Chapter 19
“This is my favorite room.” Maris basked in the familiar comfort of her father’s home study, where they were having cocktails.
At the last minute Noah had needed to consult with the contracts manager over a disputed clause, so he had urged her to go to Daniel’s house ahead of him. She hadn’t minded his being detained. Since her return from Georgia, she hadn’t spent any time alone with her father.
“I’m rather partial to this room myself,” Daniel said. “I spend a lot of time in here, but I like it even more when you’re sharing it with me.”
She laughed. “You didn’t always feel that way. I remember times when I’d come in here hoping to coax you away from the work that you’d brought home with you. I made a pest of myself.” They smiled at the shared recollections, but Daniel’s expression turned somber.
“I wish I had those times to relive, Maris. If I did, I’d spend more time skating in the park or playing Monopoly with you. I regret passing up those opportunities.”
“I wasn’t deprived much, Dad. In fact, I wasn’t deprived of anything. Most of all you.”
“You’re being far too generous, but I thank you for saying that.”
Maris sensed a melancholia in him tonight. He’d been very glad to see her, but his jocularity didn’t quite ring true. His comic bickering with Maxine seemed forced. His smiles were good counterfeits of the real thing, but they were noticeably strained.
“Dad, aren’t you feeling well? Is something wrong?”
He cited Howard Bancroft’s funeral. “It’s tomorrow morning.”
She nodded sympathetically. “Howard wasn’t just your corporate lawyer, he was a good and trusted friend.”
“I’m going to miss him. He’ll be missed all over this city. For the life of me, I can’t understand what drove him to do such a terrible thing.”
He was grieving his loss, naturally, but Maris wasn’t entirely sure that Bancroft’s suicide was the only thing weighing heavily on Daniel’s mind. She reasoned that his mood might be in response to her own. She wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs tonight, either. She could attribute her moodiness to two things. Well, actually two people. Noah and Parker.
Noah’s explanation for his meeting with WorldView had been plausible. Daniel had even verified it. Nevertheless, it rankled that they had kept her unaware of something so vitally important to the future of Matherly Press. She had never been that busy.
Had she been anyone else, her high ranking in the company would have demanded she be kept apprised. Their personal relationships should not have been a factor. As senior vice president of the corporation, she had deserved to be informed of Blume’s poaching. As a wife, she deserved her husband’s respect.
That’s what had really infuriated her—Noah’s nonchalant dismissal of her anger.
He’d treated her like a child who could be easily mollified with a candy stick, or a pet whose trust could be earned with a pat on the head. His peacemaking platitudes had been textbook standards. Marriage 101, lesson three: How to Fight Constructively.
The way in which he’d placated her had been more belittling than his original offense. Didn’t he know her any better than to think she could be so easily defused and dismissed?
“Maris?”
She raised her head and smiled at Daniel with chagrin. “Did I drift?”
“No farther than a million miles.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Would you freshen my drink, please?” When she hesitated, he waved his hand irritably. “I know, I know. You think I’m drinking too much. By the way, I saw through that man-to-man advice Noah gave me. It came straight from you.”
“I worry about you navigating the stairs after you’ve had a few, that’s all. You’re a little unsteady to start.”
“If I get drunk tonight, you can carry me up the stairs piggyback, how’s that?” Chastening him with a look, she crossed the room to get his glass and carried it with her to the bar. “While you’re at it, why don’t you have another?” he suggested. “I think you could use it.”
She poured him another scotch and refilled her wineglass with Chardonnay. “Why?”
“Why do I think you need alcoholic reinforcement this evening? Because you look like your puppy has run away from home.”
True. She was feeling a huge sense of loss. She’d been reluctant to pinpoint the source of it and assign it a name, but in her heart of hearts, she knew its name: Parker Evans.
She resettled in her chair, and as Daniel methodically refilled the bowl of his pipe, she let her gaze wander around the room. She took in her father’s extensive collection of coveted leather-bound first editions. They were meticulously lined up on the shelves of a massive cabinet with gleaming glass doors.
