The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (62 page)

She opened her mouth to explain, but something in Claire’s expression made her think better of it. “Right now I feel old as the hills,” she said with forced cheer. “In fact, I could do with a little rest myself.”

Aubrey gazed out the window at the woman making her way up the front walk. Tall, with a purposeful long-legged stride, her sweater hugging her generous curves. The sunlight was on her face, and even from his study on the second floor he could see that it was mature … yet lovelier than that of any of the younger women constantly slipping him their cards. He was glad she hadn’t made the mistake of so many closing in on fifty, that she hadn’t had a face-lift or even colored her hair.

Isabelle would have approved.

The thought, as always, brought a familiar tug—an undertow that could snatch him out to sea if he didn’t navigate very, very carefully. His wife would have been forty-six this year. Isabelle, whose hair had been the color of the sunlight on the hills he looked out on every day, and whose eyes and mouth had been etched with feathery lines. Isabelle, who could make a violin sing with joy or weep with despair.

He pushed the thought from his mind. There’d been a time he’d hovered on the brink of madness, and that particular darkness was out there still—crouched like a tiger waiting to pounce. Sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. But always there. Dr. Drier had said it would get easier with time, but Aubrey had found that, if so, it wasn’t a gradual, linear process, like treads wearing down, but a strange and circuitous route that at times seemed to go nowhere. That was the part the good doctor had failed to communicate.

What business are you in, Aubrey?

I’m a conductor; you know that.

I wasn’t referring to what you do for a living.

I see where this is leading.

Where is it leading?

Some moronic pap about the business of living, I suppose.

Why do you refer to it as pap?

Because all that crap about life going on is just that
—
crap. Life isn’t just about living … it’s about dying, too. People you love dying. People who had no business taking the car out at night in the pouring rain.

You sound angry.

I AM angry, goddammit! She didn’t
think,
she didn’t stop for one minute to think what could happen … what it would do to us if-
—

What? Say it, Aubrey.

But he hadn’t been able to. Because then he’d have had to let go and she’d have been gone—really and truly gone. He closed his eyes, and saw her casket covered in flowers. Red and blue and purple cascading to the floor. Isabelle had loved bright colors—their rooms on the rue des Saints-Pères had been all bold stripes and floral prints. The small white casket alongside hers had seemed antithetical almost, a slap in the face of everything she’d loved. But babies’ caskets didn’t come in dark colors.
You didn’t know that, did you, Dr. Drier? No, of course not, you bastard.

Aubrey moved away from the window. On the stereo, Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major was playing, and he paused to let it sweep through him like a strong breeze blowing away debris. He’d been unsure about this recording at first, with its dreamy, almost Gallic quality and rigid attention to detail, but it was growing on him. Of course none compared to Isabelle’s, but her CDs were tucked away in a drawer. He hadn’t been able to listen to them since she died.

What most people didn’t understand about music, he thought, was that it wasn’t fixed. A recording you’d listened to a hundred times could sound different on the hundred and first. A Bach concerto as precise as a mathematical equation could, in the blink of an eye, move you to tears. Music was merely the framework, he thought, on which hopes and dreams, dashed and otherwise, were hung.

As he descended the stairs Aubrey thought how much simpler everything would be if life were broken into movements. An
adagio
followed by an
allegretto,
the restful quiet of a
pianissimo
after the thunder of a
fortissimo.
Gerry, he thought, would be
con brio
—with spirit. After seeing her he always felt refreshed, like after an invigorating walk. And the sex …

That
hadn’t deserted him, at least. Only in the darkest hours of his darkest days had the urge gone. Gerry Fitzgerald had merely opened the door and let in fresh air and sunlight. Better yet, she gave freely of herself, asking nothing in return. What he wanted was what she wanted too: friendship and intimacy without ties. There would be no demands, subtle or otherwise, no tears when it was time to part. Gerry was the only woman he’d known who’d have run for the hills even faster than he at the sound of wedding bells.

He could hear her in the foyer as he descended the stairs, speaking in a soft voice to Angelita. When she saw him, a look of profound relief washed over her face. Her Spanish, he knew, was as spotty as his housekeeper’s English.

