Читать книгу New Way to Fly - Margot Dalton - Страница 11

RAIN POUNDED against the windshield and streamed over the surface of Amanda’s small car, whipping past in gusty sprays to pool on the highway and in the ditches. Amanda gripped the wheel, frowning and squinting into the darkness, struggling to see ahead each time the wipers gave her a brief field of vision.

“Damned lousy rain,” Beverly Townsend muttered, lounging beside Amanda in the passenger seat and glaring out the window. “It’s probably fixing to flood again, like it did in the spring. Everything will be a great big ol’ mess, all over again. I hate it, Mandy. I just hate it.”

Amanda grinned at her friend’s fretful tone, distracted for a moment from the strain of driving in the storm.

“Well, I declare, Beverly Townsend,” she said in a cheerful imitation of Beverly’s warm Texas drawl, “you certainly aren’t your usual chipper self tonight, are you? Now, why on earth could that be, I wonder?”

Beverly had the grace to smile back, her teeth flashing white in the darkness. “Well, what do you expect? Here I am, a poor helpless waif thrown out of my own home, forced to thrust myself on the hospitality of a friend who doesn’t even like me enough to show the least little bit of sympathy.”

Amanda chuckled. She was always charmed by Beverly’s witty good humor, and by the warmth and sweetness that were so startling to all those people who looked on Beverly Townsend as little more than a self-absorbed beauty queen.

“Nobody’s throwing you out of your home,” Amanda pointed out reasonably. “This was entirely your own choice, Bev, coming to Austin to stay with me for a week or so to give Carolyn and Vern some time alone together.”

Beverly shrugged. “Well, sure, but really, what choice did I have, Mandy? It’s their honeymoon, for God’s sake. And since Mama absolutely refuses to go away anywhere while Cynthia’s so close to her due date, I could hardly hang around the house and make it a cozy threesome, could I, now?”

“What about Lori? Isn’t she going to be around? She lives there, too, doesn’t she?”

Beverly glanced over at her friend with the look of weary but resigned tolerance that she reserved for Amanda.

“I told you,” she began, “about twelve hundred times, Mandy, that Lori’s been renovating the old garage next to the tennis court to make a gorgeous little studio apartment for herself. It’s not quite finished but she moved in a couple days ago anyhow, just to give the newlyweds some privacy.”

“Did you tell me that?” Amanda asked blankly.

Beverly laughed, then sobered and gazed moodily out at the rain once more.

Amanda stole a sidelong glance at her friend’s discontented profile. “You know what I think? I think this mood of yours has nothing at all to do with the weather or where you’re going to be living for the next week, Bev.”

Beverly turned to glance at her quickly, then sank low in the seat and braced her blue-jeaned knees against the dashboard, hugging them gloomily.

“I know,” she said at last. “But, Mandy, it’s so strange, somehow. All those years I had so much fun playing the field, picking up guys and dropping them just for the hell of it, never really giving any of them much thought. Now, I hate to admit it, but Jeff goes away for a week on business and I can hardly stand it. A week, it seems like eternity, you know what I mean? I don’t know if I can bear to be away from the man for a whole entire week.”

Amanda gave her friend a disbelieving look. “Not even for the chance to spend a week in the city, attend two fashion shows and a gallery opening, meet some really important people and do a whole lot of early Christmas shopping?”

Beverly shook her head morosely. “Nope. Not even for that.”

“My goodness,” Amanda said seriously, although her mouth was twitching with amusement. “I guess it must be love, all right.”

Beverly glared at the other woman and punched her arm lightly. “If you’d ever been really, really in love,” she complained, “you wouldn’t laugh at my misery. You’d show a little more compassion, you coldhearted witch.”

Amanda’s face tightened briefly and she stared ahead into the driving rain.

Beverly caught the look and laid a gentle hand on Amanda’s suede coat sleeve. “Sorry, kid,” she murmured. “I guess you’ve been through it, too, haven’t you? You spent a lot of years with Edward, after all.”

