A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [43]
Agnes returned to the inn with little memory of the trip down the hill. It was nearly dark when she crossed the threshold, shutting the door behind her. She took the stairs two at a time, not wanting anyone to see her in her sweater, her stringy hair. She shut the door behind her like a fugitive and caught her breath. She peeled off her clothes as she made her way to the shower. She looked at the Jacuzzi. Did all the rooms come with a Jacuzzi? Her first thought was one of pleasure. Her second one of pain. Must everything in life be referential? Was there nothing that would not remind her of Jim?
Agnes stepped out of her underwear and studied her face in the mirror over the sink. Her eyes were clear. Her skin was slightly flushed. She would not, under any circumstances, cry. She would, in fact, disregard the tub entirely. She saw, on a silver tray on the shelf under the mirror, containers of shampoo and shower gel. She twisted off the cap of the shampoo and inhaled. She smelled rosemary, grapefruit.
Harrison returned to his room, the treble note of Nora’s palm on his shoulder drowning out thought, intention, rest. Unwilling yet to go in search of Agnes, though that would have been the plan, he stood at the window and saw intermittently, as it appeared and disappeared from view around curves and below hillocks, a stretch limo making its way up the drive. The limo snagged his attention, for he thought it had to be Bill and Bridget, that they had arrived in grand style (good for Bill, Harrison thought). Harrison crossed his room so that he could have a view of the front of the inn. A woman, not Bridget, emerged from the right rear door of the limo. She was smartly dressed in a black sweater and black pants, the solid line accentuating her height, which must have been near six feet. The woman had sleek blond hair, though Harrison could see, when she turned around, that she was nearing forty if not there already. From within the dark expanse of the car, the woman was handed a fur, which she draped over one arm. Harrison watched as she walked directly into the inn without a backward glance.
From the other side of the limo, a man Harrison recognized—for his height, for his trim build, for the head of tamed reddish curls—stepped out onto the gravel and surveyed the property as if he might buy it. It was not entirely illogical that Jerry should have come by limo—he lived in Manhattan and clearly didn’t want the fuss of a car—but had the stretch really been necessary?
There would be no grand entrance for Jerry, however, no doorman, no porter for that matter. The limo driver took out the luggage—camel leather, supple, and impressive—and set it neatly on the first step of the inn, his task completed. The chauffeur had the air of a man whose strict business code barely masked his impatience to be away. (Was he hungry? Did he need a bathroom? Had Jerry been obnoxious in the car?) Jerry would be annoyed at having to manage his own luggage (or would Judy have to fetch the bags and haul them up the stairs?), and Nora, in Jerry’s book, would be down a point or two before she’d even begun. Harrison was tempted to open his door and walk to the top of the stairs simply to overhear what Jerry had to say when he stepped into the lobby and there was no one there to greet him. Or would the sight of the limo have roused the troops?
Harrison supposed he ought to go for another walk. He needed to order his thoughts. The prospect of seeing faces one had known intimately in another universe—the unsettling illusion that these people were truly his closest friends, though he had not seen some of them in twenty-seven years—as well as the notion of presenting oneself to one’s peers for judgment (was Harrison doing well? was he happy in marriage? did he look forty-four?) disturbed him. Though not as much as Nora’s quick touches, on the knee and on his shoulder, surely meaningless at their age, merely a way of making a point, and yet sounding that note that was still quivering in the air. And then there was