Wintergreen

Chapter 6

“Mom!”

Lorna’s eyes flew open, focused vaguely and rejected the harsh winter sunlight beaming down on her bed; then she closed them again.

“Mom! Aren’t you even going to thank me for letting you sleep in until eight o’clock?”

Eight o’clock? When she hadn’t gotten to bed until five? Her eyes stayed closed against the virtuous appeal in her son’s voice. Johnny hesitated.

“I tell you what. I’ll make us both breakfast-”

Resolutely, she pushed the covers off her body, freezing-cold air replacing her warm cocoon and forcing wakefulness on her. The last time Johnny had volunteered to prepare breakfast Lorna had spent four hours cleaning up. “I’ll make it,” she said groggily. “You want pancakes or bacon and eggs?”

“French toast.”

Naturally. She stumbled over to the closet, shrugged on a robe and slippers, and joined her son in the kitchen. She put butter in the skillet to melt while she dipped the thick pieces of French bread in beaten egg, her head feeling distinctly like steel wool. Old steel wool. Johnny’s usual Saturday-morning exuberance was enough to make her wince. There was something about a weekend that always seemed to bring out the restlessness in a child. Cartoons were blaring from a television set in the other room; a fleet of matchbox cars stood in a line on the kitchen table; and for some unknown reason Johnny was tossing a football up in the air as if the snow weren’t three inches thick outside.

“Freda says if you want me off your hands for the day, she’s willing to take the two of us over to the Science Institute. There’s a thing there about whales. Then maybe she’ll take us Christmas shopping. Can I go?”

“Sure.” Lorna smiled at him as she set his plate on the table. “Only not like that.”

“Like what?”

She explained patiently. “Your socks don’t match, that sweatshirt has three holes in it and your jeans are patched. Why don’t you put on your gray pants.”

He made a face as if she’d suggested he take castor oil. She sat down across from him and took a life-giving gulp of coffee. She was actually waking up, more the pity.

Matthew was miles away, undoubtedly sleeping in the expensive condominium where he must have taken his share of women to sleep with him over the years. Women who didn’t have to wake him up in the middle of the night to take them home to their offspring. The evening of music and laughter and lovemaking seemed a year ago, a precious dream.

Reality was a cramped orange-and-almond kitchen, a towhead son with a cowlick, a houseful of toys to clean up and a translating job to do this morning. Guilt was raging in her head like an out-of-control fever, alternating with shame, as she poured herself a second cup of coffee. How could she have forgotten Johnny? How could she have slept with Matthew, the first evening they’d spent together, acting just as loose as he’d thought she was when she was nineteen? Was that any way to build trust? Matthew had nothing to lose in an affair, while she had everything to lose. Her self-respect, for example. Johnny could be pulled into the middle…

“What are you so quiet for?” Johnny demanded, with his mouth full of food. “Were you out late last night?”

“I came in early, actually,” Lorna answered. Which was, of course, the truth. Early this morning.

“Was he nice to you?”

Lorna stood up and took her son’s empty plate to the counter. “Very nice. We heard some music,” she said flatly. Please leave it, sweetheart.

Johnny studied her covertly as he swiped at his mouth with a napkin. She could visualize the slight frown on his forehead even if she wasn’t directly looking at him. Oversensitive as he was, she knew Johnny sensed that something differentiated Matthew from the other men she had dated. He just didn’t quite know what to do about it. “How come you let me call him Matthew?” he asked finally. “Everyone else, it’s supposed to be Mister this or Mister that.”

She forced herself to look directly at her son. “His last name is Whitaker, Johnny. Didn’t I mention it?” His jaw dropped, with a host of questions all ready. She thought, I can’t handle this. “It isn’t as common a name as Smith, but it’s not uncommon either. It just happens we all share the last name.” If he asked her directly if they were related, she would probably cry. Though she didn’t feel ready to tell him the whole truth, she could not conceive of telling her son a blatant lie. See what you got into, she told her conscience.

“You gonna see him again?” Johnny asked.

“I may.”

He sighed, scowling at her petulantly. Lorna usually had more laughter and conversation for him; she enjoyed her son. He got up from the kitchen chair to go back into his bedroom to change for his outing, but he hesitated, fidgeting in the doorway. “Did he like me, Mom?” he asked carefully. “I mean, from the time he had dinner with us.”

