Free The Last Chance by Rona Jaffe Page A

You mustn’t hurt her any more,” Ellen said.
    “Look, if I could talk to Jill. We could all go somewhere together, the zoo or something, and she could get to know me …”
    “Sixteen is too old for the zoo,” Ellen said coldly.
    “All right, all right, we’ll take her to the theater. To the ballet? We’ll take her to the Rainbow Room.”
    “You are the most heartless man I ever met.”
    “I’m not. I only want to do the right thing.”
    “Then don’t ask me to break my children’s hearts,” Ellen said. Her panic was beginning to subside and she felt in control again. He could go back and tell his wife he was willing to try again. It wasn’t too late. Jim was too impetuous—it was part of his charm but it was also his downfall. She could never marry him. He might give her daughters everything in the world, but he wasn’t the father they wanted. They wanted predictable old Hank. “You know how little girls are,” she said. “They think their father is perfect. They don’t see him the way I do. I think Hank is boring, they think he’s brilliant. But you see, darling, as a father he is brilliant. I never want them even to suspect about us.”
    “Do you think Jill suspected when she saw us?”
    “Maybe. Maybe that’s why she said what she did. I think you and I ought to be more careful.”
    He looked around the bar. “There’s no one here we know. From now on we’ll go to very out-of-the-way places.”
    “I think we shouldn’t see each other for a while,” Ellen said. She saw the color drain from his normally rather pale face until she was afraid for a moment he might have a coronary.
    “That’s silly,” he said.
    “No it’s not. We’re too much in love with each other and we’re losing our sense of reality. It’s getting too dangerous.”
    “My wife doesn’t mind .”
    “I don’t want you to leave her,” Ellen said. “Tell her you’ll try again. Please? For me?”
    “But when will I see you?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m so confused and upset. I just had a picture in my mind of Jill’s face, and …”
    “You’re so good,” he said sadly. “All this time you’ve felt guilty. How awful it must have been for you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I wanted you.”
    “I want you now.”
    “I want you too,” Ellen said.
    There were tears in his eyes again and she hoped he wasn’t going to cry in public. If he did cry it would set her off, that sort of thing always did. She felt so sorry for herself. Why was she doomed to have to make sacrifices all the time? You did one stupid thing—married the wrong man—and then you compounded it by having children, because that was what a marriage was for, and then you were trapped forever. She knew she could never see Jim any more, because he was too unpredictable, too emotional, too dangerous. All the qualities that made him exciting to her were the same ones that had made their love affair self-destruct. Why did this keep happening to her?
    He paid the check and they left. They went to their motel and made love for hours. Ellen wanted it to be perfect so she could always remember it.
    “I’ll never give you up,” he said. “Never.”
    “I know,” she murmured, as one would to a child. They all said that.
    March was the beginning of spring and it was the beginning of Nikki Gellhorn’s new life in her New York apartment. Whereas in the country she had always been rather untidy, here she was immaculate. Everything was hers and she wanted to protect it. She had a great many books from the publishing company where she worked, and she brought all the ones she liked best, plus all the ones she herself had worked on with the authors. She arranged them in alphabetical order in the bookcases she’d had built, like those in the public library, but her books were all fresh and clean. She bought a few prints and photographs she loved and had them framed in transparent plastic so they seemed to float on her white walls. She