Pathways - Jeri Taylor [117]
“Putain!” she hurled at him, and then spun around and marched out the door. Tom felt as though he had been drawn into an antimatter chamber during the annihilation process, churned about by forces he didn’t understand and couldn’t control, and then spat out again after the reaction had consumed every atom.
Every eye in the room was on him. Most, he realized subliminally, were amused and tolerant, but that only made the experience more humiliating to him. He was aware of Sandrine next to him, breathing deeply, moist with unfulfilled anger, still muttering small invectives under her breath.
“I’m sorry,” stammered Tom, and Sandrine immediately came to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Mon cher, pauvre petit, how awful for you. She is a vicious cat, this Odile—you are well rid of her.”
Tom carefully untwined her arms from him, shock now sobering him, knowing he had to get to Odile quickly. “Thank you for everything, Sandrine, I mean it, you’re terrific. And the stew was great. Loved it.” He babbled like this as he backed toward the door, then was out into the raw waterfront night, where a cold rain drizzled down, and began calling for Odile. Passersby gave him curious looks, but paid no other attention. A man calling out a woman’s name along the passageways of the waterfront bespoke a timeworn drama that was all too familiar to them.
He found her twenty minutes later, sitting on one of the antiquated docks that still lined the seawall, even though they hadn’t been used by ships for a hundred years. She was huddled miserably, arms around her knees, sodden with the rain, hair matted wetly around her face, and sobbing pitifully.
He approached her gingerly. “Odile . . .” he began, and she turned her tear-streaked face toward him.
“Go away. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
Instinct told him she didn’t mean that, and he walked slowly toward her, as though she were a volatile compound that might explode if he made any unexpected move. Presently he was at her side, and sat down beside her, not touching her, taking it one step at a time.
“Odile, I swear, it wasn’t what you think . . .”
He thought he’d blown the moment already, because her head snapped toward him and her eyes blazed once more. “Oh? Be honest, Tommy—it was exactly what I think, wasn’t it?”
He tried to confront the question honestly and, yes, he had to agree. It was.
“It was flirtation, yes. Sandrine is very . . . alluring. But it was nothing more.”
“How do you think that made me feel, to come in and see you draped over her like that? With everyone in the room watching you?”
He burned with embarrassment. He blamed the wine, which had effectively removed his inhibitions and his awareness that the spectacle he had participated in was public. The twenty-minute hunt in the rain had sobered him somewhat, and he now saw the entire incident with other eyes.
“It must have been awful. I’m so sorry.” He put his hand tentatively on her shoulder, and was gratified when she turned to him and put her arms around his neck.
“If I didn’t love you so much, it wouldn’t hurt,” she cried, and he whispered and murmured tenderly to her, reassuring her, rubbing her back and her wet hair until she was calm again. Then, she began shuddering from the cold.
He took her back to his quarters, which were part of the old city and boasted a bathtub. He bathed her gently in warm water until she stopped shaking, and then he carried her to bed, where their bodies continued to warm each other, sweetly.
In their senior year, Tom, Odile, Bruno, and Charlie Day competed for, and won, many different honors. Odile and Bruno won sports awards for their contributions to making the ski team a viable contender after just three years of existence. Charlie Day won top honors for his independent engineering project, to which Tom was a close second. Tom and Charlie vied for the highly prized positions on the Grissom aerial squad,