Chapter 4 #4
“You’re slotted. Whether at the top or the bottom, there are certain expectations you’re supposed to meet.
At the bottom, you’re supposed to be rough, down-trodden, angry.
At the top, you’re supposed to be self-assured, socially adept and glamorous.
In either case, there’s a mold to fit into. I didn’t fit into mine.”
He moved his hand on my arm in a light, gently soothing motion. “I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“But you’re all those things you mentioned.”
“I’m none of those things—or I didn’t used to be.
I’ve come to be pretty self-assured in the past few years, and I guess I can pass in the socially adept department when I have to.
But glamorous? I’ve never been that.” I hurried on, lest he think I was fishing for compliments.
“Oh, I’m pretty enough. But glamorous is more than just looks.
Glamorous is an aura. It’s high gloss and sophistication.
It’s knowing the right people and frequenting the right places.
It’s seeing and being seen. That all makes me very uncomfortable. ”
Just thinking about it, I felt shadows of the old nervousness that used to haunt me day after day.
My hands involuntarily tightened in my lap.
“My parents are comfortable with that kind of public life. So are Ian and Samantha. I guess I was cut from a different mold. That life never fit me quite right, and it wasn’t as if I didn’t try.
I tried for nearly twenty years. I figured that if I tried long enough and hard enough, at some point things had to click, but they never did.
” I looked him in the eye. “So to answer your question, I left because I’d had it with trying to play the part of a Madigan. I was tired. I wanted to be myself.”
Peter’s hand lay still on my arm. He seemed totally engrossed in what I was saying. “Maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “Maybe there is a mold. But you have to fight, really fight to break out of the one at the bottom. From the top you just … drop out.”
I had to make him understand that it wasn’t as simple as that.
“It’s still a fight, Peter. In my case, there were endless confrontations in the library at home.
Yelling and screaming may seem petty compared to what you went through, but to me it was a nightmare.
I’ve always been a pacifist. That’s one of the reasons I never fit in well at home.
They’re always fighting. Always. And about really petty things.
” I shuddered. “Believe me, I had to fight to break free.”
At my shudder, Peter’s hand began moving again. “Do you see them often?”
“Once or twice a year.”
“In Phillie?”
I nodded. “They won’t come here. It’s just as well. Given the opportunity, they’d pick my life to pieces. So I go down there.”
“On holidays.”
“Not if I can help it. Holidays are happier up here. I usually just pick an odd weekend to visit.”
“They must be pleased to see you.”
“For the first five minutes.”
“Then what?”
“Then we start fighting. I have my own ideas about things. In recent years, I’ve been more inclined to voice them. That’s what I mean, I guess, about my being more self-assured than I used to be. My life up here is like an anchor. I feel secure here.”
“Maybe that’s because of the friends you’ve made. Maybe if you had friends like that in the other world, you’d feel more secure there.”
“I have lots of friends back home.”
“Friends from the old life. The Madigan life. Not ones you really like or trust, or you’d be back to visit more often.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. He’d effectively summed up the situation.
It actually surprised me that he had, since he’d started the discussion from the other side of the fence.
Big city, big name, big bucks—still he was different from the people back home.
Maybe it was his background. Maybe it was just him.
He didn’t only listen; he heard. I had to respect that.
“Don’t you ever miss the city?” he asked. The hand that had been on my arm fell down to capture one of my hands. He linked his fingers with mine. I didn’t fight him. His touch was pleasurable.
“No,” I answered lightly, much as I had every time I’d been asked that question during the past nine years.
Then I paused. I looked down at our hands.
There was something so natural, so honest about the way they were linked that I found myself confessing in a small voice, “Some things. Sometimes.” My eyes quickly sought his.
“But they’re small things. Like visiting museums. Going to favorite restaurants.
I could do them if I wanted when I go back to visit, but I usually don’t bother, which means that I don’t miss them all that much. ”
“Would you have done them with Adam?”
“Sure. Adam and I always had a great time when we did things together.”
“Would you do them with me?”
I took in a deep breath to say, “Sure,” nearly as automatically as I’d said it before, only the sound didn’t come. Certain thoughts intruded, thoughts about opening myself up to grief. After all, Peter wasn’t Adam.
Very softly, I said, “You wouldn’t want to be a stand-in for another man. That’s not your style.”
“Damned right it’s not. I wouldn’t be a standin for Adam, any more than you’d have me for one, and we both know it.
” His voice lowered to a dangerously seductive level.
“And you won’t scare me off with that line, Jill Moncrieff.
I’ve touched you. I’ve kissed you. And you weren’t thinking of Adam when I did. ”
He was only part right. Thoughts of Adam had flickered through my mind, but by way of comparison, and Peter had come out ahead each time. That bothered me.
“Would you do it?” he asked softly.
“Do what?” I asked, feeling cross.
“Spend time in the city with me? When you come in for your show, I could take you to—”
“I don’t know if I’ll be going in for the show. I told you that.”
“You could if you wanted to. It’s your decision. We could have a nice time, Jill.”
I could just picture his idea of a nice time. “Oh yeah, in a suite at the Plaza?”
“Why would I want a suite at the Plaza—”
“For the seduction you obviously have in mind. You’re transparent, Peter Hathaway. I have you pegged.”
“I was thinking of taking in the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, going to a few shows, your taking me to your favorite restaurant and my taking you to mine. And there’d be no reason at all for a suite at the Plaza, when I have a perfectly good place on Central Park South—”
“See? I’m right! You have one thing on your mind.”
“I do not!” He held both of my hands, now tightly. “I have a two-bedroom place, just like you do here, and I meant what I said about doing those other things. I’d enjoy them.”
“You probably do them all the time.”
“I don’t. I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum six times, and each time it was for a charity benefit.
I’ve never been there to see the art. Same for MOMA.
” He was the one who seemed cross now. “And if you think I’m proud to be saying that, you’re nuts.
But the fact is that I haven’t wanted to do those things alone, but I’ve never found someone I wanted to do them with. ”
His crossness added credence to his words, as did the fact that he looked embarrassed by what he’d said.
“You don’t have to sit there looking so smug,” he muttered.
“I don’t have the cultural background you do.
You were probably eight years old when they took you to a museum for the first time.
I never, ever went. I’ve come a long way.
I’ve taught myself lots of things over the years.
I can hold my own in most any situation, but there are still some where I feel uncomfortable. ”
“Art museums?”
“Yes.”
“And I wasn’t looking smug. I’m surprised. That’s all. And touched.” Small snatches of vulnerability in a man so strong were very appealing. I was beginning to feel the force of that appeal building newly inside me.
Apparently Peter was beginning to feel something, too, because in the next instant, he came right up off the pillow and captured my mouth with his. I had no chance at all to protest; one minute he was lying flat on the bed looking vulnerable enough to kiss, the next he was doing it.
Not that I would have protested. I’d enjoyed his last kiss too much, and the instant his lips covered mine, I felt an explosion of the same intense pleasure.
Actually the pleasure was even greater this time.
I wasn’t sure how that could be, but this new kiss seemed to have an army of feelers that were spreading joy through my body, finding and scratching niches I hadn’t known I possessed.
Peter was right about one thing; something felt very right about this kiss, which was why I let it go on, let it go on just a little longer.
It was a big mistake for two reasons. The first was that the longer he kissed me, the more hungry he grew, and the more hungry he grew, the more of himself he put into the kiss and the more excited I became.
The second was that somewhere between a tongue thrust and a lip suck, a loud cough came from the door.
As one, and in alarm, Peter and I followed the direction of that sound to find Cooper’s tall, dark frame filling the doorway.