Full Circle (39 page)

He nodded, smiling at her. “You've certainly managed to keep your life simpler than the rest of us.” He laughed softly then. “I guess you don't drink rum.”

She laughed too. “Usually not, but I've managed to do a fair amount of damage to myself in other ways. I just don't have any children to show for it.”

“Are you sorry about that?”

“Nope.” It had taken thirty-three and a half years to say it honestly. “There are some things in this life that aren't for me, and children are one of them. Godmother is more my style.”

“I probably should have stuck to that myself, for Barb's sake, if no one else's. At least her mother is remarried now, so she has a real father figure to relate to for the eleven months I'm not around.”

“Doesn't that bother you?” She wondered if he felt possessive about the child. Drew had been very much so about his, especially Elizabeth.

But Jack shook his head. “I hardly know the kid. That's an awful thing to say, but it's true. Every year I get to know her again, and she leaves and when she comes back she's grown up by a year and changed all over again. It's kind of a fruitless venture, but maybe it does something for her. I don't know. I owe her that much. And I suspect that in a few years she'll tell me to go to hell, she has a boyfriend in Detroit and she's not coming out this year.”

“Maybe she'll bring him.” They both laughed.

“God help me. That's all I need. I feel the way you do, there are some things in this life I never want inflicted on me … malaria … typhoid … marriage … kids.…” She laughed at his honesty, it was certainly not a popular view or one that one could admit to most of the time, but he felt he could with her, and she with him.

“I agree with you. I really think it's impossible to do what you do well and give enough to relationships like that.”

“That sounds noble, my friend, but we both know that that has nothing to do with it. Honestly? I'm scared stiff, all I need is another Kate out from Detroit and crying all night because she has no friends out here … or some totally dependent woman with nothing to do all day except nag me at night, or decide after two years of marriage that half of the business Harry and I built is hers. He and I see too much of that as it is, and I just don't want any part of it.” He smiled at her. “And what are you scared of, my dear? Chilblains, childbirth? Giving up your career? Competition from a man?” He was surprisingly astute and she smiled appreciatively at him.

“Touche. All of the above. Maybe I'm afraid of jeopardizing what I've built, of getting hurt … I don't know. I think I had doubts about marriage years ago, although I didn't know it then. It's all my mother ever wanted for me, and I always wanted to say'ut wait … not yet … I've got all these other things to do first.’ It's like volunteering to have your head cut off, there's never really a good time.” He laughed, and she remembered Drew proposing to her in front of the fire one night, and then she forced it from her with a flash of pain. Most of the time the memories of him didn't hurt much now, but a few still did. And that one most of all, maybe because she felt he had made a fool of her. She had been willing to make an exception for him, she had accepted the proposal and then he had gone back to Eileen.… Jack was watching her as she frowned.

“No one is worth looking that sad for, Tana.”

She smiled at him. “Old, old memories.”

“Forget them, then. They won't hurt you anymore.”

There was something wonderfully easy and wise about the man, and she began going out with him almost without thinking about it. A movie, an early dinner, a walk on Union Street, a football game. He came and went, and became her friend, and it wasn't even remarkable when they finally went to bed with each other late that spring. They had known each other for five months by then, and it wasn't earth shattering, but it was comfortable. He was easy to be around, intelligent, and he had a wonderful understanding of what she did, a powerful respect for her job, they even shared a common best friend, and by summertime when his daughter came out, even that was comfortable. She was a sweet eleven-year-old child with big eyes and hands and feet and bright red hair, like an Irish setter puppy. They took her to Stinson Beach a few times, went on picnics with her. Tana didn't have much time—she was trying a big case just then— but it was all very pleasant, and they went up to Harry's place where Harry eyed them carefully, curious as to whether it was serious with them. But Averil didn't think it was and she was usually right. There was no fire, no passion, no intensity, but also no pain. It was comfortable, intelligent, amusing at times, and extremely satisfying in bed. And at the end of a year of going out with him, Tana could well imagine herself going out with Jack for the rest of her life. It was one of those relationships one saw between two people who had never married, and never wanted to, much to the chagrin of all their friends who had been in and out of divorce courts for years, one saw people like that eating in restaurants on Saturday nights, going on holidays, attending Christmas parties and gala events, and enjoying each other's company, and sooner or later they'd wind up in bed, and the next day the other one would go home to his or her own place, to find the towels exactly the way they wanted them, the bed undisturbed, the coffee pot in perfect readiness for their needs. It was so perfect for both of them that way, but they drove Harry nuts and that amused them too.

“I mean, look at you both, you're so goddamn complacent I could cry.” The three of them were having lunch, and neither Tana nor Jack looked concerned.

She looked up at Jack with a smile. “Hand him a handkerchief, sweetheart.”

“Nah, let him use his sleeve. He always does.”

“Don't you have any decency? What's wrong with you?”

They exchanged a bovine glance. “Just decadent, I guess.”

“Don't you want kids?”

“Haven't you ever heard of birth control?” Jack looked at him and Harry looked as though he wanted to scream as Tana laughed.

“Give it up, kid. You aren't gonna win this one with us. We're happy like this.”

“You've been dating for a year. What the hell does that mean to you both?”

“That we have a lot of stamina. I now know that he gets homicidal if anyone touches the sports section on Sundays and he hates classical music.”

“And that's it? How can you be so insensitive?”

“It comes naturally.” She smiled sweetly at her friend and Jack grinned at her.

“Face it, Harry, you're outnumbered, outclassed, outdone.” But when Tana turned thirty-five six months later, they surprised Harry after all.

