Loe raamatut: «Perfect Timing»

CHAPTER ONE

“I THOUGHT WE WERE going to an exhibit on butterflies,” Sylvia Preston said, staring into the glass case at the formidable ivory object that was—quite clearly—not a butterfly.

Beside her, Tina shrugged. “You don’t need butterflies, Syl.” She made a sweeping gesture, her arm encompassing the ornate room and the exhibit cases that filled it. “This is good for you.”

Ever since the first day they’d met as freshman roommates at UCLA, Tina had presumed to know what was best for Sylvia. A trait that Sylvia had—and still did—found both endearing and annoying.

“This is a sex exhibit,” Sylvia said, her feelings for Tina today leaning toward the annoying side of the equation. “And this,” she added, pointing to the ivory object in front of her, is a dildo.” She said the last in a hushed voice, her cheeks burning.

“It certainly is,” Tina said, her tone almost reverential.

“Are you insane? It’s the size of a…of a…of an I don’t know what!”

“They say Catherine the Great did it with a horse,” Tina said.

Sylvia put her hands over her ears. “I don’t even want to hear about it.” She walked away, Tina following.

“See, that’s your problem,” Tina said, as they moved into the next room, this one apparently devoted to electronic enhancement of the sexual experience. The Sex Through The Ages exhibit was touring the country, and this week it was in Los Angeles, on display at the Greene Mansion in Beverly Hills.

By happy coincidence, Tina and Sylvia were both in town and could visit the exhibit and the house. They’d lived in Southern California during their undergrad years, but for graduate school, they’d left the sunny beaches for the lure of a Stanford law degree. Sylvia had graduated in the top one percent of her class, with Tina not far behind in the twenty-fifth percentile. The nature of their friendship had shifted when Tina had moved to LasVegas to take a job with the district attorney’s office. Sylvia had stayed in San Francisco, snagging a very coveted position with one of the major law firms in the country.

Now that Sylvia was making the move to a Los Angeles firm, Tina had taken some vacation time, flown up to San Francisco and had driven down the coast with Syl. The trip had been a blast, with Syl and Tina playing tourist at every little town they came across. They were even doing the tourist thing in Los Angeles, even though they’d both called the city home during college. They’d gone drinking and dancing, and Sylvia had flirted and chatted, making a concerted effort to get more into the social thing.

The rest had been even more fun. They’d done shopping, the beach, the Pier, Hollywood Boulevard and the Universal Studios tour, including the totally fun tram ride through the back lot, an experience that had been Syl’s favorite so far. Corny, but she was a movie buff, and seeing the Psycho house and all the other bits of movie history had been a huge thrill.

They’d also been hitting a few museums and exhibits, including the Getty and this exhibit at the Greene Mansion, which clearly was not dedicated to butterflies. But despite Tina’s deviousness, Syl was glad they’d come. She’d always loved the Greene Mansion. It had been the home of Tucker Greene, one of her favorite film directors from the 1930s, but she’d never been inside before. And, honestly, she had to admit that while the chance to visit the mansion was what made the excursion palatable, the sex exhibit was interesting, too.

Despite her friend’s devious behavior, Syl was sad that their trip was coming to an end. Tomorrow she started her new job. And later this evening, Tina was off to the airport. It might be months before they saw each other again, what with the pressure of their jobs. Bittersweet, but time changed everything. She knew that. And she also knew that she and Tina would always be best friends, even if her friend did sometimes drive her insane. Like, for instance, now.

At the moment, Tina was gesturing to a glass case filled with vibrators. “So tell me the truth,” she was saying. “Have you ever even used a vibrator?”

Around them, other patrons glanced in their direction, and Sylvia felt her cheeks flame. “Tina,” she whispered, grabbing her so-called friend’s arm and tugging her toward a secluded corner. As she did, she noticed that one of the security guards was watching her, and she caught a twinkle in his blue eyes before he looked away. She resisted the urge to melt with embarrassment, and instead focused on Tina. “Of course I’ve used a vibrator,” she said, turning her back to the guard.

With any other friend, Sylvia would have put a quick end to the conversation. But the truth was that Syl had no other close friends. She wasn’t a loner by any means, but her whole life she’d been selective about who she let in close to her heart. Tina had barreled her way in that first day in their dorm, when she’d thrown her arms around Sylvia and said—absolutely earnestly— “Thank God you’re rooming with me. I don’t think I could make it through freshman year without a best friend.” And even though Syl had never seen the girl before in her life, it was as if Tina’s mandate had magic. Tina, quite simply, became her best friend. And that was that.

