Hide and Seek (10 page)
He lay stretched out on my old, flowered sofa, and he was fast asleep.
I
WOKE UP early, but Patrick was gone by the time I went downstairs. Jen and I did a three-mile run, then a power drink, and off to school for her. I went into my den and began working, lost in the lyrics of “A Lady Hard as Love.”
Around ten-thirty, I walked to the riding stables, noticing that the day had assumed the gauzy look of life shot through a telephoto lens. I felt content. Not a great feeling, but not so bad either. Something was missing from life, but I certainly had a lot, and no complaints.
A florist truck came bumping up the drive and a boy with spiked orange hair and Coke-bottle glasses came hurrying toward me, bearing an arrangement of freesias and decorative ribbons.
There was a note.
O'Malley
, I thought, pleased for some reason.
Dear Margaret Bradford
,
Forgive me for not having immediately recognized your name, but the only singers I've heard of are the Clancy Brothers
.
I don't know for certain if I can face you again. Not after last night. But I'm going to try. Give it my best
.
Will you please have dinner with me some evening this week? Let me try to make amends
.
You have the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen, and I will spend the time between now and our dinner listening to Maggie Bradford records until I've memorized your songs
.
The Mortified Sleeper (your neighbor), Patrick
My eyes were chestnut brown, and I had a feeling that Patrick O'Malley knew it, and knew I knew he knew it.
Dinner? Why not? I needed to meet more people in Bedford. I left a message on his machine making a date for Thursday night.
Blue eyes
—that's Sinatra, not me.
T
HURSDAY WAS AN unexpected and unqualified
hit
. He made me laugh—a lot. He had stories weaved inside of stories, weaved into still more stories. He had a wonderfully warm smile, and a generous nature. I knew I'd made my first friend in Bedford, and it felt good.
Over the next few weeks, I saw Patrick several times. I enjoyed his odd, wry, but honest sense of humor; his unique comic timing; his oversentimental but nevertheless touching stories about growing up in an Irish family of ten; his thrill at putting up his parents in the honeymoon suite of his first grand hotel.
In deference to his globetrotting, I began to call Patrick names that amused him: Padriac, Patrice, and Patrizio. But Patrick had no silly names for me. Sometimes he called me Margaret, the first person to do that since my mother.
“My first love,” Patrick told me, “was actually the sea. It's the one powerful image that I still have of Ireland, and when I was growing up there.”
Patrick had a modest sailboat, and one weekday morning we took it out on the Sound. Patrick played hooky from his hotel project; I could afford one morning away from the piano, and my own rituals.
Soon, we were out on the water, and I found that I loved it too. Since it was early on a weekday, there weren't many other boats out, even though the day was in the low seventies, with clear blue skies. I could see heavy traffic as we slid away from shore, and watching the cars heading to work reminded me of how lucky I was.
“There but for the grace of God,” Patrick said and saluted the commuters. “Suckers!” he shouted into the sea breeze and laughed. He wasn't being mean, just playful.
He and Jennie had obviously conspired, since he'd smuggled some of my power drink onboard, and had made me my usual breakfast. He even joined me for the special mixture of several fruit juices and vitamins.
“So are you finally over the bastard, Maggie?” he asked as we sipped juice. As usual, he was spontaneous and
himself
. I understood that he meant Phillip, who we'd talked about before, but not very much.
“Yes and no,” I told Patrick the truth. I felt that I could.
“I think I know what you mean.” He gave me a hug with one arm as the two of us stood staring out over the oncoming breakers.
“Sorry I don't have any good advice for you,” he said. “I never shot any bastards, though several I know deserved it. Is it all right if I make this light—it's my way, you know.”
I nodded. It
was
Patrick's style to be able to joke when things got particularly dark. He made me laugh constantly, and I liked it a lot.
“He
was
a bastard, and I'm sorry I married him.”
Patrick waved his free arm angrily. “Awww, he just took advantage. You were very young, and not so long out of your aunt's house. He did his fine officer's act, made his lofty promises, lied to you. I know, let's sail north to West Point. We'll dig up his grave, then we'll pulverize the bones.”
