The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [94]
She negotiated the stairs with her head bowed, studying her feet, so that she passed by without noticing him. Or if she’d seen him, it was an expert performance. He had to step from the shadows and call her name. Her very common name.
—Linda.
No, she hadn’t known he was there. He could see that at once — her emotions, less carefully guarded now, twitching across her face. The shock. The joy. Then remembering her circumstances. She took a step toward him. Not unsteadily. Perhaps he had been wrong about the drinking. It was all he could do not to touch her arms, which seemed to beg to be touched.
The man with her, momentarily disconcerted, turned as well.
—Thomas, she said. And then repeated herself. Thomas.
It was he who had to put out his hand and introduce himself to the man with her. Who was Peter after all. Perhaps it was simply that she hadn’t been able to say the word husband.
—Peter, she said, recovering. Thomas and I knew each other in high school.
—Really, Peter said, unwittingly parroting Regina in similar circumstances.
—We met each other in the market one day a few months ago, she said. We’ve already been amazed.
It was an astonishing sentence. Perfectly acceptable in its context, even ordinary and without real interest, yet utterly true. They had been amazed by each other, by the chance meeting. So thoroughly amazed.
—You’re still in Njia? Thomas asked, plucking dialogue from the air. Would being a playwright instead of a poet make one a better conversationalist?
—Well, Peter’s in Nairobi, she said, explaining what had already been explained once before.
—The pesticide scheme, Thomas said, as if he’d just remembered.
The man had slightly thicker jowls than as photographed and was narrow-shouldered in the way that Englishmen often are. Still, he was undeniably handsome, and his gestures — brushing back a forelock, his hands draped casually half in and half out of his pockets — suggested he might be charming as well. But then Thomas saw the puzzlement on Peter’s face, as though the man had just perceived an odd, even alarming, sound. He’d be working out where he’d heard the voice before, Thomas thought, and he wondered how long it would be before Peter guessed. As if in anticipation of that discovery, Peter put his arm around Linda, cupping her bare shoulder.
The tide abruptly went out again, beaching Thomas like a stranded seal.
—And how is it you’re in Nairobi? Peter asked.
—My wife has a grant with UNICEF, Thomas said. And thought, hopelessly, And is pregnant.
He wanted to glance at Linda and yet was afraid to. It became a kind of adolescent struggle.
—There’s champagne and food, he said, releasing husband and wife. He gestured to the door. Even as he was foundering inside. Flopping on a beach.
She went — slight reluctance in her turn — with Peter, her Englishman. Thomas followed them in, not wanting to lose sight of her, so recently found. Peter seemed to know people. Thomas watched Linda take a glass of champagne from a tray (holding the shawl closed with one hand) and sip from it immediately, as if she were thirsty. Thomas observed Peter in conversation and hated the man for his charm, for the way he bent his head, face turned slightly away as he listened to a man who had just hailed him. Thomas followed at a barely decent distance, as close as he dared, yet altogether too far from her. She had wonderful posture, he realized, the back of her dress as low as he remembered (complicated bra, he recalled), and thought, She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.
Roland, who seemed to thread through the crowd like a python (no, that was unfair; Roland wasn’t that bad), was making his way, Thomas realized, toward him. He cast around for a plausible exit, saw none, and knew he ought to be pleasant to Regina’s boss, however much he found the man distasteful.
—Who’s your friend? Roland asked, stupefying Thomas.
—What friend? Thomas asked, pretending