Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (23 page)

Shyly, I ask Colin if he’s ever taken Shelby to New Zealand.

“She never wanted to go,” he says, hugging me. Water, black as ink, swirls around us. His arms tighten. “Jilly, say you’ll come with me.”

“Of course I will,” I mutter into his wet chest.

Harriet calls to reschedule our Friday-night barbecue. “I’m sorry, but Bea’s on a business trip. Could we come Saturday, instead?”

I hesitate because Colin leaves on Sunday and I don’t want to share our last day with anyone. On the other hand, I’m anxious for him to meet my friends again, to get to know them properly this time. When I told him Harriet and Beatrice were coming over, he asked if Fergus and Lizzie were coming too, and I lied and hated myself for lying. I said they’d gone to Virginia and were sorry to have missed him. No way can I tell him the truth about my fight with Lizzie, not after what happened last night.

We were in bed. and although it wasn’t exactly the best time to bring it up, I couldn’t help myself. I asked when he was going to make a break with Shelby. Not that I was pushing him, mind you. I just wanted to know because, well, I had to figure out a few things for my business. Then, of course, I went whole hog and told him how I’d canned Elaine.

“That wasn’t very smart,” he said.

At first, I thought he was kidding. I pretended to be indignant which wasn’t easy given I was naked and straddling his belly. He pushed me off and turned away. I still didn’t think he was serious, so I wrapped my arms around him and snuggled into the small of his back.

He stiffened, then told me I ought to mend my fences with Elaine.

I wasn’t expecting that.

“It’s for your own good, Jill,” he said.

Behind him, I buried my face in the pillow to muffle my sobs. I couldn’t figure out what had upset me the most. The way he avoided the issue of telling Shelby about us, or what he said about me dumping Elaine. Or was it because he’d just stepped off his pedestal and I couldn’t handle it? I closed my eyes and tried to will him back on it. I needed him up there where he belonged. Then he turned toward me and wiped my eyes and we tried to make love, but it kind of fizzled out.

Or rather, he did.

Harriet’s voice hauls me back to the present. “Jill? Are you still there?”

“Let’s make it lunch instead of dinner, okay? Colin’s flying home the next day, and—”

“I promise we’ll leave promptly at four.”

I let out a sigh, grateful for friends who understand.

Harriet and family show up at noon armed with beach chairs and blankets and a positively sinful dessert with strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream. I shove it in the fridge and pull out the salads and chicken I prepared, and we take them outside where Colin is firing up the grill. He offers to cook.

“I see you’ve got him house-trained already,” Beatrice says.

“He mowed the lawn as well,” I say.

Anna tugs at my sleeve. “Jill, can we go find that giant snail?”

“
Giant
snail?” Harriet raises her eyebrows. “Should I be worried?”

“Absolutely. These guys grow to eight, nine inches or more,” I say, winking at Anna. “They vacuum up clams and steal bait from lobster pots.”

“Impressive,” Beatrice says, “for a measly old mollusk.”

Ever since I showed Anna a picture of a channeled whelk, she’s been determined to find one. She wants to hum at it the way I’ve taught her to hum at smaller snails, like the periwinkle she’s just found beneath a plant pot and is now handing to Colin. He puts down his spatula and examines the snail.

“Would you like me to cook this for you?” he says.

Anna squeals and snatches it back. “No, you have to hum.”

Colin shoots me a puzzled glance, so I tell him that if you hum, in a boring sort of monotone, the snail will eventually poke its head out of its shell.

“Will it say hello?” Colin asks Anna.

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “Snails don’t talk.”

“But if they did,” he persists, “what would they say?”

She ponders this for a minute while the rest of us struggle to keep from laughing out loud. “I think,” Anna says, with a perfectly straight face, “they’d ask what the snail said when it rode on the turtle’s back.”

“Wheeeeee?” Colin says.

After lunch I invite Beatrice for a walk because I want to ask her something and don’t want Colin and Harriet to hear. We settle ourselves comfortably on a pile of smooth rocks and let our feet dangle in the shallow, sun-warmed water of a tide pool teeming with small, darting fish and dozens of hermit crabs.

“If this is out of line, tell me to shut up.”

“Okay,” Beatrice says. “Shoot.”

