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  “Will you at least let me try to explain mine?”

  She moistened her dry lips, looked at him … and at herself … You have no pride, Janet Stevens, none at all … explanations and words, that’s all this will be—

  “Please, Janet. I think after what we’ve meant to each other at least I don’t want you to go away hating me. I really couldn’t stand that.”

  She sat down in the chair next to the dresser.

  “Come sit next to me.” But she stayed in her chair, her only answer a look that was both skeptical and reproachful.

  “All right … I never tried to mislead you.”

  “But just this morning, what did you mean by asking me never to go away?”

  He ran his hands through his hair, lit a cigarette and slowly blew out the smoke, watching it dissipate before he answered. “I’m in love with you. So much so that I was beginning to let my big fat guard down … something I promised myself I’d never do—for your sake, believe it or not, so help me God—”

  “Never mind God just now … Why did you think not letting me know you loved me would protect my feelings?”

  “Because I don’t want to get married, not now. I just don’t think I’m ready. In fact, until I met you I completely rejected the idea. I like being a bachelor …” He hesitated, it wasn’t coming out right. It sounded so damn cold, calculating. “Let me explain—”

  “You don’t have to, I understand. Kit told me all about your mother, how she held onto you, tried to possess you, so you got the feeling marriage would be a trap—”

  “Yes, but meeting you has changed me a lot … But I still have to have some time, Janet—”

  “For what? To still convince yourself that marriage won’t be a bondage? When people fall in love they want to belong to each other, Bill, not own each other. They want to share all the love they have … to build a life. And when two people fall in love they shouldn’t have to be afraid and hold back. I never withheld myself from you. I tried to give, to be patient and understand why it was so difficult for you. I’m not going to push you into a commitment. It’s not only wrong but it would be demeaning to me, and I have to think of myself too … You said you needed time. Well, since I’m involved too, just what kind of time are you talking about?”

  He got up, took her in his arms and held her against him. She did not respond.

  “Please, Janet, be patient with me. I’ve never come this far. I told you I love you. Believe it. We’ll work it out, but let’s go on as we are for a little longer. This is a new feeling for me. And that’s the truth.”

  She swallowed hard. Giving him up wasn’t so easy. In the heat of anger it was one thing, but as she looked into his face she saw pain—honest pain. He had come a long way. He had finally said it. I love you, Janet … Yes, all right, she’d give him time. At least now she could say, without feeling it was one-sided, “I love you, Bill … I suppose I have from the first time we met. That’s the kind of idiot I am.”

  There were tears in his eyes as he kissed her. The first she’d ever seen there. The first he’d allowed anyone to see since he was a child.

  They spent Thanksgiving separately, Janet in Wichita and Bill on Long Island. Separate, but equal in their loneliness for each other. After the holiday, Janet flew to meet him at the airport.

  “My God, I missed you.”

  “Me too, darling … me too.”

  Their lovemaking that night was better than ever.

  The best ever.

  Since they weren’t going to spend Christmas together either, she prepared a special dinner for the two of them the night before leaving for Wichita. He gave her a gold and diamond bracelet and when he opened the small box she gave him he found a pair of gold cuff links made in the form of a calendar. A small ruby was placed on November 5th, the first day he had said he loved her. Neither one would ever forget how painful it had been for them that day in Maine. They had thought it was the end, but now it seemed like just the beginning. Now it was easy for him to draw her inside his arms and say, “I love you, darling, and beautiful as those are, they’re nothing compared to you …”

  That night after they’d finished making love, he said, “I wish you didn’t have to go home.”

  “Me too, darling.”

  “Then stay,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t.

  “Come home with me,” she challenged, knowing he wouldn’t … knowing he couldn’t.

  As if reading her thoughts he gave a short laugh and said, “If we ever have kids, I’m going to teach ’em to fly right out of the nest.”

