by Dale, Lisa
Eula’s girlfriends kept telling her: the man was perfect. Why didn’t she bag him up? And yet when he kissed her, she could not seem to stop holding herself away.
Tonight was their eighth date in half as many months. He’d invited her to his home. They ate on his screened-in porch, and though it wasn’t a restaurant, he wore nice gray-green pants and a crisp white shirt. Tonight, he was obviously taking pains to impress her. He lit candles. He put on soft music. He cooked: spinach salad with raspberry vinaigrette and almonds. A few crackers with Brie. And a roast slow-cooked in coffee and soy sauce—a bit heavy for summer, but it smelled delicious.
She realized she’d been lost in her own thoughts for a few moments too long. The conversation had lagged, and she wasn’t sure how best to pick it up again. She poked at her food. “The salad’s fantastic.”
“Oh yes. Pure decadence,” he said, and she laughed. “It’s funny. My wife made me eat so much damn salad. Hated the stuff.”
“My mama hates salad,” she said quickly. He knew about her mother, the dementia and the precancerous cells. She told him a story about her mother’s refusals to eat healthy food, and he laughed where it was appropriate and nodded his head to encourage her to go on. He was easy to be around.
From the beginning, he’d made no secret that he was spending time with other women. She knew he wasn’t having hanging-from-the-chandeliers sex with them, nor was he promising his exclusive love to any or all. He was simply fighting off the loneliness, just like she was. And she was glad to know she wasn’t the only woman he was seeing. It removed some of the pressure to perform.
“Eula …
Mitch put his hand out on the table. She knew he wanted her to take it, so she did. She smiled.
“Where are you tonight?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I’m just a little distracted.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No. I mean—thank you. That’s sweet. But no.”
She looked at her hand in his and then pulled away to drink the last sip of her wine. She tipped her glass toward him for a refill.
“I’d like to see you again,” he said. He finished pouring her wine. “And … I want us to be exclusive.”
She toyed with the cloth napkin on her lap. “I’m not sure I can do anything too serious right now.”
“I’m with you there. That’s why I like you. Believe me—five years later, it feels too soon for me too.”
His brown eyes were warm and sincere. When she thought of what he’d been through—the shock of losing his wife, the wondering what if, turning to say something only to realize there was no one there—it was so familiar. In a way, she’d been widowed too. But her spouse had returned from the dead, and his never would.
She leaned forward a little bit. “If you want to see me again, I have to tell you something. Something about my ex-husband.”
“I knew you were married before.”
“But that’s all you know?”
“People have tried to tell me things about you—all well-meaning people. But I told them I didn’t want to hear it. I figure if something’s important, it will come up in its own time.”
“This is important,” she said. “If you’re thinking about getting serious with me.”
“I’m not afraid of ex-husband stories. Or ex-husbands.”
She took a breath. “The man I divorced was … is … Arlen Fieldstone.”
He dabbed his mouth with his napkin and put it down on the table. “I see,” was all he said.
The road leading away from Will’s mother’s house curved gently around steep hills and into the dips of shrubby ravines, so that when Lauren got around one blind corner she found herself facing another. She and Will walked by the light of the moon and the barest glow of day left in the sky. There was no double yellow line down the center of the road. No shoulders marked by white. The trees and shrubs along the road’s edge crowded in with such tenacity that she felt as if turning her back on them might give them permission to swallow up the road.
They strolled along a steep curve, hugging the side of an overgrown hill. Fireflies lit up the underbrush, but Lauren hardly noticed. She wanted to look only at Will, to better see what it was that she was missing about him, the fundamental thing that she didn’t yet understand. She studied his profile: his high forehead, the curve of his nose, his jaw that was neither strong nor weak. Most of the men she’d dated had been of the devastatingly handsome variety, but Will’s beauty was subtle, real.
She looped her arm through his and hoped the gesture came off as friendly and comfortable. “So tell me,” she began, and he interrupted.
“Oh, no. Why do I have the feeling I’m about to get the grilled.”
“Is it profitable being in antiques? Do you make a killing?”
“Maybe not by some standards. But I do okay.” They walked for a while, slowly and without intention, Lauren’s arm through his. “The thing about antiques is that they don’t go out of style. With anything else you’d buy and sell, the stock goes out of date in a matter of months, maybe years. But with antiques, the older they get, the better. For the most part, anyway.”
“Is that one of those recession-proof businesses?”
“When times get hard people start to sell things. Cheap. That’s when I can pick up a good deal, hold it for a while, and flip it for a killing a few years down the line. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.”
She heard something in his voice: he was talking as much to himself as to her. She drew the logical conclusion. If he needed to reinforce his own rule, he was probably at risk of breaking it. “You keep many of your picks?” she asked.
“Course I do.” In the near dark, she wondered if that was a blush creeping up his neck, or if they’d simply stepped into a shadow from the moon. “I like to hang on to the more interesting finds.”
“What makes you keep something?”
