Alexandra Waring (20 page)

“Thanks, but it’s out of your way,” she said. “I’ll just call—”

“It’s not out of my way,” he said quickly. “I’m heading uptown.”

She covered her mouth to yawn. “Excuse me,” she murmured, dropping her hand. “Well, if you’re going that way, great. I have a friend visiting and I’m running very late.”

He almost asked who the friend was. (Somehow Alexandra didn’t seem the type to have friends who visited. Of course she must have friends, but still, it seemed strange to think of her ever seeing anyone from the outside world.)

He walked her up to her office on Darenbrook III to get her things, and then they went down to the carport where his limousine was waiting. As they pulled out of the West End driveway, heading north on West End Avenue, Jackson thought about how funny it was, but how the passing New York City streetlights and shadows had the same flattering effect on Alexandra that the television camera did. Her eyes were no longer a little tired-looking; she no longer seemed a trifle too thin. No. No, she didn’t. She looked gorgeous.

She was talking away about Jessica’s interview and he let himself think about other things—about her, actually—while he nodded and uh-huhed politely.

“She leads a rather fast life, doesn’t she?” Alexandra asked him. After a moment, “Jackson?”

“What?” he said, sighing a little, trying to figure out why his heart was pounding. Oh, he knew why. Yeah, he did.

He would do it. Try it. See what happened.

“I said, Jessica leads a rather fast life.”

“I guess,” he said, shrugging. “Looks it, doesn’t she?” He hoped he sounded indifferent enough to convince her that Jessica held no appeal for him. (Although she had before he had met Alexandra—but in a very different kind of way.)

Alexandra shifted in her seat slightly, making the leather creak. “She’s married, isn’t she?”

“She’s been trying to get divorced for a long time,” Jackson said. “He’s bad news, from what I hear.”

“Oh,” Alexandra said, turning to the window.

He slid over a little closer and Alexandra lowered her window, prompting a blast of cool air to hit their faces. He laughed to himself, backing off, not at all sure whether she had been aware of his maneuver or not, but finding it funny either way.

She slid the window back up and turned to him. “Jackson, have you ever met Cassy’s husband?”

“Ugh. Thank you, no. One Cochran’s enough, thank you,” he said.

She laughed. “You should someday. You’d like him, I think.” She paused, smiling, her eyes glittering in the passing lights. “It’s funny, but you remind me a little of him.”

“Oh, hell, no—don’t tell me that,” he groaned. “Somebody else told me that the other day. And I said, ‘Oh, so she must holler at him all the time.’ “ He laughed. “And the guy said, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, she does.’ “

“Not anymore,” Alexandra said, turning to look out her window. “They used to argue a lot, but not now.” And very quietly, so that he almost could not hear her, she added, “They’re one of the lucky ones—they’ve been able to turn their marriage around.”

The driver had turned east on 84th Street and was now turning south on Central Park West to drop Alexandra under the awning of the Roehampton. “Oh, we’re here,” she said then, reaching for her purse and carryall bag.

The doorman opened the door and Jackson reached over Alexandra, said, “In a minute,” and pulled the door closed again. Sitting back up straight, he smiled at her. And then he took her face into his hands and kissed her. In a moment he felt her hand come up to his chest and gently push him away.

Her eyes, in the light, that close, were not something he was likely to forget.

She closed them. And then, swallowing, she opened them. “I can’t lead you on, Jackson,” she whispered.

He pushed her hand away, saying, “Good, then I’ll lead you on,” and he kissed her again.

She pushed him away again, but this time abruptly. “Do you think I’m a fool?” she whispered. “Don’t you think I would if I could?” She shook her head and then, suddenly, her shoulders slumped. She looked at him. And then she pulled herself up to look him squarely in the eye. “I can’t do it, Jackson.” And then, very softly, “You must believe me—I’m not someone who would be good for you. I know.”

He decided to laugh to break the tension. But then, noting her expression—she was not the least bit amused—he immediately stopped, sighed, and hung his head. Literally, he hung his head. And well he should, he thought, because with the exception of Barbara—whom he had at least fired first—he had never made a pass at a Darenbrook employee before. (But this was not really why he was hanging his head. He was hanging his head because he knew if Alexandra did not think he felt badly about what had just happened, then she’d probably never be alone with him again, and if that happened, how would he get a chance to try again?)

