lunch date with her in order to see her.

“Don’t get shocked when you see how I look,” Chris said on the phone.

“Shocked how?”

“I’m fat.”

“You could never be fat.”

“Well, I’ve gained quite a lot of weight since you saw me last. But I don’t want you to talk to me about it, okay?”

“I won’t say a word,” Annabel said cheerfully. She couldn’t imagine Chris, whom she’d known ever since they were eighteen, through frumpiness and chicness, as being anything but lean.

She was wrong. They met at Chatfield’s, a little restaurant that looked like a country inn and specialized in plain grills and good salads, with a few mandatory substantial items included for men who made business lunch their main meal. Chris was already seated at their table, but even sitting down it was obvious how much she’d changed.
No wonder she’s been avoiding the boutique
, Annabel thought. First of all, Chris was wearing a black muumuu. It billowed around her, making her look dumpy and matronly. But her face … it was her face that shocked Annabel, because it was puffy.

“I declare, Christine, you certainly have made yourself a stranger.”

“You said you wouldn’t talk about how awful I look,” Chris said defensively.

“I said you’ve been acting like one, not looking like one. You can’t be too busy at the office to spare a little time for me.”

“I’m going through a difficult …” Chris said, and stopped, her eyes filling momentarily with tears.

The waiter came over and they both ordered white wine. Chris put ice in hers and began methodically to devour the entire contents of the basket of crusty peasant bread, slathering each slice with butter. Annabel pretended not to notice. “Tell me about it,” Annabel said.

“It’s too boring. Tell me about Dean.”

“He’s living with me at the moment. I’m very fond of him.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“Maybe,” Annabel said.

“You look like you’re in love,” Chris said. “God, you’re so lucky—you always do exactly what you want.”

“You could too, you know.”

“No. I can’t. I just eat.”

The waiter came over to announce the specials. Grilled shrimp, and a pasta with porcini mushrooms, cream sauce, Gorgonzola cheese and walnuts. Annabel was on the verge of making a face at the richness of the latter when Chris ordered it.

“Chicken and vegetable salad,” Annabel said. “And another glass of wine, Chris?”

“Not at lunch,” Chris said. “I need my wits at the office. I’ll have an iced tea.”

“Two,” Annabel said. She was relieved that only food and not alcohol too seemed to be Chris’s problem. The bloated face, she decided, must be from too much salt.

“Is all this because of Alexander or Cameron?” Annabel asked when the waiter had left.

Chris wiped up the last of the dish of butter with the last bit of crust. “Oh, Cameron doesn’t look at me in the same way anymore, and who could blame him? And Alexander hasn’t looked at me in ages. My son, of course, thinks I’m a beast. He’s ashamed of me. He nags me to go on a diet. Alexander says nothing, but I can imagine what he thinks.”

“Are you ever sorry you didn’t go to bed with Cameron?”

“I guess I am. After I ran away and started to stuff myself, I couldn’t stop. I’m hungry all the time. I’m
starving
. And even when I’m full I can’t stop because there’s a little place inside of me, which I think used to be my heart, which is still starving.”

“Maybe it’s not your heart,” Annabel said.

“Maybe not.” They smiled at each other. “Do you remember how many years I waited for Alexander?”

“I do.”

“I’m still waiting. I couldn’t even handle the thought of an affair. I know I’m trying to make myself unappealing to Cameron so I won’t have to make a decision.”

“Well, you obviously don’t need an analyst,” Annabel said.

“An analyst would probably say that’s just the top layer,” Chris said. “Then there are layers and layers that make me obsessively in love and also so ambivalent.”

“It sounds pretty simple to me,” Annabel said.

Chris polished off all her pasta and ordered carrot cake. She demolished that, too, including the sugary icing, in quick, methodical bites that were without any pleasure at all. Annabel felt like grabbing the plate away from her, but what good would it do?

“One thing I’m still smart about though,” Chris said. “I’m very good at my job. Cameron is still glad he hired me. He respects me as a colleague and a friend, so I have that. Do you know, he asked me once if I was all right? He thought I was sick. He thought all this … was some disease.”

“Oh, Chris,” Annabel said, wondering why Chris was so stubborn, and always had been. She remembered the time at college when she’d made Chris get out of bed and dressed her up to go to the Freshman Mixer, and how Chris had refused to have any fun at all and had left early. “I suppose Alexander is still claiming to be celibate.”

“What do you mean, ‘claiming’? I know he is. He’s home every night, works all day, and plays squash. That’s all he does.”

“Sounds unnatural to me,” Annabel said. “I think you should have an affair with Cameron.
That
would be natural. And it would be a lot more fun than indigestion.”

“I can’t,” Chris said. “I look too awful.”

That night Annabel told Dean about her lunch with Chris, and he listened with the concentrated awe and pleasure of a child hearing a story. She realized that nothing in his life or experience so far had made him able to understand the complexities of how Chris really felt. Or her own concern and empathy either, for that matter. He believed in acting on his feelings, as she did, and trying not to hurt people too badly; but a person like Chris was a mystery to him.

“She’s ruining her health,” he said. “I thought you told me she was brilliant.”

“She’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known,” Annabel said.

“Then she doesn’t care,” he said. “I have friends like that.”

“Where?”

“I haven’t let you meet them.”

Drugs, she thought. “Dean, do you have a secret life?” she asked him, half kidding and half wondering.

“No, but I have some friends you haven’t met; people I knew before you, when I was young and silly. Don’t you know people from before, who you wouldn’t want me to see?”

