Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [29]
For the rest of the evening she sat at the table, watching the others but not listening. Yes, she nodded, yes, and smiled slightly, a vague, all-purpose response. Alison glanced at her sharply a few times, but she was accustomed to Claire’s moods. Her way of compensating was to natter on. “There’s a big sale at the ABC outlet in Hoboken,” she said, “and you know, Charlie, we really need a rug for the bedroom. I can’t stand stepping on that cold floor every morning. What about sisal, not the scratchy kind, wool, maybe in a neutral or something? Do you guys have a rug in your bedroom? I can’t remember.”
“Just an old Oriental that’s falling apart,” Ben said. “We could use a new one. What do you think, Claire? Should we brave the sale this weekend?”
All Claire could think about was the feel of Charlie’s thigh under his khakis, the long stretch of muscle, the thin, taut skin. “We could do that,” she said.
Ben launched into a story Claire had already heard about a guy in his office who was dating Miss New York. “I’ll clear,” she said, getting up from the table. She gathered empty glasses and a serving plate and attempted to arrange them in her arms.
“Be careful,” Alison said.
Charlie stood up and took a wineglass from Claire. “I’ll help.”
Ben caught her eye. She could tell that he was annoyed and a little hurt that Charlie wasn’t listening.
“You sit,” she told Charlie. “I’ve got it.”
“I need to stretch anyway,” he said.
At the swinging door to the kitchen she turned around and pushed through backward, and Charlie looked at her with a funny smile the other two couldn’t see.
“What?” she said when they were in the kitchen, the door squeaking on its hinges behind them.
“Escape,” he mouthed.
“It’s actually a funny story,” she said, turning her back to him and opening the dishwasher. “It’s just that I’ve heard it before.”
“They get old, don’t they?”
She didn’t answer. Then she said, “Can you get the plates?” When he left the room she found someone’s half-finished glass of wine, and took a long swallow.
He came back in with the plates. She was rinsing a bowl in the sink. For a moment they didn’t talk. “I want to touch you,” he said quietly, and though he had never said it before, she nodded without surprise, as if she’d been expecting it. He ran his hand down her neck and she arched her back. Fingers on skin: the contact was an electric shock. Her body stung where he touched her—cheek, shoulder, upper arm, hand. For so long she’d avoided looking him in the eye for this very reason: as she looked into them now, cerulean blue, she saw her own need reflected back. He kissed her neck and she felt the roughness of his lips, chapped by the wind. Without shutting off the faucet she turned to face him, touching his scaly lip with her tongue. He pushed against her, opening to her, his mouth, his hands, his legs. She felt pulled in, like something she had seen once on a nature special, a rabbit being swallowed by a snake, the serpent’s jaw unlocking, mouth open wide, neck muscles constricting as it eased the rabbit in.
Chapter Six
“We should go out there,” Ben said, pacing back and forth in front of the living room window. “We could take their kids for the afternoon or something. I feel so damn—helpless.” He sighed. “You know, I handed her a second martini. I forced it on her.”
After the phone call from Charlie, Ben had gotten out of bed and gone down to the French Roast on the corner for two lattes, coming back with a newspaper, several morning glory muffins, a bag of clementines. Since returning from his errand he’d been restless, jumpy, miserable. Somehow Ben’s hand-wringing