“I remember that,” he said. “Your birthday, I mean. In fact, I seem to recall it was Elizabeth who suggested the Empress to Rose. It was an Elizabeth thing, having tea at the hotel. If Rose had asked me, I’d have suggested snowshoeing or something.”
“Except that my birthday’s in June,” she said.
“I know that, Sarah,” he said solemnly. “But I would have manufactured snow. For you, I’d have done that.”
She smiled. “You gave me a glass sea horse.”
“I did?”
“Yep. I kept it for a while and then…” She took a breath. “I smashed it with a hammer.”
“Why?”
“Because you were acting as if I didn’t exist and then one day I saw you holding Elizabeth’s hand.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t take the hammer to me,” he said. “Or Elizabeth.”
“Trust me, I thought about it.”
“But Sarah…” He frowned. “I mean, it was different. You were my best friend, my pal. Elizabeth was, well, my teenage love.”
She stared at him. His hair was slightly ruffled from the wind.
“What?” he asked.
“Your pal.”
“We were kids, Sarah.”
“But I wanted to be—” she paused, trying to think of the right word “—your love object.” The words sounded so ridiculous she burst out laughing, and then Matthew started laughing, too.
“Tonight, my dear,” he leaned across the table, leering at her, “your dream will come true. Tonight you will be my love object.”
She grinned. “Be still, my heart.”
“Perhaps we should look at these.” He picked up the menus the waiter had set down and handed one to her.
Sarah scanned it. Salmon, steak, chops. Beef-and kidney pie in a herb-infused gravy with creamed potatoes. She shifted and her knee brushed against Matthew’s. Sensation shot through her body.
“I’m going to have steak,” Matthew said. “Blood-red,” he growled. “Man food. What about you? Gonna go for the steak, too?”
It was exactly what she wanted, but she closed the menu and smiled demurely, or her version of demurely. “No, I think I’ll have the salmon.”
The waiter arrived and they ordered. And then Matthew ordered more wine. “A cabernet for me this time and—” he looked across the table “—the lady will have a…”
“A chardonnay, please,” the lady said.
AFTER DINNER, they danced. The band and the small dance floor in the bar of the restaurant was one of the reasons he’d chosen it in the first place. They’d fed each other dessert—crème brûlée—and drank champagne, so by the time he led Sarah onto the floor, they were both feeling pleasantly woozy and he didn’t have to wonder whether Sarah would laugh hysterically at the idea of the two of them locked in dance step together.
“See?” Her arms around his neck, Sarah smiled up into his eyes. “I can dance.”
“But you’re leading,”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
They were still kissing when the music stopped.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
HE’D BOOKED A ROOM at a hotel a short walk away and, although he occasionally thought of Lucy, anticipation of the night ahead banished concerns to the far recesses of his brain. Sarah was unlike any other woman he’d known, the connection he felt to her, the comfort of being completely in tune with another person. But then in an instant, that Sarah would slip away and she was a woman, complex and unfathomable. Like most women, he thought ruefully.
“You planned a good date,” Sarah said as they got off the hotel elevator and walked, arms entwined, down the carpeted hallway to their room.
“Yeah?” He slid the plastic key card into the lock. “Listen, babe, it hasn’t even started yet. The real test is yet to come.”
“I’m going to ace it. No sweat.”
He laughed. The old Sarah, all laughter and challenge, face pink from the wind, was back in force. He tipped her chin with his finger. “Talk is cheap.”
INSIDE THE ROOM, they stood looking at each other. Behind her was the bed. The bed. She should have asked Elizabeth about hotel protocol. Were you supposed to just disappear into the bathroom and return a few minutes later in a fluffy peignoir? Or naked? No, not naked. She’d never seen Matthew naked. Well, actually she had. Once, at her house after they got back from the beach, she’d walked into the bathroom while he was showering.
The room felt cold. The drapes were pulled wide and all the lights of Victoria were glittering in the night sky. Everything seemed slightly unreal, as though they were actors playing unfamiliar parts.
She realized that Matthew was laughing.
“What?”
“Just you. The look on your face.”
“Well…” She tried to think. “Don’t you have some champagne, or something?”
“In the fridge. But first you have to take your coat off.”
“No problema.” She slipped off her coat, threw it on the bed. And then her heels, which were killing her. The carpet felt good under her bare feet—she’d drawn the line at panty hose. “You look very tall now,” she said, peering up at Matthew. “Now, can I have some champagne?”
“Take off your dress,” he said.
She hadn’t expected that and the words shot through her like an electric jolt. She stared at him for a moment and then without taking her eyes from his face, slipped the spaghetti straps off her shoulders. The dress required a tug or two before it slid down her body, but finally she was standing there in her bra and panties—ecru lace, not borrowed from Elizabeth—feeling more turned on than she’d ever been in her life.
“Hey.” She moved toward him, slowly undoing his belt buckle. “Your turn. Except that I get to undress you.”
“Just can’t play by the rules, can you?”