Her heart wrenched, tying itself up in knots. “Did I get my morning hug, urchin?” she asked suddenly, and claimed it, wrapping her arms around her son and holding him tightly, until he squirmed. He grinned up at her.

“You two don’t know each other well enough to like or dislike each other, Johnny,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing to worry about. You come first with me, got that? Nothing and no one is ever going to make a difference for us. Now go change your clothes before Freda gets here.”

At one that afternoon Lorna was driving on a winding country road called Pontiac Trail. Sunlight glinted off the snowy landscape, creating a glare that made it difficult to read the numbers on the mailboxes. Directions weren’t Lorna’s strong point at the best of times, but on her third pass she located 2257 and turned into the narrow gravel drive.

She stopped the car a hundred yards farther on, rather surprised at the stables and brand-new A-frame in front of her. From the crisp, cultured voice of the man she’d spoken to on the phone, she’d rather idly expected an ivy-covered cottage and an English garden-covered with snow.

Stepping from the car, she automatically checked to make sure her chignon was in place and her coat neat, then snatched up her small briefcase and headed toward the door. It opened just as she raised her hand to push the bell. “Mrs. Whitaker? I was beginning to worry about you.”

“Make it Lorna, please, and I’m terribly sorry I’m late. It’s not that I didn’t start out in plenty of time-”

“It doesn’t matter. Let me get you a cup of coffee. I’d like to talk to you for a minute before you meet my mother.”

“Fine.”

He took her coat, escorted her to a pine-paneled contemporary living room and brought coffee a moment later. Lorna studied the man absently while he poured her a cup of the dark brew. His name was Stan Valicheck. He looked to be in his early forties, a spare, neat man, wearing loose corduroy pants in the European style and a navy blue crewneck sweater. He had kind eyes, something Lorna always noticed first in a person, and their brown color almost exactly matched the shade of his hair.

“My mother used to know your father-that’s why I looked you up, Lorna. I think I told you that on the phone…”

Lorna nodded, aware she was being thoroughly assessed. He seemed to approve of her simple cranberry wool slacks and matching sweater; she could tell that he liked the neat chignon. She guessed he was single from the speculation in his eyes, but there was nothing offensive about his perusal. He moved easily, as if he’d never had a trace of nerves in his life.

He sat down across from her. “For three years, my mother’s been working on this book, about her childhood in Russia. I just let her be-it gave her something to do. She’s been lonely in this country, what with the language barrier.”

“I understand,” Lorna said compassionately.

He nodded, smiling wryly. “But now that she’s done with the manuscript, she’s intent on getting it published. Frankly, Lorna, I haven’t the least idea if it’s excellent or terrible-I can’t read a word of Russian. To please her, I’m willing to have it translated. I didn’t want to discuss the fees with you on the phone because I wanted to explain. What I had in mind was a flat five thousand. If by some chance the story proves to be worth something, I’d be willing to add to that. I’m trying to be honest with you, though, there’s no counting on more. And just as frankly, I couldn’t care less about the financial success of the venture. I have only my mother’s happiness on my mind. And maybe preserving the story of her past for posterity.”

Lorna leaned forward, touched by his attitude toward his mother. “Please understand, I’m grateful for the chance to work on this. I’ve written sewing-machine instructions in four languages, composed travel brochures, described computers and electronics component systems, but I’ve never translated literature, and frankly, I may not even be qualified. I am enthusiastic about the project, though, because I was raised on Russian folklore and the Russian feeling for life. Through my father. And I’d like to tell you I would put your mother’s book before everything else. But as I said on the phone, I do have regular commitments.”

And Matthew’s nest egg was bothering her, though obviously she couldn’t tell Stan Valicheck that. In principle that was money due Johnny, but emotionally, Lorna still felt unhappy about it, guilty that she hadn’t been able to salt away any savings on her own. Security mattered; she never knew how much until her father died, until she was alone with no one to turn to when Johnny needed something she couldn’t provide. With this job, even if she had to work nights to fit it in with her other commitments, she could either put her earnings in the bank or begin to pay back Matthew.

