Private Lies (9 page)

The source of her irritation was terror, the terror of
discovery. But there was also the terror of an inner, very physical
disturbance. Images, erotically stimulating images, long repressed, had jumped
into her head. Worse, she couldn't control it, resenting this sudden waver of
her discipline.

Was that really her in this mad movie of memory unreeling
in her head? She saw his nude body, fully aroused, saw herself reaching out,
touching, caressing, accepting, inserting. The movie advanced wildly, in slow
motion, in fast forward, in fast backward. Jesus. Inside herself, she felt the
sexual tension accelerate. Of course she resented this Maggie Kramer. Didn't
she have good reason? It had taken the entire dinner to get herself under
control. By meal's end, she was able to feel gratitude for Ken's keeping her
secret.

"Her husband seemed rather quiet," Eliot had said
that night after they had gone home. "He didn't reveal much about
himself."

"Still waters and all that," she had replied with
studied indifference as she prepared for bed. "Apparently his wife spoke
for him."

"I somehow feel I might have been too harsh on his
profession," Eliot said. "There's probably a lot more to him than
meets the eye."

"Maybe," she said, then remembered how his very
presence had disrupted her. "He created Slender Benders." She was
instantly sorry for her attitude. At least he hadn't given her away. He surely
deserved her understanding. "You can never tell about spouses. It's always
a surprise. I thought he was rather a good sport."

"I suppose he was," Eliot agreed. "Perhaps
in the future we can draw him out. I rather liked their company."

"Perhaps we can see them again," she said,
surprised at her acquiescence.

"Yes," Eliot said. "I think that would be
nice."

"Whatever you say, Eliot. You have a much better sense
of people than I have," she replied, fingering Ken's crumpled card.

After overcoming some initial trepidation, Carol called Ken
at his office a week later. It had taken her the week to find the courage. A
matter of simple self-interest, she told herself. There was every indication
that Eliot's growing business relationship and friendship with Maggie would
bring Carol and Ken together again. Some ground rules would have to be
established between them, she told herself, wondering if she was really telling
herself the unvarnished truth.

"Yes, Mrs. Butterfield," Ken said. She detected a
touch of sarcasm.

"Please, Ken," she said.

"Carol," he replied, his voice lowering to a
whisper.

"Ken. I ... I don't know exactly how to put
this," she began. What kind of response should she have expected? Less
intimate? "Am I connecting?"

She had to wait several seconds. She could hear his
breathing, perhaps the sound of his thoughts.

"Yes," he said.

"We have to talk," she said. Had she meant on the
telephone? She wasn't certain. There were dangers here, she warned herself,
although avoiding any further analysis. She definitely sensed certain reactions
inside her, emotional and physical. Was that the danger she had meant? Or the
other? The danger of Ken raising questions in Eliot's mind, the danger of being
unmasked, of her carefully constructed house of cards collapsing? Ken made the
decision for her.

"Name the place."

Pals suggested itself—a coffee shop on Second Avenue. She
had noted his office was on the East Side. An hour? He agreed, but when she
hung up, the idea of urgency was repellent. She felt uncomfortable and was
tempted to call him back, call it off. And why was she calling from the lobby
of the Pierre as if this were meant to be clandestine, an intrigue? And why in
her mind did she think of Pals? Because it was not a small, dark, romantic place
off the beaten track, not intimate, not an environment for secret trysts? Now,
how had such an idea insinuated itself?

The hour seemed an eternity. It was late afternoon, a cool
day. A breeze had suddenly come up, sweeping in from the East River, bringing a
slight chill. Or was it her, trembling from other causes?

When Carol came into the coffee shop she rejected a booth
and chose a visible table in the center of the room instead. Ken was a few
minutes late and she studied him as he came forward, compared him to the
twenty-one-year-old boy she had known, as if she had not seen him just last
week. She noted that the mysterious long-haired Jesus look had disappeared
along with the little round specs. How old would he be? Mid-forties? He had not
fleshed out, his walk was loose and rangy. His jacket was open and she could
see the rhythmic movement of his hips, remembering that he had always worn his
pants tight and low. Her eyes drifted toward the pouch of his crotch and she
blushed.

