It Happened One Night (24 page)

He stood, began walking slowly toward her.

She went on, forcing herself to remember the logic of why it was a bad idea to kiss her best friend. “I did kiss you. But
I didn’t mean to. Because, I mean, this isn’t good timing.” He took a few more slow steps toward her; she couldn’t tell if
he was listening to her or not. But she went on. “I don’t know where these feelings are coming from. I need us—you—to be dependable
right now.” He stood before her, close. She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. “Don’t you see? It’s such a strange
time in my life. I need stability. I need friendship. I need—I need…”

“You need…?”

She looked at his mouth, those lips that she knew could drive her mad. There was no more denying it. “I need you,” she said.

He kissed her, but it wasn’t the kiss she’d wanted. Only a teasing and soft kiss, one that left her gripping the front of
his shirt and seeking more. She had to close her eyes a moment to calm down. “We have to talk about this,” she said.

“Yes. We do.” He stepped back, cool air rushing between them. “But not tonight. Neither of us is in a position to talk right
now.”

“Thank you,” she said.

•  •  •

Outside, the night was blustery, the trees bending and creaking. She drew her coat more tightly around her and headed toward
the car. She took a breath of fresh air, waiting for a feeling of liberation to soar through her, waiting to feel like herself
again. But instead, she had only the paradoxical sense that she’d just managed to escape from a place she’d always wanted
to be.

On the lonely and dark roads, she rolled down the windows of her car to let in the freezing air and she turned up the radio
until the speakers buzzed with thumping bass notes. The fields that stretched toward the distant mountains were dark and spooky,
more smoky gray than black in the light of the moon. Above, the sky was starless, lit by a swollen moon.

She drove as fast as the curves of the road would allow. There were reasons people didn’t fall for their friends. She had
to remember that. She’d been around long enough to know that when fantasy collided with reality, the result was usually a
breakdown. The high expectations of fantasy and the baser truths of real life simply couldn’t combine. That was part of the
reason that she’d trained herself to compartmentalize her feelings about Eli, tucking away desire and bringing feelings of
friendship out into the light of day.

But the place Eli occupied in her heart was too big, too expansive to be superficially labeled or contained. All this time
she’d counted on him to be her reality, her welcome, her dependable day-to-day. But now he was telling her that he was something
different: He was also her fantasy, a secret promise of pleasure, passion, and sex. And she worried, How could he be both
and
be lasting? How could she make a life with him?

She had taken such care to build the structure of their relationship; she’d spent years honing her own feelings toward him,
dulling them when they became too hot and sharp, encouraging herself to feel distant and mild. For ten years, friendship had
seen them through Eli’s many travels—the ups and downs created by his absence and presence. Friendship had protected Lana’s
dreams of traveling on her own—as long as she kept herself at arm’s length from him, she would not be tempted to forfeit her
dreams for his. Her rules had served them both well.

But as the miles disappeared under her tires and she told herself, again and again, to be logical—to be realistic and smart—some
part of her remained with him, in his living room, in his arms, demanding everything he had to give, and seeing the evening
through to a different, more satisfying end.

Evening primrose:
As a flower pollinated by nocturnal insects, the evening primrose is made for night. Some have theorized that the petals
are mildly phosphorescent. Others speculate that the flowers do not give off their own light, but instead store up sunlight
during the day. Whatever the cause, the true nature of the evening primrose is most clearly seen when the sun is down.

October 1

A
fter her shift had ended, Karin veered off the walkway to the motel where her father was staying, and she made a beeline straight
for the front of the building. It was getting dark early now, the streetlights flickering on during what seemed like early
afternoon. The trees were bright orange and red on the distant mountains, brilliant as flames against the cold slate sky.

When she rounded the corner of the motel, Calvert was waiting for her in the doorway of room 41, just where he’d said he’d
be. His breath rose in thick white clumps. He wore a tired brown jacket with white wool at the collar, old jeans, and big
tan boots. His hands were folded across his chest to keep warm.

