Authors: Amanda Carpenter
the thought, and that's about it.'
'In a nutshell,' he murmured, and she had to chuckle.
'Sad in a way, isn't it? An entire human life and thinking awareness
can be described so simply and dully.' She took out another cigarette
and lit it. Her hand, she noticed absently, was shaking less now. Soon
she would be back to normal. But what was normal, any more? 'I
could walk out in that water right now, and not come back, and no
one would really miss me.' She caught his complete stillness and
shocked eyes and had to laugh. 'Don't worry, I am
not
contemplating
suicide! I'm merely expressing how total the waste of a life can be. I
should know, I've wasted twenty-eight years, and I'll never get them
back again. It's only now that I've begun to suspect that I've never
really lived.'
Strange, she thought in a detached way, how comforting it is to talk
about oneself with a stranger. It was a good feeling, rather like what a
Catholic would feel after making a confession to a priest behind a
curtain. This man didn't know her and probably never would. She
could say the most truthful and outrageous things she wanted to and
feel sure he would never know who she really was and what she was
talking about.
A sudden comment made her start in surprise. 'You smoke too much
for an invalid,' the man told her expressionlessly. 'In fact, you smoke
too much for a healthy individual.'
Sara looked up with a kind of shocked feeling, meeting dark and
almost blank eyes. Almost. Deep down there was a flicker of—
interest? Of concern? No, not that, she was a stranger and meant
nothing to him .. . whatever it was, it dispelled the hard and
implacable quality that she had first seen in his eyes. A slow smile
spread over her face and it was like a ray of sunshine. She looked at
the smoking cigarette in her hand as if she had never seen it before,
then stubbed it out.
'You see?' she said. 'A total waste of life so far. You're absolutely
right! And I'll tell you this right now: I quit. How does that sound?
Only I hope I can do it, I've never tried to quit smoking before, you
know, and I smoke a lot. Well, if one is determined and all, etcetera,
and so on.'
'Eloquently put,' he drawled, looking for a moment amused. Sara
grinned amiably, glad to see a lighter expression on his face. She was
sprawled all over the sand, the rolled-up jeans revealing slim ease,
and she absently reached down to dust off her feet. Her hair lifted off
her neck in a puff of wind, and she reached up with a long-fingered
thin hand to straighten it, looking over the water with a peaceful
feeling. It showed in her eyes, and her lips were turned up at the
corner ever so slightly. The man's head was turned her way.
'Shall I apologise?' she asked, without looking away from the water.
'For what?'
'Trespassing, silly. If I apologise nicely, will it get me off the hook?'
She turned at that and looked at him mournfully, her big eyes soulful
and solemn. 'I truly am sorry.'
He regarded her, and a faint smile touched the edges of his lips,
banishing the unhappy look, 'No, you're not.'
'Well,' she returned, 'it sounded good, didn't it?'
At that he really did laugh, and the sound was rich and glad. She felt
absurdly happy hearing it; when she had first seen him she had
wondered if he ever laughed at all. After watching him with
appreciation, she began to gather up her things. He told her, 'You're
absolved of all crime.'
'How nice.' Dusting off her feet as best she could, she started to put
on her socks and shoes and thought better of it, tying them to the
knapsack instead. She picked up her camera bag and would have put
that on her shoulder too, but was stopped when a big hand took it
from her and took her knapsack too. She stared at the man in
surprise.
'I'll carry them for you,' he said easily, slinging them on his own
broad shoulder. Sara regarded him with a faint twinkle in her eyes.
'Do I have a choice?' she asked the world in general. Then she
addressed him personally. 'You really don't have to feel compelled to
show me off the property. I promise to leave!'
'It's my pleasure,' he murmured, looking down at her from his
superior height. This rankled. He was a stranger and had no reason to
feel favourably inclined towards her, but to say such a thing after just
spending an agreeable hour in her company was a bit of an insult.
'I suppose,' she said a little stiffly, 'I should thank you.'
'Not at all.' They climbed the rise and slid down the other side. He
moved quickly and easily in the sand, and she was soon hard put to it
to keep up with his longer stride. Finally she had to beg him to slow
down, which he did immediately, waiting for her to catch up. She
drew up alongside him, inwardly angry at him for his apparent
eagerness to get rid of her and furious at herself for feeling angry at
him. It shouldn't matter one way or the other.
When they had reached the path that led to her back door, he handed
her the bags and stepped out of the way so that she could pass. She
nodded pleasantly to him, determined to be polite and uncaring, then
stopped to gape at his words when he told her quietly, 'Feel free to
come exploring on the beach whenever you like.'
She stared and then managed to reply, 'Are you sure? I mean, I don't
want to be an imposition on your privacy.'
He looked down at her with an enigmatic look, eyes taking in every
detail. 'I'm sure. You'll be welcome.'
She was silent for a minute at this. 'Would it be all right if I came
back this evening to take a picture of the sunset? You really don't
mind me tramping about on the beach?'
'I really don't mind, and yes, feel free to come whenever you like.
The house is well back from the beach, so you won't be invading my
privacy.'
Nice hint, that, she thought. 'Very well, if you're sure, then.' A
thought struck her and she laughed. 'What do I call you, anyway?'
