The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (6 page)

“But we love having you here.”

“I love being here, but I don't want to overstay my welcome.” They went up the steps and into the entrance hall. Their white-clad figures floated through the silver depths of the tall mirrors flanking the staircase. Then Nora looked again, puzzled. “Moscelle? I just noticed. My hair is short today. It was long last night, I'm sure it was. I was wearing it up.”

“Oh, short hair is the style now, darling.”

“But when did I get it cut?”

“You don't remember?” Moscelle smiled at her kindly—almost too kindly, Nora thought suddenly, as though inwardly Moscelle were laughing but trying to hide it. “There was so much going on last night, and you were having so much fun, that it just slipped your mind, that's all.”

So much fun. “I'm losing my mind, that's all.” Nora tried to sound casual, humorous, and it didn't come out that way at all. She moved a little faster up the staircase, almost running, but Moscelle was right behind her, following her into her bedroom.

“Darling, don't cry!” Moscelle put an arm around Nora's shoulders. “Please! You're perfect!”

That was the problem. “How the hell did that happen?” Nora felt Moscelle stiffen slightly. “I'm sorry. But—what's going on? How did I get to be a natural blonde? Where did I learn to play tennis like that? I can't remember. I can't think straight. My friend Maggie—I was supposed to meet up with her sometime, but I don't even know what day it is.”

“Oh, honestly, who wants to remember everything?” Moscelle's voice was calm and friendly in Nora's ear. She smoothed Nora's hair. “You were so unhappy when you came here! After that awful love affair. Do you ever think about that man now?”

“No,” said Nora. His name came back to her after a moment: Adam. She turned away from Moscelle and sat down on the bed. “But that's another strange thing. We were together for four years, and now I can hardly remember him.”

“Why shouldn't you forget about your old life?” Moscelle said reasonably, taking a seat beside Nora. “You have a better one now. And Raclin—I'm sure he's the real reason you haven't given a thought to that man who treated you so badly. When you find your true love, all the other men, they don't matter anymore.”

“My true love?” said Nora dubiously, but it was still an intoxicating thought. She savored it for a moment.

You don't know a damn thing about him. And if you did, would you even remember it?

“Also, not to be crude,” Moscelle went on, “but you know what a catch Raclin is, Ilissa's heir. And Ilissa simply cherishes you. She's so delighted that you and Raclin are together. And you know, darling, Raclin would never let you go!”

•   •   •

He always arrived a little later than everyone else, but that night Nora thought he would never appear.

Ilissa had promised that this evening would be special, a spectacle that no one would forget easily. “You cannot top this,” she had said in the taxi. And standing in the cabin of a dirigible moored high over New York, listening to the big band playing in the corner of what was a surprisingly commodious ballroom, Nora decided that Ilissa was probably right.

She was feeling much better. She always did, as day turned to evening and the music began to play and the air filled with chatter and laughter. The champagne helped, too. She had already drunk several glasses, standing around talking to Vulpin, when she saw Raclin shouldering through the crowd. Moscelle appeared briefly next to him and said something in his ear; he nodded without slowing down. I suppose she's telling him what a baby I was today, Nora thought ruefully.

“Sorry to be late, my dear.” The band started a new tune. They began to dance, Raclin steering her in a smooth orbit around the dance floor.

“I thought I'd have to find a new dancing partner,” she said, pouting a little. “Where have you been?”

“I was helping my mother with her duties. Too dull to bore you with.”

People alluded to Ilissa's duties casually, without really explaining what they were. At some point it had become too embarrassing for Nora to admit that she didn't know. Her original hypothesis, that Ilissa managed a large fortune, seemed too dull and technical for someone as graceful and sophisticated—and quite frankly, as frivolous—as Ilissa. For a while, Nora theorized that Ilissa was a clothing designer, producer of some rarefied European line that an impoverished graduate student like herself would never have heard of. Then the nightly spectacles made her decide that Ilissa must be involved in something theatrical. Now she was tending back toward the financial theory, with the revision that Ilissa must be directing some large-scale charitable endeavor that she was too modest to acknowledge openly.

