The Rana Look Page 9

  They chatted about other things. She inquired about her mother’s health. Morey described her mother’s personality in crude terms, but assured Rana that Susan was in good health.

  “She’ll raise billy hell when I tell her you’re turning this offer down. And since you’re not here, she’ll take it out on

  “I know, and I’m sorry you’ll bear the brunt of it.”

  “Goes with the territory.”

  “Are you terribly disappointed, Morey?”

  “Disappointed, yes. I think you’re a little crazy, but I still love you.”

  “And I love you too. I’m sorry to be such a burden.”

  “Life’s full of them, Rana. Full of them.”

  They said their good-byes. Rana wished she felt more comfortable with her decision. Instead, her conversation with Morey left her feeling vaguely sad and homesick for him.

  Then she spotted the bouquet of daisies. They were like a ray of light that penetrated her despondency and coaxed back her golden mood. It stayed with her until she finally dropped off to sleep.

  She slept late. When she opened her eyes and glanced out the window, she could tell the sun was well up. Her clock verified the lateness of the hour. As soon as her feet hit the floor, she noticed the slip of paper lying just inside her door.

  I knocked twice, but didn’t hear a sound. Yes, I listen at your door often. Guess you‘re sleeping late. I approve. See you later.

  The note was left unsigned, but the barely legible scrawl, as well as the humor, was dearly familiar.

  She dressed and went downstairs. The house was deserted. She ventured into the backyard and decided to tour Ruby’s greenhouse. The elderly lady had been bragging about the results of her efforts there.

  It was hot and humid inside the glass building, but Rana enjoyed the smell of freshly turned soil. Not a breath stirred. Condensation collected in droplets on the panes of glass surrounding her. It was silent. The sound of her footsteps was absorbed by the spongy earthen floor. She walked between the long tables, with their neat rows of potted plants. She studied them, delighting in every exotic bloom, each delicate leaf, with its unique tracery of veins.

  “Sloth is a sin.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, and spun around.

  “I did it again, didn’t I? I snuck up and startled you? Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  Trent heaved a bag of peat moss off his shoulder and wiped his hands on the seat of his cutoffs. His T-shirt was damp with perspiration.

  Rana smiled at him. “I know you didn’t mean to. It’s just so quiet in here. Good morning, by the way. Where’s Ruby?”

  “I just made her go in and lie down. We went to the nursery to pick up this peat moss. It’s so hot and muggy, she got a little dizzy. I told her I’d finish her project.”

  “Which is?”

  “To put those bedding plants into those pots,” he said, pointing them out to her.

  “Pretty begonias,” Rana remarked as she rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. “I’ll help.”

  “Don’t feel that you have to.”

  “I want to.”

  As a child she’d never been allowed to play in the dirt. She had never been allowed to do anything that spoiled her perfection. Every hair had to be in place. She wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle or roller-skate because she might scrape her knee. Scabs or scars were to be avoided at all costs. As a teenager, she had rebelled occasionally, but when her little acts of defiance were discovered, her mother’s wrath made the adventures hardly worthwhile.

  Nor had she had many friends to play with when she was growing up. She had never been free to run with the other children in the neighborhood. During adolescence, female friends were rare, because other girls saw her extraordinary looks as a threat. What potential friend with any brains wanted to be compared to Rana?

  Boys, on the other hand, had held her in awe, and she had very few dates during high school. Rana Ramsey was the most gorgeous creature most of the boys in her school had ever seen. She was too intimidating a proving ground on which to test newfound manhood.

  Now Rana seized this chance to play in the dirt. “What do I do first?”

  “First you take off some clothes,” Trent said.

  “What!”

  “You don’t think that’s a good idea?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be shy. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take off some of mine too.” He laughed at her withering glance. “Ana, you’ll swelter in all those clothes. It’s like a sauna in here.”

  “Oh, no, I’m fine.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll melt and all that will be left is a pile of clothes nobody else will want and I’ll be stuck with.”

  She glared at him, but it was all in fun. “Don’t worry about me and my clothes and the heat, okay?”

  He shook his head in bafflement, wondering if she had some hideous skin disease she didn’t want anybody to know about. She had jogged with him each morning wearing a sweat suit that covered her from neck to ankles. “Okay, but if you faint from heat prostration, remember I warned you.”

  He showed her how to fill each container from a bag of potting soil and what proportion of peat moss to mix with it. Soon she was wielding the trowel as though she’d done it all her life. Occasionally she blotted her dripping forehead with her sleeve, but she didn’t even notice the muggy heat, she was having so much fun.

  “Do you mind?” Trent asked her after a while. He was holding the hem of his T-shirt.

  “Uh, no.”

  He peeled it over his head and tossed it down. “I think I’m the one who’s melting.”

  Rana, gazing at his bare torso, was experiencing her own melting sensation, but it was internal. Her thighs felt as though they were liquefying. “You certainly look fit enough to play football,” she said as casually as her tight throat would permit. Muscles rippled beneath his supple brown skin with each movement of his arms and shoulders.

  “I hope I am.”

  She noticed his worried frown and the hesitancy in his voice. “Do you have doubts?”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a mirthful sound. “I’ve lived with that kind of doubt every season I’ve played professionally, and even before then when a championship was at stake.”

