Taste of Honey (31 page)

She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned. Someone was emerging from the confessional—an old woman bent nearly double with arthritis. Gerry watched her shuffle to the nearest pew, where she sank down slowly, clutching hold of the pew in front of her.

Before she could lose her nerve, Gerry darted over and pushed aside the heavy, velvet drape. Inside, she sank down on the padded kneeler.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned …
She nearly lapsed into the familiar recitation before realizing how ludicrous it would be under the circumstances.

She could see a darkened silhouette through the grille and heard the faint, even sound of breathing. After a moment a voice prompted, “Yes, my child?”

“It’s me,” she hissed. “Gerry.”

She became aware of a sudden stillness; then in a hoarse whisper, he demanded, “What do you want?” From the fear in his voice, anyone eavesdropping might have thought it was a holdup.

“I think you know.”

This was a sin, what she was doing, but she didn’t care. Exhilaration rose in her.

“For the love of God—”

“You bastard. She wasn’t asking anything of you. All she wanted was the truth.”

“This … this is an outrage.” His voice rose to a shrill whine. “Have you no decency?”

“Decency? How dare you speak to me about decency?” She leaned so close her mouth was almost touching the grille. “Tell me, Jim, while you were sweeping it all under the rug, did you ever stop to think of me? Or of your daughter?”

A memory surfaced: Jim reaching to cup her bare breast as if bringing his hand to a flame, a look on his face like in the portraits of martyrs—a mixture of fear and rapture that seemed to hover on the very brink of madness.

She closed her eyes, seeing him naked in her mind, his body pale as a statue’s. Yet in her arms he’d been liquid heat, not so much making love to her as
consuming
her. Maybe it was because he’d been her first, or because it was forbidden, but she’d sensed then what she now knew to be a certainty: No one would ever make love to her quite the same again. For all its passion, deep down she’d felt afraid, as if not sure she would come out alive.

Now in the closeness of the confessional, she caught his scent, that of a trapped animal. He hissed:
“Get out.”

“I’ll go when I’m good and ready.” She felt oddly cleansed—more so than if she’d confessed. She ought to have done this years ago. “Oh yes, I’m responsible, too. I’m not denying that. And I’ve paid the price. I won’t be punished anymore.”

“What do you want?” he repeated. Only this time he sounded defeated—and old, far older than his years.

“Call off the dogs or I’ll—” What? Go to the archbishop? What would that accomplish? It might ruin Jim, but it wouldn’t keep her from being fired. “I’ll make you sorry you ever knew me,” she finished somewhat less spectacularly than she’d intended.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

“Am I supposed to believe it’s pure coincidence that the motherhouse is nosing around?” She gave a dry little laugh. “If I was that stupid once, I’m not anymore.”

“You attribute far too much power to me.”

“Just the opposite—I’ve underestimated you.” His shadowy silhouette loomed, becoming something monstrous. “If I’d wanted to have you fired, I’d have done it years ago!”

“Who said anything about my being fired?” A tiny beat of hesitation. He realized he’d given himself away. Even so, he continued the charade. “It’s a natural assumption.”

“Like you assuming this would be our little secret forever?”

“It … it … was a mistake. I never intended—”

“To fuck me? Or for me to get pregnant?” Nearly thirty years of keeping her mouth shut hadn’t caused it to diminish, just the opposite—it had grown so huge it would no longer fit in its box. “I think the archbishop will have a hard time believing you were taken advantage of by a nineteen-year-old virgin.”

“Get thee behind me!”
For a moment she feared he’d come completely unhinged; then in that same shrill whisper he went on. “It was
your
doing. You … you … led me into temptation.” He broke off with a choking sound, followed by an incoherent mumbling that she recognized after a moment as the Act of Contrition.
“Oh God, I am heartily sorry for all my sins …”

Gerry gave in to a bleak smile. When she was little, she’d thought it was “hardly sorry,” which would have been more fitting in this case. She opened her mouth to tell him he had no business asking God’s forgiveness when he had yet to make amends to her, but he was clearly beyond her now. He wouldn’t hear anything she had to say.

