Another Eden

  The older man sat back in his swivel chair and gestured helplessly. “But why? What can you do out there that you can’t do here—better, for more money and more prestige? If you go to California you’ll be starting over, as if the last six years never happened.”

  “That might be true as far as my reputation is concerned, at least for designing the kind of buildings I’ve got in mind. But it’s not true for my experience and my ability. I don’t regret a minute of the last six years—I couldn’t have come to this decision without them. The firm’s been decent to me from the beginning, and more than generous, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But it deserves my best, and that’s exactly what I can’t give anymore.”

  “But why?”

  He stood up. “It’s hard to explain. More and more I’ve been feeling like an anachronism. The twentieth century’s almost here, and I’m still designing buildings in a style that reached its peak a thousand years ago—two thousand. For a while I could do it, but not anymore. I feel as if I’ve given up architecture and gone into archeology. I’m finished with it, John, I can’t do it anymore.”

  Ogden threw up his hands. “I don’t understand.”

  Alex hesitated, frowning. “Have you got a minute? Come into my office and I’ll show you something.”

  His new office down the hall from Ogden’s was functional, hardly luxurious, but still a far cry from the noisy and always overcrowded drafting room. He went to his desk and drew a stack of drawings out of the bottom drawer. “Have a seat,” he invited the other man, pulling his chair out from behind the desk. Ogden sat down, took the drawings from him, and hooked his pince-nez back on the bridge of his nose.

  Alex went to the window to wait, bracing his knee against the low shelf under it and peering out at the falling rain. His ascension from drafting room to private office was still so recent, he hadn’t had a chance yet to get tired of his view of Union Square from Sixteenth Street. The October day was dreary, but the incessant bustle of streetcars, cabs, carriages, and a hundred black umbrellas made it look almost gay, at least from this distance.

  Six months ago he couldn’t have given any of this up. In fact, by now he’d have already started wanting more—more praise, more power, more possessions, more feminine conquests. That’s how he’d defined himself, evaluated his own worth—by toting up how much money he made and how many women he took to bed. Now he wanted only one woman, and Draper and Snow was just a building on Broadway where he came to work.

  “Good God.”

  He looked around, smiling. “That bad?”

  “Christ, Alex, no one’s going to buy houses that look like this!”

  “You’ve been in New York too long.”

  “Are you serious? Well—obviously you are.”

  “It’s coming, John. Maybe not soon, but it’s coming.”

  “Not in my lifetime.”

  Alex chuckled.

  “Well, at least the partners will be relieved to know you won’t be stealing any of our clients when you go.”

  “That’s for sure,” he agreed cheerfully.

  Ogden stood up and came toward him, holding out his hand. “I wish you luck. God knows you’re going to need it.”

  “Thanks.” But he thought he saw grudging admiration in Ogden’s bland features that was new. Before, he’d approved of Alex’s work but not much of Alex; now that seemed to have reversed. The possibility pleased him.

  “I certainly hope you’ll stay in touch, Alex. Yours is one career I mean to follow closely.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “When do you plan to go?”

  “I was thinking in a couple of weeks, if that’s all right.”

  “I suppose so. Lucky for you the Cochrane house fell through, eh?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Well. See you around.”

  “Yes, sir. See you.”

  After he left, Alex sat down in the chair Ogden had just vacated. His hand went automatically to the stack of drawings on his desk and a wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He hoped to hell he knew what he was doing; otherwise, Ogden was going to have the last laugh after all.

  His smile faded slowly. He’d been looking forward to telling Ogden his news—or rather, to having told him. Now his temporary euphoria was dissipating. He had one more person to tell. He glanced at the telephone. If he asked to see her, she might say no. He couldn’t say good-bye to Sara on the telephone. And he wanted to see Michael’s face when he gave him his last gift.

  He stood up, and grabbed his hat on the way out the door.

  “Sara? Oh, pardon—you were taking a little cat nap?”

  She sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “What do you want?”

  Tasha came all the way into the bedroom and went immediately to the mirror over the dressing table. “Do you think this hat is quite correct with this dress? Madame Bixiou insisted on it, but now I am not so positive.”

  “I asked you what you want.”

  She turned back, regarding Sara with upraised brows. “To tell you that Mr. Cochrane has called to say he will not be home for dinner. And so tonight, Sara, you are going to take me to the Waldorf Hotel, where I have wanted to dine for a very long time. I’ll be back early—I’m going to Paquin’s now for another fitting. Be ready at eight, will you?”

  Sara didn’t speak.

  “Oh—I almost forgot. You have a visitor.”

  “No, I can’t see anyone.”

  “Ah, too bad. Mr. McKie will be so disappointed.”

  She jolted to her feet. “My God—did you call him?”

  “I?” She laughed. “But of course not. He is in the blue drawing room, Sara. I ordered tea and told him to wait for you. He looks very handsome today, I think. And rich. He looks—as your husband would say—like a man with lots of tin.” She moved back to the door, expensive silk skirts rustling subtly. “I hope you enjoy yourselves,” she murmured in her throaty, suggestive purr, and sidled out.

