Summer on the Cape (24 page)

She couldn’t bear to have him in her bedroom in her most private refuge. His powerful, insistent presence intruded on her rational thought, weakening her knees, weakening her recollection of her anger, her determination to challenge his deception and hypocrisy.

He braced his hands against the dresser top, surrounding her, so that she couldn’t move away. “What do you mean, ‘What’s happened?’ I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Allie could see the storm clouds beginning to darken Zach’s steel blue eyes.

She turned and squirmed inside his arms. “Don’t do this, Zach. Don’t come in here, into my bedroom, and try to push me around.” Allie could feel her own self-control slipping and she was trying desperately to conceal from Zach the confusion she was feeling. She was keeping up as brave a front as she could muster, but she was torn by the need to demand that Zach account for himself and the wish that he would close his arms around her, that he would draw her into that bed—

“Push you around? That’s not what I came here for. Good God, Allie, I didn’t come here to push you around.” Zach took a step backward, lifting his hands away from Allie and the dresser. She scooted away from him quickly, like a kitten escaping a too playful baby, with Zach right after her as she went back to the living room. “What the hell is going on, Allie?”

“I told you, Zach, you tell me what’s going on. What have you been up to since last Wednesday night?” She tried to close her mind to that night, to his exquisite lovemaking, and tried to remember only his unexpected appearance the very next morning, meeting with Nakamura to arrange for backing the very project he’d been so passionately opposing only the night before.

“What have I been up to? I’ve been busy. I’ve been meeting with a lot of people. I don’t see what all of that has to do with us!” Zach cast about him in frustration. The room was too small, its furniture was too small. He was accustomed to dropping his big frame into chairs designed for big people, to leaning up against walls and door frames and windows that would accommodate his long legs and arms. Here, the windows were filled with plants, and there were small chairs and tables against the walls. He stood helplessly in the middle of the room, feeling like an elephant in a flower patch. “After I saw you on Thursday morning, I flew back to the Cape. I picked up my car and I’ve been driving practically all over the East Coast. Well, that’s an exaggeration. I’ve been to Marblehead and Cape Ann and Gloucester. Yesterday, I ferried over to Nantucket. I’ll be in Jersey this afternoon. I’ve got my car here with me.” He paused, feeling tongue-tied. “Damn it, Allie, I don’t see why I’m explaining all this to you. I’ve been busy arranging things.”

“I’ll bet you’ve been busy. Just as busy as a little beaver, right? Getting all your ducks in a row. Watching out for Number One while you were cleverly deflecting everyone’s attention.”

“If ‘watching out for Number One’ means protecting what’s important to you, yes, that’s what I’ve been doing.” Zach took a step closer to her, and Allie stiffened, knowing her resolve would crumble if he took her in his arms again. Zach saw her response, and hesitated, his frustration and anger rising. “And that’s what you’ve been doing, too, Allie. Taking care of Number One. That’s what you were doing at that meeting Thursday morning. That’s what you were doing when you hopped out of bed on Wednesday night and raced for the airport, because you needed to be at an important meeting. That’s what your whole involvement in this project is about, taking care of the Number One named Allie Randall.”

“That’s not fair, Zach.” Allie could hear the pitch of her voice rising. She backed away a step or two toward the window, and she could feel the tickling edge of a rubber plant brushing the back of her legs. “Whatever I’ve done, whatever I’m doing, I haven’t lied to you. Anything I haven’t told you—” She thought of how little time they’d had, how much there was to tell, how hard it was going to be. “Well, anyway, I haven’t lied to you.”

“Lied!” Zach closed the space between them, seeing a flicker—perhaps of fear?—in Allie’s eyes as he stepped toward her. He was torn between his anger and a heart-wrenching wish to stop her accusations with his kisses, to hold her close and end this irrational fight. “Allie I don’t get it. I haven’t lied to you . . .”

He paused. They both heard something—someone—at the door. A key in the lock. Startled, they turned toward the sound, their anger, their voices frozen, their eyes fixed on the door as it slowly opened.

Preceded by Allie’s big, black leather portfolio, Adam let himself into the room, pausing to return the key to his pocket before he looked up and saw Allie and Zach staring at him. Allie’s eyes opened in astonishment. Zach’s mouth clamped shut.