She couldn’t help but compare this neat and costly library to Parker’s haphazardly crammed bookshelves. She contrasted the expensive furnishings and appointments of this room to the wicker chairs and chintz cushions in Parker’s solarium. This room had an imported marble fireplace that had been salvaged from an Italian palace. The wood mantel in Parker’s house had been carved by a slave named Phineas.
And she realized that, as much as she loved this house, this room, and the fond memories of childhood they evoked, she was homesick for St. Anne Island, and Parker’s house with its creaky hardwood floors, and the cozy guest cottage with its claw-footed bathtub.
She was homesick for Mike’s clattering in the kitchen and the click of the keys as Parker typed in his rapid, two-fingered, hunt-and-peck method. She missed the oddly harmonious racket of the cicadas, and the distant swish of the surf breaking on the beach, and the scent of honeysuckle, and the feel of the salt air, so heavy it was like raiment against her skin, and… Parker.
She missed Parker.
“Are you thinking about him?” Daniel asked softly, interrupting her thoughts. “Is he what has made you sad?”
“Made me sad? Hardly,” she said, giving her head a firm shake. “Has he made me angry? Yes. Would I like to throttle him? Definitely. He’s provoking on every level, starting with how he approaches his profession. Only rarely does he take a suggestion or criticism without first putting up an argument, which invariably turns fierce.
“He stays hidden away in that house, on that island. Lovely as the house and island are, he uses them as a refuge. He should be out among people. A writer usually seizes every opportunity to promote his work. But not him. Oh, no. He adopts this lofty attitude and pretends to be above all that, but I know better. The reason he remains a recluse is because of his disability.
“Oh, have I told you that, Dad? He’s wheelchair-bound. I didn’t learn that until I got there. At first I was shocked because when talking to him over the telephone, I got no indication that he was in any way impaired, except when it came to manners. It took me totally by surprise. But after a while… I don’t know, Dad, it’s strange. When I look at him now, I don’t even see the wheelchair.”
She paused to reflect on that, realizing how profoundly true the statement was. She no longer saw Parker’s chair or his disability, and she wondered at what point that had happened.
“I suppose it’s the potency of his personality that makes his disability seem not just inconsequential, but invisible. He’s got an extraordinary command of the language. Even his bawdy—make that crude—vocabulary is impressive.
“He has a sly sense of humor. Wicked, sometimes. He can be awfully grouchy, too, but then I suppose he’s entitled to be. Anyone in his circumstances would be resentful. I mean, he’s young, in his prime, so his bitterness over being confined to a wheelchair is understandable and forgivable.
“He’s self-conscious of his scars, but he shouldn’t be. People, especially women, would find him attractive no matter what his legs look like. He’s not… not handsome, exactly, but… he’s got an… an animal magnetism, I guess you’d call it. You sense an energy radiating from him even when he’s sitting still.
“When he speaks to you, you’re drawn right into his eyes. The intensity with which he holds your attention makes up for his incapacity. But don’t get the impression that he’s feeble. He’s not. In fact he’s quite strong. His hands are…”
His hands. When they had kept her head in place for his kiss. When they had trapped her hips and held her still beside his chair. Those times they had felt incredibly strong and commanding. Yet at other times, like when he had plucked a leaf from her hair, his touch had been light and deft, even playful.
When she’d held a seashell in her palm for him to admire, he had traced the delicate whorls with his fingertip gingerly, as though afraid to apply too much pressure and risk crushing it. A woman would never have to flinch from his touch.
“He’s the most complex individual I’ve ever met,” she said huskily. “Extremely talented.” She conjured up Parker’s face and heard herself saying, “Also angry. Very angry. You can sense it in his writing. But even when he’s relaxed and joking with Mike, his anger is detectable.
“His smiles have a disturbing element. There’s a cruelty to them, and that’s unfortunate because I don’t believe he could be cruel at all if not for the anger. It’s always there, just beneath the surface.
