August Unknown (20 page)

After finishing the honeydew melon he’d served her, August
rose and went over to the bed to get a better view of the television. She
slipped under the covers and tossed the bath towel onto the chair.

Geoffrey swallowed and pretended interest in his nearly empty
plate.

What had he been thinking, agreeing to this room? He never
imagined he and August would spend so intimate a night together under
circumstances like this. It should be passionate, spontaneous, and desired by
both sides. Instead of looking forward to a new level of closeness with her,
the whole situation left him feeling miserable.

He stood and turned around. “Maybe I
should
set up camp
on the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s plenty of room. You won’t bump
me.” She downed the last of her hot chocolate. “I will use this extra pillow,
though. This fiberglass cast may seem light at first, but try sleeping with
it.”

“It’s yours.”

“Top me off?” She held up her cup. Realizing he stood in the
middle of the room like a gawky teenager, Geoffrey pried his feet from the
floor and took it.

August placed the pillow at her hip to rest the weight of her
cast. She settled in and used her good hand to pull her hair out from under her
neck.

“We’ve talked so much about me. I want to hear more about
Geoffrey.”

The knot of tension in his shoulders tightened another notch.
He poured the last of the hot chocolate into her cup.

“There isn’t much to tell.” He took his time rolling the
dining cart into the hall.

She pressed the mute button on the remote control, silencing
the droning newscaster’s voice. “Tell me about Berkeley. Maybe hearing about
college will remind me if I went.”

He suddenly wished he had calls to make, papers to read, or
anything to occupy him while she fell asleep. What should he do? Climb into bed
as if he belonged? Or sit in the chair a polite distance away?

After standing in the middle of the room like a dolt for
another long minute, he flipped off the light and shuffled to the far side of
the bed by the glow of the television. He sat on the edge.

“Some people call it ‘Berzerkely.’ There were a lot of unique
characters there, including this guy who walked around naked.”

She laughed. “No way.”

Geoffrey nodded. “He considered it his constitutional right.”

She glanced at the television. “You want me to turn it off?”

Oh great, he’d hesitated for so long she thought he was afraid
to be seen in his boxers. In truth he was, but not for physical reasons. Years
of dedicated exercise and a healthy diet had left him lean and muscular. He
knew he looked okay, especially in front of someone who had never compared him with
Justin or David. He just couldn’t shake the feeling he was pushing her too far.
Well, she’d seen him in his running shorts after he’d removed his t-shirt. This
was almost the same thing.

Then why does it feel so different?

“Um, leave it on until the news ends,” he said. “You never
know, we might see something.”

He shrugged off his jeans and slipped under the blanket. Only
then did he wonder if he’d just made a huge mistake. Had she wanted him to
leave the jeans on? Was he exposing himself to her like a horny frat boy?

She shifted onto her side to face him. “A naked guy, huh. I
think that would gross me out.”

Uh oh
.

“Wouldn’t it be kind of...drafty? And I can only imagine what
the bottoms of his feet looked like.”

“I didn’t have the wild time a lot of people did at Berkeley,”
he said, pretending nonchalance. In truth, his heart was racing. “In fact, I
spent a lot of my time in San Francisco at bookstores and poetry bars.”

“Now
that
I can believe.”

He leaned up on one elbow. “Why?”

Her smile softened, but didn’t dim. “You’re sensitive.”

Sensitive. That wasn’t the highest compliment. He rolled onto
his back, hoping the bluish light from the television hid his growing
embarrassment.

“Were you on any sports teams?”

Sports were his brothers’ thing. “Track. I like the way
running clears my head.”

August giggled. “Let me guess. The mile. Two mile?”

“The mile. How did you know?”

“You don’t strike me as a sprinter. You’re a long-haul kind of
guy.”

How did she see these things in him? Was it that she was
really good at reading people, or she was the first person to take the time to
look more closely?

“What else?” he asked her.

