Silver Linings, стр. 72
“All right. How late will you be?” she asked, sounding distracted. He heard voices in the background and realized she was probably with clients.
“Don't know. Be there when I get there.”
“Be careful on the way home,” she said automatically. “It'll be dark. First Avenue can be rough in the evenings.”
Hugh allowed himself to wallow briefly in the luxury of having someone worry about him. “Sure, babe. I'll be careful. See you later.” He tossed the phone back into its cradle and headed for the elevators.
Mattie could feel the walls closing in.
“Knees up high and kick. And kick. And kick.”
The heavy throb of rock music combined with the thundering herd of aerobic dancers to make the wooden gym floor shudder. Mattie kicked out as hard as she could, skipped, turned, and joined the herd as it pounded to the far end of the room.
Her grandmother the ballerina would be turning over in her grave. Mattie sent up a silent apology as she always did during aerobics class and then kicked out even more wildly, skipped, turned, and thundered back down to the other end of the room. Technique and grace were not big factors in this kind of thing. Grandmother had always been a fanatic about technique and grace. Mattie could still hear her lecturing the little girl at the barre during that period when Mattie had determined to follow in grandmother's footsteps.
What a mistake that had been. Another wrong direction.
Electric guitars screaming in her ears, Mattie whipped around in a frenzied movement. She had her heart rate up good and high now. The sweat was dampening the thin, supple fabric of her leotard.
The decision to go to the after-work aerobics class at her health club had been an impulse that had struck right after Hugh had announced he would be late getting back to the apartment. Mattie had missed her regular noon-hour class, and she always did some form of aerobics three or four days a week. She could practically feel the stress levels sink after thirty or forty minutes of strenuous dancing.
“Grapevine!” the instructor yelled out over the pounding music. “And kick…two, three, four, and grapevine, two…three…four…”
Mattie kicked vigorously, aware that she had a great deal of stress to work off. The tension was building daily. The sense of pressure had been mounting. She could feel it, a palpable field of energy pressing on her as surely as claustrophobia.
She knew that sooner or later she was going to have to make a decision. Emery and Ariel and Aunt Charlotte were all probably right about Hugh. He wasn't planning to stay in Seattle permanently. He was playing a waiting game, and he was not a patient man.
One of these days he would come home from work and announce that he had given her enough time to get used to the idea of trusting him. He would tell her he was leaving for St. Gabriel on the six o'clock plane the next morning.
And she would have to make her decision.
The walls were definitely closing in on her.
“And up and out and up and out and up…”
She was not ready to take the risk a second time. She would not be a stand-in for Ariel.
“Reach and pull. Reach and pull. Move it, people. Reach and pull…”
Hugh had claimed he would stay here in Seattle as long as necessary. But Mattie knew better. She could feel him getting restless. The last three mornings she had awakened to find him already awake beside her, gazing out at the dawn. She had known instinctively that he was thinking about his island and Abbott Charters and his dream home.
“Slide and skip, two…three…four. Slide and skip, two…three…four…”
Aunt Charlotte was right. Hugh was not meant to live in the city. He had started to build a dream for himself out in the islands, and now, half-finished, it called to him. Mattie tried to tell herself that her dreams were right here in Seattle, but a part of her denied it.
“…And two, three, four, and slide, turn, kick…and two, three…”
A part of her knew that her dreams were forever linked to Hugh's.
So she would have to make a decision.
Mattie wondered how much time she had left.
The walls were definitely closing in.
Half an hour later, showered and changed back into the well-tailored pin-striped suit she had worn to the office that day, Mattie left the health club and started the five-block walk to her apartment. It was dark and a light rain was beginning to fall. Hugh was going to get wet on the way home tonight. He never remembered to take an umbrella with him to the office.
Mattie had just unfurled the umbrella she always carried with her in her briefcase when she heard the footsteps behind her.
Footsteps on a city street were hardly unusual, but there was something about the pace of these particular footsteps that sent a flicker of anxiety down her spine. A woman who lived alone in the city soon developed a certain degree of street savvy. There were footsteps and there were footsteps.
The sidewalk was uncrowded at this hour. The rain and the cold had driven most people indoors. The few people who were still out were hurrying toward the shelter of bus stops, restaurants, or parking garages. She listened for a change in the pace of the person walking behind her.
But the footsteps behind Mattie did not quicken or slow. They beat a steady tempo that matched her own brisk stride.
She was getting paranoid, Mattie told herself. There was no cause for alarm. If worse came to worse, she could always run out into the middle of the street and scream bloody murder.
Unless whoever was following her jumped her suddenly and dragged her into a dark alley.
She clung more tightly to her purse and briefcase and hugged the outer edge of the sidewalk. She remembered reading somewhere