The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [81]
—It couldn’t be helped, she said.
Jealousy squeezed his chest. Did you sleep with him last night? he asked, shocking himself with the question. She crossed her arms over her white linen dress. A defensive posture.
—Thomas, don’t.
—No, seriously, he said, unable to give up what even a fool could see should be given up. Did you sleep with him last night? I just want to know.
—Why?
—So I know where I stand, he said. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, the shirt having been soaked through on the walk. Across from him, a couple were drinking Pimm’s. He envied them their easy boredom. So I can know the parameters, he said.
She looked away. There are no parameters.
—So you did sleep with him, Thomas said sullenly, gazing into his water glass. Ashamed or afraid of the truth, he wasn’t sure. Distracted, as he’d been all afternoon, by her body. The way, now, her breasts rested on her forearms.
—It was the only way I could arrange it, she said. He noticed that there was a sheen of sweat on her brow. Don’t let’s do this, Thomas, she added. We have so little time. She uncrossed her arms and sat back in her chair. She put her fingers to her forehead.
—You have a headache? he asked.
—A bit.
—Do you love him?
The question, having waited in the wings, wanting the limelight now.
—Of course I love him, she said impatiently, and then paused. Not in the way I love you.
—How do you love me? he asked, needing endless reassurance.
She thought for a moment, picked a piece of lint off her dress. Choosing her words carefully.
—I think of you constantly. I imagine a world in which we can be together. I regret not writing to you after the accident. I lie awake at night feeling you touch me. I believe we were meant to be together.
He drew in a long breath.
—Is that enough? she asked.
—Oh, Jesus. He put his head into his hands. Looking at their table, the slightly bored couple with the Pimm’s might have thought it was he who had the headache.
She reached across and touched his arm. In one fluid motion, he seized her hand. What will happen to us? he asked.
She shook her head back and forth. I don’t know, she said. Perhaps he was hurting her. It’s so much easier not to think about it.
He let go of her hand. We could have found each other if we’d really tried, he said, challenging her. It wasn’t totally impossible. So why didn’t we?
She massaged her temple with her fingers. Maybe we didn’t want to spoil what we had, she said.
He sat back and ground the cigarette, barely smoked, under his foot. Yes, he thought. That might have been it. But, then again, how would they have known, at seventeen, that it was possible to spoil love? He remembered them together — in front of the cottage, at the diner, walking the empty streets of Boston.
—What? she asked, noticing his incongruous smile.
—I was remembering when I used to make you tell me what you’d said in Confession.
—That was awful, she said.
—This is awful, he said.
He watched her take a sip of water — the movements of her delicate jaw, the contractions of her long throat. Beyond her was the white beach, an ocean so bright he could barely look at it. Palm trees rose high above them, and from open windows, gauze curtains billowed outward with a snap and then were sucked in again as if by a giant lurking in the shadows. It was a striking hotel, the only one in Shela. The only one in all of Lamu, his editor had said, with a decent bathroom.
He slipped another cigarette from its pack and lit it. He was smoking too much, eating too little. We take life too seriously, you and I, he said.
She pulled the pins from her hair and, in a perfectly ordinary but at that moment extraordinary gesture, let her hair fall the length of her back. He watched it sway as it settled. The surprising abundance of all that hair springing from a knot no bigger than a peach hurtled him back through the years.
—It’s what I’ve always loved about you, she said.
—Other people might just fuck and be done with it. Enjoy the fuck.
—We enjoyed the fuck.