“And I’ve never even dated a man other than Alan,” Leslie said softly.
“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Formund said. “At your age, you should—Uh-oh. Here comes my doctor. Give me those secateurs and sneak away. Don’t let him see you. Oh, good! You’ve done an entire bed. He’ll report to my husband that I’ve done masses.”
Smiling, Leslie ducked down behind the bed, then waddled out along the path, her head well below the line of the roses.
She spent so much time wandering about the grounds that when she returned to the guesthouse, the other girls were just leaving for the main house and the first of several parties.
“Planning to make an entrance?” one of the girls asked snidely as she looked Leslie up and down in her tailored trousers and white cotton shirt. There was dirt on her cuff and sticktights were on her trousers.
“No, I was just so busy helping Hal’s mother in the garden that I lost all track of time,” Leslie said sweetly, then watched the girl nearly turn purple at being bested. Everyone knew that the way to get a marriage proposal was through the boy’s mother.
As the three girls hurried to leave the guesthouse, Leslie thought, Shame on you! But she didn’t feel particularly shameful for having won a cat fight. Instead, she felt rather good about it.
She didn’t want to go to the party. She’d never liked parties unless they were at her house and she was the hostess, but she knew that she had to go. She had a perfect little black dress that she knew showed off every curve of her dancer’s body, but she didn’t want to wear it—nor did she want to go prowling with the other girls.
But she made herself shower and dress because, after all, she was a guest and Leslie had strict ideas about how guests should
behave.
But the party bored her. They were kids and they were fascinated with booze and each other. And all Leslie felt was old. Her body might be young, but in her mind, she was past this. And now that she was here, she was wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have been so curt with Alan. After all, if she did end up married to him again . . .
She left the party before nine and went back to the guesthouse, where she snuggled in bed and was asleep by nine-thirty. She woke only briefly to hear the other girls come in at three A.M. She was vaguely aware of hearing them say, “She’s here. In bed. Alone.” Then Leslie heard giggles that meant that the girls had had too much to drink. As she drifted back to sleep, Leslie remembered that she hadn’t seen Hal at the party. And the truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d recognize him if she did see him. After all, it had been nearly twenty years since she’d last seen him in person.
The snores of the other girls woke her. Leslie looked at the clock. It was just a few minutes after five A.M. Getting up, she went into the bathroom, prepared to do her hair, put on makeup and get dressed. But the face that greeted her in the mirror didn’t need makeup. Her eyelashes weren’t dull and faded as they were at forty. There were no brown spots to cover up, no enlarged pores by the side of her nose. There were no dark circles under her eyes. And her hair was soft and silky, not dry, as it was going to become no matter what expensive salon treatment she used.
Smiling, Leslie didn’t even bother to comb her hair, but ran her fingers through it to pull out the worst tangles; then she went back to the bedroom to pull on jeans and a shirt. At forty messy hair in the morning was called “bed head.” At twenty, messy hair was called “sexy.”
The dew was on the grass and, if possible, the garden was even more beautiful this early. There were no lawn mowers going, no gardeners anywhere. It was as though it was just Leslie alone in God’s creation.
There was a little path that she’d seen the day before, but she hadn’t gone down it because it had looked private. But this morning there was no one about, so she walked on the little round stones, wishing they didn’t make quite so much noise. But at the end, she looked through the trees to the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. Nestled in the shade, dripping wisteria, was a summerhouse. It wasn’t as big as hers—the one she would someday own—but it was more charming. It looked like something off the pages of a children’s fairy tale, with its thatched roof and stucco walls painted a pale cream.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when she turned and saw Hal standing behind her. What had made her think that she wouldn’t recognize him? She hadn’t wanted to admit it to Ellie and Madison, but over the years she’d followed his career quite closely. She’d even subscribed to some obscure magazines because they were likely to have stories about Hal in them.
Now she looked at him, knowing that he was going to get better looking as he grew older. At twenty, he was a nice-looking boy with brown hair and brown eyes, and the best teeth that money could straighten, but he was ordinary-looking, not nearly as handsome as Alan was at twenty. But Leslie knew that age lines and gray hair and a body that was kept taut and hard was going to make Hal a knockout at forty.
“Yes,” she said. “Serene.”
He smiled, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. “That’s just the way my mother describes it. She designed it and had it built the first year after she married my father. She says that building has saved her sanity.”
Leslie laughed. “Your father is that bad, is he?” She’d read a couple of in-depth articles about Hal and she knew that his father was a horror.
“Worse. He’s as forceful as my mother is—” He broke off, as though he weren’t sure how to describe his mother.
“Strong,” Leslie said. “I would guess that your mother is the solid foundation that your father has built himself on. A person can’t push against the world without a good, solid foundation.” This was her own opinion after having met the woman. If her husband was sending the doctor out to see her, he wanted her to stay healthy.
Hal looked at her with eyes that showed surprise and maybe even shock. “Yes, you’re right. My mother is the strong one in the family, but not many people see that. My father is so—”
“Dynamic?”
“I was going to say, in-your-face, but ‘dynamic’ is a nice word.”
She turned away to look back at the little summerhouse nestled among the trees, and she could feel his eyes on her. “Why did you invite me here?” she asked softly. It was a question that had haunted her for twenty years. “Did we meet somewhere and I don’t remember it?”
“No,” he said, “not really. But I’ve watched you for three years now, and—” He broke off because Leslie had turned to give him a sharp look.
She had to remind herself that it was only 1980 and that stalkers hadn’t yet come under prosecution, but she didn’t like the way he’d said that he’d been watching her.