He glanced away from the road before them, into the dark of the woods. “If something strikes me. Or if I know it’s worth some money. Lots of reasons, really.” She didn’t miss it now: the way his jaw had clenched, then let go. “So how’d you do with my mom and Annabelle? Do I need to apologize for their interrogation tactics?”
“No waterboarding or stress positions,” she said, letting him change the subject. She had no interest in making him uncomfortable. “Your mom wanted to know if we were dating.”
The muscle of his arm tensed under her hand. “Did you tell her you’re already seeing someone up in Albany?”
“I’m not seeing anyone,” she said. She pulled her arm from him. “What do I have to do to convince you that I’m unattached?”
“You’re hung up on the guy.”
“I’m not hung up,” she said. And it was true. She realized that even though she’d thought of Edward, she hadn’t actually missed him in days. It was Will who took up more and more space in her mind now.
This afternoon on their pick, she’d flirted with him—or, at least, she hoped that was what she was doing. She’d never been very good at flirting. To flirt required a certain lack of directness, a willingness to hint and imply and be frivolous that she simply hadn’t been able to perfect. Elusiveness was not a tool worth developing. If a thing needed to be said, she said it—without playing around. That was what she’d liked about Edward. On their first lunch date, he’d said, “I want to take you to bed.” And the feeling that had washed over her was nothing shy of relief, because it was what she’d wanted too.
But today, standing on the road with her shoes getting soaked with mud, she’d wanted to flirt. To tease Will a little, to draw him out and see if she could make him want her. The trouble was, she hadn’t thought much beyond that.
“It must be hard for you, in a way,” Will said suddenly.
She stiffened. “Sorry?”
“I just think it must be a tough way to live. To see things the rest of us can’t. To see the future.”
“I can’t see the future,” she s
aid.
“What I mean is, you can see a lot. Is that why it didn’t work out with the guy in Albany?”
“It was more complicated than that.”
“ ‘Complicated’ is woman-speak for, ‘It’s not going how I want but we’re having sex anyway.’ ”
“And you’re the expert on woman-speak?” she teased.
“I do have a sister. And a mother, you know.” He clasped his hands together behind his back. “You like my family?”
“I do like them.”
“Read them to me,” he said. “What did you see?”
“Oh, I can’t do that.”
“They’re that terrible?” Will said, laughing.
“No! No, not at all. They’re great. Really warm, nice people who are absolutely crazy about you and want you to be happy.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She hooked her thumbs on her jeans. When she and Jonah were young, they used to do party tricks for their friends sometimes, just for fun. People would ask: Does Kris Bronsen like me? Is Mrs. Dickerson really a lesbian? Could you go ask Mr. Oakley if we’re having a test today, and then let me know?
Most of the time, the errands and readings were harmless enough. But when middle school girlfriends had started warring—Lauren still had no idea what had caused the rift—she’d been caught between two equally vicious factions, each demanding she scout information from the other side.
By the time she reached college, people-reading had become even more difficult. What do you think of my new boyfriend, Lauren? (She didn’t want to say, He’s sleeping with you to piss off your sister.) Is my roommate telling me the truth about not taking the money I had in my closet? (Lauren, as tactfully as she could, suggested getting a bank account.) Lauren, do you think I should be worried that your father is … being unfaithful? (She didn’t know how to answer without telling a lie.)
Over time, she’d done her best to turn off her people-reading as much as she possibly could; she read only when she was in a courtroom or when she needed to know something. Between not reading Edward right and not seeing Arlen’s obvious innocence all those years ago, she was beginning to wonder if she was in the wrong business.
She looked up at Will, and she understood he’d given her time to work through all the things she was thinking. He hadn’t pushed her to reply until she was ready.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I was just curious if you see them like I do.”
“How do you see them?”
“The same way I see a broken-down car that’s been patched up with elbow grease and Hail Marys—and made to run again.”
“Oddly specific,” she said. “But I think I understand.”
They came around a bend, and Will stopped walking, put a hand on her shoulder. “This is what I wanted you to see.”
They’d stopped before a small pond—water so still and black it seemed to be less like water than sky. Stars were quiet overhead. Reeds and cattails gathered in, and a willow trailed its leaves on the surface of the pool. Fireflies in the rushes made the whole scene sparkle green. It wasn’t a vista of a sweeping skyline or dazzling canyon, but it was beautiful—and Lauren loved that Will loved it, and wanted to share it with her.
“Wow,” she said softly.
“Yeah.” He stood at her side, looking ahead.
A firefly flew before them. Lauren wondered where it was going—what firefly errand it had to run—and Will reached up and caught it gently. He cupped it in his two hands.
“Look,” he said. “That guy you were seeing, he was an idiot.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Am I wrong?”
She thought about it. “No, I guess not.”
“He’d have to be. To let things get … complicated … with
you.”
She smiled at him, something warming in her heart. His cupped hands were between them. The yellow-green flash of phosphorescence leaked between his fingers.
“Let me see,” she said.