Some things, however, a girl didn’t have to put up with even from her best friend. And discussion of the use of vibrators was tops on that list, Sylvia thought as she scowled daggers at Tina.

Her friend, as usual, was unconvinced. “You?” Tina said, her voice dubious. “You’ve used a vibrator?”

“Yes. And I’ve watched dirty movies and I’ve made out in the back seat of a car.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “But I thought your whole problem with Dwight was, you know, sexual.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m clueless about vibrators,” Sylvia said. “God, Tina.” She stifled a sigh, telling herself she was grateful to have a friend like Tina with whom she could talk about things like sex, even while kicking herself for ever hinting to her friend about her hideous childhood, her asshole stepfather, Martin, or the problems in bed that had plagued her ever since.

“Sylvia? You wanna clue me in here? What exactly am I missing?”

Sylvia sighed, then cocked her head toward the side of the room, urging Tina toward the relative privacy of the far wall. “Sex with Dwight was fine,” she said. “Except, it’s not fine. I mean, I’m not, you know, comfortable with him. With telling him what I want. Does that make sense?”

“You’re the quiet type in bed,” Tina said with a shrug. “A lot of girls have trouble telling a guy what they want. Not me, of course. But a lot of girls.”

“Sure,” Sylvia said. “You’re probably right.” Not that she believed that, but this was hardly the time to talk about it.

“I mean, it even makes some sense,” Tina said. “Your early experiences with men weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy. Martin totally dominated you. It wasn’t like you could ask him to stop doing something, right? So now you don’t feel you can ask, either. For what you want or for what you don’t want.”

“Absolutely,” Sylvia said, wishing Tina would just drop it. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not when she was still dripping with guilt from having left San Francisco for Los Angeles. Everyone—her mom, Tina, Dwight—thought she’d left because she’d had an amazing job offer from the largest law firm in California. But what none of them knew was the reason she’d applied for the job in the first place—to escape.

Dwight was on the verge of popping the question. He’d been hinting around for weeks. But Sylvia didn’t want to marry him. Hell, she was only so-so on the subject of dating him. He was nice enough, and she did love him. But she wasn’t in love with him.

But she couldn’t tell him that any more than she could tell him what she wanted in bed. Instead of dealing with Dwight as a normal, rational, reasonable adult, she’d called a Los Angeles headhunter and been snatched up so fast that Sylvia had called it fate in an attempt to alleviate some of her guilt.

Of course, she’d known the job offers would flood in. That was a given considering her résumé. In a perverse way, she supposed she even had Martin to thank for her success. She’d delved in to enough pop psychology to realize that her overachiever personality was her way of fighting back. Of proving to him—and to herself—that she was worthy.

She’d aced school and landed an amazing job in San Francisco. Now she was moving to Los Angeles for an even better job with an even better salary. Would she have accomplished all that if it hadn’t been for Martin’s vile whispers every night after her mom had gone to bed? The kisses he’d planted on her mouth and between her legs, making her feel ashamed and dirty? His hushed tones telling her she was worthless, and her screaming inside her head that she wasn’t?

Martin might be the root cause of her desperation to succeed, but he was also the reason she so often escaped into fantasy. If she wasn’t buried in her work, chances were she was lost in a book or curled up in the dark with a classic movie playing on her television.

Martin was also the reason all her relationships failed. Why she couldn’t communicate sexually with a man. And why she was running now from a decent man who loved her. She couldn’t simply escape into a book or movie where Dwight was concerned. So instead of dealing with the question he was about to pop, she’d escaped real life by taking a job hundreds of miles away.

When she’d accepted the job offer in Los Angeles, she’d told Dwight that this was simply too good an opportunity to pass up, somehow neglecting to mention the part about how she went looking for that opportunity. Their relationship was strong enough to handle this, she’d said. And all the while, she’d had her fingers crossed, hoping, that in their case, distance didn’t make the heart grow fonder.

“I think you just need to go balls to the wall and shift into dominatrix mode. That,” Tina said, “will work wonders for your self-esteem.”

“Excuse me?” Sylvia asked, her voice climbing higher.

“When Dwight comes down to visit, you jump his bones. Tell him exactly what you want. If he can’t handle it, well, then you’re in a new town with new men. Send him back up San Francisco way.”

