Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (3 page)

It's her
, he thought.
Always her.

His brother's decision to separate from Thea had put her front and center in Garret's mind. For years Garret had practiced the delicate art of not thinking about her. Of avoiding any thought that might jog a memory or trigger a flash of feelings long gone. But when he got his brother back a week ago, he got his memories of Thea back too. As it turned out, the mental wall he'd constructed to block her from his consciousness had been no stronger than a tower of cards.

He pulled on an undershirt and walked down the hallway, his body feeling heavy and clumsy. Jonathan was already in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and reading in the bright, midmorning light. Jonathan was dark where Garret was fair, lanky where Garret was stocky. He peered up at Garret over the top edge of a novel—dragons and craggy mountains on the front cover. His dark eyes were alert and friendly.

“Morning.” Garret went to the counter to pour himself a cup of black coffee.

“How you feeling?”

“Like a million bucks that just got washed down a sewer.”

Jonathan laughed. “It was a good night.”

“I'll have to take your word on that,” Garret said, joking. He leaned against the counter and blew the steam of his coffee into the sunlight. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows was the steeland-glass heart of Providence, with its tall buildings and busy thoroughfares.

He loved his kitchen in the morning. He'd had it redesigned last year to include brand-new matching stainless steel appliances, a backsplash of imported blue glass tiles made by Venetian artisans, and Brazilian cherry cabinets. Garret thought they should fire up the built-in grill one of these days (since he'd yet to use it). But his brother had little interest in much of anything. Mostly Jonathan worked late at the office—where he was an accountant and bookkeeper for investment firms—and then he came home to watch sitcoms or read science fiction novels until he passed out.

Garret walked barefoot to the table and sat down. “Hey. You doing all right?”

“Not bad.” Jonathan nodded and put down the novel. “It's just so different here.”

“How do you mean?”

Jonathan looked around, and Garret knew he was no longer seeing the cabinetry or recessed lighting but instead was imagining his own house,
Thea's
house—the inside of which Garret hadn't seen since he was a kid. “It's just really quiet here in the mornings,” Jonathan said. “I'm not used to it.”

Garret nodded. “You miss your daughter.”

“She usually sings show tunes in the hallway until I get out of bed.”

Garret set down his coffee cup. “It's only been a week. And you just talked to her yesterday.”

“I know. But it's different on the phone.”

“So why not go see her?”

“Honestly? Because I'm just not ready to see Thea in person yet.”

“Why? It's not like you meant for this to happen. I mean, look at you. You're not the type of guy who sleeps around.”

Jonathan gave him a mean, sidelong glare.

“Well, yes, you did pull a one-nighter.” Garret ran a hand through his hair, searching for words. “But I'm sure that whatever went down, Thea must have driven you to it.”

“Careful,” Jonathan said.

Garret rubbed his face with his hand, trying to clear his head. He felt the tug of memories between them; they were both thinking of her in their different ways.

“Ask me if she told Mom and Dad what I did,” Jonathan said.

“Did she?”

“No. They don't know a thing about it. She could have ratted me out, made things really messy. But she didn't.”

“At least not yet,” Garret said. “She's just waiting for the right time.”

Jonathan stood and dumped the remains of his coffee in the sink. “I understand what you're trying to do,” he said. “But Thea's not the bad guy here.”

“Why don't you write her an e-mail?” Garret suggested. “Or I'll do it for you, if you want.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” Garret said lightly, but he was already doubting himself. To write Thea an e-mail was to acknowledge her. Since Jonathan had married her he hadn't opened that door—not even a crack. He wasn't sure he had the strength to do it, even now. But his brother needed his help, and Garret was so grateful for the opportunity to prove himself that he would have jumped before a bullet if Jonathan was in its way. “Sure, I'll e-mail her for you. As long as you'll promise never to let me do that many shots again.”

“Which reminds me. I wanted to thank you. For the party. It was just what I needed.”

“No it wasn't,” Garret said gently. “But you're a good man to say that. And you're welcome any time.”

 

 

On Thursday morning, after Thea had dropped a very tired Irina off at the babysitter's but before Thea fired up the espresso machine at the Dancing Goat, she stood alone at the edge of Price's Pier, watching the sunrise. She blew on her convenience-store coffee, sending threads of steam rippling against the heavy morning air. The brew was salty and bitter—cheap robusta that never failed to make her jittery, broken up by flecks of coffee grinds. But she relished it—stubbornly—if only for the fact that it was a cup of coffee that she herself did not make.

