Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [64]
“I like being able to rely on things staying the same, well, I used to anyway,” I said and then realized how pitiful that must have sounded.
John was quiet then and I thought, oh Lord, he’s probably worried that I’m getting emotional. Men hated it when women let their feelings get the better of them. I had probably just ruined the night by reminding him about the loss of Addison, that I was broke, and that I was mortified by my changed circumstances. He was deciding then and there that I was too much trouble to get involved with. I probably was. He was probably wondering what I did to make my husband want to kill himself. Good grief, I thought, I’m not only a broke widow, I’m also damaged goods. Maybe dangerous, too.
My paranoid indulgence was for nothing. Just as I turned to him and was about to launch into an I’ll-survive explanation for what I’d said, he reached his hand out to cover mine and gave it a squeeze.
“Look,” he said, “I know it hasn’t been easy lately. It’s okay. Anyway, sometimes change is good.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. Definitely. I mean, look, how do you know what’s going to happen to you now? The universe, or whatever you believe in, might have something unbelievably wonderful in store for you.”
“I have merely retreated to the familiar and I believe in God, just so you know. I grew up Catholic, but in Aunt Daisy’s Leftist cafeteria sect.”
He laughed then, a hearty laugh that had been unused for a while. I began to laugh, too. The pall was officially lifted.
He said, “I want to hear all about that.”
“In between history lessons?”
“Anytime.”
We finally pulled up to the Porgy House and I was safely home, back on Folly Beach. There was nothing darker than a beach on a moonless night, and at the door, I fumbled around in my purse to find the keys.
“You need a porch light,” he said.
“Boy, no kidding!”
“I can take care of that. I mean, it’s no big deal. I go to Lowe’s all the time.”
“Thanks. But I don’t know if it would be historically correct. Aunt Daisy doesn’t want anything changed.”
“Oh, well, maybe the Heywards used tiki torches. Let’s find out.”
I giggled again. God, I was glad he had a sense of humor. What’s worse than a humorless man?
I finally found the house key and unlocked the front door. Rather than invite him in (dangerous territory), I decided it was wiser to just say good night so that the evening would end on a high note. I turned to face him only to see him retreating down the steps.
“I had a great time,” he said.
“Me too,” I said but there was no mistaking the disappointment in my traitorous voice.
He stopped and turned around. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing! Nothing’s wrong. I just thought, you know, well . . . I thought, well, okay then. I had a great time, too!”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh! God, no! No! I don’t know what I was thinking!”
He looked down at the ground and then up to me and shook his head, incredulous that a woman could get the whole way to my age and still not have one shred of cool in her arsenal of social skills.
“Do you want to invite me in?” he said.
S. H. I. T.
“Well, of course I do but I’m not sure what to do about that because you know you’re . . . well, you know . . .”
“Married?”
“Well, it crossed my mind. And I’m, well, you know . . .”
“Unsure of what would happen?”
“Oh, no . . . I mean, yeah, that, too.”
“Look, we’re not kids, Cate. It’s gonna happen . . . you and me, that is unless I am reading the signs wrong.”
“Oh, no. You read well! Yes, you do . . . but I . . .”
“You’re nervous and you don’t want to get involved with a married man?”
“Yeah, that’s about . . . yeah.”
“There’s an explanation.”
He began walking toward me and up the few steps until he was right in front of me in my personal space that was, believe me, completely unviolated by his close proximity. He took my face in his hand and with his other hand he reached for the small of my back but this time it wasn’t a ceremonial