"And the verdict?" he asked as he reached her,
sitting down in the chair across from her, his eyes assessing her shamelessly.

"Guilty as charged," she said. She knew it was
not the answer to the question he had posed. That answer, the real answer, was
that she was quickly discovering that it was possible to resurrect emotion. The
discovery frightened her. But she dared not get into that. Never again. Never
that.

He rubbed his chin.

"Beard came in gray. My business is a youth cult. I
thought it was the lack of beard that threw you."

"No way," she said, studying him. "You look
great." His eyes focused on her face, then found her eyes. They engaged
for a long moment.

"Time stopped for you, Carol," he said.

"I work at it," she replied.

"You had me spooked. I thought I was in a kind of time
warp." She felt the inspection of his eyes, probing deeply now.

"I'll explain all that," she said. A waitress
came by and they ordered cups of coffee. It was a large place, but it was, as
far as she knew, off the beaten track for Eliot. She could not shake off the
idea that she was betraying him in some way, endangering her position, her
security.

"You had me going," Ken said. "I figured you
had your reasons and I went along with them. I felt I owed you my
silence."

"No reminiscences," she said. "I called
merely to explain. It looks as if we're going to find ourselves together at
times. I wanted to clear the air."

"Your husband and my wife seem to be becoming real
buddies. She's been raving about his brainpower." He shrugged. "I
found him a little too encyclopedic."

She ignored the reference. Eliot's superior airs could be
grating.

"He's quite taken with your wife's skills. That's a
compliment. He is quite a taskmaster," Carol said.

"From the time she spends with him, it would seem so.
At her hourly rate that's okay with me," Ken said.

"Apparently it will be a long project," Carol
said. "With Eliot, work doesn't stop at the office door. There's also this
social component. And since we might be seeing more of each other ... as
couples ... I wanted to be sure that you understood, well ... why all those
strange historical facts."

"I know why," Ken said. "You made them
up."

"Embellished. I embellished."

The waitress brought their coffee, giving them a chance to
assess each other further. His good looks had matured well. His hair, speckled
lightly with gray, was thinning in front. His eyes seemed set deeper into his
face than she had remembered. And the eyes themselves? She recognized the young
man in them, the eyes of the man that had for one brief, glorious moment turned
her inside out. The memory brought a charge down the center of her.

"I was afraid you might give it away," she
admitted.

"Descendant of a French marquis, your father killed in
Vietnam. You put a lot of imagination into that one."

"And you certainly did find a way to expose me. The
wall idea was very creative."

"It was nasty and I apologize."

"It frightened me. But you saw that."

"And retreated. I guess I was just resentful. You not
even acknowledging me, as if I had never existed."

"I guess I sensed that, hence this explanation."

Ken sipped his coffee.

"Does Eliot believe all that?"

"Implicitly."

"Your age?"

She nodded.

"I'd believe that," Ken said, studying her.
"Is the other true? About being ... in that Australian ballet
company?"

"No. More little make-believe. I'm afraid I bombed out
as a dancer."

"I'm sorry," he said, his eyes evading hers.

"It was once everything. My whole world. God, I tried.
After my scholarship was over, I was simply dropped. Oh, I tried other schools,
other companies. I think my lack of success after all those sacrifices broke my
parents." She shrugged and stamped down a welling of tears. "I did do
six months with a musical theater road company." She forced a smile.
"Mostly I taught. Remember the old saying 'If you can't do it, teach
it'?"

"Well, you look none the worse for wear," Ken
muttered. "You seem to be doing quite well with Mr. Butterfield."

"Proves there's life after failure, Ken. I found a way
to get through the long night in a very comfortable, tranquil way. I just got
tired of being poor. You probably think it's a kind of exile and it is, a
golden exile, and I don't want anything to screw it up."

