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  She looked away before I'd even finished my sentence, and I turned to see Alex nodding at her. "Just the person I wanted to find," he said, and Jennifer scurried to his side. He put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her a few feet away from me. "Sorry," he said to me, grinning, "but if you listen in, you'll spoil the surprise."

  I watched Jennifer whip a notebook out of nowhere and extract a pencil from the folds of her long, dark hair. She scribbled furiously as Alex counted off points I could not hear from this distance. Once, when she asked him a question, Alex glanced at me and ran his eyes over me from head to toe, then turned back. I tried to watch them but people milled between us, pumping my hand up and down and speaking platitudes that could have been a foreign language. I lost my view of Alex in a sea of suntanned faces. I thought I might actually faint, although I'd never done that in my life, and then out of nowhere Alex stood at my side again and I realized that I hadn't been ill at all; it was just that half of me had been missing.

  SEVERAL NIGHTS BEFORE THE WEDDING I DREAMED THAT CONNOR met me on the Serengeti at dusk and told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

  "It's not like you think," I told Connor in my dream. "I'm not just infatuated with him because he's an actor--"

  "Iknow ," Connor interrupted. "That's what's worse. It's like you don't even notice the things the rest of the world does because you're so busy seeing him as a little wounded bird whose broken wing you can fix--"

  "Whatare you talking about?" I exploded. "He's not some charity case." I concentrated on seeing things as Connor would. I wasn't trying to replace him, but there were enough similarities between my relationship with him as a child and my relationship with Alex now to make me realize that I couldn't help but compare the two. Like Connor, Alex protected me--and he was the only person I let close enough to do it. Like Connor, Alex could finish my sentences before I did. But unlike Connor, for whom I had ultimately come too late, I was just in time to take care of Alex.

  In the dream, a run of zebras skirted the edge of the plain, and when they distracted me Connor leaned forward to press his suit. "You're just the one to make it all better, Cassie, don't you see that? That's what you do best. You took care of your mother and your father and me and Ophelia. You collect other people's problems the way some people collect rare coins."

  At this point in the dream, I tried to wake up. I didn't want to believe Connor; I didn't want to listen.

  "There's a problem with wounded birds, Cassie," Connor said. "Either they fly away from you one day, or else they never get better. They stay hurt no matter what you do."

  After that, I could feel myself drifting toward consciousness. I kept my gaze on Connor as he began to fade. I looked him square in the eye. "I love Alex," I said.

  Connor stepped back as if he'd taken a blow. He stretched out a hand toward me, but as things often are in dreams, he could not quite reach, and I realized that it had been that way between us for a while. "God help us," he said.

  THREE DAYS BEFORE OUR WEDDING, ALEX AND I DROVE TO ONE OF the many small lakes dotting the area to camp out overnight. In our jeep we'd packed two sleeping bags, a nylon tent, various pots and pans. I didn't question Alex about how he'd gotten these supplies--I was coming to see that Alex could draw blood from a stone if he wanted to. He unpacked beneath the embrace of a low, flat-leafed tree and began to set up the two-man tent with the grace of a practiced outdoorsman. I sat on the soft ground, shocked. "You know how to do that?" I said.

  Alex smiled at me. "You forget I grew up on the bayou. I've been running around outdoors all my life."

  Ihad forgotten. But it was easy to forget, when the polished, urbane Alex Rivers was what the world saw most of the time. It was difficult to reconcile the man who brought evening attire to Olduvai Gorge with the man who crouched before me arranging a tripod over a Sterno. "You're a study in contrasts, Mr. Rivers," I said.

  "Good," Alex murmured. He came up behind me and strummed his fingers down my ribs. "Then you won't be getting tired of me too soon."

  I smiled at the thought of it. When I turned around to help with the rest of the things in the jeep, Alex gently pushed me down to sit in the shade. "Rest,pichouette ," he said. "I can do it."

  Alex called mepichouette , a word I did not understand, but I liked the way it sounded, rolling from his lips like a trio of smooth pebbles. He spoke his Cajun French sometimes in bed, which I liked. For one thing, it meant he was forgetting himself, since the language came only when he let down his guard. And I liked the rhythm and honey of the words. I'd listen to the whispers against my neck and I would pretend that he was telling me how lovely my skin was, how beautiful my eyes, how he could never let me go.

