“That's the point. 'For now.' What happens if it doesn't? I can't even afford to contribute to the rent.” He was touched by the thought, and looked pleased with himself when he answered.
“You don't have to. I own it.” She smiled, and kissed him.
“I love you. I don't want to take advantage of you. I don't want anything from you. Just you.”
“I know that. And I want you to move in. I miss you when you're not here.” He put on a basset hound face. “I get headaches when you're not here.” Besides, he liked keeping track of her and knowing where she was.
“Stop giving me Jewish guilt.” She stood looking at him then and slowly nodded. “Okay …I will. But I'm keeping my apartment for a while, just in case. If it doesn't work, or we get on each other's nerves, I'll go back.” It wasn't a threat, it was a sensible move on her part, and he respected her for it. He always did.
She stayed with him that night, and as he cuddled up next to her, just as they were about to fall asleep, she tapped him on the shoulder, and he opened one eye. She had a way of wanting to discuss earth-shattering events with him, or life-altering decisions, just as he was drifting off to sleep. Other women had done that to him before, he figured it was something in the chromosomes, determined at birth. Women liked to talk when men wanted to sleep.
“Yeah? What?” He could barely stay awake.
“So what does this make it now?” She sounded wide awake to him.
“Huh?
“Well, if we're living together and had a holiday, I guess this really really makes it a relationship, right? Or if you're living together, do you call it something else?”
“You call it sleep, and I want some … you get some too…I love you… we'll talk about it tomorrow… it's called living together… that's something good …” He was almost asleep.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, smiling to herself, too excited to go to sleep. She just lay there looking at him, as Adam rolled over, dead to the world, and snored.
19
CHARLIE PICKED CAROLE UP PROMPTLY AT NOON ON Friday and took her to lunch at La Goulue. It was a fashionable restaurant on Madison Avenue, with a good menu and a lively crowd. He felt less compelled to take her to simple down-to-earth restaurants, now that he knew who she was, and it was fun for both of them to go someplace nice. They had a delicious lunch, and then wandered up Madison Avenue, looking into the shops.
For the first time, she opened up with him about her early life. Gray had been right. Blue blood and fancy houses didn't necessarily make for a happy childhood. She talked about how cold and distant her parents had been, how chilly with each other, and emotionally and physically unavailable to her. She had been brought up by a nanny, never saw her parents, and she said her mother was a human block of ice. She had had no siblings to comfort her, she was an only child. She said she had gone weeks sometimes without seeing her parents, and they were deeply upset about the path she had chosen for her life. She had come to hate everything her world represented, the hypocrisy, the obsession with material possessions, the indifference to people's feelings, and lack of respect for anyone who hadn't been born into that life. It was obvious, listening to her, that she had been a lonely child. She had eventually gone from their icy indifference to her to the lavish abuses of the man she had married, who, as Gray had suspected, had married her because of who she was. When he left her finally, she had wanted to divorce herself not only from him, but from everything that had drawn him to her in the first place, and a set of values she had hated all her life.
“You can't do that, Carole,” Charlie said gently. There had been times when he wanted to do that himself, although not to the degree she had, but she had paid a higher price. “You have to accept who you are. You're doing wonderful things for the children you work with. You don't have to strip yourself of everything you are to do that. You can actually enjoy both worlds.”
“I never enjoyed my childhood,” she said honestly. “I hated everything about it from the time I was a little girl. People either wanted to play with me
