Once we’re at the port, I spot an open table at an outdoor restaurant, but John wants to sit on one of the piers, a deserted strip of wood away from the action, and this makes me even more nervous.
We walk to the very end and take a seat, hanging our legs over the edge. A few bobbing fishing boats surround us, as does the quiet. Back home, our periods of silence had the ability to be comfortable if I wasn’t pouting about them, yet now it feels lonely. I miss him, or rather I miss the time when we were carefree and easy. Maybe we could save what we had, though. He came all this way to see me, and now he wants to talk. As scary as it is, this has to signal something, some desire or ability to change.
“So…” I say, breaking the quiet when I can’t take it anymore. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”
John looks down and plays with his watch, a gold Maurice Lacroix tank watch that I’d spent way too much money on last Christmas. When he finally looks up at me, I notice an uncharacteristic longing in his eyes. Not a sexual hunger like I saw in the hotel room, but a passionate, love-filled longing. I have the sense that this is one of those expressions that I’ve cherished whenever it’s come my way, but now I feel removed.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he blurts out.
With that comment, all the things that I love about him come rushing back—his lopsided smile, the methodical way he reads the Sunday paper, the way he kisses me on the forehead before he leaves for work.
“Why would you say that?” I ask, my voice soft.
He keeps tugging at the band of his watch. “You’ve changed. Something’s different. I can tell.”
“What do you mean?”
He pauses for a long time. “You weren’t the same all summer. You seemed far away and depressed. It made me sad.” He shifts his eyes to me as he says this.
I’m shocked that he’d noticed. Not wanting to break the flow of his words, I only nod encouragement and wait.
“I wanted to help you, but I thought it was just the bar exam,” he continues. “I thought you had to ride it out. I was being tough on you because I thought you needed to be tough with yourself.”
Behind us there’s a crash of breaking glasses from one of the restaurants. We both turn our heads toward the noise, seeing a waiter bending down to retrieve the remnants. When I turn back, I realize John is looking at me already, waiting for me to say something.
I wonder, briefly, if this is the time to tell him everything I’ve been thinking, everything that’s happened, but I can’t bring myself to admit my guilt. “It’s true,” I say finally. “I haven’t been truly happy for a while. It had a lot to do with the bar exam, with my family, and you weren’t helping much, but I’m better now. A lot better. I feel great, actually.” It dawns on me that I do feel worlds different from the person who left Chicago a few weeks ago, and John, who’s arguably the most important person in my life, had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
“I can tell you’re not as down—” John searches my face with his eyes “—but you’re still different, and I have a bad feeling about it. I mean, I’m glad you’re happy, but…” He trails off, shaking his head.
We sit in silence again. I look down at my sandal-clad feet swinging back and forth above the dark, softly lapping water. My head is a jumble. I feel elated by John’s attempt at our relationship, panicked that he somehow knows about Francesco or Billy, and fearful that he will push me to a big decision about our relationship. The thought of ending things with John has flickered in and out of my head during this vacation, but I really can’t picture my life without him. Despite his flaws, I do love him. How could that part of my world be excised?
“I’m not kidding, Case.” John grabs my hands and turns to face me. “I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say, meaning it.
John hugs me to him so tight it’s almost painful. “I love you. I love you,” he repeats in my ear over and over, enunciating each of his words, the same way he did that night in Chicago, that first time.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I clutch him in return.
“Let’s go back to the room.” John pulls away and looks at me. He seems relieved to see my tears, as if they’re a watershed, an indication of the tide turning.
I’m about to agree when I remember my promise to meet Lindsey and Kat at the Scandinavian Bar.
“I can’t,” I say. “I told those guys we’d meet them.”
“Tomorrow night.” John kisses my eyelids, the tiny birthmark on my cheekbone that no one else ever notices. “Let’s be alone tonight.”
“I can’t. I have to meet them.”
“Casey.” He sits back from me. “We haven’t seen each other in three weeks.”
