“Hey, what do you say we take this wedding-planning stuff into the bedroom?” she asks when the end-of-the-news jingle plays on the television.
Tom glances up from his Sports Illustrated. “I’ve got a better idea. How about we leave the wedding-planning stuff here and you and I go into the bedroom? See what happens?”
“Oh, really?” she says, playing it coy. “And what, exactly, did you have in mind?”
Tom pushes up from the couch and smiles wickedly. “I have no idea. Do you?”
NINETEEN
When she sees Marty for the first time in thirty years, the recognition is instant, a stab to her gut. A little grayer, a bit thicker around the middle, but wearing the same affable grin, as if he can’t wait to see what’s coming next. He’s dressed in a blue blazer, a white oxford, faded jeans, a tan leather belt and soft suede loafers. He wears eyeglasses now, not the reading kind, but the permanent kind for distances, dark frames on top. Still handsome, she thinks—and vaguely professorial looking. Though they planned to meet at six, Claire has arrived ahead of time to enjoy a glass of chardonnay, alone, in order to better gather her thoughts. Calm her nerves.
Tanned and hale, Marty’s face brightens as soon as he steps into Bricco and spots her in the far corner. The feeling that sweeps over her is similar to that when she rediscovered her late mother’s lotus bowls hiding in the top kitchen cupboard. An odd comparison, maybe, but one that fits. The bowls were delicately hand-painted, and Claire had forgotten all about them. But because they represented one of the few items her mother had left her, they were exceedingly dear. Stumbling upon them a few years later had evoked such a tangle of emotions in her—surprise, delight, wonder, a sense of familiarity and sadness, guilt for not having found them sooner. This is how it feels to see Marty again after all these years.
“Martin,” she says, the name as easy and familiar on her lips as if she has been waiting to utter it for thirty years (and she has, in fact, called it out in the middle of the night on occasion, climbing up from a dream). She waves him over, then clasps her hands together in an effort to stop them from trembling.
As soon as he reaches the table, she stands and lets herself be pulled into his warm embrace. His arms are big and strong around her, the swell of his stomach pressing against the roundness of hers when they hold each other. Like everyone else, they’ve both added a few extra pounds to their frame. He smells faintly of aftershave—and, regrettably, cigarettes. A long moment passes while they settle into their seats and he studies her, taking the measure of her, she supposes. Claire does the same. His mop of hair is almost entirely gray now, and modest creases bracket his kind, brown eyes. Those eyes, achingly familiar even now. “How is it,” he says at last, tilting his head back, “that you look exactly the same?”
“Ha! Right.” She cradles her wineglass in both hands, secretly pleased. “It’s so good to see you, Martin. I didn’t realize how nice it would be to lay eyes on you again.”
He leans back and pats his stomach. “Not much to look at these days, I’m afraid.” He laughs good-naturedly. “But you, Claire, you look fantastic.”
She can feel the blush rioting to her throat, the compliment riding over her like a riptide. She’s wearing the blue polka-dot sundress with buttons down the front, and her hair, freshly highlighted at the salon this afternoon, hangs loosely around her shoulders. It’s probably the best she has looked in years.
“So, tell me, stranger, how are you?” he asks, resting his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands.
This ineffable quality of Marty’s Claire has almost forgotten: making whoever is sitting across the table from him feel as if she’s the only person in the room. “I’m doing all right. I can’t get over the fact that it’s been thirty-some years since we’ve seen each other, since that time we bumped into each other at Legal Sea Foods.” She’s staring, she knows, but it can’t be helped when so many feelings are splashing over her. Is it happiness? Gratitude that he actually showed up? Relief? Love?
The white cloth napkin flutters in front of him as he shakes it out, places it in his lap. “I know what you mean. It’s strange, isn’t it? I’ll admit I was surprised when I got your note.” He pauses. “But happy-surprised. How did you find me, anyway?”
She shrugs. “I have my ways. I am a journalist, you know.”
