Together Alone

by Barbara Delinsky

  Those eyes held hers in ways that the veterinarian couldn’t have even begun to comprehend, much less do. He was the right age, the right height, the right weight. He was the one. No doubt about it. He was the reason she had had her nose done and her chin tucked. He was the answer to her prayers.

  She didn’t move, but waited for him to come to her. He sipped his champagne. He conversed with those around him. His eyes rarely left hers for long.

  Finally, murmuring something to his companions, he wove his slow way to where she stood. His lips twitched, male and satisfied. “And they said it couldn’t be done through an ad.”

  She allowed herself the smallest of smug smiles, but said nothing.

  “My name’s Carter.”

  “Celeste.”

  “Celeste.” Again, the twitch of the lips, then the tiniest break in his voice. “That’s lovely. As you are.” He stared at her for another minute, before catching himself and looking around. “Come. Let me introduce you to my friends.”

  With the lightest touch to her back, the whisper of a palm over the closure of her bra—sweet, private, intimate—he guided her around the room. She met the artist whose work was being shown. She met the owners of the gallery. She met other artists. She met Carter’s partner.

  The scene was as much a dream as Carter, worlds away from any other date she had ever had, worlds away from anything she had ever experienced in Grannick. For an instant she imagined herself an imposter here, outclassed and ill-prepared in spite of her clothes and her dreams. Then she looked at Carter again. As smooth as he was, he was reassuringly down to earth. When he found her a glass of champagne, took a fresh one for himself, and said, gently, “To new people,” her qualms dissolved.

  As she had known he would, he took the lead. From a quiet shaded corner with a view of the angular lines of the building, he told her not about his children or grandchildren, as the widower had done interminably, but about the people she had just met, about each one’s work, each one’s life. He made no assumptions about her knowledge of art, but spoke in plain terms, with neither arrogance nor condescension.

  Celeste was enthralled. He was articulate and learned where art and architecture were concerned—and intuitive enough to judge her level of understanding perfectly, neither exceeding it, nor underestimating it.

  “But I’ve been doing all the talking,” he finally said with a rakishly diffident smile.

  “That’s fine. What you’ve said is far more appropriate to the setting than anything I might be saying.”

  “Then we’ll have to change the setting.” His gaze touched her mouth before it returned to her eyes. “There’s still a little sun left to the afternoon. Would you like to walk?”

  Harvard Square was filled with people. Most were far more casually dressed than they were, but that was part of the fantasy, too. Sunday afternoon strolling was the epitome of romance. They walked in a bubble of elegance, aware always of something simmering at its core.

  It was outwardly innocent, walking and talking, but there were periods of walk without talk, when Carter held her hand or hooked her arm through his. At those times she realized how in step with each other they were. There was no impatient striding, as she imagined there would have been with the marathoner, but a comfortably matched gait. It felt right to Celeste, the prelude to a destined something, even sweeter than she had dreamed.

  In time, they found themselves in a cafe with cappucino royales, and when they began to feel the liquor, Carter suggested stopping at a small restaurant several blocks over for something to eat. The restaurant was Indonesian. Celeste was content to hide her ignorance by letting him do the ordering.

  Afterward, she couldn’t have said what it was that she ate, because the place was dark, their corner intimate, and her thoughts a long way from food. She nibbled on whatever arrived, and watched Carter do the same, but all the while she was remembering the marathoner and his neuroses, the doctor and his scheduling, the vet and his shyness, and she gloated silently, thinking, “I knew it would be like this, I knew it would.”

  At the end of the meal, when he offered a husky, “My place is right down the street,” she didn’t think twice. She had been waiting too long. She wasn’t waiting a minute longer.

  Darkness had fallen by the time they reached the house, a small frame structure that proved to be nearly as spectacular as the art gallery had been. It had been gutted and rebuilt with a dearth of walls and a keen eye for angle and line.

  Guided only by the glow of the street lamps spilling through windows and Carter’s hand on her back, Celeste climbed the open stairway to a landing that extended far enough to allow for a huge platform bed.

  The only pause she felt had to do with the magnitude of the moment. Carter was a dream, the embodiment of everything good and strong and caring in a man.

  Piece by piece, he removed her clothes until she stood naked before him. He didn’t touch her then, or kiss her, but simply looked at her body while, piece by piece, he removed his own things.

  Celeste felt the chill of the air on her skin, but it only heightened her arousal. Her body was swollen, her insides throbbing and wet. By the time he discarded his shorts and applied a condom, she was dying for what she had seen.

  “Lie down,” he whispered.

  Breathing fast, she did, and raised her knees when he came between them. The reward was golden. He filled her with a pulsing strength that took her from one orgasm to another, dream upon dream, pleasure after pleasure. It didn’t occur to her that she didn’t know his last name, or where he had grown up, or what he did to keep his body in shape. He inspired trust, and she gave it.

  • • •

  The moon played in and around the clouds over China Pond Road. It splintered through Brian’s windowed wall and fell in silvery shards across everything in sight. Brian had long since put Julia to bed and was sprawled on the sofa, wishing Emily were there, when the telephone rang. He bobbled the receiver before getting it to his ear.

