Secrets in Summer

by Nancy Thayer

  He looked at her warily.

  “Law firm? Briefcase?”

  Nash barked an abrupt laugh. “All true. I was going to save the world. Ha. I couldn’t even save my brother.” He slumped into his chair. “Yeah, I went to law school, passed the Massachusetts bar. Got a job with a firm in Boston that did ten percent of its work pro bono. But after Edsel…I didn’t see the point. I wanted out of my head. I was driving myself nuts with words. So I joined a construction crew building houses on the Cape. Now that was work. That was clear. Lift boards, pound nails, at the end of the day you’ve got a wall. Keep doing that, you’ve got a house. Do it well, that house will last a long time.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah.”

  “And you traveled.”

  “Yeah, I did. In the winter, we didn’t have as much work. I traveled. This winter I came here, joined Ramos’s crew—and stopped traveling.”

  “Do you think you’ll stay on the island?”

  Nash shrugged. “I might. It’s nice enough here.” He stood up. “Time to eat.”

  She could tell he was done with intimate talk, so she asked him how his day had gone, and he told her about a guy working on a house across the street who got his foot stuck in a tray of paint and the guys nearly fell off their ladders laughing. Darcy told him about the vomiting child in story hour, and that brought a smile to his face. By the time they’d finished eating, the tension had evaporated.

  “Dessert’s inside,” Nash told her with a grin.

  “Can’t you bring it out?” Darcy teased.

  “It’s ice cream. In the freezer.”

  “Well, let’s go in, then.”

  They carried their plates in and up the stairs to his apartment. It was a good-size space, spread over the two-car garage, living room with kitchen, bedroom, bath.

  Nash’s furniture was an unusual mixture of tag sale and Ethan Allen—his sofa, armchair, and king-size bed were handsome and new. He had, of course, a flat-screen TV and, surprisingly, a shelf of vinyl and a record player. Two window air conditioners cooled the rooms. His kitchen table and chairs were used and scarred, but his laptop was on the kitchen counter, set to a page of recipes.

  “Recipes?” Darcy asked.

  Nash shrugged. “I like to cook. I watch Chef’s Table.”

  “So do I! In the winter, when things calm down, let’s have some cooking dates,” Darcy suggested. Nash had his back to her—setting plates in the dishwasher—and when he didn’t respond, anxiety pinched her. Was she too eagerly assuming they’d still be together in the winter?

  She forced herself to study his shelf of books. She bent over to scan the titles—science fiction, nonfiction, thrillers.

  “Nice.”

  “I think so.” As he spoke, Nash put his hands on her hips and pressed himself against her.

  Lust shot through her so fast her knees went weak. Straightening up, she turned in his arms and kissed him.

  “Ice cream later,” Nash said.

  They couldn’t let go of each other, couldn’t stop kissing, touching, sliding hands up beneath shirts, so they half walked, half stumbled into the bedroom, falling on the bed. Nash was ready, she could tell through her clothes and his jeans, but he surprised her by pulling her arms above her head.

  “Slow. Let’s go slow.”

  She sank into the bed, eyes closed, and gave herself over to him as he slowly kissed her face, her neck, her shoulder, the inside of her elbow. Her fingers. He tugged her skirt and panties down and kissed her ankles, her knees, her thighs. She was going to explode with desire. She twisted on the bed as he ran his hands over her breasts and kissed her belly.

  “Can’t wait. Please,” she begged, even though somewhere deep inside she could tell this was a different kind of making love than she’d experienced with Nash so far.

  That was it—it was not having sex, it was making love.

  Then he was naked, and then he was inside her, and she held him to her, and there was an intimacy between them that hadn’t been there before, a depth, a ferocity, a claiming. Nash was making her his.

  Afterward, he smoothed back her hair, which had gotten tangled and moist with sweat.

  “Good grief,” Darcy said breathlessly.

  “Yeah, I know.” Nash was smiling.

  They spooned close together and drowsed. Darcy woke to the sound of the shower. She walked, naked, to the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain.

  Nash’s mouth curled slightly. “Don’t even think about getting in here with me. I am done for tonight.”

  “You mean you want to check the Red Sox game,” Darcy said, only half kidding.

