Christabel Read online

  “One of the girls is having a bad shoot,” he said, already flagging a cab. “I was deluding myself thinking I could skip it.”

  “What a shame.” Even to her own ears, Dina knew she sounded unconvincing.

  “You two enjoy yourselves.” A cab pulled to the curb and just like that he was gone. Fortunately, Dina thought, he took his slime factor with him.

  “Are you sure you’re not tired?” Dina glanced down at the very narrow, toe-pinching shoes Christa wore. It was easier to look at her shoes than her face. Forty-eight hours had not dimmed the memory of those amazing eyes.

  “I’m fine. Please don’t worry about me.” Christa turned toward the museum’s entrance, her step light and quick. “I apologize for Leo, though.”

  “I understand that things come up.” Goranson’s entire attitude ought to have made her wary, but Christa’s nearness was too unsettling—and welcome—to worry about Goranson’s motives. “We don’t have to go the museum again.”

  “Please.” Christa’s smile was almost shy. “We didn’t finish the other night and I’d like to see more. Unless you’re tired.”

  Dina wasn’t in the least bit tired now—wandering through MOMA always picked up her spirits, and tonight would be no different even if her body was behaving irrationally. Yes, she told herself crossly, Christa is very beautiful and I don’t have to turn into a babbling lump of neediness because of it. “In that case, I think you should see the Mary Cassatts next.”

  “I’d love that.” She gave Dina a brilliant smile that seemed to drive back the light drizzle. Heads turned and Dina prayed she didn’t look as dazzled as she felt. This second outing might still have been at Goranson’s instigation, but clearly Christa wasn’t unwilling. Dina sternly quelled her body’s imaginative conjectures.

  It was easier to forget her very adult reactions to Christa when Christa’s sophistication melted away. She confessed she was looking at her first Picasso, her first Cassatt, her first Warhol. Christa actually gasped and clapped her hands when she saw the twenty-five-foot high Oldenburg soft sculpture. The giant pillow was just the beginning, and Dina let Christa take her time with each new artwork, trying to sort out how an exterior so sophisticated, blasé even, could hide a childlike enthusiasm for vivid colors and rich textures.

  This is dangerous, she thought. Christa wasn’t just desirable, she was someone Dina could like. More than like. Interesting, intelligent…dangerous. Her experiences with relationships in the past, none deep or successful, told her to keep some distance. Part of her knew it was too late. When that intuitive gift ought to have warned caution too, curiously, Dina felt as if an inner voice was telling her not to hold back.

  They moved from room to room while Dina wrestled with her inner conflicts. Christa saw paintings in their component pieces of light and color—watching Christa respond on an almost purely emotional level to modern art left Dina feeling as if she might be able to understand it herself. She was no longer certain which of them was the guide.

  “Have you thought about painting or sculpting?”

  Christa shook her head. “Just because I appreciate art doesn’t make me an artist. I don’t really have time. Time for that kind of extensive study, I mean.”

  Dina could understand that. “What about fashion design? You’ve just shown me more about the light and shadow in that Frankenthaler than I’ve ever seen before. Textiles, as I’ve learned in the past two days, are art for the body.”

  Christa’s expression took on shadows. “I don’t have time for that either.”

  Dina was distracted from the thought that they each meant something different by time when the first warning of closing time was announced. Christa’s heartfelt plea to the security guard bought them an extra fifteen minutes. What must it be like, Dina thought, to have that kind of power over men?

  And not just men, she had to admit. Women’s heads turned as well, though some with resentment. Some, like her, seemed bemused. Christa didn’t seem to notice any of it. Her focus was on the art. Dina watched the way Christa’s warm amber eyes drank in textures, shapes and colors. They were full of dancing light, remarkably changed from the dark mist Dina had first seen in them. Each time Dina made eye contact with Christa she swore she heard the soft chime of bells. Ridiculous, she told herself. Pretty eyes—since when did she get all disturbed by a pair of pretty eyes?