“Hmmm.” She narrowed her gaze. “Debate team.”

“Only for one year. It was too intense for me.”

“And...you volunteered at the soup kitchens.”

“At Thanksgiving and Christmas. August, you’re amazing.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re amazing, Geoffrey Barthlow. If
it weren’t those things specifically, it would be something similar. That’s the
kind of person you are. I’m surprised you don’t own a dog that was once a
stray.”

He laughed, wondering if it would be passé to tell her about
Scruffy, the family’s terrier mutt who had come sniffing around the beach house
one year. The poor thing had obviously been abandoned by one of the high-season
residents. They’d taken him in and kept him fat and happy until he died a ripe
old dog.

“You give me too much credit. I have a confession to make: I
hope your past life was boring.”

After he’d said it, he realized how callous it sounded, but
August surprised him by laughing. He deserved her anger for such a selfish and
inappropriate statement.

“That was rude of me. I’m sure the opposite was true.”

She was still giggling. “You know, I’m hoping it was boring,
too.”

“There’s something to be said for a quiet life.”

He almost wished he had never met Christina, that he’d never
endured the pain that every day chiseled away at his heart, that he’d never
been thrust into this wretched situation with his brother. Almost as if reading
his mind, she asked the question he knew she’d been wondering about.

“You said you met Christina at Berkeley.” When he hesitated,
she gave him his out. “You don’t have to tell me about her if you don’t want
to.”

Geoffrey sighed. “I should have told you about Christina right
away.” He figured he owed her as much, since she had fallen into the middle of
his feud with Derek.

He wondered how to begin. No matter which words he chose, the
subject always churned his guts. He’d never actually talked about her with
anyone outside the family, even though Leah had nagged him damn near to death
that seeing a therapist would help.

“I met her in the tutoring center. She was at risk of losing
her scholarship because of her grades.”

That wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be. Surprisingly,
once he got started, the rest flowed out of him. “Christina was from Oakland
and received her scholarship as part of an outreach program for students from
low-income families. She got her BA and I got my master’s in the same year, and
we were married two weeks after graduation. I was her ticket out of Oakland,
and she couldn’t wait to leave.”

“So she moved up to Portland with you.”

He nodded. On the silenced television screen, images of fire
trucks in front of a blazing building reflected the turbulent memories that
accompanied thoughts of Christina.

“She was beautiful, and I loved her with all my heart. I think
in her own way, she loved me, too.”

August had rolled onto her side to face him. She balanced her
cast on her hip and leaned on her good arm. “I’m sure she did.”

“But even the simplest things about marriage with her were
hard. She had a lot of problems. She’d used drugs as a teenager and she was
constantly fighting with depression. Prescription meds helped her short term,
but after a time, they made her sick and sapped her energy, so she stopped
taking them. It was a cycle with us.”

“Did she use drugs during your marriage?”

He swallowed. Would it have been the lesser evil if she had?
He would never know. “By then she was drinking, which was worse because alcohol
is a depressant.”

August nodded. He met her eyes. Hers were wide and sad, as if
she didn’t want to know but couldn’t stop listening, like someone who happens
upon a car wreck but can’t force themselves to look away.

“Once she disappeared for two and a half weeks. We went as far
as to issue a missing person’s report, and visit the morgue when a woman
matching her description was brought in. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had
to do.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s how I understand
what the people in your life are going through.”

He looked back in time to see her glance away, her long lashes
hiding glossy tears.

“But I’m alive. And someday I’m going to find those people.”

“Someday soon,” he promised, and meant it. “I’m going to help
you.”

She brushed his shoulder with the backs of her fingers, a
barely there, feather-light caress.

“Christina came home on her own, very obviously strung out. I
never knew where she was or what happened to her, but I can only assume she’d
hit rock bottom because in the next three months she tried harder to be my wife
and fit in with our family than she ever had.”

