Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [50]
“Hello,” she said coolly.
Ben looked at Charlie. “I say, Piglet. I believe we’re in for some stormy weather.”
She stared at them for a moment. Then she dropped the bag of books she was carrying and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Ben stepped off the table and sank into a chair. He crossed his long limbs, bent and unbent like a grasshopper. His fingers skimmed the tablecloth, tapped his plate, retracted, unfolded. Candlelight flickered on his glasses.
Charlie glanced at Alison, and she glanced back at him. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on?” he said, forcing a small laugh.
In a soft voice, Ben finished his song. “I’m just floating a-round, o-ver the ground, won-der-ing where I will drip.”
“So what do you think?” Claire asked Charlie the next day. They were sitting at opposite ends of the living room couch, sipping tea. Ben had gotten up early to attend a Saturday morning lecture a prominent architect was giving at the museum, and Alison had decided at the last minute to accompany him.
“Of your going AWOL?” The evening had ended with Alison claiming exhaustion and going to bed, and Ben and Charlie finishing the Scotch in silence with the lights off, watching the red-hot coils of the electric heater in the living room. Charlie had slept on the couch. Claire stayed in her room. He was hoping that now she might tell him what was going on.
“God.” She shook her head. “No, of Alison.”
“I’m more interested in you, at the moment.”
“I’m interested in what you think of Alison.”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
“You’re impossible,” she said, throwing a pillow at him.
He ducked, lifting his cup. “You’re the one who didn’t show up last night.”
“You seemed to do fine without me.”
“Come on, Claire.”
She took a long sip of tea. “Maybe I was jealous,” she said.
“What?” Charlie said incredulously.
“Maybe,” she said.
His heart leapt a little and then, just as quickly, sank. It made no sense. “You’re the one with the boyfriend. Excuse me, fiancé. And you—you set me up with Alison. She’s your friend.”
“I know,” she said. “But maybe I decided I didn’t want to share you.” She set down her cup and put her hands over her eyes. “I’m being a baby. Alison is my best friend, and you—you’re my closest friend here, besides Ben, of course, and I just realized that if you and Alison got together I’d lose both of you. You’d become obsessed with each other.”
“Aren’t you moving a little fast? I just met the girl last night. I don’t even know if she likes me.”
“She does,” Claire said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. That’s why I set you up. I knew she’d like you, and you’d probably like her.” She pushed his leg with her bare foot. “So do you?”
“You’re a mindfuck, Claire,” Charlie said.
She gazed at him for a long time, and he stared steadily back at her. It was the first time they’d looked in each other’s eyes, and Charlie refused to look away. What had she just said? That she was jealous, that she wanted him for herself. Did she really mean it? He feared that if he didn’t seize this moment it would slip past him like so many others. He had a habit of not taking seriously the choices that were laid in front of him, or perhaps not recognizing their magnitude until too late.
Finally she said, “I love Ben.”
“I know,” he said.
“He’s good for me.”
“I know.”
“I wish. … ” She sighed. “I wish I could live two lives.”
Charlie shrugged, feeling the weight of rejection pressing on his chest, though until that moment he hadn’t imagined that she would ever see it that way—as a choice between him and Ben. “I—”
She reached over and put the flat of her hand against his lips. “Don’t,” she said, and sank back into her corner of the couch. “Don’t