The Perfect Letter Page 15

  I want to do better. I want to improve myself, my station. It’s all I have. Maybe my reading here in prison will be like college is for you. A university for convicts. I like to imagine you reading Tolstoy near the cold, gray Atlantic. Talking about novels in stuffy classrooms that smell like chalk, with intelligent people, well-read people like you.

  Tomorrow I’ll be getting on a corrections bus for Huntsville prison. I heard a couple of the guards laughing about it—apparently they wanted me to hear them laughing about it. Making rape jokes. I don’t understand why people think prison rape is such a laugh. They knew I was scared.

  They wanted me to be scared. They must think I deserve it.

  I do deserve it. I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared.

  The way people look at you when you’re in prison isn’t like the way they look at you anywhere else. Their eyes turn toward you, their face is turned toward your face, but there’s something vacant in the eyes. Their attention isn’t on you. Noticed this first with the guards, but it happened, too, with the judge, with the prosecutor. Even, as the trial went on, with the jury. That’s how I knew when I was in trouble: I looked at the faces of the people on the jury. I could tell they weren’t looking at me anymore, they couldn’t see me. They could only see what I’d done. I wasn’t a person anymore but the crime I’d committed. An unsettling feeling, being there and being invisible at the same time.

  I’m getting ready for the trip to Huntsville, steeling myself for whatever I encounter there. I’ll serve my time, get out in one piece. Going to keep my head down and my nose clean. If I’m lucky and someone takes pity on me, maybe I can get out early. Hear there may even be a program that will let me study for my degree. Might as well use the time. I can’t train horses anymore when I get out, that’s for sure.

  You’re angry that I don’t send these letters to you, and I don’t blame you, but I refuse to torture you with my thoughts, my fears. I’m no good for you, Leigh. I’ve already done enough damage to you for one lifetime. It will be better for both of us if I stay away. It will be better for you if you do think I’m dead.

  If you remember me at all, I hope it will be the way I was when we first met. Cocky, hopeful. I like to think that someone in the world still remembers me that way.

  One day, when I get out of here, I might be able to go back to being that person. I hope.

  Love,

  —J.

  Eight

  When Leigh woke the next morning in the soft white bed of her cottage at the vineyard nestled in Jake’s arms, she had a moment in which she wasn’t sure if she was awake or still dreaming. She’d had an image of herself standing at the top of a very tall building, screaming something into the wind at someone who could not hear her, someone just out of reach at the top of another building shrouded by mist and fog. There was something she had to say, something important, but she couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice, couldn’t make out the words. They were being torn away by the wind, tattered and shredded until all she was left with was a vague feeling of unease, like she’d forgotten something important she needed to do, a matter of life and death.

  The sun was in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and turned away, looking instead at Jake asleep in the bed next to her. He was naked still, his mouth open slightly in a light snore, stubble on his chin dark in the morning light. She leaned over and kissed him softly, and he shifted, reaching for her with his eyes still closed. “Mmmmm,” he said. “I had the most wonderful dream that I made love to the one and only Leigh Merrill last night.”

  She leaned on one elbow to look down at him. “You did,” she said. “Three times, I think it was.”

  “That can’t be right. Leigh Merrill isn’t speaking to me. She still hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “Yes, she has,” Leigh said, and leaned down to kiss him again with the greatest tenderness, blotting out all thoughts but the feel of her mouth on his mouth, like she was far away on some half-deserted island, where no one knew her and there were no consequences to her actions. Whatever happened yesterday didn’t matter; whatever happened tomorrow didn’t matter. There was only now, and the feel of his flesh beneath her hands, his breath in her lungs. She never wanted to leave this room, this man, this moment.

  They sank further into the kiss, Leigh’s hands running up the length of Jake’s body, this new body that was so strange and yet so familiar. The broad, flat muscles of his chest, the tufts of dark hair on his belly—could this really be the same man, the same boy she’d loved so long ago? Did it matter that she didn’t remember him like this, that in her mind’s eye she could still see him as a kid of eighteen, seventeen, skinny and sunburned with a mouth full of braces? She kissed the hollow of his throat, the soft place behind his ear, which tasted of sweat and her perfume.

  “Hmm,” he said. “That’s nice.”

  “Nice?” Leigh said, and pinched his nipple. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “I meant tremendous, exquisite,” he said, squirming away from her. “Ow! Okay, I give up! The best I ever had! When did you get so rough?”

  “That was tame, buddy. You haven’t seen rough yet,” she said, reaching down to smack his bare ass once, twice, leaving a red handprint.

  “Ow.”

  He jumped up and flipped her over onto her belly. “How would you like it if I did that to you?” he said, and gave her rump a playful smack.

  “I might like it very much,” she said, and stretched out to her full length. “Care to try that again?”

  Jake gave a low whistle of appreciation. “I would, but I think I need a shower first. Care to join me?”

  “I like the way you think.”

  He ran the water hot and stood under the spray. Leigh climbed in behind him, soaping him up, running her hands over his arms, his hips. Already she felt like she was beginning to remember the rhythms of his desire, the tempo of passion and rest and more passion, the hunger in him less boyish but more powerful than it had been when they were kids. They’d always had a natural compatibility, a chemistry that was both emotional and physical, and she felt it click back into place as she licked his neck, his nipples, feeling something inside her catch and flare once more.

