“Don’t you say anything!” Sam grabbed her arm.
“I wouldn’t. Sam, let me go. That hurts!” Her eyes filled with tears and she pulled loose from him. “I didn’t say anything to Mom, you jerk!”
“Shhhh,” Sam whispered, putting his hand over her mouth.
Both of them listened hard.
“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered, slipping down into bed and tucking her teddy bear and doll into their corners by the pillow.
Sam listened for a few more minutes, turning his head so he could catch any noise from the hallway, and then he relaxed and lay down beside her with a sigh. “I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”
“With me, please,” she begged, edging closer to him, but he didn’t say anything, just lay beside her with his eyes closed. “We could just sleep together in my bed,” she said. “We don’t have to do anything. Please?”
He didn’t answer. He just pulled the blanket down, slipped his long legs underneath it, and then pulled it up over them both. Pleased, she turned on her side and snuggled down close to him, then took his arm and wrapped it around her body.
He touched her then, and she opened her eyes and stared across the room at the moonlight coming through the window. She did not move. She let him find his own way. He had begun to breathe harder, deeper, and then she began to match his ragged breath. He had put his hand beneath her long woolen nightgown and slipped it up to touch her breasts. His hand was cold for a moment on her flesh.
He was struggling now to get closer to her, to slip his other arm between her legs, and he was breathing hard, as if he had run a long way to reach her. She told him to wait, jumped out of bed, and quickly reached down to pull the nightgown over her head.
She felt a sudden draft of cold air between her legs, then the lights flipped on. With her nightgown caught in her arms, high above her head, and her brother lying there beneath the blankets, she turned to see her mother standing in the doorway.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN JENNIFER AWOKE, TOM was gone and the room was dark. She had been conscious for only a few minutes when the phone rang. Clearing her throat, she said “hello” out loud a few times before answering so that her voice wouldn’t betray that she had been asleep so early in the evening.
“Jennifer? It’s me. Eileen. Did I wake you?”
“Of course not. I was reviewing some reports. They always make me sound sleepy.” Jennifer sat up. “Thanks for telephoning. I needed a break.” She tried to sound alert and businesslike.
“Well, I don’t want to bother you. I know you’re here on business…”
Jennifer smiled. She was suddenly glad that Eileen had called.
“I thought if you weren’t busy… I mean, if you didn’t have a meeting, we might have dinner together.”
“I’d like that, but don’t you have a meeting yourself with Kathy Dart and her friends?”
“Not till nine-thirty. Jennifer, if you’re busy, or whatever, I mean, I understand.”
“Eileen, I’d like to. What time is it, anyway?” She reached for her watch.
“Seven-twenty.”
“That’s all? My body feels like it must be eleven. I went jogging this afternoon.”
“Jennifer, you jog? That’s a new you!”
“Yes, well, I guess there’s a lot new about both of us.” Fully awake, she realized she was hungry. “Eileen, I’ve got to change clothes. Can you give me twenty minutes?”
“Of course. Why don’t we meet downstairs at eight?”
“Sure.”
“See you in the lounge, then,” Eileen said, and quickly added, “Oh, if you have the time, maybe you’d like to come to this evening’s session with Kathy Dart and Habasha. I have an extra ticket.”
Jennifer laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks. One session with your guru. But I do have some questions about her. See you at eight. ‘Bye.”
Eileen Gorman, of all people, she thought, hanging up the telephone receiver. Slowly she got out of bed and walked naked to the shower, still bruised from the long run and from Tom’s fierce lovemaking.
“I first heard Kathy eight months ago,” Eileen said. They were both looking over the restaurant menu as they talked about the meeting earlier that day. Jennifer asked how Eileen had first heard about the channeler.
“As soon as I saw Kathy trance-channeling Habasha, I knew that was what I was looking for in my life.”
“What do you mean, looking for?”
Eileen set down the large menu and sighed. She sat directly across from Jennifer, but she looked off across the room and into space. “I was lost. I mean, I had my marriage, but Todd has his work, you know, and what did I have? Bridge? A tennis game? Shopping? I mean, I was living out there on Long Island. I had—I have—everything that I could possibly want. I’m lucky, I admit, and I had no reason to feel at a loss for anything, but I did. I did feel lost. Lonely. I’d go to the malls and just wander around, do endless, useless shopping, and it didn’t bring me any satisfaction. I don’t wear most of the stuff I have jammed into our closets. I started to have affairs, you know, just to do something, to bring some sort of meaning into my life, or whatever.”
“Eileen, I thought—”
“Listen, Jennifer, I’m not the only one. Half the women on Long Island are like me. I mean, you’re lucky. You have this wonderful career. You have a life of your own, interesting friends.”
“Eileen, so could you! You’re attractive, you’re intelligent. You were our valedictorian!”
Eileen was shaking her head, cutting off Jennifer’s reply.
“You know I got married right after school. The truth was, we had to get married. There was this guy, Tim Murphy— I met him at Jones Beach. We were both lifeguards. Well, I got pregnant.” She shrugged her shoulders, looked over at Jennifer, and grimaced, as if to say that was it, her life was over, a fait accompli. But her eyes were glistening. Then she leaned forward and smiled. “But it doesn’t matter. I was meant to have that sort of life. It was my karma.”
Jennifer frowned. “Eileen, we make our own lives. We’re in control. Why do you think women fought so hard for equal status? What do you think the ERA is all about?”
“This is not a woman’s thing, Jennifer. It’s beyond the here and now, beyond all these daily problems.”
“Eileen, the feminist movement wasn’t—isn’t—a little daily problem.”
“Jennifer, you’re not listening to me. You’re not hearing what I’m trying to say.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
Eileen cut her off. “Kathy Dart is the most remarkable woman I have ever met. Maybe the most remarkable woman alive today.”
“Eileen, please.” Jennifer looked down at her menu.
“I mean it! You don’t know. You haven’t been exposed.” Her voice had picked up, and there was anger in her tone.
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer soothed. “You’re right. I asked about Kathy Dart, and I haven’t given you a chance to explain. Here’s the waitress. Let’s order and then I’ll be quiet. Promise.” She smiled at Eileen and for a moment tried to concentrate on her oversized menu but found she was too anxious. When the waitress arrived, she asked for the special of the evening.
“I saw her on television, the first time,” Eileen began. “It was the ‘This Morning’ show, and they had three or four people, mediums, psychics. I had never thought about any of that stuff in my life. But I had the TV on, and I was sitting at the counter in the kitchen watching
killing time, you know, and trying to decide what to cook for dinner. It was September seventh, I remember, and it was rainy and cold, and I couldn’t play tennis, but I was thinking maybe I should go to the club anyway. Then Kathy came on and I sort of started to listen, and it was as if she were talking just to me. She was telling me her life story, and what had happened to her as a child, and I found myself crying as I listened. I mean, she was talking about me, the mess I’d made of life, my feelings of being out of it, left behind, in the wrong crowd.”