“Nope.” She slid his pants down over his hips, slipped her hands into the elastic of his shorts and then, suddenly, all bets were off. They ended up down on the carpet and Matthew, still wearing his shirt, had unclasped her bra, and the last conscious thought she had was that the apartment dwellers in Victoria were probably getting quite a show.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHEN SHE OPENED her eyes the next morning, Matthew’s arm was across her body, and her hair, which he’d unbraided, was spread out over the pillow, strands of it across her eyes, in her mouth. She brushed it off her face and, careful not to wake Matthew, rolled onto one side to look at him.
Tomorrow or the next day, or a year from now, waking up alone, I will remember exactly how he looks at this moment. His head on the pillow, sunlight falling across his face.
The thought, sudden and unbidden, filled her with a vague melancholy. Why the image of herself alone? Where would they be a year from now? Five years from now?
“Yes?” His eyes were still closed; a faint smile curved his mouth.
She touched her finger to his lips. “You can feel me looking at you?”
He opened his eyes. “For the past fifteen minutes or so.” He pulled her on top of him and kissed her. “This is a great way to wake up,” he said, his mouth against her neck. “Definitely beats the alarm clock.”
Sarah disentangled herself and rolled over onto her back. “I was just thinking—”
He stroked her hair. “Don’t. No thinking allowed.”
She watched the play of sunlight across the foot of the bed. “You know what was so great about last night?”
Matthew laughed. “Nothing. It sucked.”
“Shut up. I’m serious. So much of the time we’re together we’re talking about the past. What we used to do, how we used to be. And then there’s the future, the stressful situation with Lucy and what I end up doing professionally, it’s vague and cloudy. But last night was just us. Right in the moment and…” The words that had spewed out uncensored, unedited, dried up. Moments went by before Matthew put his arm around her.
“If your suggestion is that we stay in bed and have sex day
and night, I’m all for it.”
She smiled, although she felt on the verge of tears.
“One thing I always admire in Elizabeth,” he said, “which also drives me nuts, is her refusal to look beyond the present moment. Her reasoning is that what’s passed has passed, tomorrow may never happen, so why not enjoy what you have while you have it?”
Sarah nodded and moved in closer so that their hips touched. Matthew’s leg covered hers. She sighed. “I understand that, intellectually, but it’s difficult to…get out of my head.”
“I know,” Matthew said. “It is for me, too.”
“I love you,” Sarah said.
“I love you, too. I always have. You know that.”
“I do.” Tears began spilling down her face. Do we have a future? The question begged to be voiced. But she knew the answer wasn’t entirely Matthew’s to give.
“Food,” Matthew said sometime later. “And more sex, not necessarily in that order.”
“I vote for room service.” She slid her foot over the sheet and rested her leg on his thigh. “And while we’re waiting for the food to arrive…”
THEY CAUGHT the four-o’clock ferry back and spent most of the ninety-minute crossing on the outside deck watching as Port Hamilton gradually came into sight on the horizon. From a distance, the hardscrabble appearance of the town, with its empty, shuttered shops along Front Street and dark waterfront bars, fused together into the vision of the idyllic coastal town she’d nurtured during homesick moments in Central America.
A cold wind had driven most passengers inside, but by unspoken agreement, they’d stayed outside, huddled in their coats, wind whipping around their heads. Matthew kept his arm around her, but neither of them said much, and she wondered more than once what Matthew was thinking.
“Lopez Hook,” she said as they rounded the bend into the harbor.
“The old lumberyard where my father used to work.” Matthew pointed to the smokestacks.
“And…one, two, three. The fourth house at the top is Rose’s.”
“Fifth,” Matthew said. “You need glasses.”
“And there’s the hospital.”
“That’s too much reality,” Matthew said. “I’m not ready for that. Let’s jump overboard and swim back to Victoria and get a room.”
“Can we have champagne for breakfast every day?”
“Champagne and whatever else your heart desires,” Matthew said. “God, I really don’t want to go back.”
Something in his voice made her turn to look at him. She linked her arms in his, moved up close. “That tough, huh?”
He shrugged. “Well, that, and Lucy.”
“It’s a tough age, fourteen,” she said. “I know from personal experience.”
“I feel guilty for ruining your fourteenth birthday.”
“I got over it. Don’t knock yourself out trying to solve her problems. She’ll get over what’s bothering her now.”
He hunched into his jacket. “She’s jealous of you. Mad that I left her with her grandmother. I’ve never done that sort of thing and I think she feels insecure.”
“She’s not bothered by Elizabeth’s relationships?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. She’s with Elizabeth more than she’s with me. Anyway.” He pulled her ever closer. “We’ll work it out. I’ll take her for pizza tonight, talk things over.”
Sarah waited for him to invite her along, but he seemed to have retreated into his own world, and they said nothing more for the rest of the trip. As they filed off the ferry in a drizzling rain, he reached into his overcoat, pulled out his cell phone and, as they walked, he flipped the lid.
“Four calls from Lucy,” he muttered. “Three from Elizabeth.”
In the car, he listened to his voice mail. Sarah stared through the windshield at the rain-slicked street. She heard his intake of breath and turned. His face was ashen.
“Pearl’s dead,” he said. “She had a heart attack last night.”
“GRANDMA’S DEAD and it’s your fault!” Lucy was screaming at him, her face contorted with rage. “I hate you. Go be with your girlfriend, I don’t care.” And then she ran up the stairs and he heard her bedroom door slam.