He stepped closer, bending his head over his hands as if in prayer, and she did the same. She reached to steady him for a better look, holding the orb of his cupped hands in hers, and when he opened his fingers a little, Lauren saw the lightning bug crawling around inside. She leaned close, peering into the hollow, and then the firefly opened its wings like a star unfurling and shot haphazardly back into the night. She straightened quickly to get out of its path, a little breathless with surprise and a kind of excitement she hadn’t felt since she was a kid. She knew her eyes were wide when she looked up at Will and said, “Oh!”
She wasn’t at all ready when he kissed her.
There was no gradual opening into desire. No slow-forming knot of arousal, no sense of the air going incrementally thinner, no bloom of heat like embers fanned to a brighter burn. Instead, she felt as if the black road had turned into a river beneath her feet, washing out from under her. Want and the feeling of something cracking apart came all at once, with a kiss that seemed to be over as soon as her sluggish brain caught up with her body.
Will pulled away, but not too far. He looked into her eyes and waited.
“I probably should have seen that coming,” she said.
She hesitated, and she knew he did too—that he was second-guessing and wondering and thinking of doing it again.
“Will … ”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugged him down to kiss him again. It was painful when she finally tore herself away. She straightened herself out—her shirt, her hair. Will watched her. She had no idea what to say. With Edward, it had always been so easy to know what came next—there was an understood direction. But she’d been so taken aback by Will, by the force of an attraction that had no predictable endpoint, that she was stymied.
He stood looking at her, his breathing hard. Frogs in the little pond chattered and splashed. There was no wind. Will had just made up his mind to say something—she saw the moment the decision flashed across his face—when blinding white headlights slid around the corner of the road, bright beams reaching into all the nooks and hideaways of the woods, and Will drew back.
They stepped farther to the side of the road, out of the way, and a red SUV pulled up beside them. Will ran his hands through his hair.
“Hey, y’all,” Annabelle said in a loud whisper as the passenger-side window automatically rolled down. “I didn’t want to go without saying good-bye.”
Will walked up to the car, then leaned his arms against the bottom edge of the window frame. “Heading out?”
“Yep. Louis was hollering for sleep. Course, now that he’s in his car seat, he’s passed out cold.” She glanced past Will toward Lauren. “Glad you could make it. It was nice talking to you.”
“Thanks,” Lauren said. She wondered if her lips were red, if her hair was okay.
Annabelle had a gleam in her eye. “I know you’re going back up north, but I hope to see you again real soon.”
“Great meeting you.”
She refocused her gaze on Will. “You get her home safe, now, hear?”
“Yes. I’ll defend her against the bears and wolverines. Did you drive all the way out here just to harass me?”
“It’s a sign of love,” she said.
Will backed away from the car.
“So long,” she said, waving. Then she disappeared down the road, taking the noise and light with her. And when Lauren looked at Will again, she knew the spell was broken, that logic had set in, and that he would not kiss her again.
“Ready to head back?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said. She rubbed her arms and, for the first time in days, she felt a little cooler, awash in night air. They walked the road they’d just come down, heading silently back.
Lesson Eleven: Practice people-reading long enough, and you’ll probably begin to notice that it can be easier to get a read on a stranger than it is to get a read on someone you know. When we read strangers, we’re willing to go out on a limb and
make a wild guess. We have no emotional investment, so we’re more open to seeing things how they are. But when we’re reading someone with whom we’ve already established an emotional connection, the results of a read can be skewed.
CHAPTER 11
Dear Jonah,
A letter today, instead of a postcard. It’s been a week since I’ve come down here. A whole week without being at work. Aren’t you proud?
I have to admit: In between all the worry over Arlen, there are bright spots. Tremendously bright spots coming out of what I only thought was darkness. It’s so much more than I could have wished for.
I might have come home today except for one thing: I think Arlen is getting closer to seeing me. I just have a feeling.
Also, there’s another matter. A matter of the heart, I guess. No, not Edward. But I can’t talk about it here. Suffice it to say, my obligation to apologize to Arlen feels like it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the lessons I’ve come down here to learn.
Will I still be the same person when this letter reaches you? Will you? I’m inclined to think we grow and change a little every day. Like I said: bright spots.
LOVE so much and hugs and everything.
Lauren
At certain times during his long incarceration, Arlen found himself conversing with Eula, telling her things in his head. He observed for her the way the light changed with the seasons—the texture, and color, and temperature shifting, a thing he’d never noticed before. He pointed out to her the guys to watch out for and the ones who were okay, and he described their stories. Sometimes, he imagined he was giving her instructions: Here’s how to get a jump on the lunch line. Here’s how to plug your ears so you don’t hear the guy sobbing at the end of the row.
Now, sitting once again on the city bus, he wanted to tell her another thing: an observation that a bus was like a prison, with crowds of confined strangers, canned air, and people shuffling their feet down the aisle as if in chains. He told her: I miss you worse now.
After a short walk, he stood in front of her house. The neighborhood was imprecisely different. He could have taken before and after photos, then made a game of circling what had changed. Tree trunks had thickened. Driveways had been repaired or cracked apart. One house had been painted red. But the street itself, the black road baking in the hot sun, was still a gentle slope, a slight curve. And his house—Eula’s house—was also unchanged.