Change of Heart (10 page)

He looked tired, she thought. “Do you want some dinner? Or is it three in the morning for you? I never can get the time differentials right.”

He looked at her crisp skirt and at the jeans that lay carelessly across a chair. “Are you going to eat?”

“Yes, Daddy’s coming over.”

His silvery eyes remained on her face for perhaps half a minute and then he said, “I could eat something. I want a shower first though.”

“Come downstairs when you’re ready,” she said. “We’ll wait. Have you seen Jenny yet?”

“No.”

“She’ll be thrilled to have you home,” said Cecelia with a smile. She slipped her feet into her sandals, tied a ribbon around her pulled-back hair, and walked sedately out of the door.

* * * *

It didn’t seem to Gil as if anyone in his home was thrilled to see him. The biggest welcome he got was from his father-in-law, who had recently read an article about the military government of Chile that he was dying to call to Gil’s attention. He talked forcefully about it over a round of cocktails and seemed prepared to continue indefinitely as they sat down to dinner.

“I know, Ricardo, I know,” Gil said patiently as he took a bite of his chicken.

“I sometimes wonder if the American attitude toward Latin America comes out of ignorance or arrogance,” said Cecelia thoughtfully.

Gil flashed her a quick look. “A bit of both, I expect. And don’t forget the profit motive.”

Cecelia sighed. “No. One can’t ever forget the profit motive.”

“Eat your peas,
niña,”
said Ricardo.

Startled, Gil looked at his wife’s plate.

“I don’t
like
peas, Poppy,” said Jenny plaintively and Gil finally realized whom Ricardo was addressing.

“We cannot always have what we want in life,” Ricardo continued sternly. “They are very good for you.” Blue eyes and brown met and held. “Eat half of them,” said Poppy.

“Okay.” Jenny picked up her fork and heroically took up a portion. “Jessica invited me to go to Riverside with her family next Monday,” she said around the mouthful. “Can I go, Cecelia? Please?”

“Do not talk with your mouth full,” said Ricardo. “I haven’t been to Riverside for years.”

Cecelia grinned. “Remember the time you took my Brownie troop?”

He shuddered in mock horror. “Remember? I don’t think I shall ever forget.” They both broke into laughter.

Gil asked, “What is Riverside?”

Three pairs of eyes swung to his face. “It’s an amusement park,” his wife told him. “Just over the line in Massachusetts. It’s great fun.”

“Can I go, then?” Jenny asked. “Jess says they have a flume and a wildcat and a—”

“Yes,” Cecelia said hastily. “Yes, Jenny, you can go.” A thought belatedly hit her. “That is, if your father approves, of course.”

“Certainly she can go if you think it’s all right,” Gil said quietly.

Jenny washed down her peas with a swallow of milk. “What happened when you took Cecelia’s Brownie troop, Poppy?” she asked curiously.

Ricardo proceeded to tell her, helped by some interpolations from Cecelia. It was a very funny story, at times bordering on hilarious, and Jenny was a bundle of giggles when it concluded. After dessert was served Cecelia told Jenny she could watch one television show and then she was to get into her pajamas. The little girl went obediently upstairs to the room that had been fitted out as a TV-playroom for her, and the three adults went back to the living room.

Gil was very silent, his legs stretched out in front of him as he lounged comfortably on the sofa and listened to his wife and her father. He looked, Cecelia thought, both tired and preoccupied. At nine o’clock Jenny came downstairs again, wearing pink-flowered pajamas. Cecelia got up. “Ready? Say good night then, honey, and we’ll go up.”

Jenny went over to Ricardo and kissed him. He ruffled her curls and said gently, “Good night,
niña.
Dream about ribbons.”

She giggled and went over to where her father was sitting. “Good night, Daddy,” she said and kissed him too.

“Good night, sweetheart,” he answered. His face looked very grave as Cecelia took his daughter by the hand and walked upstairs with her.

Ricardo rose. “Well, it is time I was going,” he said to his son-in-law. “I am happy to see you home again.”

Gil had risen as well and now he looked hard into the other man’s dark, aquiline face. The brown eyes looking back at him were expressionless. Too expressionless. “Thank you,” said Gil. “Good night, Ricardo.”

