Summer’s End

12

“Ben?” He smiled to himself as Deanna’s voice reached him from his spare room. It was late on a Sunday night, and they were just back from another weekend in Carmel.

“What? Need some help?” All he heard was a shout and a gurgle of laughter. She had been in there for over an hour. He climbed out of bed and went to see what was going on. As he opened the door to the spare room, in which he often worked, she was staggering to hold up a tenuously piled stack of canvases which had started to slide off a mountain of boxes propped against the wall.

“Help! It’s an avalanche.” She peeked out at him, a small paintbrush clenched in her teeth, and both arms held aloft, trying to keep the pile of paintings from crashing to the floor. “I came in here to sign a few that I noticed I had forgotten to sign, and…” She shoved the paintings aside as he lifted them from her arms. Then, his hands still filled with the mountain of her work, he bent his head to kiss the tip of her nose.

“Take the paintbrush out of your mouth.”

“What?” She looked at him with an expression of absentminded pleasure. She was still thinking about two of the paintings she knew she had to sign.

“I said”-he put the paintings carefully aside, and reached for the brush with one hand-“take that thing out of your mouth.”

“Why? This way I have my hands free to look for…” But he silenced her almost immediately with a kiss.

“That’s why, you dummy. Now, are you coming to bed?” He pulled her close to him, and she nestled against him with a smile.

“In a minute. Can I just finish this?”

“I don’t see why not.” He sat down in the comfortable old chair at his desk and watched her ferret through the stack again looking for unsigned canvases. “Are you as excited as I am, madam, about the show?” It was only four days away. Thursday. He was finally going to launch her into the art world. She should have been showing for years. He looked at her with pleasure and pride, as she stuck the end of the brush through her hair to free her hands once again. There was a huge smile on her face. It not only played with her mouth, it danced in her eyes.

“Excited? Are you kidding? I’m half crazy. I haven’t slept in days.”

He suspected it was true. Every night when they went to bed, he looked sleepily into her eyes after their hours of lovemaking, and the last thing he remembered was always that smile. And suddenly in the mornings she was wide awake now. She jumped up and got him breakfast, then disappeared into the spare room where she had put all her work. She had brought her treasures to him, to keep until the show. She didn’t even want them in the gallery until the day before the opening.

Now she signed the last one and turned to him with a grin. “I don’t know if I’ll make it till Thursday night.”

“You will.” He glowed as he watched her. What a beautiful woman she was. She seemed even prettier lately, her face had a soft, luminous beauty, and her eyes a kind of passionate fire. There was a tenderness and a burning about her all at once, like a velvet flame. And their time together had a magic about it, like nothing he had ever known. The little cottage in Carmel fairly hummed with her presence, filling the rooms with flowers, bringing back huge pieces of driftwood which they lay against as they toasted their feet near the fire on “their” dune just outside. She filled his dreams and his arms and his days. He could no longer imagine a life without her.

“What are you thinking?” She tilted her head to one side, and leaned against the stack of her paintings.

“About how much I love you.”

“Oh.” She smiled, and her eyes softened as she looked into his eyes. “I think about that a lot.”

“About how much I love you?” He smiled and so did she.

“Yes. And about how much I love you. What did I ever do before you came along?”

“You lived excessively well and never made your own breakfast.”

“It sounds awful.” She walked toward him, and he pulled her down onto his lap.

“That’s just because you’re excited about the show and you can’t sleep. Wait another month, or two…” He paused painfully; he had been about to say a “year,” but they didn’t have a year. Only another five or six weeks. “You’ll get tired of making breakfast. You’ll see.”

She wanted to see. She wanted to see for a lifetime, not a month. “I’ll never get tired of this.” She buried her face in his chest, feeling warm and safe like a child. They were both brown from their weekend in Carmel, and her feet were still sandy as they brushed along the floor. “You know what I think?”

“What?” He closed his eyes and smelled the fresh scent of her hair.

“That we’re very lucky. What more could we have?”

A future, but he didn’t say it. He opened his eyes and looked at her as she sat in his lap. “Don’t you ever want another child?”

“At my age?” She looked stunned. “Good Lord, Pilar is almost sixteen years old.”

“What does that have to do with anything? And what do you mean ‘at your age’? Lots of women have babies in their thirties.”

“But I’m thirty-seven. That’s crazy.”

He shook his head. Deanna was looking somewhat stunned. “It’s not too old for a man, why should it be too old for a woman?”

“That, my darling, is very different indeed. And you know it yourself.”

“I do not. I’d love to have our child. Or even two. And I don’t think you’re too old.”