“I realize that, but we weren’t supposed to see each other for another week. I’m not going to blow off my friends for a guy. I’ve done that enough already.”
It’s out of my mouth before I can rein it in. I’m referring to Francesco, of course, and to Billy somewhat. I freeze and look straight ahead, hoping desperately John hasn’t picked up on it. When I finally steal a glance at him, he’s nodding as if he understands, probably recalling my grumblings this summer about how I didn’t see my friends enough.
“All right,” he says at last. “Let’s go.”
He puts on a cheery face, which, albeit fake, means he’s trying with all his might to make things right with us. And it breaks my goddamn heart.
Our conversation by the dock has had a definite impact on John’s mood. Maybe he feels like he got something off his chest or maybe it’s his talk about losing me. Whatever the reason, he shakes off the withdrawn-Iowa-farm-boy temperament. The minute we reach the Scandinavian Bar, he buys a round of drinks for the crew. Then, after kissing me on the cheek and saying, “Go talk to your friends,” he strikes up a conversation with Jenny. Unbelievable. I haven’t seen such an effort in months. He keeps stealing side glances at me, as if to make sure I’m taking note of his initiative. I nod and smile, unable to decide what to make of it. It’s so odd to see him in this setting, which I’d grown accustomed to without him.
“How’s it going?” Kat asks when she makes her way back from the bathroom, looking stunning as usual. At least ten pairs of hungry male eyes had followed her walk across the room, and yet she seems oblivious. The diamond earrings, I notice, are nowhere in sight. In fact, they haven’t made an appearance since we left Ios.
“It’s all right, I guess.” I can’t stop watching John. “It’s just a bit overwhelming. He charges over here, he’s all sullen at dinner, then he tells me he doesn’t want to lose me, that he loves me, and now…” I gesture across the room, where he’s talking enthusiastically to Jenny.
“Wow,” Kat says, her eyebrow raising.
“Yeah, wow.”
“You made it,” Lindsey says, coming up to us, a big grin stretching across her diminutive face. She touches me on the hand, and I can tell she’s making an effort to be patient as I asked her to.
“I told you I would be here,” I say.
“Yes, you did.” She hands me her glass, and I take a sip of her water. “So what’s the scoop?” she says.
I fill her and Kat in on John’s declarations of love by the water. “I don’t know what to think, you guys. I wondered over these last few weeks whether our relationship had run its course, but now this. I really think he’s giving it his all—he flew here, he’s really trying to talk to me like we used to.” I can’t seem to stop shrugging.
“It’s like he sensed it,” Kat says again.
This time I don’t protest. We all nod in silence.
“But does it really change everything?” Lindsey asks. “He flies here and he tells you he loves you, but does that do it? Does that solve your problems?”
“No,” I answer after a moment, “but it helps. I do love him, and if he keeps up this kind of effort, maybe it could all turn around. Maybe it could feel like we did when we first started, and I wouldn’t lose myself a
gain.”
“Maybe…” Lindsey says.
A bit later, John kisses me on the forehead before he heads into the bar to buy another round of beers. Jenny walks over to me.
“Nice chap,” she says in her lilting British accent. “How long have you been together?” She’s wearing a yellow miniskirt and a white shirt that shows off her freckles.
“Almost two years.”
“I take it you didn’t know he was going to show up?”
“No. It was a shock, to say the least.”
“But a good one, eh?” Jenny asks, cocking her head to one side.
“It’s good and bad, I think. This is supposed to be just a friends’ vacation, so he’s intruding on that, but it was a sweet gesture. It means a lot to me.”
“So is he ‘the one’ then?”
I shrug for the thirty-fifth time that evening. “I don’t know…maybe.”
“Maybe?” Jenny says. “What do you mean, maybe?”
I laugh at her tone. “Well, I can’t say right now. I love the guy, but we’ve had our problems.”