  When Nash stepped out of the shower, a towel around his waist, Darcy stepped in. After she dried off, she dressed and found Nash in the living room with two bowls of ice cream. Curled up on one end of the sofa, Darcy ate her ice cream and watched the television, knowing that this evening between them had changed things. She felt closer to him than ever before. She thought maybe he felt the same, and was too scared to talk about it.

  She was scared, too. What she felt was huge. It could change their lives. The ice cream, the ball game were a resting place, a time-out. They both needed it.

  At nine, she yawned and stretched. “I’m falling asleep here. Gotta go. Work tomorrow.”

  Nash walked her down the stairs and out to her car. She set the salad bowl in the backseat and opened the driver’s door. Nash took her in his arms and kissed her forehead.

  “Listen,” he said. “You know what I told you tonight—that’s private. I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone else.”

  “Of course, Nash.”

  “Not even Jordan.”

  “Not even Jordan,” she assured him.

  12

  The Women’s Chorus performed its tribute to Sylvia Marks on Wednesday evening. The church was packed and to her surprise, Darcy spotted Mimi and Clive in one row and Willow seated at the back. She’d told Nash not to come—he’d be bored, she told him. The music was sappy. The truth was, she didn’t have a strong voice and was afraid of embarrassing herself in front of him.

  But there, seated in the back row, was Nash. And his presence made her feel—lifted up. Something like a golden lantern lit up inside her, something about the sight of him made her feel warm and glowing.

  The group had never sung better, Darcy thought, and she knew most of the audience, island people who had treasured Sylvia. She was only slightly nervous when she stepped forward to sing the solo. The lyrics by Johnny Mercer were haunting, and when she sang, she saw several women silently weeping.

  When the concert was over and people headed for the reception, Nash gave her a thumbs-up sign and slipped away. So did most of the people with jobs and children. It was an older crowd who stayed to enjoy the homemade cookies and peach-flavored punch. They complimented Darcy and Beth O’Malley, their leader, and some gathered in clusters to retell stories about Sylvia and her devotion to birds.

  The crowd was thinning out when Willow approached her.

  “You were awesome,” she said. “I didn’t know you could sing.”

  “I didn’t, either,” Darcy joked. “And I have no plans to sing a solo ever again. I’m surprised I didn’t drop dead from nervousness.” Willow wore a skirt with a sleeveless white blouse embroidered with small flowers. “You look so pretty tonight, Willow.”

  The girl blushed. “I didn’t know what to wear. We don’t go to church much.”

  “Darling girl, you were marvelous!” Mimi swept up to Darcy and kissed her.

  Clive, behind Mimi, added, “Yes, Darcy. Well done.”

  Clive had a way of looking at her that seemed warm and intimate, as if they shared a secret. Flustered, Darcy hurriedly put her arm around Willow, drawing her close.

  “Clive, Mimi, I’d like you to meet Willow—”

  “Willow Szweda.” Willow completed the introduction with the poise of one who had said it often before. “My stepfather’s family is Polish. When he adopted me, I took his name.�
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  “I’ll bet your parents call you Sweet Willow,” Mimi said, smiling at the young girl.

  Willow smiled. “No, actually, I don’t think that’s happened.”

  Darcy stepped in. “Willow is helping me at the library. She’s doing a couple of story hours every week. We’re so glad to have her. She’s amazing with the children, and we’ve got so many children registered we can scarcely keep up with the demand.”

  “What fun to read children’s books,” Mimi said.

  A twinge of guilt pinched Darcy. She’d promised to bring Mimi some children’s books to look at and had forgotten to do it.

  “I wonder,” Mimi said to Willow, “would you consider reading to me? I don’t mean children’s books, I mean one of my old darlings like Dickens’s Great Expectations or Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. I’d pay you, of course. It’s just that my eyes get tired so easily at my age. That’s why I like children’s books, because the pictures are fascinating—plus I don’t have to keep the plot straight in my head. I used to keep a list of characters on a page that I also used as a bookmark, but now I keep losing the paper, finding it a month later, and wondering if these are people I should invite over for tea.”

  Darcy and Willow laughed. Clive watched his grandmother with such open affection on his face it almost brought tears to Darcy’s eyes. She wished her grandmother could have met Mimi.

  Clive shifted his gaze, catching Darcy in the act of staring at him. She blushed. He grinned at her, amused.