  It wasn’t just the eyes, her body answered. The rest of Christa was deeply disturbing, too. She was only a few inches shorter than Dina. Just the right height, in fact. She was as generously made as Marilyn Monroe, including the slight swelling of her belly and round, full hips. Long, slim legs gave way to an inviting curve of thigh that made Dina catch her breath. All of that was perfectly discernible under a modest, cowl-necked gold-flecked sweater of deep burgundy over black slacks that clung in the right places. In a swimsuit...the image didn’t bear thinking about. And yet with no difficulty at all, Dina could picture Christa’s hair spread on a pillow of leaves and could imagine the warmth of her stomach under her cheek.

  Such imaginings were utterly pointless and unproductive—and vividly arousing.

  It was easy to get a table at Armanio’s at that late hour. Dina noticed that Christa’s cheeks flushed as she inhaled a plate of capellini with scallops.

  Her own salmon and fettuccine Alfredo was a frightful indulgence, but at least she could tell Jeff she had had a substantial dinner.

  “This must be what ambrosia tastes like.” Christa sopped up the last of her marinara sauce with her focaccia.

  “What do you normally eat? Melba toast and yogurt?”

  “Gack, not me. I just didn’t get any lunch.” She made a face. “Leo likes my figure just the way it is. I don’t have to starve myself, just exercise for tone.”

  “That’s not too bad. I thought all models had to starve themselves.”

  “Most do. You can’t exercise too much or you’ll get muscles, heaven forbid. It wouldn’t be a bad life at all, except...”

  “Except what?” Christa’s eyes had gone smoky again.

  “Never mind. Not tonight, anyway.” She gave her full attention to wiping her fingers on her napkin.

  “I enjoyed the museum,” Dina said. “I don’t go often enough.”

  “What’s your excuse? Too much work?”

  “Too much work. I sometimes go weeks with the cell phone implanted in my ear.”

  “Why do you do it? All those hours?”

  Dina was caught off guard. “That’s a very good question. One I don’t ask myself often enough.”

  “That’s not an answer.” Christa sipped from her wine. Her lips were the color of the Shiraz, and Dina had to admit to herself that kissing those lips was very much on her mind.

  Fumbling to hide her distraction, she countered with, “Why do you do your work?” Dina expected something along the lines of “Because I can.”

  “Escape.”

  “As good a reason as any,” Dina said. She realized it was very close to her own reasons for working ninety hours a week. “Escape from where? Or what?”

  Christa took a long time to answer. “Mostly from where I grew up. How I grew up. I thought Leo was an escape from that. Well, truthfully, he was.”

  Dina’s skin crawled as an unbidden image of Goranson with Christa tortured her mind. Her stomach turned, and she had to swallow hard. “And now?”

  The Christa who had laughed at the soft sculpture was gone. “You think I still need to escape?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think. What do you think?”

  “That you’re a lousy therapist.” Dina hated Christa’s taunting smile. It reminded her too much of Goranson. Goranson with Christa—the image literally nauseated Dina.

  The waiter’s arrival with the check was fortuitous. Dina struggled to keep her dinner down, hoping she had the flu and not, well, she just hoped it was the flu. She needed some breathing space from Christa...and Goranson.

  Christa paid the check before Dina realized what
was happening. “That wasn’t necessary,” she said.

  “I know. But this way you’ll have to pay next time.”

  Next time. The phrase hung in the air between them, and Dina knew there would be a next time. She knew her own reasons, but not Christa’s. Or rather, she didn’t want to face Christa’s reasons because Leonard Goranson was behind them, lurking in the darkness that had returned to Christa’s eyes.

  “How was your date?”

  I wanted to say it had not been a date. Leo was only provoking me. I didn’t want to talk to him at all, but he gestured at the chair across from him with his most smug expression.

  “I’ve been thinking about our arrangement,” he said without any further formalities. His smile faded when I didn’t answer. “You’ll be on the July cover of Vogue.”

