Danielle Steel: Heartbeat

“I don't think she loved anyone,” Steven had said bitterly, “she had nothing left in her …except for him …you know, she even got pregnant the year I left, and by then she must have been almost fifty …thank God she lost it.” Adrian felt a twinge of distant pain for her, but she had long since stopped pleading their cause to Steven. He obviously had nothing in common with them anymore, and even talking about them was far too painful. She wondered from time to time what they would have thought of him, if they could see him now. He was handsome, athletic, outspoken, well educated, intelligent, bold, and sometimes even a little too brassy. She had always admired his fire, his ambition, his drive, his energy, and yet from time to time she wished that it were only a little tempered. Perhaps that would come in time, with age, with love, with kindness from those who loved him. Sometimes she teased him, she said he was like a cactus plant. He wouldn't let anyone come too close, or touch his heart, except when he decided to allow it.

They had been married for almost three years, and the marriage had done them both good. Steven had continued to rise in the agency meteorically in the past two and a half years, after moving to Los Angeles twelve years before when he finished college. He had worked in three different ad agencies over the years, and he was known in the industry as being smart, good at what he did, and more than occasionally ruthless. He had taken over clients from friends, and wooed them from other agencies in circumstances that occasionally bordered on the improper. But the agency where he worked never lost out from his maneuvers, nor did Steven. They were growing day by day, and so was Steven's importance.

She and Steven were very different, Adrian knew, and yet she respected him. Most of all, she respected what he had come from. She knew, just from the little she had heard, that surviving his early beginnings must have been brutal. Her own were at the opposite extreme, from an upper-middle-class family in Connecticut, she had always gone to private schools, and she had one older sister. She and Adrian didn't see eye to eye, and in recent years, Adrian had drifted away from her parents, too, although every few years they came out to California to see her. But it was too different from their comfortable life in Connecticut, and the last time they had come, her parents hadn't gotten along with Steven. And Adrian had to admit he'd been difficult with them. He'd been openly critical of her father, and his genteel pursuits. Her father had never had a great interest in pursuing a major career. He was an attorney, and he had retired early on, and for years he had taught at a nearby law school. She'd been embarrassed by Steven's almost grilling him, and she'd tried to explain to them that that was just Steven's way and he meant no harm by it, but after they went back, her sister, Connie, had called Adrian and given her hell about the way Steven had treated her parents. She'd asked how Adrian could “let him do that to them.” Do what? she'd asked. “Make Dad feel so insignificant. Mom said Steven humiliated him. She said Dad says he'll never go back to California.”

“Connie … for heaven's sake …” Adrian was upset to realize how hurt her father had been, and she had to admit Steven had been a little …well … exuberant when he pressed him, but that was just his style. And she tried in vain to express that to her sister. But they had never been close. They were five years apart, and Connie had always somehow disapproved of her, as though she didn't quite measure up. Which was why, in the end, after college, Adrian had stayed in California. That, and the fact that she had wanted a job in TV production.

Adrian had gone to Los Angeles to take graduate courses in film at UCLA, and she had done very well. She had had several extremely interesting jobs, and then Steven had come along, and he had seen different career opportunities for her, and in some ways, that had changed things. He thought the milieu of film or even films for TV was far too arty, and he kept insisting she should be doing something more hard-edged, more concrete. They'd been living together for two years when she got the offer to work in TV news, and it was certainly more money than she'd earned before, but it was also very different from anything she'd ever dreamed of. She'd agonized over whether or not to take the job, she just felt it wasn't “her,” but finally Steven talked her into it, and he'd been right. In the past three years she'd come to love it. And six months after she'd taken the job, she and Steven went to Reno for a weekend and got married. He hated big weddings, and “family ordeals,” and she had agreed with him so as not to upset him. But that had been upsetting for her parents too. They had wanted to do a beautiful wedding at home for their youngest daughter. Instead, she and Steven flew east, and her parents had been anything but pleased to learn that they were already married. Her mother had cried, her father had scolded them both, and they had both felt like errant children. Steven had been really irritated with them, and as usual, Adrian had gotten in a big fight with her sister, Connie. Connie had been pregnant with her third and last child by then, and as usual, she made Adrian feel inadequate somehow, and as though she had done something really awful.

“Look, we didn't want a big wedding. Is that a crime? Big ceremonies make Steven nervous. What's such a big deal about that? I'm twenty-nine years old, I should be able to get married any damn way I want to.”

“Why do you have to hurt Mom and Dad? Can't you make an effort for once in your life? You live three thousand miles away, you do whatever you please. You're never here to help them, or to do anything for them. …” Her voice had trailed off accusingly as Adrian stared at her, wondering at just how much bitterness was building up between them, and how much worse it was going to get. In recent years, their relationship had begun to seriously depress her.

“They're sixty-two and sixty-five years old, how much help do they need?” Adrian asked, and Connie looked livid.

“A lot. Charlie comes over and shovels Dad's car out every time it snows. Did you ever think of that?” There were tears in Connie's eyes, and Adrian had had an overwhelming urge to slap her.

“Maybe they should move to Florida, and make things easier for both of us,” Adrian had said quietly, as Connie burst into tears.

“That's all you know about, isn't it? Running away. Hiding on the other side of the country.”

“Connie, I'm not hiding. I have a life out there.”

“Doing what? Working as a gofer on production crews? That's crap and you know it. Grow up, Adrian. Be like the rest of us, be a wife, have kids, if you're going to work, then at least do something worthwhile. But at least stand up and be normal.”

“Like who? Like you? Are you 'normal' because you were a nurse before you had kids, and I'm not okay because I have a job you don't understand? Well, maybe you'll like my newsroom job better. It's called 'production assistant,' maybe you can understand that a little better.” But she hated the venom that had crept into their relationship over the years, the bitterness, the jealousy. They had never been close, but at least early on they had been friends, or pretended to be. Now the veneer appeared to have worn off, and there was nothing left but Connie's anger that Adrian was gone, and free, and doing what she wanted in California. And Adrian didn't tell them that she and Steven had agreed not to have children. It was something that meant a lot to him, after the horrors of his childhood. Adrian didn't agree with him, but she knew he blamed his parents' misery on the fact that they had children, or certainly too many of them. But he had told her long since that children were not on his agenda, and he wanted to be sure that Adrian was in full agreement. He had talked more than once about having a vasectomy, but they were both afraid that if he did, there might be physical repercussions. He had urged her to have her tubes tied instead, but she had hedged about it because it seemed so radical, and finally they had settled on alternate methods of assuring that they wouldn't have children. It made Adrian sad sometimes to think of never having children of her own, and yet it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for him. She knew how important it was to him. He wanted to pursue his career without encumbrances, and he wanted her to be free to pursue hers too. He was extremely supportive of her work. And she had come to like working in TV news over the past three years, but she still missed her old shows occasionally, her TV films and miniseries and specials. And more than once, she had talked about leaving the news and getting a production job on a series.