I moved the table, sat with her on the couch, pulled the rigid curled ball of her body to lean against me. She didn't uncurl; she didn't stop sobbing.
She was transformed that moment to the once-was never-gone little girl who had felt abandoned and abandoned and abandoned after her parents' divorce. She had since rejoined and loved them both, but the scars from her childhood would never disappear.
Leslie had fought her way to where she was by herself, lived her life alone, she had been happy alone. Now she had
let herself think that because we spent so many happy months together, she was for the first time free from that part of her independence that meant alone. She had her own walls, and I was inside them right now.
"I'm here, wook," I said. "I'm here."
She's right about my pride, I thought. I get so carried away protecting me at the first hint of storm, I forget she's the one who's been through hell. Strong as she is, and smart, she's still scared.
In Hollywood, she had been the center of a lot more attention than I ever had to face. The day after our nine-hour telephone call, she had left her friends, her agent, studios, politics; left them all without goodbye, without explanation, without knowing if she'd be back soon or never. She simply left. Looking west, I could see question marks over the town she'd put behind her: Whatever happened to Leslie Parrish?
She's the center of a lot of desert, now. Instead of her dear old cat, peacefully died, there's not-so-peaceful rattlesnakes and scorpions and sand and rocks for comfort, her nearest world the softly violent one of flight. She's gambling everything, letting Hollywood fall away. She's trusting me in this harsh land, with nothing to shield her but the warm power that surrounds the two of us when we're happy together.
The sobs came slower, but still she was curled tense as oak against me.
I don't want her to cry, but it's her own fault! We agreed this was an experiment, spending so much time together. It was not part of our agreement that we couldn't have a few weeks alone. When she clings to me, denies my freedom to go where I please and when, she's becoming a reason herself for me to go. She's so smart, why can't she understand this
simple fact? As soon as we become jailors, our prisoners want escape.
"Oh, Richard," she said, bleak and tired. "I want it to work, being together. Do you want it to work?"
"Yes, I do." I do, if you'll let me be who I am, I thought. ' I'll never stand between you and anything you wish; why can't you say the same for me?
She uncurled and sat away from me at the far end of the couch, silent. No more tears, but there was the weight in the air of so much disagreement between us, such a distance between our two islands.
And then a strange thing: I knew that this instant had happened before. The sky turning to blood in the west, silhouette of a gnarled tree looming just outside the window, Leslie downcast under the load of difference between us; it had happened exactly this way in a different time. I had wanted to leave and she had argued with me. She had cried, and then was silent and then had said, Do you want it to work? and I had said, Yes I do, and now the very next thing she's going to say is. Are you sure? She said those words before, and now she's going to say
She lifted her head and looked at me. "Are you sure?"
My breathing stopped.
Word for word, I knew my answer. My answer to that had been, "No. To be honest with you, I'm not sure . . ." And then it faded out: the words, the sunset, the tree, they all faded. With that swift view into a different now came a massive sadness, a sorrow so heavy I couldn't see for tears.
"You're better," she said slowly. "I know you're changing from who you were in December. You're sweet, most of the time, it's such a good life we have together. I see a future so beautiful, Richard! Why do you want to run away? Do you
see that future and not want it, or after all this time do you just not see it?"
It was nearly dark in the trailer, but neither of us moved to put on the light.
"Leslie, I saw something else, just now. Has this happened before?"
"You mean this minute happened before?" she said. "Deja vu?"
"Yes. Where you know every word I'm going to say. Did you just have that feeling?"
"No."
"I did. I knew exactly what you were going to say, and you said it."
"What happened then?"
"I don't know, it faded out. But I was terribly awfully sad."
She stretched out her arm, touched my shoulder; I caught the ghost of a smile in the dark. "Serves you right."
"Let me chase it. Give me ten minutes. . . ."