Roses in Autumn (5 page)

“Careful, ma’am.” A pair of strong hands reached out to catch her midfall. “Writing on an escalator is a dangerous occupation.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” Laura struggled for her composure and her balance. “Thank you. Everyone here is so friendly and helpful.”

Her rescuer placed her on firm footing and began gathering her belongings. “Are you going to the exhibits? Let me carry these books for you.”

“Oh, er—” Laura looked at the man’s dark curly hair and the memory clicked. “We met last night, didn’t we? At the airport?”

He laughed. “Lugging suitcases, hauling books—you some kind of a bodybuilding nut?”

“Hardly. Just a little disorganized, I’m afraid.”

“I could carry your briefcase too.” He reached toward her shoulder strap.

“Oh, no thanks—it’s just part of me. I wear it like my clothes.” She moved forward.

“This your first visit to the museum?”

“Yes, it’s wonderful.”

“It is, isn’t it. I come here every chance I get. The collection started in the basement of the Parliament Building at the turn of the century. They built all this about 25 years ago. It’s been rated one of the top 10 museums in the world.”

“I’ll bet it’s even higher than that.” Laura fell into step beside her book-bearer and guide.

“Some say its number two—after Mexico’s.”

“And just think—that’s a national museum. This one’s just for a province. That’s really amazing. Do you live here?”

Laura’s escort started to explain about his business that brought him to Victoria from Calgary and how a changed appointment had left him with the morning free for museum-browsing, but just then they rounded a corner and Laura’s startled, “Oh!” brought them to a standstill. A giant woolly mammoth loomed before them, its yards-long tusks curving out menacingly toward Laura. “Oh, my goodness, that’s impressive.”

When she had her breath back, they walked on through the land that was now Vancouver Island recreated as it was aeons before humankind first set foot there: birdfilled, cedar-scented forest with elk and deer behind every tree; the rugged, Pacific coast with seal and walrus sporting on the rocks; tidal marshes populated with great blue heron, magnificent snow geese, and the now nearly extinct snow-white black-billed trumpeter swan. Laura’s arm appreciated not having to carry her heavy package, but another part of her resented the stranger’s presence beside her. If she couldn’t have Tom, she didn’t want anybody.

Last stop was a special room dedicated to the history of the Canadian Mountie—from horse and saddle to Harley-Davidson with sidecar. Ink flowed across Laura’s page, then she capped her pen and reached for her books. “Thank you. I do feel more rested now.”

He hesitated. “I’d be more than happy to carry these to your room for you.”

Laura grasped the package firmly. “I’m fine, thank you. Good luck with your business meetings.” She walked briskly toward the door.

Outside, she hurried across Thunderbird Court toward the Crystal Garden. That had been the next stop on her itinerary.
Would Tom remember? Would Tom care?
She looked right and left, hoping to spot him.
What a stupid thing not to be more precise about where we’d meet and when. Typical of me, but not like Tom to be vague about arrangements. Did he do it on purpose to avoid spending the morning with me? What has he been doing all morning? Who has he been talking to? Or was he somewhere in the museum? Should she go back and check?

She turned and took a step back. Then saw that man—they hadn’t even exchanged names, but she thought of him as Monty, having just come from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police exhibit. There he stood, just outside the museum, watching her. Laura whirled back around swiftly.

“In a hurry, lady?” A tall male form loomed in front of her. “I’ve been waiting here for close on an hour. But I guess it was too much to hope you’d be looking for me. After all, you had plenty to occupy you in the museum.”

“Oh, Tom! I was thinking about you so hard I didn’t see you. Yes, the museum was great. Why didn’t you come in? I told you I’d go to the period rooms—there’s all these rooms you walk through—it’s like really being there in history. And it’s all hands-on—you can touch everything.”

“Everything? Even the visitors?”

He didn’t say it like a joke, but Laura laughed anyway. It was so good to be with him, even if he was in a cross mood. “Come on, let’s see the gardens and have tea. You know, when in Victoria, drink tea like the Victorians.” Laura led the way into the long, flag-lined brick building with the high, glass-domed roof. Tom followed silently.

They were welcomed by two vibrant red jungle birds swinging and chirping shrilly in their ornate gold cage. Laura bent close to the filigree bars. “Hello, there. You’re very cheery, aren’t you?” She stood and turned to Tom. “I have to remind myself the birds in here are real. Everything in the museum was stuffed and mounted, but it seemed so lifelike.”