I shook my head, but I was smiling. “You make me laugh.”
“It's my job. It's what I'm good at.”
I looked at him. “What do you think I'm good at?”
He gestured with both hands. “Oh, everything. Everything that I've seen at least. You're closing yourself off a little—that's the only area for improvement that I can see.”
“You're funny, and you can be very sweet.”
“You think so?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. I definitely believe that. I'm sure of it.”
“Well good, there's an object lesson, ’cause I'm not ten percent as sweet as you. The way you talk, the way you think, raise your beautiful girl, Jennie, what comes out in your songs. That's why your music's so popular, don't you know it?”
“I do—”
“I know—and you don't. I have a favor, a big favor.”
I tensed a little.
Patrick winced. “See what he did to you, sweet Maggie? I hate it when you're afraid. That
reflex
. Your back is like a washboard.”
“I'm getting better,” I said.
“I know that you are. Now
don't clutch
. Here's the favor. It's the most wonderful thing I can imagine.”
I
couldn't
imagine. I wasn't tense anymore—Patrick had made me comfortable—but I couldn't figure where he was heading with this.
“All right,” I finally said, “I'll do anything. That's how much I trust you.”
“Excellent. The best words I've heard you speak so far. Now what I'd like, Maggie, what I'd love—would you sing me one of your songs. Any song of your choosing. Right here, just the two of us, would you softly sing a beautiful song just for me?”
It was a beautiful request, and I sang for Patrick.
O
NE NIGHT, IT must have been a week or so later, I had a light dinner with Jennie. Around eight, I drove her to her friend Millie’s house where she was having a sleep-over. Then, I went to Patrick’s house for a second meal.
Patrick had excused his “chief cook and bottle-washer” for the evening. He said that he wanted to do the honors: roasted lobster with garlic butter, thickly sliced and crisped french fries, succulent corn on the cob. A simple, satisfying
feast
.
After dinner, we took a walk on the grounds to a grove of apple trees, at the far end of his estate. There Patrick slid his arm around me and gently kissed the top of my head.
“You smell like orange blossoms. How is that?”
“More like No More Tears shampoo from Johnson and Johnson.”
“Whatever. You smell wonderful.” He kissed both my cheeks, then my forehead, my nose, the tip of my chin. He kissed me on the lips, and I felt his tongue touch mine.
I pulled away. We had kissed before, though I had never really felt his passion; I always drew back. Tonight was different.
He kisses absolutely beautifully
, I thought.
I just felt his heart and I like the feeling
.
I felt safe with him. The night wind whispered softly through the grove of trees. He kissed me again, and this time I could feel myself responding.
I can’t shut myself off any longer. I can’t spend my life afraid, even if I am
.
“Let’s go inside,” Patrick said. “I slept at your house once. In the den, and without your permission, as you constantly remind me. Will you sleep at my house tonight?”
I turned my body into his, smiling at the two of us. For once, I was happy about one of Jennie’s sleep-overs. “Not in the den, I hope.”
I could feel him grow hard against me. “No,” he whispered. “Come with me. Please. Trust me.”
My reluctance must have been stronger than I imagined, for he had surely sensed it.
Trust him
. Oh, how I wanted to, yet as we turned toward the house I could see Phillip’s face, feel the menace of him. I shuddered involuntarily.
Damn
him. We should have pulverized the bones.
“We don’t have to,” Patrick said, reading my fear. “I don’t know everything that happened to you long ago, but we can wait. You’re the first woman who’s meant anything to me in a while. But I want this to be exactly right for both of us.”
He
was
the most considerate and loving man. I did trust him.
“I want to,” I said, conscious of how tight my throat felt, how cold my skin. “I do, Patrick. Let’s go inside.”
W
E WERE UNUSUALLY quiet as we slowly undressed in Patrick’s sprawling, moonlit upstairs bedroom. In the spun-out silence the beat of my heart was electric, loudly amplified. All sorts of questions and self-doubts began circulating through my head.