  When Alex finished making camp, I patted the ground beside me. But instead of sitting down, he rummaged through a backpack and extracted a three-piece fishing rod, which he fitted together, threaded, and baited. For another half hour I watched him stand knee-deep in the water, reeling and then casting again, the neon line whizzing through the air like a missile's trajectory. "Incredible," I mused. "You seem so at home here. How do you ever suffer Los Angeles?"

  Alex laughed. "Marginally,chere ," he said. "But I'm not there when I can help it. The ranch in Colorado is three hundred acres of heaven and I can fish and ride and whatever. Hell, I could run around naked if I wanted to, and not come in contact with another soul." He cursed his bad luck, and threw down the fishing pole. "Never got the hang of these things," he said. He turned to me, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I'm much better with my hands."

  He stepped out of the lake, stalking toward me with his fingers outstretched, but ducked to my side at the last minute to disappear into the woods at the edge of the shore. When he returned he was holding a long, thin branch and a sharp fillet knife. He crouched and laid the branch over one knee, whittling one end to a point. Then he waded back into the water.

  Alex stood perfectly still, his shadow rippling on the surface, his arm poised with his makeshift spear. In the time it took for me to draw a breath, he plunged the branch through the water, lifting it to reveal a skewered fish still thrashing on the end. Triumphant, Alex turned to me. "When in Tanzania," he said, "do as the Tanzanians do."

  I was amazed. "How--how did you know how to do that?"

  Alex shrugged. "It's all patience and reflexes," he said. "I'm used to doing it without a stick." He walked away from me so that I could not see his face, and tossed the fish into a canvas bag. "You could say my papa taught me."

  We ate several pan-fried fish for dinner and later made love and wrapped up in the blanket, my back pressed to Alex's chest. When he fell asleep I turned toward him, studying his face in the shadow of a silver moon.

  A piercing cry made Alex bolt upright, throwing me back onto the ground. He shook himself free of sleep and reached for me, making sure I was all right. "It's far away," I told him. "It just sounds like it's next door."

  Alex lay down again, but his heart was pounding against my shoulder like a jackhammer. "Don't even think about it," I soothed, remembering the first times I'd slept outside in the African night. "Listen to the wind. Count the stars."

  "Do you know," Alex said quietly, "how much I hate camping?"

  I sat up and blinked at him. "Then why are we here?"

  Alex reached up his hands and pillowed his head upon them. "I thought you'd like it," he said. "I wanted to do it for you."

  I rolled my eyes. "I spend enough time in makeshift huts to appreciate clean sheets and a sturdy bed," I said. "You should have told me." When I looked down at Alex, his face was turned up to the sky, but his eyes were staring past the moon. I wondered what I had said to upset him. I touched my hand to the smooth white inside of his upper arm. "For someone who hates camping, you're quite a pro," I said softly.

  Alex snorted. "I had a lot of unwanted practice," he said. "You ever been to Louisiana in the summertime?" I shook my head. "Well, it's hell on earth," he said. "It's so hot the air sweats all over
you, and the atmosphere is so heavy you can't breathe right. There are mosquitoes the size of quarters. And it looks like I figure hell looks, too--least down by the bayou. All swamps, dark and muddy, overgrown with cypress and willow, Spanish moss and vines hanging like curtains over the branches. When I was a kid, I'd climb the cottonwoods on the water's edge and listen to the bullfrogs, thinking it was the devil belching up whiskey."

  Alex smiled, although in the limited light it could have been a grimace. "My papa used to take me out in his pirogue most nights, so it wasn't like I didn't know anything about the bayou. He'd haul up the crawfish traps and take them down to Deveraux's, this restaurant that sits half over the swamp on these huge old cypress stumps. He'd give the catch over to Beau, who owns the place--there isn't anyone who can make crawfish like Beau--and then he'd go in for an hour and drink off his pay."

  "What did you do?"

