“I don't know yet. They didn't want me to develop them myself. Big magazines do their own lab work and editing. I'm out of the loop now.”

“When will they be out?”

“The wedding in a few days. Raoul has sold the prostitution ring photos to an international syndicate so it will be later in the month. How are you?” Her feet were getting numb in the cold, and her hand felt as though it were frozen to the phone, but she didn't care. She was happy to hear him. It was a warm, friendly voice in the darkness of her life at the moment.

“I'm fine. I was beginning to think you weren't going to call, and I was getting worried.” He had fantasized a warm, romantic reunion with her husband when she got home, and he was a little startled to realize that the thought of it unnerved him.

“I haven't stopped since I got back. I took Sam to soccer this morning, and I had to go into the city. Tonight, I'm taking the kids to the movies.” It was something to do while Doug ignored her. It would have been so much nicer to have dinner with him and tell him all about London, but there was no chance of that now. Instead she was calling Paul from a phone booth, just to have a sympathetic adult to talk to. “Where are you?”

“We just left Corsica, and we're heading south to the Straits of Messina, on our way back up to Venice.”

“I wish I were there with you,” she said, and meant it, and then wondered how it sounded. But it sounded good to him too. They would have talked all night, and played liar's dice, listened to music, and sailed all day. It was a lovely fantasy for both of them, but there were parts of it neither of them had come to terms with.

“I wish you were here too,” he said, sounding husky.

“Did you sleep all right last night?” Knowing of his trouble with that now, it was a question she always asked him, and it touched him.

“More or less.”

“Bad dreams again?” His survivor guilt haunted him, and his visions of Serena.

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Try warm milk.”

“I'd rather try sleeping pills, if I had some.” It was beginning to upset him. His nights had become one long restless battle, particularly lately.

“Don't do that. Try a warm bath, or go up on the bridge and sail for a while.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he teased her, happier than he wanted to be to hear her. “Are you freezing, India?” His voice sounded sexy and gentle.

“Yes,” she laughed, “but it's worth it.” There was something very odd about doing something so clandestine, and she hated to be so sneaky. But it was great to hear him, and she reminded herself as she listened to him, that their conversations were harmless. “It's snowing. I can't even think about the fact that Christmas is in four weeks. I haven't done anything about it.” And as soon as she said it, she was sorry. She knew Christmas would be an agony for him this year. He wasn't going to Saint Moritz, as he had every year with Serena.

“I'll bet Sam loves it,” he said calmly. “Does he still believe in Santa Claus?”

“More or less. I think he kind of doesn't, but he's afraid to take a chance, so he pretends he does, just to be on the safe side.” They both laughed, and then the operator came on the line and asked for more of her quarters. “I've got to go, I'm out of money,” she said regretfully.

“Call me whenever you want to. And I'll call you on Monday,” he confirmed. “And, India?” He seemed about to say something important, and she felt her heart skip a beat. There were times when she thought they were dancing close to the line now, and she didn't know what to do once they got there, or worse yet, crossed it.

“Yes?” she said bravely.

“Keep your chin up.” She smiled at what he'd said to her, both relieved and disappointed. They were still in safe territory, but she wondered if they would stay there forever. Sometimes it was more than a little confusing sorting out her feelings. She was married to a man who didn't seem to care about her, and calling a man thousands of miles away from a phone booth, and worried about how he was sleeping. In a weird, inexplicable way, it was like being married to two men, and having a real relationship with neither.

“I'll talk to you soon,” she said, as plumes of frosty steam curled into the frigid air in the phone booth.

“Thanks for calling,” he said warmly.

They both hung up and stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, she thinking of what she was doing now, going to these lengths to speak to him, and he encouraging her to do it. And as they both walked away from their phones, they were equally confused, and equally happy to have spoken to each other.

