haven’t forgotten the way things used to be between us.”
He felt villainous. This was so hard for her. She’d counted on him, been dependent on him. She could be tough and self-assured in the ER, but once she took off her stethoscope, she was far frailer, far softer than anyone would guess.
“Paul?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just needed to let you know that.” “All right. Thank you.”
She hesitated a moment before saying good-bye. Once she’d hung up, he squeezed his face into a grimace. Damn. What was he supposed to say? She kept setting herself up to be hurt again.
He thought of telling her the truth. It would upset her at first, but then she’d understand. She’d know that what he’d felt for Annie had been no infatuation. It burned him every time he thought of that word coming out of Olivia’s mouth, although it was hardly her fault for thinking that. He had let her believe it.
He had done countless interviews with Annie, dragging them out, putting off the inevitable writing of the article when he would no longer have any legitimate reason to see her. Those interviews had been torture for him. He’d had to keep his distance from her, hanging on every word across the vast plane of a restaurant table, when what he longed to do was touch her cheek or curl a strand of her phenomenal hair around his finger. He knew better than to try to get that close. He could tell by the little light of warning in her eyes to deal with her in a businesslike manner.
He’d taped the interviews, despite her reluctance. “Promise you’ll interview me as though we’ve never met before, Paul. As though we’re total strangers to each other,” she’d pleaded, and he had done his utmost to comply. He was afraid to listen to those tapes now, to actually hear her husky voice and her Boston accent and her crazy giggle.
She’d filled the tapes with talk about Alec. Paul hated listening to her talk about him, always with warmth, always a softening in her tone when she mentioned his name. He didn’t need to hear about Alec, he told her. Her husband was not a necessary part of the article. She persisted, though, stubbornly reciting anecdotes of her marriage, drawing the words around herself like armor. He allowed her the armor, the distance. Until the night he could allow it no longer.
On that bitter cold night, five days before Christmas, he drove to her studio. He had not planned it, not in any conscious way, but he knew exactly what he would do. He parked in the little lot and looked up at the studio windows. The lights were on inside, and the colors of the stained glass in the windows were vibrant. He approached the front door, dizzy from the array of multihued designs mapped out on either side of him. Or perhaps from nerves.
Through the front door, he could see Annie leaning over the worktable, her hand moving slowly above a stained glass lampshade. The door was unlocked, and she looked up as he stepped inside. Her mouth was open, her eyes surprised and, he knew, a little frightened. She was alone, at night, in the cozy, colorful warmth of her studio. There was no safe restaurant table here, and she must have known he would not allow her to weave little stories about Alec and her marriage to deter him. He understood the fear in her eyes. He was just not certain if it was him she was afraid of or herself.
“Paul.” She leaned back in her chair, making an effort to smile.
“Keep working,” he said. “I just want to watch.”
She made no move to lift the ball of cotton she was holding. He pulled a second chair close to the end of the table and sat down. “Go on,” he said.
She dipped the cotton into a bowl of black liquid. Then she carefully smoothed it over the lead veins in the stained glass lampshade. She was wearing green corduroy pants and a heavy, off-white fisherman knit sweater. Her hair fell over her arm, spilling onto the table, onto the glass.
He watched her work for several minutes before he spoke again.
“I love you, Annie,” he said, the words crackling in the silence.
She looked up, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “I know,” she said. She returned to her work but within a minute or two raised her head again. “Maybe you should go, Paul.”
“Do you really want me to?”
She dropped her eyes quickly to the lampshade. Then she set down the ball of cotton and knotted her fingers together on the table. “Paul,” she said, “please don’t make this so hard.”
“If you can honestly tell me you want me to go, I will.”
She shut her eyes and he reached over to rest his hand on hers. Her fingers were cold and stiff. “Annie,” he said.
She looked over at him. “I was so grateful to you for the way you handled the interviews,” she said. “For not bringing up the past, for not trying to … take advantage of the situation when I knew that was what you really wanted to do.”
“It was so hard to be with you and not … “
“But you made it,” she interrupted, leaning toward him. “We both did. So why come here now and undo three months of willpower?”
“Because I’m going crazy, Annie,” he said. “You’re all I think about.”
She withdrew her hand from his and lowered it to her lap. “You have a wife to think about,” she said. “And I have a husband.”
Paul shook his head. “I’ve treated Olivia terribly since we’ve been here.”
“You need to put your energy into her, not me. Here.” She pulled open a drawer in the worktable and took out a rubber band, which she slipped onto his wrist. “Every time you think of me, do this.” She pulled back hard on the elastic and let it snap against the inside of his wrist. He actually winced at the sting. “You’ll forget about me in no time,” she said.
He smiled at her. “It’s that simple, huh?” He looked down at his wrist, running his fingers over the reddened skin. “Will you wear one too?”
“I don’t have to,” she said. “When I think of you, I remind myself about Alec. My marriage comes first. I’m nearly forty now and my priorities are very clear in my mind. Forget about me, Paul. Walk out that door and forget I exist.”
He stood up. “I won’t ever be able to forget you,” he said. He took off the rubber band and set it on the work table. “And I don’t need this. Thinking about you is already painful enough. But I’ll leave. The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”
He bent over to kiss the top of her head, her hair soft beneath his lips. Then he walked slowly to the door, determined that he would leave without taking one last look at her.
“Paul?”
He turned around. She had stood up. She folded her arms stiffly, tightly, beneath her breasts, and he could almost see the battle going on inside her. “I don’t want you to go,” she said. “Could you just … hold me?”
He walked back to her and pulled her gently into his arms. She fit snugly against him, her hair smelling like sunshine. She sighed, letting her arms circle his back, and he felt a shiver run
