The next morning dawned cool and gray. Dena, who had fallen asleep around five, felt exhausted as she walked up the stone pathway to La Petite Auberge, thinking about the next step in her life. She needed a plan. Her car and her belongings were still out at the Riley farm. At breakfast Ron and Jennifer had offered to go out there to get her things this afternoon and, despite the fact that it felt precipitous, and she felt as if she wasn’t ready for it, she knew in her head that there was no reason to wait. ‘Then, it’s settled,’ Ron had said as he dropped her off at work, and she realized, with a heavy heart, that indeed, it was.
As she rounded the vine-covered trellis that shielded the entrance, she saw a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. ‘Dena,’ a voice said urgently.
Dena whirled, stifling a cry, and stared. Brian’s face seemed to float in the shadows. His eyes were red and surrounded by dark circles, as if he had not slept either. And what a hangover you must have, Dena thought, without an ounce of pity. In his left hand he held a bouquet of red roses tied in a magenta ribbon, which he thrust toward her. Dena shook her head, refusing them.
‘I don’t want them. What are you doing here?’ She could hear the tremor in her voice and she willed herself to control it.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please. I’ve been waiting. Your boss said I could wait out here,’ he explained, indicating a rush-seated Normandy bench beside the trellis. ‘I told him we had a misunderstanding …’
A misunderstanding, she thought? I understood it perfectly. ‘Did you tell him you hit me?’ she demanded.
Brian averted his gaze, and pursed his lips. For a minute she thought he was going to erupt again, but instead he said nothing.
‘I doubt he would have been so agreeable if you told him that.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he muttered. ‘I was … I had too much to drink.’
Dena just shook her head.
‘Haven’t you ever made a mistake?’ he asked.
Dena felt a cold, rueful determination in the pit of her stomach that refused to be guilt-tripped over this. ‘The cops said they were going to arrest you,’ she said coldly.
‘They brought me down to the station,’ he admitted. ‘They didn’t keep me, though.’
Dena didn’t know whether to be indignant or relieved. She didn’t want to get involved in some kind of court battle. But still, they had said they would prosecute him whether she pressed charges or not. ‘What did you tell them – that it was my fault?’ she asked.
This time she saw a definite flash of anger in his eyes, and it made her courage waver. But his words were conciliatory. ‘I didn’t come here to argue,’ he said. ‘I want you to come home.’
‘That’s not my home,’ she said.
‘Not that house, no,’ he admitted. ‘That’s just a place we’re staying, temporarily. I mean, I want you to come back to me. We have a baby coming. We need to be together.’
‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said grimly.
‘And where is that?’ he demanded. ‘I tried to find you last night. I looked everywhere I could think of.’
‘You might as well know. I’m not going to hide from you. I’m staying with Jennifer and her husband. The people from the Lamaze class. And don’t pretend you don’t know her. I can tell she knows a lot about you.’
His expression, vaguely wheedling and apologetic, suddenly changed. His eyes became hard. ‘What lies has she told you?’ he said.
Dena did not reply.
‘I want to know what she said,’ he demanded, shouting.
Dena turned on him angrily. ‘Stop that,’ she said. ‘Stop shouting. She said you have a bad reputation with women and you certainly deserve it.’
‘I don’t want you listening to her lies,’ he said. ‘She’s a harpy. She’s evil and she’s bent on ruining me.’
‘Oh God,’ said Dena disgustedly. ‘I don’t know why I’m even talking to you.’ Her disgust seemed to bring him up short. Immediately, he was contrite.
‘Because you love me. Dena, I was out of my mind last night. I don’t know why I acted like such a maniac, but all I can say is, I was wrong. I’ve been stressed out and I did the wrong thing. I’m pleading with you to forget what I did. Remember how much I love you. I need to be with you. We need to be together. You’ve got to believe me, baby. Please …’
His words filled her with a queasy distress. In a way, his pleading was flattering. A while ago, she would have been grateful for it. But after last night … ‘I can’t forget what happened,’ she said.
