Love Invents Us - Amy Bloom [54]
“You’ve changed more than he has, and you haven’t changed much.”
“I have.”
“Have not.” He pulled up her hand and kissed it. “Have not, have not, have not. So there. What’re you looking for?”
“A tree suitable for seductive leaning.”
“Don’t bother. Don’t bother looking. There’s no need.”
The tiny black pits of his shaved beard, the leaf fragments in his black hair, his slightly chapped lips, with a dry whitish spot smack in the middle of the lower one, were all she saw. Huddie licked the dry spot and kissed her. He put his wet forehead to her collarbone, his nose pressed into her neck so that he could only breathe by opening his mouth and pulling back slightly. They heard the damp suck of his kiss and he felt Elizabeth’s silent laugh, and pulled away entirely. Anything but her sweet, lovestruck voice saying his name would push him back to his right mind, where he did not want to be.
“Huddie. Hudd-eee,” Elizabeth whispered.
“I did write to you. I wrote almost every day, for weeks. I never heard back. My aunt and uncle said—well, you know what kind of things they’d say. I wrote one time to Mrs. Hill. I called your mother one time, but I don’t guess you got the message.”
“Never. And I didn’t get those letters, Hud. She died right after you were sent away. Oh, boy. Broken hearts all around. I never heard from you, about you, at all. A few times I skulked around the store, thinking your father might have softened up, that he’d give me your address or just drop a hint.”
“I don’t guess he did.”
“No, not even close. He did say that you’d be going to Howard. But I wrote to Howard that fall and they’d never heard of you.”
“Howard? Shit, I ended up at Michigan. You obviously did not watch college basketball.”
“Not much. A few times. It made me cry and I didn’t see you. Ridiculous,” Elizabeth said, hooking her hands inside his belt, feeling him big and wide against her, exactly as she thought he’d be. “Closer.”
Huddie felt her breasts through her T-shirt, pouring through his suit and shirt, dense liquid hearts at rest on his middle ribs. He wouldn’t say a word now, wouldn’t exhale, stared hard at his watch the way a person who’s not where he’s supposed to be does. He wanted to cross himself, like the boys from Fordham, all of whom, even the Jews, understood that the cross was to placate Fate, to demonstrate humility and helplessness when all your talent and practice were not enough to swing the odds in your favor. He unhooked her thumbs, turning her palms down when she brought them up to his mouth, smooth, round palms, curved like her thighs, spread wide for the kisses he very carefully, gathering his wits, doesn’t give. He fished for his car keys and left his hands in his pockets.
“Maybe we didn’t really want to. Maybe we wanted to keep it the way it was.” He sighed. “Who knows. I’m sorry about Mrs. Hill. Let’s go, lady. I gotta get back to the store. It’s the end of delivery day. There’ll be six feet of charcuterie and eggplant terrine all over the floor.”
“What happened to the pigs’ feet?”
“We still got ’em. In the soul section. And shrimp paste and rice noodles and biscotti and tapenade. We upscale now.”
And she thought that if he could be sure of not being mocked, he would be pleased and only a little sorry that the dusty Coca-Cola cases and cakey cans of Ajax were gone.
They walked to the parking lot, unable to resist bumping into each other, closing their eyes in the pleasure of his hip against hers, as though there were not four layers of fabric between them and not even five seconds before he reached his car.
“Can I start shopping at your place?”
“Does old Max have gourmet tastes?”
“I do.” She was not going to talk about Max now.
“You come anytime. I don’t go in on Sundays.”
“Sundays you go to church in the morning, and then it’s family dinner with your father, who is probably just crazy about your wife, and then you shoot a little hoop with your boys.”
“Don’t make fun of my life.”
“That was longing, not mockery. Or longing concealed by mockery.”
“My son is only four years old, and my knees are too