Authors: Danielle Steel
Chapter 10
“Well, young lady? Did I keep my promise? Do you have the most spectacular view in town?” Peter Gregson sat on the terrace with Nancy, and they exchanged a glowing look. Her face was still heavily bandaged, but her eyes danced through the bandages and her hands were free now. They looked different, but they were lovely as she made a sweeping gesture around her. From where they sat, they could see the entire bay, with the Golden Gate Bridge at their left, Alcatraz to their right, Marin County directly across from them, and from the other side of the terrace, an equally spectacular city view toward the south and east. The wraparound terrace also gave her an equal share of sunrises and sunsets, and boundless pleasure as she sat there all day. The weather had been glorious since she'd gotten the apartment. Peter had found the place for her, as promised.
“You know, I'm getting horribly spoiled.”
“You deserve to be. Which reminds me, I brought you something.”
She clapped her hands like a little girl. He always brought her something. A silly thought, a pile of magazines, a stack of books, a funny hat, a beautiful scarf to drape over the bandages, wonderful clattery bracelets to celebrate her new hands. It was a constant flow of gifts, but today's was the largest of all. With a mysterious look of pleasure, he left his seat on the terrace and went inside. The box he brought back was fairly large and looked as though it might be quite heavy. When he dropped it on her lap, she found her guess had been correct.
“What is it, Peter? It feels like a rock.” She smiled through the bandages and he laughed.
“Yes, the largest emerald I could find in the dime store.”
“Perfect!” But the gift was even more perfect than she suspected. The contents of the mysterious box proved to be a very expensive and highly elaborate camera. “Peter! My God, what a gift! I can't—”
“You most certainly can. And I expect to see some serious work done with it.”
They both knew how disturbed she was that she didn't seem to want to paint anymore. And now she no longer had the excuse of bandaged hands. But she couldn't. Something in her stopped every time she even thought of it. The paintings the nurses had brought from her Boston apartment were still enclosed in the large black artist's portfolio shoved to the back of a storage closet. She didn't want to see them, let alone work on them. But a camera might be different. Peter saw the spark in her eyes and prayed that he had opened a new door. She needed new doors. None of the old ones were going to reveal what she wanted them to. It would be better for her to start fresh.
“There is a fabulously complicated instruction booklet, which ten years of medical school never prepared me for. Maybe you can figure it out.”
“Hell, yes.” She glanced into the thick booklet and sat lost in concentration for a few moments, holding the camera and forgetting her friend, and then waved the booklet absently. “It's fantastic, Peter. Look … this thing over here, if you flick that…”
She was gone, totally enthralled, and Peter sat back with a comfortable smile. It was half an hour later before she noticed him again. She looked up suddenly with delight in her eyes, and they told him how grateful she was. “It's the most beautiful gift I've ever had.” Except for Michael's blue beads at the fair … but she forced them quickly from her mind. Peter was used to the sudden clouds which flitted across her eyes as old thoughts came to haunt her. He knew they would leave her in time. “Did you bring film?”
“Of course.” He pulled another, smaller box out of the wrappings and plonked it in her lap. “Would I forget film?”
“No. You never forget anything.” She was quick to load the camera and begin shooting photographs of him, and then of the view, and then a quick series of a bird as it flew past the terrace. “They'll probably be awful, but it's a start.” He watched her silently for a long time, and then he put an aim around her shoulders and they went inside.
“You know, I have another gift for you today, Nancy.”
“A Mercedes. See, I always guess.”
“No. This one's serious.” He looked down at her with a gentle, cautious smile. “I'm going to share a friend with you. A very special lady.” For an insane moment, Nancy felt a ripple of jealousy course down her spine, but something in Peter's face told her that she didn't need to feel that way. He sensed her watching him closely, though, as he went on. “Her name is Faye Allison, and we went to medical school together. She is, without a doubt, one of the most competent psychiatrists in the West, maybe in the country, and she's a very good friend and a very special person. I think you're going to like her.”
“And?” Nancy waited, tense but curious.
“And … I think it might be a good idea for you to see her for a while. You know that. We've talked about it before.”
“You don't think I'm adjusting well?” She sounded hurt, and put the camera down to look at him more seriously.
“I think you're doing remarkably well, Nancy, but if nothing else, you need another person to talk to. You have Lily and Gretchen and me, and that's it. Don't you want someone else to talk to?”
