For the Love of Sami (10 page)

She could come at the problem ten different ways, but it wouldn’t change one very important fact: she wasn’t being fair to Daniel. He told her he loved her all the time, yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to say the words back to him. And the reasons why she couldn’t weren’t simple. They were things she didn’t entirely understand herself.

Deep inside, she was a mass of insecurity. Her parents hadn’t loved her, and they hadn’t wanted her around. Yet despite everything, she had never blamed them. Instead, she had grown up with the impossible burden of guilt that she hadn’t been good enough for them.

Now, behind all her flash and glitter, Sami longed for security and love. When she was with Daniel, she felt secure and she felt loved. But in some small, dark corner of her mind, she couldn’t help but feel that if he knew everything there was to know about her, he might not continue to love her.

Was she being selfish by hanging on to him and not telling him the truth? Should she leave him? It was hard to say. Unfortunately, at this point in time, logical thinking simply didn’t enter into it.

#

Sami looked in disgust at the mass of clay she was working on. Snerts! Posh and bother! It was no use. Her mind just wasn’t on what she was doing. Her concentration was gone. Her thoughts were too filled with Daniel.

Just then, the door to her studio opened, and Jerome sauntered in, whistling cheerfully. "Great, you’re here!"

"Where else would I be?" Sami questioned grumpily as she picked up another piece of wet clay and slapped it on top of the mass.

"You’re asking me? It’s getting awfully lonely here in the warehouse with both you and Morgan gone now."

"What are you talking about? I’m still here." She stopped what she was doing and turned in a full circle to demonstrate. "See?"

"Oh, yeah? When was the last time you spent the night here?"

Sami threw him a speaking glance but didn’t answer his question. "If you’re so lonely, why don’t you ask Michelle to move in? You two could have Morgan’s old apartment."

There was a minute’s silence, and then Jerome said carefully, "I don’t think that’s going to work out. Michelle is talking about looking for another job, maybe even one outside of St. Paul."

"Why?" Sami cast a searching look toward him. "What happened?"

Jerome rolled his shoulders restlessly and moved over to the bank of windows. "It just wasn’t right. You know what I mean? As much as I wanted it to be, it just wasn’t right."

An incredible sense of sadness came over Sami, or maybe the truth was that the sadness had never been far away. "I know what you mean."

"It would be a gross oversimplification to say that Michelle was ready to settle down and I wasn’t. That’s what I told her, but it was only part of it. I’ve got law school to finish and then a career to get started. I just couldn’t afford to give the relationship the time it needed."

"Wasn’t she willing to wait?"

"She probably would have." He swiveled back to face her, his expression grim. "But I didn’t ask her to."

"Jerome," Sami sighed, "I’m so sorry."

"I am, too. Michelle is a wonderful girl. But what really bothers me is that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to commit myself completely to anyone."

"You’re awfully young to be making that statement."

"I’m not that many years younger than you, but it’s not the calendar years that matter anyway. I feel old. I think it goes back to the fact that I came off the streets. I never had a home. I never knew who my father was, and my mother, well, she just up and left when I was around twelve. When you found me at the flea market, I had fended for myself for so long, it was hard for me to admit that I needed anyone. It still is, to a certain extent."

"Yeah"—Sami smiled reminiscently—"you were one tough kid. You had a lot of rough edges, sort of like a serrated knife." She picked up another glob of clay and plopped it on top of the mass. "But you came home with me and stayed. I wasn’t sure you would. You were so thin. It looked like you hadn’t eaten in days. Yet you had so much pride. I was afraid you wouldn’t let me help you."

"Do you know why I stayed?" he asked softly.

"No, why?"

"I stayed because of your eyes."

Sami looked up, startled. "My eyes?"

"Yeah, I looked into those enormous eyes of yours and saw someone who felt just as much pain and fear as I did, maybe even more. But mostly it was because, for the first time in my life, I saw someone who needed me."

