Holding Hands (2 page)

Meredith had asked if the boy was nice, and
Emily had insisted that he was hot. Wonderful.

Meredith reassured herself that her daughter
had a good head on her shoulders. Emily had spent half her life
getting crushes on boys, but she’d never done anything reckless,
never gotten in serious trouble. A few broken hearts, but that was
part of growing up, and she’d always survived.

As Meredith trotted alongside Skippy in the
direction of the town green, she replayed her conversation with
Emily and then her conversation with her mother. Why was it that
her daughter and her mother were enjoying such exciting love lives
while Meredith, who thought her husband was hot even after
twenty-seven years, could not remember the last time they’d made
love?

They were too busy, she reminded herself.
They both had demanding careers, he a university professor of
political science and an informal advisor to the governor, she
managing the communications department of a regional supermarket
chain. After proofreading ad copy, weekly circulars, press releases
and staff newsletters all day, and then racing home to fix dinner,
and dealing with Skippy, and fielding phone calls from her mother
and daughter, how was Meredith supposed to find the time and energy
for a roll in the hay? How was Scott supposed to find the time and
energy to roll with her?

“
I should go home and throw
myself at him,” she murmured. “Do a strip-tease right in front of
the TV so he can’t avoid looking at me. What do you think, Skippy?
Do you think he’d notice me then?”

Skippy stopped sniffing a holly bush, lifted
his leg to mark the shrub and sent her a doggy smile, his tongue
lolling out the side of his mouth. A quick bark and he forged
ahead, determined to investigate the hydrant down the block.

She and Skippy arrived home an hour later,
slightly out of breath. Walking him was a rigorous work-out, often
the only exercise she got each day. She filled his bowl with water,
gave him a bone-shaped dog biscuit, and then crossed to the den to
let Scott know she was back, although if his ears were working he
would have heard the slam of the door, the hiss of the kitchen
faucet and the rattle of the hook as she hung Skippy’s leash back
up.

His ears were not working. He’d fallen asleep
in the recliner, his laptop still balanced on his knees and the
football announcers droning about yardage and penalties. Most
mornings, Scott was awake by five-thirty and out the door by six,
heading to campus to use the school’s fitness center before work.
He’d shower there and eat breakfast with a colleague or in his
office while trawling the political blogs. Most mornings, Meredith
slept right through his departure. and then he’d sleep through her
return home from her evening jaunt with Skippy.

No wonder they hadn’t had sex in so long. The
last time—more than a month ago, Meredith recalled—they’d both been
too tired to make much of it.

She entered the den, lifted his laptop off
his legs and gave him a gentle nudge. “Scott. You’re sleeping.”

He issued a weary grunt and his eyelids
fluttered. If her eyes were the color of weak tea, his were the
color of strong coffee, so dark they were nearly black. His hair
was too long but she liked it that way, and his face was all sharp
angles and lines. He was the opposite of Skippy, his features
perfectly blended. The faint lines framing his eyes were like a
dash of pepper, adding spice to an already tasty stew.

He blinked a couple of times, gazed up at her
and yawned. “Was I sleeping?”

“
Go to bed,” she urged
him.

“
I’ll go to bed.” At least
he was agreeable. He stretched, kicked down the recliner’s footrest
and hauled himself to his feet. A gentle pat to her arm, and he
trudged out of the room, issuing another audible yawn.

Meredith lowered his laptop to the coffee
table and pressed the key for the turn-off command. Like Scott’s
eyes, the screen blinked back to consciousness, print shivering and
then settling against the white background. An email.

She shouldn’t read it.

She couldn’t help herself.

Dear Prof. Fischer, when can we schedule
another office hour? I really need to see you. I can come whenever
you want me to, even at night if that works for you. Just let me
know and I’ll be there. You can call me any time. Caitlin.

At night? Since when did Scott meet students
at night?

The girl’s email struck
Meredith as a bit...desperate. Beseeching. Like the plea of a
lover:
Call me any time. I can come
whenever you want me to.

