Separate Beds (9 page)

He turned and burned her with a look that seemed to say he'd like to throw a hex on her. But he replied civilly, “Give her my best.”

When Jill and Clay had disappeared, Stu asked, “What was that all about?”

“Oh, nothing. We lined Clay up with my cousin Catherine last summer one time, remember?”

“We did? Oh yeah, that's right, we did.” Then, shrugging, he took her elbow and said, “Come on, let's go freshen our drinks.”

Clay and Jill decided to drive out to the Interlachen Country Club, a place where both of their parents belonged and where they'd been coming for as long as they could remember, to play golf or eat Sunday brunch. The dining room was half empty, left now to those members who stayed to dance on the small parquet floor to the music of a trio that played old standards. They were seated at a table situated in the lee of corner windows overlooking the golf course, which was lit by single lights strewn along the fairways. The dapples of brightness created a jewelled view from this vantage point in the high, glass-walled room. The course boasted fifty different species of trees. Were it high noon, they'd be seeing every warm color of the spectrum across the expanse below, but now, night having settled over the acres of trees and manicured grass, it looked like something from a fairy tale, the trees shimmering silhouettes against the strategically placed lights.

For some minutes after they were seated, Clay continued staring out at the view below while Jill swirled her wine in its lengthy stem glass. When she'd waited as long as she intended to wait, Jill forced the issue.

“And who is Catherine?” Even a question such as this reflected Jill's breeding, for her voice grew neither accusing nor harpyish. It flowed instead like the amber liquid around the sides of her glass.

After a moment's consideration Clay answered, “Bobbi's cousin.”

Raising the stem glass to her lips, Jill hummed, “Mmm . . .” then added, “Has she got something to do with this sour mood of yours?”

But Clay seemed far removed again, pensive.

“What's so interesting out there in the dark?”

He turned to her with a sigh, rested his elbows on the linen tabletop and kneaded his eyes with the heels of his hands. Then, leaving his eyes covered, he grunted dejectedly, so she could scarcely hear, “Damn.”

“You might as well talk about it, Clay. If it's about this
 . . . Catherine,
I think I deserve to know. It is, isn't it?”

His troubled eyes appeared once again, gazing at her, but instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. “Do you love me, Jill?”

“I don't think that's the subject of this discussion.”

“Answer me anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because I've been wondering lately . . . a lot. Do you?”

“Could be. I don't know for sure.”

“I've been asking myself the same question about you too. I don't know for sure if I love you either, but it's a very good possibility.”

“That's a little too clinical to be romantic, Clay.” She laughed softly, sending the lights shimmering off her sparkling lips.

“Yeah, I've been in a clinical mood this week—you know, dissecting things?” He gave her a brief rueful smile.

“Dissecting our relationship?”

He nodded, studied the weave of the tablecloth, then raised his eyes to study Jill's flawless face, her hair gleaming beneath the subdued lights of a massive chandelier. Her long fingers with tapered nails glistening as she absently fondled her footed glass, her grace as she relaxed back into her chair, one arm draped limply on its armrest. Jill was like a ten-carat diamond: she belonged in this setting just as surely as Catherine Anderson did not. To bring Catherine Anderson here would be like setting a rhinestone in gold filigree. But Jill . . . ah, Jill, he thought, how she dazzles.

“You're so damn beautiful it's absurd,” Clay said, a curiously painful note in his voice.

“Thanks. Somehow it doesn't mean as much tonight as if you'd said it just that way, with just that tone of voice, with just that particular look in your eyes, say . . . a week ago, or, say, four days ago?”

He had no reply.

“Say before the subject of Catherine Whoever-she-is intruded?”

Clay only chewed his lower lip in a way with which she was utterly familiar.

“I can wait all night for you to spill it out, whatever it is. I'm not the one who has studying to do this weekend.”

“Neither do I,” Clay admitted. “I used that as an excuse because I didn't want to see you tonight.”

“So that's why you pounced on me like a parolee fresh out of prison?”

