Of course, I still made time for Swansy and Cooper and the others who were so dear to me.Seeing them each day, being part of their lives was as important to me as my work.They needed me, and being needed was a vital part of my makeup.It was one of the main things that had been missing in my old life, where people’s needs for each other were selfish, usually material and almost always fickle.Adam had come along with an emotional need that I’d filled to a tee.We’d moved here, and I’d found that in my own small way I could fill the needs of even more people.Even after Adam died, the sense of fulfillment remained.
In fact given that satisfaction, I wasn’t quite sure why I was working so hard for this show.I hadn’t done it for either of the other two shows I’d had.Shows didn’t impress me, certainly notwith my own skill as a potter.I potted for the creative outlet it gave me.Yes, I enjoyed seeing my finished product and improving on it next time, but I’d have been just as happy to sell in the small crafts shops that dotted New England as to sell in New York.There were times when I rued the day Moni had seen my work in that Kennebunkport shop.
The thing was, I didn’t want my career to run away with itself so that I lost the simple pleasure of potting.So I was very careful, very careful as I spent hours in that attic in preparation for this show, and I would have stopped at the first feeling of drudgery.
It never came.I had all the energy in the world, along with a drive that surprised me.I wanted this show to be the best I’d had so far, and I was willing to invest the time and energy to make it so.
The drive lasted until three days before I was to leave for New York.I’d finished everything I’d be showing.Cooper had helped me crate the pieces.He and Norman Gudeau, the local boy I hired, had loaded the crates on a U-Haul, and Norman had set off for New York.
There wasn’t much left for me to do but pack, and there wasn’t much of that to do because I’d decided to fly down a day early to shop.I was free to do nothing but think about the trip.
That was when I was forced to admit to the source of my energy.With no other outlet, I thought about Peter, and when I thought abouthim, I thought about sex.The excitement I’d felt when I’d been working with clay remained with me, only now I knew it to be anticipation.My heart caught more times each day than I cared to count, and the tingles that began with those catches, then spread through my limbs before retracing their routes and gatherings in a low coil of need in the pit of my stomach, could only be called arousal.
I was a fool, I told myself.Peter wasn’t interested in me.If he were, he would have called, but he hadn’t done that once.He called Cooper regularly, but I hadn’t heard his voice since that last, despicable, “See ya.”And I had no cause to expect that I’d see him in New York.Just because Moni dropped him an invitation to my show didn’t mean he would put in an appearance.I intended to call him while I was there, purely on a professional basis, of course, but a phone call wasn’t a face-to-face visit.
And I craved a face-to-face visit as I’d never craved anything before.
I fantasized.I fantasized about what he’d look like wearing city gear, then what he’d look like wearing nothing.I fantasized about lying naked on his bed, watching him approach with that tight-hipped walk of his, only I’d see his hips in the flesh, I’d see his flat belly and his thighs and the dark thatch of hair from which would jut the promise of my relief.
At times the strength of my fantasies appalled me.In an attempt to dispel them, I wanderedthrough the house trying to remember things that Adam and I had done in each of the rooms.But the memories had faded.They were sweet, cherished in corners of my mind and heart like roses that had been pressed in a scrapbook years before.Like those roses, their smell was gone, as was the soft, velvety feel of their petals and the richness of their color.They couldn’t begin to compete with the heat and vibrancy of my fantasies.
With orgasmic pacing, those fantasies came and went in waves.When they ebbed, I could function as I’d done for so long before Peter entered my life.When they began their surge, though, I was without the control I’d always prided myself on.Nothing seemed to help, least of all remembering Adam.Something stronger had taken me over.I was in its grip, as surely as Adam had been taken by the sea.
It was worse at night, early in the morning, late in the afternoon.More than one dusk found me walking out on the bluff, then sitting atop a boulder and hugging my legs tightly together.The cool November wind whipped through my hair, slapped my heated cheeks, buffeted my huddled form, but the relief I sought wasn’t there.The sea was Adam, yet it wasn’t Adam’s ghost that swayed with the tide, taunting me by coming and going, coming and going.
You could do with a good tumble, Cooper had said, and he was right.The screaming needin me was a physical one.A man’s possession would do the trick.Once.Just once.Then I could get on with my life.
When I hit New York on Thursday afternoon, it was every bit as bad as I’d always found it.The crowds bothered me.The traffic bothered me.The steady drone of mechanical noise, so different from the steady rhythm of the sea, bothered me.
What bothered me most, of course, was that Peter was out there, thinking about heaven only knew what, but not me.In typically female fashion—though I’d have screeched if someone had used those words to me—I took my frustration out in the stores.The salespeople didn’t mind it a bit, but then, who would mind a bonanza in commissions?