Yes. Michael. He had been her best friend for so long. But for the moment, Peter was enough. “I'm not sure.”
“I think you will be once you meet Faye. She is incredibly warm and kind. And she's been very sympathetic to your case from the beginning.”
“She knows about me?”
“From the first” She had been there the night Marion Hillyard and Dr. Wickfield had called, but Nancy didn't need to know that. He and Faye had been lovers on and off for years, more as a matter of companionship and convenience than as a result of any great passion. They were friends most of all “She's coining to join us for coffee this afternoon. All right with you?”
But she knew she had little choice. “I suppose so.” She grew pensive as she settled herself in the living room. She wasn't at all sure she liked this addition to her scene, particularly a woman. She felt an instant sense of competition and distrust.
Until she met Faye Allison. Nothing Peter had said had prepared her for the warmth she felt from the other woman. She was tall, thin, blonde, and angular, but all the lines of her face were soft. Her eyes were warm and alert; there was an instant Joke, an instant answer, an instant burst of laughter always ready in those eyes. Yet one sensed, too, that she was always ready to be serious and compassionate. Peter left them alone after the first hour, and Nancy was actually glad.
They talked about a thousand things, and none of them the accident Boston, painting, San Francisco, children, people, medical school. Faye shared chunks of her life with Nancy, and Nancy gave her glimpses of herself that she hadn't given anyone for a long time, not since she had first gotten to know Michael. Views of the orphanage, real views, not the amusing ones she gave Peter. The loneliness of it, the questions about who she really was, why she had been left there, what it meant to be totally alone. And then for no reason she could think of, she told Faye about her arrangement with Marion Hillyard. There was no shock, no reproach, there was nothing but warmth and understanding in the way Faye Allison listened, and Nancy found herself sharing feelings which covered years, not just the past four months. But the relief of telling her about Marion Hillyard was enormous.
“I don't know, it sounds so strange to say it, but—” She hesitated, feeling foolish, and looking childlike as she glanced up at her new friend. “But I … I had never had any kind of family, growing up in the orphanage. The mother superior was the closest I had to a mother, and she was more like a maiden aunt. But despite what I knew about Marion, from Michael, from his friend Ben, just from what I sensed—despite all that, I always had these crazy dreams, fantasies, that she would like me, that we would be friends.” Her eyes filled with unexpected tears and she looked away.
“Did you think that maybe she'd become your mother?”
Nancy nodded silently and then blinked away the tears with a terse laugh, “Isn't that insane?”
“Not at all. It was a normal assumption. You were in love with Michael. You have no family of your own. It's normal that you should want to adopt his. Is that why your deal with her hurt so much?” But she already knew the answer, as did Nancy.
“Yes. It was proof of just how much she hated me.”
“I wouldn't go that far, Nancy. From the look of things, she's done an awful lot for you. She did send you out to Peter for a new face.” Not to mention the extremely comfortable lifestyle she had provided during the process.
“As long as I gave up Michael. She was rejecting me, for him—and for herself. I knew then that I had never had a chance with her. It was a horrible moment.” She sighed, and her voice became more gentle. “But I guess I've lost before and survived it.”
“Do you remember losing your parents?”
“Not in any real way. I was too little to remember anything when my father died, and not much older when my mother left me at the home. I remember the day they told me she had died. I cried, but I'm not really even sure why I cried. I don't think I remembered her. Maybe I just felt abandoned.”
“The way you do now!" It was a guess, but a good one.
“Maybe. That bottomless feeling of ”but who will take care of me now?' I think of that sometimes. Back then I knew the home would take care of me until I grew up. Now I know Peter will, and Marion's money will, until I'm all patched up. But then what?”
“What about Michael? Do you think he'll come back to you?”
“Sometimes I do. A lot of the time I do.” There was a long pause.
“And the rest of the time?”
“I'm beginning to wonder. At first I thought that maybe he was afraid of the way I'd look, the way that would make him feel about me. But by now lie knows about the surgery, and he must figure there's some improvement. So how come he's not here yet?” She turned to face Faye squarely. “That's what I wonder.”
“Do you come up with any answers to that question?”
“Nothing very pretty. Sometimes I think she's gotten to him, and convinced him that a girl from my 'unsavory background' will harm him professionally. Marion Hillyard has helped build an empire, and she's counting on Michael to carry on in the best family traditions. That doesn't include marrying a nameless nobody out of an orphange, an artist yet. She wants him to marry some debutante heiress who can do him some good.”
