by Ann Warner
“So...why?”
He glanced at her, then away. “When you agreed to go out with me, I couldn’t believe my luck, and I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.” When he spoke again, it was with his lips brushing against hers. “Ever since we met, I’ve wanted not only to kiss you, Clare, but to make love to you.”
“But you did nothing about it.”
“Of course I did. I’ve been doing my damndest to get you to fall in like with me.”
“Well, clearly I do. Like you, I mean.”
“What about that eye-shadow-under-the-eyes trick you pulled?”
She had to be blushing. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“Never try to fool a guy who has a sister. You changed your mind, though.”
“I guess I decided you were harmless. And a tour of Boston on such a lovely morning was...appealing.”
A chuckle made his chest vibrate against her hand. “Oh, that works. It’s every man’s dream to be told he seems harmless by the woman he wants to take to bed.”
“You shouldn’t knock it. Why do you think I keep going out with you?”
“Because I’m safe?”
“You don’t exactly seem safe at the moment.”
“You brought that on yourself. So about the bed?”
“I don’t have casual sex.”
“It wouldn’t be casual. And it wouldn’t just be sex.” He pulled her back into his arms and for a time the only sound was the slapping of waves along the sailboat’s hull, the creak of rigging, the call of seabirds carried away by a sudden breeze.
She pulled away. “Please. Can’t we just...go on this way for a while? I like kissing you. A lot. And being with you. We can take our time...see how it goes.”
He leaned his forehead against hers and rubbed her nose with his. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s wonderful to see Rob so happy,” Lynne told Clare on Labor Day. They were at Lynne and Jim’s preparing for a picnic. Rob’s parents were the other invitees, and Clare was shredding lettuce because she was too nervous to be trusted with a knife.
The house, a large colonial in Wellesley, had a kitchen that would make a professional chef drool, although Lynne had softened the industrial look of stainless steel appliances, large gas cooktop, and solid countertops by painting the walls apple-green. Although this was the first time Clare had been at the Galts’ home, the four of them had gone sailing together during the summer.
“Sometimes he’s real hard to figure.” Lynne paused from peeling the hard-boiled eggs for the potato salad and looked out the window to the backyard where her husband and Rob were firing up the grill.
“How’s that?”
“Rob’s one of the smartest men I know. Not to mention sweet, even if he is my brother, but he’s never dated much. In fact, you’re the first woman he’s brought to meet our folks since high school.”
“Absolutely no pressure, I see.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you nervous. I’m just so pleased he’s finally realizing there’s more to life than living in that dreary apartment at the Prudential Center and spending every waking hour at Northeastern.” She sighed. “We’ve all worried about him a bit. That’s why we’re so glad he has you.”
Except, he didn’t “have” her in at least one important sense of the word. It’s not likely that was what Lynne meant, of course.
“Mom used to worry Rob was gay and not telling her. You’ll find Mom can be not terribly subtle at times.”
Or perhaps it was precisely what Lynne meant.
So what am I trying to prove by not sleeping with him? That she could hold onto a man without sex? Indeed, maybe that was exactly what she was trying to prove. For sure, she’d failed to hang onto one with sex.
She glanced at Lynne to find an odd expression on her face. “What is it?”
“Oh.” Lynne shook herself and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s...damn it. I wish...”
Seeing the pain in Lynne’s eyes, Clare spoke gently. “What do you wish?”
“My period. It started this morning. It’s...it was late, and we were really hoping this time... Sorry.” The words trailed off, and she turned her head away.
Clare waited for Lynne to regain her composure, thinking how impossible it was to know all the pain another person carried inside them.
“Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Clare Eliason,” Rob said.
Mrs. Chapin gripped her hand. “Lynne told us you were coming, of course. We are so thrilled to meet you.” The accent was pure nasal Bostonian and, thank God, Rob had shed his accent. Boston royalty, Justin had dubbed Lynne’s family, and Clare, greeting the two formally dressed senior Chapins, could see what he meant.
After the flurry of arrival, the men repaired to the backyard leaving the women to return to the kitchen.
“Good. I was hoping we’d have a chance to chat.” Mrs. Chapin helped herself to an apron. It made her appear a bit more everyday, although the stiff hairstyle and careful makeup were difficult for a mere apron to overcome.
“Now, I want to know everything about you and my son, Clare, starting with how you met.”
Lynne raised eyebrows at Clare. See what I mean? the look conveyed.
Clare smiled back. Indeed I do.
“We met at the donor reception at the end of the ballet season this spring.”
That clearly caught Mrs. Chapin by surprise, and Clare had to bite her lip to hold in a laugh.