“What is it you do, exactly?” Nora asked.

Raclin smiled at her. “Whatever Ilissa needs me to do. I help her carry out her inspirations.”

“So you handle the business side?” Nora hazarded.

“More or less,” he said. “You might not think it to look at me, but I'm rather good at that kind of thing.”

“Mmm, I'm sure you are.”
He hasn't explained what he does, has he?
Nora ignored the faint inner voice—its cheap cynicism—and angled her face upward to put her mouth closer to Raclin's, in case he might kiss it. Raclin looked down at her, his eyes hooded.

“Let's go outside.” Taking hold of her arm, he led her onto the outside deck. Through the railing Nora could see the illuminated quilt of city streets, over a thousand feet below, and the spoked silver crown of the Chrysler Building nearby. They were tethered to the Empire State Building. The deck rocked slowly underfoot as the dirigible swayed in the breeze.

“It feels good out here. It was so stuffy inside,” she said.

His strong hands slid around her waist. Above the pale blur of his shirt front, his face was in shadow. “Moscelle said you were a little upset this afternoon.”

Nora thought she had never heard anything as tender as the concern in his voice. “I was being silly,” she said. “It was nothing. I was just a little worried.”

“Ah, but we agreed that you wouldn't worry about anything.”

“Oh, that's right.” She laughed. “Well, I realized that I should think about getting back soon.”

“Why? You're not getting tired of us, are you?” As Nora shook her head, still smiling, he pursued: “Getting tired of me?”

She hated that he would even think such a thing. Raclin was so vulnerable—she could sense it—under that princely self-confidence, those dark, sculpted good looks. “Darling! I love it here. But I do have obligations. My life. School.”

“School?”

For the first time, something in his tone didn't quite satisfy her. She almost detected a hint of mockery.
You can't hear how he's making fun of you?
“Yes, school,” she said. “I've got to get back to teach summer school. And my thesis—I need to get to work on it again.”

“That doesn't sound so important.”

“Well, it is,” Nora shot back. Whatever her private reservations about the worth of her graduate school career, she didn't like the ripple of condescension that was suddenly plain in Raclin's voice.

He laughed quietly. “I've ruffled your feathers, my dear.”

“No, it's just—”
Just that he's being a patronizing jerk.
She bit her lip.

Reaching down to touch her chin, Raclin tilted her head back, aligning it just so. Then his mouth melted onto hers.

At last. This was the part of each night that Nora looked forward to most. Throughout the evening, as they danced and circulated, Nora's impatience would build, minute by minute, so that by the time Raclin turned to her, a faint smile on his face, and pulled her toward him, her body would be throbbing with anticipation. And then—it was always hard to remember exactly what happened next, a sort of thrilling blur that felt as though all the circuits in her nervous system were blowing out at once. Afterward she always felt damply exhausted and happy but still wanted more.

The odd thing was that they had not yet made love. Of course it was true that some of Ilissa's events required wearing clothes—costumes, really—that were hardly designed for quick shedding. But even setting aside the hindrances posed by Nora's clothing, Raclin always went just so far and no farther, even when Nora, nearly fainting, begged him—this happened more than once—to keep going. He seemed pleased, almost amused to see how eager she was, but he had never yet taken her up on the invitation that she pressed on him.

Now, as they kissed, Nora thought that this might be the night. Raclin's mouth pressed down on hers, hard, almost the way he had kissed her that first night in the darkness of the garden. Her irritation vanished, and right on cue, her mind and body began to fill up with that familiar, blissful haze. She leaned backward into his arms.

“You see?” Raclin murmured in her ear. “I'll teach you. Isn't this better than anything you could learn from a book?”

His words pricked, even as she was losing herself in his embrace. Nora hesitated, then pulled away to look Raclin in the face.

