It Happened One Night

by Lisa Dale

  If not, maybe it was time to sever her life from his once and for all, and end the torture of this long, slow pulling apart.

  That evening, after Karin had sent her sister home and closed up the store by herself, she stopped at the grocery store to pick up bread and milk—and a Payday, Lana’s favorite candy bar. She walked toward the back of the harshly lit store and pulled open the glass door of the refrigerators.

  She did feel a little bad for what had happened this afternoon. She hated when she felt kept out of things, and she supposed she’d asked if Lana was in love with Eli more out of desperation than any belief that it could be true. She hadn’t known the question would upset her sister as much as it did.

  She noticed the price of milk had gone up by a few cents yet again. She shook her head and reached in for a half gallon. When she had shut the glass door and turned around, she heard someone say her name.

  “Evening, Karin.”

  The door banged closed.

  Calvert. She felt as if she’d been knocked down by an enormous wave. Dry one moment, dripping the next. He was standing in the aisle, blocking her way to the register. The milk was freezing cold in her hand. “Did you follow me?” she asked before she realized that was impossible, since he didn’t have a car.

  He turned a can of soup around so its label faced front on a shelf. “Don’t suppose you’re heading over in the direction of the Madison after you check out? Give an old man a lift?”

  She nearly laughed out loud. His audacity was almost impressive. Then she walked completely around the aisle he blocked to get to the register on the other side of the store. By the time she made it back to the parking lot, she was shaking.

  She wanted to believe he was a nonentity in her life. That he didn’t matter. But that wasn’t true. From the day she arrived at his home, Karin had always secretly wanted them to be a family—Calvert, Lana, and her. On a practical level she’d managed to cut herself off from him. But while she’d disciplined herself to stop expecting his love, she never could stop herself from hoping for it.

  As a teenager she’d tried to turn Calvert’s busy house into a place where a family, a real family, could live. She cooked meals and forced Lana to eat with her at the kitchen table, where they were very visible and where Calvert could join them if he saw fit (he never did). When winter came it was Karin who made sure Lana was bundled up nice and warm for school, Karin who bought, set up, and decorated the Christmas tree in Calvert’s living room. Karin had never attempted to invite Calvert to school functions—plays, chorus concerts, softball games—but she sometimes put flyers on the fridge about upcoming events, just so he knew they were happening. The only side effect was that what Calvert knew, the boarders knew too. And it pained Karin to watch them one by one respond to Lana’s overtures of friendship—only to see them leave every time.

  She got into the car, locked the door, and backed out of her parking space as quickly as she could. There was no question that Calvert’s appearance was affecting Lana for the worse. Lana was gaining weight—not a lot, but enough to notice. It was mostly visible in her face, but Karin knew that if her sister ever wore anything but sundresses and overalls, she would probably be able to see it in her hips and thighs too.

  Karin headed toward home. She wondered if Calvert’s presence was contributing to her physical stress level too. The doctors told her she needed to stay relaxed and healthy if she was going to get pregnant the natural way. And Calvert was definitely not making her feel relaxed and healthy. If she wanted to have a baby, she would have to end all this stress, to get rid of him. What she needed was a plan.

  July 23

  Lana found Eli at UVM, where he was teaching a community education class on meteorites to a small group of adult students. She snuck quietly into the back of the room, sliding into a metal folding chair and pulling her oversized purse onto her lap. Eli caught her eye. Instantly his body language changed. He stuttered, lost his train of thought, and went on. He used his hands too much when he talked, and he kept turning around to point to the whiteboard for no apparent reason.

  She wondered when he’d gotten to be so uncomfortable around her. This was entirely new and didn’t make her feel particularly calm. She had the unavoidable sense that nothing was going to be the same between them again, that what she’d done by avoiding him and what he’d done by betraying her had set into motion an irreversible change.

  Finally the lecture concluded. And after Eli answered a few polite questions from students who approached him after class, he made his way toward her. He was wearing a pale blue dress shirt. His glasses caught the light as he approached, and she felt her heart beat hard in her chest. Something about him seemed different—the moderate thickness of his arms, the tilt of his chin. Every female cell in her body sparked as he walked toward her. If she didn’t know better, she might say it was attraction. Was it possible, she wondered, for attraction to come in forms that weren’t sexual? That maybe the longings of two separated friends could be mistaken for an unexpected jolt of sex?

  She took a deep breath. Who was she kidding? She was getting more and more confused about what she wanted from Eli by the day. There was no other name for this feeling but attraction, sexual attraction—a drawing together of two bodies as he came closer to her. She had to put an end to this feeling, fast. When had she become so spineless that she could no longer stand up to herself?

  “Lana.” He approached cautiously, hanging back. “Good to see you. What are you doing here? Do you want to get coffee or something?”

  “No.” She pulled her bag tighter against her body. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, but she stayed strong. “I think we need to talk.”

  To his credit, he looked genuinely puzzled for a moment. He kept an eye on the last two students who were leaving the classroom—a stall tactic, Lana thought—and when they were gone he closed the door behind them. The big classroom became suddenly very small.