No one spoke. Adam’s eyes went from one to the other, plainly surprised to see them there. Zach stared at him for a moment. Slowly his head turned to Allie whose eyes were darting from Adam to Zach and back again.

“So that’s the way it is.”

Zach almost hissed at her. His eyes were black, his words practically inaudible. He leaned toward Allie, his face close to hers, his voice so low she barely heard him.

“There was a lot of talk here about ‘lying’ a minute ago. Now I understand your preoccupation with ‘lying.’” His face was livid, his teeth bared in fury He was across the room in a few steps.

“Zach!” Her voice was weak, barely reaching him.

“Out of my way, Talmadge!”

Adam lifted the portfolio to protect himself as Zach went by him, and Zach stiff-armed him, shoving him against the wall. A picture dropped off its hook as Adam was jammed into it. Zach was past him and out of the apartment without another word, slamming the door behind him, leaving it shivering in its frame as he stormed down the stairs.

The apartment was quiet for a moment as they both stared at the door. At last, Adam turned and walked into the living room, putting the portfolio down against the wall.

“Well, well, well,” he said slowly, approaching Allie, looking her over thoughtfully. “Has little Allie been at play behind her uncle Adam’s back?”

Allie started to cry.

“Oh, Adam, go away, will you? Just go away. Get out of here.” She turned her face away from his in despair. “Just leave me alone.”

Adam was astonished. He had never seen her cry.

“So that’s how it is! Oh, my poor Allie.” He gathered her up in his arms. “Come on, lean on old Adam’s shoulder. There, there, cry away, dear. I had no idea. As bad as all that, is it?” He stroked her hair while she sobbed against him, burying her head miserably in his shoulder.

“Oh, Adam, why did you have to come in just then?” Through her tears, Allie wailed at him. “What are you doing here anyway? Why didn’t you ring the bell or something? Why did you use your key? You’ve never done that before.”

“My poor sweetie. If I had any idea! We were in the neighborhood—I was going to check out that new gallery on Barrow Street—so I called you from the car, about ten minutes ago.” Adam smoothed down her bangs and kissed her forehead, reassuringly. “There was no answer, so I figured you weren’t home. I had that thing with me,” he pointed to the portfolio, “and I didn’t want to lug it around all day.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I feel so stupid. I told Marcus to go get some gas while I just ran upstairs to leave it off.”

“Oh, Adam.” Allie was still sobbing. She took the handkerchief that was folded into his breast pocket and tried, uselessly, to mop the flowing tears. “It’s all such a mess. It’s such a miserable mess.”

“I know, dear. I know.” Over her head, Adam was smiling indulgently. He stroked her hair some more and patted her shoulder comfortingly. “There now, there, there. But imagine! Zach Eliot, of all people. I never would have guessed!” His quick mind went back over the last few weeks. “That certainly explains a number of things.”

Allie was too miserable to notice what he was saying. “What am I going to do, Adam? What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, dear. We’ll try to think of something.”

In the street below, as Zach opened the Jag’s door, he tried to stop himself, but his eyes were drawn helplessly to that window. There, framed by the plants, he could see her in Adam’s arms, her golden head buried against Adam’s shoulder.

“The hell with her!”

The words were barely out of his mouth and he was in gear and away in a screech of rubber that raised eyebrows up and down the quiet street.

Chapter Seventeen

I
t was Tuesday morning, and Allie was in the chairman’s office, trying to continue her preliminary sketches. The work wasn’t going well, and even Mr. Nakamura could see that she’d been crying.
Ah well
, he thought to himself,
I see that this hour will probably be a waste.
He noted the puffy lids and the irises, deep green, against the bloodshot whites of her eyes.
Interesting
, he thought. Yesterday, her eyes had been a golden hazel color. No question about it. She’d been crying. The child has perhaps been having a lovers’ quarrel.
These things happen
, he thought, remembering nostalgically the passion of his own youth.
I will attend to other matters while she tries to get through this hour.

“You do not mind, Ms. Randall, if I review these papers while you complete your sketches? I will try not to move about too much.” He pointed to a stack of contracts on one side of his otherwise totally bare desk.

“I don’t mind at all.”

