Lovers (41 page)

“That it is.” She didn’t turn, not by so much as a quarter of an inch. She had dark hair, pulled back carelessly and knotted with a bit of bright yellow wool; the one eyebrow and eye he could see were equally dark; her lips, bare of makeup, were a soft pink. Her skin was very white, with the luscious matte quality of a gardenia, and there was a flush of pink where the sun had touched her cheekbones and her nose. He’d never been so moved by a profile in his life. It possessed a nobility, a purity, and a sadness that transcended all of its individual details, Vito thought. What vile beast had made her sad, he asked himself, overcome by an irrational feeling of protectiveness.

“You’re going to get sunburned,” he said, “if you don’t watch out.”

“I put sunblock on a little while ago,” she answered, unmoving, “but thanks for thinking of it.” She smiled faintly in acknowledgment, still watching the actors, and Vito’s heart turned over. It felt as if it had literally flip-flopped in his chest, he said to himself in horrified fascination, and he hoped that was physically impossible.

“You seem very interested in filmmaking,” he managed to say.

“In this one, yes. For some reason I’ve never seen Zach in action before.”

“Zach,” Vito said flatly. He was fucked, totally fucked.

“He’s the director, see that tall, great-looking guy with broad shoulders in the white T-shirt, that’s Zach, the one who’s telling the cameraman something. Just look how dynamic he is, on top of everything, totally in his element. He’s just so beautiful, I love to watch him,” she said fervently.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have the time?” she asked.

“It’s about eleven-thirty,” Vito said. Eleven-thirty on the day the world started and ended in two minutes of conversation.

“I came early to watch, but time seems to stand still when you watch a movie being made. Zach warned me about that. I’ll starve before he’s ready for lunch.”

“You’re having lunch with … the director of the picture?”

“Right. He told me that it would probably be okay the first day. He said he’d be too busy later on, discussing the morning’s work, so it wouldn’t be convenient for me to come out.”

As she spoke, the woman turned her head toward Vito and he realized that the desolation he had felt before had been happiness compared to this. Her profile had only warned of the fascination of her full face; the delicate indentation that led from the base of her nostrils to the top of her vitally alive upper lip was the most perfectly shaped fraction of human flesh that he had ever seen or imagined. And her eyes. Jesus, he should never have looked into both of her eyes. He should have gotten up and walked away and never come back. No disguise has ever been invented that can hide the expressions of a person’s eyes, and these were so lively, so humorous, so sportive, in spite of a certain desolation, that they told him he would die for this
woman who belonged to Zach. Not die to have her, because that was impossible, but die to defend her, to keep her from harm.

Unable to move, although he wanted to run for his life, Vito watched Zach stop the action, give the cameraman some final instructions, and walk toward them, putting on a sweater as he advanced.

“Hi!” he yelled from a distance, and the woman got up and ran eagerly to Zach. He put his arms around her and lifted her up off the sand in a great bear hug and kissed her on both cheeks in a way that spoke of many exchanged kisses, many exchanged confidences, many hours of happiness together. Zach and the woman approached Vito smiling, and Zach put his arm around Vito affectionately.

“We finished early,” Zach said, “and I knew my little one here would be dying of hunger. Come on, let’s go eat. There’s a little place down the beach that’s supposed to have great hamburgers.”

“No, thanks,” Vito mumbled. “I have to get back to the office.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, do you think I don’t know what torture you’ve been going through all morning?” Zach said, laughing. “Just give me a break and don’t do it this afternoon, my mind is half on my work and half on wondering if you’re going to explode from not messing in my picture. You might just as well drive me crazy one way as the other.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow. You and … your friend … well, I don’t want to butt in.”

“Huh?” Zach looked puzzled.

“You have a lunch date, Zach.”

“Well, so what? Why can’t you join us?”

“This lady has a lunch date with you,” Vito said, at the end of his rope. “Two’s company, Zach, didn’t we make a picture with that name?”

“Vito, what’s wrong with you. Sunstroke?” Zach asked.

“Vito?
Vito Orsini?”
Sasha cried in amazement.