He laughed softly, admiring her cool, unruffled presence. “No, that was self-flagellation.”

“For?”

“For last July fourth.”

A light dawned in Jill's head. She remembered quite distinctly the fight they'd had back then.

“Who was she? Catherine?” Jill asked softly.

“Exactly.”

“And?”

“And she's pregnant.”

Jill's poise was commendable. She drew in a deep, swift breath, her perfect nostrils flaring into slight imperfection during the length of it. The cords in her neck became momentarily taut before relaxing once more as her eyes and Clay's locked, searching. Then she gracefully braced an elbow on the tabletop and lowered her forehead onto the back of her hand.

Into the silence, a waiter intruded.

“Miss Magnusson, Mr. Forrester, can I get you anything else?”

Clay looked up, distracted. “No, thank you, Scott. We're fine.”

When Scott had drifted discreetly away, Jill raised her head and asked, “Is she the reason for the shiner, which I have so graciously avoided mentioning all night?”

He nodded. “Her father.” He took a drink, gazed out at the lights below again.

“I'll forgo the obvious question,” Jill said, with a hint of asperity creeping into her tone, “realizing you wouldn't have told me unless the situation were clearly defined and you're certain it is yours. Are you going to marry her?”

This time it was Clay's turn to draw a ragged breath. He sat with ankle crossed over knee, one elbow slung on the edge of the table. To look at him, at the careless pose, at the classic cut of his tailored clothes, his handsome profile, one would not have guessed the slightest thing to be amiss. But inside he was a knot of nerves.

“You haven't clearly answered whether or not you love me.” Slowly Clay drew his eyes back to hers, suffering now nearly as much as he could see she was.

“No, I haven't, have I?”

“Is it”—Clay searched for the correct word—”superfluous now?”

“I think so, yes, I think so.”

Each of their eyes dropped down to their drinks; each of them experienced a touching sense of loss at her words.

“I don't know if I'm going to marry her or not. I'm getting a lot of pressure.”

“From her parents?”

He only laughed ruefully. “Oh, Jill, that's so incredibly funny. Too bad you'll never know how incredibly funny that is.”

“Sure,” Jill retorted caustically, “Ha—ha—ha . . . aren't I funny, though.”

He reached for her hand on the tabletop. “Jill, it was a thing that happened. You and I had had that big fight the night before. Stu and Bobbi lined me up with this cousin of Bobbi's . . . Hell, I don't know.”

“And you got her pregnant because you wanted to set up housekeeping with me and I refused to leave Theta House. How chivalrous!” She yanked her hand free.

“I expected you to be bitter. I deserve it. The whole miserable thing is a lousy mistake. The girl's father is a raving lunatic, and believe me, neither the girl nor I want anything to do with each other. But there are, shall we say, extenuating circumstances that may force me to ask her to marry me.”

“Oh, she'll be overjoyed that you
have to!
What girl wouldn't be!”

He sighed, thought in exasperation, Women! “I'm being pressured in more ways than one.”

“What's the matter, has your father threatened to deny you a place in the family practice?”

“You're very astute, Jill, but then I never did take you for a dumb redhead.”

“Oh, don't humor me; not at a time like this.”

“It's not only my father. Mother walks around looking like she's just been whipped, and to complicate matters Catherine's old man is threatening to get vocal about it. If that happens, my admission to the bar is in jeopardy. And to complicate matters even worse, Catherine has run away from home.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No, but Bobbi does.”

“So you could reach her if you wanted to?”

“I think so.”

“But you don't want to?”

He drew a great sighing breath and only shook his head forlornly. Then he reached for her hand again across the corner of the table. “Jill, I don't have much time to waste. All the devils of hell seem to be riding on my back right now. I'm sorry if I have to lay one of them on yours, and I'm sorry, too, if the occasion isn't what it should be at a time like this, but I want to know your feelings about me. I want to know if, at some time in our future, when all of this is straightened out, when I've completed law school and gotten my life back in working order, would you ever consider marrying me?”

