Barry wore one of her favorite outfits. A light-blue, fitted button-down brought out his eyes, and herringbone slacks hugged him in all the right places.
The trouble was she couldn’t find any wrong places on his body. God knows she’d tried.
Barry carried a bouquet of yellow lilies and Gerber daisies and white roses, reminiscent of her autumnal bridal bouquet. “You going to invite me in?” he said, his voice Celeste snarky and full of assumption.
They’d married on the grounds of the Stonehouse Manor overlooking Silver Lake, the place where the Kennebec River literally wed the Atlantic. A gorgeous and utterly ridiculous affair, considering their ages, but Barry had insisted.
The day had been perfect. Something else she could use to fuel her ire.
“Versus Celeste inviting you without asking me first? Sure, why not?” Katherine’s head felt light and swimmy, not from the wine but from the thought of letting him into her post-Barry home. Against the backdrop of her pale-yellow walls, his aura swirled around him. To her, the color looked gray. But she strongly suspected his aura was pink, loving and loyal.
The only other time she’d seen an aura? Thirty years ago, her father’s aura had been dark brown with deception and black, to her, with righteous anger.
“I called every hotel in New England looking for you to let you know this wasn’t a good idea,” she said.
Barry gave her a look, a hyperbole of shock and hurt. “Really, Katherine?”
“You know this isn’t a good idea.” The heaviness of the admission hit her in the stomach, like a twenty-pound bag of flour. “There were no shrink conferences.”
Barry tweaked her nose and handed her the bouquet. “Applied Psychology holds their conference same week every year, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. I can’t—” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you forgot.”
Merde.
Could she have accidentally forgotten but on purpose?
“Let me put these in some water.” Katherine meant for Barry to stay in the living room, so she could take a moment to compose herself. Put the flowers in water. Stick her head under the faucet. Scream.
Instead, Barry followed her into the kitchen, gazing around and craning his neck as though he were touring a museum.
She’d taken only those things she’d gone into the marriage with. Flea market and antique store prints and paintings, hand-knit curtains she’d traded for months’ worth of pastries. She’d found the navy velvet sofa at an estate sale. That had inspired the purchase of the French-blue wing chair and the navy and light-blue handblown glass beads that took the place of a kitchen door. One acquisition led to another, the way one relationship invariably led to others, beads along a connected strand.
When beads loosened and fell, the rules of connection applied in reverse.
Katherine parted the beads and stepped inside. “Watch yourself.”
“I’d rather watch you.” Barry held her gaze until her throat ached and her sinuses filled.
“This house,” he said. “It fits you.”
“A slightly worn old girl in need of a paint job?”
“A beautiful woman with substance and flare,” Barry said without an ounce of irony.
“You’ve always known how to flatter me.”
“Just because it’s flattery doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“There you go again.” Katherine set the flowers beside the sink and stretched to reach the fat glass vase on the overhead shelf. Behind her, Barry made a sound, a cross between a sigh and a growl. Without turning back around, she ran the water and held her wrists beneath the cold.
Barry-shaped warmth came up behind her. “How was your date this weekend?”
“What date?” she asked, giving herself away and missing her opportunity. Why was her first inclination to tell the truth? Why couldn’t she tell a straight-faced, well-meaning lie?
She wanted to ask Barry to leave. She wanted to rip off his clothes and beg him to stay. She wanted him to touch her.
She wanted him to touch her.
“Daniel,” Barry said. “The short construction worker with the Greek last name you didn’t know. The man who was asking you out Monday morning.”
Instead of scaring Barry off, the ask-out had motivated Barry to make a move.
Katherine should’ve known better.
Thirteen years ago, she’d met Barry at a bar, an unlikely place for him, a likely place for her. She’d stopped in for a beer before bed, an early evening nightcap, and her low vibe had drawn the wrong element. Two guys had invaded her table for one and her personal space. She’d managed to hold them off, nursing her beer for an hour so she wouldn’t have to walk back to her apartment, before Barry had walked through the door and noticed her angst. “Ready to come back home? The kids are waiting for you to tuck them in,” he’d said with such certainty that the guys had fallen back. Then he’d walked her to her door and taken down her phone number. They’d been together ever since.