“Do you think that matters to him?”
“It didn't used to matter, but now … I don't know.”
“What if you lose him?”
Nancy flinched but she didn't answer. Her eyes said everything though.
“What if he didn't feel able to cope with all that you're going through? That's possible, Nancy. Some men aren't as brave as we like to think they are.”
I don't know. “Maybe he's waiting till it's all over.”
“Wouldn't you resent him then? For not being here when you need him?”
Nancy let out a long sigh in answer. “Maybe. I don't really know. I think about it all a lot, but I don't have many answers.”
“Only time has the answers. All you need to know is how you feel. That's all. How do you feel about you? The new you? Are you excited? Scared? Angry that you'll look different? Relieved?”
“All of the above.” They both laughed at her honesty. “To tell you the truth, it terrifies me. Can you imagine looking in the mirror after twenty-two years and seeing someone else there? Christ, talk about freaking out!" She laughed but there was real fear in the laughter.
“Are you freaked out?”
“Sometimes. A lot of the time I don't think about it.”
“What do you think about?”
“Honestly?”
“Sure.”
“Michael. Peter sometimes. But mostly Michael.”
“Are you falling in love with Peter?” There was no hesitation in the question. This was Dr. Allison speaking now, not Faye. She was thinking only of Nancy.
“No, I couldn't fall in love with Peter. He's a nice man, a good friend. He's sort of like the wonderful father I never had. He brings me presents all the time. But … I'm in love with Michael.”
“Well, we'll just have to see what happens.” Faye Allison looked at her watch and was amazed. The two of them had been talking for almost three hours. It was after seven o'clock. “Good Lord, do you know what time it is?” Nancy looked at her watch, too, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Wow! How did we do that?” And then she smiled. “Will you come back and see me again sometime, Faye? Peter was right. You're a very special lady.”
“Thank you. I'd love to. In fact… Peter was thinking that we might do it on a regular basis. What do you think?”
“I think it would be wonderful to have someone to talk to, like we did today.”
“I can't always promise you three hours.” They both laughed as Nancy walked her to the door. “How about three times a week for an hour, professionally? And we can get together separately, as friends. Sound okay to you?”
“Sounds wonderful.”
They shook hands on it at the door, and Nancy was amazed to find herself already impatient for their first official session, only two days away.
Chapter 11
Nancy settled herself comfortably in the easy chair near the fire and sighed as she leaned her head back. She was five minutes early today, and anxious to talk to Faye. She heard the click-clack of her high heels coming across the hall to the study she used for seeing patients, and Nancy smiled and sat up straight in her chair. She wanted to give Faye the full benefit.
“Good morning, early bird. Don't you look pretty in red today.” And then she stopped in the doorway and smiled. “Never mind the red. Let me see the new chin.” Faye advanced on her slowly, looking at the lower part of Nancy's face, and at last, with a victorious smile, she found Nancy's eyes.
“Well, how do you like it?” But she could see the answer in Faye's face. Admiration for Peter's work, and pleasure for the girl.
“Nancy, you look beautiful. Just beautiful.” Now one could see the lovely young neck, arching gracefully away from the slim shoulders, the delicate chin and gentle, sensuous mouth. What one could see was exquisite and perfectly suited the girl's personality.
Peter's endless sketches and sculptures had not been in vain. “My God, I want one like that too!”
Nancy chortled with glee, and sat back in the chair, hiding the rest of her face, which was still concealed by bandages, behind the dark brown felt hat she had bought a few weeks before at I. Magnin. It went well with the new brown wool coat and brown boots she was wearing with the red knit dress. Her figure had always been excellent, and with the striking new face she was going to be a very dazzling girl. She was even beginning to feel beautiful, now that she could see something of what was to come. Peter was keeping his promises.
“It's embarrassing, Faye. I feel so good I could squeak. And the weird thing is, it doesn't even look like me, but I love it.”
“I'm glad But what about it not looking like you? Does that bother you, Nancy?”
“Not as much as I thought it would. But maybe I still expect the rest to look like me. This is just one isolated part, and I never much liked my mouth before anyway. Maybe it'll seem stranger when the rest looks like someone else too. I don't know.”