“Sasha, are you going crazy too?”

“Sasha—
your sister?”
Vito asked, wondering if he’d forgotten how to pray.

“No, Sasha my grandmother. What the fuck did you think? It’s not possible that you two … haven’t … met … before … is … it? I mean, how
could
it be possible? It’s impossible. Totally impossible. Gigi would have introduced you years ago.”

“But she didn’t, did she, Vito?” Sasha said, blushing for almost the first time in her life, and looking down at the sand, unable to meet his eyes.

“No, she missed the chance, somewhere along the way.”

“Bad, bad Gigi. And to think I used to consider her my best friend.”

“Cruel Gigi. I’m writing her out of my will this afternoon.”

“Look, guys, you two go and get lunch, or whatever you have in mind,” Zach said, throwing up his hands. “And don’t bother to come back!”

In the car on the way to lunch, Sasha kept sneaking quick peeks at Vito while she chatted nervously, since he seemed incapable of saying more than a word or two.

“You’re sort of like a figure out of mythology,” she said. “I’ve been hearing about you for so long from other people that after a while I decided you were sort of an Italian-American Zeus and never appeared except to a choice swan or two, not to mere mortals.”

Why, Sasha wondered, looking at Vito’s powerful profile, his inborn attitude of total authority, his commanding look that made her think of a leader of a band of fearless outlaws, a man beside whom even her own superbly vigorous Zach seemed almost tentative, why had Gigi never introduced her to this one particular magnificent human being? Jealousy was the only possibility. Gigi, that horrifying bitch, understood her taste in men too precisely not to have known that Vito was meant for her.

“I mean, think of all the times we might have bumped
into each other,” Sasha continued, rattling on after a brief pause, “all those years I lived with Gigi in New York … but of course you were working in Europe then … and later, when the two of us shared an apartment out here before I got married …”

“But Gigi said—”

“I’m divorced now.”

“Good.”

“Good? Most people say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ ”

“Bullshit. Josh was wrong for you. Nice guy, but all wrong.”

“How do you know him?”

“When I was married to Billy, he handled our pre-nup and our divorce.”

“Oh.
Oh!
I forgot all about that. It was so long ago, ages before I met Gigi. Well, that’s really amazing, that makes another connection. There’s Gigi, Josh, Spider, Zach, Billy …”

Had Billy been utterly out of her mind, Sasha thought. She’d let this glorious bronzed pirate, this conquistador,
this dazzling man
, of all the men in the world, get away? How could she possibly be content with Spider, darling Spider, but just another big, blond All-American sweetie-pie, after she’d been married to Vito? It was unthinkable, beyond her imagination. But of course that marriage had lasted only a year, so obviously they hadn’t been right for each other to begin with. Billy could be so blindly, stupidly stubborn … Vito must have been too strong for her, too right about too many things, unwilling to let her follow all her extravagant rich woman’s impulses that so often led to some kind of mixup. They must have been hideously miserable together, she thought with a leap of pure joy.

“Did Zach say a little place
down
the beach?” Vito asked.

“I don’t remember, we’re driving
up
the beach. We just passed Trancas.”

“What about here? I know you’re starving.”

“It looks fine.” Starving, Sasha wondered, why would she be starving?

They pulled into a simple, rather shabby beach hotel with a restaurant facing the water. Vito secured a round table in the corner on a screened porch where an awning flapped idly in the sea breeze. They both studied the menu earnestly.

“Anything look interesting?” Vito asked.

“Everything, anything … maybe a chicken salad.” She could just play with it, Sasha realized, she wouldn’t actually have to try to swallow.

“What about a drink first?”

“Oh, yes. Please. What’s good before lunch?”

“Champagne, dry sherry, either Tio Pepe or La Ina, Lillet, Negroni, Bloody Mary, Cinzano …” Had he been a bartender in a former life, Vito wondered as he rambled on, but she wanted to know, so he was telling her. Anything she wanted to know he would tell her. Anything.

“Cinzano, please, on the rocks,” Sasha said, seizing on something she didn’t know if she liked, just to make a decision.