He was not surprised that she barely raised her eyes as she responded to his question. Apparently, she would rather not talk. It was just as well. He had things to think about.

This matter of the Cape Cod project. In addition to all the usual obstacles, a new one had presented itself. The meeting last week with this fellow—what was his name—Eliot? Nothing, it seems, would convince the man to sell that piece of land he was holding.

The chairman picked up the first of the contracts concerning a shopping mall acquisition in Dallas, almost four hundred pages including attachments and schedules, with a covering memorandum and a legal opinion from outside counsel. He laid it on the desk in front of him, but he was not yet ready to attend to it. This Cape Cod matter was still on his mind.

Eliot’s opposition was nothing new. The chairman chuckled to himself as he remembered that lady on East 53rd who thought she could get an exorbitant figure for her brownstone by blocking the construction of the Cityscape Building. For a few hundred thousand, she could have made a happy move to Florida and lived out her days in comfort. But she was greedy and tried to hold out against them. Fortunately, it suited their purposes to build around her instead. Now she had service entrances and loading docks on either side of her residence, and her once-quiet and attractive street was filled with noisy industrial traffic.

As far as the Pilgrims’ Landing project was concerned, it was still too early to decide to go to litigation, though that was the usual course. Expensive, but only a trifle in light of the magnitude of the project. However, there may be some alternatives in this case. During their meeting, Zachariah Eliot—these Americans have such difficult names!—had raised an interesting idea. Most interesting. Something might come of it, something might just come of it. We shall see.

He swiveled his chair briefly to the credenza behind him, flipped the intercom, and turned right back, remembering that he was Allie’s model and he mustn’t interfere too much with her work. “Ms. Richman,” he said. “See if you can reach Adam Talmadge. If nine o’clock this morning is convenient for him, it might be a good idea for him to join us then for my meeting with Mr. Eliot.” The chairman saw Allie’s head rise abruptly in response to his words. He noted her quick intake of breath, the sudden widening of her eyes. He saw her catch her lower lip between her teeth, in an apparent gesture of self-control and embarrassment as she realized that Mr. Nakamura had seen her response, and she lowered her eyes to her pad, forcing her attention back to the wash of skin tones that she was working on. The chairman’s eyes remained on her.

Ms. Richman’s voice could be heard on the intercom. “Yes, Mr. Nakamura. Oh, and Mr. Nakamura, you had a call from a Mr. Hadley from New Hampshire. I told him you’d be tied up for a couple of hours. He’ll call back sometime this afternoon.”

Mr. Nakamura’s eyebrows rode up a bit on his forehead. “Ah, that is most interesting.” He paused, considering her message. So Hadley had called. Most interesting. “Thank you, Ms. Richman,” he said at last. “And when you speak with Mr. Talmadge,” he added, “tell him I would most especially recommend that he join us. His office is not far from here. It should not be too inconvenient for him.”

He switched off the intercom and turned back to the papers on the desk in front of him, but not before he had noticed the flush that was reddening the pretty young artist’s cheeks.
Ah, well
, he thought,
it’s a pity, but the Cape Cod affair must be put aside for a bit while we attend to the matter of this Dallas shopping mall
.

* * *

Oh, God, Allie thought. Zach is going to be here at nine. I’ve got to get out of here before we run into each other.

The whole thing with Zach had turned into such a mess. Even as she stared at the watercolor pad in front of her, trying to focus on the rather stiff likeness of the chairman that was taking shape on the easel, her mind could see only Zach’s handsome form, as he was last Wednesday night, after—well, afterward. She could not bear to remember his lovemaking, unlike anything she had ever known. No, instead, she let herself remember him framed by the window with the moonlight behind him, wearing only his jeans, one long leg braced inside the sill, the glass of whiskey in his hand, as he talked so movingly about “loved ones lost at sea.” She hadn’t doubted for a moment that his opposition to the Mayflower project was genuine.

And all that time, he had been lying to her. It was as simple as that. He had sat there, the breath of her kisses still warm on his lips, and he had lied to her. For his own self-serving business reasons, he had wanted her to believe, along with all his friends and neighbors, that he was fighting the project. And only the next morning, not twelve hours later, he had been here in this very office, arranging, as Nakamura told her, to put money, substantial money, into the very plan he was pretending to fight.