A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [50]
There was a long silence between them. Nora crossed her arms, the empty water glass dangling between her fingers by the stem. “I was disappointed when you weren’t at the gate,” she said finally.
Harrison could feel the heat begin in his neck and crawl up behind his ears.
“Telling the truth is erotic,” Nora said. “Like opening the mouth wide for a kiss.”
The thrumming sensation Harrison had had earlier in the day began again inside his chest. “It’s what lovers do when they meet,” he said.
“I don’t ever want a lover,” Nora said.
“A man can’t say that,” Harrison said. “Well, he can say it, but it’s pretty meaningless.”
“Presumably you don’t want a lover because you’re married.”
Harrison didn’t hesitate. “That would be correct,” he said.
He felt a light punch to his biceps.
“Branch,” Jerry said.
“Jerry,” Harrison said, shaking his hand, aware as he was doing so that Nora was drifting away from him.
“You still in Toronto?” Jerry asked.
“I am,” Harrison said, slightly rattled by Nora’s disappearance.
“You ever think about New York? I mean, isn’t that the hot center of your business? Publishing?”
“My wife is from Toronto,” Harrison said, absolutely certain that he and Jerry had had this exact sequence of questions and answers in New York City five years ago.
“I know a guy at Random House you ever want an introduction.”
“Let me guess. He owes you big-time.”
“I made him a bundle in the early nineties,” Jerry said, taking a sip of what looked to be scotch. He was expensively done up in camel cashmere, the only one of them not in a jacket.
“Didn’t I see your wife just a minute ago?” Harrison asked.
“She went upstairs to powder. She’ll be back. Who’d have thought Nora could pull this off? You know who’s backing her?”
“I don’t,” Harrison said. “I more or less had the impression she’s on her own.”
“The toilets are for shit, and, Christ, you’d think they could scrounge up a porter. But the rooms are good. No complaint there. She kept her looks, didn’t she?”
Harrison found he minded, on Nora’s behalf, this mildly sexist remark. “She’s lovely,” Harrison said.
“Get off. You always had a thing for her,” Jerry said, draining his glass. He held the glass high over his head to signal to the bartender that he needed another.
“She was Stephen’s girl,” Harrison said, hating that he even had to say Stephen’s name aloud.
“You and Steve were best friends,” Jerry said.
Harrison was pretty sure that no one had ever called Stephen Steve.
“And you were there, right?” Jerry asked. “That night he walked into the water? Really, is that what he did, just walked into the water? I mean, who would do that? The water couldn’t have been over forty degrees. They say that lobster fishermen don’t even bother to learn how to swim because if you fall overboard that time of year, you’ve got like a minute or two to get out before your heart stops. Swimming does no good whatsoever.”
“I didn’t actually see it,” Harrison said.
“Really.”
Harrison was silent.
“I mean,” Jerry said, “if you’d seen it . . .”
“If I had seen Stephen walking toward the water,” Harrison said as evenly as he could manage, “I certainly would have stopped him.”
“Of course you would,” Jerry said, eyeing him over the scotch. “You going to the outlets tomorrow?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Harrison said.
Jerry cast an impatient glance in the waiter’s direction. “Who knew Bill and Bridget had got back together? Wild, huh?”
“Wild.”
“They say it’s in the lymph nodes.”
Harrison nodded slowly.
“If the chemo doesn’t take, two years tops, according to this guy from Lenox Hill I play squash with,” Jerry said.
“Then we’ll just have to believe that the chemotherapy is working, won’t we?” Harrison said.
“Yeah. Well,” Jerry said, cocking his head to suggest that he wouldn’t bet with his own money.
Harrison tried to remember an article he’d read a few months earlier in the Wall Street Journal. “Didn’t I read,” he asked