Lee and Carolina talked for more than an hour—a little politics, a little about films and music. They talked about everything except Bud. She looked at him as he spoke, bent forward with his hands gesturing, and realized he was really interested in what she thought. Lee always was a good conversationalist. At work they’d often chat across the office about the headline news, good movies or books, or some obscure medical advance that brought ethical concerns. Talking with Lee was one of the things she enjoyed most about her job.
Tonight, however, sitting side by side at the bar felt different from sharing an office. While she spoke, Lee looked at her earnestly and his eyes roamed her face in a way that made her feel pretty. He listened like he actually cared about her opinions and found her fascinating. Didn’t men know this kind of attention was an aphrodisiac? From time to time his hand would seemingly absentmindedly rest on hers, or on her arm. Once he reached up to tuck a lock of hair that had slipped from the clasp back behind her ear. With each touch, her blood raced in a way she hadn’t felt in such a long time.
After her third margarita, Carolina’s head was swimming and she thought in horror, Oh no, I’m getting drunk. “I better go.” She rose slowly and felt the room teeter.
“Let me drive you home.”
“I’m okay,” she said, digging into her purse for her keys.
Lee put his hand out to restrain her. “No. You’re not. It’s not safe. I’ll drive you home. We can pick up your car tomorrow.”
Carolina knew he was right. The roller coaster in her head was careening and looping wildly.
He paid the bill, then lightly took her arm and led her out the door. When the cool, fresh air hit her, Carolina wobbled slightly. Lee’s grip tightened as he guided her toward his car.
“Easy does it,” he said. “Watch out for that puddle.”
A red vintage Cadillac shone eerily under the cobra light fixture. She’d not seen this one before but wasn’t surprised it belonged to Lee. Everyone knew Lee loved old cars. When he was young, he’d always been in the backyard tinkering under some vintage car up on cinder blocks.
“This is a beauty,” she said, feeling the alcohol thicken her tongue.
“A sixty-five Coupe deVille,” he replied, and she heard the pride of ownership in his voice. “It’s just a hunk of tin,” he added, gently slamming the door after making sure her legs were safely inside.
She sank into the vast interior of the old Cadillac, amazed at how roomy and plush it was.
Lee closed his door and watched her hands slide across the white leather. “As soft as a baby’s bottom,” he said with a smile. Then, pointing to a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror, he added, “They were a joke from my ex, and I kept them.”
“You never talk about her much.”
“Melissa? There isn’t much to tell.”
“You were married five years.”
“The longest years of my life.”
He was being flippant, trying to deflect this line of questioning. Usually Carolina would have backed off, but tonight she felt reckless and pushed on. “Why did you marry her?” When he shrugged, she said, “You know what some people say, don’t you?”
“That I married her for her money.” His tone was flat.
“Did you?”
He turned his gaze from the road to search her face. “No. And yes. I was very attracted to her, to her lifestyle. But more than that, we both enjoyed the same things. And we both loved real estate. It was a turn-on for us. Especially during those boom days when every property we flipped made us a small fortune.”
“And it didn’t bother you that you were married to Odelle at the time?”
“Of course it did,” he replied sharply, and she thought she’d gone too far. Then he added, “But I didn’t think it would lead to anything at the beginning, and I didn’t want to hurt Odelle. She was the mother of my child…but there were troubles there long before I met Melissa.”
“Every marriage has troubles, but you work through them,” she replied, then turned her head to stare out at the dark night, feeling morose. Her answer sounded so pat in her ears tonight. So false.
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s the difference between me and Bud. He was always the steady one in our group. The one we all relied on.” His voice grew introspective, and she turned to look at him, a silhouette dimly lit by the green light of the dashboard.
“Bobby was the kidder,” he went on. “A goofball. He and I liked to fool around a lot, but Bud…ol’ Bud always seemed above it. Amused. We used to call him the old man, even back then.”
“Bud can be fun,” she said, feeling defensive.
“Oh, sure. I don’t mean that. He was just a loner. Kinda moody, too, like James Dean. Only he wasn’t so much cool as old-fashioned.” He laughed and looked at her. “I mean that in a good way. But he played fair. One thing about Bud—we always knew we could count on him.”
Hearing him talk about Bud made her feel sad. What Lee was saying about Bud was true, but it felt like he was talking about someone she had known once, long ago. Someone she’d cared deeply about but who was gone.
Lee seemed to be having similar thoughts because his voice changed again, losing its reflective tone. “So,” he said as though in answer to a question, “it makes sense that he’d be the kind of guy to stick with his marriage and work things out, while I…” He shrugged. “I’m not. Or maybe I wasn’t as lucky as Bud and never met the right girl.”
Carolina considered that comment in silence as they pulled into her driveway. He cut the engine. The big car rumbled then went still.
“It’s been years since I’ve pulled into this driveway,” Lee said. They both knew his and Bud’s friendship had waned. He leaned forward to peer through the windshield at the house. “Remember the touch football games we had on Sundays? You and Bud always won. Damn, he could throw a football.”