  She was surprised at her own desire, how powerful it was, that even after a night of almost unbearable passion she was still ready for more.

  The running water of the shower offered a new and different kind of pleasure, one they’d never dared when they were kids and living at home under Gene’s watchful eye. Jake turned to kiss her, his body slick with water and soap, his hands and mouth gliding over the silkiness of her breasts, between her legs. There was no friction but only the pressure of desire.

  Leigh closed her eyes and felt the water spraying them both, a wetness on top of wetness, Jake’s tongue flicking over the center of desire gently at first, then more and more insistent, until she felt a gentle pop and the world was warm around her.

  Jake stood up and ran a hand over his hair to get it out of his eyes. “Had enough?” he asked.

  She reached out and pulled him to her. “Not quite,” she said.

  Later, when they collapsed on the bottom of the shower stall with their arms around each other, Jake stroked her hair, the water spraying them both.

  “I missed you so much,” he said. “I dreamed about you. For years. Every night in my dreams you’d come to me, and we’d talk and make love over and over. I’d wake up, and for a moment I’d have forgotten where I was. It was torture. But man, those dreams—they were something.”

  She reached over and turned off the water, wiping the hair out of her face. “I dreamed of you all the time, too. My roommate freshman year, she asked about you. She said I called out for someone named Jake in my sleep. Said it sounded like I was enjoying it.”

  “Oh yeah? Was I as good in your dreams as in real life?”

  “Better,” she said.

  “Damn! And here I was hoping fantasy Jake was a dud.”

  “It’
s all right,” she said, pushing her wet hair out of her face. “Fantasy Jake never could make me really happy. Not like this.” She kissed his jaw, his neck.

  In the bedroom the phone was ringing. She wrapped a towel around herself and ran to answer it, but the sight of the bedside clock made her gasp: 9:10 A.M. She was late. She’d been so absorbed with Jake that she’d completely forgotten her day was already filled up with pitch meetings from aspiring authors—and the conference was the whole reason she’d come to Texas in the first place.

  She picked up the phone; it was Saundra. “Are you up yet, dear?” asked the conference director. “Your first appointment is all ready and waiting for you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, I overslept,” Leigh said, feeling a momentary wave of panic wash over her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jake pulling his jeans over his narrow hips, the smooth expanse of his back. “I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  She hung up the phone and gave Jake a wan smile. “I’m so sorry. I’m supposed to be at work already,” she said.

  He sat up. “I’ll go.”

  “No, please stay,” she said, her mouth already foaming with toothpaste. “Read a book, watch some TV. I have a break at lunchtime. I’ll pick up some lunch for us.”

  He wrapped his arms around her naked waist and buried his mouth in her neck, murmuring, “I know what I want for lunch.”

  She rinsed her mouth and turned around to kiss him. In the full light, half naked, he was even more beautiful than she remembered. She pulled on a skirt and blouse and brushed her hair up into a quick chignon. “Promise you’ll be here when I get back.”

  “Will you be wanting a nooner?” he said, and grabbed her one more time for a kiss.

  “No, I mean I think we should talk.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Maybe more, but only if you’re good.” She planted a quick kiss on his lips. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” she said. Then she grabbed her bag and hurried out the door.

  Outside it was cooler, less confusing. She stopped and took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. Whatever she and Jake were or weren’t going to be to each other, she wasn’t going to be able to decide with the feel of his hands still on her body.

  When she felt the door click shut behind her, she took another deep breath and hurried down the hill.

  In the lobby of the main house Leigh checked her phone for the time: 9:20. Damn. And her phone kept beeping angrily at her: there were six calls from Joseph, some of them dating from the previous morning, and several texts from both him and Chloe—the gist of them was where the hell are you?—and at least two voice mails she didn’t have time to listen to at the moment. She’d spent a stolen night with Jake, but her life was still rushing forward without her, and now she had to deal with the consequences.

  As she ran toward the conference room, muttering under her breath, she was seized with a sudden need to see Chloe, talk to her, tell her everything, and beg her advice. As the only person who knew both Leigh and Jake and everything—or nearly everything—they’d been through, Chloe was the one person who could offer a truly sympathetic ear. Leigh’s night with Jake had been passionate, intense—better than she ever, in her wildest fantasies, had imagined—but now it seemed it was going to come at a price.

  What did she think she was doing, sleeping with Jake, inviting him to stay in her room and her bed, when just two days ago she’d made up her mind to tell Joseph she’d marry him? Had she lost her mind? That moment on the porch with Jake, with the rain coming down—had it been just an impulse, a momentary physical urge? She didn’t regret it, or at least she didn’t regret it entirely. But she didn’t know yet if it was a new beginning or a final period on a sentence that ended long ago.

  She was no longer sure who she was, what she wanted. Had she only been kidding herself in thinking she could marry a man like Joseph, be happy with Joseph, when her heart—and her body—still wanted Jake so badly? She thought of him back in her room, lying in her bed, and she nearly turned straight around to pack her bags and tell him to come with her, run away with her. Let’s go now, Jake. Let’s run away, far away.

