Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (8 page)

The busboy refilled their glasses of cucumber water, the ice sparking in the sunlight, the sound of classical music covering a long lull in the conversation. Nervous, Thea picked up her glass. Lately, she'd been working extremely long hours at the coffee shop, and she'd looked forward to her lunch date with Sue. They'd already covered the unusually cool weather, the traffic on the bridge, and the drop in numbers of tourists. But the truth was that neither one of them had come for chitchat.

Thea shored up her courage. “Have you spoken to Jonathan?”

“I talked to him. And he seems fine. But he always seems fine.” When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “What happened—if you don't mind my asking. I thought everything was going so smoothly . . .”

“So did I.” Thea squeezed Sue's hand; her friend's compassion showed clear on her face. “He clammed up in the last year. Like he was going through the motions but nothing else. I wish he would have talked to me. Warned me that something was wrong.”

“Sweetheart. It sounds like he did.”

Thea was quiet. As far as she knew, no one had told Sue about Jonathan's infidelity. And Thea wasn't about to. What she wanted from Sue was guidance. Understanding. Wisdom. All the things she had come to depend on from her good friend. “Please. Tell me what I should do.”

Sue drew her hand back and picked up her white wine, her fingers almost as thin as the crystal stem. “Did you know Ken cheated on me once?”

“He did?”

Sue nodded, her usually gentle smile marred for a moment by nerves. “I don't know if I should call it cheating really. It was more of an emotional affair. And they may have fooled around a little bit . . .”

“How did you find out?”

“He felt so terrible about it he confessed everything. He bought me a new car that I left sitting in the garage for six months. I thought my life was ending, and if it wasn't for the boys holding us together, we might have come apart.”

“But you didn't.”

“No, we didn't.” Sue looked out the window, where the sun was spraying the water with gold. “We toughed it out. And now that I can look back on it, all I see is a moment that made us stronger—that brought us together. We got through that. I think we could get through anything.”

Thea sat back in her seat, moved by the thought that Sue's perfect-looking marriage wasn't always so perfect, and she wondered again how much Sue really knew. Sue's resilience in the face of pain was meant to be encouraging, but instead, Thea had the sense that her own marriage to Jonathan was nothing like the relationship that Ken and Sue shared. And when Thea found out that Jonathan had cheated, she hadn't felt angry so much as resigned, as if the inevitable had finally arrived.

Since her friends had asked her whether or not she'd been happy, she'd been thinking about the circumstances of her marriage. She'd assumed that because she wasn't unhappy she must have been happy. And yet now she was beginning to see that there was a third state—one she'd never considered before—and it felt an awful lot like happiness but wasn't quite it.

The waiter brought their salads, loaded with nuts and fruit, but Thea didn't pick up her fork. “And what about us? I mean, you and me.”

“We've been through worse than this. You know that.”

“So you're saying this won't be a big deal. That we can stay friends.”

“Of course we'll stay friends! But if it starts to get too messy . . . Oh never mind. I can't imagine this getting messy—you and Jonathan are both such well-meaning people. As long as Jonathan is okay with it, I see no reason we can't keep having our harmless little lunches from time to time.”

Thea picked up her fork. It wasn't quite the declaration she'd hoped for—not a pledge of undying loyalty—but she felt comforted nonetheless.

“So tell me,” Sue said, stabbing at her salad. “What are your plans for the week?”

 

 

On days when school was closed and the snow went whipping down the narrow streets, Jonathan, Garret, and Thea bundled up in hats, sweaters, mittens, and scarves, and then headed outside. The snow piled here and there, blanketing cars and frosting windows, and the whole city was thrown into a familiar and intimate silence—one it had once known so well, four hundred years ago.

Much as Jonathan loved days off from school, Garret was always especially reckless in the snow—so much that it made Jonathan nervous for them both. And when Thea wasn't around, Garret's foolishness knew no restraints. He was so much more likely to do dumb things if she wasn't there to stop him—like jump off the roof of the bakery into a snowdrift or decide to go sledding down the middle of the street. Jonathan tried to keep his little brother from being irresponsible, but Garret always ended the argument with the word that never failed to sock Jonathan in the gut:
coward
.

Unfortunately, Garret's antics were just the first half of Jonathan's torment; the other half he owed to his parents. After Garret had been grounded or sent to his room, Jonathan could never shake the sense that his parents secretly admired Garret for his outrageousness and daring. Family friends would ask, “What's Garret grounded for this time?” and always Sue and Ken would answer with an amused twinkle in their eyes: “Oh you know. Boys will be boys.” Though Jonathan worked hard at his studies, never forgetting his homework, always getting A's, Garret never failed to outshine him with little more than a good drive down the soccer field or a zinger of a joke that cracked up his class—even if it landed him in detention.

Maybe if Jonathan hadn't been so pissed off on the day of the snowstorm during his junior year. Maybe if Thea hadn't been sick, and had been there to distract Garret from his need for adrenaline, and Jonathan from his need to compete. Maybe if it hadn't snowed, and they weren't bored, and the rungs leading to the tops of the telephone poles hadn't been quite so appealing . . .

Maybe then Jonathan wouldn't have said, “Yes, but let's make it a race.”

On the steely, cold rungs of the telephone pole, Jonathan's boots squeaked, but the treads held firm. His muscles worked until he perspired beneath his snow pants. He wanted to beat his brother so bad it made little black stars creep in at the edges of his eyes. As the ground disappeared beneath him, falling away inch by inch, the frozen white sky growing closer—he heard Thea's voice. She'd come out after all; she'd found them. She was calling up to them, her voice cracking the air, calling
get down
, and he looked to see that he was ahead of Garret—
ahead!
—higher and higher than his brother, and he thought, with the thrill knights must have felt climbing towers for maidens,
I'll win this one for her, for her, because she's watching
—

Right before he lost his footing and fell.