  “What do you mean if? Of course we are, and going home for Christmas with our children is going to be wonderful. All right, this year is a little difficult for us, but next Christmas …”

  Marriage … it was taken for granted now, she thought as she lay beside him. “After the first of the year,” he had said before he’d drifted off to sleep. “We’ll talk about it then.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN JANET WALKED INTO Kit and Nat’s New Year’s Eve party there were many of the same people who had been there that night she’d first met Bill. That was almost a year, ago now, and Janet felt none of the awkwardness she had felt that time. So much had changed.

  Bill was at her side as the New Year was ushered in. “A happy New Year, sweet, sweet darling. I love you.”

  As Kit embraced Nat, she glanced over his shoulder at her two friends. Well, well, she thought, Bill was real flesh and blood after all. His feeling for Janet wasn’t being kept a secret. Kit squeezed her way between her guests until she had her arms around both of them.

  “Happy New Year,” she said, giving them each a kiss.

  “And to you, Kit,” Janet said.

  The two women looked at each other. “It’s going to be the best, Janet. I want you to stay after the immediate world moves out.”

  By three in the morning Kit closed the door on all but Janet, Bill, Charles and Carol. Coming back into the living room, she kicked off her shoes and said, “Okay, now let’s really have a party. This is going to last until dawn. We held back on the Mumm’s, kept it just for the mishpocheh. Translation for the goyim—it means family in Yiddish.”

  Nat laughed. “She’s taking a course at Berlitz. In fact, she’s teaching me Yiddish words I never heard of.”

  “You’ll learn, darling. Wait until I start conjugating my verbs. Now start popping the corks, honey.”

  With champagne served all around, Kit raised her glass to her guests. “Are you ready for this surprise? Just the two of us, Nat and yours truly, made a pair of twins. Got the little package right here.” She laughed and patted her stomach.

  There was silence, then an eruption.

  Charles put his arms around her. “Twins? You’re some woman, sister Kit.”

  “Thanks, but Nat claims he had a little to do with it. He’s right.”

  “When am I going to be an aunt?” Carol asked.

  “In four months.”

  “You mean you’re five months pregnant?”

  “Right. I remember the night it happened in Paris. Nat and I don’t fool around.”

  “But you don’t show.”

  “You should see me without the draperies. I wanted it to be a surprise so I wore this caftan.”

  This was indeed the beginning of a happy new year, Janet thought. Kit was pregnant—with twins, no less—and there was also the memory of Bill’s words the night before she’d gone home for Christmas. After the first of the year, he’d said … Maybe it was the excitement of Kit’s announcement, maybe it was the champagne. Whatever it was, she could no longer hold back the undeniable realization that she and Bill were going to be married. It was really only a matter of time. This seemed the moment. The stage was set. She took a sip of her champagne, then another … “I’ve got a secret too … Bill and I… are getting married …”

  Kit looked from one to the other, too stunned to say more than “When?”

  “In … March?” Janet said, looki
ng at Bill.

  The color had drained from his face. “But, Janet, I thought we agreed to—”

  As though she hadn’t heard, Kit broke in with, “You sly dog, holding out on us, your best friends?”

  “Yes, well … Janet and I do intend to get married. But we’re going to wait for a while,” he said firmly.

  It seemed everyone was talking now. Kit saying, “Wait for what?”

  “That’s what I asked two years ago,” Nat chimed in.

  “That was different …”

  Amid all these voices Janet sat silently staring at Bill. Different … ? How about stupid, trusting—those were the words for her.

  Her voice shook as she stood. “I’ve changed my mind. You don’t have to wait anymore, Bill. Because as you’ve just made quite clear, there isn’t anything to wait for.” And she grabbed her coat and ran out of the apartment.

  The impact of her words left Bill standing in shock before he went after her. He walked to the elevator, Janet wasn’t there. He hoped against hope she’d be waiting for a taxi downstairs, but when he opened the door to the street she was nowhere in sight.

