CHAPTER 14
“Jon, I can’t believe I lied in a job interview. Isn’t that grounds for immediate termination?”
His laugh, soothing and rich, transcends the cell phone static. “Only if they find out. Besides it’s not a permanent position. I’m sure there’s some civil right that precludes them from judging you by your ex.”
I hold on to the phone with my shoulder as I use both hands to make a left turn onto Mills. “I hope so. I wasn’t about to tell her the louse was—is my husband. It’s too complicated. I can’t believe this mess Corbin’s gotten himself into. It’s so embarrassing. He could have killed someone.”
“Yeah, just think how he must feel.”
“He deserves to feel bad.”
“Spoken like a scorned lover.”
“Hey, whose side are you on?”
“I’m on your side, darlin’. To prove that, I’ll buy you lunch. A good burger and cold beer will do you a world of good.”
“I can’t drink beer in the middle of the day, I’ll fall asleep. Plus I have to get Caitlin from my mom’s house in an hour or so.”
“Call and ask if she can stay a little longer. Or if you want, I’ll call her and ask—”
“No. I’ll do it. Caitlin was telling her about our trip to the beach and my mother had a conniption.”
“Why? Doesn’t she like me?”
“She doesn’t know you. I’m sure if she knew you she’d love you. What she doesn’t like is the idea of me dating before I’ve filed for divorce. Actually, she’s not particularly fond of the whole divorce issue, either. It’s a long story.”
“Dating, hmm? Is that what we’re doing?”
A little rush of adrenaline makes me laugh. “There you go with that word again. I’m going to hang up before you get the wrong idea, and check on Caitlin. I’ll call you back in just a minute.”
“Darlin’, I’ll wait right here.”
At the next stoplight I dial my mother’s number.
“How did it go?” she asks me.
“Dreadful.”
“What happened?”
“I had absolutely no chemistry with this woman. In the end she linked my name with Corbin’s. It was a disaster.”
“Oh honey, I’m sorry. Surely she won’t hold you responsible for your ex-spouse’s sordid affairs.”
Sordid affairs. Yes, that would just about sum up Corbin’s life in one broad stroke.
“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry about it, Ma.”
“Well, listen,” she says. “I was thinking—today’s Friday and with you under such high stress, why don’t you let me keep that little granddaughter of mine tonight? Dad and I would love to take her to the zoo tomorrow. That’ll give you some time to unwind, talk to Corbin and figure out how you’re going to explain this drunk driving mess to your little girl. Don’t you let him push this off on you. He has to take responsibility for his actions.”
I haven’t been away from Caitlin since this whole ugly business unfolded when I was in South Florida. But I know time to clear my head will do me a world of good.
“Thanks, Ma.”
“Well, I’d better run. We have some cookies to bake and a whole fun night ahead of us.”
“I’m going to grab a bite of lunch. Then I’ll go home and work on this art museum presentation.”
“I thought you blew the interview?”
“I did, but she invited me to submit. Probably just a courtesy. Call me on the cell if you need me.”
“I don’t think businesspeople waste your time or theirs with courtesies. I’m sure we won’t need to ring your cell, but it’s nice to know it’s there just in case. Now go relax. Pick up your little girl around four o’clock tomorrow.”
I hang up and call home to see if Corbin’s left a message on the machine, but there are no messages. He didn’t call me to come bail him out.
Well. It’s all for the best.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting with Jon in a little dive pool hall with a banner on the wall that boasts they serve the best burgers in Central Florida. The place is nearly empty except for us and two men and a woman playing pool at a table off in the corner.
I imagine that they’re regulars, that the bartenders know them by name. I imagine they think I’m a little overdressed in my pink suit, but I don’t care. It feels good to disappear in here, drinking Samuel Adams out of the bottle at noon in this dark, seedy bar that reeks of stale drink and cigarettes and has mock Tiffany light fixtures advertising Miller beer.