A baby? Now? She looked at him in astonishment, but he was perfectly serious. His arms were still around her.

“Do you mean it?”

“I do.” For a long moment he watched her eyes and wasn’t sure what he saw. Confusion, amazement, and also sorrow and pain. “Or are you not supposed to have any more children, Deanna?” He had never asked. There was no reason to. She shook her head.

“No, there’s no reason why I can’t, but… I don’t think I could go through it again. Pilar was a gift after the two boys. I don’t think I’d want to do it again.”

“Do they know why those things happened?”

“Just flukes, they said. Two inexplicable tragedies. The odds of that happening twice in one family are minute… but it did.”

“Then it wouldn’t again.” He sounded determined, and Deanna pulled away.

“Are you trying to talk me into having a baby?” Her eyes were very large and her face very still.

“I don’t know. Maybe I am. It sounds like it, doesn’t it?” He smiled and hung his head. Then he looked up. “Do you think that’s what I was doing?”

She nodded, suddenly very serious. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m too old.” And I already have a child. And a husband.

“That is the only reason I categorically will not accept! That’s nonsense!” He sounded almost angry this time, and she wondered why. What did it matter whether or not she was too old for a child?

“Yes, I am. I’m almost forty years old. And even this is pretty crazy. I feel like a kid again. I’m acting like I’m seventeen, not thirty-seven.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” He searched her eyes, and she surrendered.

“Absolutely nothing. I love it.”

“Good. Then come to bed.” He picked her up in his arms and deposited her in the next room, on his large comfortable bed. The quilt was rumpled from where they had lain when they came back from Carmel, and there was only one small light on in the room. The soft colors looked warm and pretty, and the big vase of daisies she had picked Friday afternoon on the terrace gave the bedroom a country air. She did something special to his house, she gave it a flavor that he had longed for, for years. He had never really known what was missing, but now that he had her, he knew. What had been missing was Deanna, with her green eyes and dark hair piled onto her head, with her bare legs peeking out of his bed, or sitting cross-legged with her sketch pads on his deck surrounded by the flowers. Deanna, with her stack of paintings and her paintbrushes stuck into all his coffee cups, with the shirts that she “borrowed” and splattered with paint, and with the countless thoughtful gestures-the ties she had cleaned, the suits she put away, the little presents she bought, the books she brought him that she knew he would love, the laughter and the teasing and the soft eyes that always understood. She had drifted into his life like a dream. And he never wanted to wake up. Not without Deanna at his side.

“Ben?” Her voice was very small next to him in the dark.

“What, love?”

“What if I get bad reviews?” She sounded like a frightened child, and he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He knew how great her fear was.

“You won’t.” He put his arms around her again, beneath the quilt. It had been a present from an artist’s wife to his mother, years ago, in New York. “The reviews will be wonderful. I promise.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because you’re very, very good.” He kissed her neck and trembled at the feel of her naked flesh against his legs. “And because I love you so much.”

“You’re silly.”

“I beg your pardon?” He looked at her with a grin. “I tell you I love you, and you think I’m silly. Listen here, you…” He pulled her closer and covered her mouth with his, as they disappeared in unison beneath the quilt.

She woke at six the next morning and instantly disappeared into the spare room. She had remembered a painting that shouldn’t be there. Then she thought of another that was probably not in the right frame. After coffee she remembered two more without signatures, and so it went for the remaining four days. She was in a frenzy of nervousness over the show. Through it all Ben smiled and loved and cajoled. He took her to dinner, dragged her to a movie, made her join him at the beach; he forced her to go swimming, kept her up late at night making love. On Thursday he took her out to lunch.

“I don’t want to hear it.” He held up a hand.

“But, Ben, what if-”

“No. Not a word about the show until tomorrow.”

“But…”

“No!” He put his finger to her lips, and she moved it aside with a fresh burst of worry. But he only laughed. “How is the wine?”

“What wine?” She looked around, distracted, and he pointed to her glass.

“The wine you’re not drinking. How is it?”

“I don’t know, and what I wanted to ask you is…”

He put both fingers in his ears, and she started to laugh at him. “Ben! Stop it!”

“What?” He smiled happily at her across the table. She was laughing.

“Listen to me! I wanted to ask you something about tonight!”

He started to hum gently, his fingers still in his ears. Deanna couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re horrible and I hate you!”

“No, you don’t. You can’t keep your hands off me, and you want to drag me away with you so you can attack me. Right?”

“Actually, now that you mention it…” She grinned and took a sip of her wine, and they teased throughout lunch. He had taken the afternoon off. The paintings were all hung to perfection for Deanna’s show. Sally was in control at the gallery, and he thought it a good idea to stay with Deanna, before she changed her mind or came apart at the seams. And he had a surprise for her that afternoon. He looked at his watch as they walked back to the car after lunch.