Meredith shuddered. She knew Scott wasn’t
involved with Caitlin or any of his other students. He never would
do that. She had faith in him.

Except... God, he spent most of his waking
hours at a campus filled with smart girls. Young, nubile girls in
their prime. Girls with smooth faces, girls with quick, sharp
minds, girls who undoubtedly got crushes on their professors,
especially if their professors were as good looking as Scott.

Girls like Emily, beautiful and full of
energy and eager to experience everything, right now.

Girls like Caitlin, willing to come whenever
Scott wanted her to.

Grimacing, Meredith shut off Scott’s laptop
and the TV. She carried the laptop to the kitchen and left it on
the table so Scott would find it easily in the morning. Then she
wiped the floor around Skippy’s bowl where he’d splattered water,
shut off the light above the sink and headed up the stairs.

She might not be young and beautiful and
nubile. But she looked smart, and at one time that had been enough
for Scott. Praying it was still enough for him, she eased open the
bedroom door.

The light was off. The room smelled faintly
of mint. Scott’s breathing whispered the deep, steady rhythm of
sleep.

She felt a hard twinge in her gut, in her
heart. She didn’t even want him to make love to her tonight; like
him, she was tired. But wouldn’t it have been lovely if they’d held
hands as they’d drifted into slumber? When was the last time they’d
held hands?

So long ago, she couldn’t remember.

Chapter
Two

“
FUR-LINED HANDCUFFS,” Diane
said. “Maybe a silk whip. Haven’t you read those books?”

No, Meredith had not read those books. She
was probably the only woman in town, if not the entire world, who
hadn’t read the recent bestselling trilogy about a young woman
discovering the joys of sexual bondage and submission.

She sat across the circular table from Diane
in the employee lounge at the headquarters of the Saver-Center
supermarket chain. Her closest friend at work, Diane worked in the
HR department. They ate lunch together whenever they could. Today
Meredith picked at a salad—no dressing, in order to save
calories—while Diane devoured a Mediterranean wrap stuffed with
roasted peppers, plum tomatoes, mozzarella, mushrooms and olives,
the thin, rolled bread glistening with oil. Diane had miraculous
metabolism. She always wolfed down huge lunches and never gained
weight. If Meredith didn’t love her, she’d hate her.

“
I’m not going to start
playing sadomasochist games with him. Just the thought of having my
hands bound behind my back...” Meredith winced.

“
It’s all about ceding
control,” Diane explained before taking a lusty bite of her
sandwich. She chewed, swallowed, continued: “It’s about trust. You
trust him to treat you well while you’re within his
power.”

“
No. No whips, no
handcuffs.” Meredith could just imagine Scott trussing her up so
she couldn’t escape and then falling asleep because he’d been up
since five that morning. “It’s just that—” she speared a limp
teardrop-shaped leaf of spinach with her fork and sighed “—we don’t
connect anymore. We hardly even talk, and when we do it’s about
work, or the kids, or the dog, or my mother. We’re in such a rut.”
She didn’t add that she was worried about the adorable young female
students he came in contact with every day, students who
really
needed to see him,
any time, day or night.

Nor did she add that she was jealous of her
mother, who got to hold hands with Charlie. Her septuagenarian
mother was enjoying the thrill of a new love, the excitement and
wonder of it, the tickle in her belly when he looked her way, the
wash of warmth or maybe even heat when he laced his fingers through
hers. How could you admit that you envied your mother’s social life
when you were married to a gorgeous guy and your mother lived in an
assisted-living community?

“
What about some sexy
lingerie?” Diane suggested. “French bra, thong
panties...”

That would work only if Scott bothered to
look at her. He’d never been much for seductive underwear, but she
supposed he wouldn’t object if she splurged on a few items from
Victoria’s Secret.

If he even noticed.

“
Maybe what you need to do
is get away,” Diane suggested. “Whenever things start getting stale
with Pete and me, we take a long weekend somewhere with a hot-tub
or a fireplace. One time we went to this spa and got his-and-hers
massages...” Her blissful sigh implied that those massages led to a
lot more than hand-holding.