He was standing with hands pushed into his jeans pockets, the stance
hunching his shoulders, and his feet were planted well apart. She had
a quick impression of immovable strength, and then he was moving,
back up, starting to turn away. 'My name is Greg.'
She backed up herself. 'Nice meeting you, then, Greg. Thank you for
letting me come back.'
'You're welcome, Sara.'
Without a backward glance, she took off up the path and soon let
herself into her back door, unaware of the tall figure that stopped and
turned, watching her go with unreadable eyes, following her until she
was out of sight.
Back inside, Sara went about the actions of putting the knapsack
away and washing her thermos and plastic cup mechanically. She
spent a good deal of energy in thinking about the stranger whom she
had apparently befriended. Or had she befriended him after all? He
had seemed such a strange mixture of politeness and bitterness, of
wariness and friendliness, of cynicism and real concern. Thinking of
the man and the aura of watchful reserve that clung to him, she
started to wonder at her own overtures again.
It was definitely a strange situation, for she hardly ever made casual
acquaintances. But that look in the man's eyes and the unhappy nerve
to his mouth had struck a spark of understanding and empathy within
her. She knew, how it felt to be unhappy; she had been extremely
unhappy herself until just recently. She knew how it felt to be bitter
and disillusioned. Perhaps that was the reason she had made such
obvious overtures of friendliness. She had felt a desire to show him
that there was the possibility to overcome bitterness, and to be happy
after disappointment. Perhaps that was why she had spilled so much
of herself out to him.
She shrugged and put the matter out of her mind for the time being.
She didn't even know what prompted that strange and unhappy
expression and the chances were that she never would. There was no
reason for the man to wish to confide in a total stranger. She didn't
even want him to, anyway.
Feeling in need of an outlet for her strangely aroused emotions, she
went into the rather small living room and sat down at the ancient
piano that she had just recently had tuned. Flexing her long strong
fingers over the black and white keys, she emptied her mind of all
thought and concentrated on the mood of the moment. Then she let
her fingers come down on the keys and began to play. Strangely
enough, to her mind, what she had impulsively decided to play was a
sad, haunting love song that left her with unexplained tears in her
eyes and an ache in her throat. She played it through several times,
humming once, and then singing it softly. It left her feeling very
empty.
She didn't understand it; she had never felt so lonely in her life.
Suddenly, and with great impact, the realisation that she had no true
friends hit her. There was no one with whom she could just be herself
and not the singing star Sara Bertelli. She slowly laid her head down
on the piano keyboard, her eyes shut tight. A drop eased out from the
squeezed eyelids and dripped on to ivory, and then another followed.
How had she got to be twenty-eight years old without ever having a
serious relationship? How could she let herself get so isolated from
other human beings? Why did she let things get so hectic and
unfulfilling? Why had she let ambition rule her life?
Looking back over the years, it was easy to see the progression of
events. She had worked like a dog for so long, taking as many music
and singing lessons as she could afford, working at nights, searching
for a lucky break into the competitive field of popular music. Her
talent was dynamic and did not go overlooked for long. But then
there were the long, hard years of pure, intense, furious creative
work. Ambition is a drug that one gets hooked on, and Sara had been
a complete slave to its demands. She gave totally, with great drive
and power, whether she was in the recording studio or on the stage,
and the greedy public sucked it all up like a sponge taking in water.
One thing led to another, until all the aspects of her life seemed to
have culminated in the one event that had made her decide to leave
Los Angeles for an extended, long-overdue vacation.
It had been a long day in the recording studio. The musicians were
tired and irritable, and Sara's throat had ached. So had her head. She
was exhausted, she remembered ruefully, and the tension of the
weeks before, the terrible glittering, empty party that she had been
obliged to attend the night before, and her own stretched nerves had
caused her self-control to snap and she had ended up in a bitter fight
with Barry, her agent. She had rushed out of the room and he had
followed closely behind. Crazy, weak, infuriating tears coursed down
her cheeks.
'Here, love,' Barry coaxed softly, shocked at the sight of her tired
weeping, 'I know you've had a hectic time of it. We'll take a ten-
minute break and get everyone a cup of coffee and into a better mood
before we go on.'
She asked him, 'Couldn't we just stop for the day, Barry? I've had a
total of three hours' sleep last night because of that stupid party you
got me committed to going to, and an average of four or five for the
past three weeks. This pace is going to kill me! Can't we slow down a
little?'
'Now, baby, you know we can't, not today!' he had replied, a great
deal alarmed at her show of weakness. She had never cried before, at
least not that he had known of, and he didn't know how to handle a
woman's tears. 'We're way behind schedule as it is, and I've got
people panting down my neck for the release of this new album. I
know it's a bruising pace, but it's only for another month, and then
you can take a vacation. How does that sound?'
'I need a vacation now, not a month from now,' she whispered,
leaning tiredly against the wall. 'Barry, I don't think I'm going to
make it.'
'You will, love,' he said bracingly. Then, with more anxiety at the sad
little shake of her head, he said, 'You've got to, Sara. You're
committed to, by contract. You are going to make a million easily off
of this album, and if you break the contract's terms by discontinuing