“Lots,” Annabel said cheerfully. “But I’ve forgotten them.”

She was, however, to see the rejected Monica, since Dean’s agent had gotten an art gallery to put together a showing of his work. There would be some originals of his magazine covers and ads, and also some new paintings. There would also be drinks, canapés, publicity, critics, and, hopefully, buyers. Dean had already, at his young age, sold a painting to a museum.

The party was at Glass II, the frisky new SoHo addition to the staid Glass Gallery on Madison Avenue. Annabel was very proud of Dean. Because of the rush hour lack of cabs and the honor of the occasion she had hired a limousine to take them there, wait, and then take them on to dinner. Limousines charged a two-hour minimum anyway, she said when Dean protested the expense. He actually felt comfortable on the subway. It was one of the things that made her conscious of his youth. And of course, other people would be conscious of it too, since much of the talk tonight would be about how amazing it was for an artist so young to have done so well. He could have hired his own limousine, if he had cared, or even thought of it.

Annabel was aware that she was twenty years older than he, but it didn’t bother her. She knew the happiness she was feeling with him made her radiant. She dressed in black, her favorite and best color, which showed off her own bright coloring of auburn hair, creamy skin, and green eyes. She made Dean wear a dark suit. He deferred to her in many ways lately, which she found touching. When they entered the room she thought they made a splendid couple.

The gallery was just crowded enough to make the party a success, but not so crowded as to be uncomfortable. Annabel had been there with Dean the night before to see the pictures all hung, but even the second time she was struck with admiration for him. His agent, who looked like a gypsy fortune teller, was thrilled, and Annabel hoped she had the gift as well as the outfit. People kept coming over to meet him.

“This is Monica,” Dean said. “Monica, Annabel.”

So this tall, slim, sad-faced girl was Monica. She was wearing the shoulderbag he had given her before they parted, the present that had brought him to Annabel. She was sweet-looking but not very pretty; she had probably been comfortable to live with, devoted, a good friend. There were girls like her all over, having their hearts broken, thinking they weren’t beautiful enough, wondering what they had done wrong. Annabel wanted to take her aside and tell her it wasn’t her fault, that when she was young she’d been spectacularly beautiful, and all it had brought her was more men to break her heart. But of course she would do no such thing. Monica was not a “girl,” she was a woman of twenty-six, and she wanted a grown-up life. So did Annabel. It was only Dean who did not.
I’m not your rival
, Annabel wanted to say;
the world is
. But knowing it was also true for herself, she simply smiled and shook hands.

Then more people came over to be introduced to the guest of honor, and they were all three separated. A pleasant-looking slim woman with blonde hair and a green suit came over to Annabel and smiled. “You’re Annabel Jones, aren’t you,” she said. “You don’t know me. My husband pointed you out. He recognized you. He used to go out with you at college.”

“Oh?”

“I’m Ann Wood. You might remember him—he was at Harvard Law School. Bill Wood?”

Remember him? Her fiancé, who had jilted her just before the wedding? Used to go out with him? What about slept together for a year? “Where is he?” Annabel asked, trying to sound casual.

“Oh, do come over and I’ll reintroduce you,” Ann Wood said. “And thank you for not marrying him. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have met him, and we’ve been very happy all these years.”

Annabel was so dumbfounded she couldn’t think of an answer. You’re welcome? Obviously this woman thought Annabel could have caught him if she’d a mind to; what in the world had Bill Wood been saying? Not much of the truth, she was sure of that.

She was led over to a tall, lined, gray-haired old man. Only the eyes were the same, Bill Wood’s eyes, or she would never have recognized him at all.

“Well, I declare!” Annabel said cheerfully. “Bill Wood! I always did think you would grow up to look like Abraham Lincoln and you didn’t disappoint me.”

They shook hands. She could see from his eyes that he was absolutely stunned with admiration, and she wanted to kick him in the ankle. “You’re looking wonderful, Annabel,” he said, in that drawl that used to remind her of Jimmy Stewart—oh, she was a great one for making people famous—and now moved her not at all.

“Thank you. And are you a judge? I always thought you would be.”

“Nope. Just an Indiana lawyer.”

“A quite eminent one,” his wife said. She smoothed his lapel and Annabel noticed on her finger the very same little diamond ring that Bill Wood had once given to
her
. It had to be the same ring. She would never forget it, and how proud of it she’d been, letting no opportunity pass to show it off. The little diamond engagement ring she’d dropped in his martini after he ditched her at the airport.
Good-bye, Bill. Have a nice life
.

“And are you having a nice life?” Annabel asked.

“A very nice life,” he said. “And you?”

“Excellent.”

“I’m pleased. Ann has an art gallery back home. That’s why we’re here. We travel quite a lot, looking for paintings. It’s interesting for me, having that in addition to the law.”

Bill Wood, with the life he’d wanted, living it happily without her. Annabel had often wondered what he would be like now, and here he was, and he moved her not at all. He looked so old! He carried himself like an old man. But he wasn’t that old; only forty-eight or so. It was just that she’d always remembered him the way he had been twenty-five years ago. She didn’t look the same either. But she looked better. She tried to remember if he had been amusing or interesting and realized he had not. He had been an intellectual, an idol, an image: The Serious Lawyer. She had wanted to bring fun and humor into his life, as he would bring stability and honor to hers. If he had married her, perhaps she would be the one standing here now smoothing his lapel, saying how eminent he was.