“
Getting away would be
nice,” Meredith said wistfully. “Too bad we’re in the midst of
leaf-peeper season.” New England’s hotels and inns always filled up
during the autumn months as tourists came to admire the fall
foliage. Most of the available rooms were usually booked a year in
advance.

Undaunted, Diane dug her
cell phone from her purse. She held up a finger as if to
say,
Watch this!
and dialed a number. “Hi, Cindy? It’s Diane Carlito. Yeah, hi,
how are you? Listen, my friend here needs a room for the weekend...
Any weekend. Preferably this month.”

Meredith shook her head. This month? She
needed time to plan. Time to convince Scott.

“
I know. ’Tis the season.
But come on, Cindy. You’re on the shore, not in the mountains. You
don’t have any trees with colorful leaves on them, and no one goes
to the Cape in October... Yeah, yeah, I know. People
do
go to the Cape in
October. Just a room. Two nights... Well, look again... Okay!”
Diane beamed Meredith a smile brighter than the noon sun, extended
her hand and mouthed, “Credit card.”

Too stunned to argue, Meredith pulled her
wallet from her bag and handed her Visa card to Diane, who read the
account number and expiration date into the phone. “Excellent,” she
said when she was done. “Email address?” She handed her cell phone
to Meredith. “Give her your email address so she can send you a
confirmation.”

Dazed, Meredith took the phone. This was
crazy. She had no idea where she’d booked a room, let alone how
much it would cost. Yet she heard herself recite her email address,
her postal address and her phone number to Cindy, whoever the hell
she was.

“
So, we’ll see you next
Friday,” Cindy said. “I wish I had a nicer room for you, but for
one-eighty a night and on such short notice, this is the best I can
do.”

“
Thank you,” Meredith said
weakly, then handed the phone back to Diane. “Next
Friday?”

“
That was the only time she
had a cabin open,” Diane explained as she tapped her phone’s screen
to disconnect the call. “And that’s only because someone canceled
at the last-minute.”

“
For one hundred eighty
dollars, it can’t be much of a cabin.”

“
It’s probably not,” Diane
said gleefully. “She owns a B&B and a cluster of cabins a
couple of blocks from the beach in West Dennis. But you don’t need
much. Just a big bed.”

“
Next Friday?”

“
Be spontaneous,” Diane
advised. “Scott will love you for it.”

***

SCOTT DID NOT love her for it. “What are you,
crazy?” he roared when she told him over dinner that night.

“
No, I’m not crazy.”
I’m trying to revive our moribund marriage, you
idiot.

“
I teach on
Fridays.”

“
I work on Fridays, too.
We’ll head out after work. We can have a late dinner when we get to
the Cape. This time of year, there won’t be too much traffic. Maybe
we can both arrange to leave work a little early.”

“
I can’t cancel my office
hours just because you decided on a whim that you wanted to go to
Cape Cod. What do you even know about this place?”

“
It’s owned by a friend of
Diane’s,” she said, wondering whether young, accommodating Caitlin
was planning to visit his office during those Friday afternoon
office hours. “I gather it’s kind of rustic. It’ll be fun. An
adventure.”

“
What are you going to do
with the dog?” he asked. “Bring him along?”

“
I’ll ask a neighbor to look
after him. Or maybe Diane can take him for the weekend.”

Scott exhaled. He looked pained as he
regarded the food on his dinner plate: a mound of last night’s
stir-fry, a few forkfuls of salmon, a chunk of rib-eye steak.

Maybe this getaway plan was as poorly planned
as the meal. Just a last-minute idea: toss something out and hope
it works. Like a Hail-Mary pass in one of Scott’s beloved football
games.

“
We really need to do this,
Scott,” she said. “We—”

The phone rang.

Rolling her eyes, she pushed away from the
table and lifted the receiver. “Hi, honey, it’s Mom,” her mother
said.

“
I can’t talk right now,”
Meredith told her, glancing at the table. Scott dug into his food,
but he didn’t appear to be enjoying it much.