“Do you enjoy it?”
She took a seat across from him, half wishing she’d fixed a hefty something for herself but loath to trust her legs a second time. “Sometimes.”
He eyed her over the rim of his glass. “You must be very skilled at it … upbringing and all.” He took a drink.
“I suppose you could say that. My family’s always done its share of entertaining.”
He nodded, threw his arm over the back of the sofa and looked around the room again. It was a diversionary measure. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. Marni was uncomfortable. He wanted her to relax, but he wasn’t sure how to achieve that. In the end, he realized that his best shot was with the truth.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here tonight. I was half worried that you’d find something else to do—a late meeting or a business dinner or a date.”
She looked at her hands, tautly entwined in her lap, and spoke softly, honestly. “I haven’t been good for much today, business or otherwise.”
“But you went back to the office after you left the studio.”
“For all the good it did me.” She hadn’t accomplished a thing, at least nothing that wouldn’t have to be reexamined tomorrow. She’d been thoroughly distracted. She’d read contracts, talked on the phone, sat through a meeting, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what any of it had been about. She raised her eyes quickly, unable to hide the urgency she felt. “I want you to know something, Web. That time you were in the hospital … it wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking about you. I just … couldn’t get away. I called the hospital to find out how you were, but I … I couldn’t get there.” Her eyes were growing misty again. It was the last thing Web wanted.
“I didn’t come here to talk about that, Marni. I’m sorry I exploded that way this morning—”
“But you meant it. You’re still angry—”
“Not this minute. And I reallydidn’tcome here to talk about it.”
“You said we had to talk things out.”
“We will. In time.”
In time? Infuture time?“But we haven’t got any time.” She looked away, and her voice dropped. “We never really did. It seemed to run out barely before it had begun.”
“We’ve got time. I spoke with Anne this afternoon. She agrees with me that you’re still the best one for this cover. You said yourself that we’re well ahead of the production schedule.”
A spurt of anger brought Marni’s gaze back to his. “I told you, it’s done. I will not pose for that cover. You and Anne can conspire all you want, but I’m still the publisher of this magazine, and as such I have the final say. I’m not a child anymore, Web. I’m thirty-one now, not seventeen.”
He sat forward and spoke gently. “I know that, Marni.”
“I won’t be told what’s good for me and what isn’t.”
“Seems to me you couldneverbe told that. In your own quiet way, you were headstrong even back then.”
She caught her breath and bowed her head. “Not really.”
“I don’t believe you,” was his quiet rejoinder. When she simply shrugged, he realized that she wasn’t ready to go into that. In many respects, he wasn’t either. He took another drink, then turned the glass slowly in his hands. “Look, Marni. I don’t think either of us wants to rehash the past just yet. What I’d like—the real reason I’m here now—is for us to get to know each other. We’ve both changed in fourteen years. In addition to other things, we were friends once upon a time. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious to know what my friend’s been doing, what her life is like now.”
“To what end?” There was a thread of desperation in her voice.
“To make it easier for us to shoot this picture, for one thing.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand and spoke more quickly. “I know. You’re not doing it. But the reason you’re not is that working with me stirs up a storm of memories. If we can get to know each other as adults—”
“You were an adult fourteen years ago. I was a child—”
“I was a man and you were a woman,” he corrected, “but we were both pretty immature about some things.”
She couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You weren’t immature,” she argued. “You were experienced and worldly. You’d lived far more than I ever had.”
“There’s living, and there’s living. But that’s not the point. The point is that we’ve both changed. We’ve grown up. If we spend a little time together now, we can replace those memories with new ones….” He stopped talking when he saw that she’d shrunk back into her seat. Was that dread in her eyes? He didn’t want it to be. God, he didn’t want that! He sat forward pleadingly. “Don’t you see, Marni? You were shocked seeing me today because the last thing we shared involved pain for both of us. Sure, fourteen years have passed, but we haven’t seen or spoken with each other in all that time. It’s only natural that seeing each other would bring back all those other things. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Not if we put something between those memories and us.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re suggesting,” she said in a tone that suggested she did.
“All I want,” he went on with a sigh, “is to put the past aside for the time being. Hell, maybe it’s a matter of pride for me. Maybe I want to show you what I’ve become. Is that so bad? Fourteen years ago, I was nothing. I wandered, I played. I never had more than a hundred bucks to my name at a given time. You had so much, at least in my eyes, and I’m not talking money now. You had a fine home, a family and social status.”
