Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (22 page)

I gather my scattered wits. “Where?”

She points.

Beyond the breakwater, Tom and Molly are pushing a doll stroller. Its wheels keep getting stuck in the sand. Every few yards, Tom bends to free them and I can hear Molly’s laughter from here. She’s wearing a red sundress with white polka dots and a red baseball hat on back-to-front.

“My neighbors,” I say. “Tom Grainger and Molly.”

“Adorable,” Harriet says.

I assume she’s not talking about Tom.

While pretending not to, I watch him help Molly climb the breakwater, and when her foot slips, my heart skips a beat. But Tom grabs her and swings her around and around. Molly screams with delight. Her hat flies off and her curls tumble free, bouncing like corkscrews across her honey-colored shoulders. Tom sets her down, then lifts the stroller over the breakwater and onto our side. What on earth are they doing? Taking Molly’s dolls for a walk?

Anna looks up, abandons her clams, and skips over to meet them. Beatrice trundles after her.

Tom waves at us. “Come on down.”

“Let’s go,” Harriet says. She stands and brushes sand from her legs.

I look up. “Must I?”

“Yes.”

Sighing, I walk down to join them.

Tom reaches into the stroller and pulls out a handful of red and gold fur. It squirms and tries to leap onto his shoulder. “This is Elsa,” he says, sounding proud. “Molly’s new kitten.”

Anna stares in amazement. “It’s a tiny Zachary.”

Tom catches my eye and grins.

And no wonder. Molly’s cat is an Abyssinian.

At eight the next morning, I wake up with laryngitis. Good thing I don’t need to talk to anyone about work. Colin calls, but can’t understand a word I say. Neither can Harriet when she phones to deliver a pep talk.

She reminds me to get busy with Archibald.

“Do it for Anna,” she says. “Write the story for her.”

For inspiration, I slip in one of Jordan’s CDs.
Phantom of the Opera
. The music soars, fills me with joy. I open my mouth to accompany Sarah Brightman, but nothing comes out.

Suppose my parrot has laryngitis? What if he can’t sing and—

Nope, that won’t work.

How about this? I’ll introduce Archibald to a diva with laryngitis and pit them against an evil mayor who’s hired the opera singer for his fund-raising concert. But the diva can’t sing, so she persuades the parrot to do it for her, hidden inside her huge, feathery hat, except he gets stagefright and …

It’s a bold story. It needs bold illustrations, so I drag out my acrylics, my pens and ink. I fill my sketch pad with broad brushstrokes and crisp lines, and breathe life into Archibald’s puffed-up chest and my diva’s double chins, polishing my pictures and words until they glow. I cruise the web and visit sites for writers, learn about submissions and the probabilities of success.

Slim to none.

On Monday, I stuff Colin’s check into my purse and head for the bank. Plastic yellow tape surrounds the parking lot. Police cruisers and fire trucks stand guard. A guy in a hard hat and orange vest waves his arms, keeps the traffic moving. What the hell’s going on? A bank robbery? In our sleepy little town?

Nothing as dramatic, I learn when I stop at the post office. A water main burst and the bank will be closed for several days. Customers who want cash are advised to use the ATM at the supermarket. All other transactions will be handled at the main branch.

Hell, that’s thirty miles from here.

I’ll wait.

Four days later, Colin flies over and slips back into my life as if he’d never left it. This time, there’s no hint of awkwardness. No doubts. No hesitation. Our lovemaking is slow and sensuous. There’s no need to rush. We have two whole weeks to enjoy ourselves. We walk the beach at sunset, romp in the surf, and spend hours in my room listening to the waves and talking about books we’ve read and the places we want to go. Colin drags my television upstairs and we rent a pile of old movies including
From Here to Eternity
, and I make love with my pretend Burt Lancaster while watching the real one on the screen.

Later, over dinner and a bottle of wine, Colin asks to see my mother’s letter, her ring. He raises it to his lips, then slides it onto my finger.

Oh, my God.

Is this it? Is he going to ask? I close my eyes and wait for the magic words.
Come on, say them. Don’t stop now
.

Dear God, I’m worse than a lovesick teen.

But the moment passes and now he’s running his tongue down my neck, fondling my breasts. I grasp his hands to still them and ask about our future. He smiles and kisses my cheek, nibbles my earlobe. Be patient, he whispers. It’ll come, I promise.

