The Oxenburg Woman, page 42
“Help me out here. When I woke up in your bed in April, I seem to recall you crying about selling your husband’s precious trophy car. Why cry about it to a total stranger if you were already months into divorcing him?” Lewis asked, genuinely baffled and struggling to keep his tone neutral.
“Oh, I wasn’t crying about the car. I was exhausted and overwhelmed by how unpredictable you were. You were so relentless. After you’d been careful with me the night before, that morning, you reverted to being cold and merciless. I was crying because of everything. What you accused me of was fair. I did sell Richard’s Jag after Duncan had finalized the list of our assets, done all the calculations, and warned me repeatedly not to buy or sell anything. I’d been feeling guilty, but I really had no choice; I needed the money.
“But you, you woke up sick and in pain and startled to see Richard’s closet, and you immediately pounced on it. You went straight to accusing me of being greedy and scheming, doing things behind Richard’s back. It was too much, and you didn’t even know what you were talking about.
“When you came back a month later, the meeting I canceled with Duncan was to finally admit I’d sold the Jag. I was dreading telling him — not only because of the extra work he’d have to do but because it would break his trust. Up until then, I’d been the good guy. Duncan is tough, and he’s capable of standing up to Richard, but you don’t get the same commitment from any lawyer after you’ve shown yourself as the kind of client who won’t follow instructions.”
She gathered up her hair and looped it into a knot behind her head, a familiar gesture he’d seen her make unconsciously many times when she was deep into expressing something. “You showing up out of the blue that day gave me an excuse to put off telling him. Then, when you told me you had brought the Jaguar back, it was almost unbelievable, like a gift from the gods. I remember the look you gave me when I laughed, but it was either that or cry with relief.”
“Is that why you agreed to dinner? Because I’m a god?”
He was relieved when she laughed. Her voice was normal again when she answered. “Oh right, of course, but for other reasons, too. First, because at that moment, I felt lighter, happier than I had in a long time and a nice dinner would put a bow on that. But also, I hadn’t gotten over thinking about you and wondering who you were really and if you were alive. The fact that you’d hit on the single best gift you could give me was like the ultimate evidence of karma or whatever you want to call it. I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight if there was a way to see more of that man who sat in my living room and drank coffee and talked to me like I mattered not just as an expedient to an end.” She turned back to the window.
He left the bed and came to stand behind her. She leaned back against him.
He let his gaze rest on the faint gray smudge where sea and sky merged while he absorbed the deluge of information. “So, what about those papers? Did he sign them?”
“No. He wouldn’t even accept them. Everything has to be Richard’s idea.”
“Why haven’t you said anything about this before now?”
“I hate thinking about it, and it has nothing to do with you. Besides, I thought I had no secrets from you.”
“I might have thought that too, once. Now I’m wondering what you’re expecting.”
She sighed. “I expect Richard to be as obstructive and difficult as possible. Not because he wants to stay married, but because he wants to have the power to say when it’s over. Duncan will do his best, but I’ll be Richard’s real target. I’ll have to stand up for myself. I’ll deal with it, but not right now. I don’t want to spend any of my time here thinking about all that.”
“How would you like to spend it?”
“I’d like to go back to bed, for starters. I’m cold.”
“Right.” He watched a wave hit the beach and dissolve into foam. “Great idea.”
Chapter 32
Early in his life, Lewis had established guard rails separating work from personal pursuits. His physical needs were strong and he had no compunction to deny them. Planning was required, but delayed gratification was hardly denial. He’d been handed the keys to restraint early, and from that introduction, his personal mandate had developed in stages.
Stage one was the experience of being fifteen and competitive with a physique that made him a standout athlete but out of his element around the pretty, feminine girls who populated his Chicago private school. He excelled at sports from a young age, being big for his age and blessed with balance and coordination, but like his peers, he was at the mercy of his hormones, a situation not lost on his mother or his coaches. Unlike most of his cohort, he paid heed to sex education classes and tolerated his mother’s augmentation of the formal education with straight talk that had nothing to do with morals but everything to do with the age of consent, contraception, and the unreliability of romance. During the Christmas break, she offered him a summer away from the city at a co-ed sailing school on Lake Superior, designed for college students but with a few slots for younger students with qualifying grades and athleticism. She sweetened the offer with the promise of a car if he acquitted himself well.
Stage two followed in his sixteenth summer on the rough waters of Superior and in the dorms along the lakefront. He’d qualified by applying himself to ace his exams and his mother had gladly written the check. It was his first time out of Chicago, his first experience in an unfamiliar environment and completely on his own. The sailing school had been turning out recreational sailors and world-class racing crews for a hundred years. The curriculum was tough and played no favorites. Returning students were treated exactly the same as first timers, girls the same as boys.
During their six-day sailings, crew members were assigned in eight-hour rotations through each of the roles on a sailing vessel. Cold and wet or baked by the sun, everybody did their job, learned from their mistakes, and swallowed their pride and their fear. While underway, sleep was fleeting and tempers were tested.