“There’s a passage in his novel where he describes Roark’s anger toward Todd. He compares it to a serpent gliding through still, dark water, never surfacing, never revealing itself, but constantly there, silent, sinister, and deadly, waiting to poison them both.
“Probably he’s just angry over being trapped in a wheelchair. But I sense there’s something… something I don’t know, something I’ve missed, like there’s one more secret yet to come to light.”
She laughed softly. “I can’t imagine what it might be. He’s sprung so many surprises on me. Not all of them good.” She took a sip of wine and raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “That’s the best way I know to answer your question.”
Daniel studied her thoughtfully for a long moment as he continued to pack tobacco into his pipe. He rarely lighted it. He just liked the ritualistic activity. It gave him something to do while assembling his thoughts.
When he finally spoke, it was to quietly say, “Actually, Maris, my question referred to Noah.”
Embarrassed, she flushed hotly. For five solid minutes she had rattled on about Parker. “Oh… oh, well,” she stammered, “yes, he… I wouldn’t say Noah made me sad, but I was upset over his meeting with WorldView. I was even more upset that he chose not to tell me about it.”
Daniel set the pipe aside and picked up his tumbler. As he contemplated the amber contents, he asked, “Did Noah tell you that he had a meeting with Howard the afternoon he killed himself?”
The manner in which he had posed the question caused her throat to constrict. This wasn’t a casual inquiry. “He mentioned it.”
“It took place only a couple of hours before Howard ended his life.”
Maris lost all appetite for the wine. Setting the crystal stem on the end table, she wiped condensation, or perspiration, off her palms. “What was the nature of their meeting?”
“According to Noah, Howard needed him to sign off on the final draft of a contract between us and one of our foreign licensees. Noah approved the amended language and that was the extent of it.”
That’s what Noah had told her, too. “Do you…” She cleared her throat and began again. “Do you doubt that?”
“I have no reason to. Although…” Maris waited in breathless suspension for him to continue. “Howard’s secretary told me that his meeting with Noah was his last for the day, and that when he left the office, he wasn’t himself.”
“Specifically?”
“He seemed distressed. I think her exact words were ‘extremely upset.’ ” Daniel took a sip of whisky. “Of course, one event probably has nothing to do with the other. Howard could have been upset over any number of things, something in his personal life, something that didn’t relate to Matherly Press or Noah.”
But her father didn’t believe that. If he did, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. “Dad, do you think—”
“Good. I see you started without me.” Noah pushed open the double doors and breezed in. “Darling, I apologize again for making you come over alone.” He bent down and kissed Maris, then smacked his lips as though tasting them. “Good wine.”
“It is. Very.” She got up and moved to the wet bar, trying to hide from the men and herself that her knees were wobbly. “I’ll pour you some.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather have what Daniel is having. Rocks only. It’s been that kind of day.”
Noah crossed the room to shake hands with his father-in-law, then rejoined Maris on the love seat and placed his arm around her as she handed him a highball glass. “Cheers.” After taking a sip of his drink, he said, “Maxine sent me in with the message that dinner is in ten minutes.”
“I hope her pot roast isn’t as dry as it was last time,” Daniel grumbled.
“Her pot roast is never dry,” Maris said, wondering how they could be discussing something as trivial as pot roast when only moments ago the topic had been a man’s inexplicable suicide.
“Dry or not, I’m going to wreak havoc on it,” Noah said. “I’m starving.”
Of course, one event probably has nothing to do with the other.
She clung to her father’s statement, desperate to believe it.
This was Noah they were talking about. Her husband. The man she had fallen in love with, and the man she still loved. Noah. The man she slept beside every night. The man with whom she wanted to have children.
She placed her hand on his thigh, and he, without even a pause in his conversation with Daniel, covered her hand with his own and pressed it affectionately. It was an absentminded, husbandly, and reassuring gesture.