  I knew he expected me to be happy. My picture on the cover of at least six major magazines was what I figured would make me immortal. No matter what happened to me, someone would remember that I had been here. Given the history of women in my family, it was a goal I never thought I’d achieve. At least until Leo came along.

  Leo had promised me my immortality. Cosmopolitan and now Vogue were in line, four more to go. “When did you find out?”

  He was annoyed at my lack of reaction. “Several days ago. I thought I’d save the news for a special occasion.”

  “Is this a special occasion?”

  “It could be.” He looked me up and down and I broke out in goose bumps, chilled to the pit of my stomach.

  “If I’m going to be doing photo shoots, not to mention runway walks when you unveil here, I can’t be pregnant.”

  “I’d design a line of maternity wear just for you.”

  I swallowed hard. “You still have to get me four more magazines.”

  “It’s only a matter of time, my dear.” He was leaning over my chair now. His fingers grazed my cheek. I steeled myself not to flinch. “Why wait?”

  “When you keep your end of the arrangement, I’ll keep mine.”

  He dropped his hands to my shoulders, and I couldn’t hold back my shudders anymore. He didn’t move his hands. His anger was singeing my skin. “Will you? You’ll be willing? You’ll have to work much, much harder on your acting.”

  I tore myself out from under his hands and faced him, unsteady on my feet. That I go willingly to his bed was his reward for my immortality. I supposed I should be grateful he didn’t force me, but for some reason, he insisted I be willing. All of the women who went to him were willing, at least at the beginning. I didn’t want to remember some of their faces, gone almost before they’d arrived, thinking Leo would expend the same effort on them he spent on me. There were a few, like Liza Brightly, who had the talent and the nature to please Leo personally and professionally. That she was the queen of his bedroom was something she never let me forget. She didn’t understand how little I cared.

  I knew I never would be willing to sleep with him, to do what Liza was willing to do. But I could see in his eyes that he believed that some day I would. He believed he could twist me, make me something I’m not. And what Leonard believed was possible often turned out to be.

  “So you enjoyed your evening with Ms. Financial Wizard?”

  “It was okay.” He laughed as if he hadn’t heard anything so amusing in months. I thought of Dina’s light, how it warmed me and let me see clearly for the first time in years.

  “Pity we’re leaving so soon. I’ll have to think of a way to arrange another date for you two. I’m certain Dina enjoyed herself.”

  I turned my face away, knowing the angle made it a little harder for him to read my thoughts. “I’m very tired. I’d like to go to my room.”

  “Of course. We’re having lunch tomorrow with the fashion editor from Vogue. You’ll need to look well-rested.”

  I slipped my shoes off and tried to move as if I weren’t longing to run.

  “Oh, yes. Christa, my love.”

  I paused but did not look at him.

  “When she gets you into bed, you will let me know, won’t you?”

  I didn’t answer, and his pleased laugh followed me into my room. I closed the door with a calm click and dropped to the floor, too spent to move another step.

  He’d had me turn on the charm to close deals before. Not innocent, certainly, but somewhat a part of the business game. For millennia, men had used women to make other men irrational. I was not in any position to think I was any different from women probably much smarter and much stronger than I would ever be.

  The air was stale, and I felt sticky and trapped. A fly in a spider web. The spider wasn’t going to eat me—not yet. I was just bait for other flies.

  But Dina was different. He didn’t want just money, or just contacts, or just information. He wanted Dina. He desired her light. When she wanted me—not when, I knew she already did—he would use that to bend her to his plans. He would consume her light and cast her aside, just as he would cast me aside once I’d given him the child he required. We were sport to him, and nothing more.

  How did I get here? Nothing was like I had thought it would be. I’d known Leo was no saint, but I hadn’t expected him to be a devil, either. I didn’t want to be party to delivering Dina up to his darkness. And yet I was already craving the warmth of her presence again.

  If I had a high road open to me I couldn’t see it. The women in my family are not strong enough, and don’t live long enough, to make good choices. And I have no reason to think I am any different.

