Chapter 25

Clouds of cottony mist swirled around them as Carolyn turned to Val, her green eyes wide and needful, her bikini-clad body glowing. Carolyn lowered her head to Val’s shoulder, her hair cascading silk. Carolyn’s arms held her, Carolyn clung to her; marble-cold flesh warmed under Val’s hands. Carolyn raised her face to her…

Awake, Val pushed the blanket aside, welcoming the morning air on her heated body.

Only in dreams did she have such images, she reminded herself, her pulse slowing; never in her waking hours did she have such thoughts…Undoubtedly these dreams were the result of the power of suggestion planted by Alix. Or simply misplaced guilt over Alix.

She addressed Alix sternly: Not all love is sex, not all touching is sex. I have all the touching from her I want or need. I have her warmth, her affection, her trust. You were a phase, Alix. These dreams are a phase.

In the gray of the room she picked up her watch. Six-thirty. She rose and shrugged into her old woolen robe, grateful for cold mornings and mild days after the searing heat of September. It was early but she had work to do preparing the paintings for travel. And what should she wear? Her newest jeans and the good white blouse, she decided. She was selling her work, not her body. Carolyn would be dressed well enough for both of them; they wouldn’t be thrown out of the snooty city of Santa Barbara...

Of all the events of the past week, Carolyn’s accompanying her today was the most intriguing. Smiling, Val remembered the circumstances, how she had been bantering with Neal: “Far be it from me, a measly mother, to expect a trip to Santa Barbara and a visit to the beach house afterward to compete with a Sunday in front of Granddad’s TV.” Neal had retorted, “Granddad understands all about the Cubs maybe going to the World Series and Walter Payton breaking Jim Brown’s rushing record and Dallas being on the tube besides.”

Carolyn’s query had been soft: “Would you like me to go with you, Val?”

“Well…sure,” she had replied, quickly recovering from her amazement. “But I do need to stop at the beach house, Carrie. Pick up some paintings—”

“I can spend the day with you,” Carolyn had said in the same quiet voice.

What in the hell was going on with the Blake marriage? Never mind all of Carolyn’s excuses about wanting to help fix up the flat; she had been spending astonishing amounts of time there. Carolyn’s moods had been pendulum swings between frenetic chatter and dispirited silence. It had taken sharp reining in of her concern and curiosity not to inquire, not to probe—to wait for Carolyn to talk when she was ready.

Val squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. Maybe Paul Blake was playing golf or going to a football game or some other stupid male weekend ritual—but even so he must be in a terminal rage knowing where Carolyn would be this day, whom she preferred to be with. Maybe, she thought, peering into the mirror with a toothpaste grin, he even suspected a lesbian affair.

How ironic that for the first time in her life she liked the idea of someone thinking she was a lesbian—as long as that someone was Paul Blake.

She tossed aside the robe and stepped into the bracing cool spray of the shower. Clearly, something was amiss in the Blake marriage. While she wished Paul Blake nothing but ill—and one day surely Carolyn would discover that she could not be married to this man—she could not take any satisfaction in any situation bringing Carolyn real unhappiness.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 557