“Looked real enough to me.”

“What? You mean you were
there?
And we didn’t find each other? Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry.”

“Are you?” He gave her his searing look that never failed to quell the most formidable opponent across a bargaining table.

Laura started to assure him of her contrition, but at that moment they stepped under the crystal roof and entered an exotic jungle paradise. “Oh, flamingos. Aren’t they beautiful?” Laura grabbed Tom by the arm and practically drug him along the pebbled path to where a stand of long-legged, bright coral birds drank and fluffed their feathers at a private tropical pool. “Look—there—on one spindly leg—the Steadfast Tin Soldier.” She dashed a quick note, hardly noticing that Tom didn’t reply.

They moved on through the lush vegetation: broadleafed rain forest trees overhead and vivid flowers along the paths. “Look. Aren’t those the bluest birds you’ve ever seen?” She pointed and pulled on Tom’s arm, feeling as if she were leading a somnambulist around—and a wooden one at that. But she was determined to break through his barrier. The real Tom was still in there somewhere—if she could just reach him.

Hyacinth Macaw a plaque on a low wall read. Laura grabbed her pen to record the details of the exotic birds: indigo feathers with electric yellow on their beaks and encircling their eyes. “Isn’t it wonderful! Every tiniest detail of creation done with care. Just for the pure joy of beauty.”

Tom viewed the magnificent birds so stoically Laura wanted to quip that the animals were real but the visitors were stuffed and mounted. Even in his most left-brained, number-crunching mode he wasn’t usually this stiff. Why was he so distant? She hurried on before her mind could form the forbidden answer: Marla.

They sat by a pool and watched Japanese carp and goldfish swim; walked past banks of bright hibiscus, fuchsia, and appropriately named flamingo flowers. They paused at a waterfall where small, green-winged tea ducks; electric orange goldfish; and one chartreuse, turquoise, and red parrot made their homes. Then they crossed the curving, vine-trailed bamboo bridge to the aviary where a whole beauty pageant of salmon-crested cockatoos preened for admirers and long-billed scarlet ibis fed.

Laura’s pen moved. “Now
that’s
scarlet.” She tipped her head to one side. “I wonder how they ever get the food all the way up that slender bill to their throats.”

No reply. She might as well have been accompanying a stone statue. She couldn’t believe he didn’t even respond when they rounded the corner and met Chiquita and Pedro, tiny marmoset monkeys. The little balls of fur bounced from branch to branch and scrutinized their visitors through bright round eyes. And Tom smiled. Almost.

However small, this was a victory she could follow up on. “Let’s eat.” She nudged him toward a bamboo gazebo overlooking the sunken garden. Fans turned languidly in the high, crystal firmament, echoing the gently waving palms around them. They sat under a flowering hibiscus tree while Concerto for Waterfall and Macaw played in the background. Laura dumped her books on the floor. “Oh, it feels so good to be rid of those books. Stupid me, I’ve been lugging them around all day.”

“Oh? Really?”

Did he think she was needling him for not offering to take them? “Oh, that’s OK. Actually I did have a little reprieve in the museum. You’ll never believe—” Then she saw the coldness in his look. “Tom! You were in the museum. Why didn’t you say something?”

“You looked perfectly content. I had no intention of playing odd man out with your gigolo.”

“My
what?
Don’t be silly, Tom. That was the merest chance meeting. You can’t possibly think it was some sort of—of assignation.”

Silence drowned the sound of the waterfall as the waitress set a tray of tiny sandwiches and a pot of tea in front of them. Laura poured: black for Tom, white for herself.

She shoved Tom’s cup toward him, but he didn’t touch it. “Or was it some sort of charade? Some infantile idea to make me jealous—which is rather what it looked like. I know you too well to think you’d seek out male companionship.”

“Well, I should hope so—”

But Tom wasn’t finished. “I can’t even figure out why you want me around. You don’t need me. You have the people in your head to talk to. I’m surprised you noticed I wasn’t there.”

“Of course I noticed. What do you think?”

“What difference would it have made? Would you have seen the displays any clearer with me by your side? Or is that why you latched on to Lothario—because you didn’t have me to play Kendrick for you?”

“Kevin. My hero’s name is Kevin. But what are you saying? Are you jealous of my fictional people?”

