Danielle Steel - Remembrance

“I don't want to wait. I don't see why we should. I want us to have a life together. To spend all our time with each other, working, having fun, with our friends.” He looked tenderly at her. “We could have a baby, and, Serena, I'm thirty-nine. I'm in a hurry to have you be all mine forever.”

“Let me try to work it out when I get home. I have to break this to Vanessa.”

“Do you still want to marry me?” He looked suddenly crushed, and she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

“Of course. I just don't want to startle her by doing it so quickly.” And then there was Teddy she would have to explain it to. She wondered what his reaction would be. But Vasili was always insistent.

“When it's right, you have to grab the moment.” It was not unlike what Brad had said nine years before, which somehow gave his urge to rush into marriage a little more respectable credence.

“I'll work it out.” Her voice was very quiet.

“When?” He was pushing and it drove her crazy. She was already torn between reason and passion.

“As soon as I go home.”

When she got off the plane at Idle wild Airport in New York, Teddy was waiting. He looked strangely serious, and Serena saw almost right away that his eyes were sad. He kissed her as he always did, and when at last they had picked up her bags and got into his car, he turned toward her. “Why didn't you tell me why you went over there?”

A knife of guilt cut through her. He already knew. “Teddy … I went for a shoot, and the shoot was canceled.”

“But you went to see a man too, didn't you?” Her eyes glued to his, she nodded. “Why didn't you tell me?”

She sighed deeply then and shook her head. “I'm sorry, Teddy. I don't know. I just didn't know where things stood. I thought I'd tell you when I got back.”

“And?” He looked deeply hurt that she hadn't told him. He had seen a small item in the papers. It mentioned Vasili Arbus by name, and that Serena was staying with him.

She took a deep breath then and looked into his eyes. “I'm getting married.” She wasn't sure why but she felt as though she had to defend herself to him.

“Already?” He looked shocked. “To Vasili Arbus?”

“Yes, to both questions.” She smiled then. “I love him very much. He's brilliant and wonderful and creative and a little crazy.”

“So I've heard.” He stopped to look at her then. “Serena, do you know what the hell you're doing?”

“Yes.” But she still felt a little flutter of fear. It had all happened so quickly.

“How long have you known him?”

“Long enough.”

“Serena, do whatever you want, live with him, go to London, but don't marry him. Not right away.… I've heard a lot of strange things about that man.”

“That's not fair, Teddy. It's not like you.” She looked upset. She wanted Teddy to approve of what she was doing.

“I'm not saying that because I'm jealous, I'm saying it because I love you. I've heard that—that he killed his last wife.” He looked terrified and pale in the car, and Serena's eyes grew bright with anger.

“How dare you say something like that! She died from an overdose!”

“Do you know of what?” His voice was strangely quiet.

“How the hell do I know?”

“Heroin.”

“So she was a junkie, so what? That's not his fault, and he didn't kill her.”

“Oh, God, Serena … please be sensible, you have so much at stake, yourself and Vanessa.” And dammit, he thought to himself as he voiced his objections, I still love you. “Why don't you just give it time?” But he was forcing her to dig in her heels.

“I know what I'm doing. Don't you trust me?”

“Yes.” His voice was very quiet. “But I'm not sure I trust him.”

She shook her head and looked out the window. “You're wrong, Teddy. He's a good man.”

“How do you know that?”

“I feel it.” She looked steadily at Teddy. “And he loves me. And we're in the same business. Teddy …” Her voice grew very soft. “It's right.”

“How soon are you going?”

“As soon as I can.”

“What about Vanessa?”

“I'm going to tell her when I get home.” And then she looked searchingly at the man who had been her brother-in-law and dearest friend for years. “Will you come to see us?”

“Anytime you let me.”

“You'll always be welcome. You're the only family I have, other than Vanessa. That better not change now.”

“It won't.” But he drove her into the city in silence, trying to recover from the shock of all she'd said. For the first time in a long time he wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to stop her madness, to protect her.

40

“But why do we have to move to London?” Vanessa was looking plaintively at her mother.

“Because, darling, I'm getting married and that's where Vasili lives.” Serena felt very odd as she tried to explain it to Vanessa. All of the things that she was doing wrong seemed even more difficult to explain. It was wrong that she was moving so quickly, that she was giving up her career in New York, that she was leaving Teddy, that Vanessa hadn't met Vasili.

Vanessa looked at her now. “Can't I just stay here?” Serena felt as though she had been slapped by her daughter.

“Don't you want to come with me, Vanessa?” Serena had to fight back tears.

“But who'll take care of Uncle Teddy?”

“He will. And you know, one of these days he might get married too.”

“But don't you love him?” Vanessa looked more than ever confused, and Serena looked distraught.

“Of course I do, but not that way—oh, Vanessa, love is complicated.” How could one explain to a child about passion? “Anyway, now this nice man has come along and he wants you and me to come and live with him in London. And he has a house in Athens, and an apartment in Paris, and …” She felt like a complete fool trying to convince her daughter. Vanessa was just a child, not yet eight, and yet she knew when her mother was doing something wrong. Dorothea Kerr had been a great deal more blunt about it.

“Frankly I think you're stark-staring crazy.”

“I know, I know. It sounds nuts.” Serena was constantly having to defend what she was doing and it was exhausting. “But, Dorothea, this is special. I don't know how to tell you. He loves me, I love him. Something magical happened between us when he was here.”

“So he's good in bed. So what? So go sleep with him in London or Paris or the Congo, but don't marry him. For chrissake, the man has been married four or five times.”

“Four.” Serena corrected soberly.

“And just what do you think will happen to your career? You won't stay on top forever, kid. Some new face will come along.”

“That's going to happen anyway, and I can work in London.” There was no convincing her, but by the time she left New York, three weeks later. Serena's psyche was exhausted. She was tired and pale and hadn't slept in weeks.

Teddy took them to the airport, and all three of them cried as though it were the end of the world. He was quiet and restrained, but the tears flowed down his face as he kissed Vanessa, and Vanessa clung to him like her last friend. Serena felt as though she were destroying the family she cherished, and at the end she held Teddy in her arms and she couldn't even speak. All she could manage to squeeze out just before they boarded was an anguished “I love you.” And then with a last wave they were gone. The flight over was bumpy and Vanessa cried most of the way, and by the time they reached London, Serena was almost ready to turn back. But as she stepped off the plane she saw him, and her eyes filled with tears as she laughed. Vasili looked like a balloon vendor at a fair, as he stood with at least fifty helium-filled balloons in one hand, and an enormous doll stuck under his other arm.