“Clare’s a principal dancer with Danse Classique, Mom. As a matter of fact, I’m responsible for them meeting. I talked Rob into taking me when Jim was out of town.”
The obvious relief was almost as comical as the startlement had been. “Well, of course, I know Rob wouldn’t go to the ballet unless someone dragged him. Don’t you remember when we took you children to The Nutcracker, and afterward he asked if we were going again next Christmas. I said, of course, would he like that? He said, ‘no.’ Very emphatically, I might add.”
“Rob was ten, I was five.” Lynne directed the comment with a smile at Clare. “I don’t remember the actual event but I’ve heard the story enough times I feel like I do.”
Clare struggled to hide her dismay.
“The Nutcracker had the opposite effect on Lynne. She took lessons and now she goes to practically every ballet performance.”
“You were a dancer?”
Lynne shook her head. “I discovered rather quickly I had more talent for appreciating than for performing.”
Listening for a wistful nuance, Clare didn’t hear one. A relief after Lynne’s earlier revelation about dashed pregnancy hopes. “The ballet wouldn’t survive without both.”
“No, I don’t suppose it would.”
“You know,” Mrs. Chapin said. “I haven’t been to The Nutcracker in years. I do believe it’s something best enjoyed in the company of a child. Perhaps when I have grandchildren—”
“Should I go ahead and put dressing on the salad now?” Clare said.
Lynne mouthed a silent thank you.
Mrs. Chapin appeared annoyed but recovered quickly. “Lynne, don’t forget, your father takes his salad without dressing. Now, Clare, I want to hear more about you and Rob.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You met each other, what, four months ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm. He must like you.”
“I hope so, since I like him.”
“Are the two of you...you know, it’s such a modern thing, these days. Cohabiting?” Mrs. Chapin finished off with a tight smile.
Clare drew in a breath to catch her conversational balance and covered her surprise at the bald question by getting out a bowl to set aside a serving of the salad for Rob’s father. “I’ve never heard it called that before.” Outside of Jane Austen.
Was that where Rob got his peculiar vocabulary, his mother, not the Reader’s-Digest-reading grandmother?
“Certainly, in a sense you could say we cohabit,
since we both live in Massachusetts, although Rob lives in Boston, while I live in Marblehead.” She took a quick breath and kept the words coming. “I’m renting a house from this couple I know while they’re in Paris. I keep an eye on everything and, in return, I pay a reasonable rent. Not low, you understand, but definitely affordable for the area. It’s terribly inconvenient, of course. Sometimes after a late performance, I cohabit with one of the other dancers instead of going all the way home.” A glance at Mrs. Chapin confirmed that the steady flow of irrelevant information was having the desired effect.
Lynne appeared to be amused, Mrs. Chapin not so much.
“How nice for you, dear. Marblehead is lovely, although I haven’t been in years. Now, Lynne, do you want me to take the meat out to the men?”
“Game, set, match, rout,” Lynne whispered as her mother swept out of the kitchen bearing a platter of hamburger patties. “You must teach me how to do that.”
“It’s simple, really. Deflect the question, then keep talking boring nonsense until the person is sorry they ever spoke to you.”
“That’s all well and good. Unfortunately, Mom can be persistent. She considers it her duty to check our friends out. That’s no doubt why Rob keeps most of his under wraps.”
Mrs. Chapin, obviously a strategic thinker, waited until they were all sitting around the picnic table in the back yard before launching her next foray. “I think it’s so interesting you’re dating a dancer, Rob. Somehow, I always pictured you with a professional woman.”
“Clare is a professional woman, Mom.”
“I didn’t mean to imply she isn’t. She just doesn’t, well, do something...usual.”
Had she wanted to say useful and pulled back? Smiling, Clare waited to see who would outwit whom.
“It’s one of the many things that makes her interesting.” Rob placed a hand over Clare’s on the tabletop where his mother could see.
“It must be difficult, though. It isn’t a career that’s exactly conducive to family life.” Clearly, Mrs. Chapin didn’t give up easily.
“Family life comes in all shapes and sizes, Mom. I expect every family has to work out its own peculiarities. Personally, I’ve always thought those corporate types, the ones who jet around the world at a moment’s notice, have the least conducive careers for family life. Of course, I don’t have any hard evidence to support that hypothesis. And it isn’t good science to generalize without data, of course, but sometimes temptation overcomes even the most virtuous.”
As the senior Chapins pulled out of the driveway at the end of the day, Lynne bent over in mirth. “Did you see her face? Did you teach Rob how to do that?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Yes, you did,” Rob said. “When I came in to get the salt, I heard you and Lynne talking. When the opportunity presented itself, I simply couldn’t resist. It worked great. We owe you bigtime, Clare.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek.