  He ran a few blocks, then hailed a cab. It was almost five o’clock when he arrived at the Barbizon and was told, no, Miss Stevens had not picked up her key.

  He waited. By eight o’clock New Year’s morning he was frantic. Where had she gone? She’d have known he would come here, so she must have gone to another hotel. It was the only logical answer. He went to the phone, looked through the director and called the most likely hotels, but the answers at the Plaza, the St. Regis and the Waldorf were all the same … no Janet Stevens registered. He could have gone on and on, but what was the use? New York had a million hotels. The only one who might know where she was now was Kit … or the police … or the hospitals. His stomach was turning over as he dialed Kit’s number and heard the anxiety in her voice when she answered the phone.

  His own voice was drum-tight as he said, “It’s me, Kit. Have you heard from Janet?”

  “No,” she said after a pause.

  “I’ve been at her place waiting in the lobby since five o’clock.”

  You poor thing, what a terrible ordeal for you, she thought. “You idiot s.o.b.,” she said. “We haven’t been to bed either. I called too. Nat and Charlie have been out looking. Now go home and live it up with your precious freedom … and to hell with you.”

  She banged down the phone, nervously paced the floor. It was freezing cold outside. Sure, Janet had her coat on, but in this weather … Could Janet have done something crazy? No, she wasn’t going to concoct trouble … but for God’s sake, Janet, where are you? …

  After leaving Kit’s, Janet ran for blocks, slipping and sliding on the icy pavement, oblivious to the blinding tears and the cold that penetrated her cloth coat and the soles of her thin silk pumps. Exhausted, she finally huddled in a doorway, leaning breathlessly against the wall and then sliding down to sit on the cold concrete.

  Now there were no more tears, only the numbing realization that Bill had never intended to marry her. If he hadn’t misled her before that day in Maine, he certainly had afterward. Except why blame him? In her heart, didn’t she always know it would end this way? She was at least as much to blame. She’d wanted him so much, she’d refused to face the reality. Yes, all the signs had been there, but she hadn’t wanted to see them. It’s over … over …

  When she got up from the shelter of the doorway she had no idea how long she’d been there. She walked unsteadily along the deserted streets, barely able to lift her arm to flag down a taxi.

  She remembered little of the ride home or how she’d gotten up to her room.

  She now lay under the covers, shivering with cold. Her face was on fire, her head pounded. Every bone and muscle in her body ached.

  When the phone rang, the sound jarred her nerves. She lay motionlessly, praying it would stop. And then she fell into unconsciousness.

  When Janet opened her eyes everything was white—like the snows of Maine, except it wasn’t beautiful. She had no idea where she was, and didn’t care … all she wanted to do was sleep, for the rest of her life …

  A hand gently closed around hers … Yes, she was at home in her four-poster bed and her mother was here …

  Then a voice. Her father’s. “Janet, it’s Bill.”

  No, it couldn’t be Bill. He had only been something she had invented … a dream … She closed out the thought, fell into a deep sleep.

  Kit and Bill walked out into the hospital corridor and waited as they had been waiting for the past three days.

  The anguish in Bill’s face was etched. It was, Kit thought, the first time in his life genuine suffering had touched him.

  Which was why Kit was able to take any pity on him. She remembered how he had looked, red-eyed and disheveled, beside himself with fear and grief as she had opened her door and let him in. He’d sat heavily on Kit’s sofa. When she’d looked at him her feelings were mixed with sadness and, she admitted, a certain satisfaction. He was overdue … Life had never touched him in any deep way. Rather it seemed to have washed over him. It had been kind. Too damn kind …

  His hand had shaken as he’d accepted a cup of hot coffee from her. “What do you think happened to her … ?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Good God, Kit, I feel so damn helpless, I’ve been calling her room … I walked the streets knowing I’d never find her but … I finally called the police, the hospitals … I don’t know what to do.”

  All right, she believed his feelings now … “Well, we’ll keep trying. I left word at the hotel to call as soon as she comes in.”