“What’s it like, moving into a house owned by someone else?”

Beatrice doesn’t even hesitate. “Difficult.”

“Suppose you bought half of it?” I ask, thinking about Harriet’s painted lady on Bay Street. It’s a pearl gray Victorian, with a rose pink front door, green and lavender trim, and a turret. Anna calls it their gingerbread house.

“We’ve discussed it,” Beatrice says, “but it doesn’t work because everyone, including me, always thinks of that house as Harriet’s.” She bends to scoop a hermit crab from the water. Its shell is at least six inches. Maybe more. “Is this one of those giants you were talking about?”

“Yes, and Anna will be thrilled,” I say. “Even if the whelk is long gone.”

“D’you suppose the crab ate it before taking over?”

“More likely an angry lobsterman. They get pretty pissed at these things for pinching their bait.”

Beatrice tosses it back. “We’ll show it to Anna later. It’s not going anywhere, at least, not till the next tide.” She wipes her hands on her shorts. “So, where were we?”

“Sharing a house.”

“The only way it really works is for the couple to sell both their homes and buy something together. Fifty-fifty. Equal partners.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

There’s a slight pause. “Harriet and I just started looking.”

“You’re not leaving the village, are you?”

“Of course not. We love it here. We want something with a bit more land, enough space for a garden … and a barn. Anna wants a pony,” Beatrice says, massaging her legs, “and I want a house without stairs. I can’t handle them any more.”

“Have you put Harriet’s house on the market yet?”

Beatrice shakes her head. “We’re turning it into a professional center for attorneys, dentists, and doctors, with a sexy robot at command central for email and faxing.”

We laugh, and then I describe Colin’s lodge in the Cotswolds.

Beatrice sighs. “Sounds utterly divine. How can he bear to leave it?”

“I asked myself the same question, but he is. He’s coming here to share mine.”

“Big mistake.”

“Colin loves my house.”

“And I love Harriet’s,” Beatrice says, “but it just doesn’t work. Trust me. I’ve been there and done that. Sell your cottage and buy something else with Colin.”

I’m about to argue when Anna runs up with a bucket, followed by her mother. Beatrice points to the giant hermit crab, tucked up against a rock.

Anna flops into the pool. “Jill, what’s it called?” she asks, poking it cautiously. The crab’s claws are out and they’re big enough to bite a small finger.

“A hermit crab,” Harriet says, peering over Anna’s shoulder.

“No, the shell.”

“This,” I say, pulling it from the water, “is a channeled whelk.”

“I know
that
,” Anna says, eyes widening at the sheer size of this precious monster. “What’s the shell’s
other
name?”

I grin at her.
“Busycotypus canaliculatus.”

“Bet you can’t get your tongue around that one,” Harriet says, ruffling her daughter’s unruly curls.

Anna sniffs. “Mom, it’s Latin, and Jill’s been teaching me.”

“Really?” Harriet pretends to look surprised.

After promising Anna more lessons the next time she’s over, I walk back up the beach to join Colin. He’s sprawled on the blanket, eyes closed, one arm bent above his head, and his face is flushed. I rummage in my bag for the sunscreen and smooth it over his forehead, across the tops of his cheeks, and down his nose. He rolls toward me, deliciously rumpled and smelling, faintly, of the sex we had this morning. I instigated it. I don’t normally, but after what happened the other night, I wasn’t taking any chances. And the sex was fine. In fact, it was quite marvelous, despite Colin’s rolling away afterward and turning on the TV. He wanted to watch the news. I wanted to cuddle, but made breakfast instead.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, sitting up.

I lean against him, feel the weight of his arm across my shoulders, the heat of his thigh pressed against mine. He takes my hand and circles my palm with his thumb. Pleasure zings through my body, turns into an ache between my legs.

Would anyone notice if we sneaked upstairs?

What will it be like when we’re together all the time? Will the urgency fade? Will the humdrum of daily life turn us into a couple who has sex on Saturday nights and once every other Thursday? I can’t imagine not wanting his body, his mouth—

Squeezing my legs together, I gaze at the water and count five sailboats, seven windsurfers. Two jet skis making more than enough noise. Beyond them, the tip of Long Island hovers like a mirage just above the horizon. Colin shades his eyes and looks toward my friends by the rocks, still heavily involved with the hermit crab. Anna’s holding it up, quite confidently now, and Harriet’s shaking her head, no doubt hoping to convince her daughter it’s not okay to bring it home … that this creature needs to live here. On the beach, with its buddies.