Heedless of her clay-covered hands, Sami quickly took the few steps necessary to reach him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "And thank God, because you were right. I needed you so much. You completed Morgan’s and my family circle. And look at you now. I’m so proud of you. You’ve changed—you’ve grown and matured."

"I didn’t do it alone, Sami. Sometimes I don’t think you realize everything you’ve done for me. You not only gave me a home and an instant family in the form of you and Morgan, but you gave me a future when you insisted I go back to school, and you’ve paid for every bit of it."

"I didn’t do that much. Besides, you’re a complete person now, capable of standing on your own two feet." She drew back and gave a helpless little shake of her head. "And I’m still the same." She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "I don’t know what to do, Jerome."

"Trust yourself, honey. Trust yourself."

"What does that mean?"

"I’ve known you long enough to understand that you have your own way of coming at problems. But in the end, you’re hardly ever wrong. You’ll figure it out. I’m certain you will."

Suddenly Sami laughed, and ran a hand down his face. "You’re going to be a brilliant lawyer, Jerome, and I absolutely adore you."

"Oh, yeah?" He grinned and reached for a towel to wipe the clay off his face. "Who says I’m going to be a brilliant lawyer? I may not even pass the bar."

Sami had gone back to her clay, but she paused to turn a ferocious expression on him. "I say you’re going to be a brilliant lawyer. Didn’t you just hear me? And what’s more, I have it on very good authority that I’m hardly ever wrong."

Jerome chuckled. "We’ll see, well see." He eyed her clay figure consideringly. "You’re making an elephant?"

"No!" Sami scowled. "Of course I’m not making an elephant. Why would I want to make an elephant? Anyone with two eyes can see I’m making a teapot."

Peering at the clay mass a little more closely, Jerome ventured somewhat cautiously, "It looks like a baby elephant to me."

"Are you sure?" Sami stepped back from the clay, looked at it, and frowned. "This is my fourth attempt at making a teapot. It’s the strangest thing. All the teapots have come out looking like baby elephants." She gave a heavy sigh. "Maybe I should go on to something else."

"I, for one, would love to see what you could do with a hippopotamus."

"No, no, no. I mean something entirely different."

"Like what?"

"I don’t know. I haven’t tried weaving yet. I could get my own loom and make all kinds of things."

"Sami, I’ve never seen you attempt anything that you haven’t succeeded at. You’re very talented. Pick something and stick with it. There’s nothing you can’t do if you try hard enough."

"Dear merciful heavens! Where did you learn that tripe?"

Jerome flashed her a smile and opened the door. "From you. See you later."

Several nights later, Sami sat cross-legged on the floor in the den, her bronze silk caftan flowing in a full circle around her and a heavily sequined band holding back her hair. With her chin on her hands, she was watching the phone. It had been ringing every five minutes for the last thirty, but somehow Sami couldn’t bring herself to pick It up.

She heard the door to the den open, but she was too busy counting rings to look around. "Five, six, seven . . ."

Daniel’s long arm reached around her and picked up the receiver. "Marie? It’s okay. She’s here, and I’ll deliver the message myself. Thanks for trying. I’ll see you tomorrow."

Replacing it, he pulled Sami to her feet, keeping her within the circle of his arms. "Why didn’t you answer the phone?"

She pulled his head down and kissed his lips softly. "Thank goodness you’re home. I was afraid something had happened to you. You’re late."

He gave a chuckle. "So why didn’t you pick up the phone and find out? My secretary has been trying to reach you for the last half hour."

"Why? What was she going to tell me?"

Daniel sat down in an easy chair and pulled Sami onto his lap. "Where did that suspicious tone come from? It was just a perfectly ordinary phone call, for heaven’s sake!"

"I don’t like phones," she admitted, tugging at the knot of his tie.

"Why not?" His hand went up to the knot and in one expert pull had it undone.

Sami shrugged, concentrating on the buttons of his shirt. "Have you ever thought how strange it is to have voices flying through the air? I mean, your secretary is several miles away, but if I had picked up that phone, her voice would have been in that ugly plastic receiver against my ear. Now, if you think about it, you have to wonder, first of all, how she’s managing without her voice, and second, after she hangs up, is it going to get back to her safely? All kinds of things could happen between here and there."