It’s as if I’ve stepped into an altered dimension where I don’t have to explain or pretend—or lie, while Corbin sits in jail.
I haven’t done this since college.
Jon takes a long pull off the brown bottle.
“Why’d you marry him?”
I shrug, tear at the blue-and-red label on my beer. “He swept me off my feet. He’s good at that—obviously. No, I don’t know, he was ambitious, from a life so different than what I was used to. You know, everything I thought I wanted.”
“Was he?”
“Does marriage ever turn out like you expect? As you grow and change you become a different person, want different things. When I married Corbin, it was like I’d been hired for this awesome job that was way too big for me. Most of the time I felt underqualified, and I worked my butt off to transform myself into the perfect doctor’s wife. I had babies and kept house and volunteered. Then, twenty years later, I wake up and find myself here.”
The Eagles version of “Desperado” comes on the jukebox. I laugh, sip my beer.
“What’s funny?” Jon asks.
“This song. It’s a little too ironic, don’t you think?”
“‘Desperado’? I don’t think of you as that type. You’ve always done the right thing and seem to have done a damn good job at it.”
“But who am I now? Without this man I’ve built my entire life around?”
“Only you can answer that. I can tell you what I see.”
“No, don’t. It was rhetorical, really.”
“But that’s not as important as who you believe you are. I mean, who do you see when you look at me? Jon Beck, auto mechanic? If so, why are you hanging out with a grease monkey when you’re used to men stations above me?”
“I see a man—”
He reaches across the table and presses a finger to my lips. “Shh…it’s rhetorical.”
He smiles that smile I love so much. “All I know is when I look at you, Kate, I see a woman who deserves more, a woman who is head and shoulders above a nineteen-year old basketball dancer.”
“How do you know? You’ve never met her.”
“True. But I know. Believe me, I know.”
I reach out and touch his hand.
“You always make me feel so…so wonderful. Thank you.”
He turns his hand over so we’re palm to palm.
“Darlin’, you are wonderful. I just wish you could see it, too.”
The waitress delivers our burgers and another round of Sam Adams.
Just in time.
As I draw my hand back, my wedding rings glitter, and I retreat into the awareness that Jon and I are teetering on the dangerous edge of a high cliff.
He eyes my rings, and I hope he doesn’t ask me why I haven’t taken them off.
He doesn’t. His eyes travel past them to the ketchup bottle the waitress sets on the table. He fixes his burger and takes a bite.
Maybe it’s the beer, but as we eat in silence I feel all aglow, and he’s responding with lingering looks and slow smiles.
Part of me wants to grab his hand and take a running leap off that high cliff, but it’s too soon since Corbin left, and I’m still as fragile as blown glass.
We sit there talking for a long time, and the place fills up with the evening crowd. The din of conversation gradually increases and the proprietor turns up the volume on the jukebox.
We sit there drinking and talking about e
verything and nothing. About the travesties of the four hurricanes that devastated Florida last year, about our daughters, tangerine paint and why he’s chosen to work on cars rather than put his business degree to work.
“I’m just more comfortable doing what I’m doing rather than dressing up and doing the nine-to-five grind.”
I never knew this about him. I mean, I knew he was casual and laid-back, but I never dreamed he was blue-collar by choice.
“It was one of the reasons Pam left me. She thought I wasn’t ambitious. She wanted me to be a pharmaceutical rep. But it just wasn’t me. I’d be traveling all the time.” He winks. “I wouldn’t be here with you right now.”
I arch a brow. “You might be going home to your wife tonight. Do you miss her?”
He shrugs, signals the waitress for another round. Yikes, how many have we had? With each new round the waitress removes the empties so I’ve lost count. All I know is I can’t feel my nose. I am drunk. But not drunk enough to forget he never answered my question.
“Do you miss Pam?”