They weren’t together.
“I turned him down.”
Behind her, Barry took a breath. “Tell me why,” he said, his voice husky and confident, as though he already knew her answer. As if he only awaited her confirmation. As if he could read her mind and body.
Katherine shut off the water and tried to focus on Barry’s question. Her chest tingled, straining at the cotton of her bra. She remembered an ages-ago dinner party, their kitchen with a locked door. She’d gone into the kitchen to get the tiramisu, set the teakettle on the burner, turned toward the sink. Barry had followed and locked the door behind him. He’d come up behind her. He’d lifted her skirt.
“Because . . . he . . . Daniel,” she said, but she couldn’t quite capture an image of the scene. In the silver faucet, her face elongated, distorted. In that ages-ago kitchen, Barry had kissed the back of her neck. He’d bent her over the sink. He’d parted her legs.
“What was that?” Barry asked now.
Katherine swallowed. “He’s, um, separated but may still be in love with his wife.”
“You got that out of him from a single conversation?” Barry asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, he settled behind her, his breath behind her ear. “I believe, dear heart, you might’ve been mistaken. Mistaken and projecting.”
“Separated isn’t the same thing as divorced. Divorced means the relationship is over.” Katherine meant the word as a warning, a reminder of all they’d endured to get to this point of... what? Friendship? They’d never been only friends. Over a decade ago, he strode into that bar with a purpose, as if their relationship had been a foregone conclusion.
Of course he never would’ve admitted to such an ideation. No, he would’ve hidden his woo-woo behind logic and simple biological attraction. Or he would’ve told her she’d imagined their meant-to-be connection. Barry would’ve projected.
“Does this feel over to you?” Barry asked.
It doesn’t matter.
Katherine’s eyes watered. “Don’t.” She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, raked the flesh between her teeth. Between her legs, she softened.
All she had to do was reach for him, a quick fix to get the temptation out of their systems.
Who was she kidding? They’d never had casual sex. From the first, they’d been committed, each touch a promise, every kiss an investment in their future.
They didn’t have a future.
“It’s time for us to stop playing games,” Barry said.
What did he mean by that? Their daily flirting without calling it flirting? Her battle to let him go? Her equally strong and opposing desire to keep him coming back for more? Or did he know more than he was letting on? Did he know about Zach? She turned from the sink.
Barry’s eyes undid her, a kick to her solar plexus and then a solid, resolute tug. “It’s time for you to come home,” he said, as if he too was remembering how they’d begun.
The day she moved to this apartment, she’d intended to set up each room so it looke
d nothing like the house she’d shared with Barry. But she’d bowed to the rules of feng shui and set her double bed diagonally across from her bedroom door. The new sofa fit perfectly beneath the living room window, the sun streaming in to fade the navy to grayish blue and soften the bright, threadbare yard sale Oriental rug till it resembled the tea-stained antique she’d left behind. Each object seemed to have volition, not unlike muscle memory, reminding her of all she’d lost.
Katherine closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t see the hurt in his. “I don’t have a home.”
The menthol from Barry’s shaving cream filled her nose, cooled her tongue. His body wasn’t pressed up against hers, but she could’ve sworn his heart beat in her ears. In her mind’s eye, she held a map of his body, detailed and topographical. His muscled thighs, his strong chest, his arms, defined. “We create our own realities,” Barry said. “Whatever you believe becomes true.”
She opened her eyes to Barry, a good four feet away and no part of him touching her. Not even close. She could’ve sworn . . . “Something one of your shrink buddies likes to say?”
“Something Katherine Lamontagne once swore by,” Barry said, and he filled her vase with water, as if their conversation had never happened.