At the hospital, tucked into a hard white bed, his parents stared down at him in disappointment and shook their heads. “You should have known better,” they said.

And Jonathan could only close his eyes and pretend he was sleeping, because they were right: he should have known better. He
always
was supposed to know better—better than Garret anyway.

 

 

“Irina!” Thea called to her daughter, who was out on the floor, talking to Hollis and Dean as they set up their chessboard. She'd just come from practice. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung down thin and straight, and her entire left side was a grass stain. She was telling them about it like a fisherman might brag about his catch of the day. “Irina!”

Irina glanced over at her, then looked back at the chess players, going on with her story as if Thea hadn't just called her name. Hollis, who was placing black pawns one by one on their squares, rolled his eyes—just enough so that Thea would see.

Thea finished making a café breve of espresso and cream, and she set it on the counter for Claudine. “Will you take this to table six?”

Claudine smirked. Her big bracelets clacked together as she picked up the drink. “
Mon Dieu
. She's a talker, that one.”

Thea didn't bother to answer. She hurried over to her customers' table to save them from her domineering kid, wiping her hands on her apron as she went. “Sorry about this,” she said, smiling sweetly. “She's always been a chatterbox.”

“It's fine,” Hollis said.

“Let's just get to playing,” Dean said.

Thea tugged her daughter by the arm away from the old men. Later she would bring over a few little butter cookies, on the house, to thank them for their patience. But for now, she glared at Irina—embarrassed that she would so publicly and purposefully misbehave. “Irina, I was calling you.”

“I know,” Irina said.

“Your uncle Garret is going to be here any minute,” Thea said. “Now come with me.”

Irina didn't simply
follow
Thea back across the room, she
stomped
. Once behind the counter, Thea bent until she was at her daughter's level, where they were both hidden from prying eyes by the tall, refrigerated pastry case. She had to hold her daughter's shoulders to make her stand still.

“Mr. Cooper and Mr. Gray don't want to talk right now. They're here to play chess and complain about coffee. Not to talk to little girls.”

Irina was petulant. “How do you know?”

“I just do,” she said.

“You don't know anything!”

Thea frowned. Her daughter was never so surly. Thea could only guess that she was upset about having to go visit her father—not because she didn't want to see him, but because she was reacting to the disconnect and pressure of having to make such a production about going to see the man she once saw every day. The only thing Thea could do was assure her: this would begin to feel more comfortable with time.

“You're going to have a nice day today,” she said.

“I know.”

Thea let Irina go. “Do you have everything you need to go with Uncle Garret? Do you have your backpack?”

“Yeeeees.”

“Did you put all your toys in it that you want to bring?”

“Yeeeeees.”

“All right. So there's nothing to worry about. Stay back here until your uncle gets here, okay? No more going out on to the floor today.”

Irina pouted.

“Understand?”

“Yeeeeees, Ma,” she said, and then she found a chair in the corner where she could kick her legs out and sulk. Thea picked up a clipboard and went back to work, counting the number of gallons of milk so that she would know how many more to order.

A moment later, Claudine was standing beside her. “She's taking it hard,” she said under her breath.

“She doesn't like being away from home.”

“Of course not. She gets it from her mom.”

Thea glanced at Claudine, not sure what to say. Claudine had never been catty, exactly, but she didn't mince words. “I like my house,” Thea said. “It's . . . where I live.”

Claudine draped an angular arm around her for a moment. “It's a very nice house.”

“Thanks,” Thea said, and rather than reading into Claudine's odd comment, she put it out of her mind.

Ten minutes later, Claudine had gone out back for her break and Thea was wrapping a blueberry scone in wax paper when Garret came in, his cell phone pressed to his ear and his mouth seeming to go at a million miles an hour. She swallowed her nervousness. He was wearing khaki shorts, a nice black polo that stretched snugly across his shoulders, and flip-flops. He pushed his dark sunglasses up to rest on the top of his blond hair, then snapped the phone closed.

“Where's Irina?” he asked.

Hello to you too,
Thea thought.

“Present,” Irina called out. She pushed herself off of her chair, slumped forward with cartoonish glumness. Her footfalls were heavy against the tile.

“Ready, kid?” Garret asked hopefully. But Irina didn't so much as smile.

Thea crouched down and spoke softly. To her dismay, she saw tears swimming in her daughter's hazel eyes. “Listen to me, sweetheart. You're not staying there overnight again. You're just going to go hang out with Daddy for the day. Doesn't that sound like fun?”

Her lower lip trembled. “Why can't you come with us?”

Thea took Irina's hand and led her around to the side of the counter where Garret stood waiting. “I bet you and Daddy are doing something really fun today.”

Irina tugged her hand hard. “But you should come too. I want to see Daddy and you. At the same time.”

“Irina . . .”

“Why can't you come with me?”

Thea faltered, and amazingly enough, she found herself looking to Garret for help. She didn't expect him to be good with kids—though at one time she'd believed he wanted to be a father—but even a complete numskull would know how to help with this if he knew how to take a hint. “Garret? Why don't you tell Irina what you're doing today?”

He answered without hesitation. “Playing mini golf,” he said, and he flashed his big, charming smile. “Have you ever played mini golf?”

Irina nodded.

“Do you like it?”

She nodded again.

“I bet you're not very good at it though,” he said. “Your mom never was.”

“I'm good at it!” Irina said, and she let go of Thea's hand. “I'm awesome at it. I'm the best in my school!”

Thea glanced at Garret, thankful—and trying not to remember the night he kept hiding her golf ball under windmills and fiberglass stones. “Irina, why don't you go use the bathroom before you get in the car?”