Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (35 page)

He kissed her then, slow and shy. Her eyes were wet.

“Thea,” he said, “the offer stands.”

 

 

Later, Thea wondered that she hadn't lingered in Garret's bed longer. His arm was across her bare shoulders, his naked leg thrown over her hip. She'd thought of a thousand excuses to stay.

But in the end, she stayed in his bed only long enough for the trembling of her muscles to subside, so she could trust her knees to hold her up. They were good together; the promise of their nights on her bedroom floor had played out, and it was better than she could have dreamed. It nearly made her want to weep, that two people could be so perfectly in tune together, and that she hadn't known it until now.

When she stood, he didn't say anything. He only watched her slip back into her dress, her bra and panties shoved in a pocket and buttoned securely in.

At the door, he didn't kiss her, and she wondered if he was mad. But she couldn't explain herself. Sue and Ken could not take one more jolt—the family could not survive it. And so she ignored his blue eyes, already icing over. She ignored the heat coming off of his chest. She steeled herself for the sake of her heart, for the sake of her family, and did the only thing she could do.

“See you around,” she said.

Thea could no longer remember how it was that she ended up talking to Garret in the street that night—if he had knocked on the front door or called up to her window. Only a few of the details remained: the glare of red and blue lights licking like flames along the wood-sided homes, the feel of the asphalt under her bare toes, the windows up and down the street lighting up one by one.

“What the fuck?” he'd said. He grabbed her shoulders hard. Minutes passed that felt like hours, and she had no idea how long he'd been yelling at her. “Him?” he demanded, his voice a blade. “Thea? Really? Jonathan?”

Thea folded her arms over her chest, mortified that he'd tugged her into the street in her nightdress. It seemed he was trying to seize every last thread of dignity from her, here before the eyes of their prying neighbors and weeks ago on a crumbling concrete floor. She was past crying now—past feeling sorry for herself. She was ready to move on.

When she'd needed help, Garret hadn't been there. He'd proven inconstant and incompetent too. Garret had shown that he couldn't handle the difficulties of being in a relationship—that he would not talk things out. But
Jonathan
had been there for her, to comfort her and help her find the pride she'd thought she'd lost. She wouldn't let Garret take her dignity away from her again.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said, and he pushed her against the wall behind her. Even now, her body felt the nearness of his and grew hot, and she hated herself for it. The back of her skull pressed hard on the wood of her parents' home. “Are you in love with him?”

She ground her teeth together, furious and wanting. His fingers pressed her arms. “What's it to you?”

“I have to know.”

She stuck out her chin. “Why shouldn't I love him? He's kind and gentle and good. And he wants to marry me.”

“Bullshit!” He let her go with a shove, and a moment later the police were on him, holding him by the arms. Thea hadn't even seen them coming until they were there, dragging him back. He was yelling at her, struggling, but Thea couldn't make out what he was saying—or perhaps she didn't want to. She felt surrounded by him, confronted on all sides. His rage was the same nightmarish color as the squad car lights that bathed the whole street in red. And her own anger—that he'd ruined what was supposed to have been the greatest happiness of her life—rose up with a ferocity that matched his.

“Is this guy bothering you, miss?” one of the policemen asked.

Slowly, her focus on Garret eased, and she began to see the moment for its entirety—the neighbors coming to stand on their stoops to watch, her mother and father with their arms around each other, the policemen waiting for her answer. All her nights of loneliness, self-doubt, and anger had come down to this. It occurred to her that Garret's whole future, everything he'd ever wanted, was in her hands.

“Ma'am?”

She pulled herself up straight. Passion had not been what she thought it was. When she loved again, it would be without passion—a love that she could slip into comfortably.
Love
, she thought,
should be easy
. Love that wasn't easy was probably not love at all. And she wanted happiness for herself—not drama. Not
this
.

She couldn't put her finger on the moment in their lives that had led to
this
moment—the kiss on the beach, or the night in the barn, or the day she'd seen him underneath Price's Pier—but she knew for certain that this was where she would end it.

 

 

Jonathan parked beside the Newport library, welcomed by its rusticated stonework and matronly hipped roof. Inside, he asked the librarian where the science fiction book group was meeting, and then he made his way past the white marble busts of old Newport alums to find a group of chattering people in one of the side rooms. Men in jackets and tattered jeans sat cross-legged and talking in a circle.