“Waiter, two Cinzanos on the rocks and a chicken salad for the lady—”

“Why don’t we wait to order? Unless you’re hungry.”

“I’m not. I was before, but I’m not now,” Vito said.

“Me neither. Phantom hunger,” Sasha said, wondering what she meant.

“Yes. That’s what happens when …” Vito stopped, looking for the courage to proceed. It was now or never, and if it was never he might as well know before he got in any deeper, not that it was possible to get in any deeper than he was already.

“When what?” Sasha asked, holding her breath.

“When … two people meet and discover that they have an
involuntary
relationship,” he said, lifting his head and looking into her eyes, which were as dark as his own.

“As opposed to … voluntary?”

“As opposed to existing because of other relationships,
meaningless relationships because they’re not chosen freely; as opposed to normal social life or any kind of responsibilities or civilized conventions.
Involuntary
because they are real and absolute and they exist in and of themselves and can’t be escaped. Because they are destined.”

“Oh,” Sasha barely breathed, unable to sustain his gaze.

“I wasn’t supposed to meet you … until today,” Vito said firmly. “You weren’t supposed to meet me … until today. And I do
not
believe in that sort of thing. I am not any kind of Buddhist or a follower of a Tibetan sage or a believer in reincarnation or any other sort of organized believer, come to that. But this is different. Isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes. Yes.
Yes
. Hold my hands.”

Vito grasped both of her hands in his and they sat silently, trembling, alternately looking at each other and back to the tablecloth, until they felt resolute and steady enough to continue.

“There’s something I have to tell you right now,” Sasha said, with an expression of painful determination, remembering her vow to herself.

“You’re not, you can’t be, oh, even if you are, it won’t change the way I feel—”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Sasha asked, astonished at the sudden look of dreadful anxiety on his face.

“You’re sick, there’s something wrong—that’s what you have to tell me, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Vito. I’ve never been better in my life!”

“Thank God! Nothing else matters.
Nothing!”

“It matters to me. I have a past that involves lots of men.”

“I once had a conversation with Billy,” Vito said, “before we got married, and I told her that I didn’t want to know a word about her past, because I could be a jealous man. I’ve gotten wiser since then, and a lot less jealous, but I continue to think that whatever you used to do is none of my business.”

Sasha listened to him and paid no attention. “I had three lovers, never more, I gave them each a different night, twice a week, but never on Sunday,” she insisted stubbornly.

“I hope they realized how lucky they were. The only thing I’d like to know is …”

“I knew you’d have a question, I just knew it,” Sasha wailed.

“Were any of them as old as I am? I’m forty-eight.”

“Most of them were in their forties, a few in their thirties, late thirties. I’ve never been attracted to young men.”

“Well, that takes care of that.” Vito sighed deeply in relief. “Do you want to know about my past?”

“No. Not one word. It wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Good.” He’d hate like hell to have to tell her about Susan Arvey and Maggie MacGregor, Vito thought, but he would, every word, if she asked. He would never devalue the truth with her. And all the others, even the ones whose names he couldn’t remember, way back to the very first girl when he was in high school. He’d have himself hypnotized if necessary, and regress.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said, remembering something important.

“What?”

“I’m a terrible father.”

“But Gigi adores you,” Sasha protested.

“That’s because she’s an angel. I neglected her disgracefully when she was a kid. Her mother and I were divorced when she was a baby, and I never even bothered to realize that she needed a father. I was too busy with my career to spend time with her, I thought if I paid child support I was doing my share, I was a shit and a half as her father and there’s no excuse for it, nothing you can invent or imagine, no matter how hard you try.”

“But you’re sorry now?”

“Of course I’m sorry! It’s the great regret of my life. Now I take her out to dinner when I’m in town and she has time for me, and we have long talks—grown-up stuff—but
think how different it would have been if I’d been around when she was growing up. Think what she missed. Think what
I
missed.”

“She’d have a father complex that would ruin her life.”

“You think so?”

“I’m positive. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you. I believe you about everything.” He truly did, Vito realized, mesmerized. He understood suddenly that he’d never really trusted a woman before.