Danielle Steel - Bittersweet

But India thought he made dinner with her sound like a painful obligation. “We don't have to, if you don't want to,” she said simply.

“I wouldn't have suggested it, if I didn't. Do you want to go back to Ma Petite Amie?” It was the first sign of peace he had offered, but she wasn't ready for it, and she still had terrible memories of the last time they had been there.

“Not really. Why don't we go out for pizza or something?”

“How about pizza and a movie tomorrow night?” It was worth a try at least. If she was going to spend the rest of her life with him, she was going to have to make peace with him sometime. It was a far cry from the love she longed for, but this was all they had. She felt as though she were making friends with her fellow passengers on the Titanic. No matter how good the service was, they were still going to wind up at the bottom of the ocean. She had begun to feel that for a while now.

“That sounds fine.” She had nothing to lose but time. He had already destroyed her heart and her self-confidence. Going to a movie with him couldn't do much more damage. So why not?

She took off the suit after she put the kids to bed, and eventually went to bed herself. But Doug made no advances to her tonight. After their last round, he knew better. They were going to have to start small, with pizza and a movie. And after that, they could see what happened. He figured in time, with a little bit of attention, she'd come around.

They went to sleep as they had for a long time now, without saying good-night to each other. She was almost used to it. And she lay lost in her own thoughts for a long time, listening to him snoring. If nothing else, in lieu of any tenderness between them, it was a familiar sound to India, and by now the loneliness was an equally familiar feeling.

Chapter 13

THE DAY after the funeral, Doug took Sam to his soccer game, and India helped Jessica clean out her closets. She had more junk in them than India had ever seen, and she was carrying armloads of Jessica's outgrown clothes to give away when the phone rang.

She assumed it was for one of the children, as usual, and made no effort to answer. She dropped the clothes on the garage floor, and walked back into the kitchen while it was still ringing. And finally, sounding exasperated, she answered.

“Yes?”

“Hello?” The male voice was unfamiliar and sounded like a grown-up, although lately the boys who called Jessica were sounding a lot more like men than children.

“I'm sorry. Who is this?”

“It's Paul Ward. I was calling for Mrs. Taylor.” Her heart skipped a beat as he said it, and she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Paul …it's me…. How are you?” All she could think about was his face covered in tears as he left the podium at Saint Ignatius.

“Numb, I think. Someone said you were there yesterday. I'm sorry I didn't see you.” The crew of the Sea Star had flown back for the service, out of respect for Paul, and one of the stewardesses had told Paul she'd seen her.

“I didn't expect you to. It was a beautiful service. Paul …I'm so sorry. … I don't know what to say.” She truly didn't, and she was so surprised to hear him. She hadn't expected him to call her.

“I got your letter … it was wonderful. And the picture.” She could hear that he was crying. “I love it. How are you?” he asked, trying to regain some normalcy. He had wanted to thank her for coming, and for writing to him. But now that he was talking to her, he felt overwhelmed with emotion. He knew how kind she was, and her gentle ways, and reaching out to her somehow made him feel more vulnerable than he had in days. He still hadn't absorbed what had happened. He felt stricken.

“I'm okay,” she said, sounding unconvincing.

“What does that mean? Are you going back to work?”

“No. It turned into World War ?? for the rest of the summer.” She sighed then. “I just can't do it. He put it to me very clearly. It's not negotiable. Maybe it's not important.”

“You know it is,” he said gently, “it's about what you need. Don't lose your dreams, India …you'll lose yourself if you do. You know that.” It was something Serena never would have done. She had always been true to herself, no matter what it cost her, and they both knew that. But she hadn't been married to Doug Taylor. She hadn't made a “deal” with him. And Paul would never have given her the ultimatum that Doug had.

“I gave up those dreams a long time ago,” India said quietly, sitting in her kitchen. “Apparently, I don't have a right to take them back now. We're going out to dinner tonight for the first rime in months. Our life has been a nightmare all summer.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said sadly. He felt sorry for her. She was wasting herself, and she knew it. They both did. “How's my friend Sam?”

“Wonderful. He's out playing soccer this morning. He said he was going to write you.”

“I'd like that,” he said, but it didn't sound like the old Paul, the man she had met on the Sea Star. He sounded tired and sad and disillusioned. He had just lost his dream, and he had no idea how he would live without her.

“What about you?” India asked gently. “What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going back to the boat, and float around for a while. I took some time off from my work. I wouldn't be any good to them right now anyway. I'm not sure where I'll go. The boat's in Italy, and I thought I'd take it down to Yugoslavia and Turkey. I don't care where we go, just so it's far away, and all I see is water.” It was what he needed now to heal him.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked, wishing she could think of something. All she had had to offer him was one picture.

But Paul answered quickly. “Call me sometime. I'd love to hear from you.” And then his voice broke again, and she could hear that he was crying. “India, I'm so lonely without her. She's only been gone for five days, and I can hardly stand it. She drove me crazy sometimes, but she was so terrific. There's no one like her.” He was crying openly with her, and India wished she could reach out and touch him.

“No, there isn't anyone like her,” she agreed. “But she wouldn't want you to fall apart. She'd be furious over it. You have to cry and scream and stamp your feet, and sail around on the Sea Star , and then you have to come back and be strong for her. You know she'd want you to do that.”

“Yes.” He smiled through his tears, thinking of it. “She'd have been pretty rude about it.” And then they both laughed. “I'll tell you what,” he said then, as he stopped crying for the moment. He had been crying on and off for five days, and he felt as though he was going to do it for a lifetime. “I'll pull myself together eventually, if you promise me you won't give up your dreams completely. India, you mustn't do that.”

“I can't hang on to them, and my marriage. It's just that simple. There's no compromise here. It's all or nothing. Maybe he'll relent one day, but not now.”

“Just see what happens, and keep your options open for a while.” And then he sounded worried. “Did you take your name off your agent's roster?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Good. Keep it that way. He has no right to blackmail you into abandoning your talent.”

“He can do anything he wants to, Paul. He owns me, or at least he thinks he does.”

“He doesn't, and you know it. Don't let him. You're the only one who can allow him to do that.”

“I gave it all to him seventeen years ago. He says we made a ‘deal,’ and he expects me to stick to it.”

“I won't tell you what I think of his theories,” Paul said, sounding stronger again, like the man she had met and been so struck by that summer. “Or his behavior,” he added. He didn't even know Doug, but Paul thought he was treating India very badly. And it was obvious that she wasn't happy with him. If she had been, Paul wasn't so sure he would be calling. But in an odd way, just as friends, they needed each other. “I thought about you a lot this week, India. About the things we talked about last summer. It's funny how one can be so sure that one has everything all sewed up forever. We're all so damn confident and sure that we know it all, and have it all, and then it gets blown to smithereens in a second and we have nothing. That's how I feel. All those lives wasted on that plane, children, babies, young people, people who deserved to live …just like she did. I keep thinking I wish I had gone down with her.”