Angelita turned to him. “Señor Roellinger. I bring drink?”

“There’s iced tea in the fridge.” He smiled at Gerry, who looked windblown, her cheeks pink and eyes over-bright. “Unless you’d like something stronger?”

“Iced tea would be fine,” she said.

Angelita hurried off toward the kitchen, a skinny little thing with big brown eyes who made him think of Bambi. Watching her go, he realized that he hadn’t so much replaced Lupe as provided the doughty old retainer with a compromise: Angelita was allowed to do the heavier housework in exchange for Lupe monitoring her every move. It was a tribute to the girl that her great-aunt’s demands hadn’t put a dent in her cheerful nature.

“You’re sure this isn’t a bad time?” Gerry kissed him on the cheek. She smelled of the outdoors and something faintly citrusy, like fresh-picked lemons still warm from the sun.

“I can’t think of a nicer interruption.” When she’d called a few minutes ago, he’d been in the midst of notating a score. But the sound of her voice brought such welcome associations, he’d immediately seized on the excuse to invite her over.

“I promise I won’t stay long,” she told him.

He remembered that today was the day she was to have met her daughter. Had it not gone well? She looked faintly troubled, and it occurred to him that no one could have lived up to her expectations. Perhaps her daughter felt the same way. That was the trouble with people who were missing—a subject he was all too familiar with—they had a tendency to grow larger than life in the mind’s eye. He harbored a tiny seed of suspicion, deep down, that even Isabelle, if she was alive today, couldn’t live up to his glorified memories of her.

“Stay as long as you like,” he said, smiling. “I want to hear all about it.” He took her arm, tucking it through his. “Shall we sit out on the patio? It’s warm enough.”

They strolled past the sun-washed living room with its dark Mission furniture upholstered in bold southwestern fabrics—all of it Sam’s (her taste was exactly his, so he’d seen no reason to change it)—Aubrey recalling his first visit to Isla Verde, not five months ago. Unlike real estate agents who pointed out every virtue until you wanted to toss them out a window, Sam Kiley had let the house speak for itself.

“Take your time. I’m here if you have any questions,” she’d said, pausing in the midst of her packing to gesture vaguely in the direction of the stairs. So he’d done just that, strolling from room to room, absorbing it the way he would a particularly harmonious piece of music: its square solidity softened by Mediterranean curves, its stark whiteness bordered here and there with decorative tiles. The view from each exposure was different, but equally pleasing in its own way. The downstairs windows looked out on the garden, the ones upstairs on the distant hills. It was a house that had been built to withstand fire and earthquakes, and now would hopefully guard against memories of Isabelle.

They stepped out onto the patio, where the swimming pool glimmered an unearthly blue and the citrus trees were hung with the green globes of ripening fruit. The high stone walls draped in bougainvillea seemed to cup the sunlight like a bowl. As they settled onto deck chairs, Aubrey could feel the warm tiles through the soles of his loafers.

Angelita appeared just then bearing a tray with a pitcher of tea and a plate of freshly baked
dulces.
She placed it on the glass table between them and scurried off with her eyes downcast.

“Why do I always get the feeling she half expects to find us romping about naked?” Gerry observed with a laugh.

“Maybe because we usually are.”

“Behind closed doors.”

“If you’d rather we went upstairs—”

“You’re incorrigible.” A teasing smile flitted about her mouth—the mouth he couldn’t get enough of.

“I enjoy your company either way. With or without clothes.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He poured her a glass of tea before helping himself. “Now, about your daughter. What’s she like?”

Gerry’s face lit up. “Oh, Aubrey, she’s everything I’d hoped—pretty, smart, poised.”

“
Oui
. She’s your daughter.”

“I’m still pinching myself.”

He felt a pang and held very still, as if caught on barbed wire. After more than ten years of trying, he and his wife had been overjoyed to learn that a baby was on the way. Now he would never know his child, a son.

