Tom Clancy's Op-center Balance of Power - Tom Clancy [131]
Posters of the movie Doctor Zhivago. Of the rock group Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. A cover of a TV Guide signed, "Cherish and Love, David Cassidy," which she and her friend Alice had waited in line three hours to get at a local shopping center.
How had she managed to be interested in all those things, get high honors in school, hold a part-time job, and have a boyfriend when she was sixteen and seventeen?
You didn't need as much sleep then, she told herself.
But was that really what made it all mesh? Time alone? Or was it the fact that if one job didn't work, she got another. Or if one boyfriend didn't make her happy, she got another. Or if one group recorded a song she didn't like, she stopped buying their records. It wasn't a matter of energy. It was a matter of discovery. Learning about what she needed to be happy.
She thought she'd found it with that multimillionaire winemaker Stefano Renaldo. Sharon had met his sister in college and gone home with her one spring break and had been seduced by Stefano's wealth and his yacht and his attention. But-ironically, now that she thought about it-after two years she realized that she didn't want someone who'd inherited all his money. Someone who didn't have to work for a living. Someone who people came to for investment capital while he, depending upon his mood, yea'd or nay'd their hopes and dreams. That kind of life-that kind of man-was not for her.
She up and left the yacht one sunny morning, flew back to the United States, and didn't look back. The bastard never even phoned to see where she'd gone and Sharon didn't understand how she could ever have been with him-what the hell she'd been thinking. Then she met Paul at a party. It wasn't like being hit with a hammer. Except for Stefano, no man had ever struck Sharon that way-and Stefano's appeal was all on the surface. The relationship with Paul took time to develop. He was even-tempered, hard-working, and kind. He seemed like someone who would give her room to be herself, support her in her work, and be a nurturing father. He wouldn't smother her with gifts or jealousy the way Stefano had. And then one day, at a Fourth of July picnic a couple of months after they met, she happened to look into his eyes and it all clicked. Affection became love.
A branch scraped heavily against the window and Sharon looked over. The branch had certainly grown since she was a girl. That same branch used to scratch so gently against the same window.
It has grown larger, she thought, but it hasn't changed. She wondered if that was a good or a bad thing, being able to stay the same. Good for a tree, bad for people, she decided. But change was one of the most difficult things for anyone to do. Change-and compromise. Admitting that your way might not be the only way of doing things or even the best way.
Sharon gave up trying to sleep. She'd pull another Nancy Drew from her shelf. But first she slid from the bed, pulled on a robe, and went to look in on Harleigh and Alexander. The kids were sleeping in the bunk bed that used to belong to her younger twin brothers-Yul and Brynner. Her parents had met at a matinee of the original The King and I. They still sang "Hello, Young Lovers" and "I Have Dreamed" to one another, off-key but beautifully.
Sharon envied her parents the open affection they shared. And the fact that her father was retired and they got to spend so much time together and they seemed so thoroughly happy.
Of course, she thought, there were times when Mom and Dad weren't so content-
She remembered quiet tension when her father's business wasn't going so well. He rented bicycles and boats to people who came to the sleepy resort on the Long Island Sound, and some summers were bad ones. There were gas shortages and recessions. Her father had to put in long hours then, running his business during the day and working as a short-order cook at night. He used to come home smelling of grease and fish.