The Beach House

by Jane Green

  ‘The lady obviously has impeccable taste.’ Michael grins at Jordana, relieved that there is no tension from last night, that they truly are able to be grown-up about this, to put it behind them and carry on as if nothing ever happened. ‘What do you think of this?’ Michael beckons her over and Jordana looks down to see that he is already working on a sketch of a fish pendant.

  ‘I love it,’ she says, delighted, tracing the outline of the fish. ‘I love the gills in – what are they, yellow diamonds?’

  ‘I thought yellow sapphires. I want these to be fun, a mix of diamond and semi-precious, but something that might appeal to a younger audience.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Jordana murmurs, and Michael turns his head to smile at her and finds himself looking at the curve of her breast through her unbuttoned shirt, and he feels a rush of blood to his head, and the world stops, yet again, and this time, when Jordana leans down and kisses him, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasps, feeling as though he is swimming up for air.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she says, stepping back and adjusting her shirt, running her fingers through her hair and wiping off the smudges of lipstick around her mouth.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ he groans, wanting nothing more than to sweep everything off the worktable, throw her on it and drive himself inside her.

  ‘This isn’t a one-night stand, is it?’ Jordana says slowly, and Michael sinks his head in his hands before looking up at her.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’

  ‘I was going to Manhasset,’ she says. ‘But I can get out of it.’ There’s a long pause. ‘If you want me to.’

  Michael looks at her, helpless. ‘Yes,’ he says finally. ‘I want you to.’

  For someone who has always been a terrible liar, Jordana is finding it surprisingly natural to lie to her husband about where she is and who she is with. She is discovering that if she tells him some of the truth, she will not flush and look away, and he will not question her.

  Under different circumstances, she would never have an affair, but this doesn’t feel like an affair. For starters, this is someone she knows, someone who has always, until very recently, felt like a brother to her. Twenty years, she has known Michael. In the beginning, she will admit to having had a huge crush on him. Jackson even used to tease her about it, but he was never really threatened, never worried that Jordana would actually do anything, and Michael, despite how attractive women found him, never posed a real threat, was too nice a guy, too clever to ever have an affair with the boss.

  And because Jordana is not the type to have an affair, to weave a tissue of lies to prevent her husband suspecting anything, because she is not the type to do all of the things she suddenly finds herself doing, she starts to think that perhaps this is different.

  Perhaps this is not just an affair. Perhaps Michael – as unlikely as she ever would have found this up until a few days ago – perhaps Michael is The One, perhaps she made a terrible twenty-year mistake with Jackson, and God has made this happen because Michael is the one who listens to her, who understands her.

  Michael is the one she is supposed to be with.

  Dr Posner leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers together, peering over the top at Daniel, who is shifting uncomfortably in the corner of the sofa, and he waits.

  The seconds become minutes, and still Daniel doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Daniel?’ Dr Posner starts, gently. ‘You wanted to see me alone?’

  Daniel nods, looking miserable.

  ‘Is there something you want to talk to me about?’

  He nods again, his eyes flickering up to meet Dr Posner’s before he looks away.

  ‘I think…’ Daniel starts, his voice almost a whisper before he stops and sighs. ‘There’s something I haven’t ever been able to talk about…’

  Dr Posner waits.

  ‘Oh God.’ Daniel’s voice is a moan, his pain and confusion evident, and Dr Posner knows what Daniel is about to say, has suspected it from the first.

  Daniel closes his eyes, unable to look at Dr Posner, his guilt and shame too much to say the words while looking someone in the eye.

  And his voice, when it emerges, is broken and hoarse.

  ‘I think I might be gay.’

  It is something Daniel has always known. His big secret. The one he has spent his life running from. He has spent his life trying to pretend that it is not the case, that he can be what he thinks of as ‘normal’, that he can be the son, the husband, the father that everyone expects him to be.