“Four,” Amanda said, trying to smile. “Four years. And you don’t need to treat me like a poor girl with a broken heart, Bev. It was my idea to leave, after all.”

“I keep wondering about that, but I never wanted to pry. So there was no big fight or dustup, nothing like that? You just decided to move back to Texas and open your own business, and Edward let you go, just like that?”

“Just like that,” Amanda agreed with a sad smile. “All very civilized. He’d just bought his own store in New York, and sunk all the money he inherited into it, and he certainly wasn’t about to toss all that aside and follow me, no matter how much he cared about the relationship.”

She fell silent, gripping the wheel in gloved hands and gazing bleakly at the black flowing rain.

“And you?” Beverly prodded delicately. “Didn’t it hurt to leave him behind after all those years? Did you really want to be on your own enough to give up such a long-term relationship?”

Amanda frowned. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I thought I did, Bev. I was getting so restless, so stale and tired of everything, and I really thought I needed a change of scene, some kind of fresh challenge.”

Beverly nodded. “Absolutely. That’s the way I felt before I got really involved with my hospital work. And Jeff, of course,” she added with a faraway smile.

“Of course,” Amanda agreed dryly.

“So how do you feel about it all now? Do you wish you were back in New York, working for Edward again and socializing with all your friends?”

“Sometimes…well, I guess I do,” Amanda said, surprising herself with her response. “Sometimes I feel so lonely and out of place, and so terribly scared that my business will fail and I’ll be…”

She was silent again, regretting the sudden intimacy of the conversation. Beverly Townsend was a good friend, probably Amanda’s closest friend at the moment. But there were things about herself, fears and dreams and longings, that Amanda Walker never admitted to another soul.

Beverly didn’t notice the sudden silence. She was still much more interested in the details of her friend’s relationship. “So, do you hear from him at all?” she asked.

Amanda shook her head again. “Not often. He said that if we were going to make a break, it might as well be a clean break, but that any time I wanted to come back, he’d be waiting.”

“Well, that was real sweet,” Beverly ventured cautiously. “Wasn’t it?”

“Oh, sure,” Amanda said. “Edward always does and says exactly the right thing. Then, about a month later, a mutual friend told me he was dating one of the top models from a big-name agency.”

She swerved to avoid the lashing spray of a passing semitrailer, then pulled her little car back into the driving lane.

“It bothered you, right?” Beverly said, glancing at her friend’s still face. “Hearing he was with somebody else, it really got to you, didn’t it?”

“A little,” Amanda said, not willing to discuss the unexpected pain she’d felt when she heard about the glamourous new woman in Edward’s life.

“Maybe you’re still in love with him,” Beverly suggested comfortably. “Maybe you should go back to New York and check it out.”

“And give up everything I’m beginning to achieve here? Just admit that it was all a big mistake and go running home saying, ‘please look after me, I’m so sorry, I’ll never do it again?’”

“Yeah, I see the problem,” Beverly said slowly. “Especially since he’s not likely to move to where you are, right?”

“Not likely,” Amanda agreed bitterly. “He spent years clawing his way up through the retail garment industry in New York to the point where he could manage his own store and draw a handpicked clientele. Believe me, Edward Price is not about to throw all that away for a woman, Bev. Any woman.”

Beverly was silent a moment, her face thoughtful. “What does he look like?” she asked finally. “You know, I never did meet him, Mandy. Every time I came to New York, he was off on a buying trip to Paris or Bangkok or somewhere.”

“I know.” Amanda frowned, clutching the wheel and trying to visualize Edward, startled again by the pain it caused her. “He’s about five-eleven,” she said at last, “thirty-five years old, very handsome and sophisticated. He has hazel eyes and auburn hair that he wears parted on the side and flowing over like this, you know…” She made a quick gesture with her gloved hand against her own dark head, indicating a graceful fall of hair.

Beverly nodded with complete understanding. “Very trendy,” she said. “Like the guys in the suit ads in magazines, right? I wish I could talk Jeff into getting his hair cut that way. He always looks like his barber lives in the back of a saloon somewhere.”