‘Oh baby,’ he said softly, and she was shocked to see tears welling in his eyes. ‘I’ll make it up to you. I promise you. It will never happen again. I’m not going to drink any more. I decided that last night. And I’ll never, never do that to you again. I’m not asking you to forget it. Just forgive me and we’ll start over.’
Forgiveness, she thought. It was what you were supposed to do. The Christian thing. The right thing. A person was supposed to be allowed to make a mistake. One mistake.
‘Please, baby,’ he whispered, and he began to come toward her in that way he did when he wanted to make love to her. That look of need in his eyes always melted her, and she could feel it now, licking at her, like a flame. She felt as if her head was full of conflicting voices – her mother, warning her never to be with a man who hit her; Jennifer, so indignant on her behalf; her own deep determination to give him up. But against it all was Brian’s face, now tear-stained, his eyes pleading and promising. And there was the baby. Without Brian, it would have no father. It would grow up just like she did, wishing for her dad.
She couldn’t hear her own thoughts this way, with his sad eyes entreating her.
She had to have some room to think. ‘I can’t talk about this now, Brian. I have to go in,’ she said.
‘No, baby, don’t go,’ he said, reaching out and grabbing her arm.
His hand clamped around her upper arm, riveting her like an electric shock. In that instant, it all came back to her. She saw herself, trapped in the bedroom, his hand raised against her. Oh no, she thought hopelessly. There was no going back. She remembered why she had decided against him.
‘Let me go,’ she said through clenched teeth. She tried to shake her arm free but he tightened his grip.
‘Dena, what can I do to convince you?’
‘You can let go of her right now,’ said an angry voice. Dena turned, and blushed, as Peter Ward strode up to where they were standing.
‘Stay out of this,’ said Brian in a menacing voice.
Peter stared at the bruise on Dena’s face. ‘Did he do this?’ he asked. He turned on Brian. ‘You son of a bitch.’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ said Dena. ‘Brian, let me go. I have to go to work.’
Still glaring at Peter, Brian released her arm. She wanted to rub it, but she didn’t. She didn’t want Peter to see that Brian’s grip had hurt her. She didn’t want to make it seem that she was choosing Peter over him. Brian extended the roses to her once again, and this time, she took them without a word. She didn’t want to get into an argument over the flowers. She didn’t want to get into an argument at all. Her mind was made up. Soon enough, he would have to realize it.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Brian said. Clearly, he hoped he had convinced her. Peter watched him go with narrowed eyes.
Dena turned away from both of them and went into the darkened foyer of the restaurant. Not wanting Peter to follow her, she went directly to the ladies’ room. The lovely anteroom had a comfortable chair, a gilded vanity and a pale green wooden wastebasket with a decoupage of pink roses on the side. How appropriate, she thought, and she dumped the bouquet, blossoms down, into the basket. She went through to the lavatory, and ran some cold water in the ivory porcelain sink. Cupping her hands under the stream of water, she patted it on her face, examining the discolored bruise on her face that was her souvenir. She patted her face dry gingerly and then went out into the anteroom and sat down in the comfortable, toile-covered bergère chair in the corner, resting her head back against the carved wood of the frame. She stayed that way for about ten minutes, until Nanette, the youngest sous-chef in the kitchen, came through the door, and started at the sight of her there.
‘Oh hi,’ said Nanette. ‘René is looking for you.’
‘I was just resting,’ said Dena faintly.
Nanette looked sympathetically at Dena’s protruding belly. Just then Nanette noticed the stems of the roses sticking out of the wastebasket. Dena saw her flirt with the temptation to pull them out, but then she looked knowingly at Dena. ‘Wait for me,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk back with you.’
‘I was planning on it,’ said Dena.
When they emerged from the ladies’ room, talking to one another, Dena noticed Peter seated at the keyboard, studying some sheet music. He did not look up as they walked by, and Dena exhaled with relief. She didn’t want to talk about it with Peter, or anyone else. She just wanted to get to work and be left alone.