Lewis liked everything about it. He fell easily into the rhythm of competition and cooperation flavored with high spirits and near disasters as crews were formed and dissolved so every student sailed every class of boat over the course of the summer. Shore days were for parties on the beach and navigation of a different variety in the unoccupied beds of those away on the lake. He was the youngest student by several years, a fact he kept to himself. The girls were strong and tanned, swore like the sailors they were, took no prisoners, and generously shared their knowledge and experience. He fell into a fresh flirtation every week and came home several years more mature. He also established an enduring love of sailing and an inclination to compartmentalize, to follow a pattern of cycles of total dedication to demanding work followed by recreation, release and personal indulgence.
As Lewis’s first and only mentor, Gerald openly shared his personal creed of giving equal attention to personal and professional satisfactions as twin pillars of a happy and successful life. Lewis had no quarrel with the philosophy, but his nature was at odds with Gerald’s full-time pursuit of women wherever and whenever he found them, disregarding complications and welcoming emotional entanglements.
Lewis was naturally driven by discipline and focus when he had work in his sights, a client to satisfy, goals to achieve, revenue to accrue. His attention turned inward with equal drive when a project wrapped. He sought private retreats, selecting them and when necessary, modifying them to suit his preferences in comfort, seclusion, and security. When a job was complete, accounting and evaluations filed, he withdrew to restore personal equilibrium and satisfy the thirsts and hungers that were shelved while work took priority.
Beige afforded him the project-based schedule and financial wherewithal to indulge in extended vacations with professional escorts. No emotional minefields for him. Young, beautiful, intelligent, with one job to perform, they more than willingly joined in whatever fun was on offer and refused him nothing in his exploration of pleasure. For a decade this pattern had been effortless and gratifying. Then he’d established a connection with Beth, and for a few years found a level of satisfaction in a steady relationship with a partner who was also a peer, familiar with compartmentalizing and equally knowledgeable and committed to the group.
It should have worked, but their job locations and schedules rarely coincided, and the reality of logistics had gradually become his excuse for allowing Beth’s importance in his life to run its course. In truth, he’d been relieved to resume the separation of his personal life and his Beige persona. He’d renewed his account at the agency, but on the other side of Beth, he found fresh and transient less stimulating, his craving for carnal indulgences more quickly expired and the pleasure of companionship with compliant strangers more a means of distraction than refreshment of his spirit.
When Suzanna accepted his invitation to visit him in Mexico, he’d seen no reason to hold back. Their time in Arizona had been limited and blunted by pain and the pressure of circumstances. He’d departed from her easily and turned his attention back to the job without attachment. But later, with increasing frequency, his thoughts returned to her cool independence and the mystery of her campaign for his time and conversation. There was nothing practiced about her; she was direct about wanting his attention and uninhibited in her responses. She’d left an impression, the reflection and satisfaction of desire that required him to do nothing but respond, to be nothing but himself. He’d broken his pattern by repaying her in personal coin and, true to her word, she’d been happy and the scales balanced.
He’d arrived at the beach house overdue for a break. Nudged by memory, he invited her to join him, prepared for polite rejection, at peace with a solo vacation if she wasn’t interested. Once she was there, he immersed himself in their chemistry and found that little had changed. She was more confident now, a ready recipient for his intuitive understanding of when to demand and when to give, how to fuel and indulge the possibilities and pleasures hidden in the strength and flexibility of her horseman’s spine and hips, the power of her runner’s legs, the unhurried sensuality of her touch on his skin.
His appetite for her was enhanced by their mental engagements, though she challenged his stark certainty with her nuanced ideas. He dismissed tract housing; she pointed out the housing shortage. He saw no alternative to crop science like GMOs to address food shortages; she was intrigued by the ready availability of insects as a cheap, untapped source of nutrition. She viewed the oceans as fragile and unpredictable; he saw a capacity to be maximized, more super tankers, ports connected to railways for efficiency. She pointed to the environmental damage and the expense of deep water ports and long- distance supply chains. Then she changed the mood by whispering in his ear, “Really, I’m just a landlubber.”
He whispered back, “Let’s fix that,” and took her sailing.
Suzanna had been elated by his surprise invitation to visit him in Mexico. She was quickly captivated by his unstructured beach lifestyle. Sunsets marked the transition from each high-energy day to winding down, grilling on the patio, wine and dinner at a leisurely pace as the light faded. Suzanna was always content to stay home after dark, but Lewis enjoyed the stimulation of people and noise, seeing her dressed up, sharing a sophisticated meal and some of the nightlife on offer at the big resorts. Occasionally they dipped into the atmosphere of high-spirited dance clubs, joining crowds of vacationers making the most of their stay in paradise. After two years of a married-but-alone existence, she rediscovered fun in the exuberance of those evenings and the lively atmosphere of the tourist scene. But whether the evening was spent on the patio or in San Miguel, she felt elevated, an inner restoration of trust in life as each day began and ended with him.