"For instance?" Daniel’s dark blue eyes were dancing with laughter.

"For instance, her voice could get lost. It could take a detour or an incorrect turn and end up in the wrong line, hundreds of miles away. What would she do without a voice in the meantime?"

"Sami," Daniel said patiently, holding her hand still against his now-bare chest, "why don’t you like phones?"

She hesitated. It was one of those things that was hard to put into words. That was why she never did it. But this time, she forced herself to make the effort. "When I was a litle girl . . . my parents were very busy. Sometimes the telephone would ring and it would be them saying that they wouldn’t be able to come home when they had said they would." She didn’t go into the fact that what little contact she had had with her parents had usually been through phone conversations— when they would remember her at all, that is—or how heartbroken she would be after one of those cold, impersonal calls. She had learned early that nothing good ever came from one phone calls.

"Where are your parents now?"

"They’re dead." That was the first concrete piece of information Sami had given Daniel about herself, and she didn’t want to stop to consider why.

He was silent for a moment, and then said, "Phones can also do a lot of good."

"Oh, yeah, like what?" Her golden eyes regarded him soberly.

"Like if you’d give me a number where I can reach you during the day, it would reassure me that you’re all right."

"I told you—"

"And," he continued over her objection, "I could call and tell you if I’m going to be a little late."

"I’d rather not hear that bit of news, thank you very much."

"Sami." He took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. "I’ll always come home to you. Never, ever think that I won’t." He searched her face, but when she didn’t answer, he continued. "And it could also bring you information that you need to know . . . like, we’ve been invited to an art-gallery opening tonight. I want to go because a friend of mine owns the gallery, and he is very high on a new artist he has discovered, but if you would rather not go, we’ll stay here tonight."

Sami rested her head against his chest, hearing the steady beat of his heart. She wanted nothing more than to stay home alone with Daniel tonight. Since they’d been together, they hadn’t gone out. She hadn’t introduced him to Morgan or Jerome. And he had never introduced her to any of his friends.

Sighing deeply, she murmured, "If this man is a friend of yours, then we should go."

#

The art gallery was an exclusive one, and black tie was the dress for the evening. Sami had chosen to wear one of her secondhand-store buys: a romantic dress of antique lace and chiffon, which floated light as air to mid-calf length, and her doe-soft beige leather boots. The dress had aged to a champagne color, and over it, she wore an opera cape made from vintage garnet satin lined with champagne moire. Turquoise and lavender ribbons tied her hair in a loose bunch of curls on top of her head.

Sami directed her eyes toward a painting. The din of sophisticated chatter was beginning to close in around her. She could feel all her old insecurities churning around inside of her, trying to get out. And as much as she hated the feeling of not belonging, of not fitting in, she couldn’t seem to help it. She didn’t. She never had.

The majority of the people attending the opening tonight epitomized the type of person she was sure her parents had hoped she would be—a polished and refined person, one who belonged to the right clubs and supported the right charities and who was seen at all the right functions wearing the very newest of the "right" clothes.

Sami closed her eyes for a brief moment. She would not give in to it! Somehow she had to fight it.

She and Daniel had become separated. He had left her side to get them something to drink, but evidently he had been waylaid by some of his friends. She looked around. She could see him through the crowd, exceedingly handsome and devastatingly correct in his dark evening wear, surrounded by a group of people.

"Isn’t Daniel something?"

The remark came from somewhere behind Sami and the twisted metal sculpture she was standing in front of. She had seen the two women earlier, eyeing Daniel covetously. Beautifully dressed and made up, they resembled porcelain figurines. Observing them, she had done a few quick mental computations on the probability of their cracking if someone were to make the mistake of touching them.

"You’d better believe it. I’ve been trying to catch his attention for years now. Say, who is that person he came in with, anyway? She’s certainly different."

"Isn’t that the truth? I’ve never seen her before, but that dress she has on must be a hundred years old!"