“I…but…” Sylvia blinked, feeling more than a little befuddled. “It’s not that easy.”

Tina deflated a bit at that. “Maybe not. I mean, you’ve got a history with the guy. That would make it harder. I know,” she squealed, her features flushing bright. “Just find someone you like and pick him up. No strings, right? Surely you can tell some stranger exactly what you want in bed. I mean, why wouldn’t you? No expectations. Just wham, bam, and tell the boy thank you very much.”

Sylvia just shook her head. “This conversation is so over.”

“I’m serious, Syl,” Tina said. “You spend your life watching movies. Just pretend you’re some uber-hot starlet. Like Uma in Kill Bill. Or Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. Find a man you want and take charge. No strings, no expectations. Just make it all about Sylvia. Get exactly what you want from the guy. And once you do that, you’ll be free of Martin. I promise.”

“I mean it, Tina,” Sylvia said. “We’re not talking about this anymore.”

Her friend pouted but didn’t say anything else. Instead, she just raised one hand, then took a step back. “I guess I’ll go check out a few more of the exhibits.”

“Right,” Sylvia said. “You do that.”

As Sylvia watched, Tina went off to look at a display of vibrators shaped like various animals. Beavers, bunnies, even a bright yellow ducky with an, um, useful beak and tail. Sylvia didn’t follow. Instead she moved out of the room and into another, finally settling on a plush bench. Antique, obviously, but Sylvia knew about as much about history as she did about dildos, so she couldn’t guess the period. Whenever it was from, it was comfortable, and she sagged a little, suddenly exhausted but still interested in the room.

The inside of the Greene Mansion was just as fabulous as she’d imagined it would be. Built in the 1800s by industrialist Carson Greene, the house overflowed with graciousness, the carved wood ornate and warm, the furniture inviting, and the many windows giving the interior a cheery, light-filled quality. Of course, there were dozens more rooms that were off-limits to patrons of the exhibit, and Sylvia was disappointed about that. For one, she’d hoped to see some Hollywood memorabilia. So far, though, she’d seen nothing.

She’d also simply wanted to explore the house. Her whole life, Sylvia had been fascinated by old houses. Or, rather, not her whole life, but at least from age six. That’s when Martin Straithorn had married her mother. They’d moved into his ramshackle farmhouse. Old, but hardly stately or elegant.

Even so, Sylvia had soon learned that the house was the best thing about her mother’s marriage. Maybe even the only good thing. Because the farmhouse had lots of nooks and crannies. And that meant lots of places for Sylvia to hide. Lots of places where she could hole up with her books and sit quietly after school, wishing the sun would never go down and she’d never have to go to her bedroom.

Because she couldn’t sleep in her hiding places. At night, she had to come out. Had to go into her bed. Had to pull the covers up to her chin and hope—no, pray—that for that one night, she’d be allowed to sleep, blissfully and peacefully. And, most importantly, alone.

Books had been her daily companions, the characters her best friends. How many times had she wished that she, too, could find a secret doorway so she could escape to another world? Sleep in another land instead of in her own bed, watched over by Aslan’s gentle eyes instead of Martin Straithorn’s deviant leer.

She shivered, hugging herself, the memories closer now than she liked them to get. She forced her mind away from the past, deliberately focusing on the room she’d stepped into. The drawing room, perhaps. Or a morning room. As much as she loved old houses, she’d never bothered to learn the names for all their various parts. It was the whole she cared about. The elegance and warmth. The detail in the woodwork. Not the strip-mall type homes that seemed to be taking over America.

She stood and wandered through the room, wondering if she was supposed to be in here. It wasn’t cordoned off, and yet none of the exhibits from the Sex Through The Ages tour were set up in here. Honestly, Sylvia had to admit she felt a bit of relief at that. She probably wouldn’t have come with Tina had she known the subject matter of the exhibit. She knew she had issues with sex, thank you very much. And she didn’t much appreciate Tina blatantly lying and telling her the exhibit was about some damn butterflies.

She saw a brochure for the exhibit sitting on one of the tables, and she picked it up, almost snorting as she skimmed through it. Some butterflies. Instead the brochure showed pictures of key elements from the exhibits, and even had an inset photograph of the guard who was traveling with the exhibit as it toured around the country. An older man, with a friendly face and unkempt gray hair escaping from under his cap. The same guard, Sylvia realized, that she’d seen in the other room. Not a bad job, she supposed. Hang around sex toys all day and watch women come and go in various stages of embarrassment or delight.