If her mother were here, she would insist on squinting into the wreckage of coffee beans in the bottom of her cup to discern Thea's future. Her mother always saw the same shapes; she saw them so often that Thea suspected they were the only symbols she knew. The fish meant
luck and good fortune
. The bird meant
someone will come to you with good news
. The heart meant—what else?—
you will have love
.

But what would her mother say now? she wondered. She drained the last of her coffee and waited a moment—as she'd been taught—for what few grinds there were to dry a little and stick to the sides. But when she looked into the bottom of the cup only a thin line of brown spots greeted her, scalloped as the wrack line at low tide.

What will I do with myself?
she thought.

She'd gotten married when she was practically still a schoolgirl. The structure of her life had been blocked out into three massive cornerstones: (1) she was the owner of a coffee shop, (2) she was a mother, and (3) she was a wife. Each role was precarious at times, her strengths always shifting. But remove one support entirely, and the whole trivet of her life would come tumbling down.

From far away she heard the sound of a cart rattling over the boards of the old pier, probably Khalid staking out territory for his hot dog stand. And in the distance, Xavier and the other lobstermen were shouting loudly, laughing occasionally, and punctuating their Spanish with English swears. Even this early in the morning, when the city's rich vacationers weren't even dreaming of waking up, Price's Pier was busy, striving, hurried . . .

Perhaps that was the message she was supposed to take from the coffee grinds—that she should get to work—just keep doing what she'd been doing her whole life, and that would get her through.

 

 

When the coffee shop was up and running, and the summer hires had arrived to tackle the morning rush, Thea ducked into her office to catch up on paperwork. Her heart dropped out of her chest when she saw Garret's e-mail address in her in-box. She thought for a moment that he was e-mailing her to tell her off—to rant and say all the things to her that he hadn't said all those years ago. Instead, his message was simple, curt.

 

 

She leaned back in her chair, considering the computer screen with the feeling that she was sitting before a chess board and preparing to make her next move. Was this how it was going to be, then? Jonathan wanted to pick up his daughter, and Garret was to broker the deal?

She looked for long moments at his signature line, which was not a signature line at all—not even a name. She had the feeling that if his message had been delivered over a phone line rather than a computer screen, she would have heard him trying not to gag. Did he sign every e-mail that way? So impersonally? Or just e-mails to her?

To her surprise, the reply was nearly instantaneous:

Thea sat back against the wooden slats of her chair; there was no reason to keep Irina from going to Garret's for the weekend. Irina wanted to see her father, and Jonathan no doubt was longing to see Irina too. But Thea worried. She didn't know Garret anymore. Was he still so angry at her? So bitter?

She hated that Garret hated her. She meant to live her life as a good person. She told the truth—even when it made her look bad. She deferred to other people's wishes graciously. Some days, she felt her heart was full to bursting with love—for her family, for her customers at the coffee shop, for the coffee shop itself. She was not perfect, but she tried. She suspected that most people generally thought she was nice, even when she couldn't connect with them on a personal level.

But Garret hated her—despised her so deeply he'd split his family in two over her. It pained her, some days, the ache coming on when she least expected it, like an old injury that flares up days before the rain. To everyone she met she was a good person—to him she was a monster. From his absence at birthday parties and holidays, Thea could feel his indignant fury, an unrelenting, stubborn rage. And now she felt that sending her daughter off to Garret's house was like putting her in a rowboat and shoving her out into a stormy sea.

She covered her face with her hands and leaned on the desk before her. She'd been working on her newspaper column the night before, and her scribbled notes were strewn across the surface of the desk—along with Irina's crayon drawings of horses and bears. Irina was a smart kid, bold and strong. Thea was a hundred times more nervous about sending her daughter away than Irina ever would be about going. Thea just had to trust that Jonathan would defend her—if Garret started filling her daughter's head with his hate. She wouldn't let Garret drive yet another wedge between the members of her family.

Again, the reply came lightning fast. Thea thought:
So he's the plugged-in type
. Life at the speed of light. Her heart gave a little cry to think of him compulsively watching his phone.

She would be sending Jonathan his coffee anyway.