Falling for Rain (21 page)

The elevator shaft was in the centre of the apartment, which was in effect one large room surrounded by windows. Everything was designed not to interfere with the spectacular view. The bathroom backed up to the elevator shaft and was the only room with walls. The bedroom was divided off from the living room with only an antique folding screen. There was a kitchen area, its state-of-the-art appliances concealed within a centre island. The living room took half the floor space. It was sparsely but expensively furnished with antiques and eastern rugs. Emily turned on the gas fireplace and thought how pathetic it was after the log cabin’s massive stone one that burned real logs.

She went to the kitchen and chose a bottle of red wine from the rack on the island. She wasn’t particular about which one. She wasn’t concerned about taste, only alcohol content. She opened it and poured a glass. Finally, she took her coat off.

The answering machine was blinking, and she checked the display before listening to the messages. There were only three: one from Jonathon, one from Graham Richards – no doubt apologizing in advance for the noise from his party – and one from her office. No message from Rain. She wondered if he would try to call her. What would she do if he did?

She pressed the play button on the machine.
“Hello, baby.”
Jonathon sounded unbelievably cheerful.
“Just called to say welcome home.
Call me at work tomorrow, and we’ll go for a drink. Goodnight and sleep well.” She deleted the message. Graham Richards had called to invite her to his party, and the office was checking to see if she was back yet. She considered Graham’s invitation for a moment. She was going to need a lot of distractions if she was ever going to stop thinking about Rain, but ultimately she decided against going. Another glass of wine, a hot bath, and maybe she could fall asleep while watching a movie. She knew she had to eat even though the thought was nauseating and so made herself a bowl of tinned tomato soup with lots of milk and crackers. Comfort food, her mother had called it. It was true – it had solved most of childhood’s disappointments, but Emily suspected that the degree of comfort it brought had more to do with the person who prepared it than the food itself.

She unpacked her suitcase next, not looking at the photographs. She didn’t know if she’d ever look at them again. They brought so much pain. She placed them out of sight in the bottom drawer of her dresser. The clothes went in the hamper under her bed to be dry-cleaned later, and the teddy bear went on the bed.

She took her glass of wine into the marble bathroom and soaked in the luxurious Jacuzzi tub. When the water turned cold, she stepped out and dried herself with a thick towel. She put on her bathrobe and after closing the window blinds and turning off the fireplace, she dropped the bathrobe on the floor and slipped naked beneath the sheets. How hard and lonely it felt after Rain’s bed!

She used the remote to find a movie on the television. It seemed to her they were all love stories, and she didn’t think she could bear the inevitable happy ending. Finally she settled on a nature program about forest preservation, though even that reminded her of the farm. How was she ever going to forget how close she’d been to having real, lasting happiness?
Because that was what happened this week.
She had found happiness, and she had found love. Yes, it had turned out to be a lie. But for one very brief moment she’d been very, very happy.

She curled her body into a
fetal
position and, with the teddy bear clasped in her arms, willed herself to sleep. In her dreams, she was in the cemetery behind the Blue Church, kneeling at her mother’s grave. Snow was on the ground, and the scarlet roses she laid on the grave looked like blood against the whiteness. She knelt there for a long time crying, until it seemed that she heard her mother’s voice telling her to look up. She obeyed and slowly raised her eyes until they met those of a young deer on the other side of the fence. It was a doe, young and delicate with soft tan fur and white markings. With no fear in the big dark eyes, she looked at Emily with a gentle, trusting gaze. Oddly, the doe’s eyes were the same colour as Emily’s, a deep rich brown. They regarded each other for some moments, and Emily felt herself strangely comforted. “Hello, there,” she whispered.

At the sound of Emily’s voice, the doe lifted her head and sniffed the air delicately. With another glance at Emily, she turned and sprinted down the slope on strong but delicate legs, white tail lifted. Emily stood up and watched the doe as it crossed the creek in a single, effortless bound. Once on the other side, the doe stopped and looked back up the hill where Emily stood. Emily raised her hand in a slow wave as the young deer vanished for good among the trees.

* * *

The following day Rain stood outside Emily’s office building on Bay Street screwing up his courage to go inside. It was a busy building, and the revolving glass doors never stopped turning with the constant coming and going of well-dressed executives and office workers. Afraid he might be swept into the building with the flow of people, Rain crossed the sidewalk and leaned against a blue
Toronto Star
newspaper box.

He was dressed in his black leather jacket and inevitable blue jeans, a dynamic contrast to the sea of black suits around him. Two attractive women paused for a moment outside the doors, looking appreciatively at Rain. “My god,” one of them said. “Where are the movie cameras?” Absorbed as he was by his own thoughts, Rain was completely oblivious to their bold stares. He stared up at the building, as if in its mirror-like facade he could find some answer to his problems.

All night he had paced the floor of his cabin. A dozen times he had picked up the phone to call Emily at her apartment, and a dozen times he had put the phone down again. When it rang at nine o’clock, he had seized it, praying it was Emily, only to have it be his publisher, who asked him to come to Toronto the following day for a last-minute reading on the release date of the book. Rain agreed to do the event, seeing it instantly as an opportunity to see Emily. Surely if he could make her see how sorry he was, she’d forgive him. Now that he was here, standing on the street outside her office, he wasn’t so sure. He lowered his eyes from the building and sighed, knowing that the odds of her ever forgiving him were far from good.

An elderly man in a ragged coat and broken shoes stood only a few feet away. “What’s the trouble, lad?” the old man said. “Even I don’t
got
troubles big enough for a sigh like that.”

