one hot summer (16 page)

For all I knew, we were all keeping secrets. Everyone I knew might be keeping secrets.

Anabel put the picture back on the table. I picked it up again.

“Does your daughter have a name yet?” I asked.

Vivian blushed and looked down at the table. “Margarita Anabel. I’ve decided to name her Margarita Anabel Mendoza.”

Now it was our turn to tear up.

As soon as lunch was over I left Vivian and Anabel, returning to my car, which I’d parked by one of the meters on Commodore Plaza. I felt drained by what Vivian had told us and the reality of how well she’d hidden her secret from us. I couldn’t decide what I thought about her decision to adopt, and I was looking forward to the inevitable debriefing with Anabel. I reminded myself not to judge my friend’s actions. It was her life, to live as she wished. And that little Honduran girl was surely going to be better off with Vivian.

I hadn’t known about it in advance, but Vivian’s decision to become a mother must have been crucial and fundamental; she had decided to share her life with a little girl who had few opportunities otherwise. For that, Vivian deserved praise—not skepticism or criticism. I needed to be respectful and supportive, especially in the beginning. Vivian had been around kids before, but she didn’t know what it was like to be a mother. She was in for a rough time. Adjusting one’s life to the presence of a child is one of the most difficult things that life offers. At least I had gone through the wars with Marti, and I would be in a position to offer support.

I walked slowly whenever I was thinking of something, almost at a snail’s pace, and by the time I reached my car I was sweating in the hot noonday sun. I felt droplets of perspiration rolling down my back. It was so hot and steamy that I could smell the street asphalt melting as I rummaged in my purse for my car keys. The sidewalk under my feet felt sticky, a sensation I remembered from visiting New York in the summertime. My outfit was doing nothing to help me cool off—my jacket and dress stuck to my skin. The air felt alive with heat, and even the slight breeze carried more warmth. It was a feeling that everyone in Miami knew well.

Once I was inside the car I turned the air conditioner on full-blast and aimed all the vents directly at me. I sat back and waited for the car to cool off, and for my internal temperature to return to tolerable levels. I looked back at the restaurant, and realized that the entire journey to my car had been about twenty yards. I had no idea how anyone survived South Florida summers before the advent of air-conditioning.

I closed my eyes for about twenty seconds, then opened them again. The air-conditioning was starting to do its job. It sounded like a jet airplane taking off, but I didn’t mind. Now that I was feeling fairly human, I reached for my purse. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I unzipped the side compartment and found the envelope Luther had given me. I upended it and gently shook it until the key ring and folded piece of paper fell into my lap. I unfolded the paper, realizing that I hadn’t seen Luther’s handwriting in years. I immediately recognized the pointed, stark lines of his script. He hadn’t changed at all.

In this age of e-mail and electronic greeting cards, I’ve often found that I wouldn’t recognize close friends’ handwriting if my life depended on it. I’ve gotten so used to typing everything out that my own handwriting had deteriorated to the point of illegibility. Luther was obviously the exception to this trend—his pen was still crisp, clear, and unmistakable.

One style of handwriting that never changes is the script taught by the nuns of the Order of the Sacred Heart. A girl who attended that school is forever identifiable by her even, sloping letters. You can graduate from Catholic school, but part of you never gets out.

I was holding the piece of paper in my hand. With the other, I took the cell phone out of my purse and punched in a now familiar number. It was almost as though I was watching myself perform in a play, acting out a script that had already been written. My flesh was weak, as far as Luther was concerned. My resolve of the night before to stay away from him had dissipated like the early morning mist over Biscayne Bay. And once the mist burns away, I thought, there was nothing left but light and heat.

There was also more to my actions than lust. Listening to Vivian talk about adopting a child, I realized I needed to resolve the situation with Luther. Maybe I was rationalizing, but I admired Vivian for taking a risk. I had never risked anything in my life, no matter what I’d accomplished. When had I ever been true to myself, and damned the consequences? I knew I was going to have to live with myself, but that future was somehow pushed into another category of experience. The future was the future. Now was now.

I felt a lurching sensation. What was I thinking? I was going to have to go home and spend the evening with Ariel.

I shook my head. No, I had to do it.

I had never been unfaithful to Ariel, I’d never even come close. For me, fidelity was a reality of marriage and not a great sacrifice. I never felt as though I had given up anything by marrying Ariel; it had simply been the logical progression of our relationship. I had gained, not lost, by joining my life to his. I had done it happily and willingly, with no hidden agenda or feelings of regret or recrimination.

