Every Time I Love You (2 page)

The paintings always made her happy. Gayle nudged off her shoes with a little sigh. She left them in front of the paintings and padded on her stockinged feet to sit upon the sofa and glance through her mail. Among the junk mail and bills was a letter from Sally Johnson. Gayle felt her heart beat a little erratically; then she slit the envelope open. The little note didn't say much of anything. Sally was fine, her family was fine. She'd heard the gallery was showing Brent McCauley's work, and she was glad life seemed to be going so well for Gayle.

Gayle set the letter down and closed her eyes. She could still remember Thane. All too clearly. Tall, young, brash, exciting, so sure of himself. They'd lived together for almost two years, and she'd been deeply in love with him and so very happy. Every time he came home they met in the hallway and kissed. They shared candlelight dinners on the floor. They'd both been wild and young and impetuous and sometimes jealous, but they'd both been very happy...at the beginning.

But then Thane had started drinking heavily and taking drugs. He couldn't paint, so he drank; or something wasn't coming out just right, so he needed a snort of cocaine. Gayle had warned him that it was too much, that it was destroying him, that it was destroying them. Geoffrey had talked to Thane. In desperation Gayle had thought to call his parents and his twin sister Sally. Nothing had meant anything to Thane. In an angry fit he had thrown Gayle across the room. That had been the end for her. She had walked out. One month later he'd overdosed on the alcohol and drugs. At the funeral she had been wrenched with guilt. Sally had tried to assure her she couldn't have done anything to prevent Thane's death. His mother had asked her hopefully if she were pregnant. Gayle had been forced to see his face in the open coffin, and something in those moments had assured her that she didn't want to love again. Not deeply. And certainly not another artist.

She was the only one of her group of friends and acquaintances who actually looked forward to an evening with an accountant or a banker. Too many of her emotions had died along with Thane. She liked her independence; she liked her life the way it was. At least she had liked it, she thought with a puzzled frown. Then she remembered the oil painting of the lovers and the feelings it had stirred within her. She smiled a little wistfully. Had she ever even loved Thane that deeply? As deeply as the lovers in the painting? Had Thane been capable of loving her that deeply?

“Maybe no one really loves that intensely,” she murmured aloud. But instinctively she knew that they did. Very special people were surely privileged to love like that.

The phone rang. Before Gayle picked up the receiver she reminded herself to write back to Sally.

“Gayle! Good—you're home.” It was Tina.

“Happy birthday, kid.”

“Thanks. Are you ready?”

“Ready? I just got in. I thought we weren't going out until eight.”

“No! We got reservations for dinner at the pew club down by the Sheraton. Didn't Liz call you?”

“No, Liz didn't call me.”

“Well, get dressed! Hurry! She's picking me up in twenty minutes. We'll be at your place in half an hour. And, oh, make it dressy, huh? It's coats and ties only for men, so we may as well use the opportunity, okay?”

“I haven't got anything—”

“You've more clothes than Macy's. It's my birthday! Find something!”

Gayle was about to say that she couldn't possibly be ready in thirty minutes, but a dull buzz assured her that Tina had already hung up. Muttering, she hurried to her bedroom and walked quickly over to her closet and began to flip through the hangers. She found a backless black silk, pushed past it, came back to it. She could swish her hair to the side with a barrette, wear the gold choker and her new black heels and be all set.

She should have hopped into the shower but decided that it had been a long day at the gallery and she deserved a decent bath. She filled the tub with bubbles, poured herself a glass of wine, and stepped in. The water was good and warm, the scent of the bubbles delicious. She closed her eyes and leaned back, then opened her eyes again and decided she even liked her bathroom. She'd decorated it in different shades of mauve. Her towels were monogrammed and her curtains were the sheerest gauze over a darker velvet. Tina once said that Gayle's bathroom reminded her of a powder room in a classy whorehouse. Gayle wasn't sure she liked the description, but her bathroom was nice and luxurious. Little Hummel figurines sat on the marble commode, a Lladro angel stood high above the brass towel rings. Gayle shrugged. She couldn't draw or paint, but the artist inside of her appreciated beautiful things. Not that she had to have them. When she and Thane had first met, they'd slept on comforters on the floor. They'd eaten bread and cheese and laughed over cheap wine.