“Deanna, do you mind if I stop at Saks?”

“Now?” She looked surprised. “No, that’s all right.”

“It won’t take me long.” He parked in front of the store with an abstracted smile. “Want to come in?”

“No, I’ll wait.”

“Sure?” He didn’t push; he knew she didn’t want to be alone today, not even for a short time.

“All right. I’ll come.” It had been an easy sale, and he walked happily beside her into the store. “What do you have to do?”

“Pick up a dress.” He said it with absolute self-confidence and complete nonchalance.

“A dress?”

“For Sally. She said she wouldn’t have time. So I told her I’d get it and bring it to the gallery tonight in time for her to change. By the way, what are you wearing?” She had been so busy with her signatures and her frames that he wasn’t even sure she’d given it any thought.

“I don’t know. I thought I’d wear my black dress.” She had brought two or three dinner dresses from the house. They were hanging in his closet, along with her jeans, her paint-splattered shirts, several pairs of gabardine slacks, and half a dozen turtleneck cashmere sweaters. He liked the way her clothes looked next to his.

“Why don’t you wear the green dress?”

“Too dressy.” She was ten thousand miles away when she spoke. “Listen, do you know which critics are coming?” Her eyes rushed into his.

“I don’t think it’s too dressy.” He looked amused.

“Did you hear what I asked you?” Distress was creeping into her voice.

“No. Now, what about the green dress?”

“Screw the green dress, I wanted to ask you-”

He kissed her hard on the mouth and left her breathless as they got off the elevator on the second floor. “Ben!” But there had been no one around to see what he’d done. “Will you listen to me?”

“No.” He was already greeting the saleswoman. She brought the dress out. “Perfect.” He smiled at her again and looked at Deanna. “What do you think?”

“Hm?” She was hopelessly vague, but her attention was suddenly arrested by the dress. It was an almost mauve, heather-blue wool with a high neck, long sleeves, and no back. And it had a beautifully cut matching coat. “That is pretty, isn’t it? Is that Sally’s dress?” She took a step forward to touch the thin wool. It was a French fabric and French design and must have cost her a fortune. “That’s a beauty.” The saleswoman and Ben exchanged a smile of the eyes. “Maybe I should wear the green after all.”

“I don’t think so. Why don’t you just wear that?” He had a look of innocence which totally confused Deanna.

“Wear Sally’s dress? Don’t be silly.”

“You could lend her your green.”

“Darling, I love you, but I think you’re quite mad.” She smiled at the saleswoman and started to walk away, but Ben gently took her arm and whispered in her ear.

“I think you’re crazy too, now go try on your new dress.”

She looked at him in astonishment. “Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “It’s for me?”

He nodded with a satisfied smile. “Do you like it?”

“I… oh, Ben, I can’t. It’s gorgeous!” She turned to look at it again, and her eyes grew wide. It was exquisite, but probably also monstrously expensive. And Ben had done that for her? The man who drove an anonymous German car, and would rather eat spaghetti than caviar? The man who took pride in not having a maid but only a cleaning lady once or twice a week, when his grandfather had lived surrounded by an army of servants, and his father had retired to a palazzo near Rome? This man had bought her that dress? It was the sort of thing she would have hesitated even to charge to Marc. “Good Lord!”

“Shut up and go try it. I want to see!”

She did, and he saw. It was perfect. The cut, the style, the color. She looked regal, coming toward him, the coat draped over her arm. Her tan set off the rich heather-blue, and her bare back and shoulders were perfectly sculpted into the dress. “What’ll you wear with it?”

“Diamond earrings and black silk sandals. And my hair up.”

“Oh, God, I can’t stand it.” He grinned with such pleasure that even the saleswoman laughed.

When she put it on that night, he was sitting on the bed. They smiled at each other, and he zipped up what there was to zip in the back. She clipped the diamond earrings on her ears and smoothed her hair up high on her head. She looked perfect, and for a moment it took his breath away. Then, with a smile, he gently took off the diamond earrings.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking these off.”

She looked puzzled. “Why? Don’t you like them?” Maybe it was because they had been a present from Marc. “I don’t have any others here that would do.”

“Never mind.” He reached into his pocket and took out a little blue silk bag. He opened it and took out two large and very beautiful pearls. There was a tiny diamond beneath each pearl, and the earrings looked very old and fine. “I want you to wear these.”