Her composure slipped a notch and she cast her eyes aside as they grew too glisteny. But they were drawn back to his familiar, lovable face, of which she knew every feature so intimately. In a choked voice she answered, “Damn you, Clay Forrester. I should slap your Adonis's face.”

But the softness of her words told him how very hurt she was.

“Jill, you know me. You know what I'd have planned for us if this hadn't interfered. I'd never have asked you this way, at a time like this, if I'd had the choice.”

“Oh, Clay, my heart is—is . . . falling in little pieces down to the pit of my stomach. What do you expect me to say?”

“Say what you feel, Jill.” He rubbed a thumb lightly across the back of her hand while she covered his face, hair and body with her eyes, letting her hand remain passively in his.

“You asked me too late, Clay.”

Pained moments spun by while the piano player tinkled some old tune and a few dancers moved across the floor. At last he picked up Jill's hand, turned it over and kissed its palm. Returning his gaze to her face he whispered, “God, you're beautiful.”

She swallowed. “God, you are too. That's our trouble. We're too beautiful. People see only the facade, not the pain, the faults, the human failings that don't show.”

“Jill, I'm sorry I hurt you. I do love you, you know.”

“I don't think you'd better bank on me, Clay.”

“Do you forgive me for asking?”

“No, don't ask me to do that.”

“It mattered to me, Jill. Your answer mattered a lot.”

She slowly pulled her hand free of his and picked up her purse.

“Jill, I'll let you know what comes of it.”

“Yeah, you do that. And I'll let you know when my space shuttle leaves for the moon.”

This time it happened so fast that Clay saw nothing. He stepped out of the Corvette in the driveway and a husky shadow slinked swiftly from behind the bulk of a pyramidal arborvitae. Clay was yanked roughly around, slammed against the fender of the car just as a meaty fist smashed into his stomach, leaving no mark, breaking no bones, only cracking the wind from him viciously as he doubled over and dropped to his knees on the ground.

Through his pain he heard a grating voice informing, “That was from Anderson. The girl's run off to Omaha.” Then heavy, running footsteps disappeared into the night.

When Bobbi called the following evening, she sounded breathless. “I ran into him at a party last night, Cat. He asked about you again and said to tell you it's really important. He had to talk to you.”

“What good would it do? I'm not marrying him and I don't need his money!”

“Oh, jeez! You're so obstinate! What harm can it do, for heaven's sake!”

But Marie passed along the hall just then and Catherine turned her face toward the wall, couching the mouthpiece furtively. But from the knowing glance Marie had flashed her way, Catherine suspected she'd heard the last remark. Quietly she said into the phone, “I want him to think I've left town.”

Bobbi's voice suddenly became critical, scolding. “If you want to know what I think, I think you owe him that much. I don't think it's enough for you to insist that
you
don't need a single thing from Clay Forrester. Maybe he needs something from you. Have you considered that?”

Dead silence at Bobbi's end of the line for a long moment.

Catherine hadn't considered that before. She clasped the receiver tightly and pressed it against her ear so hard her head began to hurt. Suddenly it tired her immensely, having to think about Clay Forrester at all. Her emotions were strung out to the limit, and her own problems were more than she wanted to handle without taking on Clay Forrester's too. She sighed and dropped her forehead against the wall.

Bobbi's voice came through again, but very calmly and quietly. “I think he's in some kind of big trouble over this, Cath. I don't know exactly what because he wouldn't say. All he said was something about serious repercussions.”

“Don't!” Catherine begged, her eyelids sliding shut wearily. “J-just don't, okay? I don't want to hear it! I can't take on any of his troubles. I have all I can do to handle my own.”

Again there followed a lengthy silence before Bobbi made one last observation which was to gnaw at Catherine's conscience mercilessly in the hours and days to come: “Cath . . . whether you want to admit it or not, I think they're one and the same.”