  She shook off the thought. Running away wouldn’t solve anything—it hadn’t fixed anything the last time. She didn’t have to decide what to do today, and after all, there was still a day’s worth of work to get through before she could think clearly about Jake and Joseph, Texas and New York, the past and the future.

  Time to get back to work.

  Down at the main house there was a line around the door of aspiring writers and conferencegoers clutching sample pages of their books to their chests, smiling hopefully at Leigh as she hurried inside. She apologized profusely to Saundra and her first author of the morning, a retired teacher who’d grown up on a farm in Oklahoma who wanted to pitch Leigh a novel about a retired teacher who’d grown up on a farm in Oklahoma. It was an old story, and the author didn’t seem to have anything new to say that would make it fresh.

  While Saundra went to get her a cup of strong coffee, Leigh listened to the pitch politely, asking a few gentle questions about the direction of the book, knowing in the first five minutes that the novel would never fly at Jenks & Hall, that Joseph would think it was too dull, that it had no hook. She could practically hear him making his hmmm of impatience, see his lips pressing together in a straight line. No—the book might be good enough for another publisher, but not for Jenks & Hall. Leigh took the manuscript politely anyway, wished the author luck, and then collapsed back into her chair, pressing her fingers into her temples.

  Joseph. The thought of him, even in a professional capacity, was so painful that she felt her eyes blurring.

  She let herself imagine the look on his face now if she told him it was over, they were through—that she was going back to Jake, quitting her job, moving back to Texas, giving up on the two of them and the future they’d imagined. She felt ill, and pushed the image from her mind. Not now, Leigh. You don’t have time for that now. Think about him later. Scarlett O’Hara would think about that all tomorrow.

  When the door opened again, revealing her second appointment of the morning, she saw a familiar gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair and a very formal bearing. Leigh recognized him as the man who’d spoken to her after her opening remarks the day before, the one who apparently enjoyed a little light flirting with a potential editor. Had it really only been the day before? So much had happened between then and now that it felt like a different life.

  “Hello!” she said warmly, holding out her hand for him to shake. “I remember you from yesterday. Jim Stephens, is that right?”

  “You have a terrific memory,” said the man, clearly flattered. He took Leigh’s hand in his own. Instead of shaking it, though, he pulled her in for a brief but pleasant hug. Normally she would have been irritated, but for some reason she felt a genuine smile spread across her face, and she hugged him back. There was something about him that spoke to her, some quality he possessed that she didn’t quite understand, something that made her normal cool reserve with strangers slide into warmth. She didn’t quite understand what it was, but she felt immediately comfortable with him, as if she’d known him all her life.

  “So lovely to see you this morning,” said Jim. “Looks like you had a good night’s sleep. You’re glowing.” Leigh blushed—there was no way he could have known about the kind of night she’d had. “There,” he said. “You’re doing it again. Putting all the other ladies to shame.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said. “Nice to see you, too. I was so happy when I remembered you were coming this morning.”

  “Awfully nice of you to say,” he said, setting his manuscript down on the table between them. He had a shock of thick dark hair cut short, graying at the temples, and a very broad, very white smile, putting Leigh in mind of a country Cary Grant. “I’ve been looking forward to it myself. Not every day I get to talk to a pretty young lady about books.”

  Leigh laughed. “You’re a bit o
f a flirt, aren’t you? I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

  “Promise?”

  Leigh laughed again—he was a huge flirt. “Are you local? Or just in town for the conference?”

  “I’m in Houston these days. I worked for the oil companies after I retired from the Marines, and my kids are there, so . . .”

  So she’d been right about his military background. “How many do you have?”

  “Two girls. Thirty-two and thirty-five. And three grandkids. They keep me on my toes.”

  “And your wife? What does she do?”

  “Ex-wife. She divorced me during my second tour.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Leigh.

  “I guess it’s a lot to ask, keeping the home fires alive while your spouse does long tours of duty in dangerous parts of the world. I don’t really blame her. I’m not interested in holding grudges, I guess.”

  “I like that. Maybe we should all be more like you. More forgiving.”

  “That’s the spirit! Anyway, she lives in Dallas with her new husband.” He laughed. “I say new, but they’ve been married thirty years now. I still don’t quite know how I got to be so old.”

  Leigh broke out in a grin. “I’d hardly call you old,” she said. “Maybe well seasoned.”

  “Ah, you’re flattering me. You should hear my girls. They talk like I’m at death’s door. Like I’m prepared for the old folks’ home. They inspect all the women I date, like I’m the kid and they’re the father.”

  “They’re looking out for you.”

  “They are. They’re good girls.”

  Leigh laughed. It was the kind of thing her grandfather might have said, if he were still alive. “So I want to hear about your project,” she said. “It’s a novel?”

  “It’s a memoir about a field officer who gets roped into running illegal missions in Laos during the war.”

  “Nonfiction?” Leigh was a little taken aback. “You know you could get into serious trouble admitting your personal involvement. You sure you want to take that kind of risk?”