Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (25 page)

Deep edginess gripped her, a restlessness that should have been settled after the divorce went through. Newport itself seemed to fuel her uncertainty. New England seasons were fickle—sometimes shy and bashful, sometimes cruel. She'd seen a hurricane come up the coast, making the waves boil up over embankments and battering boats into smithereens. She'd seen snow descend silent and gentle as starlight to blanket the beaches, deceptive in its aggression and the damage it did. In the summers, she'd watched the thunderstorms that popped up out over the water, lightning touching down in the distance, long dark smears of rainfall against the sky, nearing the shore.

She'd survived all those things throughout her life in Newport. And as the weather cooled and she needed to wrap a light sweater around her shoulders in the evening, she began to feel glad, even relieved, that the season was ending—because it seemed to her that the entire summer had been a kind of storm. And somehow she'd survived that too.

 

 

Garret hesitated near the enormous old anchor that had been propped up as a monument on Price's Pier, not far from the dark little alley that led to the Dancing Goat. Along the edge of the pier, tall-masted sailboats with gleaming wooden decks bobbed in the water. Crude lobster boats, pulling at their tethers, were strewn with thick chains and tarpaulins. The afternoon might have been perfect for a short stroll and a long nap, but Garret was too racked by nerves to enjoy it.

“So?” His buddy Jamie stood at his side, squinting into the sunlight. He wore a blue and white shirt covered in hibiscus flowers—he'd not yet been persuaded that summer was gone. “So, are we going for coffee or just standing around lapsing into caffeine withdrawal?”

Garret checked his watch as if he had anywhere else to be. “Yeah. All right. If you want to.”

“I'm pretty sure you're the one who brought it up. Come on. Unless you changed your mind . . .”

Garret started across the redbrick wharf toward the Dancing Goat, forcing Jamie to follow. “It's fine.”

“I know your ex sister-in-law works there. If that's going to be a problem . . .”

“It's
fine
,” Garret said, and he walked a little faster to make a point.

For as long as Garret cared to remember, the main problem of his otherwise impressive life had been the fact that he hadn't wanted to see or even hear about Thea. The mention of her name at his parents' dinner table had made him cringe, made him want to throw down his fork and say, “No more.” News of Jonathan's life coming to him from a distance—in conversation with a cousin, in matter-of-fact e-mails—plagued him with reminders that his relationship with Jonathan had been damaged by a woman he'd once loved. Since the day Jonathan had married her, Garret had spent much of his time trying to solve the problem of how to connect with his brother while refusing to see her.

And yet now, the problem had turned on its head. His difficulty was no longer that he didn't want to see Thea. The difficulty was that he
did
want to—with far more curiosity than was acceptable. He felt more unsettled now that he'd made peace with her than when all he'd known was anger. Since Jonathan had started picking up Irina, Garret no longer had a reason to see or even call her. He had the sense that something was off that he couldn't quite pinpoint, as if a cold draft was seeping into his life, and no matter how he searched he could not find its source.

He wondered about her. Was she still the woman he once knew?

His heart pounded alarmingly hard as they walked down the alley toward the coffee shop door. He knew he shouldn't go inside. He should wait out here. Pretend he had to make a phone call. Give Jamie his order.

And yet, he saw his hand reach for the door handle. Saw himself moving through the jamb into the small room, with its board and batten walls and glass pastry display that came up to his chest. He was eager, ready. He wanted to see Thea, wanted her to know that he'd come expressly for the purpose of seeing her. He was prepared to say, “I just happened to be in town,” and he trusted her to know exactly what the words would mean.

Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be found. The boy making coffee was young, skinny, with long dark hair and paint under his nails. A question was burning on the edge of Garret's tongue, and he almost heard himself voice it:
Is Thea here?