  Alex shrugged. "I sat outside, mostly, and watched the older kids pulling catfish. You've never seen anything like it--no poles, no lines--they just reach down into the mud and wait and then they haul these twenty-pounders out against their chests." He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face. "Anyway, one night instead of stopping off at Beau's, my papa took the boat further up, telling me it was time we did some camping. I was maybe nine or ten, and I asked him why we'd be camping out in the swamp, instead of one of those fancy campgrounds set up for tourists on Lake Pontchartrain. He told me they were for queers, and then he steered over to the shore. He tossed a tent I hadn't noticed out of the bottom of the boat, and then handed me up too. 'I'll be right back,' he told me. 'You get us some dinner, and I'll take care of the firewood.'"

  Alex hugged his knees to his chest as the night became several shades cooler. "Well, needless to say, he didn't come back. Left me with the sun going down to figure out how I was going to eat and where I could pitch a tent without worrying about sleeping with a water moccasin. I got into such a state of panic I was sure my heart would just freeze over, and wouldn't that serve me right after being told it was finally healthy.

  "That whole night I waited, too scared to move in case my father came back and I was gone. I watched that mist and thought every goddamn shadow was him, every stir of Spanish moss was his boat come back. About ten o'clock I was starving, so I took off my sneakers and waded into the swamp and thought about what I'd seen those kids doing all those nights outside of Beau's. I reached down, feeling through the mud. It took me two hours but I got the hang of it, and when the water moved around me and the cold brushed against my leg, I grabbed with all my strength and pulled up a catfish. Smallest thing I ever caught, and the best one I ever tasted."

  I thought of Alex, nine years old, standing in the dark, shaping the shadows with his fear. I thought of him standing with a spear in the middle of an African lake. I remembered the way he'd startled earlier when that animal screamed in the night. "When did he come back?" I asked.

  "The next morning. Found me with the fish skeleton and the ashes of a fire and told me I'd made him proud. I started to cry."

  My eyes widened. "What did he do?"

  Alex smiled. "Took me to Beau's at seven a.m. and bought me my first whiskey," he said. "And he kept leaving me off in the bayou, about once every other month, until I could look him in the eye the next morning and act like I'd loved every minute." He took a deep breath, but in the quiet I could hear the rattle at the back of his throat. "So that," he said, "is why I don't like camping."

  "And why," I added softly, "you became the consummate actor." I took his hands and kissed the tips of his fingers. His eyes were nearly black with pain, and I could see him trembling just the slightest bit, the one thing he could not control.

  My cheek was pressed against his damp chest. I understood what he needed. I had been there, after all. I wanted to speak but I was careful not to show pity, so I chose the words that could either close the subject or offer Alex a lifeline. "I don't know how you did it," I whispered.

  Alex kissed the top of my head, gentle, tender.He doesn't want to talk about it anymore , I realized, and as if the unspoken sentence had decreed it, the tension drained out of Alex's shoulders. I wondered whether he would bring up a different topic of conversation, like maybe the wedding, or simply pull me close for comfort and try to sleep.

  Alex's voice cut through my thoughts. "How I did it was easy," he said softly. His hands ran over my shoulders to my collarbones, the touch of a lover, as if he had no idea that his words and his actions stood at odds. "I used to stay up all night thinking of my goddamn father," Alex said. "Of my hands around his throat, squeezing out the life."

  FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT NIGHT, ALEX HAD FALLEN INTO A DEEP sleep, but this time he was having nightmares. He lashed out, striking me across the stomach and waking me. He was speaking in French, but so lightly that even if I had understood the language I wouldn't have known what he was saying. I sat up and brushed his hair back from his temples, feeling the fever that flooded his skin.

  "Alex," I whispered, thinking it was best to shake him into consciousness. "Alex."

  He sat up and rolled over, pinning me to the ground with his body before I could take a breath. He was staring through me, his eyes pale and shining. One arm was braced across my shoulders, keeping me still, and the other pressed my neck down to the ground, fingers gripping at my jaw.

  I tried to speak but Alex's palm pressed against my windpipe. Panicking, I thrashed and kicked my feet.He doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know who I am.

