Illusions of Love (16 page)

When he reached the kerb in front of her she hastily opened the door and slid in.

“Now you know why I take taxis instead of my car,” he said, impatiently grabbing the suitcase and throwing it on the back seat.

“I’m awfully sorry, Martin, but I couldn’t get away from the buyer.

And I couldn’t get a message to you. “

“It’s okay,” he said, but his tone implied it was not and they fell into an uncomfortable silence.

The traffic going out of Manhattan moved at a crawl and as Jenny looked at the clock on the dashboard she asked, “Do you think we’ll make it?”

“Who knows?” he said tightly.

“It probably takes less time to fly to Bar Harbor than to get to the airport this time of day.”

Jenny was getting more nervous in silent frustration at the slow-moving cars and trucks. When at last they arrived at La Guardia they drove around and around the parking lots until they finally found a spot. Carrying Jenny’s suit case, Martin took her by the arm and the two ran through the crowded terminal, arriving at United’s waiting area just in time to watch Jenny’s plane taking off.

She looked at Martin on the verge of tears. Martin had never been able to stand seeing a woman cry. He felt so sorry for her. She seemed incapable of using tears as a ploy;

she was exactly what she appeared to be: a lovely young woman whose tough childhood had tended to harden her.

“Let’s see if we can get a later flight,” he said.

“This is the last one.”

“We’ll try another airline.”

“Same thing. Bar Harbor, Maine, isn’t the crossroads of the world. I don’t know what to do,” she said, almost beside herself.

“My job is so important to me, Martin.”

“Look, you can make a phone call tomorrow morning and explain. This is an act of God, Jenny.” He spoke with quiet concern, but in truth he was not disappointed by the turn of events.

“Well, Martin, maybe I can get a flight for tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, Jenny. Let’s try.” But once again his spirits were lifted. He knew the gods were on his side when the airline clerk said, “There are no flights to Bar Harbor till Monday.”

On the way back to Manhattan, Martin had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on Jenny’s knee. He drove into his garage and asked, “Do you feel hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Well, what do you feel like?”

Confused, she said to herself. As if events were conspiring to send me back into Martin’s bed.

“What do you feel like doing?” Martin asked again.

“Well, I think I’d like to go back to my place, get rid of my suitcase, and freshen up a bit.”

“Why bother? My apartment is across the street. You can wash up there and then we can decide.”

He took her hand and guided her across the street and up to his apartment. She sat on the couch exhausted, and let her eyes wander around the room. She looked at the pictures of Martin’s mother and father in their large silver frames. Jenny wondered what it must have been like to be born into a family like that to have lived in the apparent style that they did. She glanced at the picture of Martin as a little boy standing with his parents in the gardens of a luxurious Riviera hotel. Then she took in the disordered apartment. Well, it was understandable. He must have been used to maids picking up after him.

“What would you like?” Martin asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“I

have champagne on ice. “

To get me high enough to go to bed with you, she thought cynically.

“I

think I’d like sherry if you have it. “

He poured a sherry for her and a scotch and soda for himself.

As she sat listening to the soft music on his phonograph she began to relax. Martin handed her the sherry, then sat down next to her and raised his drink in a silent toast. She sipped slowly and sighed.

“You know, the nicest thing about this place is your view.”

“I know. I love it this time of day,” he said looking out at the fading sunset.

As though speaking to herself, she said, “When I lived at home I never ever noticed a sunset … She took a sip of sherry.

“But this really is beautiful.”

“So are you.”

“Am I really?”

“Why, do you have any doubts?”

Jenny reddened and turned away.

“I don’t think of myself that way. I don’t think I’m pretty at all, despite what people tell me. It’s all very confusing.”

“In what way?”

“Well, sometimes I feel like a store mannequin, not a person.”

He never would have guessed the insecurity that lay behind Jenny’s charm and beauty. Under her sophisticated facade lay the Jenny who had arrived in New York from a broken home in Biloxi. Poor Jenny. He hoped he would always be able to protect her. Then he caught himself. He could never have a permanent relationship. She was Catholic. She came from a different world and anyway, he had just met her.