“Listen,” Jenny says, taking an authoritative pose, one finger pointed at me. “If he’s the one—the man for you—you’d know. No ifs, ands or buts.”
“I disagree. I don’t believe in that lightning-bolt, love-at-first-sight thing.”
Jenny looks at me with sincere eyes. “I’m not talking about love at first sight. I’m just telling you that you’ll know in your gut and in your heart when it’s right.”
I gulp and pull at the sleeve of my dress, distinctly uneasy with this conversation, but unable to tear myself away or change the subject. “I think it’s more of a leap of faith,” I say. “If you love someone and you get along all right, you just have to decide if you’re going to go for it or not.”
Jenny shakes her head as I speak. “I know what I’m talking about,” she says. “I’ve been there.”
“Been where?” I laugh, trying to lighten the discussion, uncomfortable that it’s clouding the already muddy waters of my thoughts about John.
She pauses and then says, “I’ve been married.” A shadow crosses her eyes, and she looks down at her drink. I think it’s the first time that I’ve seen Jenny in a mood that’s anything less than ebullient.
“You’re married?” I ask, surprised.
“Not anymore. He died.”
“Oh my God.” I put a hand to my mouth. I can’t even bring myself to imagine John’s death. It sends a rush of terror through me. The poor girl. “When? What happened to him?”
Jenny stares vacantly at her drink as if remembering. She takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. What I’m telling you is that when I was with him, I knew without a doubt that he was the one I wanted to be with forever.”
“But how can you know for sure?” I say, hoping she can give me some kind of authoritative, unmistakable sign.
“You just know. Absolutely. When you look at him, you know this is it.”
“Maybe not everyone gets that.” It would be just my luck to be the small percent of the planet’s population that has to take a running leap of faith rather than get the calm, gut-based assurance Jenny is talking about.
“Perhaps,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, but she doesn’t sound like she believes it.
Possibly it’s her English accent, for I tend to think everyone with such an accent is smarter than I, but Jenny’s words about knowing ring true to me.
Just then, John is at my side. I look at him with a feeble smile, and all I know for sure is that I’m more confused than ever.
By one in the morning, John’s eyes are drooping from traveling. Since I’m used to late nights by now, I’m nowhere near ready to leave, and even more importantly, I’m anxious about going back to the room. The thought of fooling around with him still seems alien. My Princess Denial mode kicks in again, making me want to push away the situation a little longer, yet I don’t feel I can send him off on his own after he’s just arrived. Surely he’ll be too tired to want any action.
I’m dead wrong.
The minute we arrive at the room, John’s eyes snap open again.
“God,” he says, running his hands up and down my sides. “You feel so good.”
He kisses me passionately, and I respond at first out of sheer habit more than anything else. I notice, like I’m observing it all from above, how odd his tongue feels, as if he were the stranger, rather than Francesco or Billy, whose mouths had fit on mine with precision. When he begins to walk me backward toward the bed, his hands caressing my breasts, I stiffen inadvertently.
“What’s wrong?” he says, pulling back, his eyes full of worry.
“Nothing. It just seems too fast.”
“Too fast? We haven’t slept together in weeks.” Irritation creeps into his voice, and I can’t blame him.
“I know. That’s what I mean. It’s just been such a long time….” I trail off, realizing how lame my excuse is. It’s noteven an excuse, really. “And you need your sleep,” I add.
“I need you,” he says with conviction.
I give him a weak smile. I can’t fight the feeling that if I have sex with John, I’ll misplace the self-contentedness I’ve recently found and I’ll slip back to my old ways. I consider going through the motions and fantasizing about Francesco, but that would be cheating on John more than I already have.
“In the morning.” I take a step back and my legs bang into the wood frame of the bed. “Ouch,” I say, bending down to rub the spot. “It will be better when we both get some sleep.”
“How will it be better?” His eyes flash with anger. “What’s with you?”