His physicality and intensity made him an exciting and powerful lover, but it was his love talk that intoxicated her, drew her to slow down and join him in the vulnerability of spoken intimacy. This man, whose demeanor she had previously experienced as cold and unreachable, was also this unreserved lover who shared all and wanted her to reciprocate. He kept a cushioned lounge on the edge of his patio where the night breeze blew inland and there was nothing between them and the sky. The beach house was distanced from its neighbors, the patio shielded by dunes.
It was there Lewis positioned them close so they shared the same view and twinned her index finger with his to identify stars and planets while his voice in her ear recounted the ancient myths. There, too, he introduced her to the heightened sensations of slowly building passion, naked under the stars, and ultimately giving in to release within sight and sound of the ocean.
When he was out of her sight, gone for a day of fishing or scuba diving, she wondered if she were imagining things, but then he’d return, wind-burned, tired, famished for dinner and her company, his restless energy in abeyance for a time and she’d feel the connection click into place — undeniable, though, she reminded herself, temporary.
She was surprised by his ease with her presence in his bed and his shower, surely as unusual for him as it was for her after years of living with Richard, who insisted on personal space. She had her own bedroom and bath in the beach house — so she would have enough closet and counter space, Lewis had said — as well as her own bed, where she’d have privacy and not be disturbed. She used the space as a dressing room and it was true that her hair products alone required their own bathroom, but despite Lewis’s warning that he was a restless sleeper, she relished sharing his bed. She was determined to have no expectation of anything beyond these days and the minute-to-minute experience of being with him but her fascination grew day by day. As much as deepening her knowledge of herself, she was discovering him, layer by layer.
They were early risers, taking their coffee to the patio to watch the sunrise while the air was cool and the wind quiet. In the hush, they were companionably quiet with their private thoughts in the transition from sleep. Then a morning swim together, avoiding the rip tide that circled the cliffs to the south. Suzanna relished the power of the waves in Lewis’s company, but she was always glad to be back on dry land. Then Lewis went to his workout while Suzanna showered off the salt water, dried her hair and applied sunscreen. Their days were planned over breakfast, to the extent that planning was required for touring the small island, exploring the shops, reading in the shade of the patio.
They adopted the habit of siesta in the cool of the big bedroom on the east side of the house, where the shade offset the afternoon heat. Later, they ran or walked the beach or drove into the village to shop for fruit, fresh seafood and vegetables to grill for dinner. Lewis swam alone in the late afternoons, pitting himself in a physical test of stamina and endurance against the rip and undertow in the dark water far offshore. Gradually, he felt the strength rebuilding in his chest and shoulder.
* * * *
The day before Suzanna’s return flight to Phoenix they left the beach house at dawn. Her blissful mood had ebbed as the second week dwindled, though their days and nights were untroubled, buoyed by the tropical outdoors, easy meals, exercise, relaxation and each other.
Lewis had suggested a day in Merida before her flight. She thought she understood his thinking, that it would bring their time together to a close at arm’s length from his beach house. It would be separation in stages. They collected brochures on their walks through the plaza, and she picked one of the historic hotels near Parque Hidalgo. Lewis made the reservation.
The day was perfect for traveling, with ocean haze filtering the rising sun while they watched the island disappear off the stern of the ferry. The heat of the peninsula increased as they traveled inland. Lewis was attentive but distracted.
When they stopped for water and to stretch their legs, Suzanna walked out into the sand and shrubs that bordered the highway to turn and look back at him and the Jeep. He was so familiar now. Her quiet house and empty bed would be an adjustment after these weeks, but she’d made her decision about Richard, and Lewis had said nothing about any future plans with her. She wasn’t surprised, having not expected to ever hear from him again after their two days in Arizona. This time with him had been a gift. She wouldn’t ask for more. She had a new life to figure out for herself .
“My holiday is over, too” he said when they set out again. “I need to make a phone call later. It shouldn’t take long but I never know in advance. So, I thought we’d get checked in, and you’ll be free to look around while I take this call. I booked a room for my call, so you won’t be bothered.”
“Okay,” she said. “It had to happen. Let’s not make today into a long goodbye. I really like your beach house and I’ve had a great holiday.”
“Your horse’ll be happy to see you.”
She gave him a grateful smile, glad to be reminded of her regular life and the demands of home and work that would consume and distract her while memories faded.
Lewis parked in front of the hotel, collected her bag and handled the check-in process in Spanish. She handed over her passport, and accepted the key card. In the elevator she said, “Shouldn’t we get your bag?”
“I’ll get it later,” Lewis said.
The room was lovely and Suzanna dutifully admired it, while Lewis settled himself in an armchair and watched her silently. “Do you need to leave now?” she asked.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ve seen yours; let’s go take a look at mine.”
Suzanna had been in the act of taking off her sandals. She shot a quick look at him, then turned her attention to rethreading the straps into tiny brass buckles. She didn’t hurry, giving him time to say more, but he was silent.
