Susan Phillips - Breathing Room

“How the hell should I know what you think? I don’t understand anything about you. But I do know this: When you put a saint and a sinner together, you’re asking for trouble.”

“A saint?” She couldn’t take it anymore. “Is that really what you think I am? A saint?”

“Compared to me, you sure as hell are. You’re a woman who needs to have all her ducks in a row. You don’t even like having your hair messed up. Look at me. I’m chaos! Everything about my life is insane. And I like it that way.”

“You’re not that bad.”

“Well, I’m no walk in the park, sister.”

She hugged herself. “We care about each other, Ren. You can try all you want to deny it, but we really care.” Her feelings weren’t shameful, and she wouldn’t treat them as if they were. Still, she had to take a deep breath before she could go on. “I more than care. I’ve fallen in love with you. And I’m definitely not happy about it.”

He didn’t bat so much as an eyelash. “Come on, Isabel, you’re smart enough to know what’s going on. It’s not really love. You’re a woman who has ‘savior’ plastered all over you. You see me as a big rescue project.”

“Is that so? Well, what exactly am I supposed to rescue? You’re talented and competent. You’re one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever known. Despite that little soap opera you wanted me to believe, you’re not a womanizer, you don’t do drugs, and I’ve never seen you drunk. You’re great with children in your own bizarre way. You have steady employment and the respect of your peers. Even your ex-wife likes you. Other than a weakness for nicotine and a foul mouth, I don’t get what’s so terrible about you.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re so blind to people’s faults it’s a wonder you’re still allowed outside without a leash.”

“The fact is, you’re afraid of what’s happening between us, but instead of trying to work through it, you decided to behave like an idiot. And as soon as you get inside, you’d better scrub your mouth and brush your teeth to get rid of that woman’s germs. You also need to apologize to her. She’s a very unhappy woman, and it wasn’t right to use her the way you were.”

He shut his eyes and spoke in a whisper: “God, Isabel…”

The moon slithered from under a cloud, casting angular shadows over his face. He looked tortured and somehow defeated. “The scene in there. It isn’t all that much of an exaggeration.”

She resisted the urge to touch him. She couldn’t solve this for him. He had to work it through, either his own way or not at all. “I’m sorry. I know how sick you are of living like that.”

He made a soft, almost inaudible sound and pulled her hard against him, but she barely felt the heat of his body before he released her.

“I have to go to Rome tomorrow,” he said.

“Rome?”

“Howard Jenks is there now finalizing locations.” He patted his hip, searching for a missing cigarette pack. “Oliver Craig is flying in-the Brit who’s playing Nathan-and Jenks wants us to read together. We’ve got costume fittings, some makeup tests. I promised to do a couple of interviews. I’ll be back in time for the feast.”

The feast was a week away. “I’m sure Anna will appreciate that.”

“In there”-he tilted his head toward the house-“you didn’t deserve that. I just… You needed to understand, that’s all. I’m sorry.”

And so was she. More than he could imagine.

Tracy’s eyes filled with hormone-driven tears. “Have I said thank you for giving Harry back to me?” “Several times.”

“If it hadn’t been for you…”

“The two of you would have worked it out. All I did was speed up the process.”

She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. Until you came along, we weren’t having a lot of luck. Connor, keep the ball away from the flowers.”

Connor looked up from the soccer ball he was rolling around in the tiny garden behind the Briggs house in Casalleone and grinned at them. One side of the yard sloped toward a row of houses on the street beneath, the other toward a section of the old Roman wall that used to surround the town.

“Ren left for Rome today,” Isabel said, the hollow place inside her aching. “He wants to get rid of me.”

Tracy set aside the ratty pink child’s denim jacket she’d been mending. “Tell me what’s happening.”

Isabel filled her in on last night’s party. When she was finished, she said, “I haven’t seen him since. Anna told me that he and Larry drove off around noon.”

“What about the L.A. parasites?”

“They left for Venice. Pamela’s nice.”

“If you say so.” Tracy rubbed her abdomen. “He has a pattern of taking the easy way out, which is why he married me. The only place he tolerates emotional messiness is on the screen.”

“It doesn’t get much more emotionally messy than being involved with me.” Isabel attempted a smile, but it wouldn’t quite take shape.

“Not true.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice. He thinks I’m judging him, which I am, but only about his work. I tried not to show it, because I know it’s not fair, especially since I have so many of my own flaws to deal with. The only reason I challenge him is that I care so much about him. Most of the time he comes out so high on my private rating scale that it shocks me.”

“Are you sure lust hasn’t clouded your judgment?”

“You’ve known him for so long that you don’t see the amazing man he’s grown into.”

“Shit.” Tracy sagged back in her chair. “You really are in love with him.”

“I didn’t think it was a secret.” Certainly not from Ren after she’d thrown her heart at him last night.

“I knew you were attracted to him. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be? And every look he throws at you is X-rated. But you’re so wise about people. I thought you understood that any relationship with Ren has to stay at an animal level. The only thing he’s ever really serious about is his work.”

Isabel felt a pathetic need to defend him. “He’s serious about a lot of things.”

“Name one.”

“Food.”

“There you go,” Tracy drawled.