“Nothing. I’m exhausted, and I’m still surprised you’re here. Just give me a little time, all right?” I move away from him, unable to look at his face for fear he’ll read my mind and understand my reluctance. Neither of us says anything for a while. A heavy silence hangs in the air as I walk into the bathroom and begin to wash my face.
After a minute, John comes up behind me in the mirror, putting his hands lightly on my hips. I meet his gaze in the glass, and I’m struck by the disparity I see there. My too-blond hair, bleached by the sun, and the golden tan of my face seem a sharp contrast to the pale of John’s skin, the washed-out green of his eyes. We don’t look like a couple, I think. We don’t look anything like two people who’ve spent two years together.
“Are we okay?” he asks quietly.
Tell him, I think. Tell him. Get it off your chest. Jenny’s words ring in my head. “You just know.” But I don’t know anything, and besides, I don’t have to decide right now. This is no place to tell him I’ve betrayed him, no place to have a discussion about our future. We have years to make these decisions if we want.
“Casey,” John says, his eyes pleading with me.
“Yeah. We’re okay.”
His eyes are still concerned, but he gives a grudging nod.
A few minutes later, when I’m curled in the crook of his arm, I’m amazed to find how safe he makes me feel. The soft, familiar skin of his chest, his just-scrubbed-clean scent—it’s like a haven. I banish the questions about him, about us, to some far corner of my brain, and I will myself to sleep.
26
In the morning, John sleeps soundly, not surprising after an international flight. I try to move as little as possible, though, and practically hold my breath. I’m still not ready to have sex with him. At about 10:30, Kat pounds on the door. I know it’s her because I hear the clatter of junk spilling on the tile floor and her voice whispering an obscenity.
When I open the door, she’s stooping down, collecting sunscreen and sunglasses and ponytail holders. She has on low-slung shorts, a minuscule aqua bikini top and a towel over one shoulder.
“We gotta get Johnny some sun,” she says, standing and shoving a magazine in her bag.
I smile at her, appreciating the attempt to include John.
I’ve escaped the sex issue again, and within thirty minutes, the four of
us are on the packed bus heading to Paradise Beach.
John gazes out the window as the bus twists through the narrow, dusty streets, passing locals leading donkeys or zipping around dangerously on scooters.
“This is great,” he says, turning on the ripped leather seat to look at me.
“Isn’t it?” I nod, pleased that he’s happy.
“John, look,” Sin calls from the seat in front of us. She points to the immense stretch of beach and water playing out below us as the bus clears the hill and begins its trek down to the other side of the island. I love her for those two simple words.
Once we’re at the beach, John watches warily as Kat and Lindsey reach behind themselves and unfasten their bikinis. As their tops are flung off, his eyes dart to my face, his eyes a little big. I try not to laugh at his stunned expression. I decide to leave my top on today to ease his discomfort. It seems the least I can do.
Kat and Lindsey commence public breast rubbing with sunscreen, and like a chameleon, John’s pasty face turns deep crimson.
“Are they going to be like this all day?” he asks, leaning over to me and whispering.
“Like what?”
He scoffs. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Probably. Look around you, John. Most of the women here are topless.”
“But I know them,” he says before he flops back on his towel, his face turned firmly away from Kat and Lindsey.
John stays supine for no more than fifteen minutes before he trots off to the bar for iced teas. When he returns, he applies and reapplies sunscreen, then asks if anyone needs anything else to eat or drink. Kat requests a Diet Coke, and I ask for a piece of fruit. I watch him as he walks across the sand again, his white legs stepping through the labyrinth of bodies with determination. Normally, I would love him waiting on me like this, but it irks me now. I realize that he has no relaxation skills. They seemed to have trickled out of his head and body as he worked harder and harder, climbing more furiously up the partnership ladder. He might spend two hours on Sunday morning reading the paper, and he’ll have beers with his buddies once every week or so, but that’s it. He just can’t seem to take it easy anymore.
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