They talked a few more minutes before Stan stood up, smiling warmly at her. “Time to take you up to meet Mother, then.” He hesitated. “You’re an awfully pretty lady for someone who spends hours buried behind foreign-language dictionaries. Are you married, Lorna?”

“Divorced. With a nine-year-old son,” she answered, setting down her cup and gathering up her briefcase to follow him.

“I know you’ll be working at your home, but Mother will be counting on you to report in from time to time. You’re welcome to bring the boy. We have horses in back-”

“I noticed.” Lorna felt something chafe at her nerve endings. Stan obviously liked children; he was a kind man, not bad looking. She didn’t know his profession, but the house hadn’t been put together on a shoestring. A father for Johnny. The thought clicked automatically in her head; it was the same thought that had colored her judgment of men for years. Until she’d met Matthew again. Last night’s lovemaking lingered in her head, yet she brought herself sharply back to the present, forcing the memory away. One of the thousand things she seemed to have forgotten last night was that Matthew, up to this point, could barely tolerate hearing Johnny’s name mentioned. “I’d like to bring my son,” she admitted slowly, and glanced at Stan. “But I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. For one thing, your mother might not even like me, and as I just told you I’ve never had the chance to do this kind of work before.”

“She’ll love you,” Stan assured her, as if he couldn’t imagine anyone who didn’t.

Anna Valicheck was in her late sixties, but she looked ninety. Her son had not inherited her heavy features. Her stark white hair was drawn back in a severe bun; her legs were covered with a blanket to hide arthritic limbs. The two women drank tea from a samovar, chatted in Russian of history and literature and Lorna’s father. The thick, handwritten manuscript was in Lorna’s lap, and though she was itching to look at it, there was no time. Anna was lonely for the ease and comfort of being able to talk in her own tongue; Lorna couldn’t deny her.

Lorna loved her. The woman had grown up in Siberia, where her father had been exiled for political activism, both a sad and dramatic story that was the basis for her “diary,” as she called it. She evinced no self-pity. She had an acerbic tongue, and a dramatic way of speaking that was uniquely Russian. Lorna, raised on Eastern fairy tales, could appreciate Anna’s collection of enameled and jeweled eggs more than someone who never knew their origins. They both forgot the time as they talked, until Lorna looked up in surprise to find Stan in the doorway, smiling with humorous affection at both of them.

“Now, I told Lorna we would take an hour of her time, and here it is five o’clock,” he scolded his mother.

“But you cannot leave,” Anna told Lorna. “You will stay for dinner.”

Lorna stood up, smiling. Truthfully, she would have loved to stay for dinner. She felt a spontaneous warmth toward both Anna and Stan, as if they were old friends rather than potential clients. But she shook her head regretfully. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m sorry-I really can’t.”

“Of course you can,” Stan insisted.

She shook her head again, not explaining that she had left Johnny with a sitter the night before and that she never did that two evenings in a row. She got to her feet, shifting the heavy manuscript in her arms.

“I promise to come back and see you, though, if I may,” she told Anna.

Stan walked her to the car, carrying the manuscript and her briefcase. “I haven’t seen my mother so animated in years. She’s usually extremely reticent with strangers.”

“So am I,” Lorna admitted with a little laugh. “You two were so nice… I don’t know what I expected when you called. I think I was afraid you would take one look at me and decide you needed an older, more professorial type to translate the story. And I was desperately afraid the manuscript would be in Ukrainian. I really would have had a hard time handling that…”

“I doubt you could have a hard time handling anything.” He opened the door for her, and she slid in behind the steering wheel.

“I’ll need a chance to read it through before I can really commit myself to this or give you an estimate of how long it will take me to do it,” she said seriously, increasingly aware his brown eyes grew warmer the longer he looked at her.

“And that will take you how long?”

Unconsciously, she bit her lip, thinking. “I should be able to look it over by next Wednesday.”

“Would it be better if I called at your house late Wednesday afternoon, then?” He added smoothly, “If you should find problems, I would rather discuss them with you first, without my mother knowing.”