  He has known since he was a boy, even before his teenage years, those years when he pretended to be interested in girls even though alone, at night, the fantasies that aroused him most always featured boys and, more specifically, his best friend at school.

  He would lie there, trying to push the fantasies aside, terrified of being different, terrified of anyone finding out, trying to convince himself that he was interested in girls, that as long as he had a girlfriend, stayed around women, he would be like all the other boys, he would be normal.

  And he loved women. Surely that must mean something, he would tell himself. He had always been much more comfortable with women so surely he must be straight, like everyone else, even if he never developed a fascination with breasts the way the other boys did, even if the girls he dated were, well, boyish.

  Then, at college, he remembers trying to date a girl who didn’t seem to know they were dating. The night he first attempted to kiss her she had pulled back in surprise.

  ‘But I thought you were gay,’ she said, and he had recoiled in horror.

  ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘I just assumed,’ she said, and she never gave him the reasons.

  He built himself up. If he looked masculine, macho, there would be no doubt, for he assumed she had thought he was gay because he was skinny.

  He made sure he always had girlfriends. Lovers. Women around him all the time. Long-term relationships. Being with a woman meant he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to think about the hard bodies that he felt so drawn to in the gym, the men who occasionally gave him searching looks, the men he tried to ignore.

  Until Steve.

  Friends for years, they had gone to Amagansett the summer he met Bee, and the night before they met Bee, he and Steve had got drunk together, and, despite thinking about every detail, every second of that night for years, despite thinking of it still, he is not sure how it happened, but he and Steve ended up sleeping together.

  What he remembers most about that night is how every bone and every fibre of his body felt as if it was on fire. This is what I’ve been missing, he remembers thinking. This is what it feels like to be turned on. This is what I’ve been waiting for my entire life.

  And it didn’t feel unnatural, or strange, or wrong. It felt like he had come home. It felt like the most wonderful, thrilling, incredible night of his life.

  In the morning they could barely look at each other, and when they did Daniel found himself announcing he wasn’t gay, and Steve agreed. They said it wouldn’t happen again.

  Daniel noticed Bee later that day. A woman. Safety. Bee meant not having to travel down a path Daniel wasn’t ready to travel down. Bee meant security. She meant not having to think about his night with Steve, what it really meant, not having to shock his parents, tell his friends, live a life that Daniel didn’t want.

  Because he didn’t want to be gay, and he thought if he didn’t want to enough, then he wouldn’t be.

  For years it was easy to keep running. At night he would replay that one night with Steve, and the temptation to find it again was sometimes overwhelming. On an overnight trip in Boston to inspect a building the company was thinking of buying, he walked past a gay bar with a few men standing outside, eyeing him up and down, giving him that look that he doesn’t know, but he knows… oh how he knows.

  In many ways it would be so easy to g
o inside, he thought, to be led into a back room, to have a nameless, faceless encounter that might put some of these fantasies to rest, might allow him to put it behind him. No one would know, no one would be hurt. But he’s married now, he has his beautiful girls, and if he started down that path there is a part of him that knows there would be no going back.

  Secrets become harder to keep the older you get. The things you think you can suppress, those idiosyncrasies and fantasies you hope no one will ever discover, become harder and harder to hide as the years advance.

  Partly it is maturity – the fear of discovery grows smaller, less significant, for you learn that none of us is perfect, that human nature is flawed, that life twists and turns in all sorts of unexpected ways and it is okay to end up in a different place to where you expected.

  In Daniel’s case the secret is like a tumour, growing larger and firmer deep inside him, refusing to go away by itself, refusing to lie dormant, metastasizing last month when he got a phone call from Steve. Steve, whom he hasn’t seen since his wedding day. Steve, whom he has tried very hard to forget.

  ‘I’m in your neck of the woods.’ Steve’s voice was so familiar, but different. ‘It’s been so long but I thought I’d look you up.’