“You hungry?” she asked.

He nodded, eyeing her as if he expected her to follow up with the words
Well, too bad.

“Well, come on. Let’s go.”

He followed her to the van.

For the first leg of the ride to the restaurant, he didn’t try to make small talk and Karin was glad. Being in the same space
as him again took some getting used to. About a week had gone by since she’d agreed to help him, and as the days had passed
Karin had been doing a lot of hard thinking. She was starting to look at Calvert’s reappearance in a different way. She had
before her the opportunity to talk to him, one adult to another, for the first time. Maybe she deserved an explanation for
how he’d raised her. And maybe he deserved the chance to explain.

The houses passed by—the lake peering between trees on their right-hand side—and mile by mile, the distance between buildings
shrank until the country gave way to the energy of the city, with its busy sidewalks and intersections strung with traffic
lights. As she pulled into the parking garage, he held out a handful of bills; she gestured for him to put them in the center
console so she could keep her eyes on the winding concrete ramps. “What’s this?”

“The money I owe you for the three days at the motel.”

She peered into the dimness of the low-ceilinged garage, concentrating perhaps a bit more than she needed to on finding a
spot.

“And I wanted to thank you,” he said.

“It wasn’t a big deal to loan you the money.”

“Yes, thanks for the money. But thanks for calling the dogs off too.”

Karin rubbed her palms hard against the leather of the steering wheel, more than a little embarrassed. She slid the minivan
into a free space and cut the engine. “How did you know it was me?”

“I would have done the same thing,” he said.

She nodded, warring with the urge to apologize to him. It suddenly struck her how insane the whole thing seemed. She may have
overreacted a bit.

“Don’t say sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t want me showing up in town either after all these years. You did the right thing.”

“Let’s just go eat,” she said.

A few blocks later they were seated in two wooden chairs, looking over their menus in silence. The restaurant, which sat near
the corner of Cherry Street and South Winooski, had bright beige walls, a long diner-style bar, and big picture windows that
offered views of the busy street. When the waitress came to the table, Karin ordered buckwheat pancakes with local maple syrup,
and Calvert got a tortilla filled with chorizo sausage, scrambled eggs, and Monterey Jack. He folded his menu and set it on
the table, but Karin picked it up and handed it directly to the waitress before she left.

He crossed his hands in his lap. “So how long you been married?”

“Three years,” Karin said.

“He a nice guy?”

“The best. He’ll be a good father. Once we have kids.”

Calvert took a sip of his water. “And when will that be?”

“Hard to say,” Karin said, her throat tightening around the only words she could manage.

He didn’t follow up. “And how’s Lana doing with her… thing?”

“I guess she’s fine. Healthy, if that’s what you mean.”

“Is that boyfriend going to take responsibility?”

Karin laughed. “You should know better than that.”

Calvert grew silent.

“What?” asked Karin. “What is it?”

He picked up his napkin and tore the corner off. “You remember the day Lana graduated from high school?”

“Sure. We gave your ticket to the neighbors.”

“Well, I went.”

“You did not.”

“I sat up on top of the hill, in the woods where the kids liked to go smoke pot after the football games, and I watched the
whole thing.”

“Did you do that for mine?” Karin asked.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

The sounds of clinking silverware and music bled into the silence between them. Karin stared absentmindedly at the waitresses
hurrying around the crowded room, hardly able to process what she’d heard.

“I’m sorry,” Calvert said.

Karin couldn’t look at him. “I wanted so much for you to like me…”

“I did like you. It’s just… Lana was always easier to get along with because she didn’t seem to care as much about anything.”

“She cared,” Karin said, angry. “She just never showed it.”

