Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [10]
All evening, Claire had watched Ben work the room as only Ben could, seeking out the uncomfortable and the socially awkward, refilling drinks and matchmaking commonalities. Every now and then he’d look over at her and lift his glass, offering to refill hers, or raise his eyebrows in a bid to rescue her if she needed it. More than once, feeling the warmth of his gaze, Claire wondered how it could be possible to love someone as much as she loved Ben, and yet no longer be in love.
Chapter Three
Ben needed a drink. For the past fifteen minutes he’d been listening to Martha Belle Clancy, Claire’s mother’s best friend, talk about her hobby—a series of needlework dioramas she was making of major Civil War battles (she’d completed six already, through Fredericksburg)— and for at least twelve of those minutes, his glass had been empty. Feigning interest in Martha Belle, a challenge to begin with, was getting harder by the second. Ben had already chatted pleasantly with Claire’s mother about all the things she disliked about New York—the weather, the traffic, the noise—and by now he figured he had just about fulfilled his husbandly obligations.
Surreptitiously, he glanced around the room—wasn’t a waiter supposed to be circulating? He’d settle for another blue martini, though what he really wanted was a Scotch. Where might Colm have hidden the hard stuff? If Ben could somehow extricate himself, maybe he could hunt it down.
Just then Alison emerged from a crowd in the hall, and Ben was momentarily distracted. He watched as she moved across the room to the drinks table, where the bartender poured her a martini. My God, she’s lovely, he thought—those fine features, bright inquisitive eyes. She seemed flooded with quivering energy, like a doe standing in a clearing. The gray sweater and black pants she was wearing reminded him of how she’d looked in England ten years ago. With faint creases around her eyes, her slim body softened slightly by motherhood, she was still, he thought, gamine, with an Audrey Hepburn–like grace.
Why was she alone? Why hadn’t Charlie come? Being present at these kinds of events was the sort of thing the two couples always did for each other, expected of each other. It was Claire’s first, perhaps only, book, as important to her as the births of Alison and Charlie’s children (and hadn’t Ben and Claire come to the hospital as soon as they could, hadn’t they brought flowers and gifts even as Ben’s heart was aching with longing for a child of his own as he held the astonishingly light bundle in his arms, looking down at its curranty face?). Clearly it had something to do with that falling-out between Claire and Alison, which Claire refused to discuss with Ben in any kind of rational way but also refused to get past. What was that all about, anyway? It was so unlike Claire to hold a grudge. Ben attributed it to prepublication jitters and maybe some unresolved childhood issues. It did make things awkward for the four of them. Ben didn’t feel that he could call to make plans, and even his friendship with Charlie—which he’d thought of, perhaps näively, as separate from the couples’ friendship—had suffered; Charlie stopped calling. Ben picked up the phone several times to dial Charlie’s number at work and then … put it down.
Ben and Charlie used to meet for lunch twice a month at least, at the Harvard Club (if Ben was paying) or a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place called Kung Pao (if Charlie was). More often they’d send each other e-mail arcana—a funny video clip, an absurd real-news story, a link to someone’s noteworthy blog or an obscure band’s Web site. Sometimes they’d get together