  He stood before her, his face serious and focused as he crossed his arms. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I wasn’t sure you noticed,” she said, and then regretted the words immediately because bitterness wasn’t at all like her. And because she’d given away too much.

  “You were avoiding me on purpose?”

  She shook her head. “And I didn’t come here to talk about me.”

  He shifted on his feet, just slightly, so the rubber of his shoes creaked. “Then what did you come to talk about?”

  “Kelly. She paid me a visit,” Lana said.

  “Oh?” He pulled in a deep breath, so his crossed arms seemed to widen with the swell of his chest. She tried not to look.

  “I know what you told her. I just don’t know why.”

  “What do you mean, you know what I…” He dropped his arms, looked away, and ran a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

  She nodded, vindicated but mad. “Why would you do that? Why would you say that to her? I haven’t even told my own sister that I’m pregnant, and you go and tell a total stranger. What am I supposed to make of that?”

  Eli pushed his hands into his pockets, and she could tell he was fighting to control his voice when he spoke. His words were breathy and low. “You. You’re asking me?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You of all people. A woman who’s just admitted she’s avoiding me. My best friend who hasn’t bothered returning my calls.”

  “I was giving you space.”

  “You were cowering.”

  “Why on earth would I cower?” she asked, even though he’d stepped closer to her, and she found herself grappling with the need to step away.

  “I don’t think you like it when I date other women,” he said.

  “Please.” She moved away from him, acting as if she needed to put her purse down on a chair. “Why would I care what you do with other women?”

  “I don’t know,” he challenged, pulling his hands from his pants pockets. “Why would you? You always have. But I’m done
putting my love life on hold for you.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, gripping the hard back of the wooden chair beside her. “I have nothing to do with who you date.”

  He laughed, bitter. “Until recently, my entire sex life was on hold because of you. And I think you’re annoyed and jealous that I’m spending more time with Kelly than you.”

  “But how is it my fault?”

  “Remember Joanne what’s-her-name? From textile arts class?”

  “What about her?”

  “Remember what you did when I told you she and I were dating?”

  She tried to remember but couldn’t.

  “You brought a date over to my dorm room the Friday that she and I had our first date. You said that your roommate was having a party and you needed a place to be alone with the guy. In my room. When I had a date of my own!”

  “I didn’t think it was that big a deal,” she said, buying time as the memories slowly returned. “I figured you guys were going out anyway. And that was ages ago. Why are you bringing it up now?”

  “To prove that you don’t like it when I date other women.”

  “You’re just being ridiculous.”

  “And what about the woman from the tennis team?”

  “What about her?”

  “Lana, when I started dating her, it was like all of a sudden, you were everywhere! Everywhere I turned you wanted to hang out with me. And you know damn well that I’ve never been able to tell you no. I couldn’t have seen her even if I wanted to. She just got phased out. And then when she was gone, you turned right back into your old self again. You get weird when I date other women. Every time, it’s the same.”

  “I think you’re imagining this,” she said, breathless.

  He gripped her arm, looking firmly into her eyes. “No. I’m not.”

  Her heart was pounding terribly hard, and though gut instinct made her want to deny that she’d ever gotten in his way romantically, some part of her worried that it was true. She suspected herself. She didn’t like it when he dated other women. But she’d never in a million years dream of sabotaging his love life on purpose… Would she? What if she’d been deliberately keeping him off the market without quite knowing she was doing it? She could feel the rightness of his accusation—and it terrified her. What did it mean? There was a heat and vehemence in his words that she’d never heard before. She had to get the conversation under control.

  She stood there a moment, holding his gaze, unwilling to back down. His hand was hot on her bare arm. The strap of her sundress fell and landed on his knuckles. She forced herself to hold his stare. “If that’s true, that I get in your way with women, then why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  She felt his grip on her arm loosen, and somehow that gentleness was even more disconcerting. “Because I liked it.”

  She said nothing, stunned.

  “I liked it when you got in between me and other women. It meant you cared about me. I think that’s why I didn’t really notice it, until now.”

  She pulled away. But the truth was there, crowding her at all sides, unavoidable. All the pieces of the past came together, logic pointing out emotions that she’d thought were long gone. She trembled slightly with astonishment and surprise. And she realized: She wanted him. Physically. All to herself. The thought that another woman was in his bed… She couldn’t bear it. She’d wanted some part of his love life to belong to her even if she didn’t acknowledge it, like a toy that she owned but refused to take out of the box.

  She felt herself blushing hotly, a low internal hum resonating through her whole body. The solidarity of their friendship had succeeded mostly because they didn’t talk about these kinds of things. Dating was private. Sex, taboo. And now that Eli was bringing it all into the open, there was no more protocol, and she had no idea how to restore the rules he was breaking. She cleared her throat. “Well, you don’t have to worry about my getting in the way with Kelly. You’ve made it abundantly clear that she’s the one you… you care for.”

  He took a step back. “I… I’m sorry. Lana, I really am. The words… they just slipped out.”

  She was quiet.

  “Please understand. Your pregnancy… it’s been eating me up inside,” he said, his voice distant and reserved. “There was no one I could talk to.”

  “You couldn’t talk to me?”