“Miss her? Hmm… I miss the way I wished things were. You can’t have a child with someone and completely forget. If you can, then there’s something wrong.” He stares at his hands for a long moment. “Life’s a lot simpler now.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I don’t know, I guess I expected him to be over it, memories filed away in a place that made them inconvenient for perusing. But at least he tells the truth.
I hear the crisp clack of a pool cue hitting billiard balls, the pop of stripes and solids knocking and scattering across green felt, the thud of balls dropping into pockets.
A long-haired man in leather at the table closest to us sinks one. I imagine it’s the four ball. I don’t know why, but right now I like that number. If I were playing, I would try to hit in number four.
“Do you shoot?” I ask him.
He nods. “Notorious in thirty counties. Do you?”
A mournful country tune wails from the jukebox. I’ve never heard it, but its sad minor notes strike a melancholy discord in me.
“Not in a long time. Even then I wasn’t any good.”
He shakes his head. “Darlin’, you’re so much better than you give yourself credit for. I’m going to show you. Let’s play a round.” He tips his head, a dare, and gets to his feet, beer in hand.
I grab my purse and he motions to a table in the far corner. I lead the way, feeling his gaze on me as I walk, taking care to cross one foot over the other in what I hope is a sexy stride. I’ve shed the suit jacket and am very glad I’m wearing the snug skirt and my heels—even if I am a little overdressed for a pool hall.
He racks the balls. “Do you want to break?”
I shake my head. “Go on, I might put someone’s eye out.”
His mouth twitches a bit on the left side.
He positions the cue ball. “Come here.” He steps behind me. I think he’s going to wrap his arms around me, but instead, he draws my right arm back and positions his left hand over mine on the edge of the table, and balances the cue over it.
He’s so big. His body completely engulfs me. So unlike Corbin’s wiry, compact runner’s body. Jon is just one hundred percent big, broad man—everything from his shoulders to his chest to his hands. I like the nearness of him, the feel of his hard stomach on my back, the smell of green and Dial soap and laundry detergent. My mind pushes aside Corbin’s face to imagine what it would be like to be Jon’s lover, but I reel it back to the safe feeling, the security of feeling right and removed from all the world’s wear and worry.
I surrender under him and let him pull back my arm, push it forward in a quick shooting motion, until the white ball scatters the pyramid.
He doesn’t move. Neither do I. We stand there together, him over me. “There. That wasn’t so bad was it?” His voice is low and raspy in my ear.
“No it wasn’t. And that’s what scares me.”
I turn my head ever so slightly to the right. My cheek brushes his. He turns to meet me, his lips brushing mine. It’s a whisper of a kiss that makes my heart pound and my brain say oh no, but his lips taste like beer and something indefinable—something male, and despite the alarm going off in my head—that I’m kissing a man who is not my husband, in public—I don’t want him to stop.
It’s a leisurely, slow kiss that starts with lips and hints of tongue. Until he pulls me out from under him and turns me so that he can deepen the kiss. I slide my arms around his neck and open my mouth, fisting my hands into his hair to pull our bodies closer.
On one level, I kiss him because I enjoy the feeling of being alive again, having a man touch me and respond to me, and on another, deeper plane, I am seeking refuge in his arms, healing all the hurt we’ve both suffered at the hands of careless lovers.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, his lips against my ear, on my neck.
He pays the check and we step into the cool night air.
I’m relieved when he recognizes that we’ve had too much to drink to drive and calls a cab.
We stand in a strange sort of aroused limbo as we wait for the car outside the bar. The humid night air and the traffic whizzing by reminds me that we are no longer sheltered by the dark pool hall world that poses no threat.
Out here, cold reality rushes by in shiny cars. I glance at my Lexus sitting in the parking lot and imagine it sitting there abandoned in the morning. I feel an uneasy pang.
I think Jon knows this, because he smiles from his post, a respectful distance away.
“I’ll bring you back in the morning.”
What are we doing?