  “But you’ve had a spectacular career.” When he looked at her inquiringly, she added, “Ruby’s filled me in on it since you came here. Was that just her pride talking? Aren’t you considered one of the best?”

  Ordinarily he would have accepted such compliments as his due. But with Rana, he felt compelled to be honest. “I’ve had some good seasons, but last year was a disaster.”

  “Why, Trent?”

  “I’m getting old.”

  She laid the trowel aside and gave him all her concentration. “Old? You’re not even thirty-five.”

  “Which in professional football is well past middle age.” Self-conscious about speaking aloud his innermost fears, he fiddled with a watering can. It was a relief, however, to have someone listen so carefully. For months he had needed to confide in someone. He couldn’t have stopped the flow of words if he had wanted to.

  “Last season my age began to catch up with me, though I’d been fighting it for several years before that. My elbow had to be operated on three years ago. Once I got that back in shape, my shoulder started to give out. Every time I threw a pass, it hurt like hell. I was hitting the receivers fewer times each game. Since we’re basically a passing team, our offense was shot to hell. There was no one else to blame. The buck stops at the quarterback. In this case, me.”

  Rana knew nothing about football, but she could sympathize with what he was telling her. She had known models who had considered their lives over at thirty because they were too old to continue their careers.

  She moved closer to him, and barely resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on his arm. “Surely you knew when you started that it couldn’t last forever.”

  “Of course I did. I’m not that unrealistic.
I haven’t walked around with my head in the clouds. I’ve made financial preparations for my retirement from football. I’m a silent partner in an extremely lucrative commercial real- estate firm in Houston. But I want to retire when I say I’m ready, not when I’mforcedto. Each season new talent is recruited for the team. Lord, they’re good, Ana. And so damn young.” He shook his head ruefully. “You probably think I’m whining because I’m jealous of the younger guys. I swear that’s not it.”

  “I believe you,” she said softly.

  He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. “I want just one more season. A winning season. I want to go out on top, not as an object of pity or derision.”

  Her hand found its way to him of its own accord, and she squeezed his arm to emphasize her heartfelt words. “No one would ever pity you, Trent. I think this will be your season. I know it.”

  “You do?”

  She stared up at him earnestly. “Yes, I do.”

  Everything receded into the background. They were left in a universe of their own. She searched his face greedily, feeling the fear and insecurity behind his eyes as surely as she had felt her own so often.

  If I weren‘t pretty, my mother wouldn’t love me at all.

  That was what the lonely, beautiful little girl had grown up thinking. Up until six months ago, she had continued to think that her only value came from the way she looked. Since she had thrown off the Rana Look, she had cultivated two important friendships, Ruby’s and Trent ’s. She was a person worthy of love and friendship, no matter what she looked like.

  For as long as she could remember, she had tried to be what her mother wanted. She had wanted Susan’s approval desperately, but she had always fallen short of her mother’s expectations.

  “Stand up straight, Rana… Don’t slouch, Rana… Is that a pimple, Rana? Honestly! I’ve taught you how to clean your face, but you don’t do it… Are you wearing your retainer? Do you want crooked teeth?… You wrinkled your dress, after I spent a half an hour ironing it.”

  And even when Rana had been as close to perfect as any human being could possibly be, Susan could always find fault.

  Yes, Rana could identify with Trent ’s anguish and uncertainty. In his drive to succeed on the gridiron, it didn’t matter what pieces of him were left behind on the Astroturf, what bones were broken, what muscles were sprained, what pain he endured. He was a competitor. He would always go the distance, give his all. But because his very best might not be good enough, he was suffering a private hell.

  “Thanks for saying that,” he said softly.

  His eyes didn’t waver from her face. The air was thick with desires long suppressed. His body felt heavy and feverish with an emotion he couldn’t name, because he’d never experienced it before. All he knew was that at that moment he thought Ana Ramsey was beautiful. He wanted to hold her against him, to absorb her confidence and be worthy of it.

  “I meant it.”

  The atmosphere was hushed. A fly buzzed somewhere nearby, but otherwise everything was still. Sweat trickled down his face. Their bodies were taut as they tried to hold themselves separate. Still they inclined toward each other.

  He rested his hand on the crown of her head and then gently brought it down to her neck. Her hair was soft against his callused palm. She tilted her head to one side and rested her cheek in his hand. He focused on her mouth. Her lips parted slightly even as he watched. They looked incredibly soft, solace-lending, pleasure-giving, vulnerable.

  “Ana.” He lowered his head. His lips touched hers.

  “Ana!” another voice called.

  They sprang apart. Trent ’s curse was vicious and as blistering as the white-hot Texas sun that beat down outside. Rana stepped away from him quickly and ran to the door of the greenhouse. Her heart was racing.

  “Yes, Ruby? Here I am. What is it?”

  “Telephone call for you, dear.”

  Rana glanced back at Trent. He shrugged and gave her a twisted smile, but it was strained with yearning. She crossed the yard at a trot and entered the house by the back door, which Ruby held open for her. “It’s your mother.”