When, goddammit, when?

Colin wants to explore. His enthusiasm for New England is contagious, so I cross my fingers and pray the Volvo will go the distance. With gentle coaxing, it shudders up mountains in New Hampshire and slides toward the coastline of Maine where Colin and I stand on the beach in Kennebunkport, holding hands and talking about Cornwall. Someday, we promise one another, we’ll return to Claudia’s cottage.

We drive to Rhode Island and spend the day in Newport, tramping through mansions and admiring boats in the harbor. At sunset, we stop for dinner at a restaurant perched high on a cliff overlooking Narragansett Bay and Colin has his first taste of a New England boiled dinner.

I try not to laugh at his startled expression.

“Where do I begin?” he says, poking at the tangle of shells and legs on his plate.

I hand him the nutcrackers. “Use these and put on a bib.” Then I reach for my camera. “Smile.”

“Wait.” Colin cracks open a claw. “See, I’m getting the hang of this,” he says, waving a piece of lobster as I click the shutter.

We return after dark and I coast into my driveway. I kill the engine and pat the dashboard. “Thanks,” I whisper.

Colin grins at me. “Relief?”

“I wasn’t sure we’d make it.”

“Maybe it’s time for a new one.”

I feel a rush of affection for the Volvo. “I agree, but don’t tell my car.”

Sands Point

August 2011

Zachary curls around my legs and complains the minute I step inside. I feed him and check for messages in my office. Nothing. No one begging for my services. No word from Lizzie, either. No reaction to my latest olive branch, a postcard of our beach with the words
Wish you were here
scrawled across it that I hoped was corny enough to make her smile. I walk back to the kitchen and find Colin spreading cream cheese and strawberry jam on a bagel.

“Dessert,” he says, licking his fingers.

“On top of all that lobster we ate?”

“Why not?” He leans forward and smears jam on my cheeks, my nose, my mouth. I lick my lips. He kisses me. “You taste like that cream tea we had in Cornwall,” he says, kissing me again.

Dammit, now I want dessert as well. Pushing Colin to one side, I open the fridge and pull out a tub of vanilla pudding left over from Anna’s last visit, a can of whipped cream, maple syrup, and more jam—apricot, I think. Or maybe it’s marmalade. I dump it all on the counter and reach into a cupboard. What about this jar of honey, and who left that bottle of Grand Marnier in here? My hand curls around a packet of ladyfingers. Probably stale, but if I soak them in—

Colin pours syrup down the back of my neck.

“What the—?”

He spins me around and pours more down the front. He’s laughing, the sadistic sod. My blouse is soaked. I wrench it off and Colin squirts whipped cream across the swell of my breasts. Syrup dribbles between them. He shrugs off his shirt and unsnaps my bra. The one that fastens in front. I knew it’d come in handy one day. Grasping my shoulders, he bends to lick the syrup off my breasts. He sucks the cream off my nipples and I have to lean against the counter because my knees are about to give out.

“Let’s continue our feast upstairs,” he says.

We load our loot on a tray and take it to my room.

We’ve perfected the art of shedding our clothes in a hurry and my panties hit the floor at the same times as his briefs. My green robe is draped across a chair. Colin reaches for it, removes the belt, and winds it around his hands.

“Lie back,” he says. “Relax.”

I sink into the pillows and Colin ties my wrists to the bedposts and there’s nothing I can do about it, nor do I want do. Fingertips dripping with honey, he draws cat’s whiskers on my breasts and eyelashes above my nipples. He paints a smiley face on my belly with vanilla pudding. I twist and squirm, but the green silk holds firm and I’m about to explode when his tongue travels south to lap up the apricot jam he smears on the inside of my thighs, and I know I ought to be worrying about the mess we’re making on the linen sheets he bought me last week and paid a fortune for, but multiple orgasms have a way of making one cavalier about the laundry.

He releases my hands, kisses my wrists, my fingers, but refuses to let me tie him up.

“No fair.” I tickle his chest with emerald satin.

He slides both hands beneath his back. “I promise not to interfere.”

