Forsaking All Others (16 page)

Ha!

He would have called if he wanted to see me.

You’re the one who threw him out, remember!

But he said he’s old-fashioned about these things.

He’s made it abundantly clear he wants to see you.

She grabbed the phone and dialed so fast she had no chance to change her mind. Waiting while it rang, she wildly wished he wouldn’t be home, for she had no idea how to begin.

“Hello?”

She clutched the phone, but not a word squeaked through her throat.

“Hello? . . . Hello?”

“Rick?” Was that her voice, so cool, so low, so
controlled, when her heart was thumping out of her chest?

A long pause, then his surprised voice. “Allison?”

“Yeah . . . hi.”

“Hi yourself.” The ensuing silence seemed to stretch across light-years of time before he added, “I pretty much gave up hope of hearing from you again.”

“I gave up hope of hearing from you.”

Silence roared along, carrying her thumping heart with it. He began to say something but had a frog in his throat and had to clear it to start again. “So how are you doing?”

“Better.”

“Obviously, with the sale to
Mpls./St. Paul
and everything. The pictures were really great, I mean that. I couldn’t believe it when I opened my copy and saw them.”

“It . . . it was a surprise when they called to say they’d buy them. I . . . well, I sent them off on kind of an impulse, you know?”

“Lucky impulse.”

“Yeah . . . yeah, lucky.”

She shrugged as if he could see her and stared at the floor between her feet, but neither of them seemed able to think of anything more to say now that that subject was exhausted.

“Oh, guess what!” she said, remembering. “Hathaway offered me a contract to do two more book covers!”

“Hey, congratulations! Now you’ll know where next month’s groceries are coming from, and the month’s after that.”

Old simple words from their past—did he forget nothing?—but the memories they conjured up were rife with other things she wanted them to say to one another.

Finally Allison remembered what she’d called for.

“Listen, are you still modeling?”

“Sure. It pays the bills, same as always.”

“Would you like a job?”

“Sure.”

“For me?”

To Rick she sounded uncertain, as if she thought he might say no when he found out who it was for. “Why not?” he asked.

“It’s not the regular kind of job, you know—I mean, not the book covers again, but I figure we can both learn a little something if we do it together. I mean, it’s a workshop and symposium down at University of Wisconsin called Photographing People for Profit. The guest speaker is going to be Roberto Finelli. I’ve . . . well, I’ve always wanted a chance to meet him.” Her words tumbled out one after the other to hide her nervousness.

“When is it?”

“May nineteenth and twentieth.”

“Two full days?”

She realized the implications of staying overnight and swallowed hard, wondering what he was thinking.

“Yeah,” she finally answered, trying to sound noncommittal. He’s going to say no! He’s going to say no! she thought, her palms now sweating profusely, her cheeks already flushing with embarrassment.

“It sounds fun.”

The sun burst forth inside her head with a blazing flash of wonder.

“It does?” Her lips dropped open, her eyes were wide with pleasant shock.

“Of course it does. Did you think I’d refuse?” She thought she detected a slight lilt of teasing in his question.

“I . . . I wasn’t sure.” She had clapped one hand over the top of her head to hold it on. You like to do the pursuing, she thought—you told me so!

“You’ll have to tell me what kind of clothes to wear,” he was saying, while she controlled her euphoria in order to settle the final details.

They made plans for her to pick him up at four A.M. on the appointed day. This settled, there came a lull in the conversation.

Allison was on her feet, pacing the length of the phone cord. She stopped and stared at the daybed on the sun porch, wondering if summer would find them on it. “Well . . .” she muttered stupidly.

Well
, she thought . . .
well?
Is that all you can think of to say,
well!
Think of some bright, witty ending to this conversation, Scott!

He cleared his throat and said, “Yeah . . . well.”

Silence.

Allison’s palms were sweating. She wiped them on her thighs. “I’ll see you on the nineteenth then.”