She stood, ignoring the bubbles that clung to her. She hadn't thought about Thane in a long time, but today Geoffrey had mentioned his name and then she'd received the letter from Sally. It was probably natural that she was thinking about him. But it wasn't natural to be feeling quite so...disturbed.

She sipped her wine.
It was the paintings
, she thought. She couldn't get the image of those lovers out of her mind, and they were making her acutely unhappy with a life that had pleased her very well. No. She shook her head and swallowed down the rest of her wine, wincing as she did it too quickly. Everyone was unhappy once in a while, right? Married people wanted to be single; singles wanted to be married. Tall people wanted to be short. It was human nature.

Gayle wrapped a huge towel around herself and hurried back to her bedroom to dress; more time had gone by than she had planned. She dug quickly into her small nightstand for underwear and stockings, smiling ruefully at her weakness for pretty lingerie. The drawer was filled with soft, silky teddies and string-line panties in satin and lace.

Her doorbell rang just as she was fixing her long blond hair to one side. She yelled that she would be right down, hurriedly slipped into her heels, grabbed her coat, her purse, and the elegant negligee she had bought for Tina, and rushed out.

Out on the street, the night had become even more beautiful. The snow was silver beneath the moon. There seemed to be an air of expectation about it, something in the freshness that swirled around her. She gave herself a little shake. If she weren't careful, she'd start believing in destiny. But, damn, it had been a strange day! Not so much because of things that had happened but because of the way she had been feeling.

“Hey! Get in! It's a cold night, if you haven't noticed!”

Tina was the one speaking. The back door of Liz's little Volvo swung open and Gayle stepped in and slammed the door. Liz told her Hi through the rearview mirror, and Tina turned around to survey her in the shadows and glares of the streetlights.

“Happy birthday, kid,” Gayle told her.

Tina grimaced. “Thirty-five. I'm almost middle-aged.”

“You are middle-aged,” Liz told her cheerfully.

“That's okay,” Gayle assured her. “You're aging better than Joan Collins.”

“I hope so. She's twenty years younger than Joan Collins!” Liz supplied.

“Just drive, will you?”

Liz winked to Gayle in the back and turned her attention to the traffic. It was still bad. City traffic was always bad, Gayle decided. Tina quizzed her about the showing, and Gayle filled her in on how she'd rushed around to see that the pictures were hung to their advantage, watching Geoffrey become neurotic, fearing that McCauley would never show up. Tina, who managed the spa where they had all met a few years before, complained about an overweight man who thought she could make him look like Sly Stallone in two weeks.

“Shall we go for valet parking?” Liz asked. Then she answered her own question. “Oh, of course we should. We're dressed up to kill and Tina isn't getting any younger here.”

Tina knocked her lightly against the nape. Liz howled softly and laughed as they drove up to the entrance. When the doors opened and Liz turned the key over to the young valet, Gayle mused that they were all dressed up to kill—and that they looked pretty damn good as a threesome. Tina was small and elegant in silver sequins and a white ermine, with midnight hair and eyes that contrasted magnificently with her outfit. Liz—tall, lean, and statuesque—was in green velvet, which was a perfect match for her eyes and an emphasis for her deep auburn hair. Gayle was a tawny blonde in black, not as tall as Liz, not as built as Tina, but somewhere in between.

Someone on the street whistled at them. They all laughed at one another and went into the building, then up to the club on the twenty-fifth floor.

