A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [17]
“This could be in House & Garden,” Agnes said. “Have you had photographs taken?”
“Oh,” Nora said. “A few.”
In the bathroom was a tumbled marble counter with polished chrome fixtures that looked as though they’d come from England. Tucked into an alcove and under another bank of windows was an oval bathtub, a Jacuzzi. The linens as well as the bath mats underfoot were plush and white.
“I’m simply amazed,” Agnes said, unable any longer to keep from walking to the bed and sitting down.
“You must be tired,” Nora said. “I’ll let you rest.” Nora checked her watch, a gesture Agnes couldn’t ever remember Nora making before. Had she even owned a watch?
“To think of you with all of this,” Agnes said. She thought about how it might take years to find the thing you really wanted, at which you were really good.
Nora moved toward the door, setting the gold key on the desk. “I’ll see you at drinks tonight. If not before. Six-thirty in the library?”
Agnes laughed. “How nice for us that Bill and Bridget decided to get married.” She paused. “How is Bridget?” she asked.
“I think it will be a strain for her,” Nora said. “But Bill . . . Bill insists he has enough energy and desire for the two of them. We’re trying to keep this simple. Bridget may have to leave from time to time to rest. But that’s fine. We’ll all manage.”
“I’m sure it will be lovely,” Agnes said.
“If you just go to the dining room, whatever the time, someone will find you and feed you.”
Nora shut the door behind her. Alone, Agnes lay down on the bed and then scuttled along the duvet so that her head rested upon the silky-crisp pillowcase. She thought immediately of Jim, of how she wished he were with her. Agnes imagined surprising Nora and the others with her lover, the instant celebrity that would attend her for having brought a former teacher to their gathering—and carrying with her the whiff of scandal, too. But again, no, Agnes would not do that. It would be wrong to upstage Bridget at her own wedding. So there would be no Jim at the inn, though she longed for him. She fanned her arm along the duvet, touching the space where Jim might have lain. Sometimes, the longing was keen and rough-edged, and in an instant could turn to rage or self-pity. Why me? Agnes would sometimes cry out. Why could she not have the one thing she really wanted? She would give up everything else. Really she would. Even if she only had a year. Would she take that? A year of frequent and regular meetings and then never again? Yes, she thought she would. For no matter how hard it would be to part after that year, at least she would have had something.
But then again, she thought, she did have something. It was a something large and indefinable, but it was her life.
Agnes sighed and rolled over onto her stomach. She wished she could forget.
Agnes did not have the luxury of forgetting.
She got up off the bed and walked to the window. She leaned her forehead against the glass. At least, she thought, she would be able to write to Jim again without seeming too pushy, without first having had a reply from him. For how could she not write to him of this reunion of his former students? He would want to hear of them, wouldn’t he? She would write him a long letter, describing the inn and Nora and all of the others as best she could. She would write a chatty letter—no, a witty letter, one that would make him laugh. There would be no words of love in the letter. It would simply be a missive from one friend to another, multilayered, rich, and detailed.
Agnes saw a man emerging from the entrance. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He had on a navy sweater over a white dress shirt. His hair was dark and thinning just at the crown. The man made a turn where a path curved around to the back of the inn, and Agnes saw then that it was Harrison Branch. Agnes pushed at the window to open it and realized it was