“The nineteenth,” he repeated. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

But Allison didn’t want to be the first one to hang up. She stood in the sunset-washed living room, staring at the spot where they’d made love, hugging the receiver to her ear, listening to him breathe. After a long, long moment she lowered the receiver and pressed it firmly between her breasts, her heart racing, a feeling of imminent fullness overpowering her senses.

“Rick Lang, I love you,” she whispered to the picture of him behind her closed eyelids, unsure if he could hear the muffled words or the crazy commotion of her heart, suddenly not caring if he knew the full extent of her feelings for him.

She lifted the receiver to her ear again and listened, but could not be sure if he was still there. At last she hung up.

T
HE
morning of May nineteenth had not yet dawned when Allison Scott drove her Chevy van through the winding streets of the elegant old part of Minneapolis called Kenwood. Situated in the hills behind the Walker Art Center and the Guthrie Theater, it was once home to the city’s oldest monied families. But in more recent years the founding families had moved to lake-shore estates, and Kenwood had been captured by young architects, lawyers, and doctors who’d brought new life, and children, to the staid, old sector.

Thick wooded hills and winding streets twisted through the area, making addresses hard to find. But Allison followed Rick’s precise instructions through the sleeping hulks of old homes that in the daytime drew
sightseers to admire cupolas, porches, banisters, turrets, carriage houses, dormers, gables, and more, for no two homes in the area were alike.

Just off Kenwood Parkway Allison found the designated street and number, an elegant old three-story building of English Tudor styling buried beneath overhanging elms, its front door flanked by soldier-straight bushes trimmed to military precision. A sidewalk wound its way around to the back of the house, and Allison followed it beside a high wall of honeysuckle hedge that dripped dew, its full blossoms giving off a heady scent.

A light was on above a second-story door much like hers, and she took the steps with a queer sense of familiarity, of coming home. He’d never told her he lived in a place so much like her own.

She paused, searching for a bell. There was none, but she clutched the tiny woven Easter basket in her hands, wondering if it was wise to give it to him after all. It was large enough to hold only one Easter egg, which it had when her brother Wendell’s little daughter had given it to her Aunt Allison with beaming pride, declaring she had dyed the egg herself.

The basket now held two candy kisses and a tiny cluster of lilies of the valley that Allison had stolen from her landlady’s garden and tied with a small pink grosgrain ribbon.

Allison drew a deep, deep breath, held it for an interminable length of time, let it gush out, then soundly rapped on the door.

She heard footsteps approaching on the opposite side, and her heart threatened to stop up her throat.

The door opened, and she forgot the basket, forgot the words she’d rehearsed, forgot the businesslike air she’d vowed to maintain, forgot everything except Rick Lang, standing before her in a pair of crisply ironed blue jeans with an open-necked white shirt underneath a flawless lightweight sport coat of muted spring plaid that gaped away from his ribs as his hand hung on the edge of the door.

Through Allison’s tumult of emotions it struck her that he’d dressed up for her. His hair, she thought—he had combed his hair! How could she ever have imagined it would be folly to touch a comb to it? She’d never seen such a tempting head of hair in her life. It was blow-combed to a neat feathered perfection, covering the tips of his ears on its backward sweep, touching his forehead as it fell faultlessly forward.

Rick Lang neither smiled nor stepped back nor spoke, but studied her with an expression that told Allison little about what he was thinking.

At last she came to her senses. “Good morning.” Her voice sounded pinched and squeaky.

“Good morning.” His sounded deep and even.

Again Allison struggled to find something to say. Suddenly she jumped as if she’d just touched an electric fence and thrust the silly little basket forward.

“Here . . . for you.” She added a quavering smile. “But I’m not running.”

He looked down, smiled, and slowly reached out for the basket, hooking its tiny handle over a single index finger.

Immediately she clasped both hands behind her back.

He looked up with a grin. “Of course not. It’s not May Day.”

She felt herself blushing and cast about for a quick reply, but none came. Still clutching her hands behind her, Allison leaned forward from the waist, peering around him inquisitively. “Mmm . . . nice house. It reminds me of mine.”