“You're getting
married?”
Harry barely dared to breathe the words to Jack when he told him they were looking for a house, but Jack laughed at him.

“Hell no, you don't know your friend Tan if you think there's even a chance of that. We're thinking about living together.”

Harry spun his wheelchair around, glaring at Jack. “That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. I won't let you do that to her.”

Jack roared. “It was her idea, and besides—you and Ave did it.” His daughter had just gone home, and it had gotten very complicated going back and forth from his house to hers for a month. “Her place is too small for both of us, and so is mine. And I'd really like to live in Marin. Tana says she would too.”

Harry looked miserable. He wanted a happy ending, rice, rose petals, babies, and neither of them was cooperating with him. “Do you realize how complicated it is to invest in real estate if you're not married?”

“Of course I do, and so does she. That's why we'll probably rent.” And it was exactly what they did. They found the house they wanted with an overwhelming view, in Tiburon. It had four bedrooms, and was dirt cheap compared to what it might have cost, and it gave them each an office, a bedroom for them, and a bedroom for Barb when she came to town from Detroit, or if they had guests. It had a lovely sun deck, a porch, a hot tub, which looked out at the view, and neither of them had ever been happier. Harry and Averil came to check it out with the kids, and they had to admit that the setting was beautiful but it still wasn't what Harry had hoped for her, but she only laughed at him. And worst of all, Jack shared all of her views. He had no intention of getting hooked into marriage again, by anyone. He was thirty-eight years old, and his little escapade in Detroit twelve years before had cost him dearly.

Jack and Tana did Christmas dinner that year, and it was beautiful, with the Bay below, and the city shimmering in the distance. “It's like a dream, isn't it, sweetheart?” Jack whispered to her after everyone went home. They had exactly the life that suited them, and she had even finally given up her own apartment in town. She had hung onto it for a while to play it safe, but in the end, she had let it go. She was safe with him, and he took good care of her. When she had appendicitis that year, he took two weeks off from work to take care of her. When she turned thirty-six, he gave her a party in the Trafalgar Room at Trader Vic's for eighty-seven of her closest friends, and the following year, he surprised her with a cruise in Greece. She came home rested and brown, and happier than ever with their life. There was never any talk of marriage between the two, although once in a while they talked about buying the house in which they lived, but Tana wasn't even sure about that, and secretly Jack was leary of it too. Neither of them wanted to rock the boat that had sailed along so comfortably for so long. They had lived together for almost two years and it was perfect for them both. Until October after the cruise to Greece. Tana had a big case coming up, and she had stayed up almost all night going over her notes and the files, and she'd fallen asleep at her desk, looking out over the Bay in Tiburon. The phone woke her before Jack did with her cup of tea, and she stared at him as she picked it up.

“Huh?” She looked blank and Jack grinned at her. She was a mess when she stayed up all night like that, and as though hearing his thoughts, she turned her eyes toward him, and then suddenly he saw them open wide and stare at him. “What? Axe you crazy? I'm
not
… oh, God. I'll be there in an hour.” She put down the phone and stared at him as he set down the cup of tea with a worried frown.

“Something wrong?” It couldn't be anything back home if she'd promised to be there in an hour, it had to be work … and it wasn't for him. “What happened, Tan?” She was still staring at him.

“I don't know.… I have to talk to Frye.”

“The district attorney?”

“No. God. Who the hell do you think?”

“Well, what are you getting so excited about?” He still didn't understand. But neither did she. She had done a fantastic job. It just didn't make sense. She'd been there for years … there were tears in her eyes when she looked at Jack and stood up at her desk, spilling the tea across her files, but she didn't even care now.

“He said I'm being fired.” She started to cry and sat down again as he stared at her.

“That can't be, Tan.”

“That's what I said … the D.A.'s office is my whole life.…” And the saddest thing of all was that they both knew it was true.

T
ana showered, dressed, and drove into the city within the hour, her face set, eyes grim. It was obvious that it was an emergency. She looked as though someone had died. Jack offered to go with her, but she knew he had his own problems that day, and Harry had been out of the office a lot recently, so everything rested on him.

“Are you sure you don't want me to drive you in, Tan? I don't want you to have an accident.” She kissed him vaguely on the lips and shook her head. It was so odd. They had lived together for so long, but they were almost more friends than anything else. He was someone to talk to at night, share her problems with, talk about her cases with, as she worked on her strategy. He understood her life, her quirks, he was content with the life they shared and he wanted relatively little from her, it seemed. Harry claimed it was unnatural, and it was certainly different from what he and Averil shared. But she felt Jack's concern now as she started her car and he watched her leave. He still couldn't understand what had happened to her, and neither could she. She walked into her office, feeling numb, half an hour later, and without even knocking walked into the office of the D.A. She couldn't hold the tears back anymore, and they rolled down her face as she looked at him.

“What the hell did I do to deserve this?” She looked stricken and he felt instant remorse at what he'd done. He had just thought it would be fun to give her the news in a roundabout way, but he never realized she'd be so heartbroken. It made him all the sorrier to lose her now. But he had been sorry anyway.

“You're too good at your job, Tan. Stop crying and sit down.” He smiled at her and she felt even more confused.

“So you're firing me?” She was still on her feet, staring at him.

“I didn't say that. I said you were out of a job.” She sat down with a thump.

“Well, what the hell does that mean?” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. She was unashamed of how she felt. She loved her job, and she had from the first day. She'd been in the D.A.'s office for twelve years. That was a lifetime to give up now, and she would have preferred to give up anything but that. Anything. The district attorney felt sorry for her then, and he came around his desk to put an arm around her.