Amanda chuckled, but Beverly’s words stirred a chord of memory in the depths of her mind, a thought that had been nagging at her ever since they’d left the wedding party at the Double C and started the forty-mile journey back to Austin.

“Bev,” she began slowly, “do you remember that English literature class we took in our sophomore year? I think it was called Late Victorian Poetry, something like that?”

Beverly didn’t appear to hear the question. She was gazing out the side window at the neon signs and lighted storefronts that lined the highway for miles on the way into Austin.

“Bev?” Amanda repeated, wondering why this whole question suddenly seemed so important.

“Hmm?” Beverly asked, turning to look over at her friend. “What were you saying, Mandy? Something about college?”

“Our sophomore-year English class,” Amanda repeated patiently. “Do you remember it?”

Beverly chuckled. “Who could forget? Old Professor Starcross, with all that awful hair in his ears and the same mustard stain on his tie for the entire term—what a scream.”

“Do you remember any of the poetry we studied?”

Beverly opened the glove compartment, rummaging idly for a pack of mints. “I certainly remember the Brownings,” she said, popping a mint into her mouth and passing another to her friend. “Robert and Elizabeth, who could ever forget them? Wasn’t that just the most romantic thing you ever heard of, Mandy, the way they fell in love just by writing letters to each other and then he went sweeping into her house, gathered her into his arms and carried her away, right under the nose of her awful old father?”

Beverly sighed, lost in the pleasure of the story.

Amanda grinned fondly. “Beverly Townsend, you’re an incurable romantic, you know that? As a matter of fact,” she added more seriously, “I was interested in one of Browning’s poems, not his personal life. I wondered if you might recall it, Bev. It’s called ‘Andrea del Sarto.’”

Beverly frowned, searching her memory while she munched thoughtfully on the mint. Despite her flippant manner, Beverly had a quick mind and an impressive memory. Amanda was confident she would be able to recall at least something of the poem in question.

“I’ve got it,” Beverly announced finally. “Actually there’s two poems, kind of similar, and I always get them mixed up. The other one’s called ‘My Last Duchess.’ But the Del Sarto one, it’s about an artist, talking to his wife.”

“And it ends with the line, ‘Again the Cousin’s whistle. Go, my Love.’ Right?”

“Right,” Beverly agreed. “I always thought that was just about the saddest line in the English language. Tore my heart out, every time I read it.”

Amanda felt a brief chill that touched her body with icy fingers, almost making her shiver. “Why?” she asked, keeping her voice light. “You know, I don’t really recall the poem at all, except for the title and that one line.”

“Well, it’s this artist talking to his wife,” Beverly began cozily, resting against the door and turning to look at her friend, her blue eyes alight with interest. “She’s a whole lot younger than he is, you see, and she’s really beautiful and shallow. Completely selfish. He only married her because he was obsessed by her looks, and both of them know it. And in the poem, he’s begging her to just sit with him for a while and watch the sunset, but she can’t wait to be off with her friends or a boyfriend or whatever.”

“Doesn’t she love him?”

“Not a bit. She’s probably not even capable of love. That’s what he’s saying in the poem, ever so gently. He’s not really complaining about her, just saying how different their lives could have been, what a great painter he could have been and how much happiness they could have had if only she’d had enough depth to care for him a little and give him even the tiniest bit of support.”

“But she’s just too shallow and superficial,” Amanda said grimly. “Too interested in herself and her own looks and nothing else.”

“Absolutely,” Beverly agreed, missing the sudden edge in her friend’s voice. “Mostly, she’s just wishing the boring old guy will quit talking so she can take off and do what she wants.”

Amanda nodded thoughtfully.