The wide blue curve of the Mississippi River glinted beneath the autumn sky as it cut a swath through the campus of the University of Minnesota, dividing it into East Bank and West Bank. The more heavily wooded East Bank wore the school colors, maroon and gold. Homecoming was approaching, and it seemed almost as if the grounds had festooned themselves for the event. Stately old maples wore ruddy tones in startling contrast with the fiery elms. Constant activity churned along Union and Church Streets as homecoming preparations advanced. On the lawns students soaked up summer's warm leftovers. Pedestrians dawdled, waiting for buses in the shaded circle before Jones Hall. Bicycle wheels sighed through tumbled leaves. Ornamental stone parapets adorned gracious old frat houses down along University Avenue, their retaining walls, steps and balconies draped with idlers, slung there like lazing lizards. And everywhere couples kissed, heads bare to the afternoon sun.

Passing a kissing couple now, Catherine looked quickly away. Somehow the sight of them made the books ride a little more heavily upon her hip. At times lately, leaning to lift those books, twinges caught her side in newly strange places.

Clay, too, was often disarmed by the sight of a young man and woman kissing. Striding down The Mall now, he observed an embrace in progress and his thought strayed to Catherine Anderson. Pulling his eyes to the students moving along the sidewalk ahead of him, he thought the girl with the leaf-gold hair could almost be her. He studied her back while it disappeared and reappeared around others who came between them. But it was only his preoccupation with her lately that made him look twice at every blond head in a crowd.

Still, the hair was the right color and the right length. But Clay realized he could easily be mistaken, for he'd never seen her in broad daylight before.

Dammit, Forrester, get her out of your head! That's not her and you know it!

But as he watched the tall form with its straight shoulders, its swayless hips, the books riding against one of them, a queer feeling made his stomach go weightless. He wanted to call her name but knew it couldn't be Catherine. Hadn't he gotten the message loud and clear? She'd run off to Omaha.

Deliberately Clay glanced across the street to free his eyes and mind from delusions. But it was no good. Momentarily he found himself scanning the crowd more intently, seeking out the blue sweater with blond hair trailing down its back. She was gone! Absurd, but a hot flash of panic clutched Clay, making him break into a trot. He caught sight of her once more, farther ahead, and breathed easier, but continued following. Long stride, he thought. Long legs. Could it be? Suddenly the girl crooked an arm and stroked the hair away from her neck as if she were hot. Clay skipped around a group of people, studying the long legs, the erect carriage of her shoulders, remembering her air of haughtiness and defensiveness. She came to a street and hesitated for a passing car, then glanced aside to check traffic before crossing. As she stepped from the curb, her profile was clearly defined for a fraction of a second.

Clay's heart seemed to hit his throat and he broke into a run.

“Catherine?” he called, keeping his eyes riveted on her, shouldering his way, bumping people, mechanically excusing himself, running on. “Catherine?”

She evidently did not hear, only kept walking on, the sound of traffic grown heavier as a bus pulled away from the sidewalk. He was short-winded by the time he caught up with her and swung her around by an elbow. Her books tumbled from her hip and her hair flew across her mouth and stuck to her lipstick.

“Hey, what—” she began, instinctively bending toward the books. But through the veil of hair she looked up to find Clay Forrester glowering down at her, his chest heaving, his mouth open in surprise.

Catherine's heart cracked against the walls of her chest while the sight of him made tremors dance through her stomach.

“Catherine? What are you doing here?” He reached again for her elbow and drew her up. She only stared, trying to conquer the urge to run while her heart palpitated wildly and the books lay forgotten on the sidewalk. “Do you mean you've been here all the time, right here going to school?” he asked in astonishment, still grasping her elbow as if afraid she'd vanish.

Clay could see she was stunned. Her lips parted and the look in her eyes told him she felt cornered and would surely run again. He felt the sweater slipping out of his fingers.

“Catherine, why didn't you call?” Her hair was still stuck to her lipstick. Her breath coming through billowed it out and in. Then she bent to pick up her books while he belatedly leaned to do the same. She plucked them away from his fingers and turned to escape him and the countless complications which he could mean to her.

“Catherine, wait!”

