Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (11 page)

Irina's voice was muffled and small. “I love you too,” she said.

 

 

After seeing Thea on the Fourth of July, seeing her and realizing that he
could
see her and speak with her, and it really wasn't that hard at all, Jonathan made arrangements to meet with her in private to talk. He walked the planks of Price's Pier, then waited for Thea to join him outside a jewelry shop, the window full of sparkling purple and mother-of-pearl. To meet with her at the Dancing Goat was too risky: she knew too many people there. He did too. All day long, customers came in and out of the café, expecting and finding friendly conversations that lasted a moment but could cheer a person up for a full day. And Jonathan didn't want to ruin that, to monopolize his wife who was soon to be not his wife at all.

He sat down on the edge of a large cement flower bed and watched the tourists pass. The sun had gone behind the clouds, but the afternoon was hot. Until he'd seen Thea standing under the stars on the Fourth of July, Garret blocking her path, he hadn't known just how absurd it was that he'd been avoiding her. He'd reasoned with himself that his need to stay away from her had to do with fear of facing his own failure. Seeing her would make him unable to stand himself.

But then on the Fourth, when Thea was there looking fresh and sun-kissed on the pier, he realized that he wasn't afraid of taking responsibility for what had happened at all. In fact, he forgave himself for what he'd done. If something was holding him back from speaking with her, it wasn't self-blame. It was something else.

Of course, forcing himself to meet with Thea had a practical purpose, as well as an emotional one. He didn't want to lean on Garret anymore. His brother had done enough—more than could have been expected, given the circumstances.

Now, Thea was coming toward him, smiling hesitantly. Her warm-toned skin was made even darker by a summer tan. Her shirt was one of many in her closet that was the exact shade of coffee—best to hide the spills. And her hair was a loose knot on the top of her head, a few tendrils spiraling down.

“Jonathan.”

He stood to meet her but did not embrace her or even extend his hand. “Want to walk?”

She nodded and fell into stride beside him. The pier was a circus today, almost literally. A man on a unicycle juggled flaming torches, and the smell of gasoline mixed with scents of popcorn, hot dogs, and salty sea air. Jonathan had seen the man's act a few times now—the plate spinning, the broom balancing, the oneliners that were as old as time. Thea waved at the performer, and he winked. Something curled in Jonathan's belly.

He steered them away from the pier's busiest thoroughfare, away from the coffee shop, to where they were less likely to meet people they knew. When the crowd eased, Thea finally spoke.

“It's good to see you,” she said. Her voice was friendly.

“Same here,” he said, though the words stuck.

“You've been having Garret do your dirty work.”

“Did he do something mean?”

“No,” Thea said. “I'm just glad you're talking to me again.”

He looked down at his loafers moving along the weathered boards. “I figured you wouldn't want to see me. That it would be easier for both of us if he handled things.”

“Why wouldn't I want to see you?”

When he looked at her, the bewilderment on her face was real—a complete lack of comprehension that completely cut him down. He balled his hand into a fist.

“I just thought . . . never mind,” he mumbled.

“Of course I want to see you,” she assured him.

“I figured you wouldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I slept with someone else.”

The moment he said the words, he regretted them. Thea's face lost all its friendliness. He'd expected her shock—because he'd never been an outspoken man—but he hadn't expected how good seeing that shock would make him feel.

“I don't want you to be unhappy,” Thea said. “And I'm not mad at you, for what it's worth.”

“Not mad at me? Not mad? You should be
furious
.”

“I'm just trying to tell you that I forgive you. That I understand.”

“What do you understand?” He stopped walking. They stood near an old industrial building that had been converted into condos, long wooden stairways leading down to the level of the street. “What
exactly
do you understand?”

Thea looked up at him, her brown eyes dark like oubliettes. “That maybe there was something you needed that I couldn't give you.”

“But that's just it,” Jonathan said. “You
could
. If you wanted to.”

The breeze picked up. It blew a strand of Thea's hair across her face. And Jonathan saw that the gray in the sky was from clouds that had not yet formed into storms. He hadn't realized how angry he was. How deeply, powerfully, resentfully angry. Until this moment—Thea looking up at him, the slight shadow of disbelief in her eyes—he'd thought the entirety of their failed marriage fell on his shoulders, and his alone. But now, a kind of fury he hadn't known himself capable of was raising the temperature of the blood inside him—and it didn't feel bad.

“I tried to tell you,” he said. “A thousand times. A million. But you wouldn't hear it.”

“Jonathan . . .”

“Where did you
go
, Thea? After we got married. Where did you disappear to?”

“I don't understand—”

“You left me alone.
For years
. And I'm sick of it. I was there, Thea. For you, for Irina. For our family. I was there. But where were you? Tell me. Where?”

Thea held her ground. “Are you saying it's my fault that you slept with someone else? Like I locked you naked in some room with her and made you do what you did?”

“No,” Jonathan said, his head getting clearer by the moment. “But what I'm saying is that I don't need you to assure me that you're not mad at me. That you
understand
. That you forgive me. Because from where I stand, you should be asking me to forgive
you
.”

Thea made a small noise, the sound she made sometimes if he accidentally stepped on her foot or caught her hair on his ring. And Jonathan felt fantastic. He took a few breaths, then started to walk away from her. It amazed him—how good he felt. When was the last time he'd had a fight with Thea? He couldn't remember. They should have fought more often. The thought made him mad all over again.

He turned to her over his shoulder. “I'm glad we had this talk,” he said cruelly.

She hurried a few steps to catch up with him. He saw there were tears in her eyes. “What about Irina? Do you want her to have parents who can't stand to be in the same room as each other?”

