After the Fire (34 page)

But last night Will had called to say that he was coming home on the “red-eye,” and she had been gloriously excited. At work in the perfect little kitchen, she had had fantasies of a house and a dining room with all her beloved faces around the table, his at the head. Then, as the clock moved toward the hour when he would walk in, she had been shaken by panic, really physically shaken. This time, surely, he was going to pin her down to specifics. Something told her that this was to be the night for really serious talk. It had been postponed until the hectic showings were over, and until his return from California, but now it was here.

Under the concealing napkin, her hands were actually knotted together, the gold ring digging into her palm.

“That last showing was a triumph, I hear. I wanted to get back for it, but there was a lot of last-minute delay, too much red tape.” He broke off. “I missed you terribly, so terribly that it hurt.”

“I know,” she said weakly, with her eyes on the corner chair: navy blue with scattered snowflakes in two clusters, skip a space, and there were two more clusters.

“I want marriage, Hyacinth. I want you to say when.”

Foolish words escaped her. “Don't we need to know each other a little better, Mr. Miller?”

He stared at her. “Don't be absurd. Don't be coy, for God's sake. Don't tease me.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.”

“Well, then?”

“You know I love you, Will. But we have to—to plan. My children—this apartment—it's not all that simple. I can't rush.” With every intention to sound natural, she heard her voice pleading. “We've been so happy this summer, so can't we go on for a while until—”

“No. I don't understand what you mean by ‘not all that simple.’ There's room enough for the children and me in here until we can find a larger place. I'll find one. Give me a couple of weeks, that's all. You wanted to be fairly near their school, I know, and I'll keep that in mind. Where do they go now?”

She sighed. “I may be changing their school, and that's another complication.”

“These complications are of your own making, Hyacinth. I think I know what it is. You're having a vision of the first time, all the wedding fears that turned out so
badly in the end, and the thought of another wedding depresses you. It's affected your nerves. Isn't that so?”

For a full minute, Will sat still. Aware of his eyes upon her, she cast hers down and fiddled with a water glass.

“I know you love me, Hyacinth. Then trust me. Just close your eyes and jump. We'll make a small, quick affair of it. City Hall, if you want. Ten minutes and over. Painless. Nothing to it.”

“Then what's the difference? We can go into that room right now, and it will still be wonderful without any—”

“No.”

By now she was well enough accustomed to that decisive
no
to see without looking at him exactly how his mouth had closed upon his even teeth, upon the word and upon the subject.

“I want to marry you, not only live with you. I'm not as modern as I've liked to think I was. I've had enough temporary stuff. I'm ready for something public and permanent, ready for a child of my own. I'm ready for your children, too. You need have no worries about that. That bothers you a bit, doesn't it? But I want to love them because they are yours. When am I going to see them?”

“Soon.”

“You should be getting them back after Labor Day, I suppose.”

“They're with my mother. I'm going up there tomorrow to spend a few days.”

“Then I'll wait till you come back to go over all our details.”

He stood up and, pulling her to himself, held her close to kiss her hands, her arms, her throat, and her mouth.

If only we were alone on that beach in Brittany, she thought while he held her, with the tide racing and the mind racing and nothing to think about, nothing….

“I'll take care of everything, Hyacinth. Leave it to me. Now undo these buttons of yours. I can't seem to manage—”

The buzzer sounded.

“Dammit!” he cried. “Who's that?”

“I can't imagine,” she said, and then heard from the lobby that it was Arnie, already on the way up. A moment later there came a knock on the door.

“Open up, celebrity, it's me, Arnie. Remember me? Don't look scared,” he said as he stepped in. “Everything's fine. I'm here on a quick two-day trip to see a guy in this neighborhood, so I thought I'd take a chance on finding you in.”

He had never done anything like this. And with the merest touch of coolness, she said, “You scared me. I wasn't expecting anybody. Will Miller, Dr. Arnold Ritter.”

The two men made the usual acknowledgments, and there remained nothing to do but sit down and say something.