I’m too tall for him. He won’t like me once he really gets to know me. Do I know enough about him? Relax, Maggie. Please, just relax
.
He looked wonderful in the moonlight. Hard, working-man’s stomach. Well-muscled legs. Broad chest lightly covered with silver and light-brown hair.
Sexy
, I thought, and I liked what I was feeling.
Open yourself up to him, Maggie. Don’t be afraid. This time it’s right
.
He held me in his arms for the quietest moment, kissing my hair and my neck. He
held me
as we stood before the moonlit window and waited for me to relax. I sensed that he was willing to wait for a long, long time.
He kissed me again, and I had the feeling that we were falling toward each other. He kissed my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, then both my eyes. Soft, lingering kisses. Finally, I began to kiss him back. I kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes. I continued to fall toward him, at least I had that sense.
“Dear sweet Maggie,” he whispered. He
knew
that I was still a little afraid.
He always knew what I was feeling
. He was wise, intelligent, but he never showed off, never seemed impressed with himself.
“You are such a lovely and special woman. I adore you, Maggie.”
It was
Patrick’s
voice,
Patrick’s
arms, and as he lifted me up and carried me to the massive bed, I felt a release, as though he had severed the invisible chains that had held me captive. This was such a sweet, slow dance. It was so new for me—either forgotten, or never experienced. He took his time, and then entered me gently, carefully.
From a fragile place inside me, a place forgotten, pleasure rippled through me, and I shivered. I felt a deep, warm sensation flowing, spreading, rushing out. It was a feeling that had been missing for so long. And it went on and on that night.
“Gentle Patrick,” I said finally, and I didn’t think I would ever stop
smiling
. I touched his face once again. He was smiling too. “You’re so good for me. You’re so good, period.”
“It will be better and better,” he said. “Trust me.” Then he whispered,
“Trust us.”
I did. Finally, I trusted someone again.
W
ILL SHEPHERD SHOULD have felt at the absolute top of the world, but somehow he didn’t. He was certainly famous, and filthy rich, but he hated it. That night, he was also dangerously high.
The were-wolf of London
, he thought.
Beware
.
The cocaine he’d taken as the concert began, and again immediately before the appearance of Maggie Bradford, made him feel all-powerful. And why the hell not? He was a star not only on the football field, but also among the elite attending the special performance at Albert Hall.
Will looked around, grinning, waving. Pete Townsend was there, and Sting, and Mick Jagger—
a new rock group: the Hasbeens
—along with Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher,
the two people currently destroying England
.
They had come to hear Maggie Bradford soothe their tortured souls. Her ballads did that to people. Her songs were rare, a miracle actually—strong melody, lyric, and mesmerizing. No singer put so many different emotions into one song—all of her songs imitated the dizzying complexity of modern life, or so it seemed to Will.
She came onstage to loud, adoring applause, and yet she seemed
so shy
. Tickets had been sold out for months. She sat at the piano … and simply began to sing.
Will had no memory of the scene at Lady Trevelyan’s party, and so he looked at her with a fresh eye. There was her long, flowing blond hair. And the simple beauty of her face.
But she seemed to
glow
on this particular night. He wondered why? What was her secret? What had this woman learned that he hadn’t?
Her voice wasn’t large or particularly dramatic; there was no melodrama in her style. She sang with a purity that pierced his heart like a sword, and he could actually feel the pain as well as the honest beauty of her music.
She was singing about the sadness of lost dreams, about a fall from grace. Will felt she was singing about him.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. The music moved him in ways he couldn’t understand, but it was as though a great light were embracing him from the stage, and then transporting him from the concert hall into a place for only the two of them.
What the hell am I thinking?
he wondered. He was tempted to laugh at himself. He felt like such a damn fool.
God how he loved the sound of her voice though. He could listen to it for the rest of his life.
He had the strange, haunting feeling that Maggie Bradford could save him from himself.