Ricardo did not answer but bowed his head formally and walked with the ease of familiarity to the door. As he heard it close Gil thoughtfully turned to follow his wife and daughter up the stairs.

* * * *

Gil did not go into the office the following day. He had run a physically exhausting schedule for the last two weeks and he was tired. When he awoke late in the morning, Cecelia and Jenny had already left for the farm. He had a leisurely breakfast accompanied by the newspaper, and after he had finished he decided to drive over to Hilltop Farm. He had not been there since his marriage.

It looked the same as he drove into the stable yard and parked the BMW next to the Buick station wagon that he had given Cecelia to use. He heard Ricardo’s voice coming from the arena and went over to look in the door.

A very large powerful-looking horse was going around the arena ridden by a man whom Gil did not know. The horse was not cooperating and there was evidently a battle of strength in progress. The man was big and strong but the horse was most definitely winning.

“He’s all strung out,” Ricardo was saying. “Drive him up to the bit. Stop fighting him, George!”

The man cursed as the horse sidled. “He won’t straighten out!” he shouted to Ricardo.

“He will if you’ll use your legs and stop pulling on his mouth,” said Ricardo coldly.

“He’s too bloody strong.”

Ricardo looked across to the barn doorway. “Cecelia,” he called, “will you get on Smokey and show George what I am talking about?”

In a minute his wife came into Gil’s field of vision, walking toward the center of the ring. Without a word the rider got off; next to Cecelia he was seen to be a very large man. He easily weighed a hundred pounds more than she did. How in God’s name, Gil thought distractedly, did Ricardo think one hundred and ten pounds could do what two hundred and ten could not? The horse looked to be a brute.

Cecelia swung into the saddle, shortened the stirrups, and began to walk the horse around the ring. After a minute she moved into a trot and as Gil watched, astonished, the one hundred and ten pounds began to do what the two hundred and ten could not. The horse’s hind legs were driven up under him and his whole way of moving changed. In ten minutes she had him cantering, collected and sweet as butter, going smoothly around the ring.

“All right,” Ricardo called and she brought the horse down to a walk, patted him and fussed over him, then walked him back to his owner. “That is what I was talking about,” Ricardo said pleasantly. “Riding has nothing to do with physical strength. Anyone, no matter how strong, who gets into a pulling contest with a horse is going to lose.”

“Yeah,” said George. “I see what you mean.”

Cecelia handed him back his reins and her eyes, moving past her father, caught sight of her husband in the doorway. “Gil!” she said, astonished. “Whatever are you doing here?” She came across the ring toward him, and as she drew closer he could see the sweat on her forehead and nose. Her yellow shirt was damp.

“What are
you
doing here in this heat?” he returned.

“Jenny and I just came over for a short while,” she answered, wiping her forehead with the back of her arm. “It
is
hot.”

“Cecelia!” a little girl called from the barn. “Telephone! It’s Dr. Curran.”

“Oh, good,” said Cecelia. “I’ll be right back,” she flung at her husband as she dashed toward the barn. Gil stayed where he was, watching the man called George trying to emulate Cecelia’s success with his horse. Ricardo’s instructions were clear, succinct, and merciless. When Cecelia came back from the barn she went over to talk to him for a minute and then returned to Gil’s side. “How about going home for a swim?” she asked. “Or are you going into the office today?”

“No.” He did not smile. “No, I’m taking the day off.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, brown eyes reflecting concern. “You were awfully tired last night. You still look tired.”

“Is this a complaint?” he asked softly. He had not been too tired to make passionate love to her last night.

The beautiful color rose in her cheeks. “No, it is not a complaint. As you well know.”

They stared at each other in silence and then another voice called, “Cecelia!”

With an effort Cecelia looked away from him. “What is it, Jenny?”

“Can Jess and Meredith come swim at my pool this afternoon?”

“Yes—if they ask their mothers first.”

“They already did,” Jenny said blithely and Gil laughed.

“She’s got your number, baby.” Cecelia sighed. “Isn’t it disgusting?”

* * * *

They sat around the pool all afternoon, diving in whenever it got too hot in the sun. Gil spent a half hour tossing his daughter and her friends up in the air, which they loved if their giggles and shrieks were anything to go by. Cecelia smiled with pleasure watching him. Gil was so good with children, she thought. If only he were home more ...