When the cab arrives and we are tucked safely inside, he takes my hand, lifts it to his lips. All the guilt and worry that ballooned a few moments ago floats up and out of the car and we ride to my house in a fever of anticipation.
CHAPTER 15
Twenty minutes later, the taxi stops in front of my house.
“You’re coming in?” I ask.
He gives me a knowing smile, shakes his head. “There’s nothing I’d like more, but I’d better say goodnight. Come on, I’ll walk you to the door.”
It’s odd, this feeling that swirls through me. I’m both disappointed and relieved, which only proves I’m in no shape to ask him in. Because I know where that path would lead, and I fear where we’d find ourselves in the morning.
He asks the driver to wait. Walks me to the door.
My hand is shaking as I insert the key into the lock. My mouth is dry as we step into the hall and close the door. Jack barks and jumps. He needs to go out after being in all day, but I’ll see to him in a moment.
Right now, all I can do is appreciate Jon’s discretion.
He just seems to anticipate and understand without my having to explain. I long to tell him to let the cab go, to stay with me tonight.
“When it happens, it’s going to happen right,” he says, as if reading my mind. “Not like this, after we’ve spent the day drinking beer, which was fun, mind you.” He takes my hands in his, pulls them to his lips. “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make life more complicated for you.”
My stomach sinks because I hear the part he’s not saying, You’re married and vulnerable, Kate. I don’t want to complicate my life.
“This sounds like goodbye.”
A soft smile spreads over his mouth.
“Are you kidding? We’ve barely said hello. I’ll bring bagels in the morning, we’ll go get your car. So get a good night’s sleep so we can get an early start.”
He kisses me, slow and smooth, then pulls away and opens the door.
As I wave goodbye to this man who takes time to notice the moon, and grow lavender in his greenhouse, I’m both grateful and sorry that he has enough will-power and good sense to do what’s right.
I push the door shut, and walk upstairs alone, sliding my wedding rings from my finger.
When I get upstairs, I put them away for the last time.
I
n the morning, I lay in bed for thirty minutes trying to decide if I’m hung over or just mortified that I spent the entire afternoon in a pool hall drinking beer and sucking face with Jon while my mother watched my daughter and my husband sat in jail.
I sound like a candidate for the Jerry Springer Show—is he still on television allowing people to publicly humiliate themselves? If not, I’m doing a good job without him.
I lay my arm over my eyes to block out the fresh morning light hoping I can go back to sleep, but the phone rings. I roll over to answer it and glance at the clock— Seven o’clock.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” offers an incredibly sexy voice.
I remember why I was tempted.
I’m flooded with relief that Jon did not wake up sober and regret yesterday.
“Hope I’m not calling too early,” he says. “I heard a notorious pool shark plied you with beer all afternoon yesterday.”
“Good news travels. I was all set to let him take advantage of me, but he’d have no part of it.”
Jon laughs. “What’s wrong with that guy?”
“I hear he has a conscience.”
“The death of many a good rogue. Are you up for getting your car?”
“Jon, you don’t have to come all the way over here—” I prop myself up on my elbow. “Out of curiosity, how would we get there? You left your car there, too.”
“Nothing like a good run to get the blood pumping early on a Saturday morning.”
I fall back and put my arm over my eyes. “Oh, no. I’m definitely not up for a run.”
“Good, I’ll drive you. I ran over and got my car.”
“It’s seven in the morning and you’ve already worked out. I knew I’d eventually find something wrong with you.”
“It was only five miles. Worked out all the poison I put in my system.”
“Lucky you. Do you do that often?”
“Run or poison myself?”
“Both?”
“I run just about every day, don’t make a habit of overimbibing, if that’s what you’re worried about. Only when a beautiful woman knocks me for a loop, and I’m trying to think of a way to prolong my time with her. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened. I’m rambling, so how about if I bring over these bagels I just picked up, we’ll have a quick bite, and I’ll take you to your car?”
Out with the Old, In with the New Page 15