He stepped back quickly. “Mine doesn’t have a sun porch, and somebody covered up all the hardwood floors with these ugly brown carpets, but it’s roomy, close to town, and has all the conveniences.”

“Yes, it’s nice.”
Nice,
she thought . . . you
ninny!
“It’s really . . .” Allison stopped her examination of the premises. Realizing it had grown silent behind her, she turned to find his eyes following her with a hint of amusement in their expression.

“You were about to say?” he prompted.

“I . . . nothing.” She ordered the blood to stop rushing to her head.

“We’d better get going if we’re going to make it to Madison by ten.” He turned away and headed toward a door leading off the opposite side of the living room. “Be right back,” he called over his shoulder.

She scanned the room again, wishing she had hours to study it so that she might learn of him, his likes, his ways. An easel stood near a north window, but it was turned to catch the window’s light, and she couldn’t see what he was working on. There were deep leather chairs and a matching davenport and bookcases with hundreds of items other than books. His old, worn letter jacket lay across the back of one of the chairs. She walked over and touched it lightly.

“Ready?” he asked.

She jerked her hand back as if he’d caught her stealing.

“Yes.”

He held a suitcase in one hand, a zippered clothing bag slung over the opposite shoulder, and in the buttonhole of his jacket lapel he’d stuck the cluster of lilies of the valley.

She pulled her eyes away from the flowers with an effort and came forward. “Here, I can take something.”

She reached for the garment bag, but he said, “No, I’ll get that, but you can take this.” There was some confusion while he attempted to shrug a wide woven strap from his shoulder, but it got tangled in the ends of the hangers.

At last it was free and in her hands. “The Hasselblad?” she asked, looking up with surprise in her face.

“What else?” He smiled.

“But—”

“When she’s working under Finelli for the first time, a woman ought to be really turned on, right?”

She beamed radiantly, hung the wide strap over her shoulder, and hugged the case protectively against her belly. “Thanks, Rick, I’ll treat it like spun glass.”

He stepped out onto the landing, set his suitcase down, and held the door, waiting for her to pass before him. “If I remember right,” Rick teased, “that’s where all this started.”

As she crossed in front of him, she caught the intoxicating drift of lily of the valley, and it did little to still the heart that beat at double time, because she was with him again.

They stowed his gear in the back of the van. Rick slammed the doors shut and asked, “You want me to drive?”

“I’d love it.”

She dropped the keys into his palm, and a minute later they were backing down the driveway, heading through the sleeping city toward the interstate.

“I’ve got coffee.” She twisted around in her seat and dug out a thermos and chubby earthen mugs while he glanced sideways briefly, then back to the road,
checking the rearview mirror as the scent of coffee filled the van.

“One black . . . one with sugar,” he remembered, reminding Allison of the first time they’d shared coffee this way. But his eyes remained on the road as he reached blindly and she placed the mug in his hand.

The horrible uncertainty of her first moments with him were gone, spinning farther into the distance as the miles rolled away beneath the wheels. She slumped back in her bucket seat, resting one high-heeled boot against the corner of the dash, balancing the coffee mug on her stomach. Occasionally she sipped, but mostly she basked in a feeling of supreme well-being at going off with him alone, attuned to his nearness, covertly watching his familiar hand on the wheel, listening to him sip his coffee now and then.

Rick, meanwhile, glanced time and again at the blue denim stretched tightly over her upraised knee and occasionally at the coffee mug resting on her stomach. At first only the lights from the dashboard illuminated the outline of her legs, but within half an hour the first strands of dawn lit the eastern sky as they headed directly into the sunrise. It was one of those explosive dawns that splash across the sky in layers of blue, pink, and orange. As the sun slipped above the horizon, they crossed the border into Wisconsin.