  “Yeah.”

  A high voice, alarmed but distinctive, said, “Detective? Detective, I need your help. Something’s coming out of the pond. I don’t know what it is, but it keeps lifting its head, higher each time. Something’s out there. I know it is, but I don’t know what it’s going to do. You have to come. Come quickly.”

  Brian sighed. This wasn’t the first such call he’d had. There had been three in the past week, each one a false alarm. “Is it the Haffenreffers’ dog again?”

  “No. It isn’t a dog. It’s something else.”

  “Maybe a deer. I saw one in the woods the other night.”

  “It is not a deer. I know what deer look like, and this isn’t that.”

  “What does this look like?” he asked, patient in deference to Myra’s age.

  “It has a long neck, a very long neck and a very small head and eyes that glow.”

  “That glow.”

  “Green,” she said.

  Brian scrubbed at an eye with the heel of his hand. The monster had never glowed before. “Someone’s playing a Halloween prank.”

  “No, no, no. This isn’t a costume. It’s real, and it’s dangerous, and it’s after my willow. I have to go outside and do something to stop it. I’d wake up Frank, but he had a very long day. Will you come, Detective?”

  The last thing Brian wanted was to go out in the cold. But Myra was old and widowed, like his mother, and although his mother was more lucid, more social, and more active, he still made the link.

  He sighed. “Sure, Myra. I’ll be right there.”

  He stepped into his sneakers and pulled on a jacket, then checked on Julia. She was dead to the world. So he trotted down the stairs, and jogged down the driveway and across the cul de sac to Myra’s front door. When she didn’t answer his ring, he went around back. The moon appeared long enough to show her on the bench under the willow.

  He sank down on the other end and tucked his hands in his pockets for warmth. “It’s a chilly night, Myra. You
shouldn’t be out here.” She was wearing a coat. Still.

  “I have to be.”

  “Why?”

  She seemed taken back by the direct question. “Because.”

  He studied the pond. Its surface was a glassy reflection of bulbous, moon-fringed clouds. “I don’t see anything here.”

  “No. It’s below now.”

  “A monster.”

  “It’s been here for years. I kept telling Frank, but he wouldn’t listen. But it’s there, and I can’t stand it.”

  “A monster. With glowing eyes.”

  She took a breath and seemed to steady herself. “Well, I don’t know if the eyes are glowing. It just seems that way sometimes.”

  In a soft voice, he asked, “Myra, is Frank buried here?” It seemed one logical explanation for her fixation on the area, particularly if she had been so controlled by the man in life that she couldn’t accept his death.

  “Here? Oh, no. He’s on the other side of town. The monster is buried here.”

  “Buried?”

  “In the water.”

  Brian’s eyes skated over the water’s surface to the trees at the far side. He didn’t see a thing. “You said it was after the willow. Why do you think so?”

  “The willow’s roots go right to the water. The thing will pull and tug until it sucks the willow right underground.”

  “But why would it want the willow?”

  “Because the willow protects us.”

  Brian turned sideways. He looked Myra square in the eye, giving the emphasis to his words that he kept gentle in his voice. “There isn’t really a monster.”

  She stared at him.

  “Nothing’s going to dig up your willow.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “Why?”

  She looked confused. “I don’t know.”

  “Come.” He drew her up. “It’s too cold for you here. Let me bring you inside.”

  “But I’ll only have to call you another night. He’s out here. I saw him.”

  “Well,” Brian said, “you’ll call me another time, then.”

  “But you won’t be able to do anything once the ground freezes.”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulder and guided her up the stairs. “I’ll be here, Myra. You’ll call me, and I’ll come right over.”

  With that promise, she allowed herself to be shown into the house.

  eighteen

  EMILY DROVE TO BOSTON WITH THE HIGHEST OF hopes the following Friday. She was thrilled to be seeing Jill, and nearly as excited about meeting her friends and learning her favorite haunts. She wanted to be able to put faces with names, wanted to be able to visualize the reading room of the library, the dining hall, the student union. She wanted to be able to picture every little detail when Jill called on the phone.

  Doug was another matter. She was nervous. Much rested on the weekend, on the precious little time when they would be alone. She needed to see if there was any feeling for her left in him. If not, their marriage was doomed.

  When the skyline of the city appeared on the horizon, she remembered the last time she had made the trip. She and Jill had been holding hands, fearing the unknowns ahead, dreading the moment of parting. They had been focused on Jill’s college experience. Emily hadn’t had a clue about the shifts her own life would take.

  This time around, Jill was waiting outside the dorm, running to the curb with a huge smile when Emily pulled up. Emily was teary with happiness at the sight of her daughter the college student, laughing, holding Jill tightly. Then there were the introductions, because no less than five friends had been waiting with Jill, and a mini-tour in advance of the full one for Doug.

  Emily had arranged to meet him at the hotel at five. He didn’t arrive until five-thirty, and if it hadn’t been for Jill’s nervous looks at her watch, Emily wouldn’t have minded. She loved being alone with Jill, without having to be alert to Doug’s needs.