Mostly, though, the brochure described the various exhibits that now filled the rooms of the stately house. Sex as shown in the paintings of Picasso and others. Sex and technology. Plus exhibits on fertility goddesses and fetishes and the Kama Sutra. Basically, anything remotely relating to sex was there.

Definitely not butterflies. Although Sylvia wouldn’t have been surprised to find a butterfly-shaped vibrator.

The exhibit covered the range of sex and sexuality, and she knew in her heart that Tina had tricked her into coming because her best friend loved her. Tina was the only person in the world that Sylvia had ever confided in about Martin. And even then, the truths had been minimal. Mostly, Sylvia had only hinted about the past. But Tina was bright, and Sylvia knew that her friend had figured out the truth.

But while she knew that Tina only wanted to help, that didn’t change the fact that it felt like interference. Not that Sylvia didn’t find the traveling exhibit fascinating—she did. But she would have liked full disclosure before coming down here. After all, her sexual issues were hers and hers alone, and she was aware of them and dealing with them. She knew the cause—he’d married her mother, after all, so how could she not know—but wandering through rooms filled with dildos and vibrators was hardly going to make her more comfortable with her sexuality, or help her learn to communicate with men so that they knew what she wanted.

Enough.

She wanted to kick herself. She’d escaped the stupid exhibit and yet here she was, thinking about sex all over again. Think about something else, she ordered. This room. The ornately carved mantel over the fireplace. The portraits.

She got up from the bench, then walked the perimeter of the room, examining everything critically and with such an eye for detail that she had no room in her head to think about anything else. Which probably explained why she jumped a foot when the hand settled on her shoulder.

“Oh! Goodness! I’m so sorry I startled you!”

Sylvia turned, and found herself looking into bright green eyes, sparkling from a well-aged face. The woman looked to be close to seventy, with regal posture and an air of confidence. “I’m Louisa Greene,” she said with a smile. “I live here.”

“Oh. Oh. I’m so sorry.” Sylvia took a step toward the door. “I just wandered in from one of the exhibit halls. I didn’t mean—”

“Nonsense!” Louisa placed a hand on her arm. “Please, don’t run away. I saw you admiring the portraits. I thought I’d found a kindred spirit.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “I agreed to host the traveling exhibit here because I find the subject matter so very fascinating. But one does have to step away every once in a while, don’t you think?”

Sylvia blushed, and wasn’t quite able to meet the woman’s eyes. She was twenty-six—right at the age where sex and work were supposed to be the two things at the forefront of her mind—and yet here she was desperately avoiding the subject while this grandmotherly woman blatantly admitted to being fascinated by it. Whatever happened to decorum?

“Darling!” Louisa said, her voice lilting. “I’ve made you uncomfortable. I’m so sorry. Here, please sit and let me make it up to you.”

Louisa gestured toward a divan and though Sylvia’s instinct was to run—to race—from the room, she couldn’t quite convince her feet to go along with that plan. And so she found herself sitting.

Louisa signaled to one of the docents, who came over, looked at the two women, then nodded. Then, as Sylvia watched, wide-eyed, he left the room, shutting the double doors behind him.

“Where’s he going?”

“He’ll ring Thomas for tea and will ensure we’re not interrupted. You looked like you could use a bit of a break, and I feel I must apologize for embarrassing you.”

“It’s really not—”

“Nonsense. Besides, you were enjoying the room and I interrupted. It’s the least I can do.”

Despite herself, Sylvia relaxed. There was something about Louisa she found comforting, even familiar.

“I think it’s the way I was raised,” Louisa said, making Sylvia blink with the change of subject.

“Excuse me?”

“Sex, I mean,” the older women said casually. Then, “Oh, thank you, Thomas. You can just set the tray right here.”

A butler in full livery had appeared in the doorway carrying a tea tray with a pot, two cups and an assortment of tiny desserts. Sylvia thought she ought to be impressed by the speed at which he’d prepared the tray—it was almost as if Louisa had been expecting company—but she couldn’t quite work up the energy. The whole day was turning out a bit baffling and surprising.

As soon as Thomas left, Louisa turned back to Sylvia. “It was my grandparents, you see. They were so incredibly in love, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Considering the era, it was probably quite scandalous, but I learned early on that sex is an expression of love, no matter how many electronic devices might be involved,” she added with a wink.