Barry reached in the drawer to the right of the sink, found her pruning shears in the spot where they’d resided at the house he and Katherine had shared, and cut the stems of the bouquet under running water. He set the bouquet in the vase and gave her a Grinch smile, his lips curled at the edges, his eyes lit with mischief. “So, what were we just talking about? Who’s joining us tonight?” he asked, as if he didn’t know the way he affected her.
“Celeste,” Katherine said, giving Barry her own version of the Grinch grin. “And Zach,” she added, his name sending an alarm through her center. “A welcome to and back to Hidden Harbor celebration.”
“The two,” Barry said. “They’re a couple?”
Katherine’s heart gave a thud that reverberated through her body. “What makes you say that?”
“The way they stand closer than they need to,” Barry said. “The way they stare at each other, memorizing the details. The way everything they say has a double meaning.”
What? As far as Katherine knew, Barry had never overheard one of Celeste and Zach’s conversations.
Barry took a step closer and ran his gaze down her body.
Oh, Barry wasn’t talking about Celeste and Zach.
Katherine opened the oven and fiddled with the meat thermometer that didn’t require fiddling.
“Are you wearing the black boots?” Barry asked.
The boots she’d worn on the evening of the dinner party, the skirt, and the locked kitchen door. She didn’t have any other black boots. “They’re black and they’re boots. Ha, ha.” She meant to give Barry an annoyed look. Instead, her gaze wandered to his crotch.
Simple biology, right? She could ignore biology. She was stronger than biology.
“They’re definitely the black boots,” Barry said. “I could never forget those black boots.”
“You were asking me about Celeste . . .”
“And the young guy.”
Was this train of conversation any better than the last? Was any Barry conversation safe? “I can’t say whether they’re exactly a couple.”
“Ah,” Barry said, a sound, she was sure, he’d perfected during years of encouraging challenging conversations.
“I can’t say that they aren’t.”
“I see.”
Katherine took the Merlot from the cabinet. “Glass of wine?”
“Sure,” he said.
She poured Barry his first glass of the evening, took down a fresh glass for herself, as though she too were indulging in her first.
“You don’t approve of Celeste and Zach as a couple?” Barry asked.
Had Katherine said anything to indicate disapproval? She retraced their conversation, wondered whether a particular facial expression or stance had given away her consternation. She opened a sleeve of rice crackers and added them to the pepper jelly–covered cream cheese she’d set out to come to room temperature. She took a cracker for herself. “She’s shrinking,” Katherine said, and a cracker crumb lodged in her throat. She gulped the wine, managed a breath. “Literally and emotionally.”
Barry leaned against the counter, sipped. “Is she having trouble eating again?”
“It would seem so,” Katherine said. “I can’t say what she eats off duty. But on duty? It’s minimal. An apple around eight, a yogurt just past noon. Coffee every hour on the half hour.”
“She’s having trouble sleeping.”
“That would seem to be the case. Unless . . .”
“Unless?”
An image of Celeste and Zach flashed in Katherine’s mind’s eye, naked and clinging to each other. The thought alarmed her. The thought pleased her, two people she cared about caring for each other. The thought made her want to cover her mind’s eye. Katherine’s cheeks warmed.
“Unless sleep is the last thing on Celeste’s and Zach’s minds.” Barry waggled his eyebrow, the silly gesture he certainly didn’t take seriously. “I remember those nights.”
“Oh, please,” Katherine said, meaning to sound put upon. Instead, she looked away, fidgeted the amethyst dangling from her left lobe, and remembered those nights. Their passion. Their soul-deep connection. The way they resented daybreak. She shook her head, picked up her wineglass. “Sleep problems or not, she’s clearly troubled. She walks out to the café, stops, and stares, as if she’s forgotten where she is. Until Zach goes to her and reminds her what she’s supposed to be doing.”
“She doesn’t ask you for redirection?”
