Undo Part 33

After rushing home from Jean-Pierre's cottage Sat.u.r.day night, Matthew had noticed neither her absence nor her return. He had been in his office the whole time, and was still working when she went to bed, where she spent several restless hours alone.

Finally, unable to lie still, she had gotten up and sat gazing out the window, across the pond, to the cottage. A few times she had actually considered going back to him, but she told herself that maybe Matthew would come to bed. Her imagination had ultimately forced her back to the welcoming pillows, and in a few moments Jean-Pierre had magically come to her, by way of her own sleight of hand, stroking her, yes, like that, then sweetness, and finally she was satisfied, and then sad, and then guilty. She had cried herself to sleep. A few hours later she was awakened by Matthew rustling with his jogging things and again, a little later, by the shower. She had pretended to be asleep while he dressed and packed for his trip to New York. She had heard the gate bell, indicating the arrival of the limousine that would take him to San Francisco International Airport. She waited, half expecting at any moment to smell his clean scent wafting near, a light kiss on her cheek. But there came no scent, no kiss. Just more of the same indifference, more hurt.

She had slept until noon, then gone downstairs, in her robe, and eaten the remainder of last night's dinner for lunch. She put her dish in the sink and pulled a clean champagne gla.s.s down from the shelf and s.n.a.t.c.hed a bottle from the refrigerator. By two in the afternoon she was drunk in bed, and crying. She could not bring herself to call Jean-Pierre as she had promised, could not bring herself to dial the number she had by now committed to memory.

She could only cry and doze, cry and doze, all through the afternoon. Once more, when it was dark outside, she ventured downstairs for something to eat. She found lasagna in the freezer, which she reheated in the microwave. Afterwards she washed down three Extra Strength Tylenol with champagne from the second bottle she opened. Retreating once more to her bed, she pulled the shades on her windows and climbed under the covers.

She had slept through most of Sunday night in drunken illness, and except for using the toilet and descending to the kitchen, had been in bed from Sat.u.r.day night until now, early Monday evening. She wondered if she should get out of bed, or just go through the night again. Marie had knocked cautiously on her bedroom door earlier in the day, asking her if she was feeling ill. She had told her yes, and told her not to make dinner, that she would find something in the freezer.

She felt exhausted from thinking and dreaming and worrying about her predicament, which only seemed to tighten its hold on her heart.

How could she face Jean-Pierre? She wanted him, yes, but she had felt awful after Sat.u.r.day night, struggling to understand her motivation, her fantasy of having him. Was she only reacting selfishly to Matthew's rejection? Perhaps. But that was what hurt the most, facing the fact that she had lost Matthew.

And every time she thought about this, she thought about her own very personal loss, and the irony of it all. It had been her upper hand, she mused, with which she had originally attracted Matthew, the young marketing manager on the rise among the ranks of International Foods.

After their initial meeting at ICP's Orange Fresh advertising photo shoot, Matthew had asked Greta to dinner, where he excitedly told her there was talk of his promotion. Yet, during dinner, his confidence seemed to weaken. When he told her about some of his ideas, she expressed genuine interest and fascination, to which he brightened. She could plainly see that he was a rising star, yet his mood had vacillated wildly between confidence and insecurity in the span of time between the first course and the dessert. After their first dinner date, a pattern then developed. As often as possible they would dine together, and sometimes he would invite her to spend the night with him.

What she never seemed to notice was that he only asked her to stay during periods in his career when he was lacking in confidence about a particular campaign or promotion. It was during their evenings together that he had first introduced her to his unusual s.e.xual tastes. Almost every time she would end up masturbating them at the same time, him with her left hand, and herself with her right. He always complained that he was too tired for intercourse, but if she wanted, they could do it that way, his way. He was a young, busy executive on the fast track, who had spent all of his prime years working hard at his career.

Clearly he was going to be very successful, and if this was the price she had to pay, she concluded, then for the time being it was worth it. She wanted him.

A year later they married. She continued to pull him from the emotional fluxes that arose whenever he started to lose his nerve, especially when he was deciding whether or not to go to Wallaby, and then later, when he faced his first confrontation with Peter Jones. In the few of months that had followed Peter's ouster, Matthew had come to her less and less with his dilemmas, suddenly, miraculously confident in all aspects of his work.

As much as she wanted to deny it, she had finally, in the last twenty-four hours, forced herself to admit that the essential separation had happened the day of her accident onboard the yacht when they were celebrating the success of Orange Fresh.

And after last week's introduction of the new Joey thing, she had sensed the last of her power of persuasion slipping from her grasp. This past Friday night was the worst. He had gotten home later than usual, and when she had asked him how his day had gone, hoping for a hint of something special for their anniversary the following day, he had told her all about his meeting with his executive staff, that they had granted their support to work closely with ICP. This was just the beginning, he told her excitedly. How many times had she heard that? When the truth was that their marriage had ended long ago, when, drunk on the very potion that had earned him esteem, she had gone overboard, landing in the lagoon with a b.l.o.o.d.y splash. Yes, that was when she had lost him, lost them.