In terms of business, his suggestion was reasonable, though Lorna knew he was creating the opportunity simply to see her again. She didn’t know what to say for a minute, and then decided her hesitation was ridiculous. This was no heavy-handed man-on-the-make; she had a perfectly legitimate reason for seeing him, and he was nice. He’d gone out of his way to boost her morale from the moment she’d walked in the door, in an easy, inoffensive way. “All right,” she agreed, but there was no stopping the niggling guilt in the back of her mind. She refused to put Matthew’s name on it.

She closed the door and waved goodbye as Stan stepped back and then turned toward the house. Putting the car in gear, she backed up, and sighed as she drove the winding curves of Pontiac Trail again. It was the most pleasant, carefree afternoon she had had in weeks. Mentally, she gave herself a pat on the back.

She had only thought of Matthew 597 times.

When Lorna got home, she made dinner for Johnny, who for the next two hours harangued her with reasons why she could no longer buy Finnish, Russian or Japanese goods; it seemed those three countries persisted in hunting whales that were on the endangered species list. Her son’s commitment to the cause made her smile, although Lorna knew better than to treat the subject lightly. She did point out to him that the economies of those countries were heavily dependent on fishing, but Johnny was not to be discouraged. Nor could he be dissuaded from packing up a near fortune in matchbox cars that happened to have been made in Japan.

A little later, Lorna called Freda. “Thanks for taking him,” she said, with a touch of irony in her voice.

Freda laughed into the phone. “Has he bashed in the record player yet, or are all its parts American-made? I tried to explain to him that there was another side to the story, that those people might have to fish to live and you just couldn’t take away their livelihood-”

“I did, too.” Lorna added thoughtfully, “He said there had to be an answer for that. And just because the answer was hard was no excuse to do something wrong-as in killing the animals, upsetting the balance of nature.”

“He’s something, your son.”

Lorna agreed, hung up a short time later and went into the living room where Johnny was sprawled with both legs over the arm of the chair and a book in his hands. “Bedtime, Johnny.” Amid his groans and protests, she herded him into the other room, bullied him into picking up his clothes and harassed him until he washed his hands and face. When he was lying in his bed and looking like a perfect angel, he informed her that he was going to have power when he grew up. Power enough to right all the injustices in the world.

She bent down to kiss him, brushing back the cowlick. “I love you, Johnny,” she said quietly, turned out the light and left the room. He sounded so much like a Whitaker that she could have cried. Justice, right and wrong; at nine years old he was already struggling to do the right thing…as he perceived it.

Lorna took a bath, did a little cleaning up, then sat in the darkened living room for a long time. She was exhausted, and every hour since she had left Matthew had added to the confusion and guilt in her mind. She felt resentful, unsettled as a butterfly and unsure-as she seemed to have felt unsure her entire life-as to what the right and wrong of certain decisions were. Johnny, like Matthew, found the issues so easy to deal with. At the moment, the only conclusion she could come to was that it would be better not to see Matthew for a while. Even if he called.

He called. She heard the phone and ran for it, not wanting Johnny to wake up. “Misha?”

She heard the low, husky baritone, and her stomach flipped over. She caught her breath, feeling like a perfect fool. “It’s me, Matthew,” she confirmed. She knew her voice sounded cool and distant, disguising the anxiety that had plagued her all day. Her heart, by contrast, was soaring at the simple sound of his voice.

“You’ve been upset, haven’t you?” he asked quietly, but it was not really a question. “Misha, it was too soon. I know that. I didn’t intend…” He hesitated, as if waiting for her to say something she couldn’t seem to say. “I didn’t take you out to rush you into bed. I just wanted to see you again. To be with you…” He hesitated again, and still she didn’t answer. “I called to tell you I was sorry I rushed things, but on the other hand I can’t quite seem to do that. I loved last night…Misha…” He paused again, and a thread of humor suddenly entered his voice. “You wouldn’t like to help me with this conversation, would you?”

Helplessly, she heard a low throaty chuckle escape her throat, matched by his.

“Say ‘hello, Matthew,’” he ordered into the phone.

“Hello, Matthew,” she obeyed softly.

“I’m going to come and see you when I can get free next week. We’ll walk, Misha. Out in the snow. Nowhere near carpets and firelight. Do you hear me?”

She heard him. And she dreamed all night of making love on the carpet in front of the fire.