  His fingers tightened and my eyes teared. Flailing with my legs, I managed to bring my knee up to his groin. Alex howled in pain and rolled away from me, leaving me flat on my back to let the world swim dizzily into place, to suck bright white air into my lungs.

  Alex sat up, holding his hand against his genitals. I tried to speak, but nothing came out of my mouth, and instead I rubbed my hand up and down my throat. I tried not to think about what Alex would have done if I hadn't freed my legs.

  "What's the matter," he said, still a little dazed.

  I dragged myself up to my elbows. "You had a nightmare," I rasped. I swallowed past the pain.

  Maybe it was the light that hit me when I half sat, but Alex suddenly seemed to come to his senses. He reached one finger to the curve of my neck, touching the five red marks that by tomorrow would be bruises. "Oh God," he said, pulling me into his arms. "Oh, Cassie, my God."

  That's when I started to cry. "You didn't mean to do it," I sobbed, and I felt Alex shake his head. "You didn't know it was me."

  Alex held me away from him so that I could see his face, cut with the pattern of shame. "I'm so sorry," he said. Without another word, he pushed himself up and walked to the opposite edge of the campfire, lying down on his side, facing away.

  I watched him, and letting only seconds go by, I picked up the blanket and stretched out beside him. Whether or not he realized it, he needed me. The very worst thing for him would be to sleep alone.

  "No," Alex said. He turned to me, revealing even more fear and rage in his eyes than when he'd been gripping my throat, but I realized that this time it was directed at himself. "What if I do it again?"

  "You won't," I said, and I believed my words.

  Alex rolled over and kissed me, touching the marks on my jaw and throat as if this time his fingers could erase the ache. He stared at me until he took the absolution offered in my eyes. "Cassandra Barrett," he said softly, "you are one of a kind."

  MY WEDDING GOWN CAME FROM THE BIANCHI FACTORY IN BOSTON; my silk slippers were sent from the bridal district of New York City; fresh white roses and stephanotis had been flown in from France for my bouquet. The crates and cartons traveled Africa by train, then Land Rover, accompanied by a small, dark seamstress who asked to be called Mistress Szabo, and who was responsible for the last-minute alterations that would make the ensemble seem as if it had been spun only for me. She knelt at my feet while I fingered the pattern of seed pearls at my waist and watched Jennifer run down a wedding
checklist for the thirtieth time that morning.

  "Miss Barrett," the seamstress snapped. "You will not fidget."

  I stood at attention, which was very easy to do in the stiff white satin and mounds of petticoats. I wondered how everything could possibly stay pristine white on the jeep ride from the lodge to the small wooden chapel. I wondered how I'd keep from ripping off my veil and letting it fly into the wind; kicking free my shoes and hiking up my heavy skirts to run through the hot, familiar sand.

  "There," Mistress Szabo pronounced. She pulled herself to her feet, her knees creaking, and clasped her hands in front of her. "Si, bella," she murmured. She wove her way to the narrow bed and whisked Jennifer toward the door. "Come, come," she said. "The bride needs a minute to herself."

  Jennifer checked her watch. "We're ahead of schedule," she said. "You can have five."

  I didn't really want to be alone, but I didn't want to be with them, either. I stood in front of the cheval mirror with a crack down the middle, seeing my face split into halves that did not quite line up.

  With the exception of Alex's engagement ring, I wasn't wearing any jewelry. But my throat was ringed with the proof of Alex's nightmare, a necklace of amethyst bruises. I had borrowed pancake from the makeup trailer and applied it before Mistress Szabo arrived, but that didn't keep me from knowing what was underneath.

  I closed my eyes and made myself think of Connor. There had been a time, not too long ago, when I believed that he would have been the one I married, if he had still been alive. And if he'd been here--even if he hadn't turned out to be the groom--he would have told me to make Alex wait. To take a little more time to come to a decision.

  But I didn't want a little more time. I wanted Alex.

  At that realization, I understood why, lately, I hadn't been dreaming of Connor as much; why it had been getting more and more difficult to picture his face. He was leaving me. I had made a decision; Connor had accepted it. He would no longer play devil's advocate; he would no longer intrude on a good night's sleep; he would no longer be the one taking care of me.