Hyacinth began. “We've just had dinner. Can I get you anything? A piece of pie?”

“Thanks, no. Just ate with this guy. But you had a good dinner, I know that,” Arnie said, addressing Will. “This lady can feed a man. Many's the good meal I've had at her table.”

Will said something, but Hyacinth was in such turmoil that she barely heard what it was. Every nerve in her body was electrified, ready to spark. What to do if Arnie should say the wrong thing about the status of Jerry and Emma? When the time came to tell Will, she, not Arnie, must be the one to do it. She ought to have told him before this. But she had been dreading it so, dreading the questions that would follow.

“I thought at least I could cool off coming up north,” Arnie said. “But it's as hot as Florida.”

“I've just come in from California. They seem to have escaped the heat there this summer. Weather's always a gamble, you never know.”

Weather, thought Hyacinth, is always a safe subject when the air is filled with tension. And she said inanely, “Come January, with ice in the streets, we'll remember this and wish it back.”

The men agreed. And Hyacinth was saying silently,
Arnie, why don't you just get up and go,
when suddenly he drew an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“Have a look at these,” he said with a broad smile. “I took them last week at the gymkhana. Emma's taken to horses like a duck to water.”

There they were, side by side in their fine habits on their fine mounts, looking like children in some glossy magazine. Her babies.

“Matter of fact, I think Emma's going to outdo her brother. Wait till you see,” he added, sounding like a proud father.

There was nothing to do but hand the photos to Will.
He took rather a long time over them and then, returning them, remarked that he also had some pictures in his pocket.

“I meant to give them to you before this, but I took them to California by mistake.”

And there
they
were, Will and Hyacinth, in Paris with the obelisk in the background, in Deauville, in Brittany, in front of the Louvre, in a garden, and in front of a pond with swans in the background. Wearing her usual jeans and top, she stood with her hair blown like a ribbon in the wind. In the dress with the lace sleeves, she was elegant. And finally she was on the beach wearing the bikini that Will had bought because she had not packed a swimsuit. In every scene was Will with his arm around her, making them unmistakably a couple, no casual friends on a genial outing, but a couple.

“Let's see,” said Arnie, reaching his arm out. Slowly he flipped through the collection and handed it back, remarking pleasantly that it looked as if they had been having a grand time over there.

“It was a business trip,” Hyacinth explained. “Lina wanted me to look at French fabrics, and Will's firm has bought Lina's, so we're all one now.”

She knew each of these two men so well that she had no doubt what each was thinking. Will, of course, was annoyed at this intrusion on their night, and Arnie was simply jealous. With a touch of wonderment, she reflected that this was her first experience of being in a room together with two men, both of whom desired her.

Will broke the uncomfortable pause. “Do you live all year round in Florida, Dr. Ritter?”

“Oh yes, I'm well settled. I'm in practice there. Surgery.”

“Then you're a native, the real thing,” Will said pleasantly.

Arnie laughed. “Nobody's a native there. No, I just gave up my practice in Hyacinth's town a few years ago. Her former town, I should say. That's how we met. We're old friends by now.”

“That's how we met, too. My family had a store there, R. J. Miller, on the square.”

“That right? Used to buy my stuff there all the time, ties, sweaters, and things. You had nice merchandise. You still there?”

“No, we sold out. They've torn our place down to put up a ten-story office building. The town's growing fast. When I think of what my great-grandfather paid for the land a hundred years ago and what we got for it—it's unbelievable.”

Now that they've got onto a subject, Hyacinth was thinking, Arnie will never leave.

“I know what you mean. I built my office, let's see, it's seventeen years ago, and the difference in cost is also unbelievable. I had a beautiful little white building, a fortune's worth of limestone, not big, just two stories, but the location couldn't be beat. It was just three blocks off the square.”

“That wasn't the office that burned down, was it?”

“Yeah, that's it.”

Arnie's glance passed over Hyacinth. The glance was neutral. Then he coughed.

