The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [114]
Linda and Thomas take a table near the entrance, as far into the restaurant as Thomas is willing to go, an innate claustrophobia making him more comfortable near exits. They order hot chocolate and sit in the quiet, for the moment not speaking, the only sounds the clinking of silverware against china, the register drawer popping open. She watches Thomas watch the bums, and she has a clear sense that he knows more about what has happened to the men than she does, that he instinctively understands, that his skin might be more permeable than hers. There is something in the shape of his mouth that suggests that he contains within himself some great corruption, not related necessarily to sex or to alcohol, but to chaos and subversion.
Beloved, she wants to say aloud, not knowing how or why the word has sprung to her lips.
There is a duffel bag in the backseat of the Skylark, a tan bag with a zipper and a handle. It might be a sports bag, though it is made of such heavy and thick canvas, it reminds Linda of the army.
“What’s in the bag?” she asks.
Thomas has come back on the team bus, Linda on the spectator bus, hers skidding into the parking lot like a skier. Thomas’s hair, still wet from his shower, freezes before he can get the heat going in the Skylark. The storm came in fast from the ocean in the afternoon, and the roads are treacherous and slick. Thomas drives hunched against the steering wheel, peering through a small patch in the windshield that hasn’t yet iced over. The leather top of the convertible muffles the ping of the sleet.
“It’s just something for Donny T.,” Thomas says absently, concentrating on his driving.
“What for Donny T.?” Linda asks.
“Just some stuff he wants me to hold for him.”
The hockey game was at Norwell, and their team lost two-zip. “Were you hurt?” Linda asks.
“What?”
Thomas inches slowly along Main to Spring, following a truck. On Fitzpatrick, the truck speeds up and Thomas does as well, thinking the roads must be better, though the visibility is still poor. Thomas takes the turn at Nantasket Avenue too fast, and the car makes a one-eighty. Linda puts her hands out to the dashboard to brace herself.
“This is insane,” Thomas says.
He tries to turn the car around, but the street is so slippery that the Skylark slides across the road, and, as if in slow motion, comes to rest against a telephone pole. Thomas guns the engine, attempting to pull away, but the tires merely spin on the ice. Above them, heavily coated wires sway in the wind.
“We’re going to have to walk,” Thomas says. “We’ll leave the car here and come back for it when they’ve salted the roads.”
“Walk where?” Linda asks. It’s miles still to the apartment.
“My house is just up the hill,” he says.
______
All week, the newspapers have been reporting that it has been the worst January in fifty-four years. At the beach, sleet freezes a house so thoroughly that when the sun rises the next morning, it seems a castle encased in ice. The harbor freezes as well, pushing the boats trapped there higher and higher until the ice cracks the hulls. Power goes out for days, and school is canceled four times: the buses can’t get through. There is a thaw, and the entire town thinks the worst is over. But then the storm comes and surprises everyone, even the weathermen, who have predicted mild temperatures.
Thomas and Linda have to side-step up the hill, holding on to tree branches. Linda has worn her new knee-high leather boots that she bought with her tip money; they have slippery soles and are useless now. Thomas, who has more traction, grips her hand so that she won’t slide down the hill. Periodically, they stop for breath by a tree and kiss. Sleet runs down their necks. Snot has frozen on Thomas’s upper lip, and he looks like a bum with his watch cap pulled down low over his eyebrows and ears. His mouth and tongue are warm.
______
Though