Rapture

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Georgie tells me you're doing business with Union Carbide," Burt Maddox said.

"No, not really," Jeff replied. "We were talking about working on something together, but it didn't come off."

"Oh, that's too bad," Burt said. "So this is just a pleasure trip for you then."

"A vacation, yes." Then Jeff added defensively, "My first in about five years."

In less than a minute he had taken a dislike to Burt Maddox. The man had a forced gregariousness that did nothing to hide the fact that he was sizing Jeff up. But the worst thing was his habit of referring to Georgianne as Georgie. Jeff hated it, and he could hardly keep from wincing whenever he heard it.

At the last minute, Georgianne had almost balked, and Jeff wished she had. A few of her friends had per suaded her to come to the Maddox house that evening. No party, no special occasion, just a handful of friends and neighbors getting together for a drink. Georgianne hadn't wanted to go, but she had finally given in, and Jeff had agreed to accompany her. Then, in the car on the way there, she had begun to worry about it again. It would look wrong. It was too soon. Sean had been dead less than three months. Jeff sympathized, but didn't want to argue the case one way or the other. He did point out to her that she had no reason to feel guilty. She would simply be stopping by a friend's house for a short visit. Georgianne looked pale and nervous when they arrived at the Maddox house, but she decided to go through with it, intending to stay for only an hour or so.

"I've been with them for nine years now," Burt was saying.

"Oh ... uh ... Union Carbide?"

Jeff could feel the blood leaving his face in a rush, and he bent over to take a hideous-looking hors d'oeuvre from a tray on a side table. It tasted awful, but the maneuver gained him a few seconds, and he hoped his cheeks had regained some color. His heart was pounding.

"That's right," Burt continued smoothly. "Didn't Georgie tell you? I'm a marketing manager." Then, with mock chagrin, "One of many."

"I see," Jeff said aimlessly. "It's quite an outfit."

Maddox would be a salesman, he thought contemptuously. He could tell the type: large, florid, incapable of tolerating two seconds of silence in a conversation, pursuing a rendezvous with a coronary-which in this case wouldn't come a day too soon, as far as Jeff was concerned.

Maddox tried to stick to the subject of Union Carbide, but Jeff killed it easily, and his host was too polite to persist. Jeff wished he had known ahead of time that he would be meeting someone from Union Carbide. It wasn't that he couldn't handle such an encounter, especially with someone as transparent as Maddox. But he didn't like surprises. For some time now, weeks, months, he'd felt as if he were walking a tightrope-a very long tightrope-to Georgianne. It had the effect of magnifying everything else in his daily life, and the most trivial vibrations could turn suddenly into tremors and quakes. How much easier it would be if he could simply whisk Georgianne away to some remote mountain cabin for a month or two, where he could win her over by sheer undistracted force of character and love. Instead, the tightrope stretched ahead indefinitely.

There were fewer than a dozen people scattered about the capacious, L-shaped Maddox living room. They all looked prosperous and satisfied, a little too much so for Jeff's liking. He wanted to see an edge in someone, but this crowd was round and soft. It was impossible to think of them as Georgianne's friends, even if, inexplicably, they were.

"Oh, I think Georgianne wants me," Jeff said, creating a flimsy opportunity to edge away from his host. "Excuse me."

"Catch you later," Maddox said, turning in the other direction to mingle.

Jeff drifted across the room and perched on the end of the sofa next to Georgianne. He lit a cigarette, acutely aware that all eyes were on him. Cool and professional, he told himself, that's the best stance to maintain.

"Georgie tells me you're doing some very exciting work with computers," Carole Richards said, leaning forward to rope Jeff into the conversation.

"Some of it is," Jeff allowed. He didn't like Carole Richards, because she had arranged the job for Georgianne. And because she called her Georgie too. It was appalling.

"And you two were in high school together?"

Everytime she spoke, Carole arranged her face in an expression of intense seriousness, which was utterly disproportionate to what she actually said. She was frizzy-haired and forty, Jeff figured, and trying to keep a young and intelligent look-and missing by a wide margin.

"'That's right."

"it's so nice that you got in touch again...."