They both stared at the trees. The moon was bright and the air was cool. The front porch light was on, illuminating the interior of the car with a hazy yellow cast. Neither made a move to leave. Maybe it was because she’d worked side by side with Lee at the seafood company. Or perhaps it was because he was a friend. More than likely, it was the margaritas. But when he asked her again what the problem was, she told him about Bud’s phone call and how it had made her feel rejected and dismissed.
“Well, he is in hock up to his eyeballs,” Lee offered as explanation for Bud’s decision to stay in Florida.
“I know what we owe. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’m just saying you can understand why he’d want to stay on, that’s all.”
“I don’t understand. I think he likes it out there with the guys in Florida, bacheloring it up. I’ve been there, don’t forget. They’re drinking and having a good time on the docks and God knows what else.” Carolina saw in her mind’s eye the wooden tables along the murky water, the jukeboxes and games of darts, the waitresses in tight T-shirts giving the good-looking men the come-hither. “He doesn’t miss me. I don’t think he loves me anymore.”
“What? He’s crazy about you.”
“Sure, he loves me,” she said dully. “I’m his wife. Maybe it’s like you said. He’s old-fashioned. He’s hanging on because he doesn’t want to hurt me. But what’s so awful is that, in the end, it hurts all the more.” She cast Lee a slanted glance. “You hurt Odelle badly, you know that, don’t you?” She looked down at her hands and shook her head. “I don’t think he’s in love with me anymore. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think I’m in love with him, either.”
He didn’t reply, but he was staring at her with fiery eyes. They both fell silent.
The spring night was damp with chill and the air in the car was getting colder by the minute, yet neither of them seemed eager to leave. The darkness made talking easier and cloaked the brutal honesty of the words. Carolina tucked her bare hands under her arms for warmth.
Lee reached into his glove compartment and retrieve
d a silver flask. He opened the top and took a drink, then offered it to Carolina. She took the flask and, tilting her head back, tasted the smoky burn of a good single-malt scotch. Coughing, she handed it back to him and watched him take another swig.
“Are you happy? With him?” he asked.
“I used to be. Very,” she replied.
“But now?”
“But now…we’re not even particularly good friends. After all these years, isn’t that sad?”
“Yeah. I’ve been there. Twice.”
Anger flared in her—at him. At herself for being in this position. “It’s nothing to be proud of. All it proves is you men are alike. You don’t know anything about commitment.”
“Now you sound like my ex-wife.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
They laughed aloud. It was a relief. She’d always heard that laughter released tension and pain. Tonight, Carolina felt she could cry for hours.
“Are you happier now? Divorced, I mean?” she asked. “Does it make your life better?”
He considered this. “It’s easier because we’re not fighting anymore.” He snorted ruefully. “I’ve had a bellyful of fighting.”
Carolina felt that comment to her bones. She reached for the flask. The scotch tasted smoother this time. Less burn and more smoke. She wiped off the top with her palm and handed it back to him. Their fingers grazed, and she felt the sensation travel down to her stomach.
“But it does get lonely at times,” Lee added. He shifted his weight to lean back against the door and face Carolina. She heard the leather creak in the darkness. He took another drink from his flask, then lowering it, asked pointedly, “Are we talking divorce here?”
She turned to look at him, startled to hear the word spoken aloud. Divorce. It sounded so final. She’d never entertained the thought before. The idea of leaving Bud, leaving the fighting and the money problems and the walking on eggshells, had always fluttered about in the dark corners of her mind, more as a fantasy of escape than anything real. She’d never pulled the word forward in the light to consider it.
Carolina’s silence was enough of an answer.
Lee whistled softly. “He’ll never let you go.”
“He can’t stop me,” she blurted.
“Carolina, are you serious?”
She took a deep breath. Was she serious? Or was it the margaritas? Slowly, she nodded.
Lee seemed blindsided. “Shit. I thought you and Bud…we all thought you were the one couple that had it made.”
“I’m not saying it’s definitely going to happen,” she replied elliptically. “I only know I can’t go on like this. I’m so…unhappy.” Her voice broke, and she hated the short, choppy cries that she couldn’t contain.
Lee set the flask aside and slid across the length of white leather to wrap his arm around her in a consoling hug. She fell against him, feeling the softness of the cashmere, cocooned in his musky fragrance. In the dark, his arms felt comforting. She knew this could lead to something, but she was beyond caring.
“What happened to you guys?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, bringing her fingers up to wipe her tears from her face. But she didn’t leave his shoulder and instead relaxed into it. Then, in a moment of clarity, she knew. She missed this. The laying of her head on a man’s shoulder while he stroked her back and listened, really listened to her. Feeling appreciated. Cherished.
“How long has this been going on?”
Carolina knew why he’d asked. In the past several years, as Bud became less of a presence in her life, Lee’s presence had loomed large. She’d become aware of an undercurrent of attraction between them since that night at the play. For years, the tension had come and gone—nothing overt or dramatic. It was more a series of simple accidents—a touch of hands, a bump of shoulders, a meeting of gazes over the rim of a coffee cup—that sent jolts of electricity through her. Carolina had always dismissed it as the harmless attraction one sometimes felt for a friend. Just innocent flirting. But now she knew that Lee was asking how long she’d been considering divorce because those feelings had not been one-sided.