The memories were almost too much to bear. Even those last,
pleasant days didn’t bring any peace because now after the fact, he recognized
how phony they had been. Their entire marriage had been a precarious dance on a
high-wire, with his family as the audience below, holding their breath at the
edges of their seats.

“Then Derek came home. He and I have always had our
differences, and when he was in New York, I was glad he was as far away as he
could be. He’d made buckets of money on the runways and he was a lead model for
Ralph Lauren, but he blew it all—his career and his savings—on drugs. Putting
him and Christina together was like mixing nitro and glycerin.”

He glanced over at August. She stared off into the darkness
with a far-away look in her eye. “What if I’m like that?” she asked softly.
“What if I have this really terrible past, where I did horrible things?”

“You’re not that kind of person,” he said quickly. He was sure
of it. Sweet, kind August could never be even half as cruel and
self-destructive as Christina and Derek both were.

“You don’t know that. What if my family are thieves, or con
artists? I’m not exactly ugly—”

Geoffrey laughed but August remained rigidly serious.

“I could have used my looks to take advantage of trusting
people. Maybe I’m subconsciously doing it to you.”

Wariness bristled along the edges of his thoughts. “I’d like
to think that even if that’s who you were, you’ve changed.”

She looked back at him and smiled. “You’re too good to me.”
Her expression grew somber. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please go
on. You said Derek came home.”

Geoffrey took a deep breath, trying to formulate the least
humiliating way to explain what happened. There was none.

“They had an affair,” he said bluntly.

“No.”

August frowned in that pitying way people did to show
sympathy. Usually it left him feeling ashamed, but from August it was the kind
of encouragement he needed, especially now that Derek was back in his life.

“I had no idea he could sink so low. I trusted you that there
was something big between you two, but I had no idea it was so awful. That is
the worst thing a brother can do.” She softened her tone. “You’ve been very
tolerant of him, considering.”

“Supposedly, it wasn’t really an affair. They only...were
together twice.”

“Sheesh! Even if it was once, it was an affair. And even if it
was only once, it’s still unforgivable.”

She was the first person to agree with him on that. Everyone
else had coddled poor Derek, the baby of the family, with his drug problem and
his broken finances, led astray by the big city. It made Geoffrey want to punch
his hand through a wall.

“I keep a lot of my anger to myself. It wouldn’t do my family
any good to start a war with him. Besides, where Derek is concerned, my father
just won’t listen. He loves to carry him out of trouble. I wish he’d realize
he’s only making Derek worse.”

“It’s called ‘enabling.’” She glanced off and frowned, as if
she wasn’t sure how she knew that.

As tired as he was when he’d climbed out of the SUV, now he
was wide awake and alert, aware of every nuance of their intimacy.

“Was Derek driving the car?”

It took him a moment to realize what she’d meant.

“No, Derek wasn’t even in Oregon. Leah had caught him and
Christina together and made him catch the first available flight back to New
York.”

“Good for her. She’s tough. I like her.” August pursed her
lips. “But I have to admit, I have less respect now for Derek.”

He choked out a forlorn laugh. “In all truth, I can’t really
blame Derek. Christina was always looking for bigger and better things, and she
was seduced by his lifestyle. The parties, the celebrities, the prestige that
came with being a model. He put stars in her eyes. He had her convinced she
could be a model, too, and truly, she could have been. Not only was she
beautiful, she had incredible bone structure and she photographed well. But
that lifestyle would have destroyed her.”

“Like it did Derek.”

“They’re both a lot alike: weak in the face of temptation.”

“Obviously.” She chewed her lip. “But as bad as things are
between you, I don’t want you to blame him for what happened that morning he
scared me. He really hadn’t done anything wrong; it was all me. I don’t want to
make things worse between you.”

She shifted, bending her arm again to touch his shoulder with the
backs of her fingers. Her warmth, and the unwavering strength she’d displayed
these past few weeks, seeped into him and made him feel stronger, too.