“Jonathan!”

Irina's teacher—Lori, he made a mental note to think of her by her name—rose from a thin-legged wooden chair. Her hair was down, and he saw now that it was not very long, barely to her chin. Her greeting was so warm and friendly that, when she came to stand in front of him, he half expected a hug, as if they were old friends. By the glint in her eye, he thought she might have been thinking about it too—but she merely reached out to touch his upper arm, then stepped away.

“This is the writer I told you about,” she told the group.

Jonathan laughed and explained that he hadn't been published yet. But secretly, his pride grew. He took a seat between an older man with a full white beard and a heavyset, bespectacled young kid. He knew well enough that he shouldn't read too much into Lori's friendliness; she taught ten-year-olds. Infectious enthusiasm was part of her job description.

“Are we ready to get started?” Lori asked.

Jonathan settled in. He pulled his book out of his briefcase and put it on his lap. He relaxed into his chair, feeling deeply comfortable among the wooden bookshelves, small statues on marble pedestals, and all these people—who loved books as much as he did. He wondered why he hadn't thought to join a book group before. Lori took her seat beside him, sending a brief smile his way.

 

 

Thea's booth at the Taste of Newport festival was not overly lavish or impressive. She hadn't hired models to hand out flyers, as some of the bars had done. She wasn't raffling off a new car or blaring loud music to get people to turn their heads. But she had staked a little corner of the pier as her own, and now Lettie, Jules, and Tenke were setting up their wares.

Along with a free coffee cupping so that guests could sample the differences between brews of various origins, Thea had also devised a new game for this year. Players could toss a brown “coffee beanbag” into a series of oversized cups and saucers for twenty-five cents a throw. Three well-placed throws could win them Dancing Goat mugs and shirts. The proceeds would go to the Fair Trade Federation, which advocated that coffee farmers should be paid a fair wage for their work. Irina was fantastic at running the game, calling out to passersby like any seasoned host at a boardwalk. In Thea's mind, her daughter could outshine nightclub PR people or flashy sports cars any day.

“Thea!” Sue and Ken came toward her, smiling. The day was chilly, and the sky was low and threatening rain, so they both wore thick jackets and carried umbrellas rolled up tight as cigars at their sides. Sue kissed her. Ken gave her a warm hug. Looking over his shoulder, Thea saw that Jonathan and Garret were not far behind.

She focused her attention on Sue and Ken. “How are you guys enjoying the festival?”

“It's fabulous!” Sue said. “What's this game you're playing?”

Irina jumped in. “It's a coffee beanbag toss. Want to play? You can be the first one! It's for charity.”

“Of course I do!” Sue said.

Irina held out her hand. “Seventy-five cents.”

“I thought it was twenty-five per throw,” Ken said.

“It is. But trust me. You're going to need at least three if you want a shot at winning. You'll probably need more.”

Sue and Ken glanced at each other and laughed. They headed over to the game, where Irina and Thea had made oversized coffee cups out of flour-and-water papier mâché. Thea was alone only for a moment before Jonathan and Garret stood before her—Garret looking as expensive and groomed as always. No one thing about him was showy or flashy, but when all the components were put together—his expensive clothes, his hundred-watt smile, his styled blond hair—the effect was dazzling. Thea's breath caught in her throat.

“Heya, Thea,” Jonathan said brightly. He kissed her quickly on the cheek. There was something different about him, a brightness in his eyes that she hadn't seen in quite some time.

“You look great,” she said, and she squeezed his arm. She glanced at Garret. “And you're all right too,” she said, hoping to make a joke to break the tension.

Garret bowed, a slight nodding of his head. “Good to see you.”

She put her hands in her pockets, warming them for a moment. Thea was sure that to anyone watching, the scene would have looked completely normal. But inside, her guts were rollicking. Her awareness of Garret beside her was like a knife held to her back, a silent, secret threat. She thought of the span of his chest under his shirt. The smell of his skin when she'd pressed her nose to his neck. She felt her cheeks flush, and she realized that Garret knew why.

“Raking in the big bucks?” he asked.

“Hardly. But the festival is good for the community.” Because she didn't trust her voice to hide her anxiousness, she turned to Jonathan. “How are you doing? How's the new place?”

“It's great,” he said. “Nice view. Close to everything. Irina likes it too.”

“I know. She tells me all the time,” Thea said.