Hillary’s mouth fell open.“So?So you’re two-timing her!”
“Janet will benefit from this marriage.She’ll get the protection she lost when Turner died.She’ll have someone to take control of her life again, which is what she’s missed.I never promised her fidelity, and she hasn’t asked for it.”
“Then you think you’re going to keep it up with me while you’re married to her?”
“She won’t mind.”
“Well, I will!”
“I don’t see why.”He sounded totally serious.“We’ve been involved before, you and I, while I’ve been seeing other women.”
“But you’ve never been married to any of them!”
“And you’ve suddenly turned righteous?Come off it, Hillary.What difference will my being married make?”
“A big difference.”
“No, it won’t change a thing between you and me.We’ll see each other as often as we ever did.My relationship with Janet is a rational thing.It’s convenient.It gets hangers-on off both of our backs.It quiets skeptics.I’m not looking for passion from her.I get that from you.”
“But you’re marrying her!”
“And you refuse to carry on with a married man?Try again.”His voice hardened.“What is it you want?Money?Jewels?Company stock?”
His words hit her like a slap in the face.He was so far off the mark, so far from understanding her, even after all the years they’d known each other.As long as she’d been mistress to a man who shunned marriage, she’d been able to abide the other women who had come and gone in his life.After all, she was the one who remained.John always returned to her, and that had been some solace for all else she might have wanted from him.Now, though, he was giving another woman his name, putting another on a pedestal that had previously been empty.The issue was self-respect.Hillary had too much pride to have her relationship with him finally and deliberately spelled out, reduced to its lowest common denominator.
His presence on the other end of the line suddenly grew grating.Given how raw she felt, it was too much.“Go to hell,” she muttered and hung up, then stared at the phone, praying that it would ring, that he would call back.
But she knew he wouldn’t.He wouldn’t give her a sign that he cared, and he certainly wouldn’t apologize.He was too arrogant for that.Instead, he would turn offthe light in the library and return to his party, well aware that she would know he was doing just that as she sat alone in New York.He would let the pain of her imaginings be punishment for having hung up on him.
And so she felt punished.Picturing him with a parlor full of people, one of whom was certainly his fiancée, all no doubt in awe of him for having pulled off such a smashing publicity coup on network television, was torture.Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth on the edge of her bed, but the movement did little to ease her misery.Nor did prowling through the apartment.She felt odd, empty in a gut-wrenching kind of way, yet filled with emotions that all clamored for her attention.Sadness, pain, anger, loneliness, fear—she didn’t know which to address first.
She threw on a long coat and sought refuge in the March night.The air was cool and welcome.Clutching her coat closed, she strode quickly along the city side-walk, past brownstones and storefronts and many people who were also strolling the streets at midnight.Just then she was glad that New York never slept.Seeing others who were alone, she didn’t feel quite so lonely.
Then again, she had always prided herself on being a step above such urban isolation.No matter how much time she spent alone—and as a writer she spent plenty—there was always the knowledge that she had John.Even when months went by between visits, she knew he was there.They didn’t talk on the phone.They didn’t write letters.But he was there, and she knew that when he was ready he would come to her.
No more.
She walked on and on.At length, feeling chilled despite the exertion, she headed back to her apartment.Her answering machine showed a single message.Telling herself it had to be John, she felt a surge of pure happiness and activated the machine.
“Hi, Hillary.”Her heart fell.“It’s Pam.I really want to talk with you, but I’m not home, so you can’t call me back.I’ll try you again in the morning.”
The machine beeped off.Had it been John, she might have saved the message in order to hear his voice again and again.Instead, she stood where she was, weighed down by disappointment.She loved Pam.But John’s voice was the one she craved.
She wanted to talk with someone, wanted to shriek and cry on a sympathetic shoulder, but Pam wasn’t home, and she couldn’t bother friends at this late hour.
In truth, with the exception of Pam, Hillary wouldn’t have dared call her friends.John was a touchy subject, one she had long ago learned to keep to herself.Few of her friends had met him.Several didn’t even know his identity, only that she had a lover of long standing.None of them could understand why she put up with him.They thought she was crazy to wait out the silence between visits, crazy to let him come and go without making any kind of formal commitment.Every woman had a right to protect her interests, they claimed, and though she had always argued that she was self-sufficient enough not to need that where John was concerned, maybe they were right.If she were to call now and complain about what he had done, she would be in for a string of I-told-you-so’s.She wasn’t up for that.
The night seemed endless.She was too wound up to sleep, too wound up even to sit still for long.No diversion worked.She played soft music, drank mellow wine, soaked in a bath that should have drained the tension from her limbs.But all the while she thought of John, and the pain inside gave no quarter.
With the coming of dawn she was a bundle of nerves.She watched the first needles of sunlight pierce the concrete canyons of her street, watched the delivery truck bring the newspapers.She went down for hers, carried it back upstairs, opened to the society page, and died a little.The article wasn’t large.John wasn’t royalty yet.But the mention was there, four full paragraphs on the imminent marriage of one of the East Coast’s most eligible bachelors.With shaky desperation, she hid it under yesterday’s paper on the kitchen counter.
She took a hot shower, dressed, looked at her watch.It was barely seven-thirty.Pam would be up.But she didn’t want to call her.She was too upset to talk.So she went to her desk, determined to work, but she couldn’t think of a thing to write.
She needed air.Grabbing her coat from where she’d thrown it the night before, she went out walking again.She took deep breaths.She made eye contact with the few other early Saturday morning walkers she passed.She held her head high.Inevitably, though, at each corner stand, her attention fell to the papers.Finally, unable to resist, she bought the one that she didn’t have, tucked it under her arm, and went home.
There, too, was an article on John’s engagement.
Disgusted, she pushed it aside, snatched up her briefcase,and went out again, this time to the library.She stayed there for most of the day, not because she was accomplishing much but simply because she couldn’t bear to be home alone with the bittersweet memories and the silence.