Matthew looked at Elizabeth, red-eyed and wan. They were standing in the hallway where, the moment he’d opened the door Lucy had attacked him. She’d grabbed a book off the sofa, hurled that at him, then cushions and then a backpack before her fury finally subsided into sobbing.
What seemed like an eternity later, Elizabeth filled him in on the details as they sat side by side on the living-room couch.
“She had heartburn,” Elizabeth said. “It got worse, then she started complaining about chest pains. Lucy called me around midnight. George…”
“Heartburn,” Matthew said. “I spoke to her.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Anyway, they got worse and around midnight Lucy called me—George couldn’t get anyone to look after his dog, so we ended up not going to the ocean. We were in bed when Lucy called in a panic. Grandma had a pain in her shoulder and she couldn’t breathe. We took her to the E.R., but the doctor who was supposed to be on call had his beeper on Vibrate and they couldn’t find him. The E.R. was packed and Mom was getting worse and then—” she shook her head “—it was too late.”
She’d started to cry and he put his arm around her, but she pushed it away.
“Leave me alone, Matt.” She blew her nose. “Maybe it’s not fair of me, but I can’t help thinking if you hadn’t dragged your feet about the CMS takeover, there would have been enough staff and…Just get me some more wine, okay? There’s a bottle in the fridge.”
He went out to the kitchen and refilled her glass then took it back out to her.
She sniffed. “I know how you felt about Pearl and I don’t want to make you feel worse, but you need to accept some responsibility for this, Matt. Not for going to Victoria with Sarah, but for Compassionate Medical System. This is a horrible wake-up call.”
By the time he left later that night, the clouds that had seemed so benign as he and Sarah left Victoria had broken and the rain was coming down in torrents.
MATTHEW WAS UNAVAILABLE when Sarah tried to reach him the next morning. She’d stayed awake much of the night, expecting that he would call after he left Elizabeth’s. She’d offered to go with him when he got the news, but he’d dropped her off at the apartment.
She got in the car and drove over to Elizabeth’s. Lucy answered the door. She wore skintight blue jeans and a red sweatshirt. Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry. When she saw Sarah, her expression darkened. “My mom’s upstairs.”
“I’ve come to see how you’re both doing,” Sarah said.
“Okay,” Lucy mumbled.
Sarah stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”
Lucy shrugged but pulled the door open. “I have to go to school,” she said. “And my mom’s still asleep.”
“I can give you a ride if you want,” Sarah said.
Lucy looked uncertain. “Okay,” she said after a moment, “I guess.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement, Sarah thought, as she ran upstairs to tell Elizabeth. But at least the girl hadn’t said no. Sarah had expected to find Elizabeth sleeping, but instead found her hugging a pair of old lamb’s-wool slippers and sobbing. “She got these at Wal-Mart,” she said when Sarah walked in. “Because I didn’t want her walking over my rugs in her outdoor shoes. And the backs were all worn down so she shuffled around in them. It drove me crazy. Was it too much trouble to just put them on properly? And now…” Her voice broke off.
Sarah sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “Come here.” She stretched her arms out and Elizabeth, the slippers still on her lap, fell against her, sobbing on Sarah’s shoulder.
“Listen, I’m going to take Lucy to school,” Sarah told her. “Then I’ll come back and we can talk.”
“She doesn’t have to go. I’ll call and tell them.”
“I think she wants to
,” Sarah said. “She was ready when I got here, and it might be better for her to keep her usual routine.”
“Whatever,” Elizabeth said.
“I WAS TEN when my grandma died,” Sarah told Lucy as she drove her to school. “One of the things that made me feel really bad was that I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with her. She was always asking me to come over, but…” She glanced at Lucy, stoic and unyielding. “She was very deaf and she talked too much—you couldn’t get a word in, so I always made up excuses about why I couldn’t go. After she died, I felt awful.”
“I spent a lot of time with my grandma,” Lucy said.
“I know. Your mom said you baked cookies with her all the time.”
“And cakes. Mom’s terrible at baking.”
“Me, too.” Sarah laughed, encouraged by what seemed like a breakthrough in their relationship, but then Lucy—as her father had on the ferry—seemed to retreat into her thoughts. Sarah’s further attempts to draw her out were met with polite one-word responses. There will be other opportunities, Sarah decided after she’d dropped Lucy off and stopped at Safeway to pick milk, bread and eggs. This is just a first step.
Elizabeth was in the kitchen making coffee when Sarah got back.
“You should go home and hug your mom and tell her you love her,” Elizabeth said without turning to look at Sarah. “I’m serious. I feel guilty for just about everything to do with my mom. I even feel bad about telling Matthew it was his fault my mom died.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sarah said, her voice sharper than she’d intended. “Why would you blame him?”
“Well, they were short staffed and Pearl had to wait. Then they couldn’t find the doctor on call. I can still see his face, the way he looked when I accused him. He loved Pearl. I know he was hurting, too, but…I don’t know, I just wanted to attack him. If he got hit by a car or dropped dead of a heart attack, I’d never forgive myself.”
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