She smiled at him. Fall in like, wasn’t that how he’d put it?
She appeared to be well on her way.
Chapter Five
Grand pas de deux - Adage
Dance for two - slow sustained work
In the fall, neither Clare nor Rob had as much time to spend together—she busy with rehearsals, he with teaching. But he found a way to be with her after he attended the first ballet of the new season.
“What do you usually do after performances?”
“You mean, when a pleasant professor doesn’t show up to take me home?” She linked her hand with his across the car’s console. “If it’s a matinee, I take the bus home. If it’s late, I spend the night with Denise. Either way, the first order of business is food, because I’m always starving.”
“Do you want to stop somewhere?”
“No, better if you just take me home. I’ll find something to heat up.”
“Why don’t you let me cook?”
“You cook?”
“It’s not very flattering to sound so surprised. If I didn’t cook, I’d starve. In case it escaped your notice, I do live alone.”
“Okay. I accept.”
While she showered, he assessed the contents of her refrigerator and ended up making his late-night specialty—fried egg sandwiches.
Clare came downstairs, wearing a terry cloth robe, her face pink and scrubbed. They ate and talked quietly until Clare stretched and yawned. “You know, I’m sleepy. Usually, it takes me hours to relax after a performance.”
“It’s my gift. Making women sleepy.”
“It’s a wonderful gift.”
“What were you thinking, just then?”
She shook her head. “Oh, nothing.”
“You seemed sad.”
She sighed. “I was remembering...oh, it isn’t important.”
“Not a good memory.”
“Parts were good. Once upon a time.” Her hands plucked at a loose thread on the robe. Rob doubted she realized she was doing it.
He’d never hunted but perhaps it would be like this. Catching a glimpse, a flash of movement, and freezing in place, so you didn’t startle whatever wild thing was there. He waited, silent and still.
“It’s just...sometimes, when the dancing goes really well, it’s easy to forget it isn’t real. That closeness to a partner. And after a performance...” Her words trailed off, her gaze focused inward.
Was she trying to tell him she was in love with Stephan Orsini? Rob’s chest tightened.
“Oh, I’m being maudlin.” Clare shook her head. “Ridiculous. It’s in the past, after all.”
Although he wasn’t completely reassured, Rob’s breathing eased. She stood and began clearing the table. It meant no more confidences tonight.
“I guess I better get going.”
Clare halted halfway to the kitchen with her empty plate and turned to face him. “Would you like to stay?”
It seemed to take forever to drag the breath back into his lungs. While he did he stared at Clare across the length of the room.
Her expression became tentative. “It wasn’t a trick question, you know.”
“God yes, I want to stay.”
She set the plate down and reached out a hand to him. Although, he felt light enough to leap over the table, he approached her cautiously, reality unspooling, spinning away, as he put his hand in hers.
Clare stepped into Rob’s embrace, as surprised by her invitation as he’d obviously been. But with the words spoken, she found she had no wish to take them back.
One of Rob’s hands slid through her hair, smoothing it, massaging her scalp. “I love your hair. I wanted to do this the first night we met.”
She bit down on the temptation to counter with a smart remark. Instead, she relaxed, letting her thoughts slow to the pace of his stroking. Safe. She was safe with Rob. She settled against him, using her lips to taste and touch. Letting everything else fall away—memories, fears, doubts.
Rob’s desire for Clare had become a deep, stubborn ache. What an enormous relief when she took his hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom. There, she unwrapped him with a slow, solemn deliberation he then turned on her.
Naked, she was even lovelier than he imagined she’d be. The elegant definition of muscle in leg, shoulder, and arm now fully revealed—a tensile strength, tempered by delicacy. The silken slide of her skin, rosy with arousal against his fingertips. Her lovely dancer’s body, moving in a rhythm, finally, of his devising.
Before he met Clare, the thought he might be missing something had been vague, formless. Now she had brought shape and weight, sound and touch, taste and smell into his life. Thank God he hadn’t settled for less.
“Tell me,” he said, holding her close. “What it’s like when you dance.”
“It’s...”
He waited.
“Always before a performance, it’s a madhouse backstage. Everyone rushing around until this moment when everything goes still and we all stop moving, speaking. As if we’ve been frozen by the casting of a spel
l. Then the music begins, and when I step onstage, it’s like stepping into a different dimension. As if I’m dreaming it. And everything is effortless, even the bits I’ve had trouble with. And nothing hurts. It’s the most amazing, fantastic feeling. There’s really no word that can quite describe it.”
For him, it was what making love to her was like.