Tom shrugged. “Of course not. Why should I be?” The irony in his voice said the reasons were so obvious it would be ridiculous to mention them.

Did Tom feel shut out of her life? She complained because he didn’t tell her about his business deals. But how much did she tell him about her stories? But he wasn’t interested. Tom never read novels. He wouldn’t understand.

Anyway, none of that mattered. The overwhelming fact was that Tom cared.
He cares. He cares enough to be jealous.
She was shaking so with excitement she couldn’t get her teacup to her mouth. “Oh, Tom, thank you. Thank you.”

“Thank you? For what? For spending one of the worst mornings of my life while my wife goes on a sight-seeing jaunt with some greasy stranger?”

“But that’s just it—he
is
a stranger. I don’t even know his name. It’s not as if I knew him, er—intimately, like you and Marla—” Her hand flew to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that. She hadn’t even been thinking about Marla. Not actively, that is; she was always there subliminally.

But then a glimmer of a new thought pushed its way in. “Oh, Tom. I see. Is that how it was with you? Something that looked bad but was totally meaningless? Oh, Tom …”

The rest of the day Laura moved encased in a goldspun cloud made of her happy thoughts:
Tom cares for me. I see how it was with Marla. Tom cares. My husband cares. Oh, Tom, Tom, that’s all I need to know. We can go on now.

Tonight. We’ll start tonight. This will be the first night of our honeymoon—the honeymoon we should have had seven years ago. Tom, I love you so much. I’ll show you tonight—really show you. I’ll be all yours …

Laura reveled in the luxury of having a suite. While Tom worked at the Chippendale escritoire in the living room, she splashed happily in the oversized tub, then lavished herself with the imported powder and perfume she had purchased at the hotel gift shop. The ivory satin of her gown shimmered as she slipped it over her head. She had bought it with considerable trepidation just before leaving home. She had never worn such a thing before, but she knew she simply could not allow herself to bring her favorite blue flannel pajamas on a honeymoon. Although she did slip a cotton granny gown into her suitcase in a lastminute panic.

She hummed softly to herself as she brushed her hair to a glow that matched her gown and her eyes. The golden cloud moved with her as she glided into the living room and stood behind Tom, smiling gently.

She raised her arm to reach out and caress the back of his neck. But her arm froze midmotion. Panic tightened her throat, her breath came short, her hands sweaty. Suddenly there was a third person in the room.

“Laura, put your robe on!”
her mother ordered through tight lips. Laura reached woodenly for the terry cloth robe she had tossed across the love seat earlier.
“And fasten it.”
Laura tied the belt. Then, because there were no buttons, she held the lapels together at her throat. The specter surveyed her severely, then melted with the last wisps of Laura’s golden cloud.

“I—I’ll see you in bed, Tom.” Her voice was as tight as her mother’s had been. She hoped it wasn’t as disapproving. She fled around the corner and up the steps to the bedroom.

Her fingers so tense her pen would hardly move, Laura poured her soul-searching into her journal:
What’s wrong with me? I don’t understand. I tried so hard. I was so determined tonight would be different. And I prayed. Over and over again—“Please, God, don’t let it be a disaster.” Is this His answer?

No, I can’t blame this on anyone else—not on Marla, not on Tom, not on God. It’s all my fault. I’m to blame. I can’t make love to my husband, and it’s all my fault. I must be guilty of some terrible character flaw. Or maybe I’m insane. I know my reactions aren’t normal, and it seems the harder I try to fight them, the worse I get …

“I’m going downstairs to get a newspaper.” At the sound of Tom’s voice Laura jumped and clutched her robe to her. The look of disgust that crossed his face at her reflex brought stinging tears to Laura’s eyes, but she was beyond being able to cope with her emotions.

She lay in stiff silence in the big bed and wondered how long it could possibly take to buy a newspaper in the lobby … how long … how … She finally fell asleep beneath the elegant Georgian canopy, her new ivory satin gown buried under layers of covers.

Chapter
5

Laura wakened to the sound of seagulls outside the window, a small reminder that they were on an island. And then she looked at the small island that was their bed. There was Tom, boyish and vulnerable in his sleep. Her first impulse was to nudge him awake and ask, “Where were you last night?” But the joy of waking to his presence beside her erased much of the desperate emptiness of the night before. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.