The Insiders

She squeezed her mother's shoulders.

"As sure as anyone is when they get married, Mom. I'm—just nervous. Are you sure you can take all the publicity? Brant's photographer friend will be there, you know, and people from newspapers and magazines and maybe even television." She made a wry face, not able to help herself. "They'll be asking questions and taking pictures—"

"If you can stand it, then I can, dear. I—just wanted to make sure in my own mind that you do love him and—that it's not just the money, you know. Or thinking that since your father is gone you have to be responsible—" Her mother flushed red, and Eve realized suddenly that it had been a hard thing for her to say. They had been strangers for too long; her mother had not said too much after she'd left home, but Eve knew now that it must have hurt and confused her to have one of her daughters turn her back on all the values they'd tried to teach her.

Oh, Mom! she thought suddenly, wretchedly aware that she'd even, at one time, been ashamed of her large, Catholic, middle-class family. Looking into worried brown eyes, Eve took a deep breath and lied convincingly.

"Of course I love him, Mom. Don't you, already? Oh, come on, admit it! You're happy I brought home a nice, suitable young man, after all—aren't you?"

"Darling, yes! Yes, you did, and I can't begin to tell you how happy I am, even if it is a trifle sudden. I just wanted to be sure, and now I am. I do like him, Eve. He's such a nice, polite young man, and I'd never have dreamed he was so rich if you hadn't told me."

Eve remembered, suddenly, Brant saying furiously, "Fuck the money!" and wondered if she'd ever get used to being rich.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

To come groping out of the dark of weeds and water into sunlight; to He panting and exhausted on a warm stone; half-dream, half-subconscious impression. Something from the universal unconscious that Jung had written about, Eve supposed. It was something like that old dream of hers, to feel herself cut away so completely and finally from the life she had made for herself—and from David, whom she'd felt to be her life source.

And suddenly, here she was—married to someone else, and by a priest, no less; her wedding to Brant Newcomb the biggest event in her hometown for years, with the small church filled to overflowing and flashbulbs going off continuously and Brant wrathful because Jerry had brought so many people down with him. Thank goodness it was all over finally.

Eve had felt like a marionette—as if she were modeling her own wedding gown. She and Brant, both beautiful, like models in a fashion show, making the right gestures, smiling the correct smiles—everything make-believe until Father Kilkenny was facing them both, reading the marriage service, and she and Brant were suddenly isolated up there, being pronounced man and wife. She losing her name and her separate identity, walking back down the aisle as Mrs. Brant Newcomb— rich Mrs. Brant Newcomb.

Eve remembered her father, filled with rage when she'd broken the news that she was going away to Berkeley, first step toward making a career for herself.

"Political science—demonstrations—what is it you're looking for, Eve?" he had ranted. "You'll not find it there in a city wearing fancy clothes—or taking them off, God knows—for a bunch of pigs. . ."

That was before one of his sudden rages, quick to rise and quick to pass, had turned into the last fit of fury— the one that killed him. How would her father have reacted to Brant, or her too-sudden marriage to him?

Eve lay beside her new husband and watched him as he slept. He slept so damned calmly, without struggles or grimaces or the clutching, groping, human movements that most people made in their sleep sometimes —as David used to. She had felt for David at those times a great and crushing weight of love and protectiveness—she'd felt he needed her, just as Lisa (who was David in miniature) needed her. What was she doing here, lying next to a handsome golden stranger who slept so peacefully, sated by their lovemaking?

She turned very carefully and lay as far away from him as she could, looking out through the window at the gnarled tree branches that swayed and creaked in a light breeze. She wanted, quite unexpectedly, to cry, and to shake with the fury and release of great, tearing sobs, as she had done on so many nights when she had lain alone and waited to hear from David. But tonight she didn't dare. Not because of what Brant might do, but because of some deep-rooted vein of superstition and stubbornness that dwelt inside her mind somewhere, telling her sternly that David was past and done with by her own choice, and Brant was her husband.