Vanessa Pittinger sneezed, and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her flannel shirt. Wrangler, the horse she was currying, turned his head and whinnied softly, as if to say, Gesundheit. Vanessa smiled, and laid her face briefly against his shining, walnut-colored neck. ‘What a good boy you are,’ she murmured softly. Every day, after she got off the bus from middle school, Vanessa changed into her barn clothes and ran the short distance from her huge house in Thornfield Crossing, to the Riley farm.
Vanessa’s parents had built the house four years ago, when Vanessa was ten, and everybody who saw it always carried on about how fabulous it was. But Vanessa hated being alone there after school. The rooms were huge and seemed silent. The wall-to-wall carpeting throughout the house muted the sound, and there was never even the hum of a car passing outside to break the silence. Thornfield Crossing, an enclave of mansions built on the land which was once a truck farm sold to developers, was pretty much deserted during the day, and most people got home late from their big, important jobs, and never socialized. Everyone knew the identities of their neighbors, and how they made their money, but there was no getting together for supper or anything. At Christmas, they usually had a Thornfield Crossing cocktail party, which was just an excuse for the hosts to deck the halls better than anybody else’s house, and you had to dress up and eat gross food and be totally bored the entire time.
No, to Vanessa’s mind, the Riley farm, with its ramshackle little ranch house and gloomy stone barn, was a paradise. She loved all animals, but horses most of all. And even more than horses, she loved Brian Riley. Her parents knew how much she loved the horses but, so far, she’d managed to keep her crush on Brian a secret between her and her diary. Not that they were likely to care. Both of them worked killer hours at big jobs. They never even came over to the barn. Still, her mother was always saying how dangerous horseback riding was, and reminding her of Christopher Reeve. If I could be there when you were riding, her mother said, it might be different. But I don’t want you going over there and jumping on a horse anytime you feel like it when I can’t supervise. And whose fault is it, Vanessa thought dramatically, that her mother was never around to supervise? Vanessa sighed. For now, she had to settle for volunteering in the barn and being around the horses. And around Brian …
The office door banged open and seven sets of large, liquid equine eyes, as well as one set of curious, lovesick teenaged eyes, turned to look as Brian Riley appeared and began to haul a bucket of grain down the length of the cold cement floor of the barn.
Brian jostled the shining flank of Rajah, who was cross-tied between the stalls for grooming, and the stallion snorted and shook his huge head.
‘Vanessa,’ Brian barked. ‘Are you in here?’
‘I’m working on Wrangler,’ she called out in her light, girlish voice.
‘What is Rajah doing out here?’ Brian asked.
‘His owner came to ride him and wanted me to groom him. I told him I’d do it after I finished Wrangler. So I tied him up out there.’
‘Oh,’ Brian said gruffly. ‘Well, don’t take all day with Wrangler.’
Vanessa did not reply. Sometimes she felt so tongue-tied around him. There was something about him that reminded her of those guys in romance novels, like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. She loved it when he teased her, but other days he was gloomy and ignored her. It all depended on his mood. Today seemed to be a gloomy day. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he poured the grain into the stationary buckets in the hayracks. Then he went back and got the wheelbarrow down by the hay bales, and a large pitchfork. He wheeled the barrow down to Rajah’s stall and went inside, muttering to himself. He shoved the pitchfork under the closest pile of manure and lifted it, and the surrounding hay, into the wheelbarrow.
Vanessa finished with Wrangler, and then walked out to where Rajah was tied, patting his shining flanks as she gazed in at Brian, mucking the stalls. Brian looked up at her unexpectedly, and she blushed furiously. She had to get her mind back on her duties. She began to undo Rajah’s tack, wondering, as she did so, how anybody could be so lazy as to own a horse as beautiful as Rajah, take him out, and not even bother to put him up when they were done riding. Actually, she knew the woman who owned him. She lived in Thornfield Crossing. Figures, thought Vanessa disgustedly. As she was hauling Rajah’s saddle back to the tackroom, a man appeared in the doorway to the barn, looking lost. He had grayish hair and was wearing a suit and a trench coat. Really lost, Vanessa thought.
‘Can I help you?’ she said.
‘I’m looking for Brian Riley,’ the man said.