“You know something, Nancy? Maybe you ought to just sit back and enjoy it. Maybe you ought to play with this a little. Go with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you're working on being Nancy, and we've been trying to adjust to giving up pieces of that Nancy as we go along. Maybe you ought to just stand back and look at the whole canvas. For instance, did you like your walk before?”
Nancy looked puzzled as she thought about it. This was a whole new idea, and something they had never discussed in the four months she'd been seeing Faye. “I don't know, Faye. I never thought about my walk.”
“Well, let's think about it. What about your voice? Have you ever considered a voice coach? You have a marvelous voice, smooth and soft Maybe with a little coaching you could make more of it. Why don't we play with what you've got and really make the most of it? Peter is. Why don't you?”
Nancy's face lit up at the idea, and she began to catch some of Faye's excitement. “I could develop all kinds of new sides to myself, couldn't I? Play the piano … a new walk …. I could even change my name.”
“Well, let's not leap into any of this. You don't want to feel you've lost yourself. You want to feel you've added to yourself. But let's think about all this. I have a feeling it's going to take us in some very interesting directions.”
“I want a new voice.” Nancy sat back and giggled. “Like this.” She lowered her voice by several octaves, and Faye laughed.
“If you do enough of that, Peter may have to give you a beard.”
“Terrific.” They were suddenly in a holiday mood, and Nancy got up and began to prance around the room. At times like that, Faye remembered how young she really was. Twenty-three now. Her birthday had come and gone, and she was growing up in ways many people never had to. But beneath the surface, she was still a very young girl.
“You know, I do want you to be aware of one thing though, Nancy.” She sounded more serious now.
“And what's that?”
“I think you should understand why you're so willing to try out a new you. It's not unusual for orphans, as you were, to feel unsure of their identities. You're not certain what your parents were like, and as a result, you feel as though a piece of you is missing, a link to reality. So it's a lot easier for you to give up parts of the person you once were than it would be for someone who retained very dear images of her parents—and all the responsibilities that entails. In some ways it may make things simpler for you.”
Nancy was silent, and Faye smiled at her as she sank back into the cozy chair near the fire. It was a wonderful room to see patients in: it set everyone instantly at ease. She had put her grandmother's Persian carpets to good use in the room, which also boasted splendid paneling and old brass sconces. The fireplace was also trimmed in brass, the curtains were old and lacy, there were walls of books, tiny paintings tucked away in unexpected corners, and everywhere was a profusion of leafy ferns. It looked like the home of an interesting woman, and that was exactly the effect Faye wanted. “Okay, it's take you some time to think about that. For the moment, there's another serious subject we have to get into. What about the holidays?”
“What about them?” Nancy's eyes closed like two doors, and the laughter of moments before was now completely gone. Faye had known it would be this way, which was why the subject had to be broached.
“How do you feel about the holidays? Are you scared?”
“No.” Nancy's face was immobile, as Faye watched.
“Sad?”
“No.”
“Okay, no more guessing games, Nancy. Suppose you tell me. What do you feel?”
“You want to know what I feel?” Nancy suddenly looked straight back at her, dead in the eye. “You want to know?” She stood up and strode across the room and then back again. “I feel pissed.”
“Pissed?”
“Very pissed. Superpissed. Royally pissed.”
“At whom?”
Nancy sank into the chair again and looked into the fire. This time when she spoke her voice was soft and sad. “At Michael. I thought he'd have found me by now. It's been over seven months. I thought he'd have been here.” She closed her eyes to keep back the tears.
“Who else are you mad at? Yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For making the deal with Marion Hillyard in the first place. I hate her guts, but I hate mine worse. I sold out.”
“Did you?”
“I think so. And all for a new chin.” She spoke with contempt where moments before there had been pride. But they were delving deeper now.
“I don't agree with you, Nancy. You didn't do it for a new chin. You did it for a new life. Is that so wrong at your age? What would you think of someone else who did the same thing?”
“I don't know. Maybe I'd think they were stupid. Maybe I'd understand.”
“You know, a few minutes ago we were talking about a new life. New voice, new walk, new face, new name. Everything is new, except one thing.” Nancy waited, not wanting to hear her say it. “Michael. What about thinking of a new life without him? Do you ever think about that?”
“No.” But her eyes filled with tears, and they both knew she was lying.
“Never?”
