“Nothing surprises me anymore,” he grumbled.
Edna spun around and glared at him. “Will you put down that damn newspaper and talk to me about this! You aren’t going to hide behind that screen. I know that you’re hurt by her behavior, too. Now let’s talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Kathleen’s got a new husband and a new life. That’s all there is to it,” he said firmly.
“No, that’s not all there is to it. Don’t you think we should tell him—?”
“No!” B. J. said adamantly. There was no doubt in his mind to whom Edna was referring.
“But we promised to let him know if we heard from her.”
“We did no such thing, Edna, and don’t try to trick me into thinking we did.”
She gnawed her lip as she thought of a new tack. “Maybe we should just let him know that she is alive and well—”
“And living in San Francisco with a new rich husband. Do you think that would be kind?” he demanded.
“No,” she sighed, and slumped down in a chair at the kitchen table where they had been enjoying a leisurely breakfast until the mail had been delivered.
“All right then,” B. J. said, grateful
that the unpleasant issue had been settled. “Pour me some more coffee.”
* * *
Erik stared down into the amber liquid in his glass as if it held the answers to all the mysteries of the universe. Maybe if he looked at it hard enough, deep enough, he would find the solution to his own misery.
The sound of laughter came from the other side of the bar, from a booth where three couples were sharing a pitcher of beer and congenial conversation. He turned his back on them as a wave of loneliness struck him. Had he ever been part of a group, fit in anywhere? At one time, his peers at work had included him when they went out after hours for a drink. But his drinking had become too serious, his mood too morose, his temper too volatile to be attractive to other people.
When he had finally been able to go back to work after the airplane accident, he was angry to the point of madness. He had finally produced the piece on the innovative orphanages he had been assigned to do, but each day he worked on it was torture. Each time he played the videotapes of Mountain View, his gut would be wrenched anew. If he saw Kathleen’s image on the monitor, he would smash his fist into his palm as though wishing it were she he was crushing.
“You took your sweet time, ol’ buddy,” his producer said when he finally submitted the piece for air play.
“Go to hell,” Erik grumbled as he headed for the door.
“Wait a minute, Gudjonsen,” the man called him back, but quelled under the forbidding look Erik leveled at him. “Listen, I know it’s none of my business,” he said bravely, “but ever since you came back after that airplane accident, you’ve had a burr up your ass. There are some people around here who are getting pretty fed up with this attitude of yours. I like you, Erik. You’re a terrific talent and I hate to see a career wasted and shot to hell because of a chip on someone’s shoulder. If there’s anything I can do—”
“As you said, it’s none of your business,” Erik snarled, and slammed out the door.
That had been late last fall, and now it was spring. Each day, unlike the emergence of life around him, spelled further deterioration for Erik.
The standards of perfection he had always demanded from his work were less stringent. He was sloppy in the things he produced. He drank too much, usually until he was in a somnolent stupor. No surcease from his depression was found with women. None appealed to him. Plenty were available, just as they had always been, but he spurned them. Try as they might, none could arouse him to that pitch of passion that Kathleen—
“Another one, please,” Erik said abruptly to the bartender, and watched as the scotch was splashed into the glass. Months ago, he had given up water or ice or soda, anything that diluted the drugging quality of the liquor that made the pain bearable.
However, he welcomed the pain now. That slow, smoldering heartache was almost a comfortable companion, and virtually the only friend he had left. They knew each other well. For a while, he had wiped the image of her face from his mind each time he had unwillingly conjured it up. Now, he let it alone. He savored the sight of her even if it was a figment.
Last summer. Had it been that long ago? Those days, so few when compared to his lifetime, had brought him immeasurable pleasure and unspeakable sorrow. One thing good had come out of them. Bob and Sally had adopted little Jaimie.
Erik smiled in spite of his dejection. For years, his brother and Sally had tried to conceive, almost desperately, using clinical techniques he couldn’t even fathom. Once he was able to talk about Mountain View, he told them about Jaimie. They became interested in the child and asked Erik to show them tapes of Jaimie. Excited, but trying not to build their hopes too high, they contacted the orphanage in Joplin, Missouri, where Jaimie lived. Before two months had gone by, he was theirs. Then, at Christmas, Sally had proudly announced that she was pregnant. Jaimie was as thrilled by the news as the rest of the family.
One good thing had come out of last summer.
How long was he going to go on like this? He wasn’t the first guy to be thrown over. This was just the first and only time it had ever happened to him. Dying a slow, useless death wasn’t exactly his idea of valor. He had alienated his friends and driven his brother to distraction with worry over him. His associates despised him, but no more than Erik despised himself. He didn’t want to regress to the cynic he had been before Ethiopia and other such experiences had opened his eyes to the pain others in the world suffered.
This was April. April in Paris would be nice. Slowly, almost regretfully, Erik pushed away the full glass of whiskey and stood up. He looked at the sallow, unkempt, disreputable-looking man that stared back at him from the mirror over the bar.
Walking toward the door, he knew what he had to do.