As she headed to her bedroom, she felt as though each foot weighed a thousand pounds. William, William, William, her brain kept echoing. He seemed to be all she could think of, yet he was forbidden. He was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. “And we know what happened there,” she said out loud as she opened the door.
As soon as she turned on the light, she knew that something was wrong. At first she didn’t know what it was and for a moment she stood in the doorway looking at the room. It was exactly as she’d left it; she could see nothing different, much less wrong. It was the same in the kitchen, everything as she’d left it.
Suddenly she realized that that was what was wrong: nothing was different. In only a short time she had grown used to William’s orderliness, the way he put everything away—maybe he put things in the wrong place, but at least they were out of sight. But tonight nothing had been put away. On the kitchen countertops was evidence that William had prepared himself a meal, but the dirty dishes were still in the sink, not even soaking in soapy water. On impulse, she opened the refrigerator door, and instead of the orderliness she usually saw, the contents were in chaos. It looked as though a drunken two-year-old had gone on an Easter egg hunt in the icebox.
She didn’t know why the disorder in the refrigerator should depress her, but it did. Maybe she should have felt better at this evidence that William was upset at her going on a date with another man, but somehow this made her feel worse. Maybe “hopeless” was the right word. “Jackie,” she said aloud, “you are hopeless. You just met a perfect man who liked you and you’re depressed because your business partner didn’t clean up the kitchen.”
Despondently she walked through the dark house toward the bedroom. She knew that this was her chance to end things between her and William. In the morning she should tell him that she’d had a marvelous time with a marvelous man and she was very much interested in a future with him. What was that French word? “Insouciance.” Yes, she should deliver her story about tonight with insouciance.
But instead of playing the lady who doesn’t care, the second she entered the bedroom she flung herself on the bed, the down comforter practically hugging her as she burst into tears. How could her life have taken this terrible turn? Why did she think about William all the time? Tonight there hadn’t been a minute when she wasn’t wondering what he was doing, what he was thinking. She had compared that nice Mr. Browne to William in everything he did and said.
When she felt a strong male hand on her head, a hand that could only belong to William, she wasn’t surprised at his presence. Wasn’t he always there when she needed him? If her plane crashed into a rock, he was there to save her. If she cut her hand, he stopped the blood. And before, if she and her husband had needed money, William was the one who knew what was wrong and anonymously helped them.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
With her face buried in the coverlet, she shook her head. No, she didn’t want to tell him, if for no other reason than because she herself didn’t know what the real problem was.
It seemed quite natural when William pulled her into his arms. He was leaning against the headboard, his long legs stretched out on the bed, as he pulled her across him, her head on his broad chest.
“Drink this,” he said, holding a snifter of brandy to her lips, and when she’d taken several deep swallows, he put the glass on the bedside table. “Now tell me what’s making you cry.”
“I can’t tell you,” she wailed.
“Then who can you tell if not me?”
He was, of course, unfortunately right. She couldn’t tell Terri because Terri couldn’t know about William. William was a secret. But William was her friend, had been her friend for as long as she could remember.
“How was your…date?” he asked, a catch in his voice.
With her head against his heart, Jackie could feel the emotion inside him. Now she should tell him in elaborate detail about tonight. She should stop William—and herself—from thinking there could ever be anything between them. “It was perfect,” she said. “He was perfect.” The words were at odds with her tone of voice, which said that “perfect” meant “horrible.” The tears started to flow with renewed vigor.
“Oh, William,” she said, clinging to him, tears wetting his shirt, “I know what I should do. I should marry some man like Edward Browne. He’s perfect for me. He’s the right age, the right background. He’s even the right size for me. Everything is perfect. He’s lonely; I’m lonely. We’re a match made in heaven.”
William handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose loudly. “He was such a nice man and I was awful to him. I took everything he said the wrong way. He…he called me a mature woman.”
“That shows that he knows nothing about you,” William said with heavy sarcasm.
Jackie sniffed. “He didn’t know anything about me. He wanted me to tell him stories about my exciting life. He made me sound like a lady explorer showing slides of the natives.”
Tears started up again. “But he was so very nice. Why was I so awful to him? And why don’t I ever do what’s good for me? Why don’t I do what I should do?”
“Why aren’t you in love with this man if he’s so perfect?” William’s words were calm, but with her face against his chest, she could feel his heart racing, feel the tension in his body as he talked of something that meant so much to him.
?
?Because he’s so…so old,” Jackie blurted. “He’s no fun! Not like you are. You make me laugh. You make me—”
She broke off to look up at him. “Why are you smiling?” She couldn’t help feeling betrayed by that smile. “I’m pouring my heart out to you, and you’re laughing?”
“Jackie my love,” he said slowly, pulling her even closer. “Only you would think of me as fun. No other girl in the world has ever accused me of being fun. Many times I’ve been in a group that wanted to do something I considered stupid or dangerous, and when I said no, they’ve called me an old man.”
“Kids!” Jackie said in derision.
At that, he chuckled, his hands caressing her upper arm. “You know what I love about you, Jackie?”
“Nothing about me is lovable,” she said heavily. “I’m an idiot.”
He ignored that statement. “One, just one of the things that I love about you, is that when you were a child you were an adult, and now that you’re an adult you’re a child. I think that when you were born you were about twenty-five years old and you’ve never changed. And probably never will.”