Silently she rose and pushed open the curtain to see a startled face eyeing her aghast: a doughy middle-aged woman, with the collar of her coat pulled up around her ears, who’d clearly heard enough, if not every word.

Millie was sent home the following day, much to Claire’s relief. With the medication her doctor had prescribed, her heart had settled into a steady rhythm, and some of her old color was back. When Millie jokingly asked if she’d live to see her first grandchild, Dr. Farland had chuckled and said, “I think that depends more on Claire.”

After the first night at Kitty’s, Claire stayed at her parents’ house, nursing her mother and seeing that her father, who would have lived off canned soup and Rice-A-Roni otherwise, was properly fed. She also cleaned the house from top to bottom, noting that Millie in her old age, had grown slipshod. When she ran out of things to clean, she went over the checkbook her father hadn’t balanced in months.

The first Sunday in April she was heading out to the grocery store—today was her last day, and she wanted to stock up—when she spotted a familiar car in the driveway next door. Byron’s blue Hyundai. Her heart skipped a beat. The next moment she was racing across the lawn, mindless of the dew soaking her shoes.

Byron met her at the door, bare-chested and wearing a pair of his oldest jeans, his hair damp from the shower. She noticed his ribs sticking out a bit—he’d dropped a few pounds—and the thought of Matt flashed through her mind: his big arms and chest, his muscles like a longshoreman’s. She immediately felt disloyal.

Her boyfriend stepped out onto the porch, easing the door shut behind him. She remembered that the Allendales slept late on weekends, sometimes into the afternoon—a habit Millie considered to be just this side of pagan.

“I got in late last night. I was just on my way over to surprise you.” He wrapped his arms around her, shivering a little with the cold. He smelled of shampoo and pipe tobacco—his father’s—and she had a sudden sense, like a crooked picture frame being straightened, that everything was going to be all right.

“You should have called to let me know you were coming.” She couldn’t keep the faint note of accusation from her voice.

“I wasn’t sure until the very last minute that I could get away.” He drew back with a smile, his eyes searching hers. “God, it’s good to see you.”

“Feel like taking a walk on the beach?” The shopping could wait. She had all morning. “We’ll grab some coffee on the way.”

“Sure. Wait here while I throw something on.” He disappeared into the house, emerging a few minutes later buttoning up an old flannel shirt she recognized from his college days. His hair was in a ponytail. On his sockless feet was a pair of ancient battered Weejuns.

“How’s your mom?” He asked as she drove toward town.

“She’s fine, but she insists on staying in bed. She’s worried she’ll have another attack.”

“Is she taking anything?”

“Coumadin. And something to help her sleep at night.”

He nodded as if concurring, and she remembered when they’d played house as little kids, how he’d strut about holding his father’s pipe while she traipsed after him, trying not to trip on her mother’s skirt. Even then he’d worn this faintly professional air.

After a quick stop at Starbuck’s—it was the one thing their mothers had in common: they both made lousy coffee—they headed out to the Dunes, steaming cups in hand. It was where they’d hung out as teenagers, and she still preferred it to the more sheltered beaches, which were usually awash in sunbathers. Here the wind blew brisk and cold year-round, bringing the sting of spray from the waves churning into the shore.

They strolled along the beach, deserted this time of day, where they’d once made love amid the dunes. The fog had burned off and the sky was a brilliant, scoured blue. Down by the tidemark, a flock of sandpipers mined for insects amid the kelp. When Byron took her hand, she scarcely noticed—as if they’d been old marrieds. There’d been a few other guys in college, sure—like the one she’d slept with after a drunken fraternity bash, whose smelly socks by the side of the bed she remembered more vividly than what he’d been like
in
bed—but no one who’d been a threat to Byron. She’d always known she would come back to him, and in the end she had.

They found a small cove that provided at least some shelter from the wind, and sank down, huddled together under the blanket she’d wisely thought to bring. For a long while they didn’t speak, just sat sipping their coffees and watching the waves pound into the shore.

Byron was the first to break the companionable silence. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said. I mean, I knew you hated your job, but I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I’m sorry if I overreacted.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, lacing her fingers through his. She was glad he’d brought it up; how much better than these past few weeks of brief, stilted conversations over the phone. “I did sort of drop it on you like a ton of bricks.”

