Part 23 (1/2)

He faced her again, unsmiling.

She pulled him to her and kissed him, a quick, hard kiss, on the mouth. ”See you Sat.u.r.day.”

”Yes.” His eyes were distant, his voice without inflection. ”I'll be here.” Rosie made a cooing sound. He laid his hand on her small back. ”Bye, Rosie.” Those words, at least, had feeling in them.

Lacey watched him walk up the narrow aisle away from her, until he disappeared through the exit. Then she strapped Rosie into her seat.

Adele met Lacey and Rosie at LAX and drove them straight to her s.h.i.+ngled bungalow-style house in Pasadena. The two women spent the early evening playing catch-up, filling each other in on their separate lives in the months since Lacey had leftL.A.

AdeleLevenson was in her mid-fifties, with a cap of wild gray curls and a body ofRubenesque proportions. She wore flowing dresses in dramatic colors: hot turquoise, emerald green, yellow as bright as lemons in sunlight. She'd been married and divorced and had three grown children living in different parts of the state. She confessed that she'd enjoyed her marriage-at least the first ten years of it. And she'd loved raising her children.

”But I love this, too.” She gestured with a wide sweep of both arms. ”My own house. Time just for me. The luxury of working whenever the mood strikes.”

They spent a couple of hours on thesunporch in back, which Adele used as her studio. Lacey admired the new landscapes Adele showed her, struck as always by the way Adele's watercolors s.h.i.+mmered with vivid color and gorgeous washes of golden light.

”You just get better and better,” Lacey told her friend.

Around nine, after Adele had served a dinner of lamb chops and wild rice and Lacey had put Rosie down to sleep in the spare room, the two women went out onto the big stone front porch. They sat on the porch swing in the moonlight and listened to the sounds of night birds and the whispering whoosh of cars going by down the drive.

”You seem ... a little sad,” Adele said. ”A little pensive. It's in your eyes. And in your voice. Is it something you'd like to talk about?”

Lacey shook her head.

”I'm here to listen, if you need me.”

Lacey reached out, put her hand on Adele's bright sleeve. ”Thanks. I'll remember that.”

At a little after ten, Lacey excused herself. She went to the bedroom she shared with her daughter, took out her cell phone and dialed the house onOrchard Street. After four rings, the answering machine picked up. Lacey listened to her own voice instructing her to leave a message.

Then she said, ”Logan, it's me. I just ... wanted you to know we got in all right. We're at Adele's now, all settled in for the night. I ... I love you. Don't ever forget that.”

She hung up feeling foolish, wondering if he'd had to work late, or if he'd rushed out to the hospital to handle some emergency. Or if maybe he'd been standing right there as she left her message, listening to each word that she said, unwilling to pick up the phone and talk to her.

The next day, Adele insisted that Lacey use her car. ”It's ridiculous for you to rent one. I never go out that much anyway. We can share while you're here.”

So Lacey drove Adele's comfortable old Chrysler into downtownL.A., where she met with Belinda at Barnaby's place. Belinda liked the seven other paintings Lacey showed her. And she seemed honestly enthusiastic when Lacey described her ideas for the three or four more pieces she thought she could finish before the show in March.

”Come see me at the gallery, tomorrow,” Belinda said.

Lacey agreed to be there at eleven. Then she gave Barnaby a big hug and promised she'd find some way to get together with him before she left for home. She raced back to Adele's, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s aching and full, to feed Rosie her lunch.

That evening, after she'd told Adele good-night, she calledLoganagain. And got no answer. She left another message, a brief one, ”It's me. Everything's going fine. I love you. I'll see you Sat.u.r.day.”

Strange, she thought when she hung up. Last winter, it wasLogancalling me, leaving messages I never answered.

And just look at us now-the situation reversed.

She'd thought they'd come so far, in the two months of their marriage. But now she wondered if they'd made any progress at all.

She loved him.

She would always love him.

But she was beginning to ask herself the scariest kind of question: Would they get through this with their marriage intact? Could she, perhaps, have been right from the first about the two of them, that they were two people distinctlynot meant for each other?

The way it looked now, either she gave up her dreams for him, or she would lose him. What kind of choice was that? And why would a basically good man-and she did believe thatLoganwasa good man-force her to make such a choice?

* * * Logangot in aftermidnight. The house seemed too empty, too d.a.m.n gray and dreary, without Lacey there. He'd stayed away as long as he could, eating dinner out, then heading back to the hospital to check on a couple of patients in critical care. After the hospital, he'd made a last stop at the office. There was always a stack of stuff on his desk crying out to be dealt with. He spent a couple of hours plowing through the pile.

And then, because he couldn't think of any more ways to avoid it, he returned to the house onOrchard Street. He went straight to the answering machine on the counter in the kitchen. The message light blinked at him.

He pushed the b.u.t.ton-and he heard her voice. He played the message three times, longing coursing through him like a pulse. I love you, she said, just as she had the night before. Only then, she had added,Don'tever forget that. I love you... Don't ever forget that... The words echoed through his brain, along with all the things he kept trying not to think about, those hard things she had said to him the night before she left. This really can't wait. And there's no reason, other than your completely unreasonable possessiveness, that it needs to wait. I have gone into your world and learned to enjoy it. I would like very much for you to return the favor. So far, you haven't.

I've asked you to come with me to hear my friends play... To visit my sister... You've never said that you love me... Loganleaned on the counter and pressed his head between his hands. ”Stop, d.a.m.n it!” he shouted at the silent, empty room. It worked, more or less. It silenced the remembered echo of her voice. But it didn't make what she'd said any less true.

Thursday evening, Adele invited Xavier and Barnaby and Xavier's wife, Sophia, to dinner. Barnaby had a previous commitment he couldn't get out of, but Xavier and Sophia came. It was a good evening, full of laughter and interesting talk. Xavier held Rosie, declared her a beauty and said she smelled like peaches. He and his wife left at a little after ten. He had an early flight toNew Yorkthe next day.

At ten-thirty, after she'd bid Adele good-night, Lacey called her husband for the third time. He didn't answer. She left a three-sentence message that ended withI love you. Then she got into bed with her daughter and tried to sleep. It was no good. At ten-forty-five, she called home again. After three rings, her husband surprised her. He answered.

”h.e.l.lo.” The way he said that single word made her heart ache. He sounded so lonely, so very far away. And something in that hollow, distant voice reminded her poignantly of his father. Lacey hadn't known Logan Sr. particularly well. She remembered that he had dark eyes, likeLogan's, and that he rarely smiled. He'd been a very serious man, a man who set high standards and expected his only son to live up to them.

And live up to themLogandid. Perhaps too well in some ways. ”h.e.l.lo,”Logansaid again, an impatient edge creeping in. ”h.e.l.lo,Logan. It's me.” He hesitated, then said her name, ”Lacey...” Now, that's more like it, she thought. That sounded almost tender. But then again, maybe she was just a victim of a bad case of wishful thinking. ”Did you get my messages?”

He took a moment to answer, as if he suspected she meant to trick him with such a question. Then he said, ”I got them. Last night and the night before.”

”You didn't call back,” she said, thinking: Brilliant. State the painfully obvious.

He cleared his throat. ”You didn't say anything about wanting me to call you back.”

Ohmigoodness, were they a pair or what? She sighed. ”Next time I'll make my desires clearer-I also

called about fifteen minutes ago.”

”I just walked in the door.”