“Oh, I know. I read your articles in the Dealer from time to time. You’ve really climbed up the masthead there. Impressive.”
Claire grips the stem of her wineglass more tightly. So he has been following me, she thinks. “It’s kept me busy. It’s been a good career,” she admits.
“It’s what you always wanted.” A smile skirts across his lips.
“Is it?” she asks, surprised to hear him say it. But he’s right—there’s no sense in denying it. She was driven, back in the day. “I suppose so.”
“So, I have to ask again. Why seek me out now?”
Momentarily Claire wonders: Should she play it coy or spill the beans immediately? She settles on a shrug. “Curiosity got the best of me, I guess.” The real reason, she decides, can wait till later. “You are, incidentally, the one person on earth who doesn’t seem to have a Facebook or Twitter account. If I can’t stalk you, how am I supposed to know how you’re doing?” She’s only half kidding. Aside from his mention as the surviving spouse in Audrey’s obituary, there’d been precious little available online. One photo, maybe from a decade ago, when he’d received a teaching award, but that didn’t tell her much, aside from the fact that he was teaching seventh-grade social studies and, apparently, doing it very well.
A waiter appears to fill their water glasses and take Marty’s drink order, a vodka and tonic. Claire orders another glass of wine for herself, clam cakes for an appetizer and chicken Alfredo. Marty requests the pasta Bolognese.
“Yeah, I’ve pretty much avoided social media as best I can. It’s a real nightmare for some of our students. A lot of cyberbullying out there.”
“Oh, right.” She considers this for a moment, that his job still requires him to be current on what’s going on with today’s teenagers. Claire, on the other hand, has no idea about this particular slice of the world anymore.
Their small square table abuts a window opening onto Hanover Street, and drips of conversation from passersby drift through while they talk. Somewhere outside soft music plays, and Claire thinks back to all the celebrations they’ve shared together here: they’d toasted her twenty-first birthday in the North End; their college graduations; her first job offer at the Globe. How odd that they find themselves back in this place, staring at older, more wrinkled versions of themselves! And yet somehow it also feels preordained, as if they both suspected that one day they’d return to this very spot.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” he says now. “Track me down, I mean. I always felt like things ended abruptly.”
Claire feels her face softening. “Mmm... That’s largely my fault, I’m afraid. I wasn’t ready to take next steps.”
“But you were ready for next steps with Walt,” he points out helpfully. His eyes twinkle when he says this, though it doesn’t come across as accusatory. More a statement of fact than anything else.
“True.” She hesitates. Then laughs and says, “Well, what did I know back then?” The waiter arrives with their clam cakes, and they sit in thoughtful silence for a moment while they eat. “So, what have I missed?” she asks. “Bring me up to speed. I heard through the grapevine that you have a couple of kids?”
His face lights up. “Yeah, two girls. Can you believe it? That I ended up living with three women?” He laughs. “I’ll tell you, though, those girls, they’re the apples of my eye. I don’t get to see them very much, unfortunately. Bridget’s out in Seattle working for the EPA, and Gail moved to San Francisco when her mother died. About three years ago now.”
“I was so sorry to hear about Audrey,” Cl
aire says softly. And she means it. “I read online about her passing.” She knows how difficult, how utterly strange it is to lose the person you built a family with, whom you slept next to each night.
“Cancer,” Walt offers. “By the end, we were glad her suffering was over. But it was really tough on the girls, Gail especially.” Claire offers a sympathetic nod. “And I was sorry to hear about Walt,” he adds. “Not even a year ago, huh?”
“It’ll be one year in October. Heart attack. A surprise for sure, but we all seem to have adjusted.” When the words sit out in the open between them, she’s startled by how cavalier, how frigid they sound. Martin leans back in his chair and meets her gaze with a curious look. “I mean, Ben and Amber seem to be doing fine,” she elaborates.
“Oh, well, that’s good, I suppose.”