I massage him with Grand Marnier, shampoo his hair with whipped cream until it stands up in stiff spikes. I dribble honey on his lips and savor the sweetness of him. But when I write
I love you
with maple syrup on his erection and lick the words off, Colin forgets his promise. He rears up and crushes me so hard I stick to him like Velcro. We pull apart to a chorus of slurpy, sucking noises and try to make love, but we’re laughing too much. He can’t keep it up and I can’t stop giggling and we desperately need a shower. I climb off the bed and head for the bathroom.

Colin grabs my arm. “I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“Let’s go for a swim.”

“Like this?” I say, looking down at my naked, sticky body.

“Why not?”

“Someone might see us.”

“At this time of night? Don’t be daft.”

We wrap ourselves in towels and race out of the house, across the back yard, and onto the beach. I jump over a piece of driftwood and my towel falls off. Colin knocks me down with a flying tackle and we roll toward the water, over and over, laughing and screaming, till we look like two Krispy Kreme doughnuts after they’ve been glazed and coated with sprinkles. Not exactly my movie fantasy, but close enough, I think.

I sit up and spit sand from my mouth.

“You’re a mermaid,” Colin says, plucking a shell from my breasts.

I pull seaweed from his groin. “So are you.”

“Hardly,” he says, looking down.

He pushes me over and climbs on top.

“Not here,” I whisper.

“Please.”

“I can’t.”

He slumps on top of me and groans and I know how he feels, because I want it too, but not out here. Not on the beach. I’m about to shove him off when something large and hairy and definitely not human blunders into us, kicking sand in my face and digging its claws in my legs.

“What the fuck was that?” Colin says, struggling to sit up.

I look left and right. “Watch out!”

Too late.

The second Lab crashes between us. Its tail slashes my face and another set of claws rakes furrows in my thighs. Colin puts his arms around me and I burrow into him. Our towels are way up the beach.

Behind me, someone whistles.

Shit!

Tom Grainger.

Oh, God. I can see the headlines now—
Local woman frolics naked on public beach with lover.
Village tongues will be wagging for weeks. Bad enough I’ve screwed myself with Elaine Burke, I’ve probably screwed myself with the neighborhood as well.

It feels like an hour but it’s really no more than a minute before Tom and his dreadful dogs go back where they came from. I scramble to my feet and plunge into the water with an urgent need to wash myself off. Not just the sand and the syrup, but the sheer embarrassment of it all, the feeling of utter helplessness over being caught naked on the beach at two
A.M.
by a neighbor I dislike and knowing there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Colin charges in behind me, laughing and splashing. He doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by all this. And why should he be? He doesn’t live here. He won’t have to wonder, like I will the next time I walk to my mailbox, if that accusing look from the old biddy who lives two houses down is because she heard from her neighbor that
Jillian Hunter—you know, the woman with the odd-looking cat—was on the beach at midnight, naked, yes naked, as in no clothes, not a stitch, with a man and they were, well, doing it. I mean, it’s obscene, that’s what it is. Just think, it could’ve been me that found them, and let me tell you, if it had been, I’d have told that hussy a thing or two.

Of course, I’m being totally ridiculous because I don’t even know the woman who lives on the other side of Tom Grainger and I doubt she’d recognize me in full daylight, let alone in the dark, naked or otherwise. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, I try to wash. I scrub and scrape at my skin with my fingers, but discover that salt water doesn’t cut it when it comes to removing apricot jam, maple syrup, and honey.

Or shame.

Colin grabs me from behind, runs his hands over my bare rump.

Ducking away, I try to explain I’m not in the mood for fun and games anymore, that what just happened is really bothering me. I remind him he doesn’t have to live here, and I do.

“Then let’s go to New Zealand,” he says.

I stop scouring. “Are you serious?”

He nods.

“When?”

“Late October, or maybe early November. It’ll be spring down there. A perfect time to go,” he says, wiping sand from my cheek. “We’ll take a month. Five weeks, maybe. Can you get away for that long?”

I nod, because of course I can. Colin doesn’t know about the mess I’ve made of my business. His check, dammit, is still in my purse. I never did get to the bank, but I will, the minute he leaves. I’ll take care of my overdue bills and make arrangements for others to be paid while I’m gone. I can take four weeks, five if I want. No problem. Except for my cat. Maybe Harriet will have him. Anna would love it.