  “I don’t feel so good, Ma, really.”

  Her mother’s hand drifted over her forehead. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t gone and caught yourself a cold. I’ll make some comfit.”

  With a sinking feeling Christabel watched her mother prepare a cup of her cure-all for everything from chilblain to runny nose. It was vile stuff, almost worse than being sick. She held her nose and drank it down. She wondered if Rahdonee’s mustard leaf tea tasted better.

  It may have been the very meekness with which she drank the comfit that made her mother stroke her forehead more gently and say, “If you don’t feel better by supper, I’ll get the doctor.”

  The doctor was very expensive. Bitsy said that he’d bled Bitsy’s brother when he had a dog bite and that had saved his life. Christabel swallowed hard at the idea of being bled, and she thought even more longingly of Rahdonee’s mustard leaf tea.

  “I’ll get better, Ma, I’m sure. It’s just the cold and the rain.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Put down the sewing and come sit by the hearth.”

  She was actually feeling better. Sort of light-headed and distant, but better. Except for the ache in her neck, and, well, she ached all over. But that was really not that important because all at once it seemed like the aches belonged to someone else.

  When she woke, she heard her father’s voice and was comforted by it.

  “You were right to send for the doctor,” he was saying.

  “I should have done it yesterday right off when she said she couldn’t get warm. But I was so mad at her.”

  “Don’t fret—she’s very strong.”

  “I know.” It sounded like Ma was close by, but even close by was a long way off. “I keep thinking about the Cornwall boys.”

  Dickie and George Cornwall had died last summer from a fever that wouldn’t break, leaving their parents childless. Am I going to die? She was an only child. Ma wouldn’t have anyone to help make butter this summer. She frowned and then decided the matter concerned someone else.

  A sharp pain in her arm told her the doctor was there, but she had no need to look. It was someone else’s arm, anyway. Rahdonee’s tree spirits were singing more beautifully than any choir ever could. They sang for about a year, then until tomorrow, and she heard Reverend Gorony’s voice. She listened because she wanted to make sure he didn’t tell Ma that she’d been fibbing about going to pray.

  “She must cast out all wickedness, all presence of the devil.�
�

  That was nonsense. She didn’t believe in Satan. Uh-oh. That was blasphemy. Better not think about it.

  “She hasn’t opened her eyes for a day. How can she cast out anything?” Ma sounded really unhappy. She wanted to tell Ma not to worry, that she was going to be fine.

  “We must help her with prayer. The devil cannot have her. Say it with me. The Lord is my shepherd...”

  Of course the devil couldn’t have her. The low murmur of voices was distracting, but after a while she didn’t hear them anymore.

  The lamps were bright, or it was day, or she was under a blanket of fog. Her forehead was wet; there was water in her eyes. She blinked it away and tried to ask where Ma was. Then she heard Ma’s voice.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Lizzy.” Ma was sure upset about something. Her voice was all funny, thick and raspy.

  “Let me pray for a while, Edith,” Goody Dennison was nice. It was good she was helping Ma. “You should get some sleep or you’ll sicken yourself.”

  “I can’t sleep. She’s my only baby. I have to ask you something. Do you think that this might be a native sickness? Maybe one of the native women—I’ve heard it said they have their own medicines.”

  “Put it from your mind.” Goody Dennison sounded shocked. “You know that’s just the devil’s mischief. They’re godless and unclean.”

  “Not all. Some have come to the church.”

  “If they have truly accepted the Lord, then they’ve put all that pagan witchery behind them. Put it from your mind.”

  “I can’t. She’s my only baby.”

  The water on her forehead was distracting her again. The lamps dimmed, and she heard Pa’s voice. It was easier to sleep when he was near.

  Her bed jolted and she could almost open her eyes. Someone was shouting. Pa. Ma, too. Ma was crying, and then she heard Reverend Gorony again. He was making Ma cry, the cur.