Eve shifted uneasily, longing for sleep, and heard the changed rhythm of Brant's fight breat

hing. Damn her small bed with its slight sag in the middle. They had decided to spend their wedding night here to put off all the reporters—calling the airport to cancel their plane reservations and make new ones for tomorrow.

She could feel his warmth along the length of her body. Sighing softly, Eve let herself slide closer to him and felt his arm come over her body as he turned sideways, his breath tickling the back of her neck. Maybe, she thought, maybe in some ways she and Brant were alike—each looking for refuge in the other. He could be kind—she had discovered that. Perhaps it was only surprising because he had always appeared so selfish and so callous. But perhaps he had become that way as a form of self-protection—be the attacker, the one who inflicted pain, in order not to become a victim.

He began to make love to her again, and as if he had sensed her mood, still half-asleep, his lovemaking this time was very slow and very tender, whereas earlier that night he had taken her almost savagely, forcing a climax from her.

In the morning, facing her mother, Eve felt herself blush warmly and wondered why she blushed.

Everyone seemed quiet and subdued, even the kids. They had breakfast and, soon after, her uncle drove them to the airport:

"Mrs. Newcomb," they called her. Even the pert young flight attendant looking with envy at the rings on her hand—looking with unconcealed desire at her husband. She could almost feel everyone think: Lucky, lucky woman. But was she? Would she think so a year from now? The marvelous job, the career she might have had—would she regret them?

Eve pulled her thoughts back to the present. They had been offered the morning newspaper—there were pictures of their wedding on the front page. As a model she had played the bride so often that she had done well—she was smiling, happy-looking. David would see the papers; would he believe that she was happy? Secretly she wondered, Does he regret me now? Too late—they were leaving the country and wouldn't be back to California for at least six months, Brant had said. They were flying to an island in the Indian Ocean, more than halfway across the world. Not too many tourists, beautiful beaches, friendly people, and warm sun. Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, had sounded almost too beautiful and unspoiled to be true when Brant had described it. If she liked it, they would build a house there, make a parmanent home there. And, please God, the thought of David would fade away and she wouldn't have stupid, dangerous thoughts about seeing him again, taking him back on her own terms this time....

David heard about the wedding from Marti, before he caught the news flash on television or read the newspapers with their smiling, captioned pictures. Marti, he thought resentfully, seemed to take malicious pleasure in being the first to inform him.

It was a hell of a jolt to call again, asking about Eve, because, dammit, he had actually been worried about her. He hadn't been taken in by her attempt at smiling nonchalance when he'd turned up at the airport with Wanda because he knew Eve too well. And then to be told by that snotty lesbian bitch that Eve was getting married—to Brant Newcomb? He shouldn't have wasted his concern, his feelings of guilt that perhaps he'd been too hard on her that night when she'd got herself into a situation she hadn't been able to control.

David was stunned at first—disbelieving—and then filled with blind rage. At her, and at himself for not having seen what a lying fake she was.

He couldn't resist telling Gloria exactly what he thought about Eve. Gloria had started coming up to his apartment occasionally, whenever he was home and she happened to be in the mood. At least Gloria was honest enough in her way. She didn't keep telling him she loved him—both of them understood very clearly what it was they wanted from each other, and that was the sum total of their relationship.

"She was nothing but a lying cunt from the beginning," he raged to Gloria. "I recognized it, of course, but she kept trying to get her claws in me, trying to pin me down. Christ, she kept telling me that she'd changed since she met me from the cheap, easy lay she was when I first knew her. She even pretended she cared about my younger sisters and brother. And then, after all she told me that bastard Newcomb had made her do at his party, all the other guys he had screw her after him, she goes and marries him! I don't get his motives, but where Eve's concerned—I suppose she thought it was the one way of getting all the fucking she needs to keep her happy."

"But David darling, why the fuss? You weren't planning on marrying her yourself, were you? I know you two had this thing going for a while, but it didn't really mean that much, did it? I mean, you couldn't stay away from me even when you still had her, now, could you? Do come back to bed and don't start becoming a bore. I hate men who start talking about other women when they're with me. And darling, I do like the way you do it to me, as if you hated me. That's what makes it so exciting!"