Apparently he hung his head in the right way, for Alexandra leaned toward him, murmured, “
Ad astra per aspera,
” kissed him on the cheek and climbed out of the car, closing the door behind her.

He slid the window down. ‘
Ad
what?”

She turned around under the awning, wind blowing her hair.
“Ad astra per aspera,”
she repeated. “To the stars through difficulties.”

“The Bible?” Jackson said.

“State motto of Kansas,” Alexandra said. She smiled. “Good night, Jackson.”

12
What Happened That Night
Part II: Alexandra Returns Lisa Connors’ Call

Her breath was returning to normal. “Mmmmmm,” she said, kissing his ear, arms still wrapped around him.

Gordon smiled into her hair. “Love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Alexandra murmured, kissing his ear again.

He lifted his head, kissed her on the nose and withdrew from her, sliding his right arm under her neck as he rolled onto his side, leaving his left arm across her chest. He sighed, content, curling one leg up over hers. He made another sighing sound, this time deep in his throat, and then another—he swallowed—and then he was silent, starting to drift
…
drift into sleep.

Alexandra lay there, eyes wide open, looking at the ceiling. The drapes of the windows overlooking Central Park were open and the gentle stream of city light flowing upward from the street cast faint shadows of the windowpanes over part of the ceiling, while the candle burning on the nightstand flickered light over the rest.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

After a few minutes she turned her head and kissed Gordon’s temple, and then tried to slip away.

“No,” he murmured, clinging.

“Go to sleep,” she whispered, lifting his arm and sliding away. Naked, she sat on the edge of the bed, brought her hands up to push back her hair, and then she stretched, hard, reaching for the ceiling, and then she relaxed, letting her arms fall. She turned to look back at Gordon. He was reaching about on the bed for her, blindly. Giving up, he rolled over onto his stomach, embracing the pillows. She crawled back and pulled the covers up over him.

She got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her. There was the sound of bath water being drawn, and then of bathing. In a few minutes she came back out, tying the sash of a gray silk dressing gown around her. She stepped on something—ow—and reached down. An earring. She put it on the dresser, walked over to the night table, blew out the candle and went out.

At the doorway to the living room she flicked on the wall switch. A Waterford lamp on the end table next to the couch came on, illuminating a very large and very unfinished living room. Alexandra stood there, running her hands through her hair several times, looking at it. There was off-white carpeting on the floor and, on the near side of the room, a chintz-covered couch, two matching chairs, two end tables and a mahogany coffee table. That was it—except sheets of plastic over part of the floor and carpeting, unopened moving cartons, pictures leaning against the wall, bolts of fabric lying across one of the chairs, a stepladder, and various other odds and ends—odds and ends like her purse and carryall bag on the floor near the foyer, her shoes about a foot farther in from there; Gordon’s shirt lying across the coffee table and, next to it, his watch and her necklace and bracelets; three couch pillows strewn across the floor; his pants—with the belt still through the belt loops—scrunched down into the foot of the couch; and her dress draped over the far end table.

She smiled.

She went over to pick up her dress and went out to hang it up in the hall closet. Coming back, she rummaged through the pillows to retrieve her stockings and underwear. She picked up Gordon’s pants from the couch, shook them out and hung them over the back of a chair. And then, while fitting the cushions back into the couch, she found her slip, another earring, his boxer shorts and his wallet.

When she finished straightening up, she went—robe trailing behind her—down the hall to the kitchen. She flicked on the lights. It was a fairly large kitchen, the walls were painted a pale yellow, the wood cabinetry was oak, and there was an oak table and four chairs, next to which, on the wall, was a telephone with three different lines. The kitchen was pristine except for the table, upon which were four stacks of magazines, a Rolodex, six or seven pads of paper and a coffee mug full of pens and pencils.

