Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [93]
Now they are finally alone again, Charlie fast asleep upstairs, having literally nodded off in his chicken nuggets. They’ve just finished their own dinner—linguine and clams from Antonio’s that they ate by candlelight—and have retired to the family room where the curtains are drawn, the lights are dimmed, and Willie Nelson is crooning “Georgia on My Mind” from a random mix of mellow songs that she made with Nick in mind. They have not yet touched, but she has the sense that they soon will, that something momentous, irreversible, and potentially life-changing is in the works. She knows that what she is feeling is wrong, but she believes in it—believes in him. She tells herself that he would not lead her down this path if he didn’t have a plan—if he didn’t believe in her, too.
He reaches out to take her hand and says, “I’m glad he pushed that little brat off those monkey bars.”
Valerie smiles. “I know . . . Her mother was very nice, though.”
“Yeah?” Nick asks.
“Yeah. Surprisingly so.”
“It’s always nice when people surprise you for the better,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass, then taking a long sip.
She watches him, wondering what he’s thinking but unwilling to ask such a sappy question. Instead she says, “How long can you stay?”
He gives her a candid look, clears his throat, and tells her that he has a babysitter—a young girl who thinks nothing of staying up to the small hours of the morning. Then he looks back down at his wine, and says, “Tessa’s in New York for the weekend . . . Visiting a friend and her brother.”
It is the first time he’s directly mentioned his wife in weeks, since their attraction exploded into sexual tension, and the first he’s ever said her name.
Tessa, she thinks. Her name is Tessa.
The sweet soft-whisper of a name conjures a gentle, mirthful animal lover. The kind of woman who wears brightly colored bohemian scarves, designs jewelry, and breast-fed until her children reached a year, maybe longer. A woman who ice-skates on frozen ponds in the winter, plants forget-me-nots in the spring, goes fishing in the summer, and burns incense year-round. A woman with one dimple or a small gap between her front teeth or some other charming physical quirk.
Valerie realizes suddenly that she subconsciously hoped for a harder, sleeker name, like Brooke or Reese. Or a frivolous, spoiled name, like Annabel or Sabrina. Or a fusty, stodgy one—like Lois or Frances. Or one so commonplace in their generation that it lacked any connotation, like Stephanie or Kimberly. But no—Nick married a Tessa, a name that fills her with unexpected sadness more troubling than the guilt constantly playing at the edges of her mind. A guilt she refuses to examine too closely for fear that it will interfere with what she desperately wants.
Nick touches his bare big toe to hers, their legs outstretched on the coffee table. She squeezes his hand, as if to squelch the guilt and shock that she is capable of doing such a thing. That she is here, like this, with a married man. That she hopes they will soon be touching everywhere, and that maybe, someday, he will belong to her. It is an outlandish, selfish dream, but one that seems frighteningly attainable.
But first, she must tell him about the moment today in the parking lot, the look on Romy’s face, an omission she fears might be significant enough to divert the course they are on. So she holds his hand tighter and says, “I have to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” he says, raising her hand to his mouth, kissing her thumb.
“Today,” she says. “In the parking lot after school . . .”
“Hmm-mm?” he says, looking at her, a trace of worry appearing between his brows. He swirls the wine in