When she got back to Westport, everyone was waiting for her to start dinner, and they were arguing over what movie to go to. Doug was working on some papers he'd brought home, and didn't say a word to her, or ask her where she'd gone to. And looking at him, as he sat down to dinner next to her, she felt a shiver of guilt run through her. How would she have liked it, she asked herself, if Doug was calling women from pay phones? But it wasn't like that, she reassured herself. Paul was a friend, a confidant, a mentor. And the real issue, she realized, was not what Paul was providing in her life, but what Doug wasn't.

In the end, after grousing about it, Doug decided to come to the movies with them, and they went to one of those huge complexes, which showed nine different movies, and he and the boys went to something suitably violent, while she and the girls saw the latest Julia Roberts movie. And when they got home, everyone was happy and in good spirits.

All in all, despite the strain between her and Doug, it was a passably good weekend, as good as it ever was now. In order to survive the loneliness of her life, India found she had to apply different standards. As long as they didn't have any major fights, and he didn't threaten to leave her, it qualified as a decent weekend. Hardly a standard of perfection. And, as promised, Paul called her on Monday.

She told him about the movie she'd seen, Raoul's call that morning to tell her the magazines were ecstatic about her photographs, and she asked him how his dreams were. He said he had slept well the night before, and then told her Serena's new book would be out soon, the one with India's photograph of her on the back cover. And it made him sad to think about it. It was as though she were still there, when in fact she wasn't. And India nodded as she listened.

And after a while, she and Paul hung up,' after covering a variety of subjects. She picked up the kids that afternoon, and did some Christmas shopping. And for the next two weeks, Paul called every few days, to hear her news, and tell her where he was, and what he was thinking. He was beginning to dread Christmas, and he was talking more about Serena.

India's whole focus was on him when they talked, and on the children when she was with them. And she dealt with Doug as best she could, though he hadn't warmed up to her again since before Thanksgiving, and there might as well have been a glass wall between them in their bedroom. They saw each other, but never touched, or even approached each other. They had become nothing more than roommates.

India was still hoping to make the marriage work, but she had no idea how to do it. She was willing to make whatever concessions she had to, within reason. “Reason” for her now no longer included turning down all possible assignments. But maybe, with luck, they'd get through a peaceful Christmas. She hoped so, for the children.

She mentioned it to Gail once or twice, and looked as depressed about it as she felt. But other than an affair to boost India's spirits and spice things up, Gail couldn't think of anything to suggest to help them. And India still hadn't told her about her conversations with Paul. She had kept that as her darkest secret. Only she and Paul knew about it. It made them conspirators and allies.

She had just talked to him, in fact, on the day that Doug stormed into the house from a late train and asked her to come upstairs to their bedroom. She had no idea what had happened to make him so furious, as he set his briefcase on the bed, snapped it open viciously, and threw a magazine at her feet with a single brutal gesture.

“You lied to me!” he raged, as she stared at him un-comprehendingly. All she could think of were her calls to Paul, and she hadn't in fact lied. She just hadn't told him. But it was not her calls to Paul that had upset him. He knew nothing about him. “You told me you were going to London to cover a wedding” He pointed to the magazine lying at her feet, and she saw that he was shaking with rage over what he'd seen there.

“I did cover a wedding,” she said, looking surprised, and a little frightened. She had never seen him as furious in all the years she'd known him. “I showed you the pictures.” The story had come out the week before, and the photographs had been terrific. The children had loved them, but Doug had refused to even look at them.

“Then what's this?” he asked, picking the magazine up off the floor and waving it in her face, as she realized what had happened. The second story must have broken. She took the magazine from him, and looked at it, and nodded slowly.

“I did another story while I was there,” she said quietly, but her hands were shaking. They had broken the story earlier than she expected. She had been meaning to say something to him, but the right moment had never come, and now he was livid. It was obvious that he had gone right over the edge because of it, and not only because she did a story without telling him, but he was outraged by the subject.

“It's total smut. The worst garbage I've ever seen. How could you even take pictures like that and put your name on them? It's sheer pornography, absolute filth, and you know it! It's disgusting!”