I went from one to another of the small boutiques that over the years I’d come to know.By the time I was done with my spree, a bevy of shopping bags hung from my shoulders and elbows, and my wardrobe was richer by two suits, two dresses, a silk slacks-and-blouse outfit, shoes, stocking and handbags to match the finery, a pair of jeans, a hand-knit sweater and some of the sexiest underwear that I’d ever seen, much less bought.My final purchase was a huge canvas pouch to carry all the others home to Maine.
Every step of the way back to the hotel, I called myself ten kinds of fools.But I didn’t stopand turn around.Nor did I consider returning what I’d bought.
Thursday evening, wearing one of those new dresses, I had dinner with Moni, and with Bill Fletcher and Celia Dunn, the owners of the gallery, who assured me, as Norman already had, that my pieces had arrived safely and were in the process of being put on display.I was pleased to hear that, but in a distracted sort of way.My thoughts were elsewhere.
I was back in my room by eleven, feeling the same insidious restlessness that had plagued me at home.Strangely, it was heightened by everything about the city.The life I’d chosen for myself was so different from this, and the crowds, the traffic, the noise made me feel removed from so much of what I’d been.
That was, I supposed, why I felt no guilt at the thought of the purchases I’d made that afternoon.It was also, I supposed, why first thing the next morning I phoned Samantha’s hairdresser—Samanthaalwayswent into Manhattan to have her hair done—and took the space opened up by a ten o’clock cancellation.I didn’t want my hair cut, just shaped and styled, and while I was at it, I had a facial, then a manicure and pedicure.One thing seemed to lead to the next.It had been a long time since I’d sat in a chair and let myself be pampered.I wasn’t about to say that I’d have the patience to do it more than once in a great while.Still, it was nice.It made me feel feminine, and when Iwalked out of the place, I felt unusually attractive—all of which coordinated well with the feelings of sensuality that were a stirring brew in my belly.
Friday night’s reception was scheduled for six-thirty, to catch all the budding young executives, male and female, before they headed out for the weekend.I was to be there by six, and for that I started dressing at four.I wanted to look just right.After all, if I’d gone to such an effort with clothes and hair and nails, I didn’t want to blow the effect by putting myself together wrong.
I did just fine with my bath, which was lightly laced with jasmine-scented bath oils, courtesy of the Park Lane.I did just fine with a heavily laced silky white teddy, with a garter belt and sheer navy stockings.But when I began on my makeup, I ran into trouble, and it had nothing to do with a lack of practice.
My hands shook.They were obviously echoing the tremors that rippled continuously through my insides, but that knowledge didn’t help when it came to drawing the finest of navy lines under and over my lashes.The process took forever and involved several wipe offs and redos, which involved my lavender eye shadow as well.Then I had to repair the damage I did when I accidentally brushed mascara across the bridge of my nose.By the time I’d finished with faint strokes of blusher and focused on my lips, I settled for a simple peachy gloss, rather thansomething darker and more dramatic but harder to apply.
To this day, I’m not sure whether it would have been better or worse if I’d known Peter was coming.Not knowing for sure, I was frightened he wouldn’t come.If I’d known hewascoming, I’d have been all the more frightened by the possibilities.I needed him.My body needed his.The mere thought of it sent my temperature up a degree or two, and I wasn’t thinking about much else so I was in a constant state of warmth.
In heat, so to speak.
When a last-minute case of the jitters struck, it was all I could do not to tear off silk, lace and makeup, throw on my jeans and take off for a hike through the park.But a woman didn’t do that in New York.And I knew it wouldn’t solve my problem.I’d tried fresh air and hiking back home, and it had done little to curb the desire that had taken root and was flourishing, like an exotic mushroom, in the dark, moist, feminine recesses of my body.
Gathering what composure I could, I finished dressing.My hair took little more than the flick of a brush to restore it to the condition in which Samantha’s hairdresser had left it.The only jewelry I wore was a pair of large white enamel discs that were simple enough to complement rather than compete with my suit, the new one I’d bought for the occasion.It was of navy silk, with a petal skirt that hit the knee, a white blouse whose gently ruffled collar dipped low,and a jacket that was nipped in at the waist before flaring down six inches into the semblance of a bustle.With those sheer navy stockings, navy shoes and bag, I felt quite chic.
But shaky, damn it, shaky.
By the time I reached the gallery, I was thanking my lucky stars I’d been born a Madigan.If I looked cool and calm and together, it was only thanks to years of training under the most demanding of masters.
