Heath was listening sullenly, his eyes on the floor. Joe looked up and saw Ann standing there.
“I’ll leave you two alone. Joanie and I will see ourselves out.”
Joe walked past Ann, patting her arm on the way. Ann went to the wall intercom, flipped the switch, and said into it, “Daniela, you and Victor can go to bed now. We’ll deal with whatever mess the caterers leave behind in the morning.”
“Don’t you want me to just run the vacuum, Mrs. Bodine?” Daniela asked.
“Never mind, there will be time enough tomorrow.”
“Mrs. Bodine,” Daniela said. “Your friend Amy left about half an hour ago. She asked me to tell you she was staying at the inn and would call you in the morning.”
“Thank you, Daniela. You did a wonderful job and Mr. Bodine and I are very grateful for your help. Good night.”
“Good night,” Daniela said, and Ann flicked the switch to the Off position.
Heath was still standing in the same spot, careful not to look at her.
“The party was a great success,” Ann said. “You should give Daniela and Victor a bonus.”
“And what should I give you? You planned it.”
“I assumed that it was part of my job.”
“And was flirting with Ben Rowell part of your job?”
Ann sighed and turned away. “Heath, you are deranged. I wound up with him in the bedroom at the same time by accident. He was looking for his coat.”
“He was looking for more than that.”
“Heath, I am not going to spar with you, especially on this ludicrous subject. It’s been a long evening and I am very tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Not so fast,” he snapped, covering the distance between them in two long strides. He grabbed her arm and she was unable to take another step.
“Heath, you’re hurting me,” she said, twisting uselessly in his grasp.
“Do you think I’m blind? I saw you dancing with Ben earlier tonight. I saw the way he was holding you, talking to you. You seemed to be enjoying yourself very much.”
“He was telling me funny stories about the grand opening of the Big Palm marina, about everything that went wrong that day. I was just trying to be a good hostess, Heath. If you had half a brain in your head you’d realize that the man wouldn’t endanger his job by courting the boss’s wife in front of the rest of the company. What the devil is wrong with you?”
“And who asked if you were hungry? Who ran to get you a plate?” Heath demanded, ignoring the logic of her last statement.
“Ben was just being polite. If it were up to you I would have starved! Has it occurred to you that just maybe he felt sorry for me? My husband ignored me all evening to conduct momentous business conversations that should have taken place in the office. At least, I thought you were ignoring me. Obviously you were keeping track of me by radar, watching my tiniest move while pretending to be absorbed in weighty discussion.” She finally yanked her arm free and stood rubbing her wrist, glaring at him.
“I was admiring your act,” he said.
“What act?”
“Your dutiful wife and hostess act. I must say that it was very entertaining.”
“I wasn’t acting, Heath. I intend to fulfill my part of our bargain completely.”
“No matter how much it hurts, huh?”
Ann didn’t answer.
“You think I don’t know what’s been going through your head?” Heath said. “You’ve been feeling sorry for yourself. Poor Annie, ignored by an indifferent husband, all your charms wasted on a brute who couldn’t possibly appreciate them. Then tonight you saw a chance for real admiration from that boy and you couldn’t resist it.”
“I’m not that shallow, Heath,” Ann said quietly.
“Of course not. You’re the Ice Princess—-ideal wife, arm adornment and party planner. I knew this evening would be perfect, you learned to entertain at your momma’s knee. Too bad she didn’t teach you about fidelity.”
“I’m not going to listen to any more of this,” Ann said, starting for the bedroom again.
He blocked her path. “You enjoy teasing me, don’t you? Making me imagine what you might be up to with a guy like that? It’s the only way you have of getting back at me—isn’t it?—letting me picture somebody else kissing you, touching you, holding you?” His eyes were wild, his face flushed, his fists clenched.
His attack was so baseless and unfair, and Ann was so exhausted, that she had finally had enough. Her patience ran out and she said icily, “You know, you really shouldn’t drink, Heath, not with your family history. A couple of more belts and you could permanently turn into your father.”
His hand came up like lightning and Ann faced him down regally, her gaze direct and unflinching.
“Go ahead and hit me, Heath. You’ve been wanting to hit me for eleven years. Maybe if you finally get it out of your system you’ll feel better.”
His hand faltered, then fell. He looked at her a long moment, then dashed headlong from the room. Ann heard the door to the garage slam and then the sound of his car starting. She listened as it roared into the street and then faded into the distance.
In the kitchen, Daniela had left the radio on the counter playing softly. In the new silence, the strains of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” drifted into the living room.
Ann sat wearily on the sofa, too numb to cry.
* * * *
Heath drove in circles for half an hour before deciding on his destination—an all-night bar by the railroad tracks at the edge of Hispaniola. The plastic Christmas decorations on the door and the colored lights strung along the bar did nothing to lift his spirits as he slid onto a stool and ordered a drink he didn’t really want. When it came, he pushed it back and forth without touching it, watching the trail of moisture it left on the scarred wood of the bar.
Why had he behaved that way tonight? He couldn’t seem to stop punishing Ann, no matter how stoic she was about enduring his moods. He was proud of her, but couldn’t admit it; he admired her, but couldn’t say it. In fact, the more impeccably she filled her role as his wife the more enraged he felt. His need to make her pay was bottomless. She had done exactly what she’d promised to do before their marriage, and his inability to find fault with her made him want to kick in the walls. Why? Because she had to be a fraud, she had to be fickle and flighty and faithless, or else he had wasted more than a decade of his life hating a person who didn’t remotely deserve it.
Somebody put “Jingle Bells” on the jukebox and Heath tried to block out the sound; holiday music only depressed him further. He had felt like an actor, playing his role at the party tonight, all the while conscious that he didn’t deserve Ann or the dedication she had shown in making the event a success. He knew he was rude and unfeeling and charmless toward her. He also knew that he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms all night long and tell her everything he was feeling, everything he had kept bottled up inside for years like champagne canted under pressure. But that would be folly, wouldn’t it? If she knew that his pretense of emotional indifference was becoming impossible to sustain, that he almost didn’t care anymore what she had done in the past or why, then she would win.
But was winning this contest—his unbending attitude versus her ability to endure it—really that important to him anymore? If he were honest with himself, he would have to admit that keeping her with him was fast becoming the major—possibly the only—consideration. Every time he thought of the way she turned to him so trustingly in bed, gave of herself so completely in spite of his churlish behavior, his will to continue the vendetta ebbed a little more.
Heath hadn’t noticed that the stool next to his was now occupied until his neighbor said to him, “Coming from a big date?”
Heath looked down at the tuxedo he’d forgotten he was wearing. “I guess you could say that.”
“How’d it go?”
Heath ran his finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. “Not well,” he replied.
“That’s a shame. Seems to me like everyone tries too hard at this time of the year, like we’re all forcing ourselves to be happy even if we’re not.”