"It certainly is a lot clearer than it was the other
night."

"In some ways I had to re-create myself. Make me
marketable for Eliot to have wanted me. Sure, it's a pack of lies, Ken. All of
it. Harmless lies. Although I do teach kids ballet. I'm everything he expects
and I'm true to that creation. Too late now to confess all. Eliot thinks of me
as that person I concocted out of whole cloth."

She hadn't meant to bare her soul, only explain. But she
felt better for the telling.

"We do what we have to," Ken said. "Maggie
tells me Eliot's loaded, that you live in this big place on Fifth Avenue. All
looks great from here."

"It's a lot more comfortable life than I had,"
she whispered. "Following a dying dream without money is not very
edifying."

"Well, I guess, then, you have cleared the air,"
Ken said. Then, suddenly, he reached out and covered her hand with his. It
surprised her that she did not remove it. "Believe me, I appreciate it.
Once we never did have any secrets from each other."

Their eyes locked. This is crazy, she told herself. She
slid her hand out from under his.

"Think we made the right decision?" he asked.

"What decision was that?"

"Us," he said.

"Come on, Ken. This is ridiculous. I only wanted to be
sure..."

"I understand," he said, putting up the palms of
his hands. "Just being near you makes me feel ... strange."

She shook her head. "Please, Ken..." She averted
her eyes and her words seemed to drift away.

"Never again or before was it ever like that,"
Ken said, once again stimulating the old images in her mind. She beat them
back.

"That's gone. What you're talking about happened to
other people. This is more than twenty years later. We're different people in
different circumstances. I have a husband, stepchildren. You have a wife, a
family." She paused for a moment. "A career."

"You gulped on that one," Ken said. "The
career part."

"I watched for your books," Carol said. She saw
her comment's effect on him and was sorry she had said it.

"A bust," he sighed. "Whatever I had I must
have lost somewhere. It was there once. I was so damned sure of it."

"Maybe you'll find it again," she told him.

"Maybe I have already," he said pointedly.

She ignored his comment. He was moving again into dangerous
territory. She felt him study her face. "But I did have one true thing in
my life. One great true thing." His eyes again locked into hers. "We,
you and I, were as good as it gets."

"Sometimes good things in the past get
exaggerated," she said.

"Depends on how good it was."

"And how young we were," she said, hoping to stem
the tide of feeling that was obviously opening between them. She paused to
grope for the words to prevent it going any further. "And foolish."

"Yeah, foolish," he muttered, offering a thin
smile. "Anyway, life went on. In fact, some people think I'm a great
success. Very creative guy, old Kramer. I do things like Slender Benders. I
could do it in my sleep and it keeps the wolf from the door." He was
silent for a while. "It's shit, Carol," he said finally.

"Come on, Ken, you're much too hard on yourself,"
Carol said.

"Maybe," he answered broodingly. "We're on
this truth kick so why not put it all in the right perspective? Fact is I'm
very, very disappointed in myself, Carol."

"It's not over yet for you, Ken. You're not a dancer
where age is the mortal enemy. I can always say I was forced to surrender. At
least as a writer you can still harbor hopes."

"That's me, the lighthouse at Hope Harbor. Maybe the old light can lure back the lost inspiration." He looked at her
intensely, forcing her to avert her eyes.

"You seem to be doing quite well," Carol said.
"You have a wife, two daughters. Apparently your marriage has lasted."

"We've learned to avoid the marriage minefields, I
guess. I suppose you might say we've got this habit going. There is also a
comfort level in it. Maggie, as you might have gathered, is a born
nurturer."

"You didn't tell her about us?"

"I told you. We avoid minefields," Ken said,
reaching for her hand again. "That's private domain. As it turned out, our
noble parting wasn't worth the candle. We never did get the brass ring, Carol.
Not you or I. We should have stayed on that merry-go-round forever."

"Nothing's forever, Ken."

"That's for sure. But did you ever think about it,
have any regret?"

"I pushed it out of my mind."

"And it never came back, not even in dreams?"