“I can’t pinpoint any day when I began thinking of leaving him,” she answered honestly. “But I remember resenting it when Bud left me behind on the dock that first time he took out the Miss Carolina. He cut me out of a major part of his life.” Carolina felt the wound as though it had happened yesterday. “Then Bobby died. He changed after that.”
“Bobby’s death hit us all hard.”
She shrugged. “The indifference grew over time. Our marriage is like a mountain after years of being pounded by waves. Rather than a landslide, it wore down rock by rock.”
“What happened to set you off tonight? Was it because he extended the trip?”
“That was only the tipping point,” she said with resignation. “But it hurt. It felt like he’d made the call more out of duty to the old ball and chain than because he missed me.” She sighed, feeling the heat of tears in her eyes and the hurt billowing up again in her chest. “I lost my temper. But, God, he was so cold. He didn’t care if I was lonely.”
“He’s a jerk.”
“Oh, it’s not all his fault. He probably just wanted to hang up. I’m angry a lot lately,” she admitted. Her lips trembled, and she brought her fingers up to still them. “It hurts, you know? To not feel attractive anymore.”
Lee tightened his arms around her. “You’re a very attractive woman, Carolina. One of the finest I’ve ever known.”
She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, hearing the emotion in his voice. It felt so good to be thought attractive again. Desirable. The air between them thickened. His hand stroking her back dug deeper along her spine. She was heading into dangerous territory. The alcohol swirled in her brain, breaking down her inhibitions.
“You know,” he said softly by her ear. “I’ve often wondered how things would’ve turned out if you’d stayed with me at the dance. I’ve wondered a lot.”
Carolina held her breath. She’d always known Lee had a thing for her, but this was the first time it was presented in words. The next moment seemed to hang between them. Her mind screamed that she should get out of the car now. Her body muffled that warning with a recklessness that was new and exciting and dangerously frightening. She turned her head. His face was a breath away.
“Carolina…”
Their mouths came together so hard she felt bruised. Her head dropped back against the seat as they pressed against one another, clumsy and eager, wrestling on the buttery leather that felt like a bed beneath them. His hands were nimble but they trembled as they dug through her layers of clothing to reach her skin. She gasped when his cold hands touched her warm breasts, then melted as they warmed, caressing her, pressing her farther down on the seat. She closed her eyes and felt her head swimming as he pulled up her sweater and lowered to kiss her breasts, her nipples.
With her eyes closed, she couldn’t help but compare his mouth to Bud’s, his taste, the way he moved. It was all happening as though in a fantasy. He lay over her, one leg between hers, with her arms around him. Bud had complained to her that she was cold, no longer interested in sex. Now she was trembling with desire, matching Lee kiss for kiss. In the heat of the moment, she heard a soft whimpering she didn’t recognize escape from her throat. Her body felt foreign, like this was happening to someone else, and yet she was responding with a lust that surprised her. But when he unzipped her jeans, she blinked as though waking from a languid stupor; and when his fingers sought her wetness, she sucked in her breath, shocked at the reality of what she was doing.
“No. This isn’t right.”
Lee wrapped his arms tighter around her, and Carolina couldn’t help but wish his firm, slender arms were Bud’s broad, muscled ones. Suddenly Bud was a powerful presence in the confined space, and Carolina felt exposed. She couldn’t go on. This felt so wrong. She wanted Bud, not Lee.
Her body went suddenly cold and she sti
ffened, putting her hands against his chest. “Stop.”
Lee pulled back and said in a husky voice, “We should go inside.”
“No,” Carolina blurted, and pushed him off. She scooted back on the seat, anxious to create distance between them. With her back against the door, she took deep breaths as she fumbled to pull down her sweater with shaky hands. “How could we do this?” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “How could I?”
“I thought you wanted—”
“He was your friend!” The fact that she was his wife, thus the greater sinner, floated in the air between them unsaid.
Carolina sat up in a rush, and with sudden cruelty her world started spinning off-kilter. She swallowed thickly as nausea rose up in her throat. She slapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.”
“Open the door,” Lee exclaimed, reaching over her in a rush to grab the handle and push the passenger door open. He didn’t want her throwing up in his car.
She held on to the door handle to steady herself as she bent with her head hanging over the driveway. She felt sickened by the drink, but even more sickened by her actions. She wished she could just throw up, vomit out her shame and disgust with the alcohol and leave this whole degrading night in the gutter. But all she could manage was to sit hangdog fashion, ashamed and slumped over, while the roller coaster in her mind careened out of control and crashed.
Lee had come around the car to stand at the door helplessly. When the dizziness subsided and she could look up without the world spinning, she was relieved to see him all zipped and buttoned, respectable again. Anyone walking past would only see Carolina being helped home by an old family friend.
“Let me help you inside,” he offered.
She took a deep breath of the cool air and nodded slightly, afraid to move her head too much lest she start retching again. Once again, Lee took her elbow and helped her to stand on shaky legs. He escorted her in a gentlemanly fashion along the walkway as she took mincing steps to her front door, then waited without speaking while she fumbled in her purse for her keys. She found them at last and handed them to him without looking.
Last Light over Carolina Page 21