Turn Back the Dawn (17 page)

mother. It was too late to call tonight, of course. Which meant she'd have to call tomorrow from work, when the office would be particularly hectic.

Ben shifted and pulled her close so she fit perfectly against his body, her back snug against the warmth of his chest. "There must be some very cold Chinese food somewhere in this house," he said.

"I'm starved. Stay right where you are and I'll bring it in."

"Cold?" he asked.

"Sure, it's great. Trust me."

"I do," he said. "I mean, I know. I just didn't know anyone agreed with me." He kissed the back of her neck. "But then, if anyone did, it would be you," he said, and kissed her again.

A few minutes later they were sitting up in bed with two ice-cold Kirin beers and cold but delicious moo shu pork, hunan beef with bamboo shoots and watercress, stir-fried spicy chicken and sautéed snow peas and water chestnuts.

"Mm. Fantastic," Ben said between mouthfuls. "So what else happened while I was gone and missing you?"

"Oh—" She hesitated. "Well, my mother called, wanting to know if I was coming to Connecticut for Thanksgiving."

"And—?"

"Well, I didn't exactly call her back yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, I didn't know what I was going to do—whether we were going to go to California together or not."

"Are you going to call her tomorrow?"

"Sure. From work."

He sighed. "If I hadn't asked you to come with me, would you have gone to see her?"

She shrugged. "I guess."

He looked at her, skeptically. "You 'guess'? Does that mean yes or no, Kate?"

She let the forkful of chicken she had been about to eat hang in midair. "You're asking an awful lot of questions," she said. "I hardly need to have my mother call, with you around."

His eyes flashed. "All right, fine," he said. "We won't talk about work and we won't talk about your mother. Is that what you want?"

She sighed. "No. And I'm sorry. I just dread visiting, that's all. This new man she's married—I just know it's not going to work out, and I hate being witness to it, seeing her trying to be happy over something that's doomed." She looked into Ben's eyes. "But let's talk about it some other time, okay? I'm just really glad you're here and I don't want to—" She shrugged, hoping he wouldn't press her further.

He studied her eyes, amber searching brown in a deep gaze that made her strangely self-conscious all of a sudden. "When did your mother move up to Connecticut?" he asked.

"Oh, a few years ago," Kate said, pouring the rest of her beer into her glass. She had wanted to talk about something else; but for now, the subject seemed neutral enough, and she went on: "When her company moved out of the city, she moved with it. And I guess it was a good move in terms of where she's living. I just—I just don't happen to visit her much."

He reached out and gently touched her cheek. "Do you think you can try to go out and see her before we leave?"

"I don't know," Kate said, not altogether truthfully.

He sighed. "I know you and your mother don't get along, Kate. But I can't help thinking if you spent more time .. ." His voice trailed off. "You know, with both my parents dead, it's very difficult for me to see you and your mother blithely going along without making any kind of effort to—"

"Blithely?" she interrupted. "How do you know I'm blithely going along? Don't you think it bothers me that I basically have no family, that the one person around— my mother—is someone I don't get along with?"

"Then, why don't you try?"

"I have tried," she said. "And someday I'll try again. But we don't get along, all right? Sometimes you have to accept things like that, Ben, whether you want to or not. Life is not perfect. Families do break apart, kids do go wrong, things that aren't very nice happen all the time. And I resent your assuming that you're the only one bothered by these things. I wish I did have a real family, and I wish I did get along with my mother. But I'm not going to spend all my time thinking about it, Ben."

He searched her eyes. "But what exactly is it?" he asked. "How is it that you don't get along?"

"That really would take all night to explain," she said, looking away.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly.

She turned and met his gaze. She had the unwelcome sense that he was probing, that she would open herself up to him and that at the most unexpected of moments, after calm words of encouragement and empathy, he would suddenly come out with a criticism. "I think some other time would be better," she said.

