“But theyloveyou.You’re their guru.”
That embarrassed me.“I am not.I’ve just had more experience than they have in the world beyond this town, so they come to me with their questions.I like being involved in their lives.They sense that, I suppose, and that encourages them to come back.If I weren’t here, they’d find the answers all by themselves—” I paused “—but I don’t usually tell myself that.These people make me feel needed.Illusion or not, I don’t care.I like the feeling.”
Indeed, I did.I was in my element here.Among these simple and unpretentious people, I felt as fulfilled as I ever did—except when I was home, in my attic studio, pouring my heart and soul into slabs of clay.They were two different kinds of fulfillment.The first gave me satisfaction as a human being, the second as an artist.But there was a third kind of fulfillment, one that I became acutely aware of several hours later as I prepared for bed.
Wearing my long white nightgown with lace at the hem, wrists and high collar, I sat on the end of my bed and listened to the sounds of Peter preparing for the night in the room beside mine.My cheeks grew pink, my palms damp.Against my wishes, my body tingled in places where tingling wasn’t allowed.
I wondered then about the kind of fulfillment that a woman can only get in the arms of a man, and I prayed that the urges I felt were passing ones.Because I wasn’t about to experience that kind of fulfillment again—particularly not with Peter, who was the kind of man Adam might have been, had I not led him off to the sea.
4
“Wake me at nine.”
They were the last words Peter said to me before closing the door to his room, and they echoed in my brain for most of the night.When I finally fell asleep—after trying in vain to read, then trying in vain to do a crossword puzzle, even creeping upstairs and trying in vain to sketch out the glaze pattern for the fruit bowl I’d thrown earlier that week—it was nearly one in the morning.I awoke again at two-thirty, four fifty-five and six-ten, and each time the same thing happened.I turned over and came slowly to consciousness, then opened my eyes with a start when I remembered that Peter was there.With that recollection came a simultaneous jumping in my stomach that was a long time in settling.When I finally gave up the fight at seven-fifteen and climbed out of bed, I wasn’t at my best.
Wake me at nine.
The hands of the small stove clock crept.It wasn’t that I was eager for Peter to be up and with me, because I certainly wasn’t.I had nothing to say to him.He was here for onereason and one reason alone—to defend Cooper.I assumed that he planned to spend the morning in town chatting with whomever he could find who’d be willing to open up on the subject.That was fine with me.If he thought he’d just sit around the kitchen, dawdling over breakfast for several hours, or hang around the living room—or worse, my studio—that wasn’t so fine.I wasn’t sure I could take it.He might just as well sleep later.
It appeared that that was just what he was going to end up doing.At nine on the dot, I went upstairs and knocked on his door.When there was no answer, I knocked again.After a minute, I accompanied a third knock with his name, but even that failed to elicit a response.So, slowly and cautiously, I turned the knob and eased the door open.
Peter was sprawled facedown on the too-small bed.One bare arm was hooked over its edge and hung nearly to the floor, the other was curved under the pillow.The covers cut diagonally across his body, starting beneath his right arm and ending at his left hip, and beneath the covers, his legs were widespread.I even detected his feet conforming to the vertical end of the mattress.
My stomach was at it again, jumping in the way that had become familiar during the night.
I looked toward the ceiling, but that didn’t do much good.In the minute that I’d studied what was on the bed, certain things had etched themselvesindelibly on my mind.Such as the hard muscles of Peter’s shoulder.The dark tuft of hair beneath his arm.The firm flesh at that spot on his hip that would normally be covered by briefs.
Helplessly my gaze fell back to the bed.“Peter?”I called softly, then wondered why I wasted the effort.If my knocks hadn’t woken him, a soft call wouldn’t.Something stronger was needed.
“Peter!”I called more sharply, then, in annoyance as much as anything else, “Peter.”
He stirred.He moved his legs, then his hips, but when he went still again, it was clear that he’d simply made himself more comfortable.
“Peter!”I shouted.I was beginning to feel mildly panicked.If he didn’t wake to my voice, I was going to have to shake him, which meant putting my hand on his skin.I wasn’t sure I could do that.
“Hmmm.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.It hadn’t been much of a sound, but it had been something.“It’s nine o’clock, Peter.You said to wake you at nine.”
He turned his head on the pillow so that I could see his face.His eyes were still closed.“Mmmm.”
“It’s nine.”When he didn’t respond to that, I said, “Peter?”
“I hear,” he grumbled groggily and turned his head the other way.
I had the distinct impression that he was going right back to sleep.“Are you getting up?”
“Ten,” he mumbled.“Wake me at ten.”The words were slurred.
Eager for any excuse to leave the room, I said, “Fine,” and backed out, closing the door behind me.
That left me with the dilemma of what to do with my time.What I’d planned to do, before Peter had popped his little surprise about wanting me for his girl Friday, was to work.But an hour wasn’t much time.No sooner would I have everything set up than it would be ten, and at ten I was supposed to wake him again, and that meant breakfast soon after, and Lord knew when he’d be finished.By that time whatever I’d been working on would have dried out.
So I ruled out working.I’d already showered, dressed, made my bed, dusted my room, as well as dusted and dry-mopped the entire downstairs, which was really quite funny, since I’d done it all just the day before.But there was something to be said for expending nervous energy, and I was filled with that.
Baking seemed like a good idea.
I wasn’t normally any more compulsive a baker than I was a cleaner.Though my family occasionally mentioned my having gone north to commune with the sea and bake my own bread, I’d never gotten into that routine.Oh, I’d tried.It was truly a romantic thought, and there was nothing more divine than the smell of fresh-bakedbread.But I never seemed to do it quite right.My bread came out looking deformed, and all too often the smell that filled the kitchen was of something burning.Far easier, I decided, to buy my bread at the store.