“I never think of other men. But sometimes I think about not having Michael.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Like I wish I were dead.” But she didn't really mean that, and they both knew it.
“But you don't have Michael now. And it's not so bad, is it?” Nancy only shrugged in answer, and then Faye spoke again, her voice infinitely soft “Maybe you need to do some real thinking about all that, Nancy.”
“You don't think he's coming back to me, do you?” She was angry again. This time at Faye, because there was no one else to be angry at.
“I don't know, Nancy. No one knows the answer to that except Michael.”
“Yeah. The son of a bitch.” She got up and paced the room again, and then like a windup toy winding down, the fury of her pacing slowed, until she finally stood in front of the fire, with tears rolling down her face and her hands clenched on the screen in front of the fire. “Oh Faye, I'm so scared.”
“Of what?” The voice was soft behind her.
“Of being alone. Of not being me anymore. Of … I wonder if I've done a terrible thing that I'll be punished for. I gave up love for my face.”
“But you thought you'd already lost everything. You can't blame yourself for the choice you made, and in the end you may be glad.”
“Yeah … maybe …” There were fresh sobs from the fireplace, and Faye watched the slim shoulders shake. “You know, I'm scared of the holidays too. It's worse than being back at the orphanage. This time there's no one. Lily and Gretchen left last month, and you're going skiing. Peter's going to Europe for a week, and …” She couldn't stop the tears. But these were the realities of her life now. She had to face them. Faye shouldn't be made to feel guilty for leaving, nor should Peter: they had their own lives, as well as their time with her.
“Maybe it's time you got out and made some friends.”
“Like this?” She turned to face Faye again and pulled off the soft brown hat, revealing a great deal of bandaging. “How can I go out and meet anyone like this? I'd scare them to death. Look guys, it's Dracula!”
“It isn't frightening looking, Nancy, and in time it'll be gone. It's not permanent. They're only bandages. People would understand.”
“Maybe so.” But she wasn't ready to believe that. Anyway, I don't need friends. I keep busy with my camera.” Peter's gift had been a godsend.
“I know. I saw your last batch of prints at Peter's the other day. He's so proud of them he shows them to everyone. It's beautiful work, Nancy.”
“Thank you.” Some of the anger drained out of her with the talk of her work. “Oh Faye…” She sat back in the chair again and stretched her legs. “What am I going to do with my life?”
That's what we're working on figuring out, isn't it? And in the meantime, why don't you think about some of what we talked about today? The voice coach, music lessons—something to amuse you, and all part of the person you'll become.”
“Yeah, I guess I will give it some thought. When are you coming back from skiing, by the way?”
“In two weeks. But I'll leave a number where you can reach me in an emergency.” Faye was more worried about Nancy's getting through the holidays than she was willing to admit. Holidays were prime time for depression, even suicide, but Nancy seemed solid for the moment. She just didn't want her to become hysterical in her loneliness. It was rotten luck that she and Peter were going away at the same time, but on the other hand Nancy had to learn not to depend on them too much. “Why don't we make an appointment for two weeks from today. And I want to see a mountain of beautiful prints you made over the holidays.”
“That reminds me.” Nancy Jumped up again and vanished into the hallway, where she had left a flat package wrapped in brown paper. When she returned with it, she smilingly held it out to Faye. “Merry Christmas.”
Faye opened it with a look of pleasure and then of awe. The gift was a photograph of herself that looked as though she had sat for it for hours, to allow the photographer to capture just the right look, the right mood It had a dreamy, impressionistic quality; she had been standing on Nancy's terrace with the wind in her hair, wearing a pale pink silk shirt; and the sun had been setting in red and pink tones behind her. She remembered the day, but couldn't remember Nancy taking the picture. “When did you take it?” She looked stunned.
“When you weren't looking.” Nancy looked pleased with herself, and she had every right to be. The photograph was magnificent She had printed it herself and enlarged it, and then had it handsomely framed. It was as expressive as a painting.
“You're incredible, Nancy. What a beautiful, beautiful gift.”
“I had a good subject.”
The two women exchanged a hug, and Nancy regretfully shrugged back into her coat “Have a wonderful ski trip.”
“I will. I'll bring you some snow.”
“Smartass.” Nancy hugged her again and they wished each other a Merry Christmas as she left There was a tug at Faye's heart after she was gone. Nancy was a beautiful girl. Inside. Where it mattered.