  He thought at first that she was ill. She stood in the drawing room doorway clasping and unclasping her hands and smiling at him with a frail gladness that hurt him to see. “Sara? How are you? Have you been all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” She couldn’t take her eyes off him. His being here was a miracle—she didn’t care what had brought him.

  She didn’t look fine. She’d put powder under her eyes—he could see it, smell its fragrance—to disguise the dark crescents there, but she hadn’t succeeded. Her lips were pale, her complexion paler; even her hair, freshly brushed, lacked the magic, satiny shine he was used to. Into the lengthening, disturbing silence, he said the first thing that came into his head. “I hardly recognized Tasha just now. What’s happened to her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She looked different. And she seemed—I don’t know—more sure of herself, somehow.” And she’d stared at him oddly, almost as if she knew a secret. “She’s never said anything about us, has she, Sara?”

  The temptation to tell him almost overpowered her. But her situation was so sordid, so shameful, that she could never find the words to say to him that she was being blackmailed by a gypsy for committing adultery. More than that, she knew how he would react: with outrage and indignation and a thoroughly masculine need to rescue her. But she was beyond the possibility of rescue, and if he tried he would only make everything worse.

  “No, of course not, what could she say? She doesn’t know anything. She said you looked different too,” she rushed on, forcing a smile. “She said you looked rich.”

  His smile was just as false. “I’m about to get a lot poorer. That’s what I’ve come to tell you.” There was no other way to say it. “Sara, I’m going away.”

  Her face crumbled before she could turn aside. She got her hands up to cover her mouth; miraculously, she didn’t cry. She backed away and sat on the arm of the sofa because it was closest. She felt leveled, cut down, and violently determined not to let him know. Stupidl
y, as if it mattered, she asked, “But what about Eden?”

  That shocked him. “You mean you didn’t know? Ben’s ordered work on it stopped indefinitely.”

  “No, I didn’t know.” She didn’t care. “When did he do that?”

  “Two weeks ago. The day after I saw you at Rector’s.”

  “I’m not sorry. I hated it. Oh—forgive me—”

  “For what? I despised it.”

  She took a deep breath, gathering herself. “Where will you go?”

  “California. I’m going to try to set up on my own in San Francisco. Build houses there.”

  “Oh, Alex, that’s good. I’m so glad for you. It feels right,” she said truthfully, “and I know you’ll succeed.” But she was out of control; her face turned red and she had to stop talking. When she heard the maid coming with the tea cart, she jumped up and went to the window, keeping her back to the room.

  Alex stood still, thwarted and helpless, while the maid fiddled with cups and napkins and uncovered a plate of sandwiches.

  “Will there be anything else, ma’am?”

  “No, nothing.”

  The maid sent Alex one quick, curious glance and withdrew.

  She ought to turn around, pour tea, speak to him—she was making a mess of this! But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t. Not yet.

  Alex couldn’t stand it. “If you want me to stay, I will. Say one word, Sara, and I won’t go.”

  That made her whip around. “Don’t say that. It can’t have anything to do with me.”

  “It has everything to do with you.”

  “No, no, no—”

  He went to her and took her hands, holding her still. “Yes. I can’t lose you and my work at the same time. Sara, I need something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know that Draper and Snow offered me a partnership?”

  “Ben told me. I was so proud—”

  “It meant I’d have to keep building Edens for the rest of my life. If I could have had you, I might’ve done it—might not even have minded.”

  “Oh, no—”

  “But without you, it’s impossible. I hate Ben’s house, I hate Kubla Khan—”

  “Kubla Khan?”

  “The house Marshall Farley wants now in Newport—I told you about it.”

  “I remember.”

  “Sara, I’ve got to have my work, and I can’t do it in New York. So I have to go.”

  She nodded vigorously. “Yes, I see that. You have to go.” She started to cry.

  “Sara, don’t.” She tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn’t let go. “I want to touch you, hold you. Can we go somewhere?”

  She just shook her head. “Servants,” she got out finally in a whisper.

  He growled a vulgar oath. Because he was familiar with every variety of adulterous intrigue, he understood the need for secrecy. But now he loathed it because it degraded Sara, degraded them both. “Over here,” he muttered harshly, “behind the goddamn door.”

  She let herself be led, and when he embraced her, pressing her against the wall at her back, she let him do that, too. The solid feel of him steadied her, even though they were both trembling. She closed her eyes and held him, and tried not to think that it was for the last time. “Darling, darling,” she murmured, and that was for the last time, too. “When will you go?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “Will you build houses like the one in the drawing you showed me?” He nodded. “Good. It was so beautiful.”

  “Did you like it, Sara?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You asked me who it was for, and I lied and said no one. But it was for you. It was the only way I could think of to make love to you.”

  She let him kiss her—could not have denied him to save her life. Her lips were salty from tears; he tasted them on the tip of his tongue, cradling her face in his palms and moving her head slowly from side to side. His sweetness broke her heart. But her breath caught when his slippery fingers slid softly to her throat, her chest, and then inside the thin lapels of her Eton jacket. He stilled his hands on the sides of her breasts, holding her, while his tongue caressed her mouth open and entered her sleekly. She clutched him harder, moaning, feeling her own helpless seduction.