Alexandra picked up the phone, punched in a number and then held the phone between her chin and her shoulder while she picked up a remote control from the table and zapped on the small TV set that was sitting on the counter. “Hi,” she said into the phone, “2980.” She zapped through TV stations with her left hand while feeling for—and finding—the refrigerator door with her right and opening it. “Who?” she said, stopping the station at CNN and slipping the remote control into the pocket of her robe. “Oh, no, I know who that is,” she said, leaning to look inside the refrigerator. “No, he’s the guy who’s supposed to finish the front hall floor before the year 2000.”

She took out a container of cottage cheese and a bottle of Perrier and set them on the table, closing the refrigerator door with her foot. “Oh, that’s the tiler.” She went about getting a spoon, a napkin and a glass, settling into a chair at the table, eyes back on the TV. “Look, do me a favor and hold these messages for tomorrow. The housekeeper’s coming at nine and I’d sooner she deal with it. What?” She was smiling, taking the lid off the cottage cheese. She got up to get a bowl, came back, sat down, laughing, and started spooning cottage cheese into it. “You got it,” she said. “Uh-uh, no way. I’ve had it. I told Mrs. Roberts that if it isn’t done by the end of the month, then I’m throwing every stick of furniture, every rug, every curtain rod—every person who rings the bell—out the window and be done with it.” She ate a spoonful of cottage cheese. Swallowing, “Yes. Save them for Mrs. Roberts. Thank you.”

She put another spoonful of cottage cheese in her mouth, dropped the spoon, slid over a pad and snatched a pen out of the cup. “Did she leave a number?” she asked. She scribbled something. “Uh-huh.” She put the pen down. “What, more? Who else?” She got in another bit of cottage cheese before dropping her spoon again to write something down. “Okay, okay.” She looked up at the clock—12:07—sighed, “No, all right, thank you. Thanks a lot. And you’ll hold those messages for tomorrow? Great. Good night.”

She pressed the disconnector in the phone and released it, heard the dial tone, pressed it again, released it again and then, after hesitating a moment, she turned around and hung up the phone. She took the remote control out of her pocket and turned up the volume of the TV, poured herself some Perrier and ate her cottage cheese. A little while later she ate some fresh fruit salad as well. She cleaned up everything, retaining her glass of Perrier, and looked at the clock again. 12:32. She went back over to the table, sat down and, after a moment, zapped the TV off and reached for the phone.

“Connors-Johnson residence,” a woman said.

“Hello, this is Alexandra Waring calling. I had a message to—”

“Yes, yes, Ms. Waring, if you’d only hold the line. Mrs. Johnson told me to get her when you called. Hold on, please.”

Alexandra sat there, mouth set, eyes on the table.

“Oh, this is wonderful,” a woman’s voice cried on the other end. “All I have to do is send Jessica to New York and you call me back the same day.”

“It would have been nice if you warned me a friend of yours was coming to DBS,” Alexandra said.

“Oh, Alexandra, don’t be cross with me—ask me how I am. Say to me, ‘Oh, Lisa, how are you? I’ve so missed you!’ “ She laughed.

“What have you been drinking?” Alexandra said, a faint smile emerging.

“You called during champagne,” she said. “Oh, Alexandra, remember? Every time I have it, I always think of you. Why don’t you just fly out tonight?”

“Lisa, please,” Alexandra said, pressing her hand against the bridge of her nose, “I cannot take this today. Please. I really can’t.”

“All right, all right, all right,” Lisa said cheerfully. “So tell me, don’t you just love Jessica? She’s a complete and utter mess, but I find her absolutely charming and irresistible anyway, don’t you?”

Alexandra dropped her hand to the table. “That’s what I’d like to know, Lisa—just
how
charming and irresistible was she, exactly?”

This sent Lisa into gales of laughter.

“Lisa—”

Her laughter was sounding very far away now, as if she might have dropped the phone to hold her sides. “Oh, my, oh, my,” she finally gasped into the phone. “You didn’t think—”

“I didn’t know what to think!” Alexandra said. “When she said, ‘A friend of yours wants me to give you a big Denver hello,’ I nearly had a heart attack.”

Lisa’s laughter was sounding very far away again.

“Lisa!”

Coming back to the phone, “Oh, my dear,” Lisa said, struggling to regain her breath, “I’ve got tears streaming down my face and I’ve got guests in the next room.”