And on and on. Jeff went to get fresh drinks, and Carole was still nattering on when he returned. It was definitely worrying. Georgianne seemed relaxed and at home with these people. But who were they? Maddox and his bouffant wife with the eyes of an appraiser. Carole Richards, a self-styled progressive teacher, and her husband, a financial adviser. The others, with names Jeff had already forgotten, included a local lawyer, a "publisher" of advertising supplements, an Audi dealer, and their spouses. There was a certain sameness about them, he thought, an enforced healthiness, an endless capacity for small talk, and a way of standing or sitting that seemed somehow practiced.

They were all apparently normal, but Jeff couldn't imagine himself knowing these people, seeing them regularly-much less ever think of an evening like this as fun. Were they enjoying themselves? Perhaps, but he couldn't help thinking of it as the shared jollity of people stuck in the same boat-one that he had no desire to board.

And there in the middle was Georgianne. She seemed the most natural in the whole crowd. One of the things he found so attractive in her was her downto-earth acceptance of her own life, her lack of airs and pretensions. But he could see that she and Sean might fit in with these people: Georgianne with her daily swim at the Fitness Center and her pen-and-ink sketches, Sean with his wood-burning stove and his do-it-yourself approach to suburbia. It made a certain kind of sense.

But would Georgianne want to go on living like this? Jeff knew that these people would find his lifestyle far too severe. But this, the way they lived, was boring and empty. He was beginning to feel glad he and Georgianne had come to the Maddox house. It was tedious and uncomfortable, but it confirmed the rightness of his mission to open Georgianne to change, to help her grow and become the kind of person she was meant to be. They would grow together.

First, he would have to get her away from Foxrock, which was nothing more than a well-upholstered enclave of phony, self-preoccupied people. Then, he had to do something daring with his own life, something that was still almost inconceivable. When he and Georgianne were finally alone together, their love would blossom.

He sat back to let Georgianne and Carole continue their conversation. Bobbie Maddox saw her chance and moved in. She pulled a large hassock next to him at the end of the sofa and sat down on it. She wore a white jumpsuit, open to an unexciting cleavage, and a pair of gaudy earrings that looked like surrealistic cornucopias. She put a hand on Jeff's arm, as if to make sure he wouldn't bolt for the door.

"I'm so glad you brought Georgie tonight," she said in a conspiratorial hush. "It's time she began to get out again and see her friends, don't you think?"

"Yes," Jeff agreed. "She's doing pretty well, but something like this can only help."

"I hope so. Of course, she is so much better now, thank God." She paused theatrically. "And you have your own company ... ?"

Subtle as a billboard, Jeff thought. "That's right."

"How nice. California's the place, isn't it?"

"It's where I work," he replied, reluctant to follow her obscure train of thought. A minute later, he finished his drink and used the empty glass as an excuse to escape the company of this Maddox. At the makeshift bar on the kitchen table, he wondered if it was possible that these people were secretly hoping, even plotting, that he and Georgianne would get together. It seemed a wild, fantastic notion, but maybe there was a grain of truth in it. If they were her friends, they'd surely want to see her happily married again in due course. I should be making more of an effort to cultivate this crowd, he reminded himself. They could help me, they might even want to help me.

How are you bearing up?'

It was another wife. Jeff tried to remember her name. Mandy, he thought. Yes, Mandy, and the reason he remembered was because, after Georgianne, she was the best-looking woman there. She was conservatively dressed, which seemed to enhance her voluptuous sexiness.

Pardon?"

"I asked how you were bearing up, surrounded by strangers. Don't worry," she continued before he could reply, "we're not all as stuffy as you might think.*

'I'm having a fine time,' Jeff said, smiling. 'Everyone has been very nice to me."

'Ibat's good," she said with a sly smile. And what's going on with you and Georgianne?"

At last, someone who didn't call her Georgie. Jeff hadn't expected such a blunt question, but he was more amused than surprised. It couldn't be a bad thing that these people were thinking of him as a potential mate for Georgianne.

"Oh, we're just old school friends, you know. ..."

"Uh-huh." Mandy looked as if she didn't believe that was all there was to it, but would let it pass for now. "She's such a sweet kid."

Yes..

"A good, old-fashioned kind of girl. And there aren't too many of those around any more."

'I know,' Jeff said. She had put her finger on exactly what made Georgianne so special. But he couldn't understand why she was talking to him this way. Was she trying to sell Georgianne to him, or warning him not to hurt her? "I'm glad to see she has so many friends here, especially at a time like this."

"Yeah, but I'm afraid we might lose her."