  He had only meant to stop her tears and soothe her. But his need was too strong and he’d buried it too shallowly. “Come to me again,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me love you. We can go anywhere, out of town if you like. We’ll be discreet, no one will—” She tried to say no, but he kissed the word back into her mouth. “Please, Sara. Just once more. Don’t make me leave you—”

  “No, Alex. I can’t, I can’t.”

  He stopped asking. It was cruel to do this to her. She had always been stronger; now it was time for him to try to help her. “Don’t cry.” He brushed her new tears away with his fingers and smiled at her tenderly. “I’m sorry, Sara. I’m such a selfish bastard.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah, I am. I’ve had it all my own way for a long, long time.” But he couldn’t think of anything he’d ever done that deserved a punishment this hard. “I shouldn’t have come, I know it. But I couldn’t say good-bye to you on the telephone—”

  “No, no, I’m glad you came!” She took his hands and kissed them, pressed them to her hot cheeks. “I’m glad, and I don’t care—” She broke off, and jumped in reaction to the distant slam of a door.

  “Mummy!”

  Alex stepped back and she twisted past him, fumbling for her handkerchief, patting her hair. “I’m in here, darling!” she called, and the forced gaity in her voice hurt him more than anything had. She wiped her eyes in haste and squared her shoulders and barely got the handkerchief back into her pocket before Michael raced into the room, a canvas bookbag banging over his shoulder.

  His face lit up in pure, guileless delight. “Alex!” he shouted, and made a run for him.

  Alex knelt and caught him in his arms, hugging him. A rush of emotion swamped him suddenly and with no warning. He looked past Michael’s shoulder at Sara, searching her stricken face for a clue to the unexpected depth of his own feelings for this boy. The skinny arms around his neck loosened and they both pulled back to grin at each other. He might have been looking into Sara’s gray-blue eyes, so exact was the likeness. Michael’s hair had darkened slightly, but it was still shiny, still as soft as corn silks. “Great heavens, you’ve grown a foot.” He massaged one sharp-boned shoulder through Michael’s jacket. “How’s that collarbone?”

  “All healed up! Is our house finished yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you get the letter I sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you like the picture?”

  “I loved it.”

  Michael glanced back at his mother. “I sent him a picture I drew of his house, Mum.” She looked puzzled. “His dream house. He told me everything it would have, and I drew it. It was a surprise, right, Alex?”

  “Right.”

  “It had stuff like lots of light and ways to get outside and neat colors and everything.”

  Alex nodded, confirming it. “You did a beautiful job. I could almost build it just from the drawing.” Michael beamed. “I’ve got a surprise for you, too.”

  “You do, really? What is it? Is it here?”

  Alex rose and went to the sofa, on which rested a small, square box of varnished wood. Blowing her nose, Sara saw that the box opened with a padlock through a metal hasp. When Alex took a key from his pocket and handed it to him with the box, she thought that it hardly mattered what was inside, and wondered how he could have known that Michael’s favorite things in all the world—this year, at least—were boxes with locks that opened with keys.

  But what was inside proved even more wondrous. It was a set of child-sized drafting tools: T-square, a compass, triangle, protractor, templates in all shapes and sizes, lead holders, brushes and erasers, even a miniature slide rule.

 
“Oh, boy!” cried Michael, and immediately began taking them all out of their neat velour receptacles.

  “Alex, it’s wonderful. Wherever did you find it?”

  “I had someone make it.” He screwed up his face suddenly. “Botheration,” he cursed—for Michael’s benefit. “Forgot drawing paper. Could you get him some, Sara?”

  “Yes, of course. Tomorrow.”

  He crouched down beside Michael again. “Not sure when I’ll be seeing you again, pal,” he said lightly.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out to California.”

  He didn’t lookup; his tone was casual. “Are you coming back?”

  He couldn’t bring himself to say no. But he couldn’t lie and say yes. “Not sure,” he repeated. “Could be.”

  “Can I come and visit you?”

  Alex looked up involuntarily, and Michael followed his glance. Sara’s eyes were too bright, her face flushed again. Michael looked away quickly, but she saw with her mother’s knowledge that he already understood much too much. Politeness and an innate delicacy would keep him from saying anything more to Alex about visiting, for he would rather die than embarrass anyone. When she could speak she said, “California’s a long way away. Maybe Mr. McKie wouldn’t mind if you wrote to him.”

  Michael’s voice was subdued now. “May I, Alex?”

  “I hope you will. I’ll write back. We could send each other pictures, of houses or whatever we want.”

  “Yeah. And now I can build your house for you—you know, a model.”

  “That would be great.” He reached out and stroked Michael’s yellow hair, then cupped his hand around the back of his thin stalk of a neck. “Take care of your mother,” he instructed softly.

  He took it as seriously as it was intended. “I will.” Suddenly he threw his arms around Alex and hugged him. Sara saw tears squeeze past his tightly closed lashes, and she had to look away. A second later she went out of the room.

  Alex found her in the foyer a few minutes later, waiting for him beside the door. Neither spoke. What was left to say? Only one thing. “I love you,” in a whisper.

  “I love you, Alex.”