Rick turned to find Allison’s cup slipping sideways.
He smiled to himself, turning lazy eyes toward her sleeping face. He had time for a longer, more intimate look as she slept trustfully beside him. He scanned her body with its chin settled onto a shoulder, that shoulder wedged at an uncomfortable angle in the corner of the seat, while her upraised knee swung indolently back and forth with the motion of the vehicle. The way she was scrunched up made her blouse buckle away from her chest. A shadowed hollow invited his eyes, and inside he saw a wisp of white lace. His eyes moved back to the road momentarily.

Her cup slipped farther askance and he reached to slide it from her fingers, but as it slipped away she jerked awake and sat up, looking sheepish.

“It’s okay, go back to sleep.”

“No, I’m not tired. I slept like a log last night.”

He grinned and turned back to the road, making no comment while she wondered how he could possibly believe such a fat lie!

She sat up, entwined her fingers, and stretched her palms toward her knees, writhing a little, stiff-elbowed, and catlike.

“Looks like we’re in for a knockout sunrise,” Rick observed.

“Mmm . . . and I nearly missed it.” She scanned the eastern horizon from north to south, her artist’s eye appreciating this masterpiece the more for sharing it with
him. She leaned forward, clasping her hands back to back between her knees, and savored being with him.

Wisconsin was devastatingly beautiful in its May costume. Fields of freshly tilled soil rolled along like flags waving in the wind, interspersed with blankets of budding forests where an occasional burst of wild plum blossoms could be seen in the distance. Immense promontories of sharp, gray rock loomed above the roadside, high and straight, their tops flat. They were awesome.

“It seems as if there should be an Indian on top of every one of them,” Allison observed, “sitting there on a painted pony with a feathered lance in his hand.”

“I’ve often thought the same thing myself.”

Still they spoke of nothing personal. The remainder of the trip passed in companionable silence, but Allison knew they were only delaying what could inevitably not be delayed.

As they turned off the interstate at the Madison exit and followed Washington Avenue straight into the heart of the city, the dome of the state Capitol proudly guided them to its very center, seemingly built in the middle of the highway. They circled the Capitol grounds on quaint city streets arranged like a spiderweb around it.

The college town was bustling, its sidewalks swarming with students on bikes and on foot, bare armed, hurrying through the warm spring weather.

Allison and Rick found the correct building, parked the van and collected the Hasselblad, its equipment bag, and Allison’s clipboard.

Finelli in the flesh inspired every photographer there with his opening speech and the narrative that accompanied a slide presentation of some of his most stunning work, many famous faces from film stars to politicians, cover girls to cardinals.

The lunch break came all too soon. Rick and Allison shared it in the campus cafeteria. Allison had difficulty coming down from the high inspired by the man who epitomized success in her chosen field.

Rick’s voice repeated her name for the second time. “Allison?”

“Hmm?” She came up from her fanciful world where success was wholly achievable, pulling her eyes from her bowl of chili and grilled cheese sandwich to find Rick laughing at her.

“Hey there, dreamy, you haven’t got Finelli’s job yet. We have a workshop to attend and pictures to take. You gonna sit there and dream in your chili all day?”

She braced her chin on a palm and smiled dimly. “I will one day—have his job, I mean. Just you watch and see.”

D
URING
the actual workshop cameras were set up in various lighting situations and personalized
guidance given to the photographers, allowing them to experiment with newly marketed equipment and various techniques. Ideas were exchanged freely, live models wandered about, and the country’s most noted teachers of photography gave advice and inspiration.

Allison looked up to see Rick approaching after having changed his clothes. He came striding toward her in a set of clothes the likes of which she’d never seen on him before. She was stunned. He was dressed in a thick-textured sweater of pale gray with a bulky collar; dress trousers of smooth navy gabardine, slightly pleated at the waist; a small-collared button-down dress shirt of pale smoky blue; highly polished black loafers; a gold identification bracelet with a large-linked chain; and a pendant bearing his sign of the zodiac—Aries—lying just below the hollow of his throat, nestled in the pale gold hair above his open collar.

“I’m ready,” he announced quietly.