  ‘It has been years.’ Daniel laughed. ‘How great to hear from you. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Life’s been good,’ Steve said. ‘So how about it? Drinks? Dinner? I’d love to see Bee and I hear you’ve got two beautiful girls.’

  Steve came for dinner. Bee made loin of pork stuffed with apricots and prosciutto, and Steve brought two bottles of Pinot Noir.

  As soon as he walked in, Daniel knew. Steve hadn’t run with fear from the life that had been calling him for years, Steve hadn’t pretended to be someone he wasn’t. Steve had struggled with it, and then had given in.

  ‘These are our dogs –’ he passed photos around as they sat at the table, the girls having gone off to bed – ‘Mimi and Bobo.’ Small Westies sat on the doorstep of a beautiful colonial house. ‘And this is Richard.’ An older, bearded man, smiling on the deck of a boat. ‘My partner,’ he added, although he didn’t need to.

  ‘Not husband?’ Bee rescued Daniel from his crippling awkwardness, his heart pounding fast, colour rising to his cheeks.

  ‘Not legal in our state, sadly,’ Steve said. ‘But one day we will. We’ve been together almost ten years. The love of my life.’ And he looked up and caught Daniel’s eye, and this time Daniel felt shame for a different reason. He felt shame for not being brave enough to do what Steve had done, and envy – oh God, so much envy for Steve having the life that all of a sudden Daniel realized he had always wanted.

  They went out after dinner for a drink at the bar at Tavern on Main. Daniel recalled seeing Brokeback Mountain, looking longingly at the characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger embracing furiously at their reunion, and he parked the car on Main Street hoping that that might happen for him, that Steve would grab him and take him into an alley.

  Brokeback Mountain. He had seen it with Bee, then seen it by himself. Six times. He had sought out gay films, gay literature, programmes on television with a gay bent, glazing over at the love scenes, trying to reassure himself that he was turned on just because it was sex, not because it involved two men.

  Perhaps he was bisexual, he had started to think, but then he would lie in bed at home and watch Bee, so feminine and womanly, her breasts so full, her secrets and wetness so utterly repellent to him that he almost shuddered at the thought of her.

  ‘I am lucky,’ Steve said, nursing a beer as they sat at a quiet corner table. ‘Lucky because you changed my life, you made me see that I wasn’t being honest, and I couldn’t carry on living a lie. I have meant to thank you many, many times, but it has been so many years, and I guess life just got in the way. So how are you? How has life been for you?’

  With hindsight it would have been so easy for Daniel to open the floodgates, to let it all come pouring out, and who better to talk to than Steve? But he found he couldn’t, couldn’t admit that he was living the very lie Steve was talking about, had lived it for years, had almost, almost accepted it, until Steve had phoned out of the blue, had turned up to show him what his life could have been had he been brave enough to embrace his true self.

  ‘I’m great,’ he lied that night. ‘Couldn’t be better. I adore my girls, and seem to be living the American Dream.’

  Steve stared at him hard, and they left after that beer.

  ‘You take care,’ Steve said. ‘Look after yourself.’

  And although Daniel hadn’t confessed, it was seeing Steve again, seeing how comfortable he was in his skin, that made it impossible for him to suppress those feelings any more.

  He loves Bee, but can’t love her in the way she needs. He has always known that, but has thought that what they have is enough. He has assumed that if he stays, and he is going to stay, has no choice but to stay, they would make it work. And then there are the girls. He doesn’t want to be anything other than a full-time, present father. He is terrified of what might happen should they get divorced, terrified that Bee might turn into one of those crazy women who poison their children against the father.

  How can he possibly tell her why he is leaving? How can he get those words out, tell her that he is gay? Yet sitting here in Dr Posner’s office, saying those words out loud to someone else, it is as if a cloud has lifted, a cloud that has been sitting on him his whole life, and he knows now, without a doubt, that there is no going back.