“And are you still teaching, then?” Claire, on her second glass of wine, is emboldened to change the subject. No sense dwelling on Walt tonight!
“No, not in the classroom anymore. I’m the principal at the local high school.”
“That’s wonderful! I always knew you’d go far.”
“No, you didn’t.” He chuckles. “You didn’t think I’d amount to much, actually.”
She laughs. “Well, like I said, I didn’t know much back then.”
When their meals arrive, she begins to fill in the lines of her own life for him, about her family, her job. She tells him about Ben and his girlfriend, Liv. About Amber and Jeff and little Fiona, about her work at the paper (although, she leaves out the part about how the Providence Mafia might be searching for her this very minute). How she worries whether Amber will ever put her advanced degree to use. How Ben owns a health-food store and how he likes to verse Claire on the virtues of chakras and okra and other words ending with an -ah sound. She tells Marty it makes Thanksgiving dinner a royal pain in the ass, and he laughs.
“I think you’d really like Amber, though,” she says. “She reminds me a bit of you, actually.”
“Yeah, how so?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly. She’s easygoing, like you, and she has a huge heart. She works at the YMCA and volunteers at the local animal shelter. She loves kids.”
He grins. “Hey, that reminds me. Let me show you a photo of my girls.” When he pulls up the picture on his phone, Claire inhales sharply. Shot someplace tropical, the picture frames the family amid skinny palm trees on a pink stretch of sand. Marty’s daughters are remarkably pretty—long dark hair, big brown eyes, and tall. “Oh, Marty, they’re beautiful.”
“Thanks. Those pretty smiles of theirs cost me thousands of dollars’ worth of orthodontia,” he says, joking. But Claire can feel them both looking at Audrey. In the photo, one hand rests on each girl’s shoulder and she’s laughing into the camera, as if someone has just said something funny. She’s thin, still attractive with a bob of auburn hair, a slightly older version of the woman Claire remembers. Martin’s arm is draped around her shoulder.
Claire clears her throat and passes the phone back, suddenly feeling like a voyeur, peeking in on a prized memory with his late wife. She no longer has the heart to pull out her own family photos.
“I got lucky,” he says now. “That’s for sure.” Claire’s immediate instinct is to be jealous instead of glad, and she scolds herself for being so petty, so small-minded.
For dessert they order cappuccinos, and she prepares to launch into what she’s come here to say tonight, such as she never really stopped loving him, that she regrets letting him go, and she wonders if, now that they’re both single again, he might have room in his heart for her once more.
But before she can begin, his phone buzzes. “Sorry,” he says glancing down. “I should probably take this. It’s Gail. Do you mind? I’ll just be a minute.” Claire shoos him off, grateful for the interruption and the chance to organize her thoughts.
After he steps outside, she watches him through the open window. It’s impossible to eavesdrop, but so many of Marty’s gestures while he talks are familiar, as if it’s a sign language she’d once learned and forgotten she had access to. She can tell he’s happy. He reaches into his blazer pocket (probably for a pack of cigarettes, she thinks), and pulls out an empty hand. A second later, he lets go of a booming laugh that makes Claire smile. Oh, to hear that laugh again!
She’d almost forgotten how much she missed Marty’s easy way of moving through the world. And that tiny, insistent voice in her head whispers again: How might her own life, her children’s lives, have been different, if Martin had been her husband, their father?
Then he’s back at the table. “Everything all right?” she inquires.
“Oh, fine. Gail likes to check in on her old man from time to time,” he says and turns the ringer off on his phone before slipping it into his jacket pocket. “I told her I was having dinner with an old flame.”
“Oh, really?” Perhaps this is Claire’s opportunity. “Just an old flame?”
He tilts his head and shoots her a funny look as if it’s the first time he’s considered that what they’re doing here might be something more than dinner, and for a brief moment, she wishes she could teleport herself right out of her chair. “I guess I’m not sure what you mean by that, Claire-Bear.” A shiver travels up her arms at the mention of her old nickname. No one has called her that in ages.