?" Y•

"I might be wrong," Mandy said with a shrug, "but I think a town like this can be hard on a woman alone, a widow. It's kind of isolated, and there's not much going on, even in Danbury. It may get to her after a while."

You could be right," he said hopefully.

"Unless she remarries, and I'd be surprised if she didn't, sooner or later."

"She's too young to stay a widow," he agreed.

Jeff and Georgianne were at the Maddox house for nearly two hours. He chatted with most of the people there, and they all revealed a certain curiosity about him along with a general concern for Georgianne. It wasn't as uncomfortable as it might have been, but he didn't like Georgianne's friends and he hoped he wouldn't have to meet any of them again.

When he dropped Georgianne off at her house, he accepted her invitation to come in for a nightcap. The place felt cold and empty, and he wondered how much worse it must seem to her. When she looked ahead, what would she see? Night after night in an empty bed, an empty house, winter chills, and the air dry as dust and dead flowers. But tonight she was in a good mood. Jeff sat on the couch, and Georgianne took the armchair facing him, a few feet away.

"I like your friends," he said.

'I'm glad." She looked at her drink. "They've been very kind to me through ... all this."

The house seemed too quiet, and Jeff suddenly felt a responsibility to keep the mood upbeat. It was as if the large gambrel wanted to wrap them in its own forlorn atmosphere. The sensation of death was almost physical. She would have to move out, he thought, and the sooner the better. He forced a slight laugh.

"One thing, though," he said. "I never heard anyone call you Georgie before tonight. Everyone calls you Georgie. Oh, except for Mandy."

Georgianne smiled mischievously. 'I saw that you found Mandy."

She found me." He guessed there was probably a bit of history to Mandy. "Actually, they all did. One after another."

'T'hey were just being friendly, and trying to make you feel welcome."

"I know. I wasn't complaining." Then, "All the same, I couldn't help feeling that I was being sized up, somehow."

"Oh?" Georgianne was still smiling, but she cocked her head to one side and gave him a quizzical look. For what?'

He shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing, probably. I imagine they were just being protective on your behalf. But, you know, they're all wondering what you're going to do."

NAbout what?"

"The house, Foxrock. Whether you'll stay here or not. That kind of thing."

"I'm not moving. It's my house, and I live here," she said firmly. But then her voice faltered as she concluded, "At least for the next year or so."

"Sure, of course, and they all want you to stay," he assured her. "I did get the impression that the women would love to see you married off again." He laughed in an attempt to keep the tone light. "So you'd better watch out, kid. By Christmas they'll be fixing you up with likely candidates."

"I know," Georgianne said with a bittersweet smile.

"But you're lucky to have friends nearby."

"What's it like where you live?"

The question shocked and thrilled him. It didn't matter whether she was simply changing the subject or if there was indeed something more to it. He took it as an important signal from Georgianne's subconscious. She was beginning to look beyond her own grief-to him.

"Santa Susana? It's beautiful out there," he said enthusiastically. "I love it...."

He told Georgianne more about Santa Susana, the valley, the coast, Los Angeles, and his condominium. He described his rooms and the simple but elegant way he had furnished them. He told her how he had framed and hung her sketch of the dilapidated barn, and he asked if she would let him have another one for his office. That led him to Lisker-Benedictus, and he gave Georgianne a brief history of the company, how he and Ted had gotten together, the building they had constructed-a combination office, computer plant, and research center in the canyon. He avoided going into too much unnecessary detail, but Georgianne listened intently.

Something is different, Jeff realized as he talked. In May, she had listened and expressed a certain interest, but this was different. Now, he felt she really wanted to learn about him, what he did and how he lived. It was because Sean was dead and fading into a memory. Her mind was no longer complicated by the presence of Sean. Georgianne doesn't know it yet, he thought, but she's already beginning to see me in a new light.

When it came time to leave, Georgianne thanked Jeff for being such good company and for taking her to the gathering at the Maddox house.

"My return to society, I guess," she joked, but there was a measure of sadness in her eyes.

"It'll get better. You'll see."

"I know," she said wearily. "I know."

Jeff hugged her and held her close to him for several long minutes. He stroked her hair and kissed her lightly on the forehead, but was afraid to do anything else. Although Georgianne didn't break away, he could feel the same hesitancy in her.

"It's all right," he whispered. It's just a line in the sand. We'll cross it soon, and then I'll hold you safe all through the night, every night. "It's all right."

OceanofPDF.com