Anna drops her crab in the pool.

“She’s a sweet kid,” Colin says. “What does her father do?”

I hesitate. “Anna doesn’t have one.”

“Come on, Jill. Everyone has a father,” Colin says. “Even if they don’t amount to much.” He shudders. “Like mine.”

“Harriet chose Anna’s father, carefully, and—”

“She did a damned fine job,” Colin says.

I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. “Anna doesn’t see her father, because—”

But Colin interrupts. “Then I feel sorry for him,” he says. “Not knowing what a great little girl he has.”

“He doesn’t want to know.” I pause. “He isn’t allowed to know.”

Colin looks at me. “Why not?”

“Because he’s anonymous. That’s the deal.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Harriet’s a single mother by choice. She selected Anna’s father from a sperm bank.”

Colin turns away from me, back toward the group. Anna’s crouching in the tide pool, peering into her bucket, and Beatrice and Harriet are sitting on the rocks, side-by-side, feet dangling in the water. And then Beatrice, not normally one for public displays of affection, even with Anna, takes Harriet’s hand and Harriet lays her head on Bea’s shoulder and these simple, loving gestures make it quite obvious how they feel about one another.

“You should have warned me,” Colin says, sounding brittle.

“I thought you knew.”

He shakes his head. “Well, I do now.”

Sands Point

August 2011

I spend the rest of the afternoon making sure the conversation is upbeat because I can feel Colin’s tension and I’m worried he’ll get up and wander off down the beach or go back inside and Harriet will guess something’s wrong, or Beatrice will, and then I’ll have to explain why he feels the way he does and I really don’t want to.

Fuck.

I should’ve told him sooner, but I honestly thought he’d have figured it out by now.

“How about dessert?” I say.

“Yippee,” yells Anna.

Thank God for the innocence of small kids. We gather up our belongings and troop inside. I pull Harriet’s confection from the fridge, serve generous portions, and set them on the kitchen table with spoons and napkins and glasses of ice tea. Colin inhales his without stopping. Would he like more? Harriet asks, clearly pleased. How about the recipe? Beatrice chimes in. He takes another helping.

Harriet glances at the clock. “We’d better get going,” she says, scooping up wet towels, Anna’s discarded bathing suit, and Beatrice’s canvas bag. She lumps them together under one arm and holds out her free hand to Colin.

“I hope we’ll see you again soon,” she says.

He nods, curtly. “Yes, yes. Of course. Same here.”

Beatrice takes over. She hugs me and punches Colin in the arm. I watch him tense up. He bites his lip, and when Anna wraps her arms around his legs, he stiffens, visibly this time, before patting her head and disentangling himself, and I hear Harriet making a noise in her throat.

Oh shit, this is all going wrong.

Zachary scoots past us and squeezes through the screen door. Anna runs after him. So does Harriet, and then Beatrice, and before following them, I tell Colin not to come with me. “I’ll handle this.”

He shrugs and turns away.

I force myself to go outside. Beatrice is strapping Anna into her car seat and Harriet’s shoving their stuff in the trunk. She slams the lid, whips around to face me.

“Look, Jill, I know it’s not your fault, and I know I’m making too much of this, but right now I’m incredibly hurt.”

“There’s a reason,” I say. “I can explain.”

Harriet leans against her car. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“Colin’s ex-wife took their daughter to New Zealand,” I say. “He hardly gets to see her, and the ex-wife is, well she’s—” and I find myself scrambling for the right words, but they won’t come and no matter what I say, or how I say it, it’s going to come out badly.

“I take it,” Harriet says, in a voice designed to shred opposing attorneys, “you’re trying to tell me Colin’s former wife is gay?”

I nod and slump against the fender.

“And this is a big deal?”

“It is for him,” Beatrice says, coming to stand beside Harriet. “But it isn’t for Jill, and you and I know that, so let’s not have this turn into something ugly.” She takes Harriet’s hand and squeezes it. “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion.”