  “No.”

  She swallowed hard. “Why not? We’re friends. You can tell me anything.”

  “All right.” He took a deep breath; she heard the air whisper across his lips as he exhaled. When he spoke, his words were soft and slow. “I don’t like that you’re having another man’s baby. I don’t like that you slept with him, or anyone. And I don’t like the idea that some other man now has a connection with you that I never will.”

  “I understand.” She lifted her eyes to his, summoning everything brave within her. “I feel the same way about Kelly. A little bit.” He leaned toward her and she saw his gaze drop to her mouth. Her heart sped up, so she talked. Fast. “But that’s why I wanted to give you a chance with her. I want to see you happy and in love. So I stayed away.”

  His eyes narrowed darkly. “Do you know what she told me? She said that it’s like you and I are dating, except that we don’t have sex.”

  Goose bumps ran up her back. The word sex hung in the air between them, and she knew he was thinking about it—that they both were. That night in the field.

  “We don’t have sex,” she managed. “So it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “It shouldn’t,” he said.

  She held her breath, astonished by what she saw in his eyes. It was need, pure and simple. Physical, sexual need. And it made her sweat and jolt in places she should not. She couldn’t believe it. After all these years. Some small part of him still wanted her—she hadn’t thought it possible after what she’d done.

  She didn’t have time to think it over. For now, all she knew was that she needed to get away from that heat, that edge. She needed to put them back on firmer, more familiar ground. And she would decide what to do about this… chemistry… later on.

  She put her hands in the deep square pockets of her dress. “I knew when I met you all those years ago that being your friend wasn’t going to be easy. That we’d probably step on each other’s toes and get in each other’s way.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a woman. And you, well, obviously you’re a man.” She kept her expression blank, her voice cool. He frowned, his eyes searching, almost as if he was waiting for her to say more. “Can we call this a truce?” she asked. She put out a hand for him to shake and hoped she wasn’t trembling. It had been years since she’d deliberately touched him, even in the smallest way. She hoped this would be taken as a gesture of goodwill.

  He looked down at her outstretched hand for a long minute, his lip curled in disbelief—as if to say, “That’s all you got?” Her resolve wavered; she almost drew back. But then, he seized her hand, her whole hand—not with one of his, but with both.

  Her skin burned; heat bloomed like a flower in the center of her chest. This was not a handshake; this was his thumb, sliding over her fingers, his two big hands wrapped around one of hers. “We’re okay?” he asked.

  She met his eye, her heart pounding wildly. “Nothing’s changed.”

  His mouth curved downward, but his concentration didn’t break.

  Then she pretended she needed to dig lip balm out of her purse, and she let him go.

  Eli sat on a swinging love seat in the glassed-in porch at his house. Lana was beside him. The night was warm, hazy, and quiet, and the air that came through the window screens was humid and fragrant. Porch lights twinkled in the water on the other side of the lake. Around them, moonflowers sighed open, the nubile, nocturnal cousins of morning glories. Night-blooming jasmine warmed to the dark sky, and flowering tobacco caught the errant moonlight and amplified it, turning that cold silver glow into a succulent luster.


  Lana had put the moon garden together for him as a birthday present last year and she still maintained it. She’d carried pot after pot of beautiful plants to his back porch, turning it into a paradise. It had been the perfect gift for an astronomer and lover of the night skies. He came out here often, to watch the lake and to think—often about the woman who was sitting beside him now. The way her hair shimmered in the darkness, glowing as platinum as the night flowers around her, made him think she was very much like a flower herself. There was a kind of quiet strength to her. Beauty that was stronger than it looked.

  Something had changed today. Not in the last hours that they’d spent talking and catching up like any two old friends. But at the school during that first raw collision, the closest thing to a fight they’d had in years. What he’d seen in her eyes had been nothing less than attraction. She’d hidden it well, for the most part, but he saw.

  All this time he believed she’d shied away from him because she was appalled. He’d imagined that every time he bumped against her in a narrow hallway, and every time she cringed if he so much as brushed her hand, she was reminded of the unfortunate mistake she’d made with him that night in the field. He wasn’t sure if she consciously knew what she’d done by shying away from him. He’d doubted that she purposefully tried to hide her true reactions. Instead, she’d used her feelings to her advantage—twisted them around in a way that would cause him to misinterpret her consistent and unchanging reactions. She’d been misleading him—and herself.

  She wanted him. It made him want to shout to the rooftops, like a wrongfully accused prisoner cleared of misconduct at long last. And it made him want to say to her, I know what you’re hiding—not say it by speaking the words, but by dragging his mouth behind her ear, by slipping a finger inside her lips, by pausing on the brink of taking her and daring her to say no.

  The question was, What should he actually do with his newfound power? Part of him wanted to test it out, to see if she would let him go as far as he wanted to go, do what he wanted to do. That night in the field, they’d been so young. They’d rushed and fumbled and groped and sprinted to the finish. And now, when he was alone in the dark, Eli remembered that haste with a regret that bordered on mourning. They should have spent years getting to know to each other’s bodies. That bliss they’d found in college should have been the low point, not the high.