  Really, he was rather gorgeous in a professorish sort of way. His hair was longer than most men wore theirs, and his chocolate-dark eyes made him seem sweet.

  “Would you like to stop by my house for a drink?” Darcy found herself asking.

  “Oh, thank you, darling, but I’ve got to get my tired old bones in bed.” Mimi took Clive’s arm for support.

  Quickly, Willow said, “I’d be glad to read to you, Mrs. Rush. Any time.”

  “Then we’ve got a plan.” Mimi patted Willow’s hand. “And please call me Mimi.” Reaching into her purse, she brought out her cellphone. “What is your number?”

  Darcy watched, entranced, as Mimi dealt with her cell with the ease of a pro. She exchanged a glance with Willow—amused, impressed.

  “Darcy, aren’t you coming?” Beth O’Malley hurried up to Darcy.

  Well, this was embarrassing. She’d been so entranced by Mimi and Clive, she’d forgotten about the after-party at Beth’s home.

  “Of course,” Darcy told her. “I’ll be right there. I was just—” I was just standing here gawking at Clive.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Mimi said. “Clive drove me here and we can take Willow home with us. She can cut through the backyard.”

  Darcy smiled.

  Beth O’Malley tapped Darcy’s shoulder. “Party, Darcy?”

  “Yes, I’ll come for a while,” Darcy said. “I’ve got to get up early for work tomorrow.”

  She said goodbye to Mimi and the others and followed Beth out to the street.

  “Everyone else has gone on ahead,” Beth said. She’d worn a sleeveless black dress to conduct the group—it was hot in the church and there was no air-conditioning. “My dress is sticking to me everywhere. I was afraid someone would faint from the heat. But you look cool enough, Darcy. How do you think it went?” She gave herself a tiny slap. “Stop it, Beth, you’re babbling.”

  Darcy laughed. “Nerves. You were cucumber calm during the concert and that’s what matters. The concert was perfect, Beth. You packed the house and I saw lots of people crying.”

  “I hope Sylvia saw us from wherever she is now. Heaven, I hope.”

  “Yes, heaven,” Darcy agreed. “She probably has her own special section, full of all the birds she’s never seen before.”

  “And the ones she banded here,” Beth added.

  Beth’s house was wall-to-wall people, not only the chorus but some of their friends, especially those who knew Sylvia. Darcy made her way to the dining room table, covered with a crisp white cloth, the centerpiece a spectacular arrangement of native Nantucket grasses and flowers. As she took a glass of champagne, she found herself surrounded by friends, praising her and congratulating her for her solo. At first she was shy, and almost argued with the others, insisting her voice wasn’t really good, it was too weak…but after a while, she simply said thank you, because wasn’t it just possible that her voice was, if not trained, at least good enough? She knew it had gotten stronger, more flexible, while she was rehearsing. She knew she’d moved up a rung in her self-confidence because of her singing, this group, the music.

  Jordan approached Darcy with a great wide smile. “Congratulations! You were wonderful, Darcy. And the entire concert was so moving.”

  “It was wonderful, wasn’t it? A real tribute to Sylvia.”

  “It could be surpassed only if all of you had whistled like birds for an hour.” Jordan laughed, then drew Darcy close. “Who was that gorgeous man you were talking to?”

  “That was Clive Rush and his grandmother Mimi. I’ve told you about them. He’s a musicologist, aka fascinating man next door.”

  “He was undressing you with his eyes.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jordan. And, anyway, if he was, he probably looks at every woman that way.”

  “Are you going to sleep with him?”

  “Jordan!”

  “Hey. You know you’ll get married again someday, if not to Nash, to someone, and then, honey, the drawbridge slams up and no one else ever enters your castle for the rest of your life.”

  Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Are you having an affair?”

  “I wish. By the time Lyle gets home from work and I’ve got Kiks in bed, we’re both too tired to even say the word sex.”

  “Lyle is a wonderful man,” Darcy stoutly reminded her friend.

  “And I’m a wonderful woman. And Kiks is the cutest kid in the world. I still miss romance.”

  “Read a novel,” Darcy advised her. “Listen, I’m beat, and I’ve got to work tomorrow. I’m going to slip away.”