“How about a walk?” she asks, handing him his cappuccino in a paper to-go cup. “Do you have time? There’s something I’d like to talk with you about.”
“Uh-oh. Nothing bad, I hope.”
“Not bad,” she says. “Just some, oh, I don’t know, life news, I suppose.”
“All right, then. We should probably pay the bill first.”
“Already taken care of.”
“You weren’t supposed to do that,” he admonishes.
“Why on earth not? I asked you out, remember?” She grabs her own cappuccino off the table. “C’mon, I want to stop off at Mike’s Pastry for a, a whatchamacallit, before it closes. You know, the ones with the whipped cream inside.”
Marty grins. “You mean a cannoli?”
“Cannoli! That’s it,” she cries, relieved he has come up with the name. She’s had too much wine. “I can never remember those fancy Italian pastries. We only ever had doughnuts in my neighborhood,” she kids.
Thankfully, the line at Mike’s, notoriously long, stretches only a few people deep tonight, and within several minutes they’ve purchased a box of cannoli. “Just like old times.” Marty takes a bite, sending the vanilla cream squirting out on one side. And Claire has to agree because there’s something comforting about having the familiar white pastry box, tied up in its red-and-white string, tucked underneath her arm once again, as if they might be heading back to her dorm room to watch a movie.
They cut across the North End’s winding streets and make their way over to Atlantic Avenue. Eventually they stop along a path tracing the waterfront. The nearly full moon bathes the harbor in an orange glow. “Remember how we used to take those harbor cruises?” Claire says now. “And how I would pack a picnic for Georges Island, but once we arrived, there was a whole colony of geese doing their business on the grass and both of us were too sick to even think about eating?”
Marty chuckles, another belly laugh. “That’s right. I’d forgotten that. What did you call it again? You had a funny name for it.”
“Goose Poop Island,” she supplies.
“Ah, right. So romantic.” When she begins to shiver, he offers her his blazer, and she slips it on, but they both burst out laughing because she’s positively swimming in it. Her hands have disappeared underneath the giant sleeves. Gently he pulls a wisp of hair behind her ear. “You’re a funny soul, Claire O’Dell.”
She waits a beat. “Do you ever think about us?”
“About us? Sure,” he says, taking a step back. “Lots of times a memory will sneak up on me, make
me laugh.” But then a sigh escapes from somewhere deep inside him, and he leans over the guardrail, as if he might be tempted to tumble into the harbor. “But I’m worried you and I might have come to dinner with different expectations tonight.”
“Oh.” She’s silent, waiting.
“I’m guessing you thought there might still be a spark between us.” He straightens once again, spins toward her. “And you wouldn’t be wrong.”
Her hands grasp the railing so tightly that her knuckles have turned white.
“But I should tell you: I’m seeing someone. About eight months now.” Claire’s face must reveal her astonishment because he says, “I know. It feels weird to talk about. I still miss Audrey every day. But then I met Cora, and well, we’re a lot alike, same interests. We both like to hike, and we even took a cooking class together. Anyway, she’s a retired teacher, so she kind of gets me.” He shakes his head. “It’s so strange, but I think I might actually be falling in love again.”
Claire steps back, as if he’s just slapped her. She would like him to hit the rewind button on their conversation, back to the part where he’d mentioned the recurring spark between the two of them. While her mind might allow for the possibility that he doesn’t want a do-over for their relationship, not once has it occurred to her that he might be involved with someone else! Already. So soon. Slowly, she walks over to a nearby bench and folds herself onto it. Marty follows, sits down next to her. A brisk wind blows off the water.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a minute. “Maybe if you’d been in touch two years ago...” His voice trails off in the chilly air.
“No, no, don’t be silly. There’s no reason for you to be sorry. I’m glad for you. Really.” Her throat feels as if there is a marble lodged halfway down it.
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