Barefoot Beach (17 page)

“So here's to us,” he said.

Our first “us.” We clinked on it.

For the next hour or so we traded standard first-date talk. Schools attended. Mostly Catholic for me, all public for him. College experiences. First jobs. Mine—in the summer between my bachelor's and grad
school—was, I liked to say, in advertising. I was a dancing corn dog on the boardwalk at Coney Island. Scott's was more dignified. Commissioned as a second lieutenant upon graduation from West Point, he'd immediately reported for duty at Fort Benning. I didn't dwell on Lon—only an outline—and Scott barely mentioned Bunny; Belinda, he called her now. Just that they maintained a civil relationship for the sake of the kids. “Who aren't kids anymore,” he added.

Because Scott had skipped dinner and all I'd eaten was a slice of melon and a few strawberries to keep me light on my feet for class, we ordered another item from the happy hour menu, a pot of mussels. By the time we were down to the last few, he was dunking chunks of French bread in the broth and feeding them to me. As I slipped the final mussel out of its patent-leather-shiny shell, he asked, “Would you like anything else? Dessert?”

“I'm fine,” I said, though dessert would stretch an evening that I didn't want to end.

He said, “Next time, we can try the Thai place near Patuxent Point. The
Coast Post
gave it three stars.” So, there was going to be a next time. Whew.

In an ironic turn of events, Lieutenant Colonel Goddard, whose balance and stride I was supposed to be polishing, wound his arm around my waist to keep me steady on the cobblestones that led to the car park. I hoped there was more to the gesture than keeping me from falling.

“What a night,” he murmured into the flower-scented darkness. The moon was a waning sliver of platinum, but a star-spangled sky was alive and flickering. “Perfect.”

He stopped us in a pool of light under one of Tuckahoe's antique-style streetlamps and repeated “Perfect,” only in a huskier voice. Then he leaned over and kissed me.

The kiss was warm and garlicky and, I thought—if what my brain was doing could be defined as thinking—perfect.

When he backed off and zapped me with those electric blue eyes, I swear I felt them piercing through the top layer that covered my feelings and into the crazy place below where my hidden emotions hung out, pole dancing, downing tequila shots, and getting into trouble.

“It's nearly eleven and I've got a big day tomorrow,” I said. Actually, I had a very small day. No class to teach, only one meeting at We Got Rhythm in the late afternoon. Otherwise sun, beach, and books. But old, safe Nora couldn't deal with this ambush of sensations and she went after those wild things with a mallet, playing emotional whack-a-mole.

“Okay, Cinderella. We're on our way.”

As we approached my street with all four car windows down, strains of dance music filtered in from half a mile away. The bandstand, a complex of stage, dance floor, and stadium chairs, was set so close to the beach that a couple could sway to “Beyond the Sea” against a backbeat of surf breaking on the shore. The band played Tuesday through Saturday from seven thirty to eleven thirty as long as the weather was good. On clear nights the music sailed through still air to Surf Avenue.

Scott pulled into a parking space in front of number eighteen and we both sat staring at the house.

After a moment, he said, “Big place. I'm counting six front windows.”

Only one of them was lit. I'd left a lamp on in the breakfast room. My son's room upstairs was dark. He usually got in after eleven, so no surprise there.

“Probably too big for just Jack and me.” I hoped Scott didn't think I was proffering an invitation. I clattered on. “But all that space lets you breathe deeply. And the interior is very open to the surroundings. You really can't see it now, but in the daytime . . .”

That's when he looked at his watch. Which probably read ten-after-boring. Or five-to-get-rid-of-this-woman.

But I was a runaway train. “And facing the water out back, there's a
large balcony and a widow's walk off my bedroom. We've got a spectacular view.”

“I'd like to see it sometime,” he said, braking me to a full stop. “Soon.” Now, that was an ending worthy of an officer and a gentleman. “But considering your big day tomorrow, I guess we'd better call it a night.”

We were halfway up the wide path to the front door and I had my key out when the band swung from a rockin' “Déjà Vu” to the slow, longing “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” Louis Armstrong had sung and played it on one of my mother's favorite albums. I knew the words by heart.

Give me a kiss to build a dream on

And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss

The trumpet from up the beach unfurled a languorous, soulful vibe.

One minute I was standing in the diffused glow from the pathway lampposts, wondering how I was going to say good night to Scott Goddard—a prim handshake? a sisterly hug? a neutral peck on the cheek? After that first kiss, was I supposed to make the move?—when he swept me, and I'd thought that only happened in romance novels, but no, he actually swept me into his arms and drew me against him.

The band played on and we danced closer than I'd ever taught in class or dared to in public. Against him, I inhaled an intoxicating mix of what, I didn't know or care. I only cared that the scent of him stirred some sleeping beauty in me. His skin, under its eleven-o'clock shadow, was on fire, and the heat of him melted feelings that had been frozen solid for eight years.

He spun me out on the smooth flagstone, and when I double twirled the return, he reeled me in, laughing a strong baritone. Then he kissed me. How could a kiss be so gentle and so crushing all at once?

My memory sang the lyrics about a hungry heart and the kiss that would feed it.

My eyes were closed, so I only sensed a new bloom of light behind my lids. But I did catch the scratch of a window dragging open. The sound snapped my eyes open and sent them darting upward, my heart racing. Jack, his face clearly readable in the background brightness of his room, was grimacing as he stared at us. He shook his head in what looked an awful lot like disgust. Then he slammed the window shut with a bang so loud it set off barking in the neighborhood. Seconds later his bedroom went dark.

Scott let me go, backed away. We stared at each other.