“Did I once complain that Jen was too quiet?” he asked his wife as he came over and sat down on the chaise longue next to hers. “I must have been mad.” The three girls were playing a water game on their own now and the whole yard reverberated to the cries of “Marco!” “Polo!”

Cecelia chuckled. “She’s changed.”

“So I notice,” and he winced exaggeratedly as Jenny emitted a particularly shrill shriek. He picked up a towel and rubbed the water out of his hair, then lay back and closed his eyes. Cecelia closed hers as well. It was such a simple thing, she thought, to make her so happy: sitting by the pool with her husband while their daughter played with her friends.

“I’m roasting,” Cecelia said after ten minutes. Gil opened his eyes and watched as she walked out onto the diving board and stood poised there for a minute while she waited for the girls to clear out of her way. She was wearing a faded turquoise racing suit that hugged the lines of her lithe young body. He had missed that body while he was in Europe. Badly. Badly enough, in fact, to cram four days of appointments into two and come home early.

At four-thirty Cecelia called, “All right, girls. Start to get your things together and I’ll drive you home.”

Gil’s hand reached over and covered her. “Frank’s here. He can drive them.”

“I don’t mind. I know where they both live.”

“I mind,” he replied, his eyes becoming very smoky. “I have other predinner plans for you.”

His fingers were on her wrist and she knew he must feel the sudden acceleration of her pulse. “Do you, my lord?” she asked with faint irony.

He stood up, her hand still in his. As she rose to stand next to him he remarked, “If I remember correctly, I once told someone I’d always wanted an obedient wife.”

She managed to look faintly affronted. “I stand before you, master, humble and awaiting your pleasure.”

“Not here!” he replied in horror. “Think of the children.”

Her mouth quivered but she preserved her gravity. “I don’t know,” she said with thought. “It would be so educational. They take sex ed in school, after all.”

He frowned and then said consideringly, “Perhaps you’re right.” He put his hand on the strap of her suit as if to pull it down and she squeaked and jumped away from him. He grinned. “No more back chat, wife. Get moving.”

“You think you’re so smart.” But she was smiling as well and moved with no reluctance at all toward the house. Late that afternoon, in the cool privacy of their air-conditioned bedroom, he got her with child.

* * * *

The following day Gil went back to work. He called The Birches at four o’clock only to hear from Nora that his wife was not at home. He called the Vargas house and got no answer. Next he tried the barn. “Hilltop Farm,” a familiar voice said.

“Is that you, Jen?”

“Oh, hi, Daddy. Yeah, it’s me. What do you want?”

“Is Cecelia around?”

“Just a minute.” For perhaps three minutes Gil waited on the line; it was not an experience he was accustomed to. “Daddy? Cecelia’s busy just now. Dr. Curran is here. She says can I take a message or do you want her to call you back?”

Gil frowned. “No,” he said then. “She doesn’t have to call me back. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Oh, are you coming home for dinner?” His daughter’s voice held only innocent surprise.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’ll tell Cecelia. Bye Daddy.”

“Good-bye.”

Gil hung up the phone and remained staring at it for a minute. There was a knock on the door of his office and his assistant editor came in. “Do you want to go over that material?” he asked his boss.

Gil stood up. “I want
you
to go over it, Hank, You know what we’re looking for. You’ve been doing this magazine for as long as I have.”

Hank Barber did know what to do, but he had never been allowed to operate without the boss’s keen eye looking over his shoulder. “Will you want to see it in the morning?” he asked.

Gil looked at him. “No. This is an area of the operation I am getting out of. As of today, Hank, you are in charge. If I don’t like what you’re doing”—he grinned—”I’ll fire you.”

After an astonished pause Hank grinned back. “You won’t have to fire me, Gil.”

“I know that. I should have turned this over to you years ago. I don’t have to have my finger on every piece of the pie.”

“You did, at the beginning. But you’ve trained us all pretty well over the years.”

Gil raised an eyebrow. “I’m not retiring, Hank.”

His subordinate laughed with genuine amusement. “I don’t think you ever will.”

Gil went over to the closet for his suit jacket. He had planned to stay at the magazine until much later and so had not told Frank to come in to get him. “Does anyone around here have a train schedule to Connecticut?” he asked Hank.