It was a perfect night for Tina, Gayle thought. They were seated by the window and had a beautiful view of Richmond. Their captain was extremely attentive. Liz, who had been taking classes, ordered the wine and it was just perfect. Tina and Gayle decided to have the rack of lamb for two, and Liz decided on the salmon. They ordered Caesar salads and crab cocktails, and everything that came to them seemed to taste ambrosial. Liz, the only divorcee among them, amused them with a tale about her new baby-sitter, and Tina talked about the cop with whom she'd had her last date, complaining that he had seemed to consider the night to be target practice.

“Yet here we are, on the prowl again,” Liz said.

“We're not on the prowl!” Tina protested. “We're having dinner.”

“Ah-ha! But we're heading on to the Red Lion afterward,” Liz reminded her.

“Does that necessarily mean we're out on the prowl?” Gayle asked her.

“Well, we certainly can't dance with one another,” Tina stated. She grinned. “Face it, men are necessary.”

“Yes, and you must quit going through them like toilet paper,” Liz said.

“Would you shush! This is a very elegant place!”

Gayle laughed at the two of them and sipped her wine, marveling again that Liz had made such a good choice.

“Personally, I don't know what you're doing out anywhere,” Liz told Gayle. “Geoffrey is so darling. All these years the two of you have been together! Has it always been platonic?”

“Always,” Gayle said, smiling. “I love Geoffrey. But we're too important to each other as friends to be anything else.” Her smile faded suddenly because she wondered if she and Geoff might have been something else if Thane hadn't come into their lives at the same time. Actually, Thane had been a friend of Geoff's.

There she was, thinking about Thane again. Not that she could really picture him anymore. She was seeing him as the man in the oil painting, as a different kind of lover.

“What's the matter?” Tina asked.

Gayle looked at her, startled. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”

“The deep, dark mysteries in life,” Liz said sagely. “Gayle is in deep introspection.”

“I'm not really. And I'm an open book. You both know about my one big affair. There's no mystery to it.”

“Gayle's the one who goes through men like toilet paper,” Tina reminded Liz.

“Yes, but darling, she doesn't even bother to use them!”

“Well, it's getting rough these days,” Tina said. “You feel you need to see a man's health certificate before you kiss him. What is the world coming to?”

“Celibacy?”

“Heaven forbid!” Liz laughed. “Shall we order dessert?”

They did. They ordered cheese trays and amaretto cake—with a candle for Tina. The waiters sang “Happy Birthday” and the entire room clapped, and Tina promised Liz and Gayle that she would kill them both. They laughed and started on the cake, then complained that they'd be exercising for the next two weeks but enjoyed every mouthful anyway.

The check came and Liz and Gayle split the amount between them. As they drove to the Red Lion, Gayle scooted up in the middle of the seat so that she could watch while Tina opened her presents. From Liz, the gift was her favorite perfume, and from Gayle, the negligee. She thanked them both, oohing over the nightgown, then she was curiously silent.

“I just wish I had the right guy to use them on!” She sighed.

“You wanted to be single. You wanted your career,” Liz reminded her.

“Oh, yeah, I did. But now I see time rushing past me, and I suddenly know that I want children, too. Time used to be my friend; now it's running out on me.”

Liz and Gayle both assured her with stories they'd heard about plenty of women having their first babies at forty these days. Although Tina agreed with them, Gayle realized that they really were out on the prowl: Tina wanted a mate.

They reached the Red Lion. Again, Gayle thought about what a beautiful night it was. Fresh, clean air, snow-washed—that gave an expectancy to everything around her. She felt a cool tingle race along her spine, and she smiled. Something was going to happen tonight.

No, she was imagining things.

Maybe. Maybe not. She knew how Tina felt. She had almost said something while they had been talking. She had not been able to forget the lovers in McCauley's oil painting. The feeling captured there in paint was exactly what Tina was looking for. Perhaps it was what everyone looked for, what everyone ached for. That love so complete that it combined love and passion and the greatest tenderness.

“We are all mortals beneath the stars!” Liz said suddenly, tapping Gayle upon the back. “Shall we go in? These bright anti-crime lights are great, but I can almost guarantee a molestation if you stand there tempting fate much longer.”