“I mean everything about food. He likes cooking it, creating with it, serving it. Food means community to him, and you know better than anyone how little of that he grew up with. He loves Italy. He adores your children, whether he’ll admit it or not. He’s interested in history, and he knows art and music. And he’s serious about me.” She took a deep breath, and her voice lost its assurance. “Just not as serious as I am about him. He’s got this maddening thing about how wicked he is and how saintly I am.”

“Ren lives in an alternate universe, and maybe it has made him wicked. Women throw themselves at him. Studio executives practically beg him to take their money. People can’t say yes fast enough. It gives him a distorted view of his place in the world.”

Isabel started to say that she found Ren’s view of his place in the world fairly clearheaded, if a little cynical, but Tracy wasn’t finished.

“He doesn’t like hurting women, but somehow he always ends up doing exactly that. Please, Isabel… don’t let yourself get sucked in.”

Good advice, but it had come too late.

Isabel tried to stay busy, only to find herself staring off into space or washing the same dish over and over. When she realized she was hanging around the farmhouse in case the phone rang, she was so angry with herself that she grabbed her datebook and began planning every minute. She visited Tracy, played with the children, and spent hours at the villa helping get ready for the festa. Her affection for Anna grew as the older woman told her stories about the history of the villa and the people of Casalleone.

Three days passed, and she didn’t hear a word from Ren. She felt rudderless, heartsick, and increasingly despondent about the course her life was taking. Not only had she failed to find a new direction, but she’d made the old one even more difficult.

Vittorio and Giulia took her to Siena, but despite the beauty of the old city, the trip wasn’t a success. Whenever they passed a child, Giulia’s sadness became almost palpable. Although she put up a good front, their failure to find the statue had devastated her. Vittorio did his best to cheer them up, but the tension had begun to take its toll on him, too.

The next day Isabel volunteered to baby-sit Connor at the farmhouse while Tracy kept her doctor’s appointment and Marta went up to the villa to help Anna with the cooking. As they walked through the olive grove, she concentrated on his happy chatter instead of the sharp wedge of pain that had poked a hole through her heart. Afterward they played with the cats, and when it began to grow chilly, she took him inside and let him draw at the kitchen table with some crayons she’d bought for him.

“I drawed a dog!” Connor held up his picture for her to admire.

“A perfect dog.”

“More paper!”

She smiled and pulled one of her empty notebooks from the stack of papers she’d left on the table. Connor, she’d quickly discovered, didn’t believe in conserving natural resources. How dear he was. She’d never thought much about having children, relegating them to the unspecified future. How casually she’d treated so much of what was important in life. She blinked away the sting of tears.

Tracy appeared just as Connor began to grow restless. She picked him up and blew into his neck, then settled at the table with him on her lap while Isabel fixed them a cup of tea. “Dr. Andrea is definitely a hunk. I still can’t decide whether it’s creepy or not to get a pelvic from a great-looking doctor. He asked about you.”

“He’s a serial flirt.”

“True. Has Ren called?”

She stared at the cold fireplace and shook her head.

“I’m sorry.”

A coil of anger singed the edges of her pain. “I’m too much for him. Too much of everything. Well, that’s just tough. I wish he weren’t coming back at all.”

Tracy’s forehead knit with concern. “I don’t think you’re too much. He’s being an ass.”

“Horse!” Connor shouted from the doorway, holding up another drawing.

While Tracy turned to admire it, Isabel tried to make herself breathe, but the coil of anger had lit a flame inside her that was using up all the oxygen.

Tracy gathered up Connor’s things, then gave her a hug as she got ready to leave. “It’s his loss. He couldn’t find a better woman than you, present company included. Don’t you dare let him see you cry.”

Fat chance of that, Isabel thought.

After they left, she grabbed her jacket and went outside to try to calm herself down, only to realize that anger felt better than pain. She’d been dumped twice in four months, and she was sick of it. Granted, getting rid of Michael had turned out to be a blessing, but Ren was a coward of a different sort. God had dangled a precious gift in front of the two of them, but only one of them had the guts to grab for it. So what if she was too much of everything? So was he. And when she saw him, she intended to tell him exactly that.

She stopped herself. She wasn’t going to tell him a thing. She’d challenged him once, but she wouldn’t do it again. And not because of her pride. If he couldn’t come to her on his own, she didn’t want him at all.

The wind shifted to the north. She was chilled and miserable by the time she got back to the house, so she lit a fire. After it caught, she went into the kitchen to make tea she didn’t want. While she waited for the water to boil, she busied herself cleaning up the papers Connor had left scattered on the table. He didn’t like drawing more than one figure on a page, she noticed. When he’d run out of the paper she’d given him, he’d commandeered the backs of the fan mail she still hadn’t attended to.

She made her tea, then carried the cup, along with the letters, back into the living room. She’d always been diligent about answering her correspondence, but she wanted to throw this batch in the fire. What was the point?

She remembered Ren’s disgust when she’d pointed out how few there were. “Saving souls is based on quantity rather than quality, is that it?” She’d seen the tiny pile as another symbol of how far she’d fallen, but he’d seen something else.

She leaned back on the couch and shut her eyes. The letters felt warm in her fingers, as if they were alive. She picked up the first one and began to read. When she was done, she moved on to the second, then the third, until she’d read them all. Her tea cooled. The fire crackled. She curled deeper into the couch, and slowly, she began to pray. One by one, she held each letter in her hand and prayed for the person who’d written it.

Then she began to pray for herself.

Darkness slipped over the cottage. The fire burned lower. She prayed the prayer of the lost.