But of course, he kept quiet. It shouldn't matter if she was here. He had nothing to say to her—no message to deliver from Jonathan, no excuse for saying hello. What right did he have, after so many years of hatred, to take the liberties of friendship? He ordered a cup of coffee. In a way, he was glad she wasn't here. Otherwise, his whim—which had seemed like such a good idea moments ago—would have embarrassed him.

He felt Jamie clasp him on the back while the barista made change. “Hey, man. Look at that. You lucked out.”

“Looks like,” he said. His coffee burned his hand.

 

 

As Thea neared her high school graduation, the days grew longer and longer—not because of the seasons but because she could hardly wait to put the matter of her virginity to rest. It had taken on monumental importance in her mind, constantly occupying her thoughts while she watched her geometry teacher sketch triangles on the blackboard or listened to her history teacher drone on about FDR. She loved to torment herself with the question (
what would it be like?
) and the promise (
it would be soon
). Sex would hurt for a moment—she expected that—but Garret was experienced, and she trusted him to be gentle. She imagined that afterward, he would hold her close and tell her he loved her, that they might drift off to sleep in each other's arms.

In the hallways of her school—papered with red and black streamers for one senior class function after another—she walked past rows of lockers with the feeling that she was being watched. She and Garret were public now, and while no one was completely surprised, there was some general consternation that the boy who had been chosen prom king had fallen for
her
. But she held her head high, ignoring jokes and barbs alike, because Garret loved her—he'd chosen her—and soon she would give herself entirely to him.

Of everyone who'd learned of her relationship with Garret, only Jonathan had truly worried her. Her parents were thrilled, doting on Garret as if he'd proposed. Sue had actually gone a little teary-eyed when she'd learned that Thea and her son were officially a couple. And Ken had clasped Thea's shoulders and said how pleased he was, since Thea was the only girl in Rhode Island who could keep Garret in line.

But Jonathan had changed. He no longer loaded up his car with duffel bags full of dirty laundry and made weekend trips to Newport—though she'd called and called and asked him where he'd been. The early days of running amok through the crowded beachgoers at King Park or making faces at the eerie funerary statues of Island Cemetery were becoming a distant memory. Jonathan grew especially cold toward Garret; at one point, just days after Garret had learned he'd gotten an athletic scholarship that would guarantee he could attend Notre Dame, the brothers had a shouting match over a sink full of spaghetti-crusted dishes, and for the first time since Thea had met them, she worried they would come to blows. From where Thea stood, the brighter Garret shined, the duller Jonathan became.

“I'm warning you,” Jonathan told her one night at a burger joint after his spring semester had ended. “Things are going to go wrong. I've been picking up the pieces after my brother for my whole life. And Thea, I don't want to have to pick you up too.”

She'd laughed at the time, leaned her shoulder against his, and told him to stop acting more motherly than his mother. But in her heart, she worried. She felt almost as if Jonathan was preparing her for the day that Garret would push her away—and the day that Jonathan would be ready and waiting with open arms.

 

 

Thea stood in front of the espresso machine with the barista she'd hired to replace Rochelle, a boy who had written down his name as Frank Radfern, but who insisted that everyone call him Tenke. Thea had taken an immediate liking to him—his jagged dark hair slicked severely to the side like a raven's wing, the three stars tattooed on his neck, and his enormous dark-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans. Tenke might not have had a future in corporate America, but as a small-business owner Thea knew that the best employees sometimes came in the most irregular packages.

“And now for the fun part,” she said. She pulled two separate shots of espresso into mismatched demitasses, so shimmery gold crema floated evenly on the surface of each cup. “I want you to know what a good cappuccino tastes like. So that means you get to drink.”

“Do I have to, like, pay for stuff while I'm working?” he asked.

“You don't,” she said. “But no making free drinks for your friends.”

She talked him through the process of making microfoam first, showing him that perfect steamed milk for a latte had no visible bubbles and a consistency that was more creamy than foamy. For fun, she topped off his latte with a bit of artistry—a rosette of brown and white swirls, which she etched with a coffee stirrer.