He got up abruptly and switched the soft music to some thing more discordant. As he sat down again he said, “You must be starving.”

“I’m not, but I’m sure you are.”

“A little. Where would you like to go?”

“You decide. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to wash up first.”

“Sure.” Martin sat in the living room. The light was fading and Martin watched, tired of the view. He felt comfortable here. In fact. Jenny was shaking up his very orderly life. He shrugged off an uneasy premonition and reached in the closet for a clean shirt, tossed it on the chair, and stripped off the old one. The door to the bathroom was open and he could see Jenny combing her magnificent head of hair.

Overwhelmed with desire, he took her in his arms. They emerged from the bathroom and he kissed her without restraint. Their lips and tongues met in breathless longing. He undressed her quickly with an impatient eagerness. Then they were lying together, their bodies clinging, and suddenly everything was forgotten except for the building hunger of their lovemaking. The climax left them mutually breathless. Martin had never been caught up so completely in the act of love. And the difference was Jenny. Reluctantly he rolled onto his back, then drew her to him and put his arms around her.

“I know it’s selfish of me,” he said, ‘but I’m happy, damned happy, that you missed the plane. “

“I’m not not about that. I’ll die if they don’t put in that line.”

They lay in silence. Martin trailed his hand along the curves of her body.

“How would you like Chinese food?”

She smiled.

“That would be marvelous.”

“There’s a terrific Chinese restaurant that delivers.” He reached over, took the phone book.

“Here it is,” he said.

“Do you like almond duck?”

“Yes, sure, but order what you like. I’m no expert.”

“You trust me?” he asked. They both knew he was speaking about more than Chinese food.

“Well, I trust you, Martin, but I’m not sure I trust myself. You know what I’m doing is terribly wrong, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t know anything of the kind. Jenny.” He hadn’t spent four years with Dominic not to understand Catholic guilt.

“Would you feel quite this wicked and guilty

if I weren’t a Jew? “

“Yes, yes, of course I would. ” But Jenny knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. If Martin had been Catholic they could at least be planning marriage. As it was, she would probably never be able to expiate her sin.

She turned to Martin, whose words seemed to confirm her fears.

“I

don’t want to feel guilty. “

“Look, Jenny, we’re just two human beings who love each other. But we’ve both been through a lot and we’ve each just begun to find ourselves. I don’t know what the future will bring. I can’t make promises, but if every time you see me I make you feel as if you’re headed straight for hell, maybe we should break this off now.” Martin walked stiffly to the window and stood with his back to Jenny, who was overcome with tears.

Suddenly her love for him became so all-encompassing that she didn’t care about anything else. Not the priests, not her mother’s warnings, not even the Church itself.

“Martin, would you like me to stay?” she asked.

He thought for a long moment, then turned and looked at her. Of course he wanted her to stay. He didn’t quite know what he felt for her, but he wanted her to stay.

“Only if you want to. Jenny,” he said.

“Yes, I want to.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. But may I ask you one question, Martin? How do you feel about my being a Catholic?”

“I feel that you’re a desirable woman,” he said. He had told her she could walk away, but he hadn’t told her that if she stayed he would marry her.

“If you feel, in all honesty, that we can be friends as well as lovers, and just try to take what the other has to give, I think we could make it. Jenny. Is that possible for you?”

The more she thought about it the more she believed that Martin’s feelings were deeper for her than he realized. It wasn’t the things he’d said, but the things he had left unsaid. If he had wanted to, he could have sent her away. Maybe if she stayed he would accept her

beliefs. Certainly he seemed less of a Jew than she was a Catholic. She was the one who felt the conflict. Like most women. Jenny was convinced love could conquer all.

She looked across the room at Martin and said, “Do you think you could get my suitcase?”

He hesitated only for a moment.

“Sure. I’ll have one of the doormen come up and get the car keys.”

While they waited, Martin put on his robe. When he heard the doorbell ring, he opened and handed the doorman his keys with the instructions.