Ariel’s proposal, years ago, had made me think long and hard. Once I decided to accept, I took my vows seriously. I had never once succumbed to the temptation of a passing fling with anyone. I’d seen the pain and damage that infidelity inflicts on a family. I didn’t want to be like my father, with an Ofelia in my life, or even a one-night stand. I knew there was no way Luther would agree to being kept a secret for a decade, like my father’s mistress. If Papa hadn’t had his heart attack, he and Ofelia would probably still be secret lovers, and might have remained that way until one of them died with their secret.

My beliefs and convictions had been clear-cut and straightforward. Now I was listening to the phone ring. Luther picked up. I imagined him recognizing my number on his caller ID screen.

“Daisy,” he said. “I was hoping you’d call.”

His voice sounded hearty, and he was obviously delighted to hear from me. After our lunch at Bice yesterday, there was no need to pretend I had called just to chat.

“Are you busy right now?” I asked him.

“I’m in the office going through depositions,” Luther said. He paused for a moment, thinking. Like any good lawyer, he was pondering the options. “Look, it’s nothing I can’t take a break from. Why do you ask?”

“I’m…I’m taking you up on your offer.” I took a labored breath. My heart pounded as though I was running up a steep hill. “That is, if you can meet me soon.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Luther said quickly, not giving me time to back off. “Maybe less. I’m leaving the office right now.”

I heard noises in the background, papers being shuffled, then a drawer opening and slamming shut.

“I’m already in the Grove, so I’ll be there first,” I told him. “I’ll wait for you.” I had the keys to his place, but there was no way I was going into the apartment by myself.

“That’s fine,” Luther said. He sounded as though he would have agreed to anything I suggested. “We can meet in the parking lot, if that would make you more comfortable.”

“See you there.” And, without giving him a chance to say anything else, I hung up.

Although I knew perfectly well where his building was, I looked at the paper in my hand again. It seemed to communicate more than an address. I had crossed a bridge the moment I accepted the envelope from Luther. Now I realize we had both known it would only be a matter of time before I acted on the unspoken promise between us. My soul-searching on the terrace the night before had represented my last vestige of inner resistance.

I didn’t need to leave for fifteen minutes—the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things, but an eternity if spent contemplating adultery for the first time. I started to think of Ariel, then stopped myself. I had made a decision, and I couldn’t take Ariel into consideration. I was going to meet Luther, and these errant thoughts weren’t going to stop me.

Instead of getting lost in the enormity of what I had decided, I would focus on practical things. I wondered whether I was too sweaty, and tried to remember which underwear I’d put on that morning. It had been close to ten years since I went to bed with Luther. I had gained a few pounds, and had a baby. I knew how sharp Luther’s memory was. I hated to think how much I might suffer in comparison to my younger self. And I was on the Pill, so I wouldn’t get pregnant, but I hadn’t thought about diseases. I knew I was clean, but I knew nothing about Luther’s recent sex life. I would need to protect myself, but I didn’t want to kill the spark between us.

Going to bed with Luther opened up a dizzying range of questions. In the decade since college and law school, sex had lost its simplicity. We had more money, we had more experience, but our complications and problems had risen in direct proportion to o
ur gains. I started to laugh out loud, alone in my car, at my situation. I was about to go to bed with a lover I hadn’t been with in ten years, who might or might not be turned off by my post-childbirth body. I was worried that I might catch a disease and pass it on to my husband. I was sweaty, I might even smell bad, and I was wearing a totally sexless dress and jacket that made me look like a junior executive at a third-tier credit union.

My worst problem, it turned out, was something I could do nothing about, given my time constraints. A quick check of my bra strap reminded me that I was wearing white cotton underwear, a time-honored lust killer. I had a drawer full of beautiful underwear from Wacoal and La Perla, but that morning I had worn underwear that my mother would have sent with me to sleepaway camp. I wondered if, subconsciously, I had been trying to sabotage my lustful feelings for Luther. Maybe so, but it hadn’t worked.

All this worrying had actually eaten up a lot of time; as a result, I was in danger of being late to meet Luther. I pulled out of the parking space and wondered if I was even going to enjoy the experience, with all of these thoughts and worries swirling in my head. I had always associated adultery with pain, betrayal, and hurt. It wasn’t supposed to be fun.

My heart was beating wildly with anticipation.

Luther and I arrived at the parking lot of his building at precisely the same moment. I followed him into the drive, where he parked his car in the spot reserved for Apartment 31 East, then I continued on to the visitors’ parking spaces and slid the Escalade into a spot closest to the wall.

I got out of the car, locked it, and looked up to see Luther approaching.

“It’s good to see you, Daisy,” he said as he placed a discreet peck on my cheek.

I nodded in response, incapable of saying anything. Luther was wearing a charcoal suit, a blue shirt, and tasteful striped tie. The parking lot was sweltering and my summertime misery index was rising just from standing there for fifteen awkward seconds. But he looked great, even in the harsh sunshine. He had never looked better.