  Rana’s footsteps faltered. “My mother?”

  Ruby nodded, an unspoken question in her eyes. Ana Ramsey had no mother that she knew about.

  Rana trudged up the stairs. She and her mother had conveyed messages to each other through Morey for the last six months. They hadn’t spoken personally since Rana had walked out and thwarted Susan’s plans for her daughter’s marriage.

  Why was Susan calling now? Rana wondered. Was she angry that Rana hadn’t accepted the contract? Was she calling just to say hello? Was she calling to say, “I love you”?

  Rana ridiculed herself for holding on to that hope. Nonetheless her hands were shaking and her voice trembled as she picked up the extension in her apartment and said,

  “Mother? Hello. How are you?”

  “Morey is dead. I think the least you could do is return to New York for his funeral.”

  Six

  Morey is dead. Morey is dead.

  It was now almost thirty-six hours since Rana had first heard those words from her mother’s lips, and she still couldn’t believe them. After standing at the grave site and seeing his casket, the very idea still seemed too incredible to accept.

  So much had happened since her mother had broken the news of Morey’s death that it seemed as though the afternoon in the greenhouse with Trent had occurred in another lifetime. Both spiritual and physical fatigue settled on her as she reviewed the events subsequent to that phone call.

  She had flung clothes haphazardly into a suitcase. Racing downstairs, she had asked Ruby if she could borrow her car. Ruby suggested that Trent could drive her to the airport, but Rana objected so strongly that Ruby gave her no further argument, even honoring her request that he not be called from the greenhouse to say good-bye. Rana told her friend that she would be away for an indefinite period of time. She didn’t specify where she was going.

  When the landlady expressed concern for Rana’s obvious distress, the only explanation forthcoming was, “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  At Houston ’s Intercontinental Airport she had to watch two planes to New York take off without her before a standby seat on a third aircraft became available.

  Once in New York, she took a cab to her apartment, where her mother was still living. They met face-to-face for the first time in six months. Susan was overtly hostile despite Rana’s need to be consoled.

  “You look ridiculous, Rana. I hope you don’t expect me to claim you as mine, dressed like that.”

  “What about Morey, Mother?”

  “He’s dead.” She held a gold Cartier lighter to the end of a cigarette, inhaled dramatically, and then blew a cloud of smoke over her head.

  Rana, exhausted from the ordeal of getting to Houston from Galveston, waiting at the airport for hours, the long flight, not to mention her mental anguish, collapsed on the sofa and closed her eyes. It was now two o’clock in the morning in New York. Her spirit was trampled and her nerves were frayed, she had just lost her dearest friend and staunchest ally, and her mother’s first comment had been about the way she looked. At that moment she hated Susan Ramsey.

  “You told me that much on the telephone, Mother. What do you want me to do, beg you for the details?” She opened her eyes and confronted the woman she had never been able to please no matter how hard she had tried. “All right, I’m begging. What happened?” Her frustration finally got the best of her, and tears formed in her eyes.

  Susan, with an almost smug expression, sat down on the far end of the long sofa. Despite the hour, she was immaculately groomed. Her satin robe was unwrinkled. “He died at home. One of his neighbors discovered the body late in the morning, when Morey didn’t show up for a brunch date they had.”

  Morey lived alone; he and his wife had been divorced for years before Rana met him. He’d never gotten over the breakup of his marriage, but he could never give up gambling,
either, which had been the crux of his marital problems.

  “Was it a heart attack? A stroke?” Morey had been overweight, had high blood pressure, and smoked too much.

  “Not exactly,” Susan said coolly, scornfully. “Drugs were involved.”

  “Drugs!” Rana exclaimed, aghast. “I don’t believe it.”

  “ Not Street drugs. Pills. Liquor. There was evidence in his apartment that he’d been drinking.”

  Rana’s body seemed slowly to collapse, to fold in on itself like a house of cards. It couldn’t be. She would never believe it. Suicide? No! “Was it an accident?” she asked hoarsely.

  Susan ground out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray on the marble coffee table. “I think the police are ruling it an accidental death.”

  “But you think it was a suicide, don’t you?”

  “All I know is that when I last spoke with him, he was extremely upset over your turning down that marvelous contract. He was as shocked as I am that you would rather live like this,” she said scathingly, waving her hand toward Rana as though she were filthy, “than like a princess. Morey was in financial trouble thanks to you.”

  Rana covered her face with her hands, but Susan persisted. “He had to move from those plush offices he had leased. When you so selfishly deserted both him and me, he went back to representing second-rate models and has-beens.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” Rana groaned, asking the question of herself as much as of her mother.

  Susan was all too happy to answer. “What good would it have done? If you had cared for anyone as much as you did yourself, you wouldn’t have left in the first place. Why should you care what happened to some penny-ante agent- whom I wanted to discard years ago-if you don’t care about your own mother?”

  She lit another cigarette. Rana knew Susan wasn’t finished yet, so she remained silent. It would serve no purpose to argue.

  “I sacrificed everything to put you where you were, but you gave it all up without so much as a thank-you. You threw away a chance to marry one of the richest men in America. Does it matter to you that I can barely pay the bills on this place? No.”