Chapter 1 : Part 4

Facets
by Barbara Delinsky

(Page 4 of 4)

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 sidewalk, 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.

When she finally headed back, she found another message from Pam. This one was more pointed: "Hi, Hillary, it's me again. Listen, we have to meet. I'll be flying down on Wednesday to see a client. Let's do lunch. One o'clock. The Four Seasons. If you can't make it, call me back. Otherwise, I'll see you then."

The message was typically Pam, quiet and efficient, knowing what needed to be done and doing it. Beneath the quiet efficiency was insistence, but it was spawned not so much by arrogance as by a passionate conviction. That was one of the differences between Pam and her brother. Pam was an emotional being. She felt. She cared. She bled.

So did Hillary.

But not John.

That thought, more than any other, kept coming back to taunt her through the long, lonely hours of the weekend. Her emotions ricocheted between disbelief and hurt, confusion and despair. She struggled to see the future as it stretched before her, but the bleakness of it made her turn away. It didn't seem fair. For too long she had held back, orienting her life to John's. While she cursed him in one breath, in the next she had to curse herself. He had used her, and she had allowed it.

By the time the weekend was over, she was as angry as she was hurt, and the anger gave birth to an idea. She was finished with John's abuse. Life went on, and with it her potential for growth. She didn't care if her anger at John was the catalyst. She didn't care if he would be furious at what she planned. She had nothing more to lose.

It was time she made something big of her life. Using John to do so would be poetic justice.

Copyright © 1990 by Barbara Delinsky

About the Author

Barbara Delinsky is the author of many novels, including, most recently, Looking for Peyton Place and The Summer I Dared, which is now available as a premium mass market paperback. Published in twenty-five languages worldwide, her books regularly appear on bestseller lists. She lives with her family in New England.