“Let’s go,” Luther said, gently taking my arm and leading me toward the building. I followed, relieved to be led, and relaxed a fraction when we entered the air-conditioned comfort of the lobby.

“The elevators are this way, at the end of the hall,” he said.

We crossed the minimally furnished lobby and reached the elevator doors, where Luther pushed the button. I looked up at the numbers displayed over each of the doors. They were both in service. We would have to wait.

Luther’s building was in the heart of Coconut Grove, a block away from Biscayne Bay near Kennedy Park. I had driven by it countless times but never noticed it, much less been inside. It was relatively small, only six stories high, narrow, and painted green to blend in with its immediate surroundings. I hated to think this way, but Luther’s building was ideal for an illicit rendezvous. Though it was set on a small hill it escaped immediate notice because it was set back from the street and hidden by a row of tall and densely planted ficus trees. The building was in central Miami but it gave off a sense of reassuring privacy. It wasn’t even possible to enter the property without knowing an access code, and it seemed clear that unwanted visitors weren’t at all welcome. Which was just fine with me.

It was hard to tell how old the building was, but it was actually really handsome, with lots of wood and huge windows everywhere that let in lots of light. Everywhere in sight were leaves, branches, and sunshine, as though we were in a treehouse. The only furniture in the lobby was a pair of rattan chairs, a three-seater sofa opposite them, and a low wooden coffee table. It wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming, but neither was it austere and unfriendly. No one was around, and I felt a sense that no one would be.

Luther stood by me quietly. Every pore of my body was conscious of his physical presence a couple of feet away. I felt such nervous anticipation that I was transported back to Duke, the night of our first date more than a dozen years before. I hadn’t known that an anxious girl still lived inside the grown-up woman.

Finally one of the elevator doors opened. Mercifully, there was no one inside it whose presence we might have to acknowledge. I felt painfully aware of the two of us together, how we would be perceived as a couple. Once inside, Luther pressed the button for the third floor. During the short trip up, we each managed to move to an opposite corner of the elevator, putting as much space as possible between us. We said nothing, and avoided eye contact.

Luther opened his door and stepped aside to let me go in first. I gasped when I walked inside. Nothing had prepared me for what I saw.

It felt as if I was standing in the top of a tall tree. The apartment was in the corner of the building, and the outer walls were all glass and unadorned by curtains. I stared out into heavy green, broken only by golden sun. The windows were all open as far as they could go, which was incredibly rare in Miami. I realized that the apartment faced east, and was cooled by sea breezes coming directly from the bay. I could hear the leaves rustling gently just outside. The air in the apartment was kept circulating by palm-tree ceiling fans that twirled gracefully above.

Whoever the designers of the place had been, they were brilliant. Wall-to-wall sisal carpet covered the floor. Yards and yards of white muslin cloth was generously arranged throughout, draping doorways, covering rattan couches, tables, and chairs, and suspended from light fixtures. Even the tall palm trees in the corners were partially camouflaged with white fabric. It was all remarkable. Luther must have known the first-time impact the place would have on me, because he stayed a few feet behind and let me take it all in. My eyes moved back and forth, finding new details; but I had to admit that all the white gauze made me feel as though I were in the center of a very large merengue. If I didn’t dissect things too much, then there was a definite otherworldliness about the place.

“Wow,” I said, my voice unintentionally hushed.

“I know,” Luther said with a quiet laugh. “Even after years of renting this place, I still haven’t gotten used to it. Sometimes I wake up during the night, smell the breeze, and see all this white, and for a second I think I might have died and landed in heaven.”

Luther took my hand and led me to one of the sofas. He pushed some muslin aside, and invited me to sit down.

“Something to drink?” he asked.

“Yes. Thanks.” I accepted his offer more to buy time than because of thirst. I took off my jacket and put my purse on the floor, stopping to reach inside and turn off my cell phone. I watched Luther walk away to the kitchen and tried taking a few deep breaths to relax myself.

Soon I heard the sound of cupboards being opened and closed. A few moments later Luther returned with a silver tray; on it was an ice bucket with a bottle sticking out of it, along with two flute glasses. He set the tray down carefully on the table in front of the sofa where I was sitting.

“Veuve Clicquot still your favorite?” he asked in perfect Spanish as he sat on the other side of the sofa and got to work. “I took a chance that it still would be.”

“Sí. Gracias,”
I said, touched by his memory. He carefully twisted the cork off the top of the bottle, poured two glasses, and handed one to me.

We touched the tops of our glasses lightly and took a few sips, avoiding looking directly at each other. Noticing that I had discarded my jacket, Luther seemed to realize that he was still wearing his. He stood up and took it off, draping it over the nearest chair.