“Leave me alone,” she flung over her shoulder, trying not to look as if she were running from him, running just the same.

“I've got to talk with you.”

She kept half running half walking away, Clay a few steps behind her.

“Why didn't you call?”

“Dammit! How did you find me?”

“Will you stop, for God's sake!”

“I'm late! Leave me alone!”

He kept up with her, stride for stride, very easily now, while Catherine's side started aching and she pressed her free hand against it.

“Didn't you get my message from Bobbi?”

But the blond hair only swung from side to side on that proud neck as she hurried on. Irritated because she refused to stop, he grabbed her arm once again, forcing her to do his bidding. “I'm getting tired of playing Keystone Cops with you!
Will you stop!”

The books stayed on her hip this time but she tossed her head belligerently, a yearling colt defying the bridle. She stood there glaring at him while he restrained her. When at last it seemed she wouldn't bolt, he dropped his hand.

“I gave Bobbi the message to have you call me. Did she tell you?”

Instead of answering his question, she berated herself. “This is the one thing I couldn't control, chancing running into you somewhere. I thought this campus was big enough for the two of us. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself that I'm here.”

“And I'd appreciate it if you'd give me the opportunity to explain a few things and work something out with you.”

“We did all the talking we needed the last time we were together. I told you, my plans are made and you don't have to worry about me.”

Curious passers-by eyed them, wondering what they were arguing about.

“Listen, we're making a spectacle here. Will you come with me someplace quiet so we can talk?”

“I said I'm in a hurry.”

“And I'm in a fat lot of trouble! Will you just give me two minutes and stand still?” He'd never seen anyone so defiant in his life. It was more than just his parents' ultimatum driving him now. This had come down to a contest of wills as she strode away up The Mall with him just behind her shoulder again.

“Leave me alone,” she demanded.

“There's nothing I'd like better, but my parents don't see it that way.”

“Pity.”

He grabbed the back of her sweater this time, and she nearly walked out of it before realizing why it wasn't coming along with her.

“Give me a time, an anonymous phone number, anything, so I can get in touch with you and I'll leave you alone until then.”

She yanked her sweater free and spun to face him defiantly. “I've already told you, I made one mistake and it was a dilly. But my life isn't ruined as long as I don't consider it ruined. I know where I'm going, what I'm going to do when I get there, and I don't want you involved in any way whatsoever.”

“Are you too proud to take anything from me?”

“You can call it pride if you want. I prefer to call it good sense. I don't want you having any kind of hold over me.”

“Suppose I have the solution to our problems, and it would leave neither of us indebted to the other?”

But she only eyed him acidly. “I've solved my problems. If you still have some, it's not my fault.”

People were looking at them curiously again, and Clay became incensed at her stubborn refusal to listen to reason. Before she knew what was happening, he'd clamped an arm around her waist and propelled her off the sidewalk toward an old, enormous elm. She found herself thrust against it, her ears flanked by both of his palms, which leaned against the bark.

“Something else has come up,” he informed her, his face no more than two inches from hers. “Seems your father's been making trouble.”

She swallowed, pressing her head back, glancing first into his eyes, then aside, afraid of the determination she saw so clearly at this close range.

“I heard about that and I'm sorry,” she conceded. “I really thought he'd give up when I left.”

“For Omaha?” he asked sarcastically.

Her startled eyes flew to his. “How did you learn that?” She noted the remnant of a cut above his eyebrow and wondered if her father had put it there. He glowered, holding her prisoner so that all she could see was either his face or a bronze-colored sweater smack in front of her eyes. She stared at the sweater.

“Never mind. Your father is making threats, and those threats could mean the end of my law career. Something's got to be done about it. I find the idea of paying him off as distasteful as you do. Now, can we work on a reasonable alternative?”

Catherine's eyes slid shut; she was unable to think quickly enough. “Listen, I've got to go now, honest. But I'll call you tonight. We can talk about it then.”