Perhaps three seconds, no more, went by before Will
sociably continued the conversation. “I was in a rush that day and got into town not long after dawn, so I passed through all the excitement. It was still blazing. Terrifying, with the hook and ladder, the broken glass, the crowds, the flames and the smoke, a war zone. Fire and human flesh—it's an age-old terror.”

“Sure is,” Arnie said. “Pretty tough.”

As always, when she was in distress, Hyacinth's hands clenched together in her lap. Now, willing herself to appear relaxed, she placed her hands on the arms of the chair.

“I heard talk that it might have been arson,” Will added.

Arnie shrugged. “There's always talk,” he replied.

Will, agreeing to that, went on to explain his interest in the subject. “We had some big trouble like it in one of our stores about twenty years ago. I remember all the talk every night at the dinner table. They did a lot of investigating. I guess everybody but the FBI must have been called in, and finally they narrowed it down to an employee who, after first denying anything, finally admitted that he had been smoking and must have been careless. My father never believed him, though. The fellow had a grievance against the company, and everybody knew about it. He had a clear motive.”

“So what happened?” asked Arnie, showing interest.

“I don't recall the details because I went away to college about that time, but I know they got him and he served a couple of years.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Arnie asked.

“No, fortunately nobody was, though it's a miracle. The place was an inferno.”

“He would have served a hell of a lot more if anybody had died in it,” Arnie said. “That's a felony-murder, probably second degree.”

Hyacinth did not look at him. Why is he prolonging this conversation? Why is he doing this to me? He could easily turn it to something else, like real estate values or where Will had gone to college.

“It makes you wonder, doesn't it,” Will said, “how anybody can let a grievance turn into such rage. It makes you wonder about people, about whom you can ever trust. He looked so innocent, my father said, the kind you never suspect.”

This was unbearable. Her very heart and soul were exposed. She might as well have been sitting here naked between these men. And hoping that her face was not as bloody red as it felt, Hyacinth rose and moved to the television set, observing that it was time for the eleven o'clock news.

Arnie jumped up. “Eleven already? I've got some day tomorrow, enough to break your back. So I'm going to run along, Hy. I'll be in touch. Say, Will—don't mind if I call you that, I hope—we can share a cab. It's tough getting one in this neighborhood this time of night, and we're lucky if we find one, let alone two.”

Now there was nothing to do but see them both to the door. How adroitly Arnie had pried Will loose! But it was just as well, for she was now in no condition for the night of love that had just begun when Arnie had intruded.

“It makes you wonder about people, about whom you can trust.”

What shall I tell him? He will want to know why, for all this time, I have hidden the truth. At the very least, he will doubt me. At most, he will despise me. I would, if I were he.

In an odd way, she saw herself stunned and mentally immobilized by terror. She walked the length of the living room and back. Back and forth. Midnight struck, and she lay down, hot and cold by turns, and too paralyzed to weep. The night passed.

The telephone rang twice in the morning, the first call being Will's.

“Your friend threw some cold water on us last night, didn't he?”

“I should say so. Funny, he's never visited without calling first.”

“Tell me about him. He's what you call a character, isn't he?”

She knew by Will's voice that he was displeased, which surprised her, because he seldom allowed things to displease him seriously.

“There's nothing much to tell. He's never had children, and he's one of those people who should have them, so he's been very attached to mine when—when they're in Florida. He's horse crazy, and he's made them horse crazy, too, which is very healthy for them.” She was babbling too much. “So that's about all,” she concluded.

“He's jealous, Hy. He didn't enjoy those pictures of us
in France and he showed it, as if he didn't give a damn whether he offended you or me. Especially me.”

“No, no. Arnie's not interested in me. I'm nothing to him. He's got women all over the country, pop singers, starlets, gold shoes in the daytime, piles of makeup, glamour types. Not me.”

“I don't agree. A man sees other men more clearly than a woman ever can. He wants you, Hyacinth, and if he were your type, I'd have reason to be jealous. But since he's so obviously not your type, God bless him and good riddance to him even though he interrupted our fun last night.”

“I know, but he really is a good sort.”