“Luther, I’m really nervous about this,” I blurted out, putting my glass on the table. I felt like I couldn’t keep it together much longer.

“Me too, Daisy, me too,” Luther confessed. Then his face took on a mischievous look. “And,
querida,
in my case that could be problematic.”

It took me about ten seconds to replay what Luther had said, then to figure it out. I started laughing, more from nervousness than anything else, but it was the right thing to do. Luther and I moved together and began kissing, softly first, in an exploratory manner, but then with increased urgency. Luther tasted like Binaca and champagne, a Proustian moment that made me feel as though the years since law school had never happened.

We moved to the bedroom, which was furnished in the same style as the rest of the apartment. Breezes made the white fabric sway and undulate everywhere, billowing and tangling. The bed was huge, an extra-size four-poster, canopied with tons of fabric. Apart from a rattan dresser in the middle of one wall and matching dressers on either side of the bed, the only other item of furniture in the room was a big-screen TV in the corner, situated to face the bed.

Luther had started to unzip my dress when he looked hard into my eyes. “I’m going to put your mind at rest, because I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed,” he said softly. “I’ve been tested, and I’m clean. I have no diseases, I’m not going to give you anything. I promise you that. But if it’ll make you feel better. I’ll still use protection.”

“Thanks,” I said, filled with relief over the information and not having to ask about it. “And no, I trust you.”

Luther finished unzipping my dress, holding my hand so I wouldn’t lose my balance as I stepped out of it. I cringed at the sight of my white underwear—one step up from Sparky pants and a training bra, but Luther seemed not to notice. He carefully put my dress on a dresser, then returned and reverently laid me down in bed. He made me feel so special that I almost forgot to suck in my stomach.

There was lots of natural light coming in through the wide windows, but it was indirect and diffused by gauzy fabric, so I began to relax about my body. As though sensing my modesty, Luther turned down the white sheets and slipped me between them. The fabric was so soft, I thought, that the thread count must have been in four figures. Softly, gently, but with the assurance of a practiced hand, Luther turned me over slightly and unhooked my brassiere and slipped off my panties. He covered me up with the top sheet and started to take off his own clothes. This took less time because he let his shirt and pants slip unceremoniously to the floor.

Suddenly we were back at Duke. The awkwardness between us was forgotten, and we made love with no reservation, the way we always had, holding nothing back. But, as much as it was the same, it was also different. I felt a sweetness and affection between us, almost a protectiveness, that had never been there before. It infused our mutual lust and passion with a sense of trust and comfort.

In the beginning, I sensed we were both trying not to show our extensive experience and expertise in lovemaking. It was as though we were trying to appear innocent in each other’s eyes, as if we hadn’t learned anything from anyone else in the years we’d been apart. But soon we became more open and adventuresome, and our reluctance to show it dropped away. Then the obvious fact that we’d had other lovers in the intervening years added to the sexual energy between us, and made us more sensual than I could ever recall.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, we separated, so hot and sweaty that our bodies made a smacking sound as we broke away. I lay on my back, exhausted, feeling the sweat rolling off my body. It was a sensation I would normally have found unpleasant, but it felt like a just consequence of the past few hours. The breeze from the ceiling fan started to cool me, and I began to dry myself off with the bed sheets. Unfortunately, Luther and I had pretty much soaked through them, and it was hard work trying to find anything dry on the bed.

I faced the window and looked outside, seeing that the sun was no longer shining brightly. I spoke for the first time since we entered the room.

“Luther, I have to go now.” I saw his disappointed expression. “It’s getting late. I’m sorry.”

“You know I don’t want you to go, but I understand,” Luther replied. “I’m not going to make things difficult for you.”

Luther propped himself up on one elbow and gently kissed me. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and went to the dresser, where he found my clothes.

“Do you want to take a shower
before you go?” he asked.

“No, I think I’ll wait until I get home.” Despite what we had just done, taking a shower in his place felt like a line that I didn’t want to cross. It was more than a little crazy of me. “Thank you, though.”

Despite having spent hours exploring each other’s body, Luther hadn’t yet seen me standing up naked. Although what we had just done could have probably gotten us arrested in some southern states, I wasn’t about to walk across the room without my clothes on. Luther might have known every inch of my body lying down, but not standing up. Every woman thirty-five or older who’s had children knows about the difference between the two. For now, I was going to make sure Luther saw only the best view of me. I would rather go home smelly, sweaty, and sticky than have Luther watch me parade across his bedroom naked.

I took the clothes from him and, quickly as possible, got dressed. Luther lay in bed, naked and uncovered by sheets. When I was finished, he got up and hugged me tight.

“I love you, Daisy,” he said into my ear. “With every breath and every second of the day.”

“I know,” I told him. “I love you, too.”

And I did. God help me.
Ay.