At the sound of his name, Brian came out of Rajah’s stall, still holding a pitchfork full of manure. The man saw him but didn’t smile or look pleased. ‘Brian, I’m Ron Hubbell,’ he said. ‘We met last night.’
‘What do you want?’ said Brian coldly.
‘I came to get Dena’s car and a couple of her things.’
Vanessa’s eyes widened. Where was Dena, she wondered. Despite the fact that Dena was Brian’s girlfriend, Vanessa kind of liked her, the little she knew of her. She seemed nice and she was going to have Brian’s baby any day now, even though they weren’t married. In a way, Vanessa looked at Dena in awe. How could she be around Brian all the time and not just faint at the sight of him? Talk to him about household things in a normal voice like her parents did, as if Brian was just an ordinary guy? In fact, Dena didn’t even seem particularly thrilled to be with him most of the time. And now, there was this strange new development. Vanessa tried to pretend she wasn’t listening.
Brian threw down the pitchfork and stalked over to where the man stood. He gave him a steely look, and then looked out at the driveway in front of the barn. ‘Is that her there, in your car?’
‘No,’ said Ron. ‘That’s Jennifer. She will drive Dena’s car back.’
‘This is Jennifer’s idea, isn’t it,’ said Brian.
‘Dena asked us to come,’ said Ron.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Brian. ‘I think you’ve got things a little confused.’
‘I didn’t come here to argue, Brian. Dena gave me the car keys, and told me what to get. I just don’t want to go into your house without your permission.’
‘Well, you don’t have my permission,’ said Brian angrily. ‘I know your wife is telling her all kinds of lies about her sister, trying to get Dena to leave me …’
Ron voice rose. ‘Look you … You’d better keep your mouth shut about my wife’s sister. If you know what’s good for you …’
‘Threats?’ Brian asked.
It took all of Ron’s will not to reply.
‘I’ve got news for you, buddy. Dena is coming back to me.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Ron, but his heart sank. This was what happened, all too often. Jennifer was so sure Dena was going to stay strong. She would be so upset.
‘I don’t care what you believe,’ Brian said. ‘That’s private. Personal. So why don’t the two of you butt out of our business?’
Ron nodded, as if he understood. ‘All right. If you won’t let me go into the house, I’ll leave her stuff here. I’m sure there’s nothing here she can’t do without.’
Brian jammed the pitchfork into a hay bale, and leaned his forehead against the handle. Then, with a great effort, he spoke more evenly. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t believe this right now, but what happened last night was just … an error in judgment.’
What happened last night, Vanessa wondered? She saw the other man’s face turn stony at Brian’s words. ‘I’m taking the car, now,’ he said. ‘If she wants to come back to you, she’ll have to drive herself.’
The man turned and left the barn without another word. Brian followed him out, and Vanessa tiptoed up to the door of the barn and peeked around it. The man in the trench coat spoke to someone in the passenger side of the Honda Accord. Then he opened the car door and a woman with long, coppery hair that caught the rays of sunset got out, took a set of keys from his hand, and climbed into Dena’s dark green Camry, looking furiously at Brian, and then slamming the car door.
For a minute, Vanessa thought Brian was going to grab the pitchfork and charge at them. He was glowering at them like an enraged bull. But when he turned away he looked tragic, as if he was going to break down crying. Vanessa’s heart seemed to swell up in her narrow chest, as if it was ready to burst. She wanted to go to him and comfort him. If Dena couldn’t appreciate what kind of a man she had, well, Vanessa could. She imagined touching that curly black hair, smoothing it, like you would a horse’s mane, and murmuring words of reassurance into the curve of his neck. She imagined his tears, falling on her hands, soft as rain, and she would gently, carefully wipe them away and say something that would make him start to smile again, and he would thank her, and look at her quizzically, as if he had never really seen her before.
The two cars rattled up the rutted driveway, sending up dust. Brian watched them go and then turned back toward the barn, kicking gravel with the toes of his worn old boots. Vanessa ducked back inside, and resumed currying Rajah, pretending not to have seen anything, trying to make herself invisible.