Valediction

CHAPTER 35

Sherry Spellman and I took the elevator down from Vince Haller's office and went out onto Staniford Street in the heat of August.

"Haller will help you in any way you need," I said.

She nodded.

"You understand the trust?"

She nodded.

"And that he's trust officer?"

"Yes."

"He'll help you with organization, with your tax situation. He'll help arrange credit until the trust starts to generate income."

"I understand," she said.

"And you can call me anytime." We turned left at Cambridge Street.

"I know," she said. She put her hand on my arm and stopped me. "I want to say thank you. But I want to say more than that and I don't know how."

I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "My pleasure," I said. "The next step is Tommy."

She stepped away and widened her eyes at me.

"I got into this thing because Tommy Banks asked me to find you. He's the only client I've had since we began. I think you two should talk."

"I don't know what to say to him."

"Maybe we can plan that out a little. But you owe him the chance to talk."

"Yes," she said.

"Do you love him?" I said.

"Yes."

"Do you want to live with him again?"

"I don't know. I won't go back to dancing and all of that."

"What's `all of that'?" I said.

"All of that discipline, that control, it . . . it submerges me. I am not just a dancer and Tommy a choreographer. I'm a puppet."

"So how could you be with him?"

"Maybe if he came with me." She frowned. "No," she said. "That wouldn't be fair. He could still be a dancer if I could be in my church."

"Any other men in your life?"

"There are men in the church I care about, but we never . . ."

I nodded. "Okay. Want to go to the studio?"

"Tommy's studio? No." She shook her head vigorously. "No."

"Okay," I said. "Neutral ground. My office." She nodded.

We walked down across the Common to my office. When we went in I looked automatically across the street at Linda's office. She was there but her back was to the window. I stared at her for a moment, feeling something very much like need tugging at my stomach. Then I sat down in my chair and called Tommy Banks.

He arrived a half hour later, his face tight, his movements constricted, like a man walking over a slippery spot on a winter street. Sherry stood when he came in. They looked silently at each other and then she stepped to him and kissed him lightly. He put his arms around her, but she stiffened and leaned her hips away from him. He knew it at once and took his arms away quickly. They stood back from each other, hurt showing in Banks's face.

"Same old passionate Sher," he said. It had the sound of an ancient refrain. She shook her head slowly from side to side.

"Tommy," she said.

"You ready to come back," he said.

She looked at me. I remained silent. "Tommy, I can't come back and be a dancer."

"God won't approve?" he said.

"Isn't there another way for us to be together?"

"You want me to move up in your fucking commune?" Tommy said. "Mumble beads all day or whatever you do?"

"That's not what we do," she said.

"Does it have to be either or?" I said.

Having done such a swell job on my own love life, maybe I could start spreading it around.

"What do you mean?" Banks said.

"She does church work, you dance, but you share each other's evenings or whatever."

"She's a dancer," Banks said, "so am I. I won't let her throw her life away on some fucking superstition."

"It's my life, Tommy."

Banks turned toward her and his intensity trembled in the room.

"Your life is my life. I'm you and you're me. There's no my-life-your-life with us."

"Tommy," she said, and her voice was pressed and despairing, "I can't be with you all the time. But we could be together some, often, but not always. I'm not a dancer anymore, Tommy. You can't choreograph me anymore."

Banks's breath was heaving. He opened his mouth and closed it and the tears began to run down his face. At his sides his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.

"Separate people can still love," Sherry said.

"Them," Banks gasped. "Them or me."

"Don't," Sherry said. "Don't do that, Tommy."

They stood silently two feet apart. I felt the knot tighten inside me as I sat. I looked out my window. Linda wasn't there. I turned back, feeling a little sick.

"Them," Banks said as if he were spitting. He turned and walked out of the office, leaving the door open, and I heard his footsteps recede down the corridor. Sherry turned toward me and we looked at each other silently. She sat suddenly in my client chair and her body sagged and she put her face in her hands and cried. After a while I got up and went over and stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders a little and tried to think of something to say.