He felt compelled to prepare her. “They’ll say it.”
“And they’ll be wrong again. They may have used you for a scapegoat that summer, they may be doing it still, and I suppose it’s only natural that parents try to find someone to blame, some reason to explain a tragedy like that. But, damn it, you’ve been their scapegoat long enough!”
“You’re apt to take over that role, if it comes down to an estrangement.”
“Oh, Web, Web, let’s not assume the worst until we come to it … please?”
They left the discussion on that pleading note, but the rest of the day was nowhere near as carefree as the day before had been. They breakfasted, walked again through the woods, packed their bags and closed up the house, all the while struggling to elude the dark cloud hovering overhead.
An atmosphere of apprehension filled the car during the drive back to the city. Web clutched her hand during most of the trip, knowing the dread she was feeling and in turn being swamped by helplessness and frustration. At the door of her apartment, he hugged her with a kind of desperation.
“I’m so afraid of losing you, sunshine … so afraid. I was a fool fourteen years ago for not realizing what I had, but I’m not a fool anymore. I’m going to fight, Marni. I’m going to fight, if it’s the last thing I do!”
Those words, and the love behind them, were to be a much-needed source of strength for Marni in the days to come.
Chapter 7
Marni had had every intention on Monday of calling her mother about the wonderful weekend she’d had with Brian Webster, but she didn’t seem to find the time. When, as prearranged, Web came to take her to dinner that night, she explained that something had come up in the computer division, demanding her attention for most of the day. She’d had little more than a moment here or there to think of making the call.
On Tuesday it was a problem with the proposed deal in Richmond, one she thought she’d ironed out when she’d gone down there the week before. On Wednesday it was a lawsuit, filed against the corporation’s publishing division by one of its authors.
“You’re hedging,” Web accused when he saw her that night.
“I’m not! These things came up, and I need a free mind when I call her.”
“Things are always coming up. It’s the nature of your work. You can put off that call forever, but it’s not going to solve our problem.”
“Speaking of problems, what are we going to do about the cover ofClass?” She knew the second batch of pictures had been better than the first, but that Web was still not fully satisfied.
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Maybe, but it is a problem, and we both do have a deadline on that one.”
“We’ve got a deadline on both, if you look at it one way. The longer you put off breaking the news about us to your parents, the longer it’ll be before we can get married.”
“I know,” she whispered, looking down at the fingernail she was picking. “I know.”
Web knew she was torn, that she loved him and wanted to marry him, but that she was terrified of what her parents’ reaction was going to be. He sympathized, but only to a point.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he sighed. “I’ll study all the proofs and decide what to do about them, if you call your mother…. Sound fair?”
“Of course it’s fair,” she snapped. He was right. She was only prolonging the inevitable. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”
She did better than that. Fearful that she’d lose her nerve when the time came, she called her mother that night and invited her to lunch. It was over coffee and trifle, the latter barely touched on her plate, that Marni broached the subject.
“Mother, do you remember that photographer I was with that night we witnessed the assault?”
Adele Lange, a slender woman with a surprisingly sweet tooth, was relishing every small forkful of wine-soaked sponge cake, fruit, nuts and whipped cream that made up the trifle. She held her fork suspended. “Of course I remember.” She smiled. “He’s the famous one everyone knows about but me.”
Marni forced her own smile as she launched into the speech she’d mentally rehearsed so many times. “Well, we’ve been dating. I think it’s getting serious.”
Adele stared at her, then set down her fork. “But I thought you said it was a business thing.”
“It started out that way, but it’s evolved into something more.” So far, the truth. Marni kept her chin up.
“Marni! It’s been—how long—a week since that incident? How many times could you have seen this man to know that it’s getting serious?”
“I’m thirty-one, Mom. I know.”