Alexandra sighed, smiling despite herself. “Oh, Lisa, what am I going to do with you?”

She looked up and saw Gordon standing in the doorway, in his robe, rubbing his eye, smiling. “Hi,” he whispered, coming in and walking over to the refrigerator.

“Oh, my,” Lisa was saying, sniffing once, “my makeup’s everywhere. They’ll think I got a phone call saying someone died. Speaking of which,” she said with a laugh, “how are all of your boyfriends, Alexandra? What’s all this about you and Jackson Darenbrook, and how is your fair-haired boy taking it?”

“As a matter of fact,” Alexandra said, “he’s right here. Gordon,” she said to him, “Lisa Connors wants to know how you are.”

“Terrific,” he said, closing the door without taking anything out. He looked at her and mouthed, “Who is Lisa Connors?”

“Gordon wants to know how you are,” Alexandra said into the phone.

“Tell him I’m fine, thank you.”

“She’s fine, thank you,” she told him, winking.

“Alexandra?” Lisa said.

Gordon pulled a chair next to her and sat down.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to tell you about Jessica calling me tonight,” Lisa said.

“Tonight?” Alexandra said, putting a hand to stop Gordon’s on her thigh. “I only met her tonight.”

“I know, that’s what she said. And she told me how much she liked you, but then she started asking me all these questions about why I had been living in Kansas City, and I wondered what you had told her.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Alexandra said. “What did you tell her?” She raised one finger in the air, asking Gordon to wait a minute.

“That I was working on my painting,” she said.

“Which you were,” Alexandra said.

“Yes, but she kept asking me about it. And about you. And then she wanted to know if my father knew your father—or something. It was very strange and so then I asked her, straight out, why did she want to know. And she said that, after meeting you, she just couldn’t imagine us being good friends. What was it she said? That you didn’t seem the type to be ‘collected’ at my parties, which I suppose is some sort of a compliment to you.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said you and I had met at parties in Kansas City, that that’s how we got to know each other. We were traveling the same circuit.”

“Why is she asking, I wonder?” Alexandra murmured. “Lisa, are you sure—”

Gordon had leaned over and was now kissing Alexandra’s breast through her robe.

“Wait—wait a second, Lisa,” Alexandra said, covering the phone. “I’m sorry, Gordie, I just—could you—I just need to hear what Lisa has to say and then I’ll be right in. Honest.” She kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Go on. I’ll be right there. Five minutes, tops.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Promise?”

She nodded.

He kissed her again and left.

“Okay,” she said into the phone, “I’m back. Listen, Lisa.” She paused, biting her lip, thinking. “Does she know—I mean, does anyone out there know? About you? Or”—she hesitated—”anything?”

“Certainly nothing connected with you.” She laughed. “The only ones who knew about you were the plants and they all died.”

Alexandra winced slightly. After a moment, “But just tell me, Lisa, truthfully—could someone have told her something about you?”

“Well, somebody could have told her anything, but I’d be highly indignant if anybody dared to either say it or believe it after everything I’ve gone through with Matt.”

Alexandra was holding her face in her hand. “I’m sorry, I just—”

“No, Alexandra,” Lisa said, sounding rather stern, “get it out of head. I didn’t tell Jessica anything, no one I know told her anything, and really, honestly, if you came out here and saw my life these days, you’d see that there’s nothing to tell. So that’s not it.”

“Right,” Alexandra said quietly.

“The reason why I called is because, well, you know how elusive you can be about yourself, Alexandra, and the Jessicas of the world take that as an invitation to snoop around. So I wanted to tell you to relax and not be so uptight around her.”

“Is that what she said?”

“No, but I definitely got that feeling. That she was puzzled by whatever you told her.”

“I didn’t tell her much of anything.”

“Exactly. And that’s my point.”

Alexandra sighed. “I hear you. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“It’s just that I feel so vulnerable these days,” Alexandra said quietly. There’s so much at stake—not just for me, but for a whole lot of people. And sometimes I worry if somehow, someone—”

“I know, Alexandra,” Lisa said softly. “Because I know
you
, remember? And I hope you know that I would never—ever—do anything to hurt you.” She sighed. “I know you think of me as the one loose cannon on the deck of your life—”