Then he went into the kitchen for the champagne.

“What shall we drink to, beautiful Jenny?”

“To friends?”

“Yes, and lovers too.”

The next two days were filled with small pleasures. Jenny and Martin did all the ordinary things people do on weekends in the city, but just being together made everything exciting. They bicycled through Central Park, stopping for hot dogs and ice cream cones. They rolled on the grass like two silly children. They strolled through the Museum of Modern Art, wandered down Fifth Avenue to the Public Library, and raced each other up the steps, collapsing at the top, arms around each other, laughing and kissing at the same time. They walked down the crooked streets of Greenwich Village. The whole city seemed to take on a new dimension.

On Saturday evening they shopped at an Italian grocery and Jenny cooked. Then they went to bed and Jenny shut out all thoughts of confession and sin. On Sunday she fixed breakfast while Martin showered. Setting the breakfast tray on the coffee table, she called to him, “Come and get it while it’s hot.”

He poked his head out of the bathroom and grinned through the lather on his face.

“It will always be hot,” he assured her.

She laughed.

“The scrambled eggs, you idiot.”

When he returned from the bathroom, he slid into the

bed, pulling the sheet up to his naked waist, and Jenny placed the tray over his knees. Patting her side of the bed, he said, “Boy, to look at you one wouldn’t believe you could boil water.”

“It just goes to show you can never judge a cook by its cover.”

“Well, you’re a genius. That pasta last night was fantastic No kidding, a work of art.”

“I have many hidden talents.”

“It’s okay to keep them hidden, but not from me.” He reached over to draw off her robe and she settled next to him, knowing that when it was over it would be too late for her to go to mass. Afterwards he put the tray on the floor and they read the Sunday Times. It seems so natural, as if we were married. Jenny thought, and suddenly she wanted to marry Martin more than anything in the world. She knew the relationship was getting stronger, and she knew instinctively that he was more involved than he had planned. The physical part was fantastic feeling his lean, taut body next to hers was ecstasy, but there was so much more to the relationship than that.

Even now, as they lay in each other’s arms with the Times strewn on the floor and the sheets rumpled at the bottom of the bed, she wanted to know more about his childhood. She listened as he told her about growing up with a wonderful but overly protective mother. She thought about the irony of it all. Martin’s mother being overly protective and hers not giving a damn.

“Martin,” she said, ‘remember the first night we met? I would never have thought then that I would have fallen in love with you. But I have. “

She waited for his answer. As he looked at her and brushed her hair back against the pillow, fanning it about her head, he smiled with pleasure at the sight of her. That was his answer, and right now it was enough for her.

After Martin drove her back to her apartment that evening, she stood in the centre of her room, feeling suddenly sad and alone. Lovers, she

reminded herself, didn’t live together like married people. But, dammit, it wasn’t going to be this way forever. Martin was going to marry her. She knew it. He simply had to. She took her mauve silk robe out of her suitcase and hung it in the closet. She wondered what Martin was doing at that moment. It was only nine-thirty. Impulsively she picked up the phone but immediately put it down again. Instead, she got into the shower and washed her hair, scrubbing her scalp until it hurt.

On Monday night Martin called, asked her how her day had gone. He didn’t mention the weekend. It was almost as though he’d forgotten those two wonderful days. If he’d just said, “I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind.” But he didn’t. Take what you can, Jenny, she reminded herself. You’ve been doing that all your life.

Tuesday she had dinner with him, and lunch on Wednesday and-dinner at his apartment on Thursday. Then Friday Martin drove her to the airport for her rescheduled meeting in Bar Harbor.

As the plane taxied down the runway for takeoff Jenny wondered how Martin would spend his time without her. Would he miss her? Would he take anyone else out? If Jenny could have read Martin’s thoughts, she wpuld have laughed at her own anxious ones.

Martin watched as Jenny boarded the plane and then waited for the takeoff. Only when the plane had streaked into the sky did he turn and slowly walk to his car. He missed her already, more than he wanted to.