“I…um…oh.”

Louisa sighed. “I’ve gone and done it again. I was trying to make you feel more comfortable and I’ve just embarrassed you more.”

“Not at all,” Sylvia said. Which, of course, was a lie. “But I do think you’re naive.”

The second she spoke, she was afraid she’d insulted the older woman. To her surprise, though, Louisa just laughed. “Naive? My dear, I’m getting close to seventy. I’m a lot of things, but I’m no longer naive.”

“It’s just…well, your attitude about sex. It’s not always love, you know. Sometimes it’s about control. Power. Sometimes,” she whispered, mortified to realize her eyes were filling with tears, “it’s not a good thing at all.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Louisa said, taking her hand. “I certainly didn’t mean to belittle anything you’ve gone through. But it’s all a question of semantics, really. Don’t you think?”

Part of Sylvia wanted to race from the room. Another part wanted to protest. To clear up the perception—accurate though it might be—that Sylvia had been talking about herself. She never spoke about Martin. About what he did. Even to Tina she’d talked around the subject. Bits and pieces that let her friend draw her own conclusions. And Syl had only managed to reveal that much after ten years of friendship.

But to this woman, Sylvia had opened her heart in no time and with no warning. It terrified her, but for some inexplicable reason it also calmed her. And so instead of running, she stayed on the divan, leaned over for her tea, and asked simply, “What do you mean by semantics?”

“What you describe isn’t sex. It’s assault and battery. Using a sexual organ as a weapon, sure. But it’s not sex. It’s not a union.”

“I…” Sylvia trailed off, not entirely sure what to say to that. She wanted to believe it, actually. But wanting was a lot easier than doing.

“Don’t worry about answering me,” Louisa said. “Just smile and nod and indulge me my idiosyncrasies. It’s a wonder I haven’t gone completely batty what with strangers wandering through my home four days a week.”

“So you meant it,” Sylvia said. “When you said you lived here.” She sighed. “It’s a grand house. I’ve just moved into an apartment in the mid-Wilshire area. But someday, I want a house like this.”

“Do you?” Louisa cocked her head, looking at Sylvia in a way that made her squirm. “One day, I think you’ll get one.”

“Why do you open it up to the public like this?” Sylvia asked, realizing as she spoke that it was an incredibly nosy question. “I’m sorry,” she said, backpedaling. “That’s really none of my business.”

“No, no. Not at all. I can understand your interest. So many of these stately mansions have been turned over to charitable foundations. The upkeep on a house like this is…well, I have to have a very strong glass of sherry every time I go over the numbers with my accountant. But we’re actually one of the few that is self-sufficient.” She patted Sylvia’s hand. “Not that I’m bragging. It’s simply a fact of life.”

“A nice fact,” Sylvia said.

Louisa’s smile was soft and genuine. “Indeed.”

“So, if you have the money to keep the place operational, why all this?”

Louisa stood, gesturing for Sylvia to follow, then moved across the room to stand in front of the wall of portraits. She pointed to the one in the center. “Because of her,” Louisa said.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s my grandmother,” Louisa explained. “She was a bit of an oddity in my family, but we always took everything she said very seriously.”

Sylvia studied the portrait, noticing with interest that it seemed somehow familiar. The woman there looked calm and self-assured, with light brown hair and green eyes highlighted by a slightly large mouth and high cheekbones. Not to mention ears that stuck out just a little too much.

With a start, Sylvia realized that the woman resembled her. How strange. But perhaps it explained why Louisa was so open. Maybe Sylvia’s resemblance to her grandmother made her feel more comfortable.

Louisa apparently hadn’t realized that Sylvia’s attention had wandered. She was still talking about the woman, and when Sylvia tuned back in, her interest was piqued. “She’s one of the reasons the family is so well-off,” Louisa was saying. “Had a head for speculative finance. Made a fortune in the stock market and real estate.”

“Nice,” Sylvia said. “But what does that have to do with opening the house?”

“Grandma insisted. For as long as I can remember, she would tell me that when I was older, I had to make sure the house was opened to the public. That we must allow traveling exhibits to tour. She made me swear.” A soft shrug. “And I agreed.”

“And you don’t know why?”

Louisa’s smile was almost shy. “I have my theories. At any rate,” she said, changing her tone and moving away from the portrait, “she was right. There’s a lot of history in this house.”