“She doesn’t get the chance. Zach . . . he does his job and he keeps his eye on her.”
“She hasn’t said anything about New York?”
Katherine pretended to zip her lips. “Not a word. And she hasn’t gotten close to sharing any deep, dark secret, so I haven’t pressed.”
“Ah,” Barry said. “You listen to my advice when it pertains to other people.”
“Other people?”
“People who aren’t you.” Barry picked up the vase of flowers and the plate of crackers and headed through Katherine’s bead curtains. Katherine followed behind with their wineglasses, and her gaze fell to Barry’s butt, the irresistible tug of biology.
Biology, she reminded herself, had pulled them apart.
The doorbell rang, and Katherine jumped, jostling the wine from her glass.
Barry set down the flowers on a side table, placed the crackers and cream cheese with the other hors d’oeuvres. He lifted a pumpkin-decorated paper napkin toward her chest. “Like some help with that?”
Katherine put the wineglasses down beside the crackers. “Don’t you dare!”
“Oh, you thought . . . I was only going to help blot the stain.”
“I don’t need help with that.” Katherine grabbed for the napkin but ended up with Barry’s hand instead.
He bent to her ear. “Tsk, tsk. If you want me to touch you, you’re going to have to ask nicely. How soon you forget.” Barry handed her the napkin and ran his gaze down her body slow enough to make her squirm, letting her know he’d forgotten nothing.
Katherine pressed the napkin to her chest, and her heart beat through her hand. Zach peered through the sidelight, his hand held to his forehead like a visor, Celeste visible over his shoulder. Katherine glared sideways at Barry, ignored his smug grin, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
Celeste wore an oversized chocolate-brown sweater over snug jeans and brown combat boots. Her hair was down, save for pieces she’d swept from the sides of her face and secured in the back with a brown bow. In her hands, she carried a bouquet of yellow roses. Delicate baby’s breath filled the spaces between the blooms.
Zach wore jeans, hiking boots, a blue-on-blue flannel shirt to complement his blue cast and sling, and an orange satin cape. “Celeste made me,” he said, and he st
epped through the door.
Barry stood tall, exuded professionalism, and jutted out his hand at Zach, as if he hadn’t just been playing a wicked game with Katherine’s heart . . . and other organs. “Barry Horowitz,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met.”
Did Barry’s gaze linger on Zach’s features, his dark hair, so like hers? Did Barry glance her way, a flick of his gaze, to question why she’d never introduced him to Zach? Had Katherine’s fear of revealing her secret given her secret away?
“Zach Fitzgerald. Katherine’s . . .” Zach glanced her way, Katherine was sure of it. And in that moment, she almost wished he’d tell. She could almost feel the relief of letting the charade go. “. . . employee,” Zach finished, and she thought she heard a trace of her father’s understated anger.
Biology, or was she once again projecting her own fear?
Katherine took the flowers from Celeste’s hands. “Thank you, I adore yellow roses.” Yellow flowers meant friendship. Did Celeste know that?
“Cool,” Celeste said. Then she glanced sideways at the living room. “I would’ve picked something else if I’d known they matched your walls.”
“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” Katherine asked, but wishing didn’t change reality. Her and Celeste’s relationship took place within the walls of Lamontagne’s. They spent more hours together than some married couples, but their time together was contained, controlled, and limited. Officially, they could tell themselves their relationship was entirely professional.
Not unlike Katherine’s relationship with Barry.
“In your dreams, maybe,” Celeste said, not a trace of anger. Was that a ploy to make Katherine feel guilty or Celeste being her snarky self?
Celeste looked lovely, gorgeous as ever, but something niggled at Katherine, or a combination of somethings. Celeste’s big sweater, her exhaustion, confusion, and withdrawal. Even her recent limited diet.
A memory flashed of Katherine hiding in the kitchen of Hazel May’s, exhausted, withdrawn, and wearing an oversized sweater to camouflage her growing belly.
A Measure of Happiness Page 22