“Darling, when I go back to school, it doesn't mean that we won't see each other. I just have to—”

“We'll talk about that later.” His kiss consumed the words that Nora had been about to speak. As he pressed against her, she could feel the wooden deck railing against her bare back. Now she had bent back as far as she could go. Still he would not let up.

Enough,
she wanted to say.
That hurts. I'm losing my balance.
But there was no time, as her weight shifted and her high heels slid on the metal deck. She felt herself toppling backward, falling. Her legs kicked through empty space. Nothing but a quarter of a mile of air between her and the New York City sidewalk. Overhead the bulk of the dirigible shrank as she plunged. Nora screamed, but she was falling so fast that by the time she heard it, even her scream seemed far away.

Then she was standing upright on the dirigible deck, with Raclin's arms tight around her.

Nora took a deep breath, then another, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. “My God, I was falling.” Her voice shook. “What happened?”

Raclin lifted a hand to stroke her hair. “Are you all right?” he asked calmly.

“Yes. No. What happened?

“Oh, you had a little scare,” he said. “You thought you were falling. But you were perfectly safe. I had you in my arms the whole time.”

“But it was real. We were kissing, and then I was falling, I could feel it. I could see the—I thought I was going to die. What did you do?”

He pulled her tightly against him. Nora rubbed her cheek against the black cloth of his dinner jacket. This close, he seemed to blot out everything else, even the memory of fear. “Do you think I would let anything happen to you?” he asked. “Don't you know how precious you are to me?”

Nora looked at him and read nothing but loving sympathy in his eyes. “No, I know you'll always take care of me,” she said slowly. “I must have had a little too much to drink tonight. I was dizzy. I lost my balance.”

“It's a long way down. You got a little panicky.”

“I panicked for a moment. We're so high.”

“Poor darling.” He took hold of her chin and gave it a tweak. “Feeling better? You're not afraid to stay out here and kiss me again?”

“Try me,” she said, closing her eyes.

Their lips met. As they kissed, again Nora felt herself dropping. She was still in Raclin's arms, and yet there was nothing to hold on to. She tumbled through the air, wind whistling in her ears, whipping her dress. One of her pumps came loose and was gone.

She closed her eyes, refusing to look at the ground that was coming closer, faster, about to slam her body into jelly.

Eyes shut, Nora could feel Raclin's lips on her lips, his tongue probing her mouth. She moaned, pressing herself against him. If she could just hold on to him, if she could somehow will herself into believing that she was safe in his embrace, she might be able to pull herself up out of this sickening dive.

“Relax,” he whispered. “Just kiss me. There's nothing to fear.”

Obediently, she clung to him, trying to ignore the vertigo. It was as though she had become two different people, with two different fates. She knew that she was crashing toward earth. She could feel the suck of gravity in her bones. Any instant now, it would all be over. But at the same time she was kissing Raclin.

“Please, hold me,” she whispered. “Please.”

“You have to trust me,” he said. “All you have to do is give yourself to me. That's all. That's all I want. Just relax. Don't keep anything back. Open up, give it all to me.”

There were two Noras, one who was about to die, and one who would live and be happy, blissfully happy, because she had surrendered all pain and terror to someone who was stronger than she was. She wanted frantically to be the second woman.

“Yes,” she said. Deep inside her, something that had been tight suddenly loosened, and then, with a sigh, it was gone.

The world steadied. She could feel the solid metal of the dirigible deck beneath the soles of her shoes—both shoes, including the one that had blown off her foot in midair.

“Good, that's it. Come on, give it all to me.”

“Yes, please, take it. All of it.” Nora felt light and fresh, as though she had just been reborn.

“Lovely. That's perfect. See how easy that was, darling?”

“Yes, darling, it's easy. It's—” Nora searched for the right words. “It's good.”

“Of course. You're going to be very happy. No more worries.”

“Darling,” she said. “All yours.”

“I know,” he said. “That's my brave girl. You did just fine. You were a little jumpy at first, but you did just fine.”