“Do I have to do that too?” Tenke asked.

“Not on your first day.”

She heard Jules chuckle a few feet away. “Show-off.”

She winked at him.

“Are you going to tell him about the monks now?” he asked.

“None of your business,” she said.

While Tenke sipped his latte, she made him a cappuccino so he could see how different the frothing techniques were when done properly. Cappuccino foam, she told him, should be airy, with bubbles of even size, so it could sit on top of a shot of espresso rather than sink down into it. “What we don't want,” she said, “is dish-sponge foam, like the kind that suds up when you're washing your hands. Macrofoam should be dry but not overly stiff. Don't worry, you don't have to be able to master it all today.”

“What's this about monks?” Tenke asked, dipping the tip of his finger into the foam of his cappuccino.

“Coffee lore,” Thea said. She glanced up as Lettie came through the door and stopped for a moment to chat with a few of their regular customers.

“I'll tell him about the Capuchins,” Jules said, taking the cloth for the steam wand from Thea's hands.

“Why?”

“Because I owe you one.”

“For the anniversary debacle? You owe me ten,” Thea said.

“Right,” Jules said. He turned abruptly to Tenke, giving Thea his shoulder. “So one day there was this monk who wanted to wear a brown hood—the Italians called it a
cappa
—but the other monks wouldn't let him . . .”

Thea rolled her eyes. Jules had always been such a social creature, the hub around which her younger baristas perpetually spun. But he was damn good at making espresso, and she trusted him to train her new hires right.

At the other end of the counter, away from the training session, she helped Lettie with the bags she'd picked up at the sandwich shop on her way over to the Dancing Goat. Lettie regularly got away with wearing something other than the typical coffee brown that Thea usually insisted upon. In a grasshopper green shirt and elastic-waist jeans, she was the only person who had been working at the coffee shop longer than the dress code had existed. Thea figured that made her the exception.

“Can we take lunch now?” Lettie asked, digging around in the paper bags for her sandwich.

“Sure you can.”

“No, I mean, can you and I take lunch now? In your office?” Lettie asked.

“Of course,” Thea said casually, though the hair at the nape of her neck stood on end.

Together, they carried their food into Thea's small office. Lettie had to clean off a chair that had been covered with Irina's toys in order to sit down at the desk. Thea unwrapped her eggplant sandwich, the smell of fresh basil rising up and making her stomach rumble.

“How have you been doing?” Lettie asked.

Thea had started to take a bite, but stopped. “Fine.”

“Well you
seem
fine, I have to say. But how are you really?”

“I'm . . .
fine
,” Thea said. “Should I not be?”

Lettie rested her wrist on the cracked black-leather arm of her chair. “I just thought someone should tell you. He didn't notice me because I was working in back, but Garret came in the other day. To see you.”

Thea blinked. “Did he ask for me?”

“Well, not that I heard.”

“He didn't say he was here to see me?”

“He didn't have to say it, dear—”

“Then he must have just wanted a drink,” Thea said, and she took a big bite of her sandwich.

Lettie made the face that she always made when she was disappointed that Thea didn't get something right away. “I mean—given your history and all . . .”

Thea shook her head and covered her mouth when she spoke. “
Ancient
history. I don't think you should read anything into it.”

“If you say so,” Lettie said. “Forgive me for saying this, but I remember how it was. You two kids were about as in love as Romeo and Juliet. I may be seventy-seven, but I know that if my husband—rest his soul—walked in the door right now after twenty-three years, I wouldn't assume it was because he was thirsty for a
drink
.”

Thea swallowed too big a bite. It hurt going down. She hoped she was doing a good job of making it seem as if Lettie's news hadn't affected her. But the fact was she'd been thinking of Garret ever since his parents' anniversary party, and some part of her was beginning to feel curious about him, about the
new
him, whoever he might be. Given his unusual, voluntary cameo at the coffee shop, she wondered if he was thinking the same thing.