Something told him not to trust her, but he couldn't stand there restraining her indefinitely. All he could do was let her go for the time being. He knew he could find out easily where she lived, now that he knew she was a student here. As he watched her walk away he waited to see if she'd turn around to check if he was tailing her. She didn't. She entered Jones Hall and disappeared, and guessing that her patience was probably greater than his, he turned back, heading for the car.

The following day Catherine met Mrs. Tollefson in the office with its patchwork sofa and fern. Thinking Tolly would forge ahead into the subject Catherine most dreaded, Catherine was surprised when instead the matronly woman only chatted about school and asked how Catherine was getting along now that she'd settled into Horizons. When Catherine told her she was attending college on a small study grant and supplementing it by doing typing and sewing, Mrs. Tollefson noted, “You have a lot of ambition, Catherine.”

“Yes, but I'll be the first to admit it's self-serving. I want something better out of life than what I've had.”

Mrs. Tollefson ruminated. “College, then, is your ticket to a better life.”

“Yes, it was going to be my final escape.”

“Was?” Mrs. Tollefson paused. “Why do you speak in the past tense?”

Catherine's eyes opened a little wider. “I didn't do it consciously.”

“But you feel you're being forced to drop out of school?”

A brief, wry laugh escaped Catherine.
“Under the circumstances, who wouldn't?” A gentle expression complemented Tolly's soft voice. “Perhaps we need to talk about that, about where you've come from, where you are, where you're going.”

Catherine sighed, dropped her head back tiredly. “I don't know where I'm going anymore. I did once, but I'm not sure if I'll get there now.”

“You're speaking about this baby as an obstacle.”

“Yes, one I haven't wanted to make decisions about.”

“Perhaps decisions will come easier once we look at all your options.” Mrs. Tollefson's voice would be suited well to the reading of poetry. “I think we need to explore where your baby fits into your plans.”

Oh, God, here it comes. Catherine sank deeper into the cushions of the sofa, wishing it would take her down, down, into its depth forever.

“How far along are you, Catherine?”

“Three months.”

“So you've had some time to think about it already?” The kind woman watched the cords stand out in Catherine's neck as the girl swallowed, and her eyes remained closed.

“Not enough. I—I have trouble thinking about it at all. I keep pushing it to the back of my mind, thinking someone will come along and make the decision for me.”

“But you know that won't happen. You knew that when you came to Horizons. From the moment you chose not to abort, you knew a further decision was in the offing.”

Childlike now, Catherine sat forward, arguing, “But I want them both, college and the baby. I don't want to give up either one!”

“Then let's discuss that angle. Do you think you're strong enough to be a full-time mother and a full-time student?”

For the first time Catherine bridled. “Well, how should I know!” She flung her hands out, then subsided with a sheepish look. “I—I'm sorry.”

Mrs. Tollefson only smiled. “It's okay. It's fine and healthy to be angry. Why shouldn't you be? You just started putting your life on track when along came this major complication. Who wouldn't be angry?”

“Okay, I admit it. I'm—I'm mad!”

“At whom?”

A puzzled expression curled Catherine's blond eyebrows. “At whom?” But Mrs. Tollefson only sat patiently, waiting for Catherine to come up with the answer. “At—at me?” Catherine asked skeptically in a tiny voice.

“And?”

“And . . .” Catherine swallowed. It was extremely hard to say. “And the baby's father.”

“Anybody else?”

“Who else is there?”

It grew quiet for a long moment, then the older woman suggested, “The baby?”

“The baby?” Catherine looked aghast. “It's not his fault!”

“Of course it's not. But I thought you might be angry with him just the same, maybe for making you think about giving up school, or at the very least, for slowing you down.”

“I'm not that kind of person.”

“Maybe not now, but if your child prevents you from completing your college education, what then?”

“You're assuming I can't do both?” Catherine was growing frustrated while Mrs. Tollefson remained calm, unflappable.

“Not at all. I'm being realistic though. I'm saying it will be tough. Eighty percent of the women who become pregnant before age seventeen never complete high school. That statistic goes up with college-age women who must handle heavy tuition costs.”