  Doug was buoyant enough when he arrived to compensate for the delay. After a brief stop upstairs while he changed clothes, they headed back to the campus.

  Friday night consisted of dinner in the dining hall, a concert by the college’s three singing groups, and a reception at Jill’s dorm. It was late by the time Emily and Doug returned to the hotel. High on the goodwill of the evening, Emily was perfectly happy to climb into bed and fall asleep. When she awoke the next morning, Doug was out.

  “Gone running,” said the note he left on the pad by the phone, though it didn’t say when he had left or how long he would be.

  Emily showered and dressed, then sat in an arm-chair and waited anxiously. They were meeting Jill at ten. She didn’t want to be late.

  It struck her that Doug was late a lot. He never used to be. She wondered if he was late for work, too, or whether it was just home things that he had grown so lackadaisical about.

  She didn’t ask, because he returned sweaty and out of breath, with just enough time to get ready, and then they were swept up in the day’s events, so that she didn’t think about it until later that night, when it no longer seemed critical. He had been with them for the entire day. He had been a good sport through tours, lectures, a luncheon, a football game, dinner at a restaurant with Jill’s closest friends and their parents, and several hours of dorm-hopping to meet and spend time with others. He had been friendly. He had been personable.

  Granted, he didn’t spend much time talking with Emily. She suspected he knew more about the daily lives of some of the people he had met that day than he did about hers.

  But Jill was happy having him there. If she was aware of his lack of attentiveness to Emily, she didn’t let on.

  Emily lay in bed that night, curled on her side with her back to Doug. She didn’t know if he was sleeping and neither asked nor slid back until their bodies touched. She was quiet. She kept her breathing low and even. Though the weekend was supposed to be a time of marital regeneration, she did nothing to suggest she wanted to make love. And she felt guilty as hell.

  It was hours before she fell asleep. When she awoke, Doug was out running again. She was relieved and, therein, felt more guilty than ever.

  Doug was her husband. She should want him. But she didn’t. He was a stranger to her. If he had been one of the fathers she had met yesterday, she would have smiled and exchanged surface pleasantries, then moved on without a backward glance.

  Jill was their only link.

  The more Emily thought about it, the more frightened that made her. People who liked each other as little as she and Doug did, usually ended up divorced.

  Divorced. God, she hated that word.

  But it made sense for them. Particularly in light of Brian. If Emily, who prized fidelity so highly, had slept with another man, something was really wrong with her marriage.

  Divorce made sense.

  Still, she fought it.

  Feeling jittery, she bolted out of bed and hurriedly dressed and packed. Doug returned just as she finished, as sweaty and breathless and short of time as he had been the morning before.

  Wishing she could put it off, but knowing it was now or never, she followed him into the bathroom. “Can we talk?”

  He set his running watch down by the sink. “I’m late.”

  “We never talk, Doug. I think we need to do something.”

  To his credit, he didn’t start in with condescending looks, or ask why she was trying to ruin a fine weekend. He didn’t pretend not to know something was wrong. Instead, neutrally, he asked, “Like what?” and, bending over, began washing his face.

  “Like see a counselor.” It was a last ditch effort. She couldn’t think of anything else.

  She had to wait until he had straightened and was reaching for his shave cream before he said, “Why do you want to see a counselor?”

  “Because our relationship stinks. We can’t talk.”

  “We can talk. We just don’t.”

  “Okay. Same thing.”

  “No, it’s not. If we choose not
to talk, we choose not to talk. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “There is if we’re both innately social, and we are, Doug. We talk with everyone else, just not with each other.”

  “That’s the nature of our relationship.”

  “I want to change it.”

  “Fine. Go to a counselor.”

  “I want us to.”

  He finished lathering his lower face and reached for his razor. “I’m not seeing a counselor.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a waste of time and money.”

  “Not if it improves our relationship. Don’t you want to do that?”

  “I don’t think our relationship needs scrutiny.”

  “You think it’s good?” she cried. “Doug, we go separate ways. We rarely even pass in the night. We share Jill. Period.”

  He systematically stroked away one strip of shave cream, then another.

  “Is it Daniel?” she asked with her heart in her throat.

  “No.”

  “It’s natural to be thinking of him, with Jill gone.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then what?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Right now? Getting ready in time.”

  “Doug. This is important.”

  He rinsed the blade. “Don’t nag. There’s nothing I hate more than a woman who nags.”

  Emily closed her mouth, but the injustice of his criticism had her reopening it the next minute. “What’s happening with us isn’t right. Life should be opening up, not closing down, now that we don’t have the everyday responsibility of kids. Don’t you want something more out of life?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like living. Smiles. Laughter. Fun.” She pictured Brian, with whom she had all of that, and felt guilty. Her guilt intensified when she realized that she was looking at Doug in only the skimpiest of running shorts, and feeling nothing.

  “I have those things,” he said in an offhanded way.

  “With work, but what about a woman?” she blurted out. “Don’t you want a woman?” He was a normal, red-blooded male. At least, he used to be. Now he wasn’t even asking for sex.