“And the last line,” Beverly went on, “is because she’s itching to get away from him, you know, and be off about her own entertainment, leaving him sitting all alone in the sunset. Just to keep the peace, they’re pretending she’s going out with her cousin, but both of them know it’s not true. So he talks a little more about how he feels, all that he’s given up for her and how he feels it’s been worth it, just to have the privilege of looking on her beauty sometimes, even though most of his life is terribly sad and lonely. And then, finally, he sees that she’s anxious to be gone so he just says that line, ever so gently, the one about her cousin, and lets her go.”

Amanda shivered again. Was that the opinion Brock had formed of her after just a few minutes’ conversation? Did he really see her as a woman who was all show and no substance? A woman so shallow and self-absorbed that she would give a man a life of lonely pain and emptiness?

Her hands tightened on the wheel and she negotiated a corner a little too fast, slamming on the brakes and sending a sheet of water slashing past the roof of the car. She righted the vehicle just in time to merge unsteadily back into the flow of traffic.

“Wow!” Beverly commented admiringly. “Not bad, Mandy. Since when did you get so reckless?”

Amanda ignored the question, still absorbing the subtle insult of Brock Munroe’s final words to her.

“Bev, what do you know about Brock Munroe?” she asked abruptly. “The tall dark-haired man who was Vernon’s best man at the wedding?”

Beverly chuckled. “You don’t have to describe Brock to me, Mandy. I’ve known him all my life. In fact,” she added cheerfully, “when I was about six and he was sixteen, he rescued me from drowning when we were at a community swimming party down at the river. Actually jumped into a whirlpool, dragged me out coughing and spitting like a drowned rat. Afterward, my parents found out he couldn’t swim a stroke himself, he just sort of acted on instinct. I had a terrible crush on him for about five years after that.”

“But what’s he like, Bev? What kind of family does he have?”

“Poor Brock, he doesn’t have a family. Never did, not to speak of. His mama died when he was just young, and his daddy was such a bad apple that Brock did most of the parenting. When he was just a teenager he worked like a man, ran the whole ranch, they say, while his daddy was off drinking and playing cards.”

Amanda thought again of the clear steady dark eyes, the quiet uncompromising look of the man.

“So,” she began slowly, “he has no formal education at all?”

“No,” Beverly said cheerfully. “A high school diploma, I guess, and that’s about it. Poor Brock, he’s always just been a hardworking rancher, as long as I can remember.”

“Is he married?”

Beverly shook her head. “Never has been. Women chase after him all the time, and he sure doesn’t mind their company, but Brock Munroe just doesn’t seem to be the marryin’ kind, if you know what I mean. As far as I can recall, he’s never even gotten really serious about anyone.”

“But when he does get serious about someone, what will she be like, do you think?”

Beverly shrugged. “Who knows? Likely she’ll be some nice wholesome ranch girl who can brand a steer and string a fence line, and raise him up a whole brood of curly-haired little kids.”

Amanda was silent, absorbing this image, wondering at her sudden wistfulness and the new thrust of pain that stabbed at her. It was, in fact, quite similar to the pain she experienced when she thought of Edward with his young model. And yet this pain had a different quality about it, something more subtle and hurtful….

“Why?” Beverly asked, rummaging busily in the glove compartment again. “You know, I thought I had some peanuts in here,” she complained. “I’m sure I…oh, good, here they are. Why all the interest in Brock Munroe?” she added casually, opening the plastic container and pouring a mound of salty nuts onto her palm. “Care for some nuts, Mandy?”

Amanda shook her head in disbelief. “Beverly Townsend, I swear I don’t know why you don’t weigh two hundred pounds. I’m not interested in Brock Munroe,” she added just as casually. “We just got involved in kind of a weird conversation, that’s all, and I was really grateful when you rescued me. Guess who else I talked to?” she added brightly, changing her mind and taking several peanuts from Beverly’s outstretched hand.

“Who? I thought you didn’t talk to anybody. I was sure you just stood alone in that damned corner all night long.”

“I talked to Mary Gibson. And guess what, Bev? She wants to look at some clothes!”

“That’s great,” Beverly said, “but I don’t think Mary can afford designer clothes.”

“She can’t,” Amanda said, and launched into her fabrication about the ill client.