He broke the silence. His mouth labored for a smile but couldn't quite make the twist. “Looks like I got you in trouble. I'm sorry, Nora.”

“No,
I'm
sorry. Jack, my son. I didn't think he was home.” I caught a breath, tried to untangle my thoughts, make some sense when I could form words again. It took a long, painful moment.

“The thing is, he's nineteen. At that age, seeing your mother kissing a man like . . .” Like
that
, was the unspoken implication. “It must have—I don't know—freaked him out.” My attempt at a smile also failed. “Not that it's an excuse for his rudeness. He and I will have a talk.”

Scott shrugged. “Nah, no big deal. At least not on my end. Except that I embarrassed you. I got carried away by the music, I guess. My apologies for that.” I didn't have time to register a protest because he raced into, “Well, now it really
is
time to say good night.”

Right. We exchanged nothing but mutual nods from the distance between us. A final backhand wave from him and he strode briskly, almost a march, down the path to the street.

I turned on a sigh to enter the house and confront my son. There was no sign of him on the ground floor. Upstairs, his door was open, but his room was empty. From the balcony off my bedroom, I saw that everything was quiet and ink black outside.
Jack may be walking the beach,
I told myself. He did that sometimes under a full moon or, when it was a sliver, carrying a lantern for light.

I was still upset, but a shadow of concern had crept in.

Downstairs in the kitchen, I poured some of Pete's wine and sipped it while peering through the sliding-glass door, scanning the beach for signs of life. That's when I caught a pinpoint flash of orange: one blink, long pause, second blink, shorter pause, coming from the deck. On the third, I flipped on the outside light and there he was, six feet plus of him, sprawled on the lounge chair. I walked out, glass in hand.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” My voice was siren shrill.

Jack looked at me as if I were past due for a psych evaluation. Then he lifted his cigarette (
no, not this kid whose grandmother died of lung cancer, who'd had the perils of smoking hammered into him since toddlerhood
) and in an exaggerated gesture arced it to his mouth. He drew on it so the crystal tip sparked orange and then, eyes hooded, blew an impudent stream.

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Since when do you drink at midnight?” he shot back. He didn't seem to be trying too hard to suppress a smirk.

“Don't you dare give me mouth. Not after your performance at the window. Not ever.” He was nineteen. Old enough to enlist. Old enough to drive. Old enough to vote. But I was still his mother. Respect, dammit.

He ducked the window reference. “It isn't a real cigarette. It's an e-cig, a vape. You can't die of cancer from it like Mamma-mia.”

That made me so furious I lunged for the thing. Jack parried with an elbow block. “Hey, take it easy, Tiger Mom.” He was laughing, which was even more infuriating. His father and I had never spanked him, didn't believe in it, but for the first time in Jack's life or mine, I wanted to slap him.

“Calm . . . down,” he said, rising from the chaise. “Hey, seriously, you're gonna give yourself a stroke.” He got in one patronizing pat on my shoulder before I jerked away.

“We'll deal with your vape later.” My voice had gone to what Lon used to call a hisper, half whisper, half hiss. “What I want to talk about
now is how you could insult my friend like that. How you could be so unspeakably rude?”

“Your friend? That's what he is? Do you liplock all your friends? Dance so freakin' close you look Krazy-Glued together? Did I really need to watch that inappropriate public display of affection? So I closed the window. How does that count as rude?” He was leaning against the railing, slouched like a gangster with the fake cigarette hanging off his lip.

“You did not close the window, Jack; you slammed it hard enough to wake the dead. You embarrassed me; you embarrassed Scott.”

“Whoa. Come on, Mom. Like, who embarrassed who? I hear some guy laugh outside. Close by and loud. I open the window and see the two of you, at your age, getting it on within feet of me. You know, I think maybe
I
deserve the apology.”

He jutted his lower lip in the pout he'd mastered at four, and later—when I thought of him as the poor half orphan—that pathetic expression invariably melted my anger and put me on the defensive.

This time, though, the tried-and-true switcheroo wouldn't work. He could serve the ball into my court, but for once I was ready to smack it back.

“You're right,” I said. “I apologize. I'm sorry for not letting you know before this that I have a life. One that didn't stop when your dad's did.” Well, it had, actually. But I was on my way to starting it again. “It's a life that may include men. Has included them. Does.”

His lower lip slipped a notch lower. “What? You've been dating?”

“On and off.” I didn't say very little
on
and lots
off
because I was trying to make a point. “And if you have problems with that . . .”

“Wait. Wait. You're dating this Scott guy? This was like a real date, not just a lift home that got a little crazy? And it wasn't the first date? Mom!”

I thought of Tiffanie and how many times I'd bitten my tongue keeping my advice to myself. I repeated, “If you had a problem with Scott and me, you could have discussed it with me later in private.”

He shook his head incredulously. “Yeah, like you two were making out in private.”

My words sizzled: “I didn't know you were home, Jack.”

He took a deep breath of whatever crap was in that vape. “Okay,” he said.

There was a pause while he just stared at me, examining my face as if I were a stranger, someone he'd met for the first time twenty minutes ago.

A snowy owl's chittering scream pierced the silence. I tipped the last of the wine from my glass and swallowed the bitter with the sweet. “Enough of this. I'm exhausted. I'm heading upstairs,” I said. “I want you to think about what I said.”

“Hold on one minute, okay, Mom?” He straightened up as if he were preparing for battle.

I waited.

“I know you went through hell when Dad died. And, believe it or not, I'm all for your finding someone to hang out with. I really don't want you to be alone for the rest of your life. But this Scott guy, he's not right for you. Maybe he's a nice person and, okay, a war hero and all, but he's damaged goods. You deserve better than a man who's got parts missing.”