“The kind of father I am isn't your business anymore,” he said. He stopped walking. “I love Irina, and I'll be the best father I can be to her. I'll see her all the time. But as for you . . .” He thought of their first Christmas together, of their fifth anniversary when he gave her a diamond-crusted wedding band, of the way she slipped her hand in his pocket when she got cold. “You'll be hearing from my lawyer,” he said.

Then, with the wind nudging him forward, he walked away.

 

 

July wore on. The City by the Sea steamed and sweltered, and the speed of pedestrians walking down the streets grew slower and slower with each rising degree. The tenor of the crowds changed like the tides: one weekend it seemed everyone who had come to Newport was under thirty—drinking fruity cocktails and making out in the streets—and the next weekend Thea found herself surrounded by rich Wall Street retirees. For relief, they signed up for cruises and boat rides, or they left the congestion of Newport for the cooler vistas of Aquidneck Island's nature reserves and parks.

On an especially hot Saturday evening, Dani had invited Thea and a few of the baristas to her house in Middletown—her way of saying “thank you” to the baristas who normally had her regular order ready even before she walked through the coffee shop door. Her home, occupied by herself and her two teenage children, was a small but comfortable bungalow on a hillside near a Christmas tree farm.

On Dani's deck, Thea leaned back in her chair and sighed with pleasure. It had been a long week. She was glad for the chance to get away. The air was oppressively hot, and the citronella torches did little to ward off the mosquitoes, but the sky was turning a gorgeous orange pink. She would slip an extra twenty in Jules's paycheck at the end of the week to thank him for manning the shop tonight.

Dani slid into the chair beside her, biting a corn chip in half. “Glad you could make it,” she said to Thea.

“Irina's been staying later and later at Jonathan's, so I've got a few extra hours to myself these days.” Thea closed her eyes as a hot, gentle breeze made her hair stick to her skin. She thought of her daughter, of Jonathan's words yesterday afternoon.
Where were you?
She hoped Irina was having a good time.

“That's probably a good thing.”

“Irina does seem to be getting more comfortable being away.”

“I mean it's a good thing for you both,” Dani said.

Thea's best friend was no stranger to divorce. Thea had met her years ago—more years than she cared to count—not long after she married Jonathan. In that time, Dani's children had gone from elementary schoolers to teens who gave their hard-nosed mom a run for her money. With dark hair cut severely short, Dani fought hard for her family even when her ex-husband stopped paying child support. She'd gone back to school, went to the police academy, and ultimately earned a position with the city. But it hadn't been easy. Thea admired her determination and grit.

On the other side of the table, Claudine, Rochelle, and Lettie had been having a conversation of their own, and when their laugher crested in a wave that rolled out over the green countryside, Dani butted in.

“Hey now. What's going on over there?” she asked.

Claudine, cross-legged in her chair, filled them in. “Lettie won't say her new man is her boyfriend.”

“Women my age don't have boyfriends,” Lettie said. Despite the heat, she'd draped a light, lacy scarf around her shoulders. “He's just a friend.”

“Yeah. And I'm Joan of Arc,” Claudine said.

Lettie pulled herself up straight with all the bearing of a duchess. “And should we call that young thing you've been hanging around with your
boyfriend
?”

“What
young thing
?” Rochelle asked, her ponytail bobbing. “You didn't tell us about a
young thing
.”

Claudine laughed. “He's not that young. He's nineteen.”

Thea sat up a little, and the backs of her legs stuck to her chair. “You're dating a nineteen–year-old? He's—what—seven years younger than you?”

“I wouldn't say I'm dating him. More like—” Claudine pulled a cigarette from her purse. “What do you call it?
Tutoring
.”

Thea laughed. “That's not a
boyfriend
. That's a boy
toy
.”

Claudine coaxed a flame from her lighter, then puffed on her cigarette until it was a deep orange blister against the dusk. “What about you?”

“Me?” Thea asked.

“Don't you have a backup plan? You know—a man to fall on.”

“You mean, ‘fall back on,' ” Rochelle said.

“Oh, no,” Thea said. “No man.”

Claudine's breath was gray with smoke. “Was Jonathan the only man you've ever slept with?”

“Well, I . . .”

“You don't have to answer that.” Rochelle smacked Claudine's arm. “And
you
shouldn't
smoke
.”

Thea reached for a sip of lemonade, not really afraid of telling the truth but not sure of how to explain it either.

“So, let me understand.” Claudine slouched in her chair, something catlike in her long fingers and curling spine. “You married your high school sweetheart. You took over your parents' café, where you'd been working since you'd learned to talk.
And
you inherited your house from your parents—all before you were twenty years old.”

“Not all of us want to be globetrotters,” Lettie said. “I've known Thea since she was a baby. And she's had a very exciting life. More exciting than she wanted, I'd bet.”

“Thank you, Lettie,” Thea said, and she hoped her friend, who had been a part of her life for longer than she could remember, who had seen how her relationship with Garret had changed all their lives, would leave it at that.

“Claudine's right.” Dani canted her head, thoughtful. “Look. I know a thing or two about getting divorced. You've got a whole new life that you've got to get used to now.”

Thea put down her lemonade; the glass was dripping wet with condensation. “What do you mean, a whole new life? I like my life.”

“You're divorced now,” Dani said. “Life's going to change. And you might as well be ready.”

“It is like this.” Claudine uncrossed her legs and sat up, leaning her arms on the table. She tied her dark blond hair in a spiky bun as she spoke. “People have to collect experiences—like I do. I try to collect
all
experiences, good and bad. This is a great time for you to become a bigger person,
n'est pas
? Branch out. Try new things.”

“Like what?” Thea asked.

Lettie's voice was soft but hopeful. “Whatever you like or don't like,” she said.