  He winced. “If anything happens to her—”

  “Keep a good thought. Drink your coffee while it’s hot.”

  He wasn’t listening. He stared up at the ceiling. “I’m a fool but not a complete idiot … she’s the best thing that ever happened to me and I threw it away. Destroyed it. I took advantage of her love—”

  “Well, at least you can admit it, which is a comforting thing for you—”

  “No, it’s not. I feel like there’s a big hole inside me. It’s after twelve now, she’s been missing since four this morning.”

  They’d sat in silence, each with their thoughts.

  And then the phone had rung. It was the hotel, reporting that Janet Stevens was in her room….

  When they were let into Janet’s room, they found her unconscious.

  Bill sat on the edge of the bed and held her very cold hand in his. He wanted to die.

  Kit phoned for an ambulance….

  After they’d got Janet settled, Kit went home to Nat but Bill took a room at the hospital. For three days he hardly ever left. She had pneumonia. If he’d ever prayed, he did so now.

  After five days Janet regained consciousness. She was still in an oxygen tent but her breathing was more even and her vital signs improved. The first face she saw was Kit’s.

  Whispering, she said, “Thank you … I love you, Kit.”

  “And I love you, baby.”

  “You shouldn’t be here in your condition.”

  “You’re worrying about me?”

  “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll buy that. The doctor says you’re coming along great. Be good as new in a few days,” Kit said, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Five days.”

  “I must have been really sick.”

  “Yeah, you were a sick cookie, all right.”

  “Kit, would you call my mother and father?”

  “Do you want to worry them now that you’re on the mend?”

  “Maybe you’re right, but I’d feel better …”

  “Okay, if you want.”

  “No, on the other hand … I have to grow up, Kit. I’m not very strong, just fell apart … Do you think I’ll ever put the pieces back together?”

  “You can bet on that
… Now let me do the talking, Janet. Bill’s been here with me. He hasn’t left the hospital. You know I’m the world’s champion cynic and show-me girl, but I’m telling you, he loves you, Janet. More than you can believe. And who would blame you? But if you believed him too much before, don’t go to the opposite direction now. You should have seen him New Year’s morning when he came to my apartment. He was a destroyed man. We had a long talk and for the first time I really felt sorry for him. I know he’s hurt you a lot. But will you see him?”

  Janet wondered if she should risk it. In his fashion, maybe he had loved her. And it had been her self-delusion that had led her on too … But how much was her illness influencing him now? Was he here only out of guilt? Mostly?

  Kit could guess the questions in Janet’s mind. “I don’t want to persuade you, Janet, one way or another, but he’s outside waiting for an answer. What shall I tell him?”

  “To come in.”

  When Bill came into the room and sat by her bed she was as shocked by his appearance as he had been by hers. He was gaunt and hollow-eyed. The ordeal he’d gone through no longer needed to be questioned. And when he looked at her now he was ridden by the same thought that he’d lived with for the last five days. He had brought her to this … There were dark circles under her eyes and the outline of her body, even under the blanket, seemed near-skeletal. Her once shiny hair was dull and limp.

  He took her limp hand between his, but it was impossible to speak at first. Finally, his voice low and intent, he said it. “Janet, I love you. I admit it’s a lousy way to come to one’s senses, but it’s taken this to make me realize that without you I just have nothing. Honey … please, please say you’ll marry me …”

  She looked at him, said nothing.

  When she did not respond he said, “God, Janet, I know I’ve hurt you, hurt you terribly. Nothing I say can make up for that or show you how I feel. Just give me the chance to show you.”

  She was so tired, so weary. “We’ll talk about it when I’m well, when we’re both feeling less emotional … it’s been a bad time …”

  He got up and held her frail body very close and kissed her. “I love you, Janet. I never said that to anyone before, except you. You know that, at least. I love you. Just give me some hope that you’ll—”