His green eyes seemed brighter than usual, and she realized it was because he was so pale from all his long hours indoors. She felt selfish. Here she was making far-reaching decisions about her future—
their
future—while he’d been nearly killing himself just to keep up.

“If this is really what you want, I’m all for it,” he said with more conviction than she sensed he felt.

She looked out at the waves racing into the shore, silvery at the crest with smooth green underbellies. She missed the ocean, its rhythms and moods, but she’d missed Byron most of all.

“This could be the worst idea ever,” she told him. “I could fall flat on my face.” She paused to take in a breath of salty air laced with the scent of smoke from a driftwood fire. “All I know is that for the first time in my life I wake up every morning looking forward to the day.” She turned to him, beseeching him with her eyes. It wouldn’t work if he was only going along to please her.

“I’ll admit, I never pictured you as the proprietress of a tearoom,” he said, smiling faintly. “It seems so old-fashioned.”

“Maybe I
am
old-fashioned.”

“One way or another, I guess I’m not exactly in a position to throw my weight around.” He glanced wryly at the braided thong on his wrist that seemed a relic of a more carefree past. “It’s not like I can support you in fine style on what I’ll be making.”

“Poor Byron.” She leaned over and kissed the reddened tip of his nose. “Should we take up a collection?”

He laughed. “I’m not that desperate. Not yet at least.”

“Only two more years to go.” The new medical center would be up and running by then. She hadn’t said anything about it to Byron; she’d been waiting for the right moment.

“It seems more like a lifetime,” he said, injecting the right note of mournfulness into his voice.

She poked him with her elbow. “Stop it. I feel guilty enough as it is.”

“Okay. How’s it going with Gerry?”

She thought about what Gerry had done, flying up with her to see her mother. “She’s been great. They all have—Justin and Mavis too. I don’t know what I’d do without them.” She was careful to make no mention of Matt.

“It sounds as if it all worked out.” He sounded genuinely happy for her.

“Everyone’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Same here.”

“When
are
you coming?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? I had to promise my firstborn child just to get away for one day. It might be a while before I can get a whole weekend off, but I’ll try.”

She wanted to cry in frustration that she couldn’t wait forever, that there were times, more and more lately, when she felt him slipping away. But she said nothing. What would have been the point? It wasn’t as if he could help it.

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” she said.

“Before I forget, thanks for the pictures.”

She’d e-mailed him photos of the house. “I always imagined us picking out a house together, but I hope it meets with your approval.”

“All I saw was a lot of Sheetrock and lumber,” he kidded.

The thought of Matt once more tiptoed across her mind. “In that case, you have a surprise in store.”

“More than one, I’m sure.” He drew her against him so that she was tucked under his arm, her head nestled on his shoulder. “That reminds me, I have something for you.” He pulled something clumsily wrapped in tissue paper from his pocket. It was so light that, as she took it from him, the wind nearly snatched it from her hand.

It was a silver heart on a gossamer chain. Claire held it up, the sunlight winking off its filigreed surface in brilliant Morse-like flashes. “It’s beautiful. You shouldn’t have.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t break the bank.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant; she’d been thinking of the trouble he’d gone to. “Still, you shouldn’t have.” She held it up to her neck, her chilled ringers fumbling with the clasp.

“Here, let me help.”

Byron’s fingers were cool against the back of her neck. By contrast, the warmth of his lips, when it came, caused her to jump a little as if goosed. Smiling, she dropped back into his arms, offering herself up to be kissed.
Yes. This is what I need.
Just lately she’d had enough of his telling her how much he missed her, and of their long talks over the phone about a future that had begun to feel like a savings account accruing interest. Life, her recent experiences had taught her, was meant to be
spent,
not hoarded.

She reveled in the familiar pressure of his lips against hers, the darting tip of his tongue. He knew her so well. Hadn’t they made love in the shelter of these dunes as teenagers? In daylight and by the light of driftwood fires—shivering partly with cold and partly with delight, her terror of Millie and Lou’s finding out making it all the more thrilling.