Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [84]
John added the tip, took his receipt, and stood, coming around to pull my chair away from the table.
I stood and he put his finger under my chin and said, “Ms. Cooper? I have not met someone like you in so long I cannot say. But I have this funny feeling that you’re going places with your ideas on the Heywards and I want to go with you.”
“Oh, John,” I said. Someone had not just an interest in me but also a little faith.
This man was going to be mine, somehow, some way, I was going to make him mine. Actually, so far it didn’t appear that he would put up much of a fight.
“It’s dark,” I said, when we went outside to the car.
“Dark enough to steal away into the night and throw caution to the wind?”
“How fast can you drive those clichés?”
We laughed then, completely comfortable with each other, knowing full well what we were about to do. To sleep with a man after knowing him for such a short period of time was not like me at all, because I never had, but I hadn’t been single for decades. Besides, if television represented real life, this was what people did in 2010. They had spontaneous sex. To be honest, at that moment? I was going for it. I’d debate the sense of it later.
Along the road we’d steal a glance at each other and smile. We were excited. It was cold and most of the way home we could see our breath. But this time I had the key to the front door in my hand before we got there and we walked right in like we owned the place. There was only a small light coming from the kitchen, but it was enough to cast a faint glow across most of the first floor. He disappeared upstairs. After all, John knew the house better than I did. He had been coming here for years. Wait! What was he doing? Getting undressed?
“Hey, John? Would you like a glass of something?” I called out. “White wine? I’ve got a bottle here in the refrigerator.”
Suddenly, I was getting very nervous. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to appear to be so cavalier about something so important. No matter what they did on HBO or in the movies, I didn’t want to make a mistake and then be embarrassed if he never called me again. He’d show up with students and I’d have to hide in a closet. What if he had a sexually transmitted disease? Like herpes or something or that awful HPV virus or what if he had a weird one? I’d heard about that, you know, men with weird ones were all over the place.
“Not yet,” he said. “Why don’t you come up here? I want to show you something.”
Oh, God, come on! What was he going to show me? IT? My mind was racing. Okay, I said, get a grip for God’s sake. What’s he going to do? Jump you? That’s ridiculous! So I took a few breaths, got the bottle, two glasses, and the corkscrew. Then I inched my way toward the dark stairs, turning on the light switch.
“Turn off the light,” he said.
“Why?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as frightened as I was becoming. What was he doing? I made my way up to the second floor, slowly. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the living room.”
Good, praise God, I thought. He’s not in a bedroom.
“Come see!”
There it was. The fullest and largest moon I had ever seen, hanging over the ocean, rising in orange and then turning gold. It was absolutely gorgeous.
“Oh!” It was simply amazing.
“Here, give me that,” he said, taking the bottle and glasses from me. “I remembered the paper said it was a full moon tonight and boy, it sure is something, isn’t it?”
While I stood there, dazed by the spectacular display seemingly just across the street, John popped the cork, poured two glasses, and handed me one.
“Yes,” I said and took a sip. “It looks like it’s coming to get us.”
He pushed away my hair and kissed the back of my neck.
“It’s okay, Cate. You’re safe with me. I promise.”
I turned around to face him and met his beautiful hazel eyes. His face was illuminated in the moonlight. I believed him and let him kiss me, which I already knew was going to be a pretty pyrotechnical experience. It was. I was still holding my glass, groping around for the edge of