Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (34 page)

She waited. The sun rose hot and crimson in the morning, set in a blaze of sweaty orange at night, and still—no period. When another week passed, he put his arms around her in the front seat of the car and let her cry on his T-shirt.

“Don't worry,” he'd said. “I won't tell anyone.”

And she knew he wouldn't. He would support her. He'd always been supporting her, even when she hadn't known it. Even when she'd been too obsessed with Garret to see. And she felt some echo of his tenderness in herself: the urge to protect him, to help him, to comfort him in the way that he gave so much care and kindness to her. He bought her a pregnancy test; it was pink and white like candy, and he waited outside the bathroom at a local fast-food restaurant while she stared at her watch in a tiny stall. Afterward, she slid into the plastic booth beside him, feeling as if she was floating above the tile floor.

“Negative,” she said.

And he gave her a long hug.

But still her period did not come.

After her birthday party, Thea accidentally let Irina stay up an hour later than usual watching television. She'd been on the phone with Dani, talking things over. She had the sense that her life was out of control—not that it suddenly was, but that it always had been. She'd fallen into her work at the coffee shop. She hadn't married Jonathan so much as she hadn't told him no. When Jonathan had suggested they have a child, she'd had no reason to hesitate. And her divorce—that probably wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Jonathan as well.

She'd always been good at letting her life make her happy. She loved the shop and motherhood and even her relationship with Jonathan. But the idea that she had not chosen those things plagued her.

It's like coffee,
she told Dani.
We're rarely born loving it—but drink it enough and you learn to love it.
She wondered: Were
all
the things that made her happy the result of slowly acquired tastes for those things—as opposed to instinctive, built-in tendencies? And if a taste had to be acquired to be appreciated, didn't that make it artificial in some way? How could she tell the things she'd learned to love from the things she was born loving?

When she hung up the phone with Dani, she still had no answers. Irina came into the kitchen, hopping up onto a chair, her slippers brushing the ground. It was only then that Thea realized how late it was.

“Did you brush your teeth?” Thea asked.

“Yes.”

“Top and bottom?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see.”

Irina rolled her eyes but dutifully opened her mouth. Dark flecks of Oreos were still mashed into her molars.

“What did I tell you about lying to me?” Thea asked, her voice unusually tight.

“Mom, I'm not. I brushed them.”

“You didn't really brush them. Irina—get back upstairs and finish brushing your teeth.”

“Maaaaaah. No!”

“I said,
now
.”

“No, you didn't say ‘now.' You said, ‘Get back upstairs and—' ”

Thea grabbed her daughter's arms, harder than she meant to. She stood and brought Irina to the foot of the stairs.

“Ow! You're hurting me!”

She ordered her daughter to brush again, and when Irina's lip began to quiver, it only made her madder. “I said, GO!”

It wasn't until Irina had stomped as hard as she could one foot over the other that Thea realized how close she was to losing it, as if she'd been taken over by some entirely different person. Sue was right: she'd been snapping at everyone—her daughter, her friends, her employees . . .

She sat down at the kitchen table, where the gifts from her birthday party were scattered, each a treasure in its own way: Irina's lumpy, paint-streaked vase, Jonathan's thick book, Dani's glinting hair clip, and Garret's odd jewelry box. She wondered how long this could go on—the feeling that she was coiled like a spring, the shades of frustration and even anger that discolored everything she did.

Garret's offer—the fantasy of going to him at last—was constantly in the back of her mind. She wanted him; she wouldn't deny that. But she knew that she would not be able to simply shove desire under the carpet and expect it to disappear. Garret was the great, open-ended question of her life, and if she wanted that to change, she would need to do something about it—one way or the other.

She picked up the strange box he'd sent, pulled it out of its foam wrapping, and set it on the kitchen table. It was nice enough—thick wood, rounded corners, a little brass clasp—but given his taste for expensive things, the crude little box simply didn't seem like something he would be attracted to. She wondered: Why would he bother sending her a present if he wasn't going to show up at her party? What kind of mixed message was that?

It wasn't until she opened the box and pulled the velvet ring holders out that she understood. All her indecision had been condensed down into the finite point of the moment: a taunt, a lure, a choice. Inside was a single silver key.

 

 

The fact that Garret had been sitting with his arm around his date at the drive-in theater in North Smithfield when he'd found out that Thea had started dating his brother had not eased his shock. The rain had just begun to fall, dotting the windshield and making the inside of the car humid. The sky was not yet dark.

“At least that's what I heard,” the girl had said. And she scooted next to him, her bare shoulder pressed against his chest. “Does it bother you?”

He'd said
hell, no
even before he'd realized he'd spoken the words. That Thea was with another man—a man who might do better than him—was enough to make his blood seethe. Thea with his brother was unthinkable. Rage tightened his whole body like a crossbow.

He didn't see a frame of the movie; he barely noticed when his date moved her hand to rest so suggestively on his lap. For the fullness of the season—so bloated with heat and humidity—he'd been living in a kind of time freeze, so that some part of him expected that everything would somehow settle back into its right place come the fall. As if the nightmare of his summer had been nothing more than a dream.

But if Thea was with Jonathan, he could lose her forever. He saw that now; the trance had ended. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed against the sky.

 

 

“Thea.”

