Danielle Steel - Now and Forever

Now And Forever

Danielle Steel

*

Chapter 1

The weather was magnificent. A clear blue sunny day, with sharply etched white clouds in the sky. The perfect Indian summer. And so hot. The heat made everything slow and sensual. And it was so totally unlike San Francisco. That was the best part. Ian sat at a small pink marble table, his usual seat, in a patch of sunlight at Enrico's restaurant on Broadway. The traffic whizzed by while lunch-hour couples strolled. The heat felt delicious.

Under the table, Ian swung one long leg easily over the other. Three daisies bobbed in a glass, and the bread was fresh and soft to the touch. The almost too thin, graceful fingers tore one slice of bread carefully away from the others. Two young girls watched him and giggled. He wasn't "cute," he was sexy. Even they knew it. And beautiful. Handsome. Elegant. He had class. Tall, thin, blond, blue-eyed, with high cheek-bones and endless legs, hands that one noticed, a face one hated to stop looking at ... a body one watched. Ian Clarke was a beautiful man. And he knew it, in an offhand sort of way. He knew it. His wife knew it. So what? She was beautiful too. It wasn't something they really cared about. But other people did. Other people loved to watch them, in that hungry way one stares at exceptionally good-looking people, wanting to know what they're saying, where they're going, who they know, what they eat ... as though some of it might rub off. It never does. One has to be born with it. Or spend a great deal of money to fake it. Ian didn't fake it. He had it.

The woman in the large natural straw hat and pink dress had noticed it too. She stared at him through the mesh of the straw. She watched his hands with the bread, his mouth as he drank. She could even see the blond hair on his arms as he rolled up his sleeves in the sun. She was several tables away, but she saw. Just as she had seen him there before. But he never saw her. Why would he? She saw everything, and then she stopped watching. Ian didn't know she was alive. He was busy with the rest of the view.

Life was incredibly good. Ripe and golden and easy. His for the plucking. He had worked on the third chapter of his novel all morning, and now the characters were coming to life, just like the people wandering along Broadway ... strolling, laughing, playing games. His characters were already that real to him. He knew them intimately. He was their father, their creator, their friend. And they were his friends. It was such a good feeling, starting a book. It populated his life. All those new faces, new heads. He could feel them in his hands as he rat-tat-tapped on the typewriter keys. Even the keyboard felt good to his touch.

He had it all, a city he loved, a new novel at last, and a wife he still laughed and played with and loved making love to. Seven years and everything about her still felt good to him: her laughter, her smile, the look in her eyes, the way she sat naked in his studio, perched in the old wicker rocking chair, drinking root beer and reading his work. Everything felt good, and better now, with the novel beginning to blossom. It was a magical day. And Jessie was coming home. It had been a productive three weeks, but he was suddenly lonely and horny as hell... Jessie.

Ian closed his eyes and blotted out the sounds of traffic drifting by ... Jessie ... of the graceful legs, the blond hair like fine satin, the green eyes with gold specks ... eating peanut butter and apricot jam on raisin bread at two in the morning, asking him what he thought of the spring line for her shop ... "I mean honestly, Ian, tell me the truth, do you hate the spring things, or are they okay? From a man's point of view ... be honest ..." As though it really mattered, from a man's point of view. Those big green eyes searching his face as though asking him if she were okay, if he loved her, if ... he did.

Sipping his gin and tonic, he thought of her, and felt indebted to her again. It gave him a tiny pinched feeling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. But that was part of it: he did owe her a lot. She had weathered a lot. Teaching jobs that had paid him a pittance, substitute teaching that had paid less, a job in a bookstore, which she had hated because she felt it demeaned him. So he had quit. He had even had a brief fling with journalism, after his first novel had bombed. And then her inheritance had solved so many of their problems. Theirs, but not necessarily his.

"You know, Mrs. Clarke, one of these days you're going to get sick and tired of being married to a starving writer." He had watched her face intently as she'd shaken her head and smiled in the sunlight of a summer day three years before ...

"You don't look like you're starving to me." She patted his stomach, and then kissed him gently on the lips. "I love you, Ian."

"You must be crazy. But I love you too." It had been a rough summer for him. He hadn't made a dime in eight months. But Jessie had her money, of course. Dammit.

"Why am I crazy? Because I respect your work? Because I think you're a good husband, even if you're not working on Madison Avenue anymore? So what, Ian? Who gives a damn about Madison Avenue? Do you? Do you miss it so much, or are you just going to use it to torment yourself for the rest of your life?" There was a faint tinge of bitterness in her voice, mixed with anger. "Why can't you just enjoy what you are?"

"And what's that?"

"A writer. And a good one."

"Who says?"

"The critics 'says,' that's who says."

"My royalties don't says."

"Fuck your royalties." She looked so serious that he had to laugh.

"I'd have a tough time trying--they're not big enough to tickle, let alone fuck."

"Oh, shut up ... creep ... sometimes you make me so mad." A smile began to warm her face again and he leaned over and kissed her. She ran a finger slowly up the inside of his thigh, watching him with that quiet smile of hers, and he tingled all over ...

He still remembered it. Perfectly.

"Evil woman, I adore you. Come on, let's go home." They had left the beach hand in hand, like two kids, sharing their own private smile. They hadn't even waited until they'd gotten home. A few miles later, Ian had spotted a narrow creek a little distance from the road, and they had parked there and made love under the trees, near the creek, with the summer sounds all around them. He still remembered lying on the soft earth with her afterward, wearing only their shirts and letting their toes play with the pebbles and grass. He still remembered thinking that he would never quite understand what bound her to him ... why? And what bound him to her? The questions one never asks of marriage ... why, for your money, darling, why else? No one in his right mind ever asked those questions. But sometimes he was so tempted to. He sometimes feared that what bound him to her was her faith in his writing. He didn't want to think it was that, but that was certainly part of it.

All those nights of argument and coffee and wine in his studio. She was always so goddam sure. When he needed her to be. That was the best part.

"I know you'll make it, Ian. That's all. I just know you will." So goddam sure. That's why she had made him quit his job on Madison Avenue, because she was so sure. Or was it because she'd wanted to make him dependent on her? Sometimes he wondered about that too.

"But how do you know, dammit? How can you possibly know I'll make it? It's a dream, Jessie. A fantasy. The great American novel. Do you know how many absolute zeroes are out mere writing crap, thinking 'this is it'?"

"Who gives a damn? That's not you."

"Maybe it is." She had thrown a glass of wine at him once when he'd said that, and it made him laugh. They had wound up making love on the thick fur rug while he dripped wine from his chin to her breasts and they laughed together.