"All right. I just thought it might help. Because"—he hesitated—"you know,, we do tend to repeat family patterns. You marry people formed from the images of your own parents and other people you've known, and much of the time you just repeat your own parents' experience. And it seems to me that—"

"That you're about to say something I've thought of myself and would rather not dwell on," she interrupted. "Yes, I don't have much to work with in terms of a family model. Since my father left us and my mother proceeded to go out with and marry another series of equally winning types, the chances of my following that pattern and being happy aren't too great. But plenty of people have done it, lien. Women whose parents have had terrible marriages and messy divorces have had wonderful relationships and marriages of their own, and the same is true with men. So it doesn't necessarily follow, and it doesn't necessarily help me to think about it that much. I don't have to repeat my mother's experience, you know."

"But don't you see that you are?" he asked softly.

"What?"

"Don't you see that you're doing just that, Kate? Doing just what your mother does—choosing men who are sure

to run off, who are sure not to work out."

She stared at him. "I see you have it all figured out for me," she said quietly. "I hadn't known I was such a predetermined and easy-to-understand case history."

"I never said that," he replied.

"Well, then, tell me something," she said quietly. "If

you really think that I'm doing what you say—what does that make you, Ben?"

"We're not talking about me," he said.

"J am. You're so sure I've got rotten judgment, Ben. Then, what does that make you? Are you one of the men who run off or one of the men who don't?"

"That depends on both of us, Kate. Not just me. That's what I'm talking about. I don't think you trust anybody enough to make any kind of commitment. Not yet. And you won't until you face the fact that you've got a rough history to get over."

"Thanks a lot," she said. "God, Ben, I had no idea you thought you were going out with—"

"Stop it," he interrupted. "You're misunderstanding me. I only want to bring this up because it's important to me;
you're
important to me. I love you, Kate." His eyes met hers, and for a moment their gaze melted into deep' heat. "I love you," he said more softly. "But making love is the only time I feel you're really mine. The rest of the time it's as if you're fighting me out of deep, deep mistrust."

"I don't know why that surprises you," she said, her voice hoarse with sudden anger. "Occasionally—usually during an argument—you tell me you love me. Yet most of the time, you're tearing me down. It doesn't matter if it's what I do at work, or my feelings about men, or even my past; I can't seem to do anything right for you, Ben." She ignored the look of pained surprise in his eyes and went on. "You've always struck me as very steady, very secure, someone with his feet very much on the ground, and you presented yourself that way as well: someone, you said, who was looking for a woman to share his life with.

But I wonder whether that's even true. You're the one who's driving me away. And I don't think I want to go to California with you, either. I wanted to go with a man I loved and who loved me—not an analyst who's going to pick apart everything I say and do and feel." She put her glass down on the night table and turned to face Ben more directly. "I don't know how I feel about you right now, Ben. All I know is that I don't think we should see each other for a while. It would be too easy—much too easy—to make everything all right by making love and capturing whatever seems to be eluding us outside of bed; but that wouldn't be fair to either of us." She couldn't bear to look at him anymore; his face seemed to be crumbling beneath her words, dissolving into pain she didn't want to see.

"Kate," he pleaded, reaching for her hand.

She turned away and got off the bed. She grabbed a robe from her closet door and hastily put it on, then turned and faced Ben. "I mean it," she said, her gaze steady.

"When, then?" he asked. "What are you saying? How long do you need, Kate?"

"I don't know," she said quietly as she turned away.

She heard him get off the bed, heard him walk around gathering his clothes. She walked out at that point, feeling a stranger in her own apartment, standing outside the bedroom as if she didn't belong. For suddenly everything seemed different, frightening, unpredictable. Ben was in there getting dressed, and she had no idea what had just happened—except that he was leaving, that he wasn't coming back.

As she turned to face the bedroom, Ben came striding toward her. She looked up at him for one hopeful moment, but his eyes were cold and hard.

And he walked past her, as if she hadn't even been standing there. And as she heard the door shut softly behind her, her heart went cold with panic.

He had left without a word, without a softening glance, without a moment's hesitation. He was gone.