Rain took in the old man’s scruffy appearance and the two plastic carrier bags stuffed with dirty clothing. He smiled warmly at the man, thinking that the poor guy looked like he’d seen his share of trouble, and took a five dollar bill from his pocket.

“God bless you, lad,” said the man, his eyes as big as saucers as he took the bill.

“You’re welcome,” Rain said, starting toward the door of the building.

“I’ll pray the Lord will fix whatever is making those sighs,” the old man called after him.

“Thanks. I could use the help about now.” Rain called back as he stepped through the revolving doors.

He read the directory in the lobby, found the office number of Emily’s firm, and took the elevator to the twenty-first floor. He found the office without difficulty and let himself in. It was richly furnished with antiques, Middle Eastern carpets, and expensive-looking art. It came as a bit of a shock to Rain as the building was so modern.

A pretty woman with short blond hair and good-natured blue eyes looked up from a computer monitor. “May I help you?” she asked with a pleasant smile.

“Yes, I’m Ray Storm. Are you Lee?” Rain had phoned here often enough when Emily’s father was dying to feel he actually knew Lee, even though they had never met in person. Lee had been sympathetic to Rain’s entreaties for Emily to come home and had done some lobbying on his behalf. Not that it had helped.

Lee knew Emily had gone to see Ray about the farm, although she was unclear about the details. This was unusual as Lee usually knew everything there was to know about Emily’s architecture business – and as much as she could about Emily herself. Emily often told Lee to mind her own business, but she had to admit that Lee was invaluable to her.

Lee’s smile became even wider. “Yes, I’m Lee. It’s nice to meet you.” She stood up from her desk, walked over to Rain, and shook his hand warmly. She hadn’t known how fabulously good-looking he was. Emily had to be a fool to let this guy get away.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said sincerely. “Is Emily here?”

Lee hesitated. Emily’s first words on entering the office that morning were: “Good morning. I’ll be in my office. If Ray Storm phones, I’m not in.” But then, Lee reasoned, Ray hadn’t phoned; he’d knocked on the door. Not the same thing at all. “Yes, she’s at lunch. She’ll be back at one p.m.
Come
with me. You can wait in her office.”

Lee led the way down a hall past other offices furnished less opulently than the reception area. Rain glimpsed computers, drafting tables, and shelving units groaning under books and
fabric samples. A young man looked up from his computer and nodded as they walked past his door. Rain nodded back. “How many people work here?” Rain asked Lee. 

“Six, besides Emily and myself,” she said, opening the door at the end of the hall. This room was furnished as richly as the reception area. Rain had known Emily was successful at what she did, but he hadn’t come close to imagining the extent of what that meant in terms of material wealth.

Lee excused herself and, shutting the door behind her, returned to her desk just as Emily returned from lunch. She had gone to the gym and swam laps as hard as she could for forty-five minutes, hoping that the physical exercise would help clear her head. It hadn’t. She was just as miserable as before.
“Any messages?”
Emily asked.

“No,” replied Lee. She didn’t think a man waiting in her boss’s office constituted a message. She smiled to herself. She sure hoped they worked out whatever was going on between them or else Emily was going to have her head.

* * *

Emily had already closed the office door behind her when she saw Rain. She stopped and stared, hardly believing her eyes. He took a step toward her and she stepped back instinctively, putting her large mahogany desk between them. She needed to maintain the distance. She hated him, but it wasn’t very long ago that she had loved him.

Neither of them had spoken, and the silence between them crackled with tension. When Emily did finally speak, it was as if she were talking to a client. “Have a seat,” She gestured toward one of the leather chairs facing her desk. “What can I do for you?”

"For god's sake, Emily, I'm not here for a job interview," he said, the words almost exploding from his mouth as he obediently sat in one of the chairs. She sat down too; her legs were shaking too much for her to remain standing.

"Then what are you here for?" She became aware of his beautiful blue eyes and looked away quickly, needlessly arranging a stack of papers on her desk. Even now, after all she knew, she still felt an intense physical attraction.

“I’ve come to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

Rain leaned back in the chair and studied the ceiling as if what he wanted to say next was written in the plaster.  When he had composed what he wanted to say, he looked at her again and said her name. Feeling as if he was making love to her again with his eyes and voice, she looked away, seeing them together in his cabin, the glow of the fire on their skin as they lay entwined together on his bed....

"Emily," he repeated softly. "Please look at me. If this is the last time we see each other, at least try and hear what I have to say."

When she didn’t object, he continued. "I wanted the farm for you – not for me. I couldn't let you sell it – it's part of you, and one day you would have regretted it. That's why I fought you over it."

The mention of the farm brought all her anger flooding back.
“The farm?!”
She hurled the words at him like rocks. “It’s always the farm! Do you know I almost signed it over to you?”

“Yes, Martin told me,” he said calmly.

“Well, then he’s also told you that I’ve changed my mind. You’re not going to get an inch of it now. Not after what I found out.”

“Emily, let me explain!”

“What’s to explain?” She crossed her arms on the desk and leaned forward. Her voice was cold and even. “Not only did you kill my mother, you deliberately covered it up. Every time I mentioned my mother’s death, you insisted on calling it a tragic accident. You actually had me convinced.  What were you thinking when you finally got me into bed? That I’d give you the farm? You tell me you love me, but it’s really just the farm you want.” She straightened in her chair. “You’re just disappointed you can’t have your little writers' colony.”

“I wanted the farm for you.” He felt like he was protesting too much, but he didn’t know what else to do. He was desperate for her to believe him. “It’s yours. I would only have held my share in trust for you. I couldn’t let you sell it. It’s been in your family for generations. It’s as much a part of you as your family. If you sell it, you’ll regret it one day, I know it.”