For the rest of the trip, missing boyfriends, disturbing poetry, fears and loneliness were all forgotten as the two young women planned the transformation of Mary Gibson.

THEY WERE so beautiful, the ostriches in Mary Gibson’s dream. There were always three of them, two females and a big arrogant male, their huge obsidian eyes wise and gentle, their iridescent feathers glittering like rainbows in the hot desert sun. The birds ran and circled Mary, who sat mesmerized by their lofty grace. Then, gradually, the big male began to drift closer and closer to her, his powerful legs churning slowly, his long neck outstretched in invitation.

In the wondering, slow motion of dreams, he finally knelt and allowed Mary to climb on his back, and then they were off, skimming over the desert sands while she clung to his warm feathers, riding the wind and feeling the sun-warmed sand go flashing past in dizzying cartwheels of light. She was so happy in the dream, free of pain and loneliness, free of everything in the world, ears singing, heart pounding with a wild fierce exultation….

Gradually consciousness replaced the dream. Pain flowed in, the old dull ache that was now so much a part of Mary Gibson’s life. The ostriches faded, pushed aside by memories of the party at the Double C.

Mary moaned and rolled over in bed, pulling the pillow over her head, trying to shut out the images of her neighbors’ pitying faces and tactfully averted glances, of Billie Jo Dumont’s smug grin and lush swaying hips. Worst of all was the memory of Mary herself, actually agreeing to look at clothes with that glamorous television lady…

“God help me, I must be crazy,” Mary whispered aloud into the muffling depths of the pillow. “What on earth could I have been thinking about? What do I need stylish clothes for?”

She rolled over again, and lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about Amanda Walker’s dark classic beauty and her calm sweet air.

Mary admired women who managed to look perfect on all occasions. Mary herself always felt, even when she did dress up, that there was something not quite right, something hanging or bunching or fitted wrong, something smeared or rumpled or clashing with something else.

Of course, she thought, moving restlessly in the wide lonely bed and gazing up at the ceiling, she’d never had much chance to learn how to dress and make herself up. She’d been married at nineteen, and life had been such a struggle in those early years that there was no money for a young ranch wife to think about getting herself rigged up fashionably.

Still, she and Al had been so happy in those days. They spent their time working and building, laughing together in the sunshine, playing with their little girl….

Tears stung in Mary’s eyes and burned hotly against her cheeks. She snatched a tissue from the bedside table and dabbed at her face impatiently, disgusted with herself. “I’ve done enough crying,” she muttered aloud, a habit she’d acquired since the dreadful day when they’d taken Al away. “I’m not going to cry anymore, dammit.”

But it was hard not to cry when she remembered all the pain and confusion. Thirty-five years of marriage, Mary thought bleakly. All those years of planning and building and loving and caring, washed away in a single moment by a car swallowed up in the dust.

She hadn’t been to the jail to visit him, and she didn’t know if she ever wanted to, though she’d gotten a couple of letters from him begging her to come, telling her that they needed to discuss urgent business about the ranch.

“Can you imagine Bubba Gibson sitting in prison?” the neighbors were whispering to one another. “Bubba Gibson, locked away in some little ol’ jail cell, with nothing to look at but four walls?”

And Mary tried sometimes, but she just couldn’t. When she pictured her husband he was always outdoors somewhere, striding across the sun-warmed grass in big booted feet or riding out among his cattle herd, casting a fishing line into the river or standing on a hillside in the sunset with the autumn wind riffling his hair.

He deserves every single thing that’s happened to him, Mary thought defensively. He brought it all on himself, and now he’s paying, just like he should.

At least he recognized that, she reflected morosely. He’d refused J.T.’s offer to bail him out, saying he deserved his punishment and he’d take it like a man. Or so J.T. had told her later. But Martin had insisted on ensuring he’d gotten a speedy trial, with the eligibility of parole for good behaviour, especially in light of the fact he’d testified against that horrible man who actually made it his business to murder innocent animals.