“That may be. I ain’t trying to make an excuse for myself. It’s just—once Lana graduated I knew you girls would have no more
reason to stick around. I knew you’d be gone the second you could go. So I sat up there on the hill above the football field
and listened to all the terrible speechifying, and I thought to myself,
I should get square with them
. But you know as well as I that I’m nothing but a coward. And there was nothing I could have said or done to make it right
back then.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do now,” Karin said. “Maybe your feelings have changed over the years, but mine and
Lana’s haven’t. You could be made pope tomorrow and you’d still be the same old Calvert to us.”

“I can’t apologize for how I raised you because you two girls just about raised yourselves. But I can tell you that if I knew
back then what I know now, I would have done things differently.”

Karin watched him closely, resisting the urge to hold her arms out to him. She heard a deep, tremulous vulnerability in his
words. And though the part of her that was still angry screamed in her ear not to believe him—not to fall for it—she rejected
that negative voice. Calvert needed to reconcile with the past as much as she did. She thought of how hard the last few months
had been—how difficult it was to grapple daily with her own anger. It would be a balm to both of them to forgive, even if
they could not forget.

“I appreciate what you want to do,” Karin said slowly. “So if you want, I can forgive you.”

Calvert looked down at his plate, so quiet Karin thought he must be hiding tears.

“But I’m going to tell you this,” she went on. “Forgiving you doesn’t mean we can be one big happy family again. Do you know
what I mean? There’s too much between us. Too much history. That stuff… it doesn’t just go away.”

“I know that,” Calvert said. “I don’t expect to be invited to Christmas dinner. This was just something I had to do. I thought
I might be able to help you girls, to make up for everything. And once I’m done here, I’ll go.”

Karin nodded. She wished her life could be like others’ lives in books and movies, when prodigals could come back, reconcile,
and everything would be happily-ever-after perfect in the end. But real happily-ever-afters were so much less flamboyant and
more complicated than in movies. Sitting here talking to Calvert was closure. And she was glad for it; it satisfied her. But
she wasn’t about to ride off into the sunset with him by her side.

“We don’t really need help,” Karin said. “So I guess you have no reason to stay here anymore. I guess you can go back.”

“But what about…” His voice trailed off. “Lana still won’t talk to me. Would you talk to her for me? Would you tell her… tell
her…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you could ask her to cut her old man a break.”

Karin took a deep breath, remembering how she’d made Lana confront Calvert with her instead of doing it on her own. “I don’t
know if I can do that. That’s between you and her. And I think I’ve already asked too much of her when it comes to you.”

Calvert worried the hem of his sleeve.

“But I’ll think about it,” she said.

The waitress came to the table, setting their plates down one at a time. “Pancakes for you, tortilla for you… Can I get you
anything else?”

Karin looked at her plate, heaped with mounds of food. Even without taking a bite, she already felt full. “Thanks,” she said.
“I think we’re fine for now.”

Gene was waiting for her in the kitchen when she got home from the Barn that evening. The room smelled like buttered toast
and scrambled eggs. Breakfast for dinner had always been his specialty, and yet she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of eating
two breakfasts today.

“Hey,” he said, not turning around. “You’re home late.”

“And you’re home early.”

“I called your cell.”

She put her purse down on the table and took off her coat. She’d turned off her cell phone at the table with Calvert. She
must have forgotten to turn it back on. She took off her coat and hung it on a peg by the door. So much had happened to her
today. So much she wanted to share with her husband. It was hard to know where to start.

“Do you want an egg?” he asked.

She sat down at the table, watching the folds across the back of his sweatshirt shifting as he moved the spatula around.

“I ate,” she said. “I had dinner.”

“With who?”

“With Calvert.”

For a moment he didn’t move. He only stood there, motionless, as if waiting for something else to happen. “Why?”

“Because I needed to,” she said.

Quickly he turned around, the spatula raised in the air. “But you’ve spent every day since the moment I met you telling me
how much you hate him, how hard it was growing up in the boardinghouse. I don’t get this.”

She studied the wrinkle between his eyes, the furrow in his forehead. “Why do you sound annoyed?”