When he opened the door late on Saturday night, she was there. She was pushing him aside and moving past him, not waiting for an invitation. She was taking off her coat and dropping it over the back of his couch. She was pulling her hair from the constraints of a thick elastic and looking at him with all the hard intention of a woman who wanted something and meant to get it. He braced himself against his own hope—a futile effort—like trying to stop a mountain from crumbling with nothing but his two hands.

“This can't turn into anything serious,” she said.

He didn't trust his voice. “I know.”

“We do this, and it's the last time.”

He nodded. All his senses were tuned in to her, the bend of her arm, the slight lift of her chin, the rate of her breath. She wore a dress he'd never seen before—an olive drab oxford, belted and hanging to her knees. He watched as she covered her face with both hands. The cry that came from her throat was caught between a laugh and a sob.

“I don't know how to stop thinking about you,” she said, looking up. Her dark eyes were lustrous and wild. “I want it to stop.”

He walked toward her, took her two hands in his, and kissed her palms.

In his bedroom, he closed the slats of the venetian blinds and lit the single candle on his dresser, his hand trembling so much he nearly lost the match's flame. He stood for a moment, looking at himself, seeing her come up behind him. The same nervousness that had stymied him as a young man racked him even now. And he realized: all of his training, his years of thinking of sex as science, of love as technique, had been preparation not for a string of nameless and faceless women but for this. A second chance.

He moved her to stand before him, so he could watch her in the mirror. He slipped open the buttons of her cotton dress one by one, from her clavicle to her knees, then eased it open. She was beautiful; he didn't know how he would be able to go slowly. Candlelight flickered, warm tones on her warmer skin. Her hair fell softly around her shoulders. Her bra was black as ink. He slid it down.

“Thea . . .”

She turned around and kissed him, hard, and left no question about what she wanted or how she wanted it. He bent to hook an arm around her knees, lifting her and carrying her to his bed. His own clothes felt heavy as lead on his body as he fought to get them off. A decade had passed since the last time they'd done this, but he couldn't wait a moment more.

And yet, if he let momentum take over, Thea would be gone before he knew it. But if he could hold out, could keep her with him as long as possible, he could stave off the end.

He was careful when he lowered on top of her, careful not to hurt her and careful to remember everything he'd learned. He kissed her mouth every way he knew how, drew back and teased her or demanded everything she had. He refused to give in to her pleas to hurry and rush. His hands traced her body: the plush pad of her lower lip, the sweep of her jaw, the curved undersides of her breasts. This was how he'd imagined it ages ago—and her moans and whimpers told him she too had known it could be just this way. He wanted more, to wring every last drop of pleasure from her, to show her that no one would ever make her feel this way but him. She was writhing like fire beneath him, all woman and liquid heat, and he kissed every inch of her to see if she still tasted the same.

He didn't stop her when she pushed at his shoulders, the need in her eyes bordering on anger. She balanced above him, nearly glaring, and he knew enough to hold himself still. His teeth clenched, the muscles in his neck tightened. She kissed him as her body welcomed him. She cried out against his mouth. And the last coherent thought he had was that she was his, finally, if only for a time.

 

 

Jonathan made an appointment at the local clinic, and while it was obviously scheduled for Thea, he'd found himself referring to it as “our appointment.” They went together. They knew by now that she was pregnant with Garret's child; there was no other possibility. Weeks had passed, and Thea still hadn't bled. In the waiting room, Jonathan put his arm around her, and she leaned against him, her forehead pressing the skin of his neck, her body all angles and hard planes. Jonathan knew people might think that he was the father, but he didn't mind. Some part of him almost wished he was. Thea sighed against him. The air smelled of fear and chemicals.

“Listen,” he told her. “I don't want to give you one more thing to worry about. But I want you to know that I'll marry you. I'll spend my life protecting your child. And you. You've got my promise.”

Thea hadn't lifted her head, but she said, “You mean that?”

“Of course,” he said, and a feeling of deep tenderness and protectiveness swelled up within him. “I would do anything for you. I love you.”

“Let's not go in.” She nestled closer to him. “Let's just sit here together. Forever. Just like this.”

“Okay,” he'd said. He knew what she meant. He too was content—a moment of peace he wanted to live inside of, if only they could just pause their lives right here, before anything bad happened. He wondered if he was falling in love. He couldn't think of a better woman to fall for than Thea. He saw them: him, her, their kids. A house. Maybe a dog or cat when the children got older. He could take care of Thea—it was the one thing he knew how to do well.

When the nurse called her name, he held her hand and stayed with her as long as the doctor would allow. Later, after the exam, the doctor explained: She'd lost so much weight. Too much. And her body was conserving calories by making her miss her periods. He told her to start drinking meal supplements and taking vitamins. He told her to take it easy. Talk to a therapist. She left with her head hanging low.

“So you're off the hook,” she told Jonathan with a pinched smile. And he was surprised to realize that he felt disappointed. “You don't have to marry me.”

They were standing next to his car. It occurred to him that they hadn't so much as kissed, and yet he was thinking they should spend their lives together. He pushed her hair back off of her face, the face that had always given him such comfort, that always roused these feelings of protection and the knowledge of doing something
right
. He liked standing beside her when she was in trouble, holding her up. And he knew she would do the same for him.