  Daniel has never felt he had any other choice, but suddenly, since seeing Steve, he has realized that there might be another option after all. That simply accepting the truth, which had always seemed so terrifying, so utterly overwhelming to him, may be all he has to do if he ever wants to know what it is to be Steve.

  What it is to be happy.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Nan, do you know you have messages?’ Sarah hauls the large paper bags in and puts them on the kitchen table, then she starts to unpack the groceries.

  ‘Oh I know, darling.’ Nan picks up a pile of coupons from the grocery store, walks over to the answering machine and lays the coupons on top of the blinking red light. ‘It’s terribly annoying seeing that thing flashing all day. I keep putting papers on top of it and someone –’ she shoots a look at Sarah – ‘keeps taking them off.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Sarah says, and laughs, ‘but generally red blinking lights mean there are messages, which means someone’s trying to get hold of you. Don’t you want to listen? What if it’s important?’

  ‘It’s Andrew Moseley.’ Nan sighs. ‘He wants to talk to me about money, and while I think he’s absolutely charming, I really don’t want to talk to him.’

  Sarah stops unpacking and watches Nan light a cigarette, worry in her eyes.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks gently. ‘I know things are tough. Will you have to…’

  Nan looks up sharply. ‘Sell Windermere? Absolutely not. I don’t need much so I was thinking perhaps I ought to sell some of the furniture, some of the things in the house that I really don’t need.’

  Sarah looks dubious.

  ‘Some of this stuff is wonderful, the antiques dealers would have a field day. And think of all those tourists and people spending twelve and a half million dollars on houses – don’t you think they need furniture? And this isn’t that reproduction stuff you find at the furniture stores, this is the real McCoy – people will pay a fortune for this.’ Nan gets animated as she gestures around at an antique Welsh dresser, the oak kitchen table.

  ‘Right,’ Sarah says, trying to sound upbeat, and not wanting to point out that almost every piece of furniture in the house has coffee-cup rings, cigarette burns, is in a condition that no antiques dealer would be the slightest bit interested in.

  ‘And then there’s my mother-in-law’s jewellery collection. She collected paste earrings for years, and I have them all in boxes in the attic.’


  ‘Okay.’ Sarah recalls opening the boxes once upon a time and seeing what she thought was a load of junk. But she’s not a jewellery expert, and who knows what people will pay. ‘So you think this would be enough?’

  ‘For the time being,’ Nan says, enthusiastic now, excited at the prospect of a project. ‘And once it’s over we can figure out what to do next. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a job.’

  ‘Folding T-shirts at Murray’s Toggery?’ Sarah grins.

  ‘You never know.’ Nan winks. ‘Stranger things have happened. Why don’t we start pricing some of the furniture? Let’s see what we can actually get rid of.’

  By the end of the afternoon, Sarah’s clipboard is filled with scribbles and notes, rough sketches of the furniture Nan has deemed suitable for selling.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need your bed?’ Sarah asks, somewhat dubiously.

  ‘I’ll keep the mattress,’ Nan says firmly. ‘But the damn thing’s too high for me anyway and I’ve never liked how ornate it is. That was Everett’s choice, not mine.’

  ‘And the chest of drawers?’

  ‘No. I feel like it’s time to spring-clean. Clear out all the cobwebs, start afresh. I feel lighter already just thinking about it. So tell me, my dear, how much does all this come to?’

  Sarah looks down at her clipboard, and clears her throat. ‘Well, if everything is worth what you think it’s worth, we should make around two hundred and fifty thousand from this sale.’ She wants to laugh, the figure should be laughable, except it isn’t funny. It’s just completely and utterly mad.

  Nan has spent the afternoon pulling figures out of thin air. ‘This is beautiful,’ she’d gesture at some ugly little stool. ‘People pay a fortune for these on eBay so let’s price this at five thousand dollars.’

  Five thousand dollars! She’d be lucky if anyone paid five, Sarah thought.

  ‘Are you quite sure you want to get rid of all your things?’ Sarah asks again.