  “Fine, but you’ve got to promise to tell me if anything happens with you and that Clive guy. I’ll want every detail.”

  Darcy laughed. “You are so weird.”

  She couldn’t get close to Beth, who was surrounded by admirers, so she caught Beth’s eye, blew her a kiss, waved goodbye, and hurried out the door.

  Darcy hummed tunes from the concert as she walked home. Her humming made her think of bees and how they lived together in hives, and she laughed quietly, imagining that the Women’s Chorus was a humming hive with Beth as their queen bee.

  She’d never been part of any kind of a group before, except perhaps the waitstaff at Bijoux, and that was different. There they were working for money, for themselves. The women in the chorus came together to make beauty. What they had in common was the desire to sing, because singing was a gift and a pleasure. Pretty Kate Ferguson was a nurse. Ursula Parsons, who stood next to Darcy in the middle row, went around at night clipping back the limbs of any plants whose leaves or flowers dared to protrude even half an inch into her yard, often killing her neighbor’s plants. Marylee MacKenzie kept a kennel of dogs and a stable of horses, and when she came to rehearsals, she reeked of manure and had bits of straw caught in her hair. Andrea Barnes had an eating disorder and draped layers of loose clothing over her skeletal body; she was pale and timid and jittery, but she had a gorgeous soprano voice. She’d been far too shy to sing the solo Darcy had sung tonight, and as Darcy hummed along down the street beneath the summer sky, she realized it was a huge achievement for her, to sing a solo. Tonight she had felt the support and goodwill of all those women, eccentric or not, around her as she sang.

  A lamp glowed from her living room window. Muffler raced up to her, mewing his displeasure at her absence.

  “Hello, pretty boy.” She picked him up and carried him to the kitchen, loving the warmth of him in her arms, his reverberating purr. “Let’s get you some treats.
” She dropped a few catnip tidbits. She ran herself a glass of water and stared out her kitchen window at her garden. Lights were on in all the houses around her. Her blood was still buzzing from the concert, as if she’d just drunk a pot of coffee.

  Her phone rang. She picked it up before it had rung twice. “Hey, Nash.”

  “Hey, yourself, Adele.”

  Darcy laughed. “More like Lady Gaga,” she joked.

  “That concert was nice. You were spectacular.”

  His compliment took her breath away. “Hardly. And I was so nervous you could probably hear my knees knocking together.”

  “You didn’t look nervous. You looked beautiful.”

  Darcy carried her water into the living room and curled up on the sofa. “Thank you. What did you think of the chorus?”

  “They were fine, I guess. I can’t really judge. Most of the concerts I’ve been to in my life have involved electric guitars and amplifiers and crowds jumping up and down and waving their phones in the air.”

  “You’re not going to get much of that on the island. Except maybe for the Boys and Girls Club summer gala.”

  “That’s okay. I prefer listening to music alone. Or with you.”

  Gosh, Darcy thought, this conversation just gets better and better.

  “Did you ever sing? Play an instrument?” she asked.

  “Ha. My mother made me take piano lessons when I was a kid. I hated it. Edsel, now, he played the drums. He was a natural drummer. In junior high he put together a band. You never saw such scrawny, zit-faced, jug-eared guys, but they sounded pretty good. They did a concert in May on the high school football field. I was cramming for finals, so I didn’t go. I’ve seen the video. They were awful. Still, I wish like hell I’d gone. Wish I’d shown up for him.”

  Darcy asked carefully, not wanting to spook Nash now that he was opening up to her, “Was Edsel scrawny and zit faced?”

  She’d said the right thing. Nash laughed.

  “Nah, he was cool. He was one of those guys who just was effortlessly cool. Girls all swooned over him. Guys all wanted to be his best friend. He had this attitude like he couldn’t be bothered to take anything seriously. Damn, he used to make my parents angry. They’d bitch him out over something he’d done, and he’d sit there very straight—yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma’am—and you could tell from his eyes he was secretly laughing his ass off. Yeah, he was a handsome kid. Brilliant, too. Annoying as hell. When he lived with me in Boston, he pretty much trashed the place, left dirty laundry everywhere, dirty dishes, cigarettes stubbed out in coffee cups—oh, yeah, and used condoms on the floor near the sofa where he was sleeping. That was an especially charming touch.”