And that, she knew, was the real reason why she could not bring herself to call Jean-Pierre. Now, for probably the twentieth time, she picked up the telephone and merely stared morosely at the green digits glowing enticingly before her. She had memorized the phone number, not by digits, but by the pattern of tones that she played over and over with her index finger. Each time she pressed every digit in his phone number except the last, the six-note Touch Tone song deepening her dilemma because it reminded her of one of International Foods' stupid little commercial jingles for soda pop or corn chips. And, of course, the real reason was that when she dialed, she had to look at her hands, which, since the accident, had never been seen or held by another person unless they were gloved, and even then she would only offered the right one. She too had learned how to avoid seeing the left one. By diverting her eyes she only ever caught a flesh-colored flash, nothing more.

She tossed her head into the pillows. Maybe he would understand.

Maybe it was not as grotesque as she imagined. Should she simply go to him, as she had the other night, and try to explain her problem to him?

No. She could not, not now. She was too drunk and tired, and had not showered in two days. But she could be with her fantasy of him, she thought with painful longing.

She turned off the bedside lamp and reached inside her robe, touched her breast. If she was going to consider herself grotesque, she thought drunkenly, she might was well begin to a.s.sociate the act with the cause. That way, perhaps she would eventually banish him from her mind out of sheer disgust. As if to punctuate this point, she removed the gloves upon her retreat to bed on Sat.u.r.day night, and for the first time she could remember, she had skipped her nightly ritual of creaming her hands with moisturizing lotion. Already, she told herself, she could feel them drying out. She switched hands and used the left.

Before she got any further, she froze.

A sound, outside.

She strained to listen...heard the wind through the trees, but nothing else.

Just when she was ready to discount the noise as her mind playing tricks on her, she heard it again. Closer this time, as though just outside on the ground level, below the terrace.

Except for the faint light from the downstairs foyer lamp that bled up through the open bedroom doorway, she was in nearly complete darkness. The lamp, she thought, turn on the lamp.

Shakily, she stretched to her night table, and, unmindful of the champagne bottles, her hand blindly knocked one to the floor. It landed with a solid thud.

Silence.

She hunkered down onto her hands and knees beside the bed to retrieve the bottle. It was the empty one, and it gave her an idea. She hefted it in her hand, considered its weight. Could she use it to protect herself?

She heard the sound again, louder. Closer. A scratching noise, along on the side of the wall where the ivy clung to the trellis and covered the huge stone pillars supporting the terrace.

It was probably nothing, she tried to a.s.sure herself. A cat. Or just the wind, she ventured. But then why if it was only a cat, she asked herself, was she holding her breath and the neck of a champagne bottle so tightly in her fist? She crouched beside the bed and stared hard at the drawn cotton curtain hanging before the French doors. Silver blue moonlight shone through the sheer fabric, picking up the shadows from nearby trees that swayed to and fro in the easy breeze.

What to do, what to do, she wondered with growing panic. Run downstairs and get a knife from the kitchen? Call the police? Why didn't they have a gun?

Deciding on the second option, she reached for the phone. The number. What was the phone number? Drunk and scared, she struggled to remember the something-something-one number in her head, but no rhyme came. Instead, Jean-Pierre's phone jingle bleep-bleeped over and over in her mind.

The sc.r.a.ping sound again, much closer. As close as the edge of the concrete terrace wall.

The dial tone questioned loudly. She pressed the zero b.u.t.ton and waited a moment before realizing her error. She remembered the number: 411. She smashed her thumb down on the disconnect b.u.t.ton and redialed.

A large form settled heavily on the platform just beyond the door, a human form silhouetted against the curtain.

A voice from the handset: "What city please?"

Greta gasped and swallowed a dry lump in her throat as she realized her second error. Dear G.o.d, she had dialed wrong again.

No, she had remembered wrong. Not 411!

"What city please?" the voice repeated.

Nine! 911! Yes! That was it, ask her to connect you -

But before she could speak the line click-clicked, disconnected.

"Wait!" she hissed, straining to be both heard and quiet at once.

Dial tone.

A soft knock on the French doors.

She punched the correct sequence into the phone.

The knock again, more loudly now.

She looked outside. The silhouette crouched.

"Woodside Police emergency services. Can I help you?"

"Greta?" His raspy French accent from the terrace.

"Oh," she murmured into the phone, snapping her eyes shut for a moment.

"h.e.l.lo? Can I help you?" the phone voice repeated.

She placed the phone back on its cradle and breathed a fatigued sigh. She would have to make no decision now. He had decided for her. And it was the right decision. Clutching her robe tightly around her, she got to her feet and went to the closed door. All at once she halted, remembering that she had not showered or even brushed her hair. But her greatest negligence during her temporary invalidation was that she had even let her hands go unconditioned. And ungloved. She leaned closer to the drawn curtains.

"Jean-Pierre?"

"Greta. Yes." The shadow of his head leaned closer, just inches away. "Open the door."

"Jean-Pierre. I can't. I look just awful," she said. "You can't see me like this. I've been so upset. In bed for two days."