Kate hardly slept that night, tormented by what had happened and what she had to face. For nothing lay ahead except deep uncertainty. Tomorrow night she would see Ben at the party. And with sickening dread she knew the experience wouldn't be anything but painful.

The next morning, when Kate arrived at Ivorsen and Shaw a bit before the doors opened to the public, the store was alive with anticipation over the night's party. Saleswomen who lived in other boroughs of the city had brought the dresses they were going to wear that night, and in the elevators, offices, and ladies' rooms, all talk was of the party.

Kate moved through as if in a dream, weighed down by turmoil and confusion. The joy and anticipation in the air meant nothing to her now; all she felt in relation to the party was dread.

Yet she managed to hold her emotions in check enough to get what she had to do over with. In the early afternoon she sent Linda down to Xenon by taxi to make sure that the VIP tables were being properly set off with "reserved" cards and that all the preparations were going smoothly. Though the party was a joint project handled by Kate's department, Blake-Canfield, and Ivorsen and Shaw's

lome
entertaining consultant, Kate had the ultimate responsibility for the party's success or failure, and she felt
t
would be an important act of strength to keep things r
unning
smoothly despite the state she was in.

And then, when Kate realized she had managed to
forget
to call her mother three times already that day,
he
finally called. The conversation was strained and brief, ou
t
Kate managed to stay outwardly calm and unemotiona
l for
most of it. The only point when the tension broke o
ut
into the open was when her mother
—
now Mrs.
Creasey—
asked whether Kate would be coming alone.

"Yes,"
Kate said evenly.

"Oh."
There was a long pause. Then: "No boyfriend?"

"I—
yes, I'm involved with someone, Mother," Kate
lid,
wishing she knew whether that were even true anym
ore.

"Why
don't you bring him, then?"

"Well,
I don't think so."

"Oh.
So he's just casual, then."

"No,
not really," Kate said, her voice slightly raised. "I ju
st don't
think I'll bring him."

"It
isn't a long drive, Kate. Just an hour and a half."

"I
know," Kate said. "That has nothing to do with it,
Mother.
I'm coming alone. And if I change my mind, I'll let
you
know, okay?"

"I'd
love to meet him, Kate. It's been so long since I've
met
any of your boyfriends."

"I
know," Kate
said.
"I know." And after another five min
utes,
she managed
—
finally
—
to say good-bye.

Kate
hung up and sighed. Everything had changed so qu
ickly,
so drastically. The holiday she had looked for
ward to
would now be completely different from what she

had planned, and tonight—a night that was supposed to be a celebration, a night of triumph—was sure to be an evening marked by anger and sadness, awkwardness and uncertainty.

But she managed. Late in the afternoon she met with Pierce and Alexandra to go over their duties for the evening. Alexandra looked exhausted, with dark circle under her eyes that even makeup couldn't hide; and she didn't seem to be getting along with Pierce as
well
as usual. After Kate had said all she wanted to, she Pierce away and spoke with Alexandra alone.

"What's wrong?" Kate asked. "You look terrible."

Alexandra looked crushed, and Kate hurried to soften her words. "Not terrible, Alexandra, but terrible for you." She paused. "Maybe I can help if you tell me what's wrong."

Alexandra quickly shook her head. "It's just part of tfal business," she said mechanically, as if repeating words she had heard many times before. "I'll take a nap this afternoon and I promise I'll look fine." She stood up. "So actually, I'd better go now."

"Okay," Kate said. "I'll see you at Xenon, then. The
cm
will pick you up at eight forty-five, so you be ready."

"Okay. Kurt's going to come with me."

"Fine," Kate said. "Just be sure you're on time."

Once home, Kate got ready for the party. She didni want to be overdressed; she had always felt that it was much better to be too casual than too formal. But tonight she had no doubts about what she was wearing. It was something that had just come in to the store along with the first shipments of other resort wear, and it had caught Kate's eye from across the selling floor: sapphire-blue silk

pants with a matching top, which she would wear with low-heeled snakeskin sandals, gold earrings, and extra- thin gold chains.

She had a quick bite to eat and a drink, and then she was off.