“Oh, Ben.” Deanna looked at them with astonishment, then raised her eyes to his. “What have you done?” The dress, the earrings, the show. He was giving her so much. Everything…

“The earrings were my grandmother’s. I want you to have them, Deanna. This is a very special night.” There were tears in her eyes when she looked up at him again. Tenderly, he took her face in his. “I want this to be the most beautiful night of your life. This is the beginning of your life in the art world, Deanna. And I want everyone to know just how good you are.” There was more love welling up in his eyes than she had ever seen, and her heart trembled as she put her arms around him.

“You are so good to me.”

“We’re good to each other, and that’s a very special gift.”

“I can’t keep the earrings.” She couldn’t. Not unless she stayed with Ben. But in another month she would have to go back to Marc.

“Yes, you can keep the earrings. I want you to have them. No matter what.”

He understood. He always understood. And somehow it made things worse. The tears spilled over and ran sadly down her face. Sobs began to shake her shoulders.

“Darling, don’t.”

“Oh, Ben… I can’t leave you.”

“You don’t have to. Not yet. Let’s just enjoy what we have.”

He hadn’t sounded that philosophical since the beginning, and she wondered if finally he had accepted what would have to be. “I love you.” Her voice was strained. She clung to him, and he closed his eyes.

“I love you too. Now, how about going to this opening of yours?”

He pulled away to look at her, and she nodded. Gently, he took one of the earrings and clipped it to her ear. And then, stopping at her mouth for a kiss, he clipped on the other. “You look exquisite. And I’m so proud that this opening is yours.”

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, and it all will have been a dream. I’ll wake up on the beach in Carmel, feeling like Rip Van Winkle, and Kim will still be waiting for me at the hotel. But every time I feel that way, I look around, and you’re real.” She looked at him in astonished delight, and he laughed.

“Very much so.” He laughed again as he slipped a hand into her dress. “And I would very much like to prove it to you, my darling. But I’m afraid we don’t have time.” He held out an arm to her with a small bow. “Shall we?”

She took his arm. “But of course.”

“Are you ready?” They had just pulled up in front of the gallery.

“Oh, God, no!” Her arms went out to him, and her eyes were wide, but he held her close for only a moment, then swept her inside. There was a photographer waiting, and there were already a considerable number of guests. The art critics were there in force, and she even saw Kim, developing a cozy relationship with one of the gentlemen of the press. Sally hovered near, agog at the beautiful heather-blue dress.

All in all the evening was a smash. The gallery sold seven of her paintings. For a moment she felt as though she were parting with old friends. She didn’t want to give up her paintings, but Ben teased her about it as he introduced her to the admirers of her work. Ben was wonderful with her: he was always nearby, yet never too close, supportive but not obvious. He was Benjamin Thompson III, gallery owner extraordinaire. No one would have known about their affair. He was as discreet as he had been that first morning with Kim, and Deanna knew she had nothing to fear. For a moment that day she had been afraid of what Marc might hear. One never knew who came to these shows, who would see, or what they would guess. But no one guessed anything that night, not even Kim, who had sent a huge bouquet of flowers to the house. She felt personally responsible for the match between Deanna and Ben-from a professional standpoint, of course, as she was not aware of any other. She had wondered, though, if Deanna had told Marc of the opening. But later in the evening Deanna told Kim that she had.

“What did he say?”

“Not very much. But he wasn’t pleased.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“I suppose he will.” But Deanna had not said more on the subject. She didn’t tell Kim that Marc had forbidden her to have the show and hung up on her in the end. He had told her it was vulgar and pushy, but for the first time in their marriage she had stood her ground. It was too important to her for her to give in this time. He hadn’t given in to her wishes about Pilar and the motorcycle. Why should she give in about her art?

“My heavens, what are you frowning about, darling?” Ben spoke softly, so no one else would hear, and Deanna drifted back from her own thoughts.

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I… it’s just… so much has happened.”

“You can say that again. Sally just sold two more of your paintings.” He looked as happy as a boy, and Deanna wanted to throw her arms around him in a hug. Instead, she just caressed him with her eyes. “Can I interest you in a celebration dinner?”

“Only if it’s pizza.” She grinned at him, knowing his preferences.

“Not this time, madam. The real thing.”

“Hamburgers?”

“Go to hell.” Without further ceremony, he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

It was not an inappropriate thing for a gallery owner to do on the night of an artist’s first success, but as Kim watched them she suddenly found herself wondering if there was something more. Deanna had just whispered something in Ben’s ear, in answer to which, Kim had heard him say with a gentle smile, “I’m glad you liked them.” Deanna had touched the pearls at her ears and happily walked away. As Kim watched, an idea came to her for the very first time.