He thought of his own childhood. Nine months of the year in the chilly, wet U.K., and June through August with his grandparents in Brittany. He remembered gathering oysters by the bay in Trinité-sur-Mer, his
grandpère
teaching him how to pry open the horny shells. And his
grandmère
with her old-world remedies, like using pulverized cabbage to bring a boil to a head and groundsel to cure stomachache. Their provincial dialect bore little resemblance to the proper schoolbook French he spoke with his father, and amenities were scarce: a well forever threatening to go dry, the only telephone a ten-minute bike ride away. Yet at the end of each summer, when it was time for him to go—to the interminable season at Eton and even more interminable school holidays with his parents in their townhouse on Cheyne Walk—he’d stand on the dock with a lump the size of an oyster in his throat, fighting back tears. To this day, on nights when he couldn’t sleep, he would close his eyes and summon his grandmother’s scent: that of baking bread and sheets drying on the line.

“I’m happy for you,” he told Gerry.

Her expression clouded over at once. “The trouble is, I’m not sure if she likes
me.
”

“Give her time.”

No one could fail to like Gerry. But, of course, he was prejudiced. Aubrey thought of how she’d brightened his life, how in all the months they’d been seeing each other he had yet to grow tired of her. Looking at her now it was hard to believe that only a year ago he hadn’t had the slightest interest in dating.

He recalled their first meeting at the music festival last summer. How vibrant she’d seemed, and how struck he’d been by her utterly refreshing lack of awe. To Gerry he wasn’t the great Aubrey Roellinger, merely a man she found interesting.

“I’m bringing her home tonight to meet the kids,” she told him.

“That should be interesting,” he said.

“That’s putting it mildly.” She groaned.

He wanted to reassure her, but what could he say that wouldn’t be a platitude? Instead, he passed her the plate of Mexican wedding cakes Lupe had baked just this morning.

She took one, nibbling on it halfheartedly. “I still feel like I’m dreaming. All these years of wondering how big she was, if she was doing well in school, if she—” She stopped, bringing a stricken gaze up to meet his.

Aubrey’s vision blurred, and he became aware of a salty taste on the back of his tongue. Tears, he realized with a small jolt. It had been so long since he’d cried.

“My son would have been four this year,” he said quietly.

“Oh, Aubrey … I’m sorry.” She brought a loosely fisted hand to her mouth. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s all right,” he said.

It was the first time he’d spoken of it to her and he felt something tightly knotted inside him loosen a bit. There was no need to elaborate; it was enough that he could speak of the unspeakable without the earth dissolving beneath his feet.

They moved on to other subjects. He told her of his impending trip to Budapest, where he would be guest conductor at an all-Liszt festival featuring soloists from around the world. She, in turn, told him about the article
West
magazine wanted to do on Blessed Bee, and about the difficulty she was having getting the mother superior to agree to it.

When it was time for her to go, they strolled along the covered walkway that led around the side of the house to the small, gated courtyard in front, deeply shaded this time of day, its koi pond glimmering darkly. He took her in his arms and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Are you free next Friday? I have tickets to a concert.”

“I’ll check my calendar.”

It was what she always said, and he smiled because it was the same line he’d used—less sincerely—with other women. There’d been so many after Isabelle, all eager to console him, both in bed and out. He hadn’t had the heart to tell them he wasn’t the least bit interested.

Looking at Gerry now, poised by the pond in the dappled light, he wanted nothing more than to spirit her off to his bedroom. He took her hand instead. Oddly, it was the one thing he missed most about being married: a woman’s soft hand in his.

“We should make a habit of this,” he said.

She drew away with a laugh. “You say that now.”

“I’m serious.”

“Famous last words—you’d be sick of me in a week.”

She dug into her shoulder bag, rooting for her keys. How she could find anything in all that clutter, he would never know. “By the way, Sam wants to know if you’re coming with me to Laura’s wedding. For some reason she seems to expect it.” She paused to smile at some quaint old tradition.

He shrugged. “I’m game if you are.”

“Great. I’ll let her know.”

He waved to her as she stepped through the gates. The heaviness he wore like a sodden jacket had lifted